Half-Wits -June30 2004
Well, rent is payed, the dog is let out. And I want to scream. You know one big thing about touring, is that your body probably really gets mixed up. Up, down, all around. You sleep, you get up, you sleep, you get up. Get my drift. Okay, so I think I am losing it. Ha Ha. Fun show last night in Victoria.
Tonight is the Hall party. Yessss. Well, looking forward to putting on a Canada Day pre party. Should be fun. Everyone come out to Lewis Park, or you will regret it for the rest of your lives. Must get back in Van to drive some more. See you all soon.
Kim
WoW, Victoria June 29/2004
All right. So we did a sound check. Now I have to pass some time, by saying a few words. Yes I am still alive. Check the message board also. I actually wrote some things in there today as well. Yeah.
Great to be touring again. A thanks to everyone for coming to our shows and diggin our music. Hope your all getting a copy of our new live cd. It really rocks. You can listen to us from your living room and feel like your in the bar. That rocks. Well nice talking to you all. It's soon time for me to rock.
Kim
Nanaimo, B.C. -June 29th.
We got up this morning at 4:30 am to bein Nanaimo for a tv show at 6 am! That is so not rock n' roll. I saw myself on camera and was shocked at my bad hair and pale face. I looked like I had just washed up on the beach. The show was fun. We played "Walking Home Lately" and "Tiki Room" while eating herbs from Hazelwood Farms . They fed us organic pesto action and supplied us with some homemade sunscreen for our weekend in Tofino.
The tour has been great so far. I got to ride the super fast trails of Hornby Island and then bask in the ocean while sipping an extra frothy latte. Vancouver was also a success despite the fact that we had to drive all night from the Calgary show. I am getting worse and worse and handling the all nighters. Age I guess.
Now we are off to Victoria for a night at The Lucky Bar. I think sleep is necessary soon as I am feeling slightly nauseated. More from the crypt after I find an internet cafe down the road.
'Tweeners
I love "the last minute". Where you think everything is ship-shape and ducks are lined in a row and "the plan" is in full force - and then WHAM! one element comes into play and everything is re-arranged.
I found myself in this situation last week as an invite to play @the North Country Fair came my way last-minute so I headed on up to Joussard to rock the mainstage. Playing 'tweeners is an art-form. You have to be quick on your feet and ready for anything. I got to go on before The Swifty's - every song I knew in b-Flat was played without stopping as the drum kit was giving the stage crew grief and all I heard was "keep going! keep going!" Too fun. The best was the audience clapping along to "wishing well" by Terrence Trent D'Arby -
Beauty.
I Cried
So we didn't have any gigs this weekend, as a band anyways. So I spent my days working and training for the Transrockies. This weekend's mission was to ride 3 hour spurts in zone 1 which is a comfortable spin. The first day was a okay. I frolicked through my favorite trails with a nice man named Rodd. It was enjoyable and my body told me what I have to fix in order for it to be comfortable for another 5 hours. For one thing I have to start riding straight instead of all crooked. I crashed a few weeks ago and now my hip is pulled up on one side. The effect is called "cross threading" and you develop horrible knots in the opposite side if your body in the neck and lower back. So that means Active Release Therapy and Yoga to correct it.
So today I worked 9-5 . "What a way to make a livin'" as Dolly Parton once said. Then My buddies convinced me to ride with them out to an illegal area which I will not disclose at this time. Anyhow, IT WAS HELL! I cried at one point because I was so exausted from constant technical climbing that I would crash on the way down on the most simplest decents. I swore, cried, and to top it all off, I ran into a beaver! It was innocently trying to make its way down the trail to the river (hint) when I rounded the corner going full on and almost got the two chompers on the leg. I am so sorry Mrs. Beaver. So sorry. Beavers are very marketable. If you haven't bought your flaming beaver scull shirt yet, you should soon.
So after one quick slurpee I got my sorry ass home and immediately got naked and ate cereal. It was nice. I am going to chill and try and get my pride back. Part of me wanted to be all estro and prove that women mountain bikers can be just as strong as the boys but today was not the day. So I will eat my Wheaties and keep on training until Iain Renolds licks MY back tire.
Oh and the music is going well and we are on the road on thursday. Bye!
Re- Vamped Entry - Trying to Behave Myself...
And not succeeding!!!
I forget so many peeps read these mindful meanderings of our sub/un/conscious minds. ..
NEXTfest was a great solo gig - 10/10 on the vibe meter as far as the performance went - thanks to Kris Demeanor for inviting me to sing on "Think Before You Love". What a great band he has : www.krisdemeanor.com
I tried out lots of new material: "C'mon" (ode to a bartender) was frickin' great - when PD sink their teeth into it - look out. Rachelle has great back-up vocals and piano lines - I believe she is very strong in that musical capacity -
Other than that, nothing new to report - Today was full-on sushi and bike riding -NBA final viewing at Black Dog - i'm ready for surfing in Tofino (water training, etc) and I am 2 steps away from completing our publicity.
The book-keeping will never end so...back to my Excel program...
What To Do.
