Yesterday, along with my father, brother Sasha, and friend Tristan I got to see Andrea Simms-Karp perform in a house concert along with Shawna Caspi and Jill Zmud.
Andrea has an exciting new album coming out, and a new website to go with it.
Category: Music
All matters musical
‘On the Radio’
My brother Sasha has written and performed a rap song, along with his friend Matt. You can listen to it and download it on his blog.
Maple Leaf Bar / The Krewe of Oak
This has been a crazy evening. Everything I said before about the exceptional friendliness of NOLA deserves to be amplified.
A chance encounter led to a long night of excellent free music at a place I would never have found on my own or through a guidebook. I am invited back to the same place tomorrow for the Rebirth Brass Band.
At nearly 3am, my hostel is still a hive of activity. I should try to sleep, however.
iTunes has lost its mind
Not only is Apple’s iTunes application constantly crashing, stealing focus, or crashing my entire computer – it just erased all my podcasts and iTunes U files for no clear reason. This is especially maddening for someone who is careful to catalog their media well.
Given that I was about to go on a long bus journey, this is unbelievably annoying. All of a sudden, university courses I was in the middle of listening to are just gone. Podcast collections that I had assembled with some care are deleted. All my audiobooks have vanished as though they never were. Much of the content I had in there cannot simply be re-downloaded.
It is all extremely frustrating.
“The Pedaler’s Wager” – Toronto
Starting tomorrow, the Clay and Paper Theatre Company are performing their original show “The Pedaler’s Wager” in Dufferin Grove Park, Toronto. It sounds like quite a lively experience:
This original comedy features puppetry, live music, and our very own CYCLOPS: Cycling Oriented Puppet Squad. Each weekend audience members are invited to cycle from act to act alongside performers, literally following the troupe to the show’s conclusion.
The show runs from July 20th until August 14th, and all performances start in Dufferin Grove Park.
Stationary performances are happening Wednesday through Sunday at 7:00pm and Friday at 2:00pm.
Traveling performances start on Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00pm and require that you bring your own bicycle to follow the performers from Dufferin Grove Park to Fred Hamilton Park and Trinity Bellwoods Park.
The show is $10, or pay what you can.
Music in Toronto tonight
Those in Toronto may appreciate knowing that my friend Rebecca is performing at Tranzac tonight at 10pm. She is promising to “play viola and sing songs to keep the bears away”.
At 11pm, Lowlands is performing, featuring Doug Tielli, Tania Gill, Heather Segger and D Alex Meeks.
Digital Photo Professional, Photoshop, Flickr Uploader
I have finally processed some photos that had been too-long ignored:
- Andrea Simms-Karp in studio, working on her latest album
- My friend Tristan’s fundraiser for his trip to the Palestinian territories
Now I can go get some new images – maybe some indoor portraiture, or still life stuff. Or some more ‘spring emerging from the Ottawa freezer’ shots.
[Update: 1 May 2011] Bonus: Enriched Bread Artists – Open House 2011
Spring music
A friend took me to a concert yesterday, with Wilderness of Manitoba opening for Bastia Bulat. I am always nervous about asserting what musical genre something is, but both had distinctly folky elements.
I would recommend giving both a listen, if you get the opportunity.
Music studio photos
I mentioned before how my friend Andrea Simms-Karp is producing a new album. This past weekend, I got some photos of her in the studio working on it.
‘Discover Ottawa’
This is pretty neat: the City of Ottawa has created an iPhone app with information on events and activities ongoing in the city. Versions for Android and BlackBerry are forthcoming, later this year.
Having a lot of this kind of information centralized in one place seems useful, particularly in a form tailored to be accessible from smartphones.