Music PEI Week 2011

Music PEI Week 2011 has ended.  As always it was filled with great music and good times.  I took my video camera around Friday night to three different venues and 9 different bands.  That'll make a lot of editing in my future, an endeavour that has already begun.  So far I have finished with two bands, Racoon Bandit and The North Lakes, both at Solid Rock Cafe.  Racoon Bandit won Best Video for their video HAT and The North Lakes won best Alternative Album.

Big winners were one of my favourite bands, Haunted Hearts.  They get played a lot on The Moe and Martin Show and I've probably seen them live more than any other band (including seeing them Friday night, stay tuned for video, they really rocked!).  They get classified as Country, but I don't think the standard classifications are working very well for PEI bands anymore.  When I think country I think twangy whiny crap music, and that they are not.  Perhaps it's just that the classification has changed while I wasn't paying attention.  Anyway, Haunted Hearts won Group of the Year, Album of the Year, Country Album of the Year, and Songwriter of the Year.

Molly Rankin, another regular on the radio show, won 3 awards herself, Female Vocalist, New Artist, and Pop Recording.  Each of her speeches at the awards was funnier than the previous.  In fact the whole awards show was hilarious.  Fraser and Lenny did another fantastic job as hosts.

Keep an eye on my YouTube channel for all the videos, but until then, here's a couple from Racoon Bandit and The North Lakes:

Flying Home

Just a quick update on things.

I'm taking the advanced pottery class at the PEI Pottery Studio this semester, and really enjoying having some direction again. So far I've thrown 10 mugs and 9 bowls (of varying quality. This is a chance to experiment after all). I'll try to get some pictures of the process soon.

Besides that I'm trying to figure out a photography project I can get into. I am too lazy for a full 365, but a friend recently suggested something to do with food photography. Combining sharing what I eat with pictures could be fun. And potentially embarrassing for those days I have nothing but a bowl of cereal for dinner.

I also have a new iPod, the one that takes pictures. So I've found I've been taking a lot of crummy mobile photos and sharing them on facebook and twitter. For instance here is my veggie madras from Churchill Arms in Charlottetown from last night:

Follow me on Twitter to see more.

Smiley Goat

Not much of a content post so much as a 'hey I really like this goat shot' post. This was from Krista and I's so called 'Belfast Day' where Belfast Mini Mills had an open house, as well as a potter.

The Mini Mills has some really fun animals, along with our favourites the goats.

Downtown Seattle at Sunset

I am finally getting around to posting all the pictures of my cross North America trip from last year.

In some ways I'm kind of glad I waited a while to post them. I feel like over the past year I've gotten a bit better at editing pictures. I get to re-live the trip by going through all the raw pictures one by one, triggering associated memories and good times. I've caught up with my Dad's cousin who I stayed with in Seattle while attempting to confirm details on his classic car.

Of course, I could have posted them a year ago and just gone through the set and re-lived the memories. Oh well, I've been busy.

I still have Vancouver and the Via trip on The Canadian from there to Toronto to go. I anticipate there will be some more pictures that I'm very happy with, just like this Seattle skyline shot.

Flowers Under Attack

is this still on?