Canadian Idol

Well, in what I like to call a very spontaneous turn of events, yesterday morning I randomly went to the Canadian Idol auditions. Funny thing is the actual first time I TRULY considered going was midnight the night before. It was really a first-rate convincing job by my brother, who in all sincerity said he believed in me.

The Toronto auditions were in fact supposed to be over as of Monday, but were extended for whatever reason to like 12 noon on Tuesday being the last time you could register. So I arrived at around 11am. It wasn't really that busy, compared to previous years (from what I heard) or the huge turnouts American Idol gets. I signed up, got a number, and sat and waited in a huge room in the bowels of the Metro Convention Centre. After almost 4 hours, they got to my number. The round 1 auditions were group auditions; I went in with 3 other people, each singing one after the other.

I wonder what round 2 is like.

At first I was really bummed out/depressed, and after that just semi-bummed for most of the rest of the day. The more I thought about it, the sillier it became. They never made any comment to me except "nicely done/great job" or something like that. Then they dismissed my whole group. So without any comments, without knowing what it is they wanted that I didn't provide, I couldn't learn anything from it, really. There were also a LOT of really excellent singers I heard down there rehearsing, and then emerging from the audition rooms empty-handed. It makes me wonder what exactly they're looking for. I guess it has to do with a lot more than just singing ability. Or maybe it has little to do with singing ability at all.

FYI - I sang I believe I can fly. Thought it was one of my better performances... Oh well.

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Gig this thursday! Should be fun. We have no set list yet. This means an increased chance of lyrical failure. Perhaps I should get on that. This is almost my last week of work, and, co-op. This means that starting Monday I'm back in Waterloo for the whole summer! That sucks more than not making it past the first round. Not really looking forward to this school term too much.

Seacrest out.

Band + Audience Participation Time:

Top three concerts ever. Go.

(just to clarify, that's not Jim Smith Band concerts, that's concerts in general)

Anuroop has a long road ahead of him, it seems. We all know he's had a problem with black tar heroin for years now (actually, since he was four years old) and he's in the denial stage. We hope he can kick the habit in time.

I'm going to give some good examples of what steve was talking about (read his post, but basically replace 'very' or 'extremely' or other words like them with 'balls')

1. Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose

BECOMES

1i. Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, had a balls shiny nose.

2. I like basketball, I love very bouncy balls.

BECOMES

2i. I like basketball, I love balls bouncy balls.

If the humour in this is not clear, say it out loud. If you still don't find it funny, do 2 gigs in two days with little to know sleep in between. THEN consume a good portion of your weight in a variety of meat at Korean Barbeque. Try saying it out loud again and i PROMISE you it will be funny.

To answer your question

No, we do not do any drugs. We have never had a problem with illegal substance abuse. After reading the preceding post, it's hard not to believe we do...but we are, in fact....clean.

balls small balls

Hey folks...long time no post. Well, Roop summed up the weekend quite well. It was an awesome weekend, with only one low point which was a bummer, but oh well... life goes on. We'll keep rocking, and playing for our awesome fans (who really showed just how great they are this weekend - thanks you guys). Actually, one really cool thing that happened at the Local and Loud competition tonight was that we got hired for a gig - by one of the judges! Who also happened to be a member of the band Skratch3, that won the last Local and Loud competition. He came up to me after our set and asked if we could open for them at their CD release party on July 9th, which was really cool!

Moving on to the most important part of this post, I feel I need to share something with you all... You need to be a part of the revolution that's sweeping the nation. In the movie 'Dodgeball', the banners in the dodgeball arena say "Go Balls Deep!" This has connotations - whatever you want to take its meaning as...that's up to you. But playing along with the joke, we've realised how amazing it is to use 'balls' in that context: 'balls' can now replace the words 'very', 'really', 'extremely', and so on! It balls is a lot of fun! Korean BBQ tonight was balls feeling the effect of this addictive new way of speaking. It made for one hell of a close to the evening, so much fun. So, what is a major side-effect of steroid use? (See title!)

Seacrest out

Whew!

