Summer Happenings

It’s a summer entry as I won’t be posting regularly and it’s considered the off-season.

The biggest craze to hit parts of the world is Pokémon Go. Canadians have been waiting for the release, which came out on July 17th and made the game’s server crash. I haven’t played like crazy with the worry of the phone’s battery life. I’ve noticed seeing people play around my neighbourhood as there’s several Pokéstops located and a competitive gym to clash with.

On Tuesday afternoon, there was a Pokémon Go event in Ottawa called the Confederation Park Lure Party. There were lots of people convening at the park and catch whatever Pokémon are available.

Even the Mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson came out and joined in the fun to trying out Pokémon Go.
You can check the photos from below.

Loon Choir at Marvest (Preseason)

On Friday night, the nine member band, Loon Choir played at Marvest as part of the Cityfolk. Cityfolk is formerly Ottawa Folk Festival as it got renamed and a new location in Lansdowne Park.

Loon Choir played to a delightful crowd as it was their album release show on Friday night. The location of the free show was at the Aberdeen Pavilion. Their third full length, All Of This And Everything Else took them 1.5 years to make and you can listen to it over on CBC Music.

The local band mixes a variety of instruments from the keyboards to guitars and violins. You would say it’s an epic band. For anyone interested, even though the members don’t appear in the music video as it’s animated, check out their track, Bug on YouTube.
Overall, they played a great set to showcase their new album and it was fun to see some people I know at the concert. It’s awesome to see Loon Choir again and perform live.

You can check out the photos over on Flickr by clicking HERE.

Lastly, before the new season starts, I will be in Toronto for the Polaris Music Prize Gala on Monday, September 21st. Expect some updates on my social media. Get ready for season 11 of the blog.

Friday Night at House of Paint 2015 (Summer Special)

Summer is not finished yet as I had the opportunity to check out the 12th edition of House of Paint. That’s right, it’s 12 years since the venerable outdoor Hip-Hop festival has been dancing and giving beats for so long. From Rap to graffiti art to break dancing just to name a few, it’s a lot to experience the urban culture in the Nation’s Capital.

Friday night was the Rock Tha House event. The lineup had Jonathan Emile, Moun Fou, and Buck N Nice as I checked them. DJ 2 Creamz was DJing along with Ducats inbetween the sets.
Saturday is the main event and will run all day with the more performances by Kool Krys, Flight Distance and Socalled.

You can check out the photos over at Flickr by clicking HERE.

Polaris Panel: Ottawa, 2015 Edition (Summer Special)

On Tuesday night, the National Arts Centre hosted the Polaris Music Prize Panel at the Fourth Stage. The panel was moderated by Polaris founder, Steve Jordan and the panelists this year had Alan Neal of CBC’s All In A Day, Ryan Bresee of Whatever’s Cool With Me, Catherine Pogonat of Radio-Canada and Julie Ledoux of Voir.

This year is unique as the panel brought a juror from Montreal and brought some female representation to it. As usual, the panel discussed how the jurors picked their long and shortlist albums. Some had a difficult time putting a particular album on the list and what was considered a strong album to be on it. Another topic brought up was Francophone content being emphasized and recommended. Since Karkwa winning the prize in 2010, there’s been less recommendation for Francophone albums.
There was a good turnout for the panel compared to last year.

I Found Momo [Summer Special]

Momo, the border collie, along with his owner, Andrew Knapp came into Ottawa for a book tour. The popular dog released a second photo book called Find Momo Coast to Coast. For those that don’t know, Momo is popular on the Internet and Instagram where there’s a photo of a location and you try to find where Momo is. It’s like hide and seek and Where’s Waldo? mixed into one.

His owner has documented the road trips and showing the fun photos to finding the lovable dog. In a way, Momo has been a viral hit and still getting a lot of likes on Instagram now.

The appearance was held at Kaleidoscope Kids’ Books down in the Glebe area, across from Lansdowne Park. Knapp gave a slideshow showing the beginning of Momo and the adventures they have journeyed. It was a fun afternoon with the kids and adults enjoying Momo’s appearance. I’ve been wanting to see Momo due to the Instagram photos and glad I was able to see him and his owner.

You can check the photos over at Flickr by clicking HERE.

Nancy Pants at Pressed [Summer Special]

Continuing the Summer entries on the blog. A concert I went was at Pressed on Sunday night, it was presented by Pop Montreal and Debaser. The lineup consisted of Raas, Look Vibrant and Nancy Pants. The photo above showed Street Meat but the band cancelled, thus Raas was the replacement.

I have been wanting to see Nancy Pants and they never played Ottawa. I missed them in Toronto during NXNE in June. The Montreal band consists of Ohara Hale, Adam Waito (from Adam and the Amethysts) and Jeremy McCuish (from various bands like Nanimal and Nightwood). Their sound brought a lot of lo-fi, garage and 60s rock & roll music. Hale showed a lot of presence with her shouting and growling vocals while Waito rocked on the bass and MacCuish bringing the heavy drumming.

