The Kathedral Where God Wasn't

Date: July 23^rd, 2008
Venue: The Kathedral
Series: n/a

The Kathedral was empty when we got in, and stayed empty until we got out. Because of this whole MuchMusic fiasco that has swooped in and effectively put each one of our lives on hiatus (see “MuchMusic, yes, THE MuchMusic” blog – July 8^th, 2008), we haven’t had time to find a toilet to piss in, much less promote for shows we only hear about a week in advance. Kick Ass Concerts invited us to play at a show they were putting on with several relatively high-profile members on the bill, the most prominent of which was rock group Menew who had apparently opened for U2 on The Vertigo Tour. Rachel, our contact at Kick Ass, had told Conor that she was expecting the place to be packed out.

Their turnout did not measure up to their critical acclaim, to say the least. I really don’t know what happened here. When we got into the venue at about 10pm (we were to play at 11 30pm), there were maybe three people sitting about 5m from the stage, and a handful of people at the bar looking like they wanted nothing to do with what was happening on stage. I don’t blame them – I wouldn’t want to look like the only person who gave a shit either, even if I did.

From what I was told, Menew had expected some third party (maybe even Kick Ass) to do all their promo for the concert, and came into their own show having told no one about it (at least that’s what the resulting crowd number would seem to reflect). Members from another band that had played that night had also told me bitterly that Menew had adopted a terrible attitude vis-à-vis the event – while the other bands were playing, they waited outside unsupportively smoking cigarettes and hating the world. Whatever, if I opened for U2, I’d probably be doing the same. In fact, we kind of did: the minute we realized that no one was going to be watching, we went back to Kev’s car in the parking lot, sesh’d, and got smashed. We enjoy escaping our sad realities as often as possible.

Conor must have seen the looks of discouragement on our faces when we walked in and saw how barren the venue landscape was. I have never seen so little people in one room at a time other than the time I farted in the steam room. He rounded up the members of Soul Plane and directed us outside for a pep talk. He reminded us that despite there being nobody, these are the times where we gotta prove to ourselves how much we love doing this music shit no matter who or how many are watching. At the end of the day, it’s a show we can claim credit for having put on.

When it was our turn to play for all 15 people at the venue, we got on and did our thing. I started noticing that more and more people were leaving the bar area and moving up to congregate closer to the stage. Halfway through “No Worries,” the second song on our setlist, I noticed that there were two kids breakdancing to our performance – not just popping and locking either; I’m talking full-fledged six-step, windmills, and freezes. One of the b-boys later told me that our music had brought him out of retirement, that when he heard us play “Impossible,” our permanent set opener, he couldn’t help himself – we cherish the compliment.

As we moved into “Liquor on the Curb,” I noticed an attractive blonde woman, probably in her mid-thirties, standing up-close-and-personal towards the centre of the stage, holding a digital camera filming us. She was one of the few people paying attention in the Kathedral – I decided what the hell, I’d have some fun and play to the camera. We finished our set without anything interesting happening aside from a few of our most hardcore yelling for an encore – we gladly obliged with a house-blasting rendition of “Welcome to T-Dot City.”

After the show we packed up and went outside where Conor was waiting for us. As we de-briefed as a band, I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see the blonde woman who was filming us, smiling right at me. I did a double-take, cleared my throat, and spoke up: “Hey! Thanks for filming us earlier on, unless you were only doing it to get an example of what not to do on stage.” I extended my hand to shake hers, and as she took my hand she pulled me into her and kissed me on the neck. Whoa. She said that she loved Asians, that she was always shooting them. As smoothly as I could manage, I said that as long as it was with a camera, there were no problems here. She laughed, and then started speaking in Cantonese to me: “How are you? What’s your name?” I was taken aback, to say the least – it’s not every day I’m accosted by Chinese-speaking Caucasian women who kiss me upon meeting me. I just wish it would happen more often. She then asked me another question in Cantonese which, probably due to my incredulousness at the situation, I didn’t catch both times she said it (the second time she repeated at my request). She reverted back to English and told me that she was actually asking me if I wanted to get out of here and go get a drink with her. I was stunned. I answered hastily: “Uh... Yeah! Let’s go!” Good one, Yui. She was still holding my hand at this point. Suddenly, I heard an all-too-familiar voice behind me: “Hey, I’m Conor Stief. Soul Plane’s manager.” Professional block of cock right there.

