Well... I made a music video. It came together despite my persistent doubts about improper 8mm exposures, the possibility of my ancient camera not working at all, my ineptitude with editing and post production, and my overall cinematographic inexperience. This being said, I am so happy with how it turned out... We have a music video! The song Bluebirds was written one november afternoon at falcon lake (in the most serious time of of year) and I hoped to capture the great goings on in the place I call home during that season. It really is a brilliant place, especially in the winter. I realized that so many good friends ended up in this video, aren't friends the best?
-Jesse Crooked
Western Tour Update #2
We played a wonder show at the Wunderbar last night in Edmonton! The Low Flying Planes joined us and the room was spilling over with good good people. The street howling with a humbling whipping cold wind, and we couldn't believe the tenacity of the folks who waited outside to get in when the bar reached capacity.
It all happened so fast though... it was over before I knew it had started. Tour's like that sometimes. A different town every day. It does something incredible to my sense of time. You spend all day driving, thinking about all the beautiful friends and family you love and haven't seen for the better of a year. Then all of a sudden - you're out the car, you're loading gear, you're sound checking, you're eating something QUICK before the show starts, you're in the crowd, you're on the stage, you're off the stage, you're loading gear. And the night's over, and you've hardly had a chance to really have a good solid conversation with those people you day dreamed of seeing all afternoon. We're already on the road, halfway to Turner Valley, Alberta. See you next time Edmonton... you've got something special going on..
Western Tour Update #1
It might seem crazy to hit the highway in this deep freeze, but getting in the van and driving to Saskatoon was a great way to spend the day. On the stereo: Rodriguez, Bill Callahan and Gil Scott Heron. It's day one of our winter tour and we're all in good spirits - laughing and smiling hard into the cold wind.
Jesse and I are bent over and wheezing laughing exhausted. We've just invented a new tour sport somehow involving a bouncy ball and the arm rest of a futon. Making diving catches and working on our short game. Brilliant saves. The rallies are getting phenomenal. Breaking out in sweats and fits of laughter. It's so good to be on the road again.
Sunday, January 15
All day free music festival at the Falcon Ridge Ski Chalet
As you may or may not know, when not playing music we spend our time out on Falcon Lake in the Whiteshell Provincial Park (Manitoba) running a small ski hill. Random as it may seem, the ski hill (Falcon Ridge Ski and Recreation Area) is the perfect job for touring musicians; seasonal, intermittent and fun. Matt runs the kitchen and is a whiz over the grill, making delicious food and delivering comedy over the intercom when orders are up. Darwin runs around doing odd jobs, helping the small mechanic team fix the t-bar, rope tows, snow machines and groomers, occasionally clearing x-country trails. I (Jesse) tend to keep in my hole (the rental shop) fitting boots, skis, snowboards and fixing whatever comes my way. I can usually manage to McGyver just about any old thing back into working order so someone can get back on the slopes. And I get to choose the music that plays in the chalet.
In fact, the better part of the staff at Falcon Ridge are musicians. There is Ben Hadaller of Bog River working the lifts and teaching snowboarding, Taylor Ashton of Fish & Bird selling hot chocolates and Matt's "Cheese Benson's", all three members of Red Moon Road working in the kitchen, in the rental shop and on the lifts, and other budding young musicians can be found scattered around the slopes and in the ski chalet. Music is a big part of the Falcon Ridge experience.
One thing about running a ski hill is that you are tied to the weather much like a farmer growing crops is. This has not been a great winter so far for snow, and the hill has suffered for it, however thanks to the glory of snow making technology we have managed to produce a good stock of the white stuff, and the slopes are looking pretty good. Now all we needed was to get people out on the slopes, and perhaps do a little sacrifical snow dancing to appease the snow gods, and so began the concept of Snow Dance! On Sunday, January 15 we are going to be hosting an all day music festival in the ski chalet featuring the familar faces of Falcon Ridge: Bog River, Oh My Darling, Red Moon Road, Virgil's Auntie and the Vigilanties, and of course, yours truly.
