We’re gone after this week, but Edmonton’s still hopping.

In Festivals…the Kaleido Family Arts Festival runs this weekend on 118 Avenue (part of Arts on the Ave)…down in Hawrelak Park there’s a peace concert this weekend, on September 11…Latitude 53′sVisualeyez is back next week…Community League Day is on Saturday, September 17…The Edmonton International Film Festival is back on September 23, and runs through October 1. That last day is Alberta Day, with plenty of homegrown films playing…For a little French flair, check out the Edmonton Chante music festival, September 23-October 1…Also beginning September 23 is the Edmonton Accordion Festival…the Edmonton Comedy Festival gives it a go, October 19-22…the same dates as Lit Fest…

The ESO, Alberta Ballet, Edmonton Opera, Citadel Theatre, and Roxy Theatre headline the arts season that runs through the spring of 2012.

In sports…The Capitals are hosting the North American Baseball League’s championship series right now…The Eskimos will wrap their season…FC Edmonton will conclude its inaugural season (and made the playoffs)….there’s Prairie Football at Clarke Park…and lots of roller derby, including a clash between Edmonton’s E-Ville and Oil City Derby Girls leagues on September 17…oh, and the Oilers begin their quest for a new winning team in October…

Share Edmonton and the EEDC’s Festival calendar are good places to keep updated on what’s up.

There’s gonna be a lot of great music around Edmonton. (Be sure to keep on top of that at YEGLive.ca.)

Friday, Lyra Brown and Brian McLeod join Rapid Fire Theatre in a night of Edmonton entertainment…The Consonance, Tiff Hall, and Kusch are at Haven Social Club…Wool on Wolves play two shows (!) at the Pawn Shop this weekend, on Friday with The Wheat Pool and Saturday with Scenic Route to Alaska…

The Provincial Archive play with Library Voices September 17…At Avenue Theatre on September 23 you’ve got Christian Hansen and the Autistics, with Doug Hoyer…100 Mile House and The AwesomeHots are playing with Jesse D and Jacquie B, September 25…September 30, at The ARTery, Weird Canada’s got a show with Jennifer Castle, Kris Ellestad, Mark Templeton, and Field+Stream…at the end of the month (and every month) the Sonic Band of the Month plays the Pawn Shop (it’s The Frolics in September)…October 1, The Deep Dark Woods are at the Royal Alberta Museum…On October 21 F&M play Yellowhead Brewery with Tyler Butler…and October 28, Ariane Mahryke Lemire plays the Haven Social Club…

We’ll let Landon A.R. Coleman play us out of this events post. (Landon is playing at Wunderbar on September 28th and the CD will be available at Blackbyrd as of September 17th.)

Edmonton is a busy place. So get out there and enjoy your city!

Doug Organ: NOT a space cowboy. NOT.

So imagine my surprise in meeting 29-year-old Doug Organ. He is neither super villain, nor space cowboy; rather, a well known local musician (you’ll likely recognize him a former member of The Wet Secrets, The Whitsundays, or from his namesake Doug Organ Trio) and the owner, operator, producer and engineer of Edmontone Studio. It’s a young recording facility that has, since its inception just three years ago, housed recording projects for Edmonton luminaries like Christian Hansen and the Autistics, Tim Gilbertson and of course our buddies, The Omega Theory.

Edmontone started off as a lot of smaller jobs for Doug, who would often record in makeshift studios, like rehearsal spaces, or his own home.

“Well. it’s not like I’d set up a band in the apartment,” he laughs. “[Artists would] come over to do the vocals…but every time we needed to do beds, the band’s money was going to someone else’s studios or renting a space.”

Doug soon realized he could be earning a better return on his (and his clients’) time and money if he had his own space to record in – so he found an investor and set to work, searching out the right spot.

“What I was looking for was like a light industrial area…and I basically drove around Edmonton late at night for three years, looking creepy, trying to find the exact building.”

Eventually, driving around looking creepy paid off, and Doug found a space in the city’s downtown that he renovated with the help of friends and fellow musicians.

Edmontone Studio before...

“It took us six months to build the studio, and that time, and the first year…were pretty stressful.”

“The construction snowballed, and therefore the costs snowballed and I felt that,” he explains. “Like, this is a big investment, and I know I can do good recordings, but man, can I pull this off?”

Despite the obvious risks associated with opening any small business, Doug says he remained confident Edmontone could succeed.

“I kind of suspected that the business would take care of itself because it always had,” he says.

...and after.

“Worst case scenario was that we would have a room that was physically large enough for more than one person to make music in at once, and I knew that no matterwhat happened, if I was unable to work or nobody was recording anymore …at the very least it could be a rehearsal space.”

Today, the studio stays very busy. A new homeowner, Doug lives in the neighbourhood and says he spends most of his time working.

“I lock up, I walk home for two minutes, and then plunk down in bed. Then I wake up and go back to work,” he says.

“The stuff that I’m doing now is probably more than one full time job, but it’s not quite two full time jobs,” he explains.

“But to have to be the cleaning lady and the admin guy and do the actual recording also is not such a big deal. Especially when it’s your baby.”

ALSO, the job has its occasional perks…

Doug, at Abbey Road.

