Project 158 - Taking a photo a day from July 27, 2009 to December 31, 2009

Project 365 is basically a challenge to take at least one photograph every day for an entire year. I believe the idea came from photojojo.com. I had been wrestling with this idea but never felt I would be able to keep up with it. I decided yesterday that I’m going to attempt it but I will call it Project 158 (number of days from July 27 to December 31), and then if all goes well I will start over in the new year with a Project 365. You can follow my progress on flickr, and every month or so I will update on the blog how my progress is going. You’ll also be able to see each picture in my Lifestream, as well as on my Facebook news feed (as I have Facebook notified of my flickr uploads) as they are uploaded.

I also expect this to be a mix of pictures taken with my HTC Magic cellphone and my Canon Powershot S3 IS, so the quality from picture to picture will change. The majority will most likely be from my cellphone. Wish me luck.

Location: Kelowna, BC
Genre: Indie / Pop / Rock
Website: treelinesmusic.com
Links:

I’m having a love affair with this band. If you’ve checked out the new Bergtrax 4000 mixtape I posted yesterday Vol 04: You’re The Man Now, Dog you’ll notice that this band got the coveted #1 spot. This player below is from their page on bandcamp (which I mentioned in my Indie Artists: Beginner’s Guide to the Internet tutorial) where you can download this entire album for a very fair price of a minimum of 8USD (you can offer to pay more if you’d like). Please enjoy the fruits of their labour.

Pressing play will play the entire album through.

In the three months since the last Bergtrax 4000 I’ve been racking my brain to come up with a great mixtape. I wrestled with a few but wasn’t ever completely satisfied with any of them. But I recently signed up for eMusic and as such have been downloading albums (I tend to shy away from buying singles as albums truly showcase a band’s talent) which has given me more motivation to put this mixtape together; that, and the fact that mixtape.me switched from SeeqPod to Skreemr to fetch their mp3s (meaning more mp3s are available).

I don’t know exactly what it was that convinced me I should start buying music again. I’ve always been a large proponent of downloading music from torrents or from message boards (ie. theboreds.com), but now that I’m listening to more Canadian independent music, I feel I owe it to my countrymen to pay for the music they worked so hard to create. This, however, does not mean I’m above downloading music, just that I’m more conscious of my decision to leech music as opposed to legally purchase it.

As far as the music goes in this volume, here are the stats:

• 10 songs
• 8 Canadian artists
• 2 bands from Massachusetts
• 2 artists have been shortlisted for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize -link-
• 2 bands were shortlisted (but lost) for the 2008 Polaris Music Prize
• In the last 3 months these artists attribute for 703 scrobbles (my guess is that the play count is actually higher)
• The oldest band formed in 1984
• Number of these artists I listened to on a regular basis at this time last year: 0

And now the tracklisting (clicking on the # will take you to their myspace page):

1. Treelines – Burned Up Hands (Kelowna, BC) #
2. Dinosaur Jr. – I Want You To Know (Amherst, Mass.) #
3. Passion Pit – Sleepyhead (Cambridge, Mass.) #
4. Hey Rosetta! – I’ve Been Asleep For A Long, Long Time (St. John’s, NFLD) #
5. Ohbijou – Black Ice (Toronto, ON) #
6. Dan Mangan – Robots (Vancouver, BC) #
7. Plants and Animals – Bye Bye Bye (Montreal, QC) #
8. Winter Gloves – Factories (Montreal, QC) #
9. Two Hours Traffic – Stuck For The Summer (Charlottetown, PEI) #
10. Joel Plaskett – Through & Through & Through (Dartmouth, NS) #

There will be an iMix available tonight. I have double checked that all of the songs work, so if you notice it skip a song, try double clicking it again.
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Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Christopher Moore‘s Lamb The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal was great. Just wow. It’s a great read for those who have ever wondered what happened in that mythical time between when Jesus was born and when he began his ministry (something the Gospels decided to leave out almost entirely). From growing up in Galilee to his adventures in the East living with each of the three wisemen (oh, and can’t forget about the Yeti), the action, adventure, comedy, and Biff’s sexual endeavours for the sake of Jesus not be allowed to know a woman never lets up.

It’s also interesting to read Biff’s asides about living in today’s society writing his Gospel under the watchful eye of the angel Raziel, and how Raziel just couldn’t grasp that what happens on TV is acting. Also to read Biff’s reactions to reading the Gospels for the first time only to see he’s not in them.

I would certainly encourage anyone to read Lamb but ESPECIALLY Christians. It’s not meant to test your faith, but it’s fun to be able to read something about Jesus that’s not so serious, even if it is just made up.

View all my reviews.

You’re probably wondering what type of qualifications this guy, on a random blog, has to talk about getting an indie band some exposure on the internet? The short answer is none. The long answer is… very little. I used to run this little site called Punkcanada.net, which then became Canadanoise.com. Don’t bother trying to check them out, I didn’t link them for a reason: they no longer exist. You might be able to use archive.org to check them out, but do so at your own risk. It started out as a Punknews.org clone, but specifically for Canadian punk bands, then became Canadanoise, which never went anywhere before dying a slow, relatively painless death.

None of that, however, is relevant. Now, I’m just a fan. A fan who loves to discover new music of all kinds, whether it’s an established artist I just haven’t heard of yet, or a new and upcoming band just getting their feet under them. There are lots of avenues to discover new music, but lately I’m finding some of the up and coming artists aren’t putting it all together in order to help people, like myself, discover their music. This is a simple list of things a band can do on the internet to help people find their music and get some much needed exposure. And not to toot my own horn, but if you’re missing something on this list, you’re really only limiting yourself.
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