Sometimes it is so hard to know what to do. In order to be a rockstar, should one devote her life soley to music? I have always believed in the perfect balance that keeps energy resurging and new creations flowing. Otherwise I just get bored and fed up. Today was a rest day. No training, no crappy day job (which isn't so crappy really), and no rehearsals. It was just me, my yellow latex gloves, Mr. Clean (which isn't so good for the environment- sorry!), and my toilet. I did take a brief break to hop over to the Princess Theatre and catch "The Mayor of Sunset Strip". I cried. Rock is so different than it used to be. It feels like now, if you get signed, it's like buying shares in IBM. That was one idea expressed in this film. It's about money, image, brain candy, numbing, ass kissing. Well, maybe it has always been about that but now it seems even worse. I did an interview with FFward Mag out of Calgary and the interviewer said, "Wow, you girls have the looks and the music." So I guess we do fit the bill to some extreme. If I had a Barbie Doll made in my image, she would have Mennonite hips and small boobs for sure. And she would have a 2 pack and hairy legs. I am sure she would sell up north.
In the next few months, Painting Daisies is going to face the tiger. The tiger being the industry. I think I am ready. Our European manager once said to me, "Just be yourself. Don't try to play music that isn't you." It has been us that has got us this far so why not to the next plateau?
And about the balance... I think it is the surf board, the cows, the X-box, the international trips, the bikes, the snowboards, and so forth that ultimately make the music come out. SO YES, go forth and be balanced. This message has been brought to you by Rachelle van Zanten Inc. All rights reserved by Rachelle van Zanten Inc. All funding by Rachelle van Zanten Inc. Ahhhhhhh.
June 11, 2004
Count it...4 new songs to rock the west coast with. It will be so nice to not have to dig out our songs from the 90's! Man, how did Honeymoon Suite do it?
It is raining and the clouds are twisting above my little house. Something is arye (sp?) but I don't know what. I spent my one day off riding my bike (surprise, surprise) with Brent from Redbike out in Terwiliger Park. It was greasy, slippery fun. We Edmontonians are so blessed with large, voluptuous parks.
After recovering with pasta and juice, Brent and I watched "The Triplets of Belville". You must see it! It was mind trippingly funny.
Then it was time to pick Carolyn and Kim up for practice. We are rehearsing way out on the Yellowhead Highway. The rent is a 6 pack of beer per month for the owner. You can't really find a better deal elsewhere. We worked our new stuff and it is really coming along. I missed the Utah boys. They work in the shop next door and always ask us to play Zeppelin. Sometimes I go early and play "Heartbreaker" over and over and over just for them. I think they are illegal immigrants or something cuz they live a secretive life in the shop.
Anyhoo, Kim has a wicked new drum pattern to Carolyn's blues tune. It seperates it from other blues grooves for sure. Daisy's new song is a power ballad I think and is so catchy that it sticks in my head for days. My new song is about New York City and a band that we opened for at Meow Mix. Her name was Pink Snow and her number 1 hit was "I Like to Play." Hmm. Very good dancer I must say.
Well, I think I am going to go listen to the rain and dream about being home at the farm under my tin roof.
June 9, 2004
I am so tired. Thanks ladies for the great rehearsal. I love our new tunes. Tomorrow is another day at the Salt Mines. See you on Friday's practice.
June 8, 2004 Edmonton
Summertime and the living is easy
Really. Life is good, the days are long and the temperatures mild. My apartment is even clean.
How things have changed, improved, in the past months.
It is no longer, for myself, a question of finding happiness, but rather a question of accepting what happiness is here.
Someone once said, or wrote, or both:
"The truth is we've never left the garden of Eden. We've only become blind to the reality of paradise surrounding us."
Indeed, it is (funny this) hard to accept happiness.
"Like a child," an odd Dutch man once advised me, "simply know good from bad".
Simple -huh?
It is a most difficult task -- especially when one must "know" good. Yes - Yes! I know this, life, all of this, is good. Yes! but... but... Remember what that person said about how it could be bad; remember how someone judged who you were, what you were doing, as wrong -- must it not then be bad? Could it be that I am wrong to feel right? What ridiculous creatures we people are.
June 5, 2004
Here we are, once again...
Edmonton. It is beautiful, and feeling so much like home... time to head out on tour!
It is an odd thing how we grow when we're off the road, how we mature as people and start building "normal" lives. We get along so well, understanding each other's struggles and the realities of living a musician's dual life (the unhinged, eternal adolescence of the wanderer/musician and the grounded, pragmatic worker/musician that each of us becomes when at home).
Sometimes it is hard to see that we are making progress, that our careers are maturing and growing into something we can keep forever. Sometimes it feels as if we, like dreamers, are only acting in an alternate reality that cannot be joined to the world in which most people (and indeed ourselves when we're working our day jobs) function. Exist. Move, sleeping.
And sometimes, playing, we are too far into this normal (bizarre) world to revive our dreaming Selves -- I look at what I'm doing and where I am rather than falling, opening into what and where we create.
June 4, 2004
I am very lucky to live in Edmonton. Lately I have been enjoying the fruits of its river valley. On a lot of the trails, it feels as though you are in some remote area far away from a city. It is quiet and the river is slowly crawling along, on its way to Saskatchewan. No hurry, no bustle. Last night, being Friday, three of the four Daisies had an acoustic rehearsal. We sat outside drinking a red wine/ port blend (Carolyn's fault), going over new tunes for the West Coast trip. I think it was around 24 degrees!
Then it was time for me to hit the trails and experience the midnight sun to the extent that we Edmontonians can. I think it was hanging around until 10:40 pm last night. My bike and I are training for the Transrockies Challenge. 600 km of singletrack, fire road, and some highway from Fernie to Canmore. Why do I want to spend seven days on my bike in these conditions? Because I can. After spending much time hanging out in the "remote" areas of western Europe, I am realizing more and more how much we Canadians are blessed with non-stop whiskey agogo.