thewintermarket.com

The Casbah was awesome. Many folks who would never have come to our gig intentionally hanging out and loving it. NIN was playing at Copps, and rumor had it that this was the ‘official’ after party. Trent did drive the buses by the club…I guess that counts.

The night affirmed my belief that The Hammer rocks. All the bands we saw were really good. Surfacing with Amberley Baggett’s crazy energy and voice, The Shout (who’s guitarist is Tone’s neighbour), Cowlick (you guys are silly!), and the cool/skilled but under attended Transient Workers Union (thanks for use of the awesome drum kit!).

Tone, Dino and I met up earlier to go over the tunes and had a short but productive rehearsal, but when showtime happened it was obvious we had to take it up a notch. So we collectively summoned the full aspect of “THE ROCK” and gave the crowd full on The Wintermarket. A couple of the tunes bore little resemblance to the recorded versions (Hulk Smash), but it really didn’t matter. We were simply vessels of “THE ROCK” and surrendered ourselves to it’s will.

More to follow, but right now….I need to sleep.

Hey all! We’ve been nominated for Hamilton Music Awards! Tone for Drummer of the year, Dino for Bass player of the year and my self for Keyboard Player of the year. I’m pretty stoked and the guys deserve it. Along with the awards show is a two day festival, a music career day, and a separate Industry Award show. The fact that Hamilton has such a thing is a testament to how hard The Hammer rocks and how much music there is around here.

We’ll be playing for the festival on Friday November 14th at The Casbah (Queen and King) and the awards show is Sunday November 16th at 6pm.

Ok, so I know we’re not really playing jazz.  More Jay-uhz as my friend Spin Turlock puts it.  I sort of imagine The Wintermarket would appeal to a wide demographic in some way.  It’s funky, there is some good playing and the tunes are mostly innocuous with occasional wierd moments.  It’s the type of music that happily sits in the background of your life, only occasionally twisting your ear for attention.

The thing I didn’t expect…Kids love The Wintermarket.
My first clue was when our Engineer, Trevor Titian mentioned his 9 year old son really liked the tunes.  He was excited when he met me and referred to the album as “that crazy music”.  My sister also reports that my 6 year old niece also loves the tunes and wants to be a “music guy like her uncle Ron” when she grows up.  Hopefully it’s just a phase but be sure the D’jembe I got her last Christmas might be upgraded to a drum kit this Christmas (my poor sister).

I don’t have any children myself, but my theory is that kids prefer things they perceive as “adult” rather than things that are made “for” them.  Since the album is instrumental, they can use their oh-so fertile imaginations to fill in the blanks.  They can dance and wiggle about for the crazy bits, and tune out as their cute little ADD addled brains desire.

So, I’m not sure how to sell music to kids any more than I know how to sell music to adults but I think next year I need to book some festivals where under 18 set can see us play!

Crap, look at the date with no updates…sad indeed.  I’ve been busy trying to rustle up some more gigs, only to find that Tone is crazy busy (as a drummer of his talent should be) playing renaissance fairs and clan calls.  Crazy if you ask me.  Tone is far to progressive for the 12 century.  So off I go to look for a front end gig.  I like being a house band, so maybe I’ll try to pick up a regular front end gig (that Monday to Thursday in gigspeak).

So, all went well. Some folks came out to see us. My sister came out and took some pictures. My rig sounded awesome, thanks to my friend Andrew (who was playing guitar with Michelle) who let me put the Clavinet through his Fender Bassman. The Leslie held up just fine, and I managed to fit it into the Toyota Echo. I’ve uploaded a few pictures to the gallery.

Special thanks goes out to Bruce “The Mole” Mowat and Ric Taylor and CFMU McMaster Radio for playing the tunes and inviting me on the air. Perhaps I can post the interviews at some point in the future.

In my quest to NOT play to an empty room on Tuesday at The Pepper Jack, you can find me on McMaster campus radio CFMU Friday May 23 at 6pm, verbally sparring witty banter on Ric Taylor’s Lullabies in Razorland show. If you miss that, Tuesday May 27 (Gig Night!) at 6:30 pm will be a whole different thing on Bruce “The Mole” Mowat’s e-Mole 90 show. You can tune in to the ShoutCast stream at http://cfmu.mcmaster.ca (you’ll need Winamp). I also see The Hamilton Spectator listed us in the “Best Bet’s” column for this week!

Just a quick note that I’ve released the first album by The Wintermarket via a Creative Common license. You can download all of the songs in MP3 format here. Please feel free to share this music! It was recorded in a variety of guerrilla fashions between 1998 and 2000. It features the late Kymbliss Drake (nee Kimberly Drake) on vocals, piano and songwriting (Home aka Aftershock and Alone). Kymbliss lived her life with Cystic Fibrosis and passed away shortly after a much needed lung transplant. If you feel the need to donate, Kym’s charity was The Children’s Wish Foundation, who gave her the chance to compose for a symphony orchestra, and always made sure she had a piano at home. The Kurzweil Digital Piano they donated can be heard on Home/Aftershock.

We’ll be playing an opening slot with the lovely and talented Michelle Titian on Tuesday, May 27th at The Pepper Jack Cafe in Hamilton, Ontario. Michelle is a singer/songwriter of original ‘Americana’ music and since both Tone and I often play in her band, we will be playing with her that night as well. Two gigs, one venue, one night!

Map

Thanks to the magic of Tunecore the album in now available through your local iTunes store. You can also download it from Amazon.com, as ring tones at GroupieTunes, through Napster and soon through Rhapsody and something called LaLa (by June 3 they tell me). Tunecore is an interesting and inexpensive way to distribute your “album” to a number of music e-tailers at one time. They charge a bit of money for the service but,

1. iTunes already rejected me
2. I’ve spent much more money sending demo’s to record companies

So it works for me. Let’s see if anyone buys it My only complaints about Tunecore so far are the lack of tags on anything, and it seems to take 45 days to see any of your sales figures. Perhaps these issues will work themselves out.

If you’ve purchased tunes or the CD in the past, you might know that I used E-Junkie and Paypal. Oddly enough, the ARPU is much better this way. The CD is temporarily sold out of the first run (many comped of course). I expect to have more printed up in the coming weeks. You can still buy t-shirts and gear through Cafe Express.

I’ve heard the jokes about the quality of Cafe Express merchandise, and we haven’t sold much of it. I’ve ordered some to check it out, and maybe sell at an upcoming gig. I’ll let you know how it works out.

My name is Ron Elliott, and I’ll likely be the one writing this web log, or blog, as all the hipsters call it. I suppose I should introduce myself. I’m 37 years old (yikes!), I play crusty old keyboards, record music and sound effects in various modern ways, and occasionally do sound design for little video games.

You have likely found yourself here through the band, The Wintermarket. I won’t bore you with the details, but hopefully much of this blog will be music in the 21st century related. It’s a whole different world out there, one that I predicted a long time ago and am somewhat vindicated to see come to fruition, even if I don’t know exactly how to capitalize on it.

That’s it for now, stay tuned and buy our tunes!