Come on down and check out this great little Manitoba ski hill, and take in some great live music and atmosphere while you are at it! Click for more info!
Prairie City Sound Video
We were happy to spend the day last week with the folks from Prairie City Sound, a couple guys who are doing a pretty cool video blog series with local and touring artists performing in unique locations around the city. Here's the finsihed product:
A Fall full of Touring, Album releases, and Showcases
We've been on the road for over two months now. It seems like long ago since our CD release party in Winnipeg (a concert that a warmth of feeling that no words could express). We've just returned to Manitoba from BC. Hiking to hot springs, swimming in rivers and seeing good friends and from southern Ontario, where we met up with so many beautiful musicians, sharing music in hallways, stairwells, lobbies, and hotel rooms until sunrise for several days straight. As fun as the road has been, it feels good to be back in our home province. The yellow leaves are still clinging to the birch and poplar and they tamaracks followed suit with their needles. We're getting ready for a winter of holing up, writing and filming a video or two. That being said, we'll be playing shows around Winnipeg while we get to know the prairies again, this time with a new album!
The east coast has got me thinking about all the best parts of touring... it's a lifestyle that I crave when I've been in one place for too long.
When you get to see your friends and family in all threse beautiful places as often as we do, somehow the country starts to get a lot smaller.
Somewhere along the line, 'Home' starts spilling the banks of that single place you come from, and starts seeping into all of our favorite little places in the country.
We're leaving all the time, but most days we're coming home too.
Just wanted to say thanks to all the new friends we made and the good friends who had us out east. Tracy and the Plan B kids in Moncton for the wild shows and the all
night kitchen parties! Jenna and the Lorax Community for the beautiful farm show (lights in the trees swinging in the breeze, homemade icecream!). Carly and Grand Manan Island for welcoming
us to the ocean at the Summer's End Festival. Baba's Lounge in Charlottetown for a packed house on Monday night! Don for the well needed day off... a beach at lowtide and nowhere to be.
It was our first trip to the Atlantic, and I'll tell you right now we're already looking forward to coming back!
Jesse in St. John post Irene- you can check out more photos on our facebook album
Berry Season and Great Lake Swimming
We timed our driving perfectly and were able to spend almost a full day on the beach at Batchawana Bay just outside of Sault Ste Marie before heading into town to play a great show at Lop Lops. Lake Superior is enormous... an ocean. A giant saltless sea. I was sure the water would be freezing, but we splashed around for hours. We've decided that we're going to swim in all five of the great lakes on this trip.
Now we're flying down the 17 with a backseat full of blueberries, headed for the Piebird B&B, where our friends Yan and Sherry are living the good life... Growing good food and sharing it with good people. Hopefully we'll get there with enough time to bake a blueberry crumble to contribute to the amazing dinner they always offer to their house concert guests. We just pulled over beside Lake Huron for a swim. Let's just say the spot we chose wasn't a beach... our toes are caked in mud and we're back in the car laughing big with the windows down. Two lakes down, three to go!!!
After playing in Thunder Bay on Tuesday, we found a great blueberry patch- picked all these in only 45 mins! We generally try to plan out our tours around berry season
Lawrence, Where's your Knife?- Eastern Album Release Tour!
After a summer of hometown shows and festivals, it feels good to be back on the road. Again we've somehow managed to fit all our merch, instruments, the magic bullet and four people all into the protege 5 and are creeping our way east. As always, the Trout Forest Music Festival was a whirlwind weekend of swimming and spending time amongst beautiful music and people. Our next stop was a last minute concert in Kenora where we backed up Carolyn Mark and Wax Mannequin- a bill we were very excited to be a part of. We are really happy to finally be ready to share our sophomore album Lawrence, Where's Your Knife?, which will be available at all of our shows on CD and Vinyl. The rest of the tour itinerary includes an ocean side music festival, coffee house concerts, farmers markets, the glorious Piebrid B&B, and hopefully lots of berry picking.
