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- Matt Mays and I at Zaphods’ after the gig
Anders, Me, and Shawn, 2007
Posts Tagged ‘Silver Creek’
26 bands! 10 nights! It’s the Fifth Annual O-Town Hoedown!
O-Town Hoedown organizers announced today that twenty-six bands will perform over ten nights during the fifth annual O-Town Hoedown which will run from September 23rd to October 2nd 2011 in Ottawa.
The O-Town Hoedown is a concert series, which will take place in five different venues in Ottawa (The Rainbow Bistro, Irene’s Pub, The Manx, Elmdale House Tavern, and Zaphod Beeblebrox), and will showcase the diversity of the Canadian alt-country scene. Musical genres on offer will range from rockabilly to cowpunk to folk-rock to bluegrass and everything in between. This year’s musical acts will include: Brothers Through The Hill, Silver Creek, Joey Only Outlaw Band, Ginger Saint James, The Woody Allens, Lynne Hanson, Brock Zeman, The Dusty Drifters, Morgan Friend, The Sick Sick Sicks, Marie-Josée Houle, The Kingmakers, and many more.
The O-Town Hoedown is organised by local country music impresario, Lefty McRighty, in association with CHUO 89.1FM, CKCU 93.1FM, Compact Music and Steamwhistle.
Spokesperson Lefty McRighty said:
“The party’s not over yet – the REAL Hoedown doesn’t start until September 23rd! It’s O-Town Hoedown 2011!!! If you’d like a sampling of the music featured at the Hoedown, or if you’re on the radio and are looking for some tunes to play, check out
otownhoedown.com/music for free mp3 downloads from a selection of this year’s Hoedown roster. And don’t forget to check out www.otownhoedown.com for complete listings, and here for our great promotional video!”
“Slow Time.” Real time recording in a digital world.
Capturing the piano.
Silver Creek is a hard working band based out of Ottawa and is currently in studio tracking their third record. Sequestered at a little studio in a small town in Pennsylvania for the ten day session, these blogs chronicle their experience and provide a look inside what happens when a band makes a record.
The efficiency of the modern studio has changed the landscape of music making. Digital recording technology has made our task easier and most don’t know the way that music is made today.
A modern record can be made step by step. Each song can literally be built from the bottom up. Let me explain.
When a band takes a song into the studio these days this is the most common progression before the final product is made ready for the listener’s ear: The band records scratch tracks; usually vocals and a simple instrumental over a click track. The click track is a metronome used to lock in a perfect continuous tempo throughout the duration of the song. This track is what the drummer and bass player record to. These recordings are called ‘bed tracks.’ Once the beds are laid down the rest of the band can then layer parts over top of them. In our case this usually means rhythm guitar, then lead guitar, then piano and other keyboards are all tracked separately before the vocals are placed over the finished instrumental song.
Silver Creek – a Retrospective
Anniversaries are a time for looking back, taking stock of what you’ve been through, and using it as a reference for the road ahead. My band, Silver Creek, just played our fifth show at Bluesfest in as many years. This is special since our very first show as Silver Creek was actually at Bluesfest in 2006, so it marks the beginning of the fifth year of gigs for the band. So I figured I’d put together a bit of a look back at the years to see the evolution of the band.
Blacksheep Stage, July 2006
Shawn and I on the Blacksheep stage, 2006
I met Shawn Tavenier in February of 2006. He was playing with a local cover band, The Bourbon Brothers. I was between bands at the time and looking to start something new. The moment I met Shawn I knew that he was the guy I wanted to work with. So I pestered him endlessly for weeks to start a band with me. He said he had some songs written and knew a few people who could get involved. A few months went by, and in the spring of 2006 we had our first official Silver Creek jam session. It took place in Carleton Place, on a farm that belonged to the family of Tony Raybould, who would be our first drummer. The band was comprised of Shawn Tavenier, Anders Drerup, Tony Raybould, Tyler Keeley and myself. By some stroke of luck, we got offered a last minute spot at Bluesfest on a Monday on the Blacksheep stage and it definitely was one of the major motivators that moved this young band along. This was the last year that the festival was held at the city hall grounds and we were playing on the same day as two great Canadian acts who were both major influences of ours, Matt Mays and El Torpedo and Sam Roberts. We had the opportunity to meet both bands and hang out with them backstage.
