A Busy Kickoff To The Summer
Posted by Musician | Filed under Performances
Although we’ve not had much to say here, we’ve been busy as a group.
On June 12 (the night of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final) we played to what eventually became a full house at the Gourmet Gallery. Although the evening started off with lots of empty seats, by the time the game was over, the staff at the Gourmet Gallery were kept busy as patrons filled the place to close to capacity. This was our last show of the season at the Gallery. We look forward to playing back there again in fall.
This last week we’ve fit in an extra rehearsal in order to make sure that we have a chance to go through the 4 sets we are going to need for this coming weekend’s shows at the Church Of The Bues in Dewdney. We will be playing at the old Historic Dewdney Pub on Saturday from 8:30 PM to 12:30 AM. Then on Sunday we’ll be back hosting the blues jam from 3:00 to 7:00 PM.
The blues jam has become a Sunday afternoon institution at the Church Of The Bues, with some very talented local players coming out regularly. Personally, I have really enjoyed getting a chance to play with Gerald Charlie, Corey Lavigne & Dave Conroy. Hopefully they will come out again, and will be joined by other talented performers as well.
Hopefully you’ll be able to join us out at the Church Of The Bues, AKA the Historic Dewdney Pub, on either Saturday, the 27th, or for the jam on the 28th.
An Evening Of Blues At The Gourmet Gallery
Posted by Musician | Filed under Performances
Last Friday evening (the 24th), we had a great show at the Gourmet Gallery. The audience was made up of many of the Gourmet Gallery regulars, and also a lot of new people. One thing I really noticed, was how many of the audience members were really listening to the music, and not talking during the performance.
As musicians playing this type of venue, we fully expect that people will carry on conversations during the show. When we look up and see people leaning towards the band, making eye contact with individual band members that they don’t know, singing along with the music, or in some other way expressing their engagement with our performance, that gives us a strong sense that our music is in some way resonating with the audience. There is of course no greater reward for a band than this.
We have one more show at the Gourmet Gallery before the summer break. We play there next on Friday, June 12.
If you like blues, and you haven’t yet seen Deception, come on out and give us a listen. We have a unique sound, that appeals to more than just blues fans.
While we do a number of traditional blues songs, much of our music is far more complex than just simple 12 bar, 3 chord blues progressions. Check us out, and see what you think!
An Update… No We’re Not Dead
Posted by Musician | Filed under General
It seems that we’ve been fairly quiet here the last couple of months. I guess we’ve all been busy working hard on our project, and forgot that we should be writing something about it.
A few months ago I mentioned that we really need to have a demo CD for festival entries. The one that we have been using is very old, and was recorded before I joined the band, so the sound of sax is missing. Not to blow my own horn (groan) but, the sax fundamentally changed the sound of Deception, so the demo really isn’t representative of the band’s sound anymore.
Since our playing schedule got changed, we suddenly found we had 2 months instead of only 1 between shows. It was decided that now was the perfect time to do our recording.
Gary has a home recording setup that he uses with his musician friend, and children’s entertainer, Mr. I. Gary (Gary Q when he and Mr. I work together) and Yurgen (Mr. I’s real name), do all their recordings in Gary’s studio, so we thought we would see if Deception could do its recording there as well.
Well it has turned out to be much more work than anticipated, and this demo has taken on a life of its own. We decided that we would record not just 3 or 5 songs, but 20! What the f%*#! were we thinking? Anyways, that’s what we’ve been doing for the past 8 weeks.
As a band we’ve hardly seen each other at all, but we’ve played together a lot via recorded tracks. Last week we had our first rehearsal in nearly 6 weeks. Tonight and Wednesday we’ll get together again, to play through our set list for our show this coming Friday.
Another Packed House
Posted by Musician | Filed under Performances, Photos
Last night we played to another full house at the Gourmet Gallery. There were a lot of new faces in the audience, as well as a number of our loyal fans, and regular Friday night Gourmet Gallery music enthusiasts.
Kimberley has rearranged the stage area where the band plays, which now gives us quite a bit more room.
Photo by M. Margison
Here’s a nice shot of Gary. It’s impossible to get a photo of him playing that doesn’t have something, or someone, blocking part of his face.
Photo by M. Margison
Speaking of faces… It’s nearly impossible to get a picture of a sax player when they’re playing, that doesn’t look a bit “off” in some way. All those things we learned while studying seem to get forgotten when we perform. In the end, it’s all about our individual sound, and how we achieve it.
Photo by M. Margison
The new song we introduced, Everybody’s Got A Mountain To Climb, was extremely well received. This really was the perfect place to play it for an audience for the first time.
As usual we had a great deal of fun playing at the Gourmet Gallery. We’re really looking forward to being back on April 24. Hopefully we’ll see you there!
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.
Deception is the Abbotsford-based blues band formed in the mid-90s by guitar player Art Panchishin.