And we're off to the finals!

Well, apparently I got here first so I get to post about the Local and Loud battle of the bands in Barrie that we played at tonight. In one word, it was AWESOME. We arrived at about 4pm, the time all 8 bands that were participating had to be there. They did a random draw for the order of bands, and wouldn't you know we got the last spot! This was excellent, cause being last in this kind of competition is always good since you're fresh in the judges' minds.

Some of the bands were good, some were less good, but it was a long and somewhat nervous wait until our turn. It was kinda funny, like the 2 hours up to our performance we were really a relatively solemn, unenergetic group just sitting around with grim expressions. Myself, I was frantically trying to memorize lyrics to 'Drink up Boy' which we debuted tonight. BUT, when it finally came for JSB to perform, we flicked a switch. Boy, did we flick a switch. As JSB-fans extraordinaire Joey A and Boonie can attest to, we played one of our most entertaining and energetic sets we've EVER done. La-Nai couldn't be with us due to gigging opporunitites in Florida (lucky!) so we had the amazing Mike (I wish I knew your last name) from U of T on electric guitar and it was amazing. His stage presence alone was enough to shake three sticks at.

We played a 20 minute set consisting of This if Fun, Drink up Boy, Ice Jam, and closing with When We're There. Crowd response was tremendous. A member of another band that performed earlier shouted, as we started the final song, "Don't bother, you've already won," with a smile. We really impressed a lot of people, but mostly we were really proud of ourselves and pleased to now that we 'still got it'. It's been a long time since a JSB gig. A long time.

The finals are April 17th in Barrie, location unknown but most likely at the same place, Foundation nightclub. We will be competing against our brothers in our sister-band Tranquil! Joey says they're gonna bring it. Well guess what Joey: it's already been broughten! Hehe... It's gonna be a good night. Plus, Mike and I are really hoping the cute Barrie girls will come back. We've also secretly planned to stick 'I have a girlfriend' signs on Jim, Scott, and Roop's backs. Secret's out. Damn.

Peace out.

Back from Africa

Hey everybody

This week I just came back from Malawi (a country in Africa) and felt that I should report that I had one of the best weeks of my life. I did so many things that were both fun and eye opening at the same time. I travelled around a few cities, saw a mobile clinic where mothers bring their super sick babies, went to a few villages of farmers growing tobacco and maize, was charged by an elephant, heard a two person African-rock band and spent a weekend on gorgeous Lake Malawi where I saw loads of tropical fish. On a more unfotunate note, I am now paying the price for drinking the water without boiling it first.

I wish I could post some pictures but I don't think I can. Just let me know if you'd like to see some and I can fire some your way

Jim

Words of Advice

Musicians are expert mind readers. Only refer to your requests with the
phrase "play my song", or "it goes something like this" then hum a few
bars! We have a chip implanted in our heads with an unlimited database
with the favourite tunes of every patron who ever walked into a bar & all
songs ever recorded, so feel free to be vague, we love the challenge.

If we do not remember exactly what tune you want, we're only kidding.
Bands know every song ever recorded, so keep humming. Hum harder if need
be, it helps jog the memory. If a band tells you they do not know a song you want to hear, they either forgot that they know the tune or they are just putting you on. It helps to just keep requesting the same song every time there is a break.

It also helps to scream your request from across the room several times
per set followed by the phrases, AW COME ON! and, YOU SUCK! Exaggerated
hand gestures expressing disapproval from the dance floor are a big help
as well, such as the thumbs down or your middle finger. Put-downs are
the best way to jog a band's memory. This instantly promotes you to the
status of "Personal Friend Of The Band."

Your request is all that matters. If a metal band had played at the club
a few weeks ago, the next band that follows will automatically know
every metal tune the previous band ever played, even if the current band
is a blues or country band. It's the law.


IMPORTANT: When an entertainer leans over to hear you better, grab his
or her head in both hands and yell directly into their ear, while
holding their head securely so they cannot pull away.
Hang on until the singer or guitar player submits. They love this.