Total Nancy Pants, their debut LP was released in November 2014, which is you can check at Bandcamp and Apple Music. They’re continuing to make new music as they performed new tracks from the show at Pressed. Overall, it was a good show to see the three bands.

You can check the photos over at Flickr by clicking HERE. Below is an Impossible photo of Nancy Pants. Used with the Lulu Guinness frame.

The 2015 Art Battle National Championship – [Summer Special]

July is full of events in Ottawa and in the last minute, I didn’t realize about the Art Battle National Championship. A good friend from Toronto mentioned on social media that she was in Ottawa to host the event. Luckily, I was able to make it to event and to The Westin Ottawa. The Art Battle National Championship was their final event of the sixth season and Ottawa played host to it.

The live painting competition pitted 16 winners from coast-to-coast, province to province and to become sole winner for the 2015 edition of Art Battle National Champion. Plus, the winner would get a spot for the International Live Painting Championships at the Pan Am Games in Toronto. There were 3 rounds and people voted for the artists to advance to the 3rd and final round. It was a load of fun as people walked around to see how the artists were painting within 20 minutes.
Oh yeah, for those wondering, the winner of the National Championship was Leanna Teneycke from Oakville, Ontario.

You can check out the photos over at Flickr by clicking HERE. You can check out the Impossible photos from below.

This is a Summer entry as I’m not posting often. Keep checking my feeds on social media.

Where’s The Cultural Press? [Summer Specials]

On Friday morning, I had the opportunity to attend another panel discussion by Arboretum Festival and presented by Creative Mornings Ottawa. The topic from the panel discussion was called Where’s The Cultural Press? The panel consisted of moderator Rolf Klausener (founder of Aboretum Festival), Sharif Virani & Michael Gregoriev as hosts.

The panel itself had Marie LeBlanc Flanagan (founder/director of Weird Canada), Peter Simpson (arts writer for the Ottawa Citizen), Lesley Marshall (editor of Small Talk) and supposedly, Allan Wigney (music writer/editor, Bubbles Wig, ex-editor Ottawa Xpress) was scheduled to be part of the panel but no showed.

The discussion of cultural press ranged from the consumption on readers from physical to digital to what’s changing the cultural press. Certain parts had some contentious issues as print media has dwindled and cater more for the older readers. An example is the print version would cover opera instead of a rock concert. Young people are more into the online and digital culture as a more convenient way to access materials.

It was a good panel discussion, even though one person was missing. For those who missed it and interested, you can watch it over from Livestream by clicking here.

You can check out the photos from Flickr by clicking here. There’s also the final set of Impossible Project Spectra instant photos in double exposure from below.
Have a great weekend.

Again at Arboretum Music Festival and It’s “See You In Hull” [Summer Specials]

On Tuesday night, Arboretum Music Festival held another free and fun event called See You In Hull, which was presented by Ottawa Vélo Vogue and Raw Sugar Cafe. It was a social and bike convoy event as people who brought their bicycles to travel from Raw Sugar Cafe in Ottawa Chinatown to Le Troquet in Hull, Quebec. Prior to the bike ride, there were portraits taken with people and their bikes.
At Raw Sugar Cafe, they had the delicious pull pork sandwich and chilli served.
The weather was also nice outside as it was totally sunny for the whole day.

For the photos, it is posted over at Flickr. The latter half of the photos were shot on the iPhone. You can check them out by clicking here.
Posted below are The Impossible Project Cyanograph SX-70 instant photos. I held out using the experimental film as it’s quite a unique, single colour. I had a difficult time touching up the photo after it got scanned due to the sensitivity of the film.

Hope you will enjoy it.

Arboretum Music Festival Launches with Why I Left Ottawa – [Summer Specials]

I’m still continuing on with the summer specials.
Arboretum Music Festival is in its third year and Monday night at Art Court was the launch of the young festival. In kicking off the festival, there was a panel discussion called Why I Left Ottawa. The panel discussion consisted of Kathleen Edwards (singer-songwriter and her hit albums, Voyageur and Asking For Flowers), Remi Thériault (Ottawa based photographer), Olivier Fairfield (drummer of Timber Timbre), and Emmanuel Sayer (director, Ottawa Explosion Weekend and CHUO program director). Moderator was Jason St. Laurent, curator of Saw Gallery. Prior to the panel discussion, there was Charcuterie & snacks provided by The Albion Rooms.

The panel discussed why Ottawa is considered boring but the panelists have said that the city is gradually getting interesting since their return. Edwards mentioned that music venue in Ottawa are getting less visible and that major bands and artists skip Ottawa because of the lack of venue availability. There was mentions of grants from the city and whether it’s viable to the artists, bands and fledging festivals.

Overall, it was a great panel discussion and it was over capacity as there were people standing further back of the Art Courts room.
Got to give props to festival organizer, Rolf Klausener and the staff for bringing a unique festival in Ottawa. Where’s there music, there’s other non-music events to discover at Arboretum Music Festival.

You can check the photo over at Flickr by clicking here.