My first year playing Bluesfest was a gig I will never forget. I used to be big into the dangerous sport of downhill mountain biking, and went biking every Sunday with a couple of friends, rain or shine. We’d drive out to Calabogie and take the chairlift up the hill then ride down at break-neck speeds. The Sunday before we played Bluesfest was no exception. For some reason I attempted a stunt that was far beyond my level of skills, and bailed hard. I destroyed my left arm and shoulder, not only ripping the skin off them and suffering deep flesh wounds but doing severe damage to my bones and muscles. Being a right handed bass player means that I need to strap my bass (which weighs quite a bit) on my left shoulder and use my left hand to fret all the notes. As soon as I collected myself and got back to the bottom of the hill, I knew I was in trouble. I could barely lift my left arm and was in a lot of pain. My friends wanted to take me to the hospital, but I was afraid that I would be put into a cast or a sling and not be able to play the show the next day. So when I got home, my roommate (who’s intentions were much better than his knowledge of first aid) went out and bought me a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some gauze. I poured the peroxide onto my skinless arm in an attempt to clean the wound, only to find that the peroxide ate off more skin and burned like crazy. After a couple hours of cleaning rocks and sand out of my arm, I covered it in the gauze. The next morning I was in even more pain, barely able to move my left arm at all and still bleeding. I played the show like this, and it was easily the most painful experience of my life to this point. My shoulder still isn’t quite what it used to be, and playing bass for an extended period of time is quite uncomfortable.
Blacksheep Stage, July 2007
Jeff Rogers, Gordie Johnson, Me, Kiko Garcia
This year was the first year that the festival had been moved back to Lebreton Flats. The band was pretty different at this point. We were now a six piece with Shane Mcewan on drums, Kiko Garcia on guitar, Anders on lap steel and banjo and Tyler Keeley on keys. We got a full page feature in the Ottawa Citizen, as well as some other media. Some of the other acts at the festival that day were Joel Plaskett, The White Stripes, Hawksley Workman. We were backstage watching Joel Plaskett play when we got the chance to meet another Canadian hero of ours, Gordie Johnson from Big Sugar and Grady fame.
Rogers Stage, July 2008
Rogers Stage - 2008
In 2008 we had officially outgrown the Blacksheep stage and were promoted to the Rogers stage. We had an afternoon spot, and played to a decent sized crowd. This year was memorable because it was our first year playing with Jeff Rogers in the band on the organ and sax and the lineup was the same as it is today, but with the addition of Tyler Keeley on piano and John Steele on pedal steel guitar. It was also the first year that we had a CD for sale and we sold a ton of copies of it.
MBNA Stage, July 2009
Backstage with Greg Keelor
2009 marked our debut on the mainstage. We had been given the opening spot for Canadian legends Blue Rodeo on a Friday night at 7pm. We prepared for months and put on the show of our lives. At this point the band had been trimmed down to just the five current members, and we had another recording under our belt as well as a cross Canada tour. 2009 was the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, so we played a cover of Joe Cocker’s version of “A Little Help From My Friends” to mark that. We got a chance to meet Greg Keelor and have a chat with him, as well as rub shoulders with some other Canadian music industry big-wigs. We also got to play two great shows at The Rainbow this year as part of the new “Bluesfest Byward” program that was introduced in 2009. We had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Alberta Cross and Little Ed and the Blues Imperials.