She let go of my hand to shake Conor’s, and introduced herself as [Vanessa]. She said she was a film director and she saw (and heard) lots of potential in Soul Plane earlier on, and wanted to see if we were interested in making a music video with her. Vanessa told us that she had actually come from wrapping up some shoot of some scene for some movie, the name of which currently escapes me, and that she had come over because the owner of the Kathedral (or maybe even the Big Bop of which the Kathedral is a part) had invited her to drop in. Conor gave her his business card and told her not to hesitate to email or call him if she seriously wanted to follow through.

We’re still waiting on her contact. We’re hoping she’s nuts about us, and not just nuts in general.

In other news, after Vanessa left us, we managed to hook up with another band that played that night (apparently Aaron was connected to them from some gig he had played with them in the past) – Ninth Line. They sound just like Incubus – without question, they are talented. Look out for these guys collaborating with Soul Plane to bring it to a stage near you.

Yui... OUT!

Toronto Night Market '08

Date: July 12^th, 2008
Venue: Metro Square
Series: Toronto Night Market ‘08

When I looked out the window on Saturday morning, the skies were grey and the sun was nowhere to be seen. I made a bee-line for the nearest computer and checked the weather forecast – theweathernetwork.ca informed me that the evening had thunderstorms in store, with an 80% P.O.P. Being that we were scheduled to play at the Toronto Night Market (an annual festival celebrating Asian culture and tradition held in the huge parking lot of Metro Square) that night at 11 15pm, I immediately braced myself for the worst. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we didn’t have so much riding on this gig: aside from the show itself being delayed (or at the very worst, cancelled) due to the weather, we worried that rain would ruin the crowd turnout, which in turn would ruin our merchandise promotion (Soul Plane demos and t-shirts were to be released for sale for the first time ever that night), which in turn would ruin MuchMusic’s coverage of this show (see “MuchMusic (yes, THE MuchMusic)” blog – July 8^th, 2008), which in turn would have put me in jail because I’d go bat-shit crazy and just demolition derby everything within a 10-metre radius of my personal vicinity until I get pulled away either in handcuffs or a bodybag. Real talk.

We were to arrive at Aaron’s for 1pm so that we could be at soundcheck for 2pm. Once we got to Metro Square, the organizers of the event and the sound crew were very on point; we were checked and out of there within the hour. Soundcheck was of utmost importance because we knew that MuchMusic would be coming to film the performance, and we didn’t want to sound like we did the night before at Holy Joe’s. We even made a point of running through all of “Life is Beautiful” so that the sound man could make all the necessary level adjustments to get us sounding the way we wanted. Mel nearly forced the poor guy at knifepoint to write down all the values so that there would be no margin for error.

We adjourned back at Aaron’s house and did a whole lot of nothing until I decided to ditch everyone to go home and grab the clothes I was going to wear on stage that night. The five-minute drive home saw some light drizzling against the windshield of Mel’s RAV4. As I walked into the house, my dad asked me if I was ready for my show that night. I said that I was, but that I also needed it to not rain because otherwise I would go out swinging on senior citizens, small children, and wounded animals. He gave me a weird look and mumbled something about the hospital switching bassinets on him 21 years ago.

A while later, I stepped out of the shower and, much to my dismay, heard thunder. I quickly got dressed and rushed out the door, I was almost scared right back inside. The rain coming down was heavy enough to fix a bad back. I could see dents in the pavement that weren’t there before. As I ran to Mel’s car trying to avoid a deep-tissue massage, I remember wondering if it was even worth making the effort to get to Toronto Night Market considering the weather conditions – at this rate, I was 100% sure that they would have shut the stage down for the remainder of the night. I had never been so depressed in my life. I spent most of dinner wishing I would die in a forest fire.

We were all back at the Mellet residence by 8pm, and, thankfully, the rain had almost fully stopped – we just prayed to the powers that be that it was gone for good. Conor was there by about 8 10pm, and then Hector and Julie from MuchMusic arrived by 8 30pm. Harrison (Machinehead Studio owner and Soul Plane benefactor) rolled up at 8 40pm with shrink-wrapped copies of Black Box and several dozen assorted Soul Plane t-shirts, ready to be sold at the promotion booth the Night Market organizers had set aside for us. By 9pm, we were prepared for departure. Julie hitched a ride with Kevin, Gideon, Aaron, and Luke (she had a media pass, meaning they wouldn’t have to search and destroy for a parking spot); Hector hopped into the passenger seat of Mel’s RAV4 with a camera and asked Conor, Harrison, Mel (obviously) and me to join him in the car. Mel threw the keys to me and got in the back. There is nothing I love more than the thrill I get from having to divert my attention from focusing on the road to talking into a MuchMusic camera rolling right beside me, especially when I don’t own and am not insured under the car I’m driving. Looks like I might not need rain to put me in jail after all.