Wow. It's been a long, tiring weekend. Really, really tiring.

It's 1.35 am and I've just gotten back from the local and loud competition in barrie. There's a lot to write about this weekend, but I'm extremely exhausted, and have a night of studying ahead of me, so I will write the shortened version.

Saturday- the gig at the Smiling Buddha Bar went really well. To start the night off, Zak Sheppard did a wonderful, intimate acoustic set. Man, that guy has some chops. Revamped versions of old familiar songs as well a whole slew of brand new ones made it a great experience to watch and listen to him. Hes really good at drawing you into his music.

After Zak, our brothers in Tranquil pwned (destroyed) us all. Damnit! THEY'RE SO FRIGGIN GOOD. asklashjds afdhafff.;'kgg.ad;lj. Seriously. They're new stuff sounds incredible!! Just simply amazing. Songs like Stickman, Nobody Somebody, Cross that line- the last two are my favourite Tranquil songs. So good. It's a real honour and pleasure to have them there. Like I said before...they're damn good friends, and it's so much fun to do shows with them. It certainly won't be the last time....

....AND IT WASN'T! After getting home really late last night, we knew it still wasn't over- we still had one more gig to do. In barrie- local and loud!!- with Tranquil! After arriving at the foundation night club, the order of bands was announced through the random drawing of names. 11 bands were present- jsb went on 3rd- roughly aroudn 5 o clock. Kind of disappointed we had to go earlier than we had hoped, we were forced to put those feelings aside. The first two bands we thought were pretty decent. At 5ish, we took the stage, and armed with our secret weapon, Mike Moss, we played a fun, energetic 20 minute set, identical to the one we performed at the prelims- this is fun, drink up boy, ice jam, and when we're there. Mike kicked ass as usual. We had a great time. And although there weren't as many people there as there were further on during the night, we still received a decent crowd reaction. after our set, the whole gang (at leat a sizeable chunk of it), went out to this greek restaurant for food. Fun times were had.

Then we returned to the foundation and we waited...some really good bands played. Tranqul went on 10th, and put on an unbelievable show. At the end of the night- the winners were announced- neither band won.....Which was a surprise to us...but you win some and you lose some. It wasn't about winning..just having a good time. And we did.

We then packed everything up and the two bands et. all (almost), went out for late night korean bbq and had a blast! So much fun.

All i can say is...what a tiring weekend. However, the ridiculous exhaustion was worth it. We also had the opportunity to hang out as a one big group- and that doesn't happen too often! Special thanks to the girlfriend club for making it out to the gig on saturday.

And also- thanks SO much to everyone else who came out on Saturday (and sunday too), to support the band(s). We hope we didn't suck. hahaha. It was great seeing friends and not to mention, strangers digging the music. We hope you all had as good a time as we did. Oh! and don't forget to check the upcoming gigs posted on the main website!

Take care, everyone, and good luck on your exams if you have them! Hope to see you again soon.

-Anuroop

Random thoughts at 6 pm

I am thrilled with the gig lineup this summer. As well, new ones will almost certainly pop up to fill in the spaces. I would love to see this momentum keep up even, into the fall.

We had two rehearsals this weekend. On friday we played with Mike Moss, a guitar player I know from the faculty of music at UofT, who played with us at the Local and Loud prelim. round, and is playing with us again next sunday at the finals. The rehearsal went really well. Steve pointed it out in rehearsal, and I'll reiterate it here, but what would have slowed us down would be if we had had to re-teach the songs he'd already learned on top of the new stuff. Fortunately, Mike showed us that as well as being a great player, he also approaches music in a really professional way and was on top of all of the old stuff. I'm so happy that he's playing with us. Before this I just knew him peripherally from a class, but having him play with the band has given us a chance to become friends. He really clicks with all of us, actually.