MBNA Stage, July 2010
Pic courtesy of Live 'n Loud Magazine
Just last week we played our fifth show at Bluesfest. Opening for legends like Phil Lesh and Bob Weir was a great way to mark your fifth anniversary while keeping it all in perspective. These guys have been around for decades, and have seen many members come and go. It was great to see them playing at the top of their game, with smiles on their faces and a huge crowd of appreciative fans. This year’s show will be remembered for how hot it was. We arrived around 3 pm to set up and sound check and spent about an hour on the stage toying around and getting things just right. The thermometer peaked at around 45 degrees that day and the huge black stage was even hotter. The MBNA stage faces the setting sun straight on from the afternoon until sunset, making it a well lit stage for audiences but a long set of looking straight into the sun for performers. We sweated it out on stage for 45 minutes then retired to our air-conditioned trailer to catch our breath. Playing music for 45 minutes is far more of a workout than many people give enough credit for! The heat caused a few technical issues with amps overheating and what not, but for the most part we survived it.
It’s been really fun to be a part of this festival for 5 years now. We’ve watched it go from the festival at City Hall with just a couple stages to what it is now. It’s been great to watch the new things that get introduced every year and see if they work out or not. Last year’s Byward Market concerts seemed to be a hit, and hopefully that will become a regular. This year marks the first year of the Blacksheep comedy and music tent, which couldn’t have come at a better time given how hot it’s been. The free wireless at the festival this year also seems to be a great addition. All in all I have to give props to the staff of Bluesfest for finding new ways to out do themselves every year. I also have to give thanks on behalf of the band for allowing us and many other great local acts to be a part of this festival. A spot at a festival of this size does not come easy, but Bluesfest makes sure to take care of all the local acts slugging it out from year to year. Our band may have never gotten off the ground had it not been for that first spot on the Blacksheep stage.
by Mark Laforest
Follow me on Twitter – @schmarkty
Banff.
We left Saskatoon after a successful night at ‘Bud’s on Broadway’ and drove onto the prairies toward the Rocky Mountains. The extreme flatness of the last half of the prairies makes the appearance of the Rockies that much more spectacular. They loom for a while as a silhouette in the distance and then before you know it they are all around you like snow covered sleeping giants. No matter how many times I make the trip from Calgary to Vancouver, or down from Edmonton through Jasper the sight of the Rockies always leaves me breathless.
After a long drive we rolled into Banff a bit weary but eager and excited for a three night stand at The Rose and Crown. Banff is a unique place. A small town nestled not far from Calgary in the first fold of the mountains, Banff is home to tourists and ‘locals’ from all over the world. It is run by Aussies, Asians, Europeans, you name it, and the whole place is like some sort of surreal consumer dream. The buildings on the main drag are pristine and obviously wealthy shoppers stroll down it along side ski bums, camera flashing tourists and down and out transient workers who are just passing through.
The same kind of cross-section also helps to describe the crowd present at the Rose and Crown over the course of our three night stand, and once again music proved to be the great equalizer, the dance floor a giant melting pot that sweated and moved along with our music in the crazy mountain night. We met a ton of interesting people, sold CD’s and t-shirts by the dozens and played our hardest to an overwhelmingly appreciative audience.
I personally have a special nostalgic connection with Banff having lived there for a while nearly ten years ago. It’s amazing to see how little it has changed in appearance and in spirit, and it felt great to be at the Rose with my closest friends playing music and partying much like I had years before. It was the perfect ‘half-way’ point for the tour. It was a relaxing and morale boosting three days that wasn’t without it’s eccentricities and uh… interesting moments, but perhaps we’ll save those stories for another time.
Tour Tip of the day:
Patience. At a certain point in any tour after long hauls in the van and moments of isolation in dingy band rooms and motels it’s inevitable that nerves will begin to erode. Simple things such as a repetitive question, or an inconsiderate gesture or even particular character traits can boil over into arguments and in rare occasions, physical altercations. Patience is an important virtue on the road. A few seconds of reflection, just long enough to bite your tongue, is often all it takes to remember that the guys in your band are some of your best friends, and in most cases the problem you’re having is mostly your own. Take a deep breath, take a walk, spend some time alone or have it out civilly. The show must go on, true, but being patient with each other will make it go on a little bit smoother.
And now for your enjoyment… Episode 2 of the Anders Drerup Show!
