longboarding behind the bar

Thursday through Sunday made me realize how many different music scenes, or genres come through work.

Thursday night Richy Nix, a rock/ rapper-hip hop artist from Windsor played. The show was packed, and his fans were pretty intense. After talking to 'Richy" post show, I found out that this is only his third show with a band. Third! Also, their song 'In My Head", has been one of the top ten or twenty songs on the detroit alternative rock station 89x for quite some time now (today it was Number 5).

The Ontario Metal Alliance tour played Friday, featuring Blood Shot Eye, "Metal / Death Metal / Hardcore", as described on their myspace.. The vocalist, Jess, can scream better than most; if not all men. My co-worker and I created a shot after the band entitled the 'blood shot eye bomb'. Composed of Sole Gin, redbull, and grenadine. It's actually legit. Order one!


Saturday night featured Street Pharmacy, Rebel Emergency, and Windsor's Stereo Goes Stellar.
The first two were reggae/ska-ish/rock-ish. Rebel Emergency covered part of a USS (Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker) song- Hollow Point Sniper Hyperbole, it was superb!
Stereo Goes Stellar was amazing, as always. They are back playing at the Chubby PIckle August 11th with Ten Second Epic. Check that show out!

Also I would like to thank my two friends for letting a fellow co-worker and I test out the new flat bar mats via- longboard. The 'My name is Brian, and I like to stakeboard' dream joke finally became a reality.


Last night was another metal show, the two headliners were Odium and Aquila.
The singer from Odium has an epic voice, legit. Check out their music video ,(apparently the guitarist suffered from frost bite post-filming) that fact alone is worth watching it!
By the end of the night, the bar ran out of budweiser, I blame that on a certain band that played.





Adam, and Mark (Aquila) posing for a perfect photo op at the end of the night






Later skaters

Ceramic goose, was loose

Have you ever been out drinking, stop in a store for something and find your friend trying to purchase a small ceramic goose?

If not you clearly do not know how to have a good time.


Friday night at work was pretty interesting to say the least. This kid opened with a white- boy rap act. His stage name was Xander, and no sadly he does not have a myspace for your viewing pleasure.
New Stage Loop also played, who were also very entertaining and definitely a change from what I am used to hearing on a Friday night. Kudos to them for white boy rapping. Vanilla Ice would be jelous of these guys.

Lastly, Walk Off The Earth played. These guys had a legit reggae sound. The bass player wore a tee shirt on his head the entire night, and I am still not entirely sure why. I bought their album and have been listening to it all weekend. Their music is definitely something you could put on if you were hanging around outside by the pool, BBQ-ing, doing nothing, etc. Check them out!

peace out home fries

when you put salt in the fridge, it hardens

I'll begin with this video.


#25.. GUURRRLLL= the best thing ever. Well not ever, but its pretty hilarious by my standards.

Want to hear about interesting bands this weekend in Windsor? Read on!

Work this weekend was quite entertaining. A few bands that played had totally legit sets. Friday, Sights and Sounds, a band from the Toronto-ish area played. They were a lot softer than most that play at The Chubby Pickle. I really don't have a talent for describing music genres, thus check out the link, which leads to their myspace. Most, if not all of their full length is up and I dig it. The singer is the same singer from Comeback Kid. Anyways check out their stuff.

Saturday night was a CD release party for Aquila, a windsor metal band. CD releases are usually pretty busy, and this one followed the trend. My ears were ringing for two days after the show, which is pretty impressive (thanks guys). I'll probably be part deaf by the time I'm 25, and should probably wear some kind of ear plus at work, mehhh.. Overall, I thought their CD Imperium, was pretty flyy. Metal fans beware, Aquila is kicking off their summer East Coast-ish tour Friday.

In other news, my sister moved back home after a few months living out west, I am unimpressed as I can no longer use her room as an office... (for napping). Kidding Stephanie, welcome home trick tricky.

Like it or lump it

I’ve returned home now, well since Friday, and decided to keep this blog thing running. Mostly however, I’m thinking about dedicating most of the page to my thoughts and personal ratings about bands I hear at work, since I do spend a legitimate amount of time at The Chubby Pickle.

Saying that, I must also say that I am in no way a professional music critic ( and do not aim to be). I’m just writing my personal opinion about how I thought about individual bands. So in reality, if you don’t want to know what I think about you or your band then you simply can just avoid reading this. Cool? Alright!

To jump start this entire project I find it suiting to list three really cool nights I’ve worked.


3. Madball
The originators of the New York hardcore scene! Crazy almost sold out night. Every member of the band was huge and looked like they could tear down a house with their bare hands. P.s- they have been a band since 1988.

