Quanzee

Here's another flick from the gang at Next Week Films (Jesse, Sam and Leif), a pseudo-commercial for a fun new game called Quanzee! A game that has everything- dangerous, speed, teamwork, cunning and in their age demographic. If you're from Winnipeg, see if you can recognize the various locations around the city. Again, this was all filmed in one night and a very loose concept was conceived spontaneously.

Warning: turn down the volume after the credits as there is loud mysterious static that will irritate. Enjoy!

Slow Son

I'm back! I haven't have much access to the computer because Jesse and his pals have been busy making some mini movies. This film was all shot within one day at our house and Sam who plays the father, didn't read from a script as it was all pretty much improvised. J took only a couple of nights to edit and then they posted it on YouTube. This is a very clever film and a promising debut....Stay tuned!

Closed: Gone To The Lake

It's bad enough that there is so much time between posts, but I'll be away for the next 2 weeks so don't expect anything until August. We are heading towards Flin Flon where we have a cabin on the lake near Baker's Narrows (halfway between Cranberry Portage and Flin Flon). Due to the fact we have no internet access, except for the FF Public library with it's primitive dial-up systems, I'll be computer-less for about 13 days! A good time to catch up on all the books I received the last 2 Christmas' and my promise of painting some sweet watercolours...we'll see what happens this year.

Wish I was around for the annual Fringe festival, but I always seem to be away that week. August will be a busy time with my week long coverage of Folklorama, so stay tuned.

I Hate Those Flippys!!

I went to the Winnipeg Folk Festival last year mainly to see J perform on the Young Performers stage. I'm going again this year, just for Friday, but I could definitely live without going to the Folk fest. You see, I used to go every year back in the 80's and early 90's, I used to really enjoy attending for a couple of days sampling different performers and discovering music I would otherwise not listen to. But something happening, I dreaded hauling my ass out to Birds Hill Park dogged down with tarps, backpacks, extra clothes, bug spray, sunscreen, folding chair, cooler...you get the picture. Kind of like going to the beach without the water. The kid's didn't want to watch the music, they wanted to play in the sandbox or paint or run around, crap they could do in the city for free.

I'm going to pay $57 (before tax and the convenience fee...why do I have to pay a CF if I buy the ticket at the gate?) so I can my watch my son play 2 songs, what a f*cking rip! I looked at the program tonight and there is nothing that interests me at all on Friday and then there's the people that attend the Festival, I can't stand those phonies. My co-worker (Brian) and I were spewing our hatred of the Folk Fest and he came up with a great term..Flippys. Flippys are those annoying people that are hippies for the weekend, kind of pseudo-hippies that flip from their otherwise conservative 9-5 suit and tie attire, to dressing down in their $200 cut-offs, tie-dye t-shirt, headband, beads and those stupid looking tilley hats. I guess this is their idea of slumming.

All things aside, the music is still the best part, so I will try to record J's performance, stay tuned I will post the songs on the Teenage Dogs blog . Should be entertaining, I'll let you know how thrilling Friday at the Winnipeg Folk Festival really is.

MPLS, The Place That I Like Best *

It's been over two weeks since I spent a short, but sweet vacation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Actually, I was there 5 days and 4 nights, the longest time I have spent in the Twin Cities. I was thinking the other day about how I have been to Minneapolis more than any other city, It is the closest large city within one day's drive and there is so much to do and see every time I go.

The first time I visited Minneapolis it was on a school trip with my University Art class. Every year the first-year students get the opportunity to visit world-class art galleries, the Walker Art Centre (which houses Modern Art) and the Minneapolis Institute Of Arts (old masters and museum style) and we stayed in a hotel close to the old bus depot in downtown Minneapolis, just off Hennepin. We were within walking distances of all the shopping and all the cool night spots (this is the mid-80's pre-Mall Of America), I spent hours in Northern Lights Records, Let It Be Records and a variety of bookstores (some even adult) on the strip. I also took in a North Stars game as one of my classmates was a friend of Mike Luit (goalie of the St. Louis Blues) and by coincidence the Stars were playing the Blues at the Met Centre in nearby Bloomington, which is now the site of the Ikea by the MOA. This trip was monumental of many reasons, it was the first time I visited a large city without my parents and it introduced me to a whole pile of new indie music that I had never been exposed to in Winnipeg..yes, the records I bought are considered high priced imports in Canada.