It was almost 10pm when we finally managed to find a parking spot. Once we got out of the car, Conor took a call from Shain, one of our friends (and soon-to-be head honcho of Soul Plane’s promotional team) who was in early attendance. Shain informed us that he had been at the Toronto Night Market for several hours, and that not too long ago, one band had already been sent home without the chance to perform due to the extremely adverse weather conditions, and that they had already shut down the stage once when it was pouring earlier. Upon hearing this I almost threw myself in front of traffic – already the programme for the evening was being cut short as a direct result of the storm. Any more rain would spell disaster for our evening and leave our best efforts spoiled like milk in the sun.

The minute we got near the stage where the organizers were anxiously keeping an eye on the weather, Conor was in their faces trying to strongarm an earlier set time for us, or at least for them to let us keep our original set time (11 15pm) despite the ongoing postponement. Conor fully understood the ramifications of Soul Plane’s set being cancelled should it rain again – not only would the crowd be sorely disappointed, but Harrison’s rush to produce our demos and t-shirts would have been in vain, MuchMusic would subsequently have been forced to go home empty-handed, and the good folk at Toronto Night Market would incidentally lose the chance to give this yearly fundraising festival national television exposure. After over 30 minutes of negotiating (ie, Conor using Much’s presence as leverage), it was finally agreed upon by both parties that Soul Plane would be able to keep our original set time of 11 15pm on the dot, provided it didn’t piss from the heavens until then.

When the act we were to follow prepared to exit the stage, the Night Market organizers told us that our set time had to be cut short from five songs to four due to the performance backlog. No prob, Bob – at this point we just wanted to get on and rip it. We immediately re-wrote our setlist: “Impossible,” then “No Worries,” then “Soul Playin’,” then “Life is Beautiful.” Before we had a chance to revise this list, the emcees of the show started introducing us, saying things like, “After blowing us away last year, this band clearly needs no further introduction, their performance here tonight is covered by MuchMusic...” – they really did a stellar job bigging us up to the fullest possible extent and getting the crowd excited for our act. To be honest, I thought it was a little over-the-top – but then again, what do I know? I’ve never been associated to anything anyone speaks highly of.

Too bad we weren’t able to maintain the hype, though. Once we stepped on stage, we realized the cymbals to the drumkit Night Market had provided were strewn all over the floor behind Aaron’s seat. Aaron consequently had to take a good ten minutes just to get set up – during this time I addressed the crowd in Cantonese and begged them to bear with us, and they did. At first, because of how long it took the band to get ready, the audience seemed bored and indifferent by the time Aaron got his metronome going and started tapping Gideon in for “Impossible.” Towards the end of the first verse, however, no one who was paying us even the remotest of attentions was left on their ass – the whole Night Market scene seemed to suddenly come to life as they cheered us on louder than any crowd at any show we’ve ever played at. And when I yelled, “...And everybody PLEASE give a warm welcome to MuchMusic!!” into the mic while pointing at Hector’s camera? Fugheddaboutit.

At the end of “Impossible,” I brought the crowd back with our signature cheer: “WHEN I SAY SOUL... YOU SAY PLANE!!” I did it twice – both times the “PLANE!” part came in a deafening roar. This kind of reaction was exactly what MuchMusic needed to film. As Kevin started playing the intro to “No Worries,” I announced that we had copies of Black Box for sale, as well as Soul Plane t-shirts that would make great souvenirs of the concert. As I directed the audience’s attention towards Conor and Harrison (who were already each wearing a Soul Plane t-shirt and running around holding them up), Harrison approached the stage and passed me a stack of four copies of the demo and told me to give them away. I split the crowd down the middle and held a cheering contest between the two sides to see who would get the CDs, and as I held them out, I was almost pulled down by one guy in the front row who ignored all conventions and norms and just tried to grab at a copy, as well as a gorgeous Asian girl who strapped on some kinda mini-jetpack and launched herself through the once-impenetrable crowd to get a hold of what she thought was rightfully hers. I think she might even have cracked the CD case with her vice-grip. The other two copies just got lost in the Matrix somehow.

As Mel sang her bridge for “No Worries,” one of the Night Market organizers signalled to me from the side of the stage telling us that we only had time for one more song. Shit, I had spent too much time interacting with the crowd and promoting our merchandise. Didn’t matter though – we made do. I wasn’t entirely pissed, either – we played three songs out of the five on our demo, and the blessing in disguise here we were able to leave our audience wanting more – and the quickest, easiest way to satisfy that craving? Drop $5 on a demo, or $10 on a t-shirt if you really loved us and want to support our cause. I gave one last shout-out to MuchMusic, waited for cheers, shouted out the release of our demo once again, and launched right into the verse for “Life is Beautiful.”

