Tuesday, July 5, 2011

New website on the internet

The time has come. We now officially own a place on the internet called http://tribehouse.org. Yup, we've got our very own site where we have a place to keep our podcasts, posts, events, and all the other stuff that happens.

We'd love to get your input on it, so while you're on the internet you might as well pop on over to see some of the latest musings here: http://tribehouse.org.

Thanks to Google and Blogspot for hosting us the last couple of months for free though. Always a good time.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Lille Gard Compilation and random video

Lots of people have been asking "What is Lille Gard". Fair question. So our friend Joel Thiessen created a great little 1 minute video montage featuring Ari & Jen Neufeld, Andrew Smith, Michael Donley, Sylas Boesten, and a pile of others which will leave you asking more questions which in this case is extremely entertaining.



There's also a 23 song digital compilation album which is now available for download. It's unreal - all the artists who are playing at this grassroots music fest have graciously donated one of their tunes so that we could sell it to you (nudge nudge, wink wink) and pay for things like portapotties. Neat eh?



Full album (& others) is here as well.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Tribehouse Art Leaks Blideo #4 - Nikki & James Balfour

Nikki Balfour & James Balfour - doing their thang
by Nico Boesten
Interpretive dancing...yup - heard of that. But interpretive live painting with a custom spinning easel who got her start hanging work at a Starbucks? Yup, it happens. And it happened.

This Tribehouse Art Leaks Blideo features a local (Kelowna) couple that has more creativity in their belly-button lint than most people have in their entire brain meat. Speaking of meat, meet Nikki Balfour, a visual artist who does mainly abstract pieces and currently has her stuff hung at the Streaming Cafe.

The couple came and spoke at a Katalyst artist gathering on June 2, 2011 where Nikki portrayed with paint onto a canvas what she was hearing her husband (James) play on his guitar. Watch the vid to see it in action and find out more about how they got started and stuff.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Songwriter Circles, well actually half-a-circle

by Nico Boesten

These songwriter circles have been super cool. This 2nd one we've tried featured some local familiars and some recently-local-not-so-familiar faces.

Brent Tyler
Let me take a minute to introduce the newest addition to our great city of Kelowna, Brent Tyler. This guy actually really blew me away. He was introduced to the "tribe" via Ari Neufeld and has been touring like a jack rabbit on crack for a few years now. And by "touring" I mean doing a bit of travelling but mainly playing cover tunes in a variety of Calgary pubs to a bunch of drunks. What he explained was that he was making a good living doing that, but apparently drunk people don't really want to hear anything other than "Sweet Caroline" or "Brown-eyed girl". So he spent a year of his life (& piles of dough) recording a super high quality album entitled "In Rhythm" with some legit industry people, moved to Kelowna a couple of weeks ago, and has begun to venture into the world of "making it work" in the singer-songwriter world hopefully playing to more sober people. Understanding that this road ahead of him is crawling with obstacles, competition, and an overwhelming amount of noise, he's following his heart and doing what he loves. Not only were his songs insanely strong but he had the vocal & guitar chops of a wild animal - like imagine a rabid badger who could sing like Ray LaMontagne and play guitar like Martin Sexton - it'd be close to that. Welcome to Kelowna Mr. Tyler.

We also had some old (sorry, didn't mean it like that) familiar faces like Graham Ord who has the phenomenal gift of making people feel like a billion bucks. Probably the best songwriter circle host in this universe I might add. Mark Irving is also a common face around here and he played a few tunes off his new record about to be launched into the hands of humans in a couple of weeks (which was beauty). Then, Rachel MacGregor also shared some of her stories and music which was a unique experience as she's normally joined by her sister. I didn't realize she had won a handful of awards including the International Songwriting Competition & the John Lennon songwriting comp a few years ago as well. Nice work. It was a swell night thanks to the artists, Streaming Cafe, and all the sober people who came out to listen.
Songwriter Circle Jun 17, 2011

You can almost smell the silk with this photo, except they aren't silk so that would also decrease your chances.