My second visit was on the fourth-year art school trip, I became more adventurous and went to the First Avenue nightclub for the first time. It wasn't to see a band, but it was some sort of disco inferno type of thing, it must of been around the Prince Purple Rain-era of the club, so it was a very popular nightspot. I just remember you had to sign your name so the security staff could compare your signature with your photo ID (in these days Manitoba didn't have photo ID yet) and they had metal detectors at the door (this was pre-911 security measures). I also discovered Loring Park which was across the freeway from the Walker Art Centre, a large green space and pond on the edge of downtown. I spent a nice afternoon in this park with my friend Deb feeding the giant mutant-sized Black squirrels that inhabited the park.

Through the late eighties I went to Minneapolis because my girlfriend's family attended Minicon (yeah I'm not joking, a Sci-Fi convention!) and I knew it was another chance to invade all the other great record stores in the surrounding area. Down In the Valley, Electric Fetus, Roadrunner, Garage D'Or, Aardvark, Oakfolkjokeopus, Know-Name and one of the largest record stores I've seen, Cheapo. I also went to even more North Stars games including a playoff game and one of the last ever North Stars games in their history (until the Wild came along).

I seem to visit Minneapolis almost on an annual basis, the occasion is usually to see a band that won't be coming to Winnipeg in the near future or in this most recent case my wife's business trip. There are places that are becoming habit in recent years, the Mall Of America of course, I tend to stay in Bloomington near the MOA, but this year it was on 11th and Marquette in downtown Mpls. I really like the Uptown area (Lake/Hennepin) as there seems to be plenty of cool stores, unique restaurants and clubs a plenty. I still check-out some of the record (CD) stores as this time I revisited Electric Fetus (I haven't been there for years) and it still reeks of incense and they still have a section of smoking accessories(pipes etc.), overall an excellent CD store. I saw Fountains Of Wayne at the First Avenue and I attended a concert/interview with writer/musician Laurie Lindeen and friends (Paul Westerberg, Steve Wynn, Mark Olson and Lindeen's ex-band, Zuzu's Petals reunion) at the legendary Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul. Speaking of St. Paul, after I took this picture of Mickey's Diner in downtown St.Paul, I went back to my hotel room and flicked on the TV and watched the Mighty Ducks movie. There was a scene where the coach Gordon (Emilio Estevez) talks to one of his players (the one whose mother the coach has a crush on) inside this very diner where his mother is a waitress. The movie was filmed in and around the Minneapolis/St.Paul area, thought that was kind of funny.

I always have a great time in Mpls and I feel very comfortable finding my way around this big city. It's starting to make sense when large cities have numbered streets and avenues, much easier to find places, just remember to factor in the north, south, east and west. If I ever had to move to an American city, it would definitely be Minneapolis.

Paul Westerberg (Grandpaboy)- Mpls mp3
(*The title for this blog entry is in the lyrics of this song.) I saw Paul perform this time for a couple of songs at his wife's (Lindeen) show, as well as in 2002 when he performed solo at the Guthrie Theatre. One of my all time favourite performers, would love to have seen the Replacements.

Lucinda Williams- Minneapolis mp3
While I was in Minneapolis, Lucinda was in playing in Winnipeg, is that weird or what?

Help, I'm Obsessed!!

...Obsessed with Facebook and Myspace! (I'll get to that later)

So sorry for the lack of updates (I've been distracted), since my last post The Ducks won the Stanley Cup and Paris Hilton went to jail, twice. I don't think I really need to talk about Paris because every other blogger and news media has full time coverage already. So, how about those Ducks! Imagine a team full of Canadians playing in California, carrying the Stanley Cup on the beach and the Governator claiming to be a hockey fan. I must admit I felt good for the Ducks, I really don't like the Senator's that much and it'll be worth it to see Stephen Harper wearing a Ducks jersey in Parliament.

Myspace.com is pretty cool, it's a fast and painless way to post songs and self-promote an otherwise unknown band. It's easy to use and the adding friends feature is a nice way of knowing someone might be looking at your site. When I have more time, I'll post some new songs and possibly works in progress on the Zamboni Joe myspace, to get some response from the millions (dozens?) that are reading.

A similar, but quite different social networking website is Facebook.com. The cool thing about Facebook is you can invite (or get invited by) friends and/or co-workers/classmates to join networks and in simple terms talk amongst yourselves. You write your personal profile and provide as much or little information that you want. You can control who sees your profile (only friends, only people on your network, or everyone) and with added applications you can add music, movie reviews, video, horoscopes, quizzes etc. The main highlight is the sharing of photos much like Flickr, where you can set up photo albums from events, family gatherings or random. You can also give status reports about what you are doing or thinking about at the time of posting. It's fun to search to see if you can seek out a lost love from High School or ex-co-workers or you can just browse for attractive people. So far it's a lot more fun and time consuming that I originally thought, it sometimes could be classified as "Too much information", but it'll allow me to post lots of photos from shows I've attended and events such as Folklorama.