There was to be no silencing of the audience after our set. The applause was booming as the Much cameras kept rolling – even the show’s emcee slipped up and said, as we were getting off the stage, “Wow! That’s going to be a hard act to follow!” His female counterpart immediately reprimanded him on stage, but he continued to defend his statement by insisting that it was true, that Soul Plane was just a “highlight of highlights.” Let me be the first to say that we are honoured to be on the receiving end of a compliment of this stature. Speaking of being on the receiving end of things, it felt like I got clotheslined the minute I stepped off stage to rejoin my band. People from all over went out of their way to wait for us at the side of the stage to congratulate us for an amazing performance. I was absolutely swarmed – it was Bradstock-esque (see “Bradstock ‘08” blog – June 18, 2008), to say the least. Guys were trying to talk to me; girls were trying to take pictures with me. Everyone wanted an autograph on either a copy of the demo or a Soul Plane t-shirt they had purchased – I had to steal the sound guy’s Sharpie pen when he wasn’t looking in order to oblige.

To sum it up, it was a totally crazy night. We went from fearing that the stage would be shut down to shutting down the stage by ourselves. The rain had backed off completely for the entirety of our set. The people were present in plenty; they loved us and were not afraid to show it. Everybody bought a lot of merchandise (Harrison made his money back and then some) and asked us for ways to follow up with us and keep up with Soul Plane’s upcoming events. The feedback for our portion of the evening was nothing short of fabulous. The best part of the whole experience, though? MuchMusic got all this on tape; Hector later told me he ran over two full hours – our total set time was maybe 20 minutes.

Yeah, I’d say the Night Market was pretty successful this year. Hopefully, we’ll up the ante again for 2009. All I can say is that we’re working on it...

Pictures from the Toronto Night Market are up (courtesy of Katherine)... see the “Soul Plane At A Glance” section now!

The Bad Show Turned Good

Date: July 11^th, 2008
Venue: Holy Joe’s
Series: n/a

It was one of those gigs we completely forgot (didn’t care) we were playing up until like, four days before we were to play it. Kick Ass Concerts got in touch with Conor after Soul Plane’s Opera House gig on June 19^th and invited us to play at a show they had set up for the evening of July 11^th at the Kathedral. I believe Conor may have briefly mentioned it to me (and probably everyone else) way back, but the whole MuchMusic thing came up a week before showtime and blasted the entire gig to the Soul Plane backburner (see “MuchMusic (yes, THE MuchMusic)” blog – July 8^th, 2008). Even before MuchMusic took over our entire lives, we knew we had a huge gig scheduled for the following night, July 12^th – the Toronto Night Market (an event we later found out that MuchMusic wanted to cover). By the time this whole MuchMusic fiasco was worked out, it meant two back-to-back gigs, one Friday night (the 11^th), one Saturday night (12^th), with Much coverage at the one on Saturday night (Toronto Night Market). Soul Plane was also to release pressed copies of the Black Box demo and put Soul Plane t-shirts on sale (all courtesy of Machinehead Studio) at the Toronto Night Market.

Despite this insanity overload, we accepted the invitation to play the show at the Kathedral. The reasoning for doing so was three-fold: 1) Luke had never played a single gig with us as our bassist, and if he was going to play with us at the Toronto Night Market (originally, it was going to be Patrick, but once the MuchMusic thing fell in place we opted to put our new and hopefully permanent bassist forward for the reality series), then he’d better have some stage experience with Soul Plane as a band. 2) Everyone else saw it as an opportunity to tighten up performance-wise before the Toronto Night Market, especially once we found out that MuchMusic was making moves to crash that party. 3) At the end of the day, it’s a show, and it adds to the experience those label executives told us we so desperately need.

Because the two weeks leading up to this gig consisted of Soul Plane members collectively dropping every single thing (including vacations planned for months with friends and family – they now hate us, as well as our 9-5 day jobs – they now fired us) to shoot with Much, we did absolutely no promotion for this gig aside from sending out Facebook invites to everyone that is part of the Soul Plane group and sending out information via our mailing list (see top right corner of website for details). We expected a total number of 0 people in the crowd, and considering the intended purpose of this show, we gave less of a shit than constipation.

When Friday rolled around, we found ourselves looking forward to Saturday night. We didn’t even bother going to soundcheck for the show was to happen that night. To add to our lack of spirit for this show, as we were playing hooky on soundcheck, I got a call Friday afternoon from Conor:

“Yo guy, apparently the concert’s been moved up to Holy Joe’s. Don’t ask, I just found out myself.”

