A Rehearsal Before The Show
Posted by Musician | Filed under Uncategorized
This Friday evening we are playing at the Gourmet Gallery in Abbotsford. The show starts at 8 and runs until 10. It’s always really packed in there, so if you are planning to come, and would like one of the new, comfy, leather seats that Kimberly has bought for the place, my advice would be to come a bit early. 
Tonight we have our usual Wednesday pm rehearsal. We’re just going to do our last run-through of a new song we’ll be introducing on Friday. We’ve tried something different with our arrangement of the Allman Brother’s
Everybody’s Got A Mountain To Climb: the sax intros as well as ends the song.
This is a quite a departure for our band, so we’ll see how it works out live. In rehearsals it’s been good, and the Gourmet Gallery is the perfect, intimate venue to try something different like that for the first time.
New Year’s Eve
Posted by Steve | Filed under Uncategorized
As I have been available for a few jams at the “Church of the Blues” on Sundays at the Historic Dewdney Pub, I got the call from Dave Conroy to come out on New Year’s Eve and play with the “Church of the Blues Allstars” for the first set. Gerald Charlie and the Black Owl Blues would play two more sets after that.
It was a good crowd in spite of the weather, which was snow! We had three guitars in the front line with Dave, Cory Lavigne, and Larry Stiles, Greg Thompson on drums and myself squeezed into the corner. These guys will keep you on your toes with changes (it’s not all blues), but it is fun and challenging.
Art and Sharon Panchishin came in with Randy and Doreen Mathers as a last minute decision to go out, so I got to sit with some people I knew for the midnight meal and Gerald’s sets.
I also came in with Karen the following Sunday for the jam, there were several other bass players there and Bob was playing a Gibson Thunderbird Bass on the flat where his top keyboard would normally go! I went on for the last set, but the crowd had mostly departed as it had begun to snow quite heavily again, there were four inches on the car when we decided to go.
The Church Of The Blues
Posted by Musician | Filed under Uncategorized
Last weekend Art and I joined Gary & Steve on stage at the Historic Dewdney Pub, AKA The Church of the Blues, for a mini set of about 5 songs (about 30 minutes), during the 3-7 pm Sunday Blues jam. It was a great chance for us to get a feel for the place before we play there next month on the 29th & 30th.
We were joined on stage by a keyboard player named Bob, who was a wiz at figuring out our Blues numbers. So for that 30 minutes, Deception was a 5 piece band. This was also a great opportunity for us to see how the local players who come out for the jam sessions, were used to the sessions being run.
After our set, Art & I stayed for the rest of the evening and enjoyed the music & some interesting conversations with some great local Blues players.
Special thanks to Dave & the rest of the house band who let us take over the stage for a half hour. It was greatly appreciated!
We’re Baaaaack….
Posted by Musician | Filed under Uncategorized
Well it’s been a while since anyone has written anything here, and there’s a good reason for that: our blog has been off-line since August 4th, when the update to the new content management system didn’t quite go as planned. Since then our web designer was swamped with other high-priority (read paying) work that was time sensitive in nature, so we had to wait in the queue. Today she was able to get us up and running again, so I thought I should do up a quick note.
Art and Sharon are back from their well deserved vacation, so the band starts up again next week with rehearsals. Art can’t wait to try out his new “toy” with the band. He bought a wireless system for his guitar, so that means he will be able to “walk the bar” now too. More importantly, he will be able to hear the band from the audience’s perspective during sound-check, so our sound will be exactly the same each time when we have to do our own sound, since his ear for the band is way better than mine.
Hot Summer Nights
Posted by Gary | Filed under Uncategorized
Too bad you missed it ’cause it was a great show….both nights. I think it’s the most fun I’ve had playing at that location “The Bull and Raven” ( I prefer ‘Ravin’ ) formally The Yorkshire Rose.
The new air conditioning kicked in for a while on Friday and kept things cool but on Saturday, although we were ‘cool’, it was hot. At one point a drumstick flew from my sweaty palm and, had the acorn tip on the end have been a real acorn bass playin’ Steve might have an oak tree growing out of his leg in a month or two….. he shouldn’t be limping too long but he does have a nice rhythm to his walk now.
It’s a good job we have all been around long enough that our ego’s don’t get bruised when the audience is light but people are not too motivated to venture out and boogie on a hot hot night especially in our little city. Stay tuned.
Deception is the Abbotsford-based blues band formed in the mid-90s by guitar player Art Panchishin.