If you're registered on Facebook and want to be my "friend" click my "add to friend" on my profile.

What Are They Waiting For? It's Almost Summer!

Well, actually here in ice-box city Winnipeg we may hit 0 degrees tonight, so it is anything but Summer weather. I think we had our Summer two weeks ago when we peaked at 32 degrees for a couple of days, it's amazing how we can have 3 season's worth of temperatures during the course of a week.

Which brings me to the question, what is the NHL waiting for? The Stanley Cup finals are set to begin on Monday May 28th, 6 days after the last series ended. The Ducks finished off the Wings on Tuesday (Ottawa knocked off Buffalo last weekend) and if there was to be a seventh game it would have been played Thursday. we're left with almost a week of NO hockey and a possibility of game 7 in the middle of June, talk about dragging on the season. Anyone that knows me knows there aren't too many more obsessed fans like myself, but even I want to get on with Spring or Summer or whatever it is? To me the most exciting hockey is played during the first two series, multiple games each night, endless highlights, upsets... I love it!

For whatever reason, I find it hard to call the Ottawa Senators Canada's team, I've never liked them and I still have a hard time cheering for the team. Sure they boast an amazing line with Spezza, Heatley and Alfredsson, but I'm not a huge Emery fan, nor do I like Bryan Murray's coaching (or GM-ing), and to top it off I think I saw PM Stephen Harper wearing a Sen's jersey. The Anaheim Ducks though have so much to like especially their Manitoba connections. Teemu Selanne is one of the greatest players to wear a Winnipeg Jet's jersey, coach Randy Carlyle played on the Jet's and coached the Manitoba Moose, and Winkler Manitoba's Dustin Penner is a solid winger on their second line. It's a bonus to see both teams stacked with so many key Canadian born players on their rosters: Ducks- Giguere, Getzlaf, Perry, Pronger, McDonald, Beauchemin and the Niedermeyer's. Senator's- Redden, Phillips, Emery, Heatley and Spezza. I can guarantee this will make Don Cherry very happy.

So get off your ass and enjoy our first hockey-free weekend since last September, because we're headed to the home-stretch. Go outside, see the wife and kid's, barbeque something, just enjoy the Spring while you can, because if you sit on the couch too long, you might miss it.

Zamboni Joe On MySpace

Here's a shameless plug, my band (the semi-retired) Zamboni Joe now has internet presence with a page at www.myspace.com/zambonijoeband. We have posted 4 songs (live and living room) for your enjoyment or amusement. I'm also writing blogs on that site (along of course with www.teenagedogsintrouble.blogspot.com, my music blog), to provide some information and history about this legendary hockey-rock band. We're also looking for friends that want to have their profile picture plastered on our page, please add us as friends, we're so desperate!

Zamboni Joe hasn't played an official show since September 2005, but I've done a few solo performances and if we're tempted with big $$, I'm sure we might be talked into getting back together as a band for another show.

TV Star or Scar?

Just a quick update on my friend S.
On Monday, CTV news aired an interview with S to give details of her attack that occurred over a week before. S (CTV does give her name, but to give her some privacy, I won't here) and a friend were out to rent a movie (at that video store in the photo) and they were swarmed by a group of girls, they proceeded to kick, punch and jump on her head saying they would kill her and break her neck. To try to escape the beating, she ran into oncoming traffic only to have cars swerve around her and avoided the call for help for someone in trouble. A family with kids finally did stop and the attack ended, leaving S with various injuries. The good news is that S looks and sounds really good and she seems to be taking this whole thing quite well.

What kind of bugs me is this incident wasn't mentioned on any other media (newspaper, radio or other TV networks) and it probably only aired then because of the death of Erin Pawlowski, the 35 year-old North Ender that was returning home from work and was beaten at a bus stop on Selkirk Ave two Thursday's ago (he died of his injuries this Monday). The suspects of S's case are 5 girls estimated to be 14 years old, my question is, have the police been investigating this before the news report or do they consider this a waste of time?