2. Theset
These guys were from B.C. and were all super sick. I ended up chatting with all of them and they spent the night in Windsor. It just happened to be a Sunday night, and Woody’s Outhouse (the bar next door) was giving away a Jager snowboard. I convinced them to go, and the one guy from the band actually won the Jager snowboard, they nearly shit themselves. He then turned around and sold it to some random bar dude for $300 I think, it was a ridiculous amout of money. After the bar closed I took them to the casino and they doubled the money. *ohh gambling. Apparently they no longer had to starve or eat like homeless people while finishing their tour. Needless to say they promised to come back and play in Windsor sometime in the future.

1. Blurt
Bury me in border town. Blurts last show. Dear lord. Words cannot, and will not describe this night. I don’t think it will be possible to ever witness a night that insane ever again. The amount of stage dives, crowd surfers, and just other intense jumping off everything and anything was psychotic (I even took a stage dive). The bar was completely packed and at times I questioned if anyone was going to die. To the best of my knowledge no one died, well except for Blurt. RIP!

Science is cool, and so are beavers

Stephanie playing on a ski simulator, and some pissed off kids waiting behind her for their turn




Trying to figure out what goes where, if only I had my trusty nursing friends with me. Oh, this one too.


Today was my last full day here. I went to the Vancouver science center with Stephanie. The place was full of school groups, aka field trip central, but we still had too much fun. Both of us felt like we were 12 years old again. One of the new exhibits was all about fear, and why we feel fear. Did you know the chances of getting bit by a snake are higher than getting into a plane crash? Yeah definitely learned that and a lot more today.

The last thing we did at the science center was watch an OMNIMAX movie about beavers, and let me tell you, beavers are really REALLY cool. Hit that for a preview of how awesome they actually are.



The theater was similar to an IMAX theatre, except it was shaped like a giant golf ball.

After we came back to Stephanie's place we played frisbee with her boyfriend John, in a field that, according to John had 'minimal junkies'. He was right, we only saw two. There was however, an asian couple playing basketball in a court close to us, the man said to the woman "Last person to score buy sushi tomorrow"... Funny? I think so.

yadda yadda yadda home slices

I'm on a boat, or I was. It ruled

Tired, half way up







I've been here almost a week now. The past few days have been excellent to say the least. My sister, her boyfriend, his roomate and I all bought tennis rackets. One of their friends willingly taught us how to play. The tennis guy was pretty sick, and he brought us back to his house after for drinks/ food. I plan on playing a lot more tennis when I come back.

Two days ago we went to the Capilano suspension bridge in Vancouver. Everyone who worked there was dressed up in clothes from around 100yrs ago. We still don't know why, but are assuming that they are trying to recreate the time of when the bridge was originally built( Really it just looked like a bunch of pissed off students working their summer jobs).

After the bridge we went to Grouse Mountain, and we were all determined to hike up it. The actual hike was called 'The Grouse Grind', and was probably one of the hardest things I've physically done ever in my life. It took just under two hours to do, but at the top of the mountain there was a bunch of things to do. We missed out on the lumberjack shows, but we did see a bear ( in an enclosed area), and a wild deer roaming around.

Yesterday we spent the entire day kayaking, which is much, muchh harder than it looks. We found a small island and hung out for a while. Stephanies boyfriend was about to attempt a cliff dive, but chickened out because he said 'the water was too cold'. pfft. The kayak back was really rough and at times I thought we were going to tip. Today we all have sweet life jacket tan lines.

Cheers homies

From plane to skytrain

Found that shirt in a vintage store, almost bought it for alex





Last night after I got in, we ate at 'Cactus Club" for lunch. It was similar to moxies, but to the power of 10. The patio was amazing, complete with a fountain water fall thing to look at. Last night we took a walk to get a slushie, (into the bad part of town) and saw about 10 crazy cracked out people. Apparently they all hang out on one street near a gas station.... Anyway

Today we went into Vancouver via the skytrain. Which was totally rad because there was a pretty sick view of mountains for the entire ride. We did some shopping. There was a bunch of used/ vintage / indie clothing stores. Also, I'm not entirely sure why but there are bird statues all over the city, Stephanie and I have started taking pictures in front of them. When we were really young we did the same kind of deal with giant decorated Mr. Potato heads in Rode Island. I think we have found around 9 so far, and are absolutely determined to find every single one! Later on we took the skytrain to the waterfront, saw a hippie reading, and a cruise boat from France.

Tonight we might go bowling

cheers