If I didn’t care before, I cared even less now. Holy Joe’s is a much smaller venue than the Kathedral, literally its attic... the most optimistic would label it “intimate and cozy.” I personally like to think of it as a prison cell, except with worse acoustics and less room to manoeuvre. Definitely not the most fun place to play. Katherine (Soul Plane’s official blog reader and number one fan) was the only person I bothered text-messaging to let her know about the change of plans. Everyone else would just have to find out the hard way. It’s not as harsh as it sounds, considering no one was coming.

Although my indifference screwed my passiveness and conceived a contemptuous pessimism towards the show, this bastard foetus was quickly aborted as we prepared to get on. As the band before us walked off stage, I noticed that most of the audience didn’t budge from their seats (usually, at these type of shows, people come to see their friend’s band and then leave once the set’s over). As I glanced at towards the entrance, people were making their way in, lining up for security pat-downs. Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad after all. Then again, I should always know better than to underestimate Mel’s crowd-pulling power. Her family (sister and brother) brought out at least a dozen people. Kevin had a surprise crowd coming out, too, consisting of about 15 people. In total, including the randoms who came originally to see other acts but stuck around for us, we had about 30-40 people in the audience rooting for Soul Plane that night. At a venue like Holy Joe’s, that’s quite a heavy number.

Our set went real well. Originally we were going to stick with tracks off the demo (for Luke’s sake), but then the crowd forced us into encore, and so we had to oblige by throwing them a rendition of “Welcome to T-dot City.” Despite not knowing the music, Luke destroyed it. I have no complaints about the set itself; we played tighter than dykes. My chief problem was with the sound engineering... as usual in venues such as these (and also because we completely blew off soundcheck), the sound quality was ass-tastic – Mel and I were not pleased that we had to yell our way through six songs because we couldn’t hear ourselves, thereby nearly annihilating our vocal cords at a show we were only supposed to be playing for practice (the real deal was to happen the following night). Despite constantly asking to have our monitors and mic volumes turned up throughout our set, we still ended up spending most of the next day trying to rest up and let our voices recover for the Toronto Night Market.

All in all, though, we were just happy that we didn’t have to play in front of a vacant space. On the way home, Gideon made an interesting observation: “Yui, I think we’re past the point of playing for no one... like, this isn’t what we were a year ago anymore. If we’re putting on a show, people are gonna come out if we put it on our website.”

I hope to God he’s right.

MuchMusic (yes, THE MuchMusic)

I’ve always said from day one that much of Soul Plane’s stupid antics make for material worthy of a reality show. And now, just over a year and some change later, MuchMusic (yes, the MuchMusic) is saying more of the same. Read on for the big news that will blow your tits off.

It has been confirmed, ladies and gentlemen, that Soul Plane will be featured on a new, upcoming series being aired on MuchMusic meant to document the struggle that Canadian bands must endure in order to have even the remotest shot at breaking into the primarily U.S.-dominated music industry. Essentially, the series breaks down into a number of episodes that have already been planned out (around 15, last I heard); each episode focuses on a different Canadian band trying to get somewhere in the music business. Soul Plane is going to be one of those Canadian bands that gets focused on. I have never been more excited in my life – I’m so pumped that if I blink I might explode.

It all started several months ago when I emailed MuchMusic replying to an ad I had seen on Craigslist about a reality series concept they were planning to put on the network. I almost didn’t do it – the mere idea of putting Soul Plane’s idiocy on any kind of screen that gets national exposure almost made my heart stop. Besides, several months ago I wasn’t sure where the hell the band was gonna be, what with Patrick (former bassist) having to leave by September of this year and Blythe (former vocalist) being impossible to get a hold of and nowhere to be found. We had no prospects on the horizon and even less gigging opportunities. Definitely not the best of times for us. But Kevin’s simple line of logic made me reconsider: “What the hell do we have to lose, Yui?” He was right. Anything would have been win-win for us at that point – I would have stripped buck naked and done jumping jacks in front of a funeral procession if it would have garnered some attention for Soul Plane. So, I wrote the email, hit “send”, and then I grunted, shrugged, smirked, farted, put it to the back of my mind (the email, not the fart), and went to go get something to eat from Kevin’s fridge.

Several days later I found myself in correspondence with a producer from MuchMusic. He provided me with more details about the show and asked me if I still liked the idea of having Soul Plane featured on it. He said he heard the music and enjoyed the freshness and uniqueness of our sound. In his email, he also asked me to leave a contact number for him to call me at. I laughed at the thought of anyone that important even bothering to read my email, let alone click the soulplanemusic.com URL link I hit him up with, but despite that, I still let him know that we were still eager to be part of the series and left him my cell phone number in my reply. I never heard from him again. I just assumed that he had probably done his research on us and then, like most people did at the time, smelled the garbage cooking. The dream of ever being on TV went as fast as it came.