Another Fine Week

Earlier this week I was suppose to meet a friend of mine for lunch to discuss plans for a project this summer we are co-coordinating. Well, I was shocked to hear she couldn't make it because she was the victim of an assault, she and a friend were attacked as they took a Sunday evening stroll down Main Street. This wasn't the scary part of Main St. near the Northern Hotel (close to Selkirk Ave.) or downtown, nope, this was north of Inkster when it turns into one of the Kildonan's, a seemingly quiet area. Twenty years ago I used to hang out at the North Main Sals for late night coffee, pie and card games (as well as watch my girlfriend and her pals chain-smoke) for hours.

She was attacked by a group of teenage (probably underage) girls who proceeded to beat and kick the crap out of her, totally unprovoked. Before I go on I should mention she (I'll call her "S") had no crap in her to start with, S is a sweet, kind person who is not threatening in any way, probably all the more reason to target her. S was left with a broken leg and multiple facial injuries, she felt she was lucky because she wasn't killed, as they tried to snap her neck and smash her head. I'm sure she has never experienced anything like this before, physically she'll recover, but emotionally it will take longer, but I know she has a real strong character and drive, so she'll be alright. Oh, and of course they took her purse, I'm not sure if this was the incentive, the reason they attacked her or if it was the added bonus after they satisfied their thirst for blood. All week this incident has caused much bitterness in my mind, If I feel all this anger towards this stupid senseless act, how does her family and friends feel?

Like many Winnipegger's, there is a feeling of frustration with our justice system. S's uncle told me that the police said to her it was pointless to pursue any action against the assailants because the law (yet again!) can't touch them. Too young, means at most a slap on the wrist. Our city has been plagued with a huge rash of car thefts by young offenders and the public outcry hit it's peak after a stolen car of boys aged 13 to 16 ran down a jogger on Wellington Cres. It's one thing to repeatedly steal cars, but now attempted murder is added to the game. Obviously these kids treat the law as a joke with no clue of how their actions affect the lives of others and until they face some cold hard reality, they won't stop. If the police force's lackadaisical attitude towards young offenders continues, we shouldn't be surprised when citizen's start to take the law into their own hands. On the same day I talked to S, I watched a report on the news about a website that was letting it's viewer's express their anger towards crime in our city. The site Winnipegtheft.com had published the names of the youth that ran over the jogger (actually someone posted a news clip on YouTube that posted the names, the YouTube video is now unavailable), and technically since there is a law that prohibits the publication of the names of criminals under a certain age, the police are thinking about taking legal action. So I'm wondering, should we name all criminals no matter their age or at least name repeat offenders that didn't learn the first time? Try to guess which way I'm leaning? Let me know what you think.

NHL Playoffs = Red Eyes At Work

Did anyone watch all the Canucks/Stars game on Wednesday? This game ended at about the 18 minute mark of the Fourth overtime with the Canucks taking game 1. I ended up watching the 3rd and 4th overtimes in bed (I have a TV there), but drifted off just enough to miss the goal. When I opened my eyes at 4:00am CST, I saw Mansbridge reading the (old) news on the National. How can I dedicate watching 7 periods of hockey and then miss the overtime goal? It's like reading most of a mystery novel without finding out who did it cause the last pages are missing. Oh well, that's why they have highlights on the Sports News and for the modern fan, YouTube.

Got to warn you, I may talk about the Playoffs a lot on this blog, so if you have any predictions or observations thus far, please leave a comment. Also the Moose start their Playoff run next week..GO Moose!!

War Games - The Complete Version

I know this is a stupid post, but I found this in my Inbox:

To all viewers who contacted us about the movie WarGames
Please note that Programming has rescheduled the movie to air in its entirety on April 19, 9 pm ET: http://www.visiontv.ca/Programs/movies.html

Thank you for watching VisionTV

VisionTV
Audience Relations
www.visiontv.ca

This is in reply from my January 30th posting about how VisionTV cut the last few minutes of that 80's classic WarGames. Yup, it's not groundbreaking news, but I thought you all should see this update. Kudos to VisionTV for listening, but unfortunately for them watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs is taking priority in my TV watching schedule for the next few months.

Canada vs US- Was There Any Doubt?

The Women's World Hockey Championship has been taking place here in Winnipeg for the past week and it all comes to a close Tuesday night with the Gold Medal game featuring Canada and the US, yet again. I went to the playoff round robin game between those two teams and it was without doubt the most exciting game I've seen this year at the MTS Centre. Canada won that game 5-4 in a shootout, it was a back and forth see-saw battle that should add to the fire for Tuesday's sold-out final. I hate to say this, but Canada and the US are so dominant that they both have shutout all their other opponents, except when they've played each other (actually the US let in one goal against China 9-1), problem is that it leads to fairly boring one-sided hockey games. Maybe they should skip all the preliminaries and have just a Canada/US best of 7 final, I think that's what the people really want.