Graham Ord - not only is it funny to hear WHAT he's saying, but also HOW

Graham Ord


Rachel MacGregor

Mark Irving. And yes, I think the bridge on his guitar is called a mustache or something.



Thanks to Carrie Harper for taking pictures - not only is she a great artist, but apparently also a great photographer.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Ari Neufeld and his new full contact folk release

There have been a few different artists that have claimed themselves as being a "One-man-band" and if there was an iTunes genre for this kind of musician, Ari Neufeld would be right at the top waving a huge flag. I'm not sure why he'd be holding a flag, it just seems appropriate.

Ari's tagged the phrase Full Contact Folk and I think on one of his promo pieces he actually dropped "Kung-fu Folk" and this is because his instruments including his feet banging on a box, shells tied to his shins, bells tied to his knees, and piles of sound effects made with his voice. Of course, I remember Ari writing tunes when he was 15 years old that made me shake my head with jealousy and awe. Some of those tunes still ring around my head and will never leave. There's something magical about this guy and now when I hear Ari play my heart swells with pride at how he has refined and redefined his craft of combining music and art.

He's going to be launching his very first live CD and DVD with what will inevitably be an epic experience at the Streaming Cafe on July 16. But he's chosen some really creative ways to help raise money for this project including a tiered package option for his fans to get plugged in using Rockethub. This being his 5th or 7th album or something (sorry, lost track) is super refreshing because it totally captures what he does live (obviously).



This album "Ari Neufeld - Live at the Dream Cafe" is a killer album with some great performances of some new tunes as well as some of the "classics". It'll be great to support him and see this dream of his come true (sorry for the lame pun) because he recorded this puppy at an amazing venue in Penticton with some amazing videographers, audio engineers, and not to mention that he totally nailed his performances of these 10 tunes. As usual, amazing.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Shabby Road Beatles Bash



Well, after the super sweet involvement from musicians across the globe with the Johnny Cash Bash, we had to do another one...hence the Shabby Road Beatles Bash: a cover song challenge for any type of artist out there to record a Beatles cover tune.

Why include the word "Shabby" in the title, you ask? Check out the picture & watch the video for instructions (or read below if you like reading).

HUH? HOW DO I GET INVOLVED?
1. Decide on a BEATLES cover tune you'd like to do and record it using 1 mic / 1 video / 1 take with the instrument of your choice (no edits for musicians but if you're a visual artist or dancer etc., you can be more creative)

2. Upload your video to Youtube and include the word TRIBEHOUSE in the title. (Eg. Tribehouse Beatles Bash "yellow submarine")

3. Hop on over to our Tribehouse Facebook event page and click on "ATTENDING".

4. Brush your teeth and hair. (optional)

5. Post your Youtube link on this event page and watch the comments soar in like a flock of eagles but watch your ego batman.

On July 4 we'll post all of the Youtube vids in a blog post. Don't worry, we'll send ya a link and post it here as well.

It'll be a fun little way to see people from all over the galaxy posting their versions of Beatles tunes and who knows, maybe we'll even have some posts from some visual artists & belly dancers.

Have phun.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Tribehouse Art Leaks Blideo #3 - Peter Helms chats about art & hope

In this Art Leaks blideo, Graham Ord interviewed the one and only Peter Helms - an artist, speaker, philosopher, and international man of mystery with a really thick Dutch accent. He shares his theories and thoughts on art, faith, and hope.




What are your thoughts on this? Agree or disagree?

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Blideo #2 - Gabrielle Papillon and Ambre McLean

by Nico Boesten

A few weeks ago I had the pre-show privilege to catch up with indie folk road warrior artists Gabrielle Papillon and Ambre McLean who shared 3 great little secrets about how they survive (& succeed) at being an indie artist:

1. How to book a tour
2. Where to print cheap, short run CDs and
3. How to stay sane on the road when (or if) things don't go as planned.