More Silver Creek videos can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/silvercreekmusic
Hot Diggity Dog
Ladies and gents,
I’d like to take a break from the regular road blog to introduce you to a new and exciting series, the Anders Drerup Show. In episode one, he’ll show you a fancy new gadget he’s picked up that makes eating on the road feel like eating in a fine european bistro.
Stay tuned for episode 2!
Mark
Share fine music with Silver Creek here: http://silvercreekmusic.net/
Down Time
Having some time to do nothing is as much a blessing as it is a curse. There’s only so much you can do in a hotel room during the day, but at the same time, it’s great to have nothing to do and time to relax. We’ve been bunkered down in the same place now for 3 days, and we’re all getting a little squirrely. Things start to get interesting when this happens. The general shannigans level goes through the roof. Between drunken ghost hunting, climbing up water slides backwards, buying useless kitchen appliances, and trying desperately to get our N64 working so we can play some Bond, we find ways to pass the time.
Not only does the idle time force us to find ways to occupy ourselves, it also manifests itself musically. Last night we played a completely original set, but rearranged all our songs on the fly for the entertainment of the sparse Monday night crowd. Luckily, the camera was rolling.
Tomorrow we head to Saskatoon to play at Bud’s On Broadway, which is only about an hour away, then we’ve got a long haul to Banff on Thursday.
Tour Tip of the Day
Capitalize on your time off, as it’s few and far between. Try to stay busy and productive, because when you’re bored is when you start doing dumb things, like remaking your songs into reggae songs…
Check out more of our videos on our youtube channel – www.youtube.com/silvercreekmusic
Cheers, Mark
The Prairies
We left Winnipeg late in the day with the memory of a great show the night before still ringing in our minds. There are some shows that provide a reassurance that life on the road is worth the effort after all. Things just click on stage and out in the crowd are smiling faces, dancing people, enthusiastic newspaper and internet blog writers and happy bar owners. You sell your CD’s and t-shirts, make contacts, chat with like-minded strangers, get paid (hopefully) and then you move along.
The stage in Winnipeg
We were wishing that we could stay in Winnipeg a little longer as we began our long drive North West out of Manitoba and across the prairies into Saskatchewan. Our destination; North Battleford (about an hour North of Saskatoon) a dusty town about nine-hundred and fifty kilometers from Winnipeg.
Coming through the prairies in the dark is much what I would imagine purgatory to be like. It sounds a little dramatic, but nine hours of nothing on either side, and straight lines in front of and behind you, coupled with a distant destination that never seems to come any closer makes it easy for the imaginative idle mind to wander.
Headlights of the oncoming traffic shone softly though the fog and grain elevators and the occasional barn loomed out of the darkness as we rocketed through the void in a big blue van sparsely conversing with each other and listening to a quiet radio. I began to wonder how people came to live in such desolate places. There are no trees, no rivers, no valleys; just pale yellow and brown grassy flatness as far as the eye can see.
View from the Happy Inn.
The lights of North Battleford are visible from about seventy-five kilometers away and shone like an oasis in the night as we drove, late for our show, into the parking lot of the Happy Inn hotel. The people here are good down to earth folk and were waiting patiently with cold beer at the ready. Almost two hours late, the forgiving crowd and bar staff were more than happy with a two and a half hour set with no breaks, and we played well; as tired as we all were from our ghost ride across the dark prairie purgatory. North Battleford is not paradise, but we have been through here before, and I personally am looking forward to the three days that we have to spend here before moving onto Saskatoon and then into the Rocky Mountains to Banff.
Today the water slide. Then the Grey Cup and more music. But first a poem.
Saskatchewan
Driving into the twilight
everything looks like the silhouette of a ghost.
Train tracks are like a lonely line of comfort.
They provide a companion for the solitary road
as we chase the edge of the storm across the Plains.
Here the grain elevators are the only testament to the goal of settlement.
Or maybe more so they are the accidental result
of fatigue
or of circumstance.
“Welcome to ‘Such and Such,’ Where the Horses Got Tired!”