During the intermission at Saturday's Canada/US game, they brought out the 1990 Gold Medal team (Vicky Sunohara is the only current Canadian player from that team) for a reunion to celebrate the first World Championship that was played in Ottawa. Back then Canada beat teams 17-0, 18-0, in the preliminary round (3 games) they out-scored their opposition 50-1. They went on to beat the US in the final 5-2. To commemorate this event the 2007 Canada team wore their original Pink style jerseys from 1990, I guess the idea back then is it had to be girly so Pink it was, it is now the much more intimidating RED. If you want to own a game-worn jersey from that game, the individual player jersey's are up for auction from Hockey Canada on eBay.

For all you hometown Jennifer Botterill fans, I found her High School grad photo circa' 1997 from St. John's Ravenscourt, before she attended Harvard. She is definitely the best female hockey player to ever come out of Winnipeg.

Good Luck! go Canada!!

Please, I Need A Laptop!

Sorry for the long hiatus, it was Spring Break, yet I didn't go to Mexico or Fort Lauderdale or take any time off work. My excuse, I got less computer time. Yes, the kid's have nothing better to do on their Spring Break except chat on MSN, check their e-mail's continuously, update their postings on Facebook/MySpace and play endless hours of computer (video) games. They stayed up later, which meant less time for my late night ramblings, I've gotten so tired waiting for a turn that I've been going to bed in record time.

One solution is portability. A laptop I could take into my room or take to a coffee shop or take to work (maybe not a good idea?), somewhere where I can write and post instantly instead of waiting until 2am. It doesn't need to be too fancy, some basic bells and whistles, the ability to still download and burn music would be good and I already have a external hard drive for extra space. Any donations or recommendations for a cheap laptop would be graciously appreciated.

Live At The Academy, Winnipeg Style

I've posted a quick review and some mp3's of Jesse's show from last Thursday night March 1 on my other blog, Teenage Dogs In Trouble. If you love indie (and not so indie) music this might be the site for you, I try to keep that blog exclusively about music and music related stuff. I listen to music on a daily basis, so my Ipod is full of the newest releases (..and leaked upcoming releases), so it gives me great pleasure to share my thoughts and recommendations with the world. If there's any bands or upcoming shows I might be interested, please let me know..I'm a bit of a music geek.

Thursday Night Live!

If your in the mood for some live music on a Thursday night (March 1st), drop by the Academy Bar and Eatery before 8:00pm as Jesse Miki and friends will perform. Jesse's friends' will probably include his sister, Alex and Leif, from Locker 369,( who he's opening for) and it promises to be an interesting mix of rock, jazz, folk and whatever.

There's probably a minimal cover charge, but get there early as both these groups have a large (student) fan following. Hopefully I'll have some photos to post in the next few days, as well as some sound samples if I record the show.

Kibo - The Wrap-up! Part 2

If you don't know what the Kibo concert was all about or you don't live in Winnipeg here's a some background. I know this might be boring some people (sorry), so this is the last post on the subject, then I'll get on with my life.

On Saturday, rehearsals began at 10:00am and ran through until late afternoon. I arrived at the Theatre around 10:30am and drank as much coffee as I could before practicing our piece. The finale rehearsal ran smoothly despite many changes and add-ons on how to finish the finale. The whole show seemed so surreal, I never felt any panic or nervousness, but instead an almost serene feeling. I guess this was in part because our piece was so close to the beginning and it didn't have time to let the anxiety build. It sure felt nice that I didn't have to stage manage or worry about other performers.

One of my favourite parts of the evening was the intermission, I went out to the lobby to see if there was anyone I knew that came to watch. Apart from the usual family, I spoke to my ex-prof from University, artist Ivan Eyre, he was shocked to see me on stage. Not only is Ivan one of Canada's most well-known artists, he's a great person, teacher and very humble. I also briefly spoke to a few of my sister's friend's, Kathy and Tannis, as well as a bunch of customers' from the store I work at. After the intermission, Shayna and I grabbed some drinks and returned to the balcony to take in the second half of the show.