TALKING WITH THE BAND

The best time to discuss anything with the band in any meaningful way is
at the middle of a song when all members are singing at the same time
(such as a multi harmony part). Our hearing is so advanced
that we can pick out your tiny voice from the megawatt wall of sound
blasting all around us. Musicians are expert lip readers too. If a
musician does not reply to your question or comment during a tune, it's
because they didn't get a good look at your mouth. Simply continue to scream
your request & be sure to over-emphasize the words with your lips. This helps immensely.

Don't be fooled. Singers have the innate ability to answer questions & sing at the same time. If the singer doesn't answer your questions immediately, regardless of how
stupid the question may seem, it's because they are purposely ignoring
you. If this happens, immediately cop an attitude, it's a huge hit.

HELPING THE BAND

If you inform the band that you are a singer, the band will appreciate
your help with the next few tunes. Simply feel free to walk up on stage & join in.

By the way, the drunker you are, the louder you should sing. If by chance you fall
off the stage, be sure to crawl back up & attempt to sing harmony. Keep
in mind that nothing assists the band more than outrageous dancing,
third & fourth part harmonies, or a tambourine played out of tempo. Try
the cow bell, they love the challenge. The band always needs the help &
will take this as a compliment.

BONUS TIP:

As a last resort, wait until the band takes a break and then get on
stage and start playing their instruments, they love this.

Even if you are ejected from the club, you can rest assured in the fact that you
have successfully completed your audition. The band will call you immediately the following day to offer you a position.


See you at the next gig,
The Band

More Pictures!!

Well, in lieu of the massive amount of storage and bandwidth available to us now, I've updated the site with an amount of pictures roughly equivalent to the size of 22 eggcartons' worth of cow dung. There are some pictures from the El Mocambo gig we did last March, almost a year ago, haha...and some pictures from a photo shoot Jo did for us in August...of 2003, ahaha... and then some random pictures (Look for Ronald McDonald and Johnny Van Loo as highlights). Thanks to Scott for compiling these.

New site hosted on new servers!

Hey folks,

Well, after my big rant about rogers-yahoo-geocities, it got worse and and more annoying, and well, we got fed up. SO, we decided to do what we should have done in the first place. PAY for webspace. This is a lot better, the site will never be down again (no more of that exceeded allocated data tranfer shit) and we can host an butload amount of media on there now. Even video! (hint hint Bram Cayne. You wouldn't want something to happen to your whole family, now would you...)

I'd like to give some free advertising to http://www.hostexcellence.com/ for their awesome service and pricing. Web hosting has become really, really cheap.

Top 10 reasons why rockstar is a better career than computer engineer

Rockstar is better! I go on first and clean the hair! Engineer is better! I leave the hair silky and smooth! Oh, really, fool? Really!..... Stop looking at me, swan!

The debate is over:

10. Rockstars retire early. Cause if you think that Mick Jagger will still be doing the whole rock star thing at age 50, well, then, you are sorely, sorely mistaken.
9. Tour buses are 14 times as fun as the (Toyota Previa/bread bus/Steve's bus/the bus) is.
8. Computer engineers get a two-day reading week while the rest of the world gets the standard 5 days. (btw, it should be called Spring break, why does Canada have to be so lame in this respect? c'mon now...)
7. Rockstars own sledgehammers. Lucky!
6. Better calculus: Engineers approximate how much area is under the curve, rockstars approximate how many groupies they can bring backstage.
5. Elisha Cuthbert is much more likely to be a big fan of a young, Canadian rockstar than a young, Canadian computer engineer.
4. Perhaps on the, rare, occasion, pursuing the right course demands an act of piracy... Piracy, itself... can, be... the right...course.
3. Jumbo jets!! Besides being able to do more shows, clearly, you can have as much airplane food as you want (but no real food, strictly air canada, coach-style food; the good stuff). Chicks dig the jumbo jet.
2. When Jack Bauer is not onscreen, and is not too busy showing off how gangsta he truly is, he's meeting rockstars. I believe it.
1. .............?? (Comment what YOU think is the number 1 reason)

Next Sunday!

So it turns out that we ARE playing the Local and Loud competition next Sunday (Feb. 27th). We were trying to get the organiser to accomidate us by letting us go on another date, but in the end he couldn't. So we're playing next sunday.