“I just came back from mastering a project at Abbey Road. And the client was excited – but nowhere near as excited as I was because I was actually going to get to go,” he laughs.

“It was very last minute, I [was] going to England…I’m just going to see if it costs like 30-grand to master. It was a fair amount of money, but not unreasonable, as it turns out.”

“We spent about four hours, and at six hours I was going to be like “‘OKAYTHANKSBYE!’” he says, miming running out the door.

To learn more about Edmontone Studio, you can check out the website here. You can also pick up a record from the Doug Organ Trio here.

Also worth mentioning - some of the people I mention here are friends of mine, or at the very least acquaintances - the guys in N.N. are my upstairs neighbours at the space my own band rehearses in - but rest assured, I show no favoritism. If I wouldn't throw down 15 bucks for their CD - because I live in 1999, where people still buy CDs - I won't mention it here.]

What you need to know about N.N. before we get started – they play a brand of hard rock and punk that sounds like sort of a cross between Iggy and the Stooges and the Beastie Boys.  They’ve had the same lineup for four years, even though during that time there’s been some shuffling (in the early days, Antonio Ponce – now the drummer – started as the lead vocalist). They’re about to release their first EP and are heading to Tokyo for Japan Music Week this fall.  And they have very graciously hooked us up with a few songs for you guys to enjoy – but I am having a hell of a time getting them uploaded. I promise I’ll add them as soon as our Internet woes get sorted out.

Update: All fixed!

Poisoning Me: N.N.

BUT! I DIGRESS! Another tale worth telling – I didn’t really know the N.N. guys very well before I dropped in to interview them this past Monday. While we were in their rehearsal space, a giant thunderstorm raged outside (you can see the lightning flashing in the window behind them during the video). Once we wrapped up, we discovered the lower level of the building (where my band rehearses) was flooding. And all five of them got soaking wet (alongside some of our other neighbours) helping move everybody’s gear to higher ground.

Studio City Be Floodin'!

So if you would like to HONOUR the HEROES of N.N. and Van Gohst, I suggest you do so by purchasing a ticket to their Friday show at the Starlite Room.

You can pick up a copy of N.N.’s new EP (FYI, every ticket and EP sold helps fund their trip to Japan!) through their MySpace, or message them on Facebook.

But most people aren’t Tad Hargrave. In an epic feat of putting his money where his mouth is, Tad is opening his home to local musicians (who will have the chance to perform acoustically) and, more importantly, to you jackals, who can buy a ticket into Tad’s Garneau-area home for a suggested donation of just $15.

“Part of it was wanting to create something really special,” Tad tells me in a phone call. “I felt like it was a very easy thing to do to support my friends.”

Tad’s a musician himself, though he’s quick to say that he won’t be performing a living room session anytime soon. He’s really just interested in getting some of the city’s best unknown talent an audience.

“For me, it’s just like, you get to see these hidden gems in Edmonton. You get to have this very personal, intimate concert.”

Tad says the idea for these sessions came from two notions:

“Notion #1: Some music is best enjoyed in intimate, acoustic settings.

Notion #2: Edmonton is full of musical gems that many people, sadly, never discover.

“So this is a venue to introduce people to amazing new music found in their own backyard.”

Speaking of backyard, Tad came up with the idea at a backyard party he attended that featured local artists.

“I’ve been getting all these calls from other musicians I don’t know saying ‘Hey, can I play one of your living room sessions?’”

“The whole process has been teaching me how little musicians get paid,” he says.

100% of the donated “ticket” prices go to the artist.

Tad’s mom liked the idea so much, she even chipped $20 a show for the performer.

It’s 30 people max, first come first serve. For more info visit the Facebook group. (Get on it, there’s a show TONIGHT!)

This is Edmonton's new concert hall.

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THE LIVING ROOM SESSIONS #3

An Evening with Scott Cook

DESCRIPTION: it will be a 45 minute, candlelit evening of musical performance with a fireplace in a backdrop and 30 marvelous people sitting on couches, cushions, chairs and mattresses.

COST: suggested donation of $15 (100% of profits go to the artist)

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

If you listen well, lifelong traveler and musical hobo Scott Cook’s new album may remind you just how rare a commodity honesty is in today’s music scene. There’s an awful lot of talk about it, but very few songwriters really wear their hearts on their sleeve, and even fewer do it with such lyrical craftsmanship and raw feeling as you’ll hear on this record.

It has been two years and a lot of roads traveled since Scott Cook traded in his job teaching kindergarten in Taiwan for a full-time living as a musician on the road in North America, and while he’s certainly experienced his share of hardships and struggle along the way, he isn’t thinking of quitting. His self-published 2007 debut, Long Way to Wander, made the national folk top ten on college and community radio, and kept him on the road for the better part of two years, living in his van, playing constantly, picking up stories and passing them on. His newest “love letter to the world” is a fitting follow-up, and his best work to date. Entitled This One’s on the House, it’s a collection of road stories, existential ramblings, and musings on love, loss, and the courage to love again.

A wearer of many hats, Cook also builds websites, writes poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and co-organizes Taiwan’s Peace Festival, a non-profit music and arts festival that raises money for peace work and charitable work on Taiwan and worldwide.

(album notes via cdbaby)