After the concert, the performers were invited to the Japanese-Canadian Cultural Centre for some Chinese food and drink. When I say drink, I don't mean beer or wine but Sake! This was a great way to wind down after a long tiring day, I of course resisted the urge to indulge too much (the weather was a little rough that night), but instead enjoyed blasking in our brief triumph. While the Taiko performers noisily chugged Sake, I sipped Coke's and enjoyed catching up with my pal Sumi, from the Aurora Dance group.

As I said yesterday, the show went off pretty much without a glitch, it would have been nicer to have a full house, but at least we had the opportunity to perform in the grand Pantages Playhouse Theatre. The big stage, the blinding lights and the crystal clear sound could become addictive for a performer, I had never appeared on a stage larger than the West End Cultural Centre (unless you count grade 8 band at the Centennial Concert Hall), and I would welcome the opportunity to do something like this again. It was fun, but it's time to move on to the next project.
The photos on stage are from the rehearsal in the afternoon, while the group photos were taken before and after the show.

Kibo - The Review? Part 1

Since the Winnipeg Free Press has their continued fascination (ass-kissing) with celebrities, giving washed up actor/wannabee rocker, Dennis Quaid yet more front page exposure in Sunday's paper, of course they failed to mention anything about the Kibo concert. Not that I was really expecting much, but since the Free Press was one of their major corporate sponsors, I thought they might write a review or at least publish a photo from the show.

The audience was told before the show, "no photos will be allowed during the performance!", so any quality pictures from the show will be rare and hard to come by (let me know if you have any good photos from the show, especially during the Brent/Geoff/Shayna song). I remembered to bring my camera, so I attempted to take as many photos as possible. After performing my piece with Shayna and Brent, I snuck up to the front row of the balcony and snapped away... sans flash, the result was some very blurry shots. The zoom on my camera doesn't really have much zoom, so the least blurry shots are the more distant looking. Earlier in the day during dress rehearsal, I took the opportunity to take some closer-up photos as well as some casual candids. My regret is that I didn't get any decent shots of the out of town performers, Kaoru Watanabe, Shoji Kameda and Chieko Kojima. All the other performers in the show had to make their way backstage for the finale piece, so I missed virtually all of their dance, drum and flute performance, I was told their piece was incredible, and I managed to get a glimpse of Chieko's dance from the side of the stage.

Overall I think the show was a success, I'm not sure how much money was raised or how many seats were sold. The middle section on the floor was full, but the left and right sections were only full half way up, then there was several rows of empty seats, but the last couple of rows ($35 tickets) were occupied. The balcony was closed to the public, but many of the performers found their way up from backstage. Rumor has it the show was being video recorded (from the balcony beside the sound/lighting table) and may be distributed to the performers which I'm surely looking forward to.

There were many highlights, as previously mentioned Chieko, Shoji and Kaoru were great, Hinode Taiko were busy with their own numbers (including one I haven't seen before, Stress, which even drew some laughs) as well as a collaboration with the Aurora Dancers on V.

The Aurora Dancers probably had the most stage time from beginning to end. The beauty of their pieces and the calm gentleness of their movements always finds a soft spot in my heart.

Musically, the show was solid, Michael Oike is truly gifted, a professional pianist who performed some Schumann as well as accompanying his niece, Alex Allen, who danced to a piece called, Hitori Botchi, Yuugata no uta.

Singer Shayna Paulicelli belted out First Love, a song in Japanese and English, she has an amazing voice and look for big things from her in the very near future (can we say Canadian Idol?). Shayna also joined Brent and myself for Okaasan no uta, which is a fairly haunting, yet quite lovely song. It was a pleasure to play guitar for these two talented singers, I think it sounded okay, except for when the sound cut out at the beginning of the guitar intro. I had accidentally pulled the cord out of the DI (direct input) box at the side of the stage when it snagged on one of the layers of curtains. Special thanks to Pam Okano for thinking of me for the guitar part.

An interesting element to the evening was the readings that members of the community gave in honor of a grandparent or relative. As Wayne Sato, Karleen Manchanda, Russell Kunz, and Kristen and Stacey Matsumoto each read their relative's profile, images flashed behind them to give some insight and perspective to the audience. The use of the images on screen were most effective in the first piece of the night, Hajime ni ("in the beginning")- "out of hardship and dislocation, a community is born and thrives. The roots of Manitoba's Japanese-Canadian community are outlined in this multi-artist, multimedia creation developed for the concert" (as quoted from the program book).

The photos posted today are from the actual show (again I apologize for the blurriness), in the next posting I'll display some group shots and some behind the scene rehearsal photos.