Unfortunately, due to her covert operation in Florida, Nai won't be playing that set with us, BUT we will try to shock and awe without her. Analogy: With La-Nai we are a gun loaded with live ammunition, with out her we're loaded with blanks. That was the most American analogy I could have applied to this situation. Ha!

So its up in Barrie, so we can only pray that the weather is reasonable. Also, we can only hope that we get a panel of judges who digs us.

Tonight, our buddies in Tranquil (http://www.tranquilmusic.net/) passed their qualifying round in the same contest, so we can only hope that we can do the same and get to share the stage with them in the finals.

Peace

-Scott

Hey everyone

Hey folks - just wanted to give everyone who's checking this (if there is anyone) to post and say hi and introduce yourself. Maybe tell us what your connection is to the band.

Thanks

-Scott

Interesting Input

So right now the Jim Smith Band has gotten its CD into the hands of a few industry people and its floating around a little bit. This fellow Jaimie Vernon who owns a label that specialises in classic rock is trying to help us out, giving us input and stuff.

I've been corresponding with him about the question of what kind of music we play. I sent him an email that suggested that we are a rock band. His response presented a VERY narrow view on what rock is - but its interesting nonetheless. He DOES own a record label.

This is easy:

Rock is straight 4/4 or 3/4 time signatures performed with guitars and drums....occasionally a piano player. There are no syncopated rhythms....there are no mid-tempo songs (though, occasionally there's a ballad, but that happened only because girlfriends of guys in rock bands wanted something slow to dance to -- always DRIVING rhythms with kick-drum and bass guitar pounding out quarter notes....even eigth notes if the beat of the song is fast enough. And lastly....there are no marimba players, flutists, clarinets.....or ACOUSTIC guitars (rock music with acoustic instruments is called folk music).

AC/DC, Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, KISS were rock acts....or a current reference point would be Canada's The Trews, Big Sugar, Danko Jones. American acts would include Matchbox 20, The Gin Blossoms or The Foo Fighters.

For better or worse The Jim Smith Band are none of these things...not even a LITTLE bit.

Jaimie Vernon,
President, Bullseye Records
"Not Suing Our Customers Since 1985!!"
http://www.bullseyecanada.com
Author, Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia
http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Pop_Encyclopedia/


Any thoughts folks?

-Scott

Local and Loud Troubles

So, if you scroll down, you'll see that a week and a bit ago, Jim and Roop and I trekked to Barrie to sign up for the Local and Loud battle of the bands contest. Knowing La Nai is in florida last week of February, we requested March dates. Sure enough, though, I get an email about how we're booked to play February 27th.

There are some gigs that we can pull of without Nai, but even so it pales in comparison to what it's like WITH her. None of us have any inclination to enter a competition without her because we're A) not as good, and B) not the Jim Smith Band.

So I email an organiser saying that the 27th is a conflict, asking him if he can accomidate us, and he responded with a resounding "no, I'm juggling too many people to factor in your needs." I understand that it may be difficult, but we're not asking to change it because we'd rather, or because we need more practice - the band just plain can't be there!

So with a little help from Steve and Roop I just fired off an email that said how keen we are about the competition, reiterated our issue, and said that we'll need our deposit back should they not be able to accomidate us.

The hope is that he'll realise that we've got a legitamite problem, but the fear is that he'll be put off and put on the defensive and fire back a 'you should have read the fine print, you're down X dollars sucker' email.

I guess we'll know in a day or two

-Scott

Who figured out how to add multiple accounts to this blog?

This guy!!

Attention band: you have to set up your own blogspot account first. Then, we'll go from there. (If you already have one then we're good to set it up)

So, Jim left to go to Africa today. I don't know why I'm writing this post for him. I hope he has internet access and posts when he's there! He went to Malawi for 2 weeks to visit his sister who's there on a school-related trip. We will miss him for these two weeks. But, I won't miss his smell, that's for sure.

Question for the leagues of fans reading this right now...

Inspired by a post on the Tranquil message board -

What kind of music do we play?
How would you categorize us?