When it became apparent more recently (say, two weeks ago) that Patrick would have to be replaced as swiftly as possible if Soul Plane was to make any big moves for the summer, I started browsing through Craigslist in desperate search of a new bassist. This is where I found Luke. This is also where I saw the same MuchMusic ad I had replied to, several months earlier, re-posted. After a thorough forensic examination, I was able to deduce that maybe they might not have finished casting for that same show yet. I re-sent a reply, more for kicks than anything else. I didn’t expect much would come of it.

Last Monday afternoon, my cell phone rang.

Yui: Hello?
Lady: Hi, may I please speak to You-ee? I don’t know if I’m pronouncing this right… Youuu-ee? Am I saying it properly? (sheepish giggle)
Yui: You are saying it perfectly… I’m impressed. This is Yui. What can I do for you?
Lady: Hi Yui, this is [Tara] calling from MuchMusic…

I suddenly wished that I had remembered to wear underwear that day. Clean-up in aisle 5, clean-up, aisle 5. I don’t think Tara noticed I shat myself, though, and if she did, she was very professional about it; she carried on normally – besides, what the hell else could she have expected when she’s bringing news this good to my gates? She introduced herself as one of the producers of the new MuchMusic reality show that I had sent in an application on behalf of Soul Plane for (“twice,” – she laughed as she said it – apparently this shows a great deal enthusiasm on our part). Tara then asked me a whole gang of questions about the band; from drawing parallels between Soul Plane and mainstream artists (she compared us to Black-Eyed Peas from back in the day! Holy shitpops!!), to discussing each member’s day jobs and academic statuses, to chopping it up about our respective hopes and dreams, we covered an entire continent of information about the band. I couldn’t understand for the life of me how anyone could want to know this much about us.

After about a half-hour of conversation, she told me that she, as well as the other producers of the show, would like to meet with the entire band for an on-camera interview. We scheduled for the upcoming Friday, and Tara left me her contacts in case I had any further questions. I immediately got in touch with all my band members… once I let the cat out the bag, it was mostly screaming like little girls who just had their first periods and then hanging up on each other.

When Friday rolled around, we were ready. We got down to MuchMusic headquarters on Queen St. and met with [Julie], [Travis], [Hector], and of course, Tara – all producers of this new reality series to be aired by late August. The first thing Julie asked me after I introduced myself was whether or not I was the writer of the blogs. I pleaded guilty to all charges. She told me that she very much enjoyed them – that they were, in her opinion, very well-written, and that she used to be a writer herself. Tara chimed into the conversation by telling me that her favourite blog was the one about our photoshoot (see “Picture Day” blog – June 12, 2008). I was straight up and down blown away by the fact that MuchMusic producers were taking time out of their busy schedules to read my blog, and I treasure the compliments – they left me nodding like a dumbass, profusely muttering “thank you’s” under my breath.

Anyway, some 20 minutes later, we got in front of a tagged-up wall in an open alleyway that borders a parkette, across from the MuchMusic building. Once they turned that camera on, we played it cooler than a meat locker in Alaska. It felt so casual and natural; at times I completely forgot we were being interviewed, much less on camera, much less by producers of a national television network. To their credit, the MuchMusic producers were very good about putting us at ease with very general questions about who we are and what we do – I guess they just wanted to make sure that we didn’t look like a bunch of shaved orangutans on LSD.

We all came out of the interview feeling very good about the experience (it had almost nothing to do with the LSD). It went smoothly, and there were no noticeable slip-ups from anyone. I was most impressed at the way Gideon and Aaron handled themselves… it was like they were able to grow up instantly for the camera. Good thing, too, because no one’s in this shit to run a daycare. Kevin also threw down for Soul Plane real admirably, and despite their relatively-rookie statuses in the band, both Mel and Luke took care of their respective businesses – all in all, you just couldn’t knock our hustle. Even Conor was able to put the icing on the cake as he left each producer with a copy of the press kit and the demo pre-release for them to remember us by. I emailed them the next day thanking them for their time and the opportunity. We then put the rest in God’s hands.

