Last night John and I ventured over to Flux Bistro in Gastown for the Zero Ground album release party. Man, there’s nothing like hearing and experiencing live music.
Chad Nantais composed the entire album on his computer some time ago and after some suggestions from colleagues, he decided to bring it out into the real world. With a six-piece band, he delivered four of Zero Ground’s original songs to a very captive and crowded house.
Zero Ground is the soundtrack to a modern world where machines allow one person to re-create what was once accomplished by an entire band, and technology can create as emotional a connection as a human.
The tunes are instrumental with jazzy, funky riffs flowing from more than just guitars, drums, and piano. Chad has a history as a DJ, spinning hip-hop and house music but also a closeness to Motown since growing up back East. All of these elements come into play and it was really interesting to see it all meld together after only ever sampling a few electronic tracks online.
I must say though, after his “War Games” reference before launching into the tune “Shall We Play a Game” I was pretty sold. There are definitely great things in Chad’s future and we were pretty lucky to be a part of his exclusive premiere audience last night.
You can sample Chad’s tunes on his website or MySpace, but the CD is available for purchase at Zulu and RedCat Records. It’s also up on iTunes and CDBaby for online orders that ship by mail. He’s also up on the Podsafe Music Network so this could be very useful for all you podcasters out there.
The other day Buzz asked if I would co-host the Battle of the Sexes portion of the 95 Crave morning show. This week he’s filling in for Nat & Drew and collected some local female friends to come up with the “women’s” questions for the game.
The goal is to have the female host ask the male contestant questions usually females would know the answer to, and vice versa for the male host and female contestant.
First of all, it was pretty neat to be included in this group of women (Meg did a great job of it earlier in the week). Second, coming up with questions wasn’t as easy as I had thought.
I’m pretty glad that the female contestant got the questions right as I was telling Buzz I usually get the men’s questions before I get the women’s. In case you don’t listen to the audio above, Buzz asked the following to the female contestant:
Who was NOT a coach of the Vancouver Canucks? a) Pat Quinn b) Scottie Bowman c) Mike Keenan.
I asked the following, and it seems I’m getting some heat from Disney die-hards:
Which of these Disney characters was NOT a princess? a) Snow White b) Sleeping Beauty c) Belle.
The answer should be Belle, as a quick look in wikipedia to verify assures me that Snow White and Sleeping Beauty were both born to Queens however Belle was simply a merchant’s daughter. However, one cold argue that when Belle and Beast hooked up she became a Princess but… were there any vows exchanged? Hmm. Hey, I could have used my other question: “Ballet, Mule and Gore are all styles of what?”
Regardless, it was a good time, thanks again Buzz! Watch for 95 Crave remotely broadcasting from your neck of the woods next week with Nat & Drew’s Food Bank Fill Up.
People have been trying to revolutionize the way get our Translink bus schedules for a while now because, let’s face it, they weren’t exactly cooking anything up themselves until recently.
Yesterday they announced the new “Next Bus” service, where you can get instant schedule information for your bus stop, straight to your mobile phone by sms. Here’s how Translink explains it:
“They get the bus stop that is nearest to them, they find the five-digit code that’s there, and they can text that code to 3-3-3-3-3, and they will find out when the next six buses are due to arrive there.” [CKNW]
They also have a GPS system in the works where you’ll get actual next bus arrival times based on their locations.
Seems simple enough, eh. I’ll add it to my list of services to try out but still, it doesn’t help the buses arrive on time. Want to discuss applications, services rants and raves? Come on down to TransitCamp this weekend.
I had never been to the Republic, actually I stopped going to “clubs” on Granville years ago but this was one mighty fine lookin’ joint. Launch Party Vancouver took place on the upper level, with sponsor logos being projected onto the towering cement walls and on flat panel TVs throughout the bar.
In one corner there were demo tables setup, with each startup stationed with a sign for their company and a laptop. There was Handi Mobility, Sxipper, Something Simpler, Site Masher and Jiibe. How do I recall all these demos? Well Handi Mobility (of MyBus fame) is responsible for LiveVote.ca, which had a running poll for attendees to vote on their favourite demos of the night.
Basically I could put a poll on my site without using the fancy WordPress plugin that I have in the past and have my readers text to vote. It’s customizable and completely FREE – no charge for creating and operating the poll and no charge (aside from regular carrier charges) for text messaging. It’s pretty fancy and watching it update in real time is mesmerizing. I also met the Aaron from @CellMap, which seems kinda nifty as well.
Throughout the evening I got to mingle and chat with some familiar faces, but I also was able to spend more time with Maura. She is Strutta‘s co-founder and marketing guru who was responsible for us all being there in the first place. It was also nice to meet some of the Twiistup co-hosts from California.
The event was a huge success and I enjoyed running into folks sporting the now infamous Strutta stickers: “im in ur strutta kickn ur ass”, “To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal,” “What, you think you’re better than me?” and something about being humble that Boris was proudly showing off.
Appies, a drink ticket, demos, schmoozing, networking, catching up and talking tech – what more could a girl ask for? Without further ado, here are some of Duane and Phillip’s photos from the evening.
On a grey and rainy afternoon, the lovely Ms. Keira-Anne and I met up with DaveO at a steamy-windowed organic coffee shop. DaveO (the blogger, podcaster and social media evangelist) had a special mission just for us, and we were more than willing to accept. I swear the $100 cheque only had a little bit to do with it.
The terms? We shop at happyfrog businesses and write reviews of products, services, etc. But just what is happyfrog? I’m glad you asked.
happyfrog is a fresh and fun interactive web site designed to leverage the collective knowledge of our community to create an indispensable new resource for bringing about change – in our personal lives and across the planet.
Our vision for happyfrog is that it will become a home for a community of values-aligned members who happily enrich each other’s lives simply by sharing information about their favorite things. [happyfrog.ca – About]
It’s a website, a directory, a community, and a blog all focused on being eco-friendly. Since we’ve accepted this challenge, you can expect some Rebecca and Keira-Anne blog posts over on the frogblog and also more content over here. We’ll each be shopping for items and writing our own reviews so check out both of our blogs for the results.
I’m really looking forward to supporting local businesses, especially those that have chosen to be environmentally conscious.
You can also take part in spreading the happy frog word by adding a business to the directory or by entering their contest. All you need to do for the contest is write a review of a happyfrog listed company, business or service on the happyfrog.ca site (like what Alexa’s been doing). Shop. Login. Review. $500 could be yours to spend.