Thanks

-Scott

What's the dilly-yo with JSB music?

Thought you'd never ask.

Last summer, we spent all of our time recording one more second. As a result, there was a hiatus in terms of writing and working out new music, one that was probably really getting to a lot of us. And now, it's showing. The band is pumping out new songs faster than a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea. (note: see 'Sideways', it kicks ass) This is a really exciting time for us right now becuase the ideas are really flowing, and believe me: it's sounding good.

We're really looking forward to the upcoming shows, can't wait to unveil the new material. But, we're also eager to get back to the OMS stuff, which is getting a little dusty on the shelf. This past Saturday, we had a really great practise with La-Nai (who has been really busy lately with her gigging all over the place) making a triumphant return to the practise room.

Anyhoo, I had some spare time before leaving work. Hence the post.

Peace out,
Steve

Whew

So, Im finally freaking done with this website. I have to tell you, this was one of the most frustrating sites Ive ever built. There's something about new versions of internet explorer that just refuse to cooperate with embedded and nested tables. However, hopefully those problems are fixed and those people running either IE or Firefox can view the site as it should be. (Netscape should be fine too). This is why I stand by my philosophy that newer software isnt necessarily better. Microsoft has put so much JUNK in their programs and OS's, that they completely failed to address security or stability issues, so you're left with an overly priced, useless, unstable, piece of software that creates more frustration than any level of convenience installing it might produce. Well that ends my little software rant.

It took a while, but I think it looks pretty cool. Not as simplified as the original site, but still enough to minimize load times, add functionality and increase the versatility of various regions. Let me know what you guys think of the site (either email me or comment below).

A note for the unitiated: to comment on this blog, click where it says (0 comments- or however many exist), then there should be an option to comment anonymously.

Other than website stuff, I'm extremely glad that there are some gigs on the horizon. It's been over 5 months since our last show, and I think we're all desperately wanting to jam out on stage. It's an irreplaceable feeling. Hopefully, we'll get a bunch of downtown TO gigs as well, to add to the fun. Additional motivation to see our upcoming shows, is to check out the plethora of new songs.

Anyway, wow. this was long. Im also seeing through time again, so...

take it easy, kemosabes

-Anuroop

Time for a rant

There nothing quite like being really excited about unveiling a new website, and having it go down every freakin' 30 minutes because Rogers-Yahoo-geocities is more concerned with increasing the list of corporations in their stupid conglomerate than providing a decent, working service to their customers. Apparently the traffic to our website is SO CRAZY that they need to shut it down every hour to take the load off of their tired Rogers-Yahoo-Geocities backs. I oughta throw them in a cage with some large-taloned chickens and let the chickens have their way with them.

I am currently in the process of moving all the multimedia (bandwidth-heavy) stuff to another server - one from www.0catch.com --> Rogers-Yahoo-Geocities, check it out, I'm giving free advertising for another provider because they don't suck half as much as your moms who go to college do!! Hopefully this way, no matter how much audio clips or images are downloaded, the site won't go down. We shall see...

Lots of gigs were added to the site today, that was exciting to see such a long list on the website. Oh wait, you guys wouldn't know what that looks like because Rogers-Yahoo-Geocities' data allocation has been exceeded!! My foot! By the way, noone knows what the Rogers Centre is!! It's been the Sky Dome for years. It's a dome. That climbs high into the sky. Ain't it just your cup of tea to screw with things that work.

Fin.

-Steve

Quick Update

www.jimsmithband.com is up - you may already know that. I think it looks pretty nifty. Personally, I think La Nai's name and bio page should be at least four, maybe five times more prominent than the rest of ours in recompence - but she's there and finally our website includes our entire band.

Last week Roop Jim and I drove up to Barrie, Ontario to pick up forms for a Battle of Band's that we'll be taking part in in March. Why they couldn't fax or email the forms is a mystery to me, but regardless it was fun to chill with Jim and Roop.

GIG ANNOUNCEMENTS:

On February 26th the JSB (minus Nai, unfortunately) is performing at the University of Toronto Formal.