Or, “Thank You for Visiting ‘So and So’
This is far enough for now.”
The green pine scented expanse of Ontario and Quebec
and the white capped crags and salty rain forests of the West
lie behind and before us.
The sun burns the clouds out of the sky on time for dusk
as the last raindrop falls with purpose
on some flat surface.
A candidate for a future irrigation that
once it has done all it can do here
will be chased by some storm or another
some place other than the prairies.
Tour Tip of the day: Take advantage of all opportunities as they present themselves. You never know where a chance encounter may lead you. For example: The other day we met with Dale Penner, a seemingly routine meeting may lead to big things down the line. Tonight we’re invited to watch the football game at the house of a local guy named Clint. He’s a good guy, and it should be fun. Some of our best memories from the road have come not from what was planned, but from unexpected chance detours and random tangeants taken on a wim.
Winnipeg
Winnipeg Crane Convention?
Winnipeg.
We’ve been in Winnipeg for about two days now, and it’s been an amazing experience so far. The music scene here is very supportive and has been beyond kind to us. We’re staying at a local musician’s house, someone who we’ve never even met in person before but was just eager to help a band passing through.
We played a few songs on the radio last night and on City TV this morning, then met with Dale Penner (produced Nickelback, Matthew good band, Holly Mcnarland, and more – http://www.paradise-alley.com) at his studio here in Winnipeg.
Tour Tip of the Day:
The ceramic travel mug. Coffee is essential on the road. You can’t live without it. Everytime you use a travel mug at timmy’s now you save 10 cents. This is only the beginning. The travel mug keeps your coffee warm longer, and helps you feel better about the environment (despite the fact that you’d have to use it for about 10 years to get back the carbon cost of making a travel mug vs. making a paper cup.. but that’s for another blog). The reason why you want a ceramic one, is because you can microwave it. You can make soup in it, hot breakfast oats, ramen noodles, even easy mac kraft dinner. All you need is a microwave and some water, and you’ve got some warm dinner to go.
Outside the bar on the main drag in Brunkild
We’ve got to get to another gig.
See ya!
Stick with Silver Creek here too: http://silvercreekmusic.net/
-Mark
Manitoba
Typical Ontario geography
It may sound odd, but throughout the drive from Ottawa to Kenora (easily 24 hours of solid driving, not including any stops) it’s hard to feel like you’ve gone very far from home.
The landscape is exactly what you’d expect in Ontario – rocks, trees, lakes, rivers – and the stops all seem to look the same. You can rest assured that every couple hours you’ll pass by a Tim Hortons, Subway, Esso station, OPP officer, LCBO, etc.
It’s hard to tell whether you’re just outside the confines of Ottawa, Sudbury, Thunder Bay or any of the other places along the way. But something strange happens as soon as you pass through the Manitoba border.
All the familiar sights instantly change.
Suddenly, you’re hard pressed to find any trees at all, the rockiness is gone, and the rolling hills and beautiful lakes are entirely replaced by flat, seemingly featureless plains. It’s amazing how far off into the distance you can see completely unobstructed on a clear day here, and it makes it easier to appreciate that prairies have they’re very own brand of beauty. The usual Tim Hortons and Subways are replaced by the frequent grain towers that loom everywhere and look as though no one has stepped foot in them in years. The always brightly lit and super clean LCBOs and Beer Stores disappear and in their places are dimly lit dives where you can order your beer of choice through a small teller window and “off-sale” at bars where you can buy cases of beer or booze straight from the bar.
The speed limits change, the road signs look different, even the way that they paint the lines on the road is different. The lights on the traffic lights are in a different order, license plates are different. It also gets significantly colder.
Another striking difference is the video gambling machines that you find in every bar. Much like the coin slots you’d find at any casino, these machines populate every bar and are almost always occupied. It’s somewhat disturbing to watch someone at them for an entire night, as the waitresses bring them drinks and they squander their money away. I’m quite happy that we don’t have them in Ontario.
