Big Rock Finish… reviews of independent music

Quick post for today. Not too long ago it was announced one of my long time friends was getting into some heavier marketing tactics for his online company. As well as having sold off one of his companies to close friends of his, they basically went halfsies on a button making machine. The minute that was posted I started badgering them for… badgers. I mean badges. I made it my mission to have some funny buttons for my friends who were playing show that week, on the 16th and 19th of the month.

I ended up designing a short run of 1-1/4″ buttons for S.N.A.K., Señor Kasio and [Perversion:] just because they were all friends of mine who I thought could benefit from funny buttons that didn’t need to be run in quantities of 100+.

At the same time I thought why not design some of my own for Big Rock Finish just to give away with the ones I made for these bands. So in my one sheet of 30 buttons, I ended up with 6 for each of the bands, and 12 for Big Rock Finish.

Arriving on the 16th at the show for The City (new band I’d never met), S.N.A.K. & Señor Kasio at the Rivoli (check later for reviews on the shows), I was pretty dead tired. Around when The City started their set I finally started to wake up thanks partially in large part to an energy drink purchased for me by Steve after stealing a sip of his own. (Heh, sorry about that!) Anyways, for the rest of the night I was thinking “I should give these guys some of my Big Rock Finish buttons so they know who I am!” and spent countless minutes between sets looking for boys who resembled their appearance on stage.

Finally figured out they were likely hiding out in the back room for most of the show, as I did not see them until after all the bands had finished performing. Ran outside and interrupted them chatting at the bar to present them with some buttons & tell them about the site. They managed to get me a copy of their album, also an ingenius marketing tactic of its own right, and we exchanged pleasantries and went on our way.

I decided that I definitely need to produce more of these buttons, if anything to have something tangible when I go up to bands as a personal cold-call to introduce myself and let them know what Big Rock finish is here for. I’m excited. I’m scared. I’m finally starting to market!

This was the long lost fabled debut show for Awaking State. Knowing the members of the band is always a plus when it comes to getting into a show for free. For this I was hired as their photographer, which works for me in that I didn’t have to pay to get in (although it was a really decent cover). For some reason Awaking State has a tendency to piss off Mother Nature, as their last show was cancelled due to an upcoming snowstorm, and this show was also scheduled for a snow-storm. Alas, the show must go on, and snow storm or no snow storm, Awaking State was going to hit the stage.

I think the funniest for me was that I arrived too early, and rather than go into a venue too early and look like a jackass, I proceeded to attempt to nap in my car for a few minutes. Of course Brandon (the drummer) happen to be outside at the time, watched me pull up, and proceeded to wait outside for me to come in. Finally giving up and coming up to the car to see why the hell I wasn’t going into the venue. I was, however, presented with my media pass to grant me access to the night’s festivities.

The first band, Blind Fire, went up and were pretty awesome. Had a good crowd going on early in the night and obvious they were a local favourite. Then the intermission as some generic rock music pumped through the speakers and I went to grab a beer.

Awaking State hit the stage with lots of effects I don’t expect at a live show. I know they’re very electronic based but it’s rare to see musicians come up with more than just instruments. I also noted there were more instruments than band members on stage and realized that was supposed to make sense. Awaking State started off strong. Going into songs that I have come to think of as favourites since they were released onto the internet. It seemed unfortunate that the sound person was having some difficulty knowing exactly what was required, as requests were made by Kent to change some things regarding sounds of this or the monitor in that. There was also a moment of laptop kerfuffel as Brandon had to jump off the drums to see what was going on.

The extra instruments were mainly a keyboard off to the side. Where I watched Kent, with a guitar strapped around his neck, to then go to the keyboard and play a few bars while singing into an extra microphone. I also found it just a little amusing that while Kent early on broke a guitar string, then went to change guitars, he seemed to have given up on a normal 6 stringed guitar, and went back to playing his first choice of guitar, which included said broken string.

The Toronto Semi-circle that was non-existant during Blind Fire’s set, happened during Awaking State. A perfect half circle of dead space in front of the stage that had a radius of about 5 or 6 feet. I was told later this was likely due to the fact that enough Torontoians were imported to Oshawa, is the reasoning for it. Although I will admit, being right up to the musicians was irritating as the stage lights hung pretty low and I’m sure if I was more careless I would have bonked my head!

I do look forward to seeing more Awaking State shows.

I do not look forward to driving home in 4 ft of snow the next day.

For anyone who has a Steinway grand or any other sort of piano they need restored, they really should check this out. I only say this because I have had a piano since I was 5 years old, spent about nine years hating the hell out of it, about ten years ignoring it, and I’m sure by now it needs some restoration done to it if anyone would ever want to play more than “chopsticks” on it ever again. Piano restoration is a very important part to finding older, or “more experienced” pianos and getting them back into their prime. From what I’ve heard, tuning and restoring old pianos is better than buying new. Since it’s gone through all of it’s aging process the sound is supposed to be richer. I should restore mine, and write a review on that! I will definitely let you all know how it goes!

So my best bet for finding out new bands is to go see the bands that are playing… you know, the ones that aren’t the band that I actually planned on seeing. And Blind Fire is one of the bands that I was able to “discover” that night.

It’s hard to really judge or expect anything when you’re not only watching a new band, but also in a new town. I’d not been to a show in Oshawa in a long LONG time, and it very obviously showed. I was there to see Awaking State, since they were the main attraction and going on second, Blind Fire ended up being the local band that would go on first.

It’s taken me a while to understand the politics of who goes in what order, but I think I’ve finally figured it out. If you’re a big enough band, you go last. Make everyone wait. Save the best for last, and so forth. If there’s a group of pretty good bands, but no one will bring in the massive draw, you’re scrapping to play in the middle. In order to catch the people who stuck around after the first band, and to catch people who came in early for the third band. It’s a good mix. Sort of like at school, sit at the front and teacher will notice you slacking off, sit at the back and the teacher watches you like a hawk to make sure you’re not slacking off.

ANYWAYS! I’m here to talk about Blind Fire. They had a pretty good crowd going. Groove Lounge doesn’t exactly have a stage, although the drumkit is on a riser. So the band is ground level with the floor. The “stage” is marked by where the monitors are on stage so the bands can hear themselves. I’m not 100% sure, but Blind Fire seemed to be a local high-school band. It made sense, since their fans and everyone who came to see them were all in the high school/college looking age, and very obviously supportive of their friends.

The crowd, definitely in love with them. Myself and my colleagues, namely Awaking State, were also pretty impressed (From what I could gather, they were also a bit edgy being their big show) and I found it quite endearing that an older couple, quite obviously not the average high-school fan, was videotaping off the side of the stage. I grabbed my camera for practice, to see what I had to work with. The band ran around like only a young band can, makes my job more difficult, but made their fans go nuts.

Now, one thing you notice if you go to any show in Toronto, there’s always about 5 feet of space from the stage to the crowd, riser or not. Musicians that I talk to, all call this the “Toronto Semi-Circle”… being afraid of getting up to where the band can see you, and possibly interact with you. I normally don’t partake in this, but I will admit I feel a bit weird being the only person to break said semi-circle.

Blind Fire, didn’t have such a semi-circle. And that was awesome.

What else was awesome? One of the band members, his mom grabbed my attention during Awaking State. Asked me who I worked for. (Ego boost for me!) After I explained I was with the band, she handed me her card, complete with e-mail address, so I could e-mail her pics. I did. She loved them.