They played the Streaming Cafe on April 16, 2011 so you can check out their performance(s) out here for Ambre McLean & here for Gabrielle Papillon. Thanks for the interview guys (and by guys I mean gals).

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Lottery Grants with CIRAA - C'mon, it's worth a try

by Nico Boesten

There are a few things that almost every independent artist loves: money, winning the lottery & a good acronym. Like CIRAA.

How about having all of them though. Allow myself to explain myself...

I just found a killer new program that the CIRAA (Canadian Independent Recording Artists' Association) is offering to indie musicians on a lottery basis called the Groundbreaker Grant.

Here's how it works:

You play a gig.
You signup and become a member of CIRAA (free).
You type in a couple of quick details about your gig(s).
20 people will be given a $100 grant (yup, free money) per month.

You can get up to $1200 this way per year and it takes like 3 minutes to put your info in there. And it's free.

All mind-blowing details here.

SOCAN also has some cool ways for you to make extra money on gigs you've already played but this is a new thing that's being introduced. Last I checked, CIRAA has about 4000 members so your chances of winning are (insert math equation here) pretty good I think. If you win or apply, let us know.

PS: If you don't know who the CIRAA is, it's similar to the CIA except it has nothing to do with spies, guns, black suits, movies, or highly classified operations. But they are both non-profits that are tied in to the government...

(from their site)
CIRAA is Canada's only national non-profit organization dedicated exclusively to Canadian independent recording artists. They are totally into:
  1. promoting progressive Canadian Content rules that will ensure more airplay for emerging Canadian artists; and
  2. working to secure increased funding for unsigned artists from government, private radio broadcasters and other players within the music industry infrastructure.
They also have a super helpful podcast where they interview professionals in the music industry who pass on tips about grants, booking, publicity, marketing, and a ton of others here.

Hope you find this helpful. If not, click here for a totally off-topic Sexy Sax Man viral video of the week.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Katalyst Artist Gatherings

Well, about 9 months ago, Graham Ord & Jason Vance started this little gathering meeting once a month at the Streaming Cafe. There have been so many different inspiring artists who have shared about their craft, how they got into it, and a chance to show off some of their work.

Some of the past artists have been guys like Dave Watland (visual artist), Mark Stone (writer), Andrew Smith (musician & rage activist), Coey Doak (musician) and then last night we had an amazing time with some local filmmakers / animation superstars Paul Cotton & Todd Ramsay.

These guys shared some amazing footage of stuff they've shot - everything from Big White promo flicks to seasonal time lapses to animated pickles plucking their nose hairs animated to some crazy bluegrass tune. Basically, for the love of all that is good and decent, check out their site(s).

It was so cool to be able to meet so many new people from the video community as well - there are some serious people in town here that have skills to pay the bills. Thanks again to Paul & Todd for showing off in a really humble way. Solid stuff boys.

Next month on June 2 from 7-9pm we'll be having a few Balfours (literally 3) with Nikki Balfour (visual artist), Jimmy Balfour (musician), and Jessica Balfour (photographer) sharing their brains with us. Should be good.

Remember, it's open to anyone and if there's a Canucks game on we could always stream it on the TVs there like we did this past week...







Blideo #1: Carrie Harper makes iPhone 4 covers from original art


By Nico Boesten
Every once in a while I win stuff. Not the Lotto or anything, but a free Tim Horton's coffee or a vaccuum consultation.

Well, the other day, I got a Facebook message from a rad local visual artist (Carrie Harper from the Pear Workshop) saying "You won an art skin for an iPhone 4". Sick.

It was such a creative idea and way for a visual artist to make money that I had to interview her and find out some more about who she is and what she does. I had met her at Artwalk last year and was super impressed with her unique style but this latest idea was brilliant.

We are now talking about collaborating on an idea that would combine a fundraising event with art, iPhone skins, music, and beverages. More to come, but for now just watch the vid and then check out her site or go and buy one of her iPhone art skins here.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Johnny Cash Bash

Well, about a month after we posted the Johnny Cash Cover song challenge on Facebook,
there were 22 artists from 13 different cities, 3 random countries, and 2 different sexes who posted some amazing Johnny Cash cover tunes.