On March 3rd we're playing at the Smiling Buddha bar which is at 961 College Street, just west of Dovercourt. Its a free show, though the hope is that the people who go order drinks so that we get asks back to play again. We start at 9PM and go to midnight. Should be a blast, hope you folks can get to this one.

-Scott

Pleasant Surprise

Lately it seems like theres suddenly a flurry of jimsmithband activity - shall we say jimsmithbactivity. We've got some of our summer gigs lined up, a website coming up, club gigs in the works... and now another surprise.

We are constantly submitting ourselves for songwriting contests and music festivals, via our electronic presskit (www.sonicbids.com/jimsmithband). We hadn't gotten any bites before this week, but Jim gets in his email what looks like junk mail from sonicbids. He scrolls down and sees our name and thinks we've won something and proceeds to pee his pants. He's just like that. Anyway, he follows the link (www.inacoustic.com) and clicked on winners and saw that our song When We're There was a finalist in the Best Group category.

So while its not winning, its still incredible to be able to say that we're finalists in an international songwriting contest!

-Scott

What is that guy from?

Tonight Scott, Steve and I again went out to tackle the downtown Toronto music scene. We hit the El Mocombo, the Mod Club, the Smiling Bhuddah, the Reverb, the Horseshoe Tavern, the 360 and Rivoli. Some were more receptive than others and in many cases, the booking person just wasn't present. However, we are not discouraged at all. We knew it would be a long process and this is just the first stage. This will follow with emails, phone calls and subsequent visits in order to get our name known.

In fact the night was much more interesting than it first appears. First of all, as we walked all around downtown Toronto, we practised the harmonies to all our songs. So if you were also walking around town, you might have seen three young men singing in harmony, not really caring about who was around them. By fluke we ran into an old friend of ours, Kim O'Connor, who was playing a show at the Horseshoe Tavern. So we chatted with her for a bit. Then we ran into an actor who is in a whole mess of commercials, most notably, the Tim Hortons commercial where the guy says, "Maple!". I don't know ask Steve about it, he'll fill you in.

Anyway, I'm sure that all the work will pay off in some downtown gigs in the summer. So keep your eyes peeled for some chances to hear us play. This may be the summer before we make it big so come see us play now in small venues because it may never happen again!

-Jim

Hittin' the Clubs

So last night Jim, Steve and I (Scott) embarked on phase one of operation 'get some gigs at clubs downtown'. We met with mixed results.

First we hit the Tranzac club, at Bloor and Spadina. We played here a year ago with Zak Sheppard, and we kind of liked it; big stage, lots of fun. We get there, and there's a doorway to a small pub type area, and then there are the doors to the big stage area. In the big stage area, it looks like a community theatre production is rehearsing, so we talk to the woman behind the bar, who turns out to be the woman who books bands. Anyway... it turns out one can rent the big stage area, but she doesn't book bands back there, she books for the tiny front area. AND it turns out that it would be between 600 and 700 dollars to rent the good stage space. That would mean to break even we'd have to charge a hefty door price, which we're not really motivated to do. We gave her a CD and our press kit and moved on.

The next two places we had similar results. We hiked to the mod club, which was way south of Spadina on College. This is a BEAUTIFUL club, we're going to push to have our CD release party there, but we also just want to get a gig there. We walk in and there are four big wooden doors inside the foyer to the actual club. Jim tries one, then another *at which point I figure it is closed and that we might as well head back* but the fourth one turns out to be open. So we go in, and there's nobody around. Jim walks to where he could see into the back room and there's this short incomprehensable western European man who's cleaning staff. Thankfully, like Chris Farley in Waynes World *a security gaurd who somehow knows all the answers* this guy knew exactly who we should talk to about booking, and when he'd be in. So we'll go back tonight.

Last, we hit the Elmocombo, where the owner does the booking, but wasn't there. So we left our contact information and left it a sort of 'don't call us, we'll call you', unfortunately. We'll try there again, in case he is actually there.

So tonight we've got more places to go, this time more focused around queen street. While last night wasn't dissiapointing, I hope tonight we actually see some booking people and make an impression that hopefully will turn to gigs.

_Scott