Monday (yesterday) came around after a weekend of hope and anticipation – my cell phone rang again. It was Tara. She told me that Soul Plane has booked a spot on the show. I almost collapsed into myself on the spot – it felt like I had just won the lottery jackpot. I begged her not to play games with my heart. She promised me she was doing nothing of the sort. Once I came to terms with the fact that maybe she wasn't pulling some kind of prank on me, we went through a whole bunch of important shit I needed to know and spread to the rest of Soul Plane in order to prepare for the first day of filming. I could barely keep up… my heart was racing so fast it almost attacked. I furiously scribbled down everything she fed me on a scrap piece of paper, and the minute I got off the phone with Tara (but not without first thanking her and MuchMusic graciously, albeit repeatedly, for this once-in-a-lifetime chance) I sent out a text-message to everyone that matters: WE GOT MUCH MUSIC!!

Let’s put it this way: this is MuchMusic here. I’m not talking about some 15 seconds of grabbing your balls in front of a handycam on a Speakers Corner segment on CityTV. I’m talking about a full-fledged episode, all 22 minutes, focusing on Soul Plane, on a national television network that monopolistically controls the music industry in terms of which music videos get airtime for mass viewing and which ones get thrown into the nearest recycling bin as far as Canadian audiences are concerned. The best part about it is that this isn’t some kind of cheesy game show where we read off some poorly-written script and do a bunch of stupid shit that results in everybody hating everybody else – so no, Soul Plane isn’t selling out just yet. This is a show where people are going to be able to see Soul Plane in a very honest light. In fact, this series is almost documentary in the sense that the show has the full intention of granting exposure to relatively obscure, local bands that would otherwise never get to see the light of day – as legit a “reality show” as you’re ever gonna get.

And believe me, you gotta get you some of this.

And you can – it’s as simple as checking back with this site frequently. I’m going to be updating this blog as often as possible; ideally, I’d like to write a little something after every session MuchMusic has with us. I know you want to know about this, dear reader, so I’m going to try to be a people-pleaser and be as detailed as humanly ethical in my posts. However, I’ve been asked to refrain from spoiling any surprises planned for the show, and obviously I will oblige to this simple request that was made on the part of the MuchMusic team. As a result, some information will be withheld from my writings when I do post about these shoots later on down the line, but you’ll still be able to get the picture or at least a general idea, I promise. Please try to understand. And then try to watch the damn episode when it airs so that you can catch up on things I’ve intentionally left out.

Seriously, though, I only hope you’ll enjoy reading about it even a fraction as much as we will enjoy living it. See you in Hollywood, baby.

SOOOOOUUUUUUUUULL PLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE!!

Can You Keep Up?

It’s been a crazy week (and if things gets any crazier, you’ll get the whole story – but here’s a quick hint: after some short phone conversations and even shorter email correspondence, several producers from MuchMusic (yes, the MuchMusic) had an on-camera interview with Soul Plane on Friday for an all-new reality series we could be featured on, to be aired beginning late this summer. Don’t bother asking me about it; my lips are sealed (and my fingers are idle) about this business until I get word from MuchMusic headquarters bearing confirmation that they are either going to include Soul Plane in this new, exciting endeavour of theirs... or exclude us completely from anything they do from here on out (the more probable scenario). But believe you me, our fingers are crossed like devout Catholics. But all that’s set aside for now...

First order of business: some of the pictures from the legendary photoshoot Soul Plane did with Louis Saturnino are up – check out the “Soul Plane At A Glance” section to see them. I can’t believe how good this guy was able to make us look... Adobe Photoshop kicks MAC makeup in the tits. I also can’t believe that almost immediately after having gone through the magnificent headache of actually setting up and executing a photoshoot, we now find ourselves again in talks with Louis to schedule a brand new photoshoot for the very near future thanks to Luke’s sudden grand entrance into our shitshack of an establishment. As much as I’d love for everyone to just be happy with using Photoshop to put Luke’s face wherever Patrick’s used to be, somehow I don’t think Conor, Kevin, Gideon, Mel, Aaron, Louis, Luke, nor Patrick would approve of this. It’s not a perfect solution, I admit, but it saves me from having to plan things out that never end up working out anyway. Maybe this time we can just wing the damn thing.

Not bloody likely.

Second order of business: Soul Plane t-shirts, as well as copies of our demo Black Box, currently available for full download @ www.soundclick.com/soulplane will be made ready for purchase at the promotional booth that the friendly folk organizing the Toronto Night Market (a huge festival celebrating Asian tradition and culture that Soul Plane will be performing at on July 12^th – see “Upcoming Events” section for details) have provided for us between midnight and 1am Sunday morning (following our 11 30pm showtime Saturday night). Big ups to the entire Machinehead family for their assistance with and endorsement of our merchandise. Please come out to see us and buy stuff from us – the demos make great coasters, and the t-shirts are optimal for when you run out of toilet paper on the can.