The rules were to simply record yourself with no edits using a computer or a single camera so the trickery of autotune and super-hero video splice editors wouldn't be able to cover up the raw beauty of artists sharing their tunes. Musically naked.

So, feel free to go through all of the videos here or below and thanks to Google Maps, there's a nice little visual for you to see where all the submissions came from. Thanks Google.








View Johnny Cash Bash in a larger map

A massively huge thanks from Tribehouse to everyone who made this happen. There seems to be a lot of interest in this sort of thing so we may fire another one up shortly. Right now you can find all the events on our Facebook page though.

Ain't No Grave
Arno Jordan (Dresden, Germany)

God's Gonna Cut You Down
Norm Strauss (Kelowna, BC)

The Long black Veil
Sarah Arseneault (Delta, BC)

Give my love to Rose
Graham Ord (Kelowna, BC)

For Heaven's sake
Rachel Taylor (Boston, MA)

Satisfied Mind
Jane Eamon: (Cornwall, ON)

The Wanderer
Nico Boesten (Kelowna, BC)

Jackson
Paul & Betsy Phillips (New York, NY)

Hurt
Dennis Shepit (Abbotsford, BC)

Further on up the road
Bob Oldfield (Vernon, BC)

Boy Named Sue
Blu Hopkins (Salmon Arm, BC)

Folsom Prison Blues
David Blair (Vancouver, BC)

Sea of Heartbreak
Norbert Binder (Dresden, Germany)

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
Zachari Smith (Vancouver, BC)

Don't take your guns to town
Richard Pepper (Thunder Bay, ON)

Cause I love you
Doug Anderson (Saskatoon, SK)

If I give my soul
Paul Phillips (New York, NY)

It Ain't Me Babe
Darren Foulds (Thunder Bay, ON)

Rusty Cage
Robin Harbron (Thunder Bay, ON)

Personal Jesus
Kevin Boese (Abbotsford, BC)

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Facebook - converting your profile to a page


by Nico Boesten

This whole Facebook thing has changed the way most people in this universe communicate which is why I was this article is fascinating & could be extremely useful for a ton of people.

Basically, when Facebook starting taking off, a ton of people started adding personal profile pages on behalf of businesses / bands / companies and adding as many people as possible as "friends". Or, in my case, I started a Facebook profile to let people know about the new business I was starting.

But, the big difference between a Facebook Profile and Facebook Page is that with a PROFILE you have to add people as friends and get their permission to connect with you whereas with a PAGE, people can "LIKE" your page without you even knowing. It's open to the world. The other thing is that, let's say you posted some pictures of you beating a goose on your profile page... or some random and embarrassing shots of you drinking punch from a bowl on a roof at a superbowl party that you want all your real friends to see, but not any of your Facebook friends / fans / stalkers to see. This is where you're much better off to just have a Facebook PAGE instead and only post stuff on there that relates to your art / business / craft. Get it?

So, let's say you're like some of the people in our community who are musicians but never bothered to start a PAGE and don't want to have to "FRIEND" complete strangers in order to let them know about your music. Now you can convert your PROFILE to a PAGE and transfer all of those "FRIENDS" into "FANS" on your page by migrating it over.

Click here to start the process but just keep in mind that you can't reverse this so think thrice before you do this. You will lose all of your pictures / notes / and everything else you put onto your Facebook profile so if you do decide to migrate, you might want to download all of your content first by clicking here. But think of how cool you'd look with all those "fans" now eh?

So, to dumb it down even more - here's a little list for you list-lovers:

PROFILE:
- share personal info that goes to everyone
- need to "friend" people

PAGE:
- less personal - won't show up in searches under your name (ie. your name is Mike Smith but your band name is "The Smitherines". It's just separate OK?
- Everyone & anyone can LIKE your page
- You can embed a LIKE BOX on your website to give an easy way for people to become your FAN without you needing to "accept their friendship". Click here for how to do that.

