Category Archives: General

The Big Mess: Busking in Nanaimo

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Who is having a blast busking in Nanaimo?
WE ARE!!! WE ARE!!!

The VoxMan and I got frustrated with having to make sure that our “case was closed”… so we purchased a group and individual busking licenses. Oh my god, we’ve unleashed a Monster!!

We’re having so much fun making music down at the waterfront. I mean REAL FUN. Dusk has never been the same!

The city of Nanaimo is very strict on what you can and can not do, so we purchased a small battery-operated but beautiful sounding system. Kyle recently purchased a cahon and the rest is history.

Last night, while we were in the middle of a song, our good buddy Mikaila Tombe appeared in the waterfront audience. As soon as I saw her, I had an idea… but it took all of us to play along… and it worked PERFECTLY. When we finished the song, I told Kyle to maybe ask someone in the audience if they might want to sing along with us. Kyle was on to where I was going with this, so he pointed to someone who he knew for sure wouldn’t join us. When they refused, he then pointed to Mikaila, who shyly played along… and then totally blew away everyone with “At Last”. I don’t think that anyone was on to our spontaneous little theatre act… even though Mikaila did a few more songs with us. Oh god, that was so fun!!

 

New concerts in April, with the one and only Joëlle Rabu

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Two Shows One Concert at Headliners in Nanaimo and Phoenix Auditorium on Gabriola Island

The Big Mess meets Joelle Rabu

This is a very special concert for The Big Mess because we are sharing the stage with Joëlle Rabu and & Nico Rodes. Joëlle is a world renowned vocalist and Nico is like Chopin meets Jackson Pollock on the piano. Not only are they dazzling performers and magnificent musicians, they are very dear friends of ours AND they are, like The Big Mess, a parent-kid collaboration. So there will be a lot of fun, authentic energy spinning around on the nights of these shows. They are two separate acts for the same price, but there will also be some interesting crossover. We joined Joëlle and Nico in Puerta Vallarta Mexico where we ended up rocking the stage together in some very tasty collaborative jams.

Due to popular demand, we are offering this show on two nights, once at Headliners in Nanaimo and once at the Phoenix Auditorium on Gabriola. Tickets are $20 and will soon be available to purchase at Artworks on Gabe and at Headliners in Nanaimo.

Stay tuned, stay happy, and bless ya

from da Big Mess

Coming soon to this Very Site…

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Yes! Sooner rather than later The Big Mess will have some pretty darn decent videos to offer up. Right at this moment, the editor of the project, our own VoxMan Kyle, is in Vancouver, participating in the Halloween festivities of The Parade of Lost Souls. As soon as he gets back, he will seclude himself and edit edit edit.

We will post the results as soon as it’s ready.

The Big Mess prepares for Friday’s Blues on the Beach

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This Friday (in two days), Kyle and I are going to perform on the beach in Parksville, BC. Well, that is a tiny exaggeration. We’re playing from 4 til 8 at the Beach Club Resort, and it’s outdoors, just a step or two from the boardwalk on the downtown Parksville beach.

I really have a very rough time trying to play trumpet for FOUR hours. Trumpet players aren’t supposed to do that. Anything that Kyle does to give me a break helps enormously!

We’re kinda hoping that we can start to use Ableton Live 8 for this job. Kyle’s got this very cool outboard controller for the program, the Akai APC 40, that makes it possible to change things on the fly while we are performing. The way I/we have previously done it is to use my computer-generated backing stuff, which sounds great, but is identical each time. The Ableton Live 8 way is the direction we’re shooting for: more fun & more creative.

It’s all so exciting and/but it’s all so new. We need more time to get ready! My grandest hope for this Friday would be to do 3 songs in this new way. Two of them are made of audio loops: In the Groove and Big Funky Mess… The other one is our brand new version of Tequila.

Should be very interesting and hopefully very fun.

Recently, I’ve been pushing the panic button over and over about trying to get prepared for both Friday in Parksville and our “official” debut gig at the Acme Food Co. on July 24rd and 25th. When we were having coffee this morning, Kyle said that the idea of being in a panic zone is totally counterproductive to getting things done. That was quite helpful for me to hear! I totally agree with him. We will get done what we can get done and we won’t get done what we don’t get done. It will be fine.

Have I ever mentioned how wise Kyle can (sometimes) be?

Always a first time

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I have always known
That at last I would
Take this road, but yesterday
I did not know that it would be today.
Narihira  9th century

Yesterday I indirectly knew that maybe perhaps I might possibly be writing my very first blog entry today, but I doubted it. And I’m hoping that you can delete blog entrys (and I seriously assume that you can…), because my only intention is to show Mr. Kyle that we do have something happening blogwise.

Hello Kyle, and welcome Our Blog.