On that note, we hit up our last (and, seemingly, the least) of our business orders: several promoters who work for Kick Ass Concerts (www.kickassconcerts.com) were at our blockbuster Opera House show on June 19^th, and after seeing our set, they have graciously extended an invitation to Soul Plane to play at a show they are hosting this Friday (July 11^th) at The Kathedral (see “Upcoming Events” for details). We’re set to bring down the house at 11 30pm. Be there or be gone. Sorry, kids, but this one is for adults only – have ID ready to show, ladies and gentlemen, this is a 19+ event.

Finally, due to the overwhelming amount of work involved in preparing for these back-to-back shows, I won’t be updating these blogs until after this upcoming weekend. I am completely swamped. The only thing that will make me even consider giving this site the time of day during this coming week would be news from Much Music – good or bad, you will know the minute I do. I apologize to all my readers for taking time off of writing blogs in my attempt to go somewhere in life, but at the same time I also beg of you all to keep Soul Plane in your prayers... we need Jesus in our careers.

Black Box FIN

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I present to you... Black Box... Soul Plane’s official demo release in its entirety in good order – all tracks available for free bootleg.

1. Impossible
2. Life is Beautiful
3. Liquor on the Curb
4. Soul Playin’
5. No Worries

Seriously, we’re begging you to rip us off.

We also sincerely ask that you to do your best to force all your friends (at gunpoint, if necessary) to listen. Spread the word like a prostitute’s legs (or, incidentally, like the germs in between them).

If you don’t love us by now you never will.

Nanni Family Business Pt. I

Susan Nanni was really impressed with Soul Plane when she saw us live in concert at the Opera House on June 19^th. In fact, she was so enthused by and about our performance that instead of sticking around for the afterparty, she went straight home to speak with her husband, Carl. Her message to him was simple and to-the-point: Soul Plane was now ready for his input.

Most readers are probably wondering why anyone cares about what Carl Nanni has to say about anything. Here’s a tip: Carl was the former Executive Vice-President of Marketing for Kraft Canada. This means he played a huge part in the creation of their advertising campaigns. He had hands in the media promotion of several products that were distributed under the Kraft umbrella – Kool-Aid (his marketing genius helped make the Kool-Aid Man a thirst-quenching icon – “Oh Yeah!”), Maxwell House (“Good to the last drop!”), Philadelphia cream cheese (I can still see that lady with her angel wings flapping as she sits on a cloud eating the shit out of her cream cheese), as well as Kraft Dinner (my favourite commercial being the one where two college kids cook their KD in a pot on a dorm-residence central radiator and steam up the whole floor, forcing very sex-able girls to strip so as to off-set the heat). These products might not have done so well in the market had it not been for Carl Nanni’s input. But that was then.

These days, when he isn’t busy scratch-golfing in the backyard of his summer home down in Florida with his wife Susan and enjoying his semi-retirement status, Carl is a freelance consultant who charges his clients a negotiable $5000 per session. Apparently, a lot of people care about what Carl Nanni has to say about everything.

Soul Plane may not have the resources to compensate Carl for his $5000 consultation fee, but we do have the next best thing: his son, Kevin, our rhythm guitarist. Carl generously donated his services to the band this Saturday that just went by in helping us build a foundational groundwork from which we are then to construct a marketing/promotional plan with the sole aim of putting Soul Plane on the music industry map. Conor, Kevin, our new bassist Luke, and I were in attendance.

We started off with a “SWOT” analysis (acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats). It has never dawned on me as it did at the meeting just how good we are at being honest with how shitty we are. Our list of weaknesses and threats filled up at least two-thirds of the page I was taking notes on. Mr. Nanni was being very encouraging, reminding us that knowing one’s own weaknesses is a crucial step to overcoming them on the path to success. That sounds very cute and pretty, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are the worst – and what’s more, it has just become a fact that has been confirmed on paper. After about two hours of interaction, Mr. Nanni was satisfied with what he had been able to write out about the band and its current situation – now that he had a background story laced with some solid facts, he told us he would call us all back in for another meeting scheduled tentatively for several weeks later. He just wanted to take time to chop up all the details we fed him throughout the session and think of a way for us to put ourselves as well as our music out there using what (little) resources we have access to.

Considering his numerous and substantial credentials, I have no reason to have anything but absolute faith in the man, that he will propel us to a better place than we are at now. In two weeks, maybe three, Carl Nanni will have the beginnings of some kind of formula, some type of guideline, a reference of sorts, laid out for Soul Plane to build on and follow... all the way to this “better place.” Maybe it’s a place where we can afford to pay an extra $0.50 for cheese on our Golden Star burgers right then and there and not have to put it on layaway.

Stay tuned as we slowly become not the worst thing you’ve ever stumbled upon on the Internet...