What are you going to do?

Thanks to the CDbaby DIY podcast for letting me know about this BTW.

Lille Gard Fest 2011


The second Lille Gard ever to grace the forests of Kelowna is coming again this summer.

July 2, and 3. Just go ahead and take a permanent marker to all of your calendars and write in these words: Lille Gard Fest = Canada Day Weekend frivolity.

For those who weren't there, Lille Gard Music Fest is a sweet little gathering of friends and music lovers – a weekend full of frivolity & community building experience for everyone with lots of amazing live music on stage. Last year there were about 250 people who hung out for the weekend. Some camped, some played (20+ artists), some ran sound, some organized, some cooked, some tried to empty the porta-potties.... you get the picture.




Make sure you join the Facebook Event here if you haven't seen it. You'll be able to post pictures and comments and all that stuff...

Lille Gard Fest is not your typical music fest. There is no cost and no pay for the bands. The musicians are coming to hang out, to celebrate community and to play for the pure joy of it. We are keeping our little fest very simple and grassroots, so come and enjoy good music, good food and good friends in a beautiful country setting.

SCHEDULE (subject to change)

*******************
SATURDAY, JULY 2
*******************
12:00- 12:45 – Kanorous
12:45 – 1:30 - Ryan Donn and Leah West
1:30 – 2:15 - Ariel Smith
2:15 – 3:00 - Dave Krysko & Martina Griffiths
3:00 – 4:00 - Songwriters-In-The-Round (Featuring Joel Strauss, Zoe Fitch, Mark Irving and Rachel MacGregor)
4:00 – 4:45 - Nico
4:45 – 5:30 - Jane Eamon and Gord Brush
5:30 – 5:45 - Storytelling (featuring Bruce and Brian Wiebe)
5:45 – 6:45 - The Creeks
6:45 – 7:30 - Michael O’Neil and Suzy Gemmell
7:30 – 8:15 - Andrew and Zachari Smith
*tweener while the next band sets up – Scott Gibson (spoken word)
8:15 – 9:15 - Daniel Huscroft and Ryan McAllister band
9:15 – 10:00 - Ari
*tweener while the next band sets up – Scott Gibson (spoken word)
10:00–11:00 - Ord/Strauss Blues Revue
11:00-12:00 - Kim McMechan


*******************
SUNDAY, JULY 3
*******************
9:00 - 10:30 - Pancake (Crepe) breakfast
10:00-10:45 - Loni Moger
10:45 – 11:15 - Joanne Stacey
11:15-12:15 - Ezra Kwizera
12:15-1:00 - Joshua Smith trio
1:00-2:00 - The Spirit Jump Gospel Band



IMPORTANT
* There will be food and snacks available to purchase. Sat. night and Sunday morning
* Portapotties
* No Fires, No Pets
* Donations will be accepted to help cover some of the costs of the fest
* Limited (rustic) camping is available contact Andrew and Tami to reserve a spot at aksmith@shaw.ca

BRING:
Your own tent, Food & Drink, Friends


ARTIST LINEUP TBA

For more info, please contact Andrew & Tami Smith


Join our Facebook Event page here 
And here's the compilation disc we've put together (thanks to the generous donations of the artists) in order to fund this backyard party of artists. Feel free to show your support and download this digital piece of goodness.






Friday, April 15, 2011

Cash grabs for your next CD release


by Nico Boesten
Pretty much all of my artistically minded musician buddies are piss poor.

I'm not a huge fan of generalizations but when it comes to talking about all the things the average independent artist needs to do in order to "make it" (or make something) in the sea of digital music pirates, it's a feat of gargantuan proportions.