One more Mike anecdote. Jim is always joking when we're out at a restaurant or whatever that he's going to get five phone numbers. How many phone number's have you gotten so far Jim? Due to Jim's commited relationship, I think realistically the tally of phone numbers is probably bleak. MIKE on the otherhand showed his true mac-daddy status by successfully getting picked up on a subway. LUCKY! *lucky should be spoken ala Napoleon Dynamite, if that wasn't readily apparent*

Saturday we played again, and we did gig prep for next weekend, and worked on some new material. At the last Smiling Buddha gig we premiered five or six songs. This time we have a few new things, but the songs we premiered last time have had kinks worked out, so what you'll see next weekend is a more polished representation of the new wave of JSB tunes.

Look forward to playing, and look forward to connecting with fans twice in one weekend next weekend!

-Scotty

Random thoughts at 6 am

....

I just realized how very therapeutic jamming and performing with the band is. I'm really looking forward to the summer gigs.

On an unrelated note, dave matthews band's next album, 'Stand Up' is being released in a month. I'm sure the other guys share my excitement. I just listened to a clip of 'Joy Ride' and it sounds incredible. There's an organ in the mix which adds a hell of a lot to it, surprisingly. I can't wait for it to come out.

Damnit, I must sleep.

A week and a half away

I didn't really realise until just looking at the calendar how quickly we are about to be swamped with gigs...that means, gig preparation! Also know as, Steve realises he doesn't know lyrics, AGAIN, and struggles to re-learn them...again! Hehe... Yes, next weekend is definitely a biiiig weekend for us, with two gigs that are gonna be awesome...

#1 - Saturday the 16th: Smiling Buddha
After a very successful showing last month at this location, we're going back to rock the College St. area. But this time, we've got a few surprises. Well..they're not really surprises, at least they won't be by the end of this paragraph. This show could be titled 'JSB & Friends' cause that's what it is; we have managed (somehow) to get Zak Sheppard AND Tranquil to start off the show. Now, in case you don't know what this means...these are two acts that have both managed to secure a spot on the 'links' section of our website; that's already indicative of some high-quality music! Hehe, seriously though, we really don't know of any opening acts better than these two, so what more could we ask for? So, make sure you're at that show (especially if you read this blog, cause if you do, I more than likely have the ability to come after you).

#2 - Sunday the 17th: Local and Loud finals, Barrie.
We STILL haven't been notified of the location, but I'm 90% certain it's gonna be the same place as the preliminaries, which is Foundation Night Club. What's interesting about this gig is that we will be competing against, among others, Tranquil! (Who we just shared the stage with the night before) Both bands have been wearing friendly faces for the most part thus far, but really, deep inside we know we are bitter enemies pitted against each other in a war that will claim all but one group. Hehe...nah, it's gonna be a really fun night, that's for sure. Even though as of now we're really unprepared, we've got time and we'll get our act together for sure. The prize for this competition is a (small to medium-sized) recording contract, which would be awesome to get to work in a real studio in the next 6 months or so, and would mean a real sense of accomplishment. There are gonna be some good bands there though, especially Tranny, so we're just gonna give it our best and hope for the best. We also have yet to practise with electric guitar player Mike Moss for this gig again, as La-Nai can't play it with us due to... stuff that's too long to write. But I know she's really bummed that she can't.

"Imagine being killed by a bow and arrow, that would suck, an arrow killed you? They would never solve the crime. 'Look at that dead guy. Let's go that way.'"
-Mitch Hedberg

Ode to Mitch

I'm sure some of you are already aware of this but I think it deserves a post.

One of our favourite stand-up comedians, Mitch Hedberg, died last week. He was 37 and all that I've heard is that it was a heart related matter.

It's really difficult to believe. I mean he was so young and so funny and had an extremely successful career ahead of him. I honestly thought it was a hoax when I first heard it. Firstly because it was close to April Fools Day and secondly because the story just didn't make any sense.

Anyway, he is gone and will be remembered in his timeless jokes. If you haven't seen/heard him yet, do yourself a favour and download some of his stuff. I'm sure you can get clips of his act on all the major download centres. If you really enjoy it then you can also purchase one of his two cds that he released. You really should check it out. His material is unlike anything I've ever heard before and it almost brings me to tears it's so funny.

A classic example is:

I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.

http://www.mitchhedberg.net/