Tonight we’re playing in Brunkild, which is just south of Winnipeg. It’s a very small town, populated by the aforementioned grain towers and a few scattered houses and businesses. The people here are friendly, drive trucks, and like their country music.
Which means we should do just fine.
The stage in Brunkild
Tour Tip of the Day:
Ipods. They are absolutely essential to any road trip with music lovers. We’re travelling with two video ipods. They’re loaded with tons of music, episodes of South Park, Flight of the Conchords, and many other good shows and movies. It’s easy to create playlists on the go, and it means that we’re not travelling with a boat load of CDs or messing around with a cumbersome laptop. We’ve got a car charger so they’re always fully charged, and if one person isn’t digging the music or wants to watch a movie on their own, they can use the other one. We’ve also got a cable to connect the video ipod to a TV so that when we’re in hotel rooms or band rooms we can chill out and watch a movie. They also double as a small and portable usb hard drive and work well as a place to store photos and video that we take while on tour. They’re small, robust, and even Anders can figure out how to use them. If you’re planning on going on an extended road trip anytime soon, I highly suggest picking one up.
Check us out on
Facebook -
Twitter – @creeksilver
Website - www.silvercreekmusic.net
- Mark
Arriving in Thunder Bay – through the fog
We set out on the road from Sault Ste. Marie early this morning and made our way through a thick fog down the long stretch of highway around Lake Superior to Thunder Bay. There are few things that give a better sense of freedom than driving a long haul. The open road is one of these. No red lights, just a straight line between point A and B. Conversations, music and silence fills the time, and it gives you a real appreciation for how vast our great country truly is.
This is my fifth time making the trip West from Ottawa, and I’ve been lucky enough to have done it each time with great friends. I took the first shift in the seven hour saga, and in the back, Tony slept while Anders and Mark passed their time composing a hilarious hip hop tune (track to follow soon) while the pine speckled forests of Northern Ontario breezed by.
The drive through Ontario is the longest part of any band’s trip West and it is rare for this part of the journey to be without incident and excitement. While we have yet to encounter the dreaded Moose (touch wood) as Mark mentioned in his last entry, we did manage to cross paths, in a lonely Northern KFC, with Canadian band the Arkells. Other bands are easy to spot on the road… just look for the unshaven, tired and disheveled people who travel in vans and trailers that just don’t seem to fit in up North in a place like KFC.
Having said goodbye to our new friends the Arkells we were swiftly pulled over by Northern Ontario’s finest for ‘swerving a little in the lane.’ Not able to find a single chargeable offense, they let us go on our merry way, and after a long while finally arrived in Thunder Bay and checked into the trusty ‘Lakehead Motel.’ We’ve stayed here before; by some standards, it’s great.
While Mark and Tony partook in much needed showers, Anders, Jeff and I made our way to LU radio for an interview with Anthea and Siggy who much to our surprise were very happy to have us back since our visit last year. We spun old vinyl, talked about the road and shared some laughs before picking up the boys and heading out to The Black Pirate Pub for our show opening for ‘You Say Party, we say Die.’ While our music is drastically different, and their crowd wasn’t expecting us, we still managed to turn some heads and make new friends none the less. It was a great night of music in Thunder Bay. The clubs were packed, and within two blocks you could find the likes of Bluessmyth (Calgary), The little Girls (Toronto), Blind Mule (Hamilton), You say Party, we say Die! (Vancouver), and of course Silver Creek.
Highlight of the night: While sitting in another club, Mark and I spotted a guy wearing one of our old T-Shirts (we gave him our new CD, and bought him a drink).
Touring tip of day: There is a common link that unites bands who are ‘on the road’ no matter how different their music may be, and that is, quite simply, we’re all out here doing it. We all want people to like what we do, and we all have a long way to go before we get where we want to be. On these fundamental grounds it is easy to make friends out here. Be genuine, keep an open mind and play your hardest, and the most unlikely gigs will, before you know it, turn into tour highlights to remember.
Hear more from Silver Creek here: http://silvercreekmusic.net/