The average artist playing the average club / basement / coffee shop has to work their little tutus off trying to get well paid gigs, keep their websites / Fbook / Twitter / RN / Bandcamp etc. up to date, send out emails, sell merch, write tunes, practice... Tons of things to do. And unless you've either landed some sweet deal, robbed your brother's piggy bank, or have a plutonium mine hidden in your backyard it's tough to make a living plucking your git-box.

So, people are getting creative in the way they raise money for projects and I've seen a few really cool tools that artists can use to get their fanbase involved in supporting their next album.

This is my buddy Tom Conlon who hails from the east coast of the US of EH and doesn't believe in selling his music. It's always by donation. He tours nonstop in a van and is one of the most generous guys you'll ever meet in your life. Maybe that's why he's penniless. Anyway, he's using a free service called Kickstarter to get people involved in supporting his next album project.

Tom Conlon's project with his brilliant little video explaining the project is here.




The real beauty in this is that you can give different packages to people who donate depending on how much they give.

For example:
Pledge $300 or more and get: digital pre-release, 2 signed copies, signed poster, your name in 'thank you' credits, plus...personalized video blog performance of the TC song of your choice.

The even cooler-er thing about this is that if you don't get enough pledges by the date you set, nobody pays and you're back to the drawing board. Ya, this would be a bit of an emotional sledgehammering to the confidence and ego of the artist, but at least all the donors will be off the hook.

Point being, it's a great tool that could really work for you if you need a slick tool to help raise some money.

Have you heard of any other great tools / websites that could help artists?




Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Johnny Cash Bash - Cover song challenge

This is a cover song challenge for any artist out there to record a Johnny Cash tune. Watch the video we made for this if you don't like reading.



SONGS PEOPLE HAVE COMMITTED TO:
Long black veil: Sarah Arseneault (Delta, BC)
Further On (Up The Road): Bob Oldfield (Vernon, BC)
God's Gonna Cut You Down: Norm Strauss (Kelowna, BC)
Personal Jesus: Kevin Boese (Vancouver, BC)
Cause I Love You: Douglas Anderson (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
Cocaine Blues: Jay Mar (Connecticut, USA)
I Hear The Train A Comin: Dan Wilt (Franklin, TN, USA)
Give my love to Rose: Graham Ord (Kelowna, BC)
Rusty Cage: Robin Harbron (Thunder Bay, ON)
Ain't No Grave: Arno Jordan (Dresden, Germany)
The Man Comes Around: Pauline Kyllonen (Vernon, BC)
What on earth will you do for Heaven's sake: Rachel Taylor (Boston, MA)
Don't Take Your Guns to Town: Richard Pepper (Thunder Bay, ON)
Hurt: Jane Eamon (Cornwall, ON)
Orange Blossom Special: Mark F Owens (Atlanta, GA)
It Ain't Me Babe: Darren Foulds (Thunder Bay, ON)
The Man Comes Around: Lewis Juell
Sunday Morning Coming Down: Chris Janzen (Abbotsford, BC)


WHY?
Tribehouse is a collective of artists and a bunch of us from Kelowna went down to Memphis in Mar. 2011 where we hung out at the Memphis Folk Alliance as well as took a tour through Sun Studios. This is where legends like Elvis, BB King, and Johnny Cash got their start.

VISION?
The idea with the Johnny Cash Bash is to do a fun project where any artist is welcome to submit a Youtube video of themselves doing a Johnny Cash cover tune. This is a way to give some exposure to new artists along with a chance to connect with other musicians.

HOW?
1. Decide on a CASH cover tune you'd like to do and post it here on this event (you'll have to click "ATTENDING" first).
We will post a complete list of the songs that have already been committed to in this description because it would be nice to only have 1 performance of a particular song. So just write something like "I'd like to do Ring of Fire". If you're the first one to say that, it's yours.

2. Upload your video to Youtube and include the word TRIBEHOUSE in the title.

3. Post the Youtube link to this event page or email tribehouse@nicogroove.com with the link.

On May 1 we will have the entire collection of covers available to view on our Tribehouse Youtube channel.

Join the crew here on Facebook.