Our Vinyl wasn't quite ready to go when we left for tour (that's how fresh it is), so we had it shipped to the Piebird B&B, where we will be playing tomorrow (August 19)- Here's Yan of piebird displaying the goods
WINNIPEG FOLK FESTIVAL!
What an amazing honour to be playing our home festival for the first time. Our highlights included a workshop with New Country Rehab and Trampled By Turtles, two of the fastest picking bands around and a sunrise dance party concert in the campground at the Times Change(d) tent. The major highlight, though, was the Manitoba Music workshop on sunday afternoon at Big Bluestem. Scott Nolan, Twilight Hotel, Oh My Darling, Imaginary Cities, DJ Hunnicutt and The Crooked Brothers all on stage playing on eachother's songs. Our musical highlight was the heaviest version of Windsor Beer we would have never even dreamed up. Imagine DJ Hunnicutt laying down a funky beat with Ryan (Imaginary Cities) throwing down a phat groove on the drums, Jo (Scott Nolan), Marti (Imaginary Cities), Brandy (Twilight Hotel) all on alt. percussion, MJ (Oh My Darling) on upright and Zack (Imaginary Cities) on keyboards. Scott Nolan and Dave Quanberry (Twilight Hotel) ripping unreal guitar solos and beatboxing, while Darwin stood front and center tuggin hard on the harp and Matt and Jesse belting lyrics over the hard pounding rhythm. It was our first time playing with a DJ and we'll definitely do it again. It was such an thrill to play with those musicians who we've looked up to, and grown up with in Manitoba. We really do have the bees knees when it comes to music makers.
Log cabin video
Video of us lifting the logs on our newly completed log cabin at remote High Lake
A log cabin is raised!
If you like our music... consider hiring us to build you a home!
We've been out in the woods for the last month building an eighteen by eighteen foot log cabin as a rental property for Falcon Trails Resort. Myself and Matt have been carving away at the saddle notches and lateral grooves with chainsaws and monsters (essentially a motorized adze that pulverizes wood) while Darwin poured the forms and put together the foundation out at the site. The twenty two foot logs were disassembled last week and transported on a flat bed trailer out to high lake. As a side note, we also became proficient tractor drivers, piloting the skidder and front end loader.
On weekends, we've been coming in for some shows in winnipeg - a show at the High and Lonesome Club highlighting them. Stay tuned for the final assembly of the cabin which may include some skylines with logs flying through the air followed by a swiss style roof raising party.
Brother Darwin is excited to announce his home is for sale, and is looking forward to a summer of living out of the car and cooking all his meals over a an open fire. Says Darwin of the move: "I sure am looking forward to sleeping under the stars over the next spell." Here's your chance folks, YOU could step into the life of a Crooked Brother by owning Darwin Crooked's condo. Click here for the lising link.
Keep posted for our summer tour dates and news of our sophmore album- slated to be released in the early fall
In The Studio!
It's coming- our second full length album, and we couldn't be more excited about it! We spent the past couple months holed up in a cabin at Falcon Trails Resort, on the shores of Falcon Lake, MB, laying down the music- utilizng the warm, wooden acoustics of the cathedral ceilings, taking breaks to canoe, hot tub, and test the progress of the ice freezing on the lake (check out our video log of the first day the ice was strong enough to stand on). In early March, we spent a few days at Private Ear Studio, mixing the album with the talented John Paul Peters.
The album is scheduled for release on CD and Vinyl in the early fall of 2011.
Check out some photos from the recording process below:
Welcome to the new site!
Thanks to our good friend, the extremely talented Ben Pries, we are happy to have the new site up and running!
About Ben
There is much more to Ben than just being a JavaScript genius; Ben is also a young bush-man in training. Ben decided last year to drop out of High School and move into the bush in favour of a more 'real' and arguably more useful education focused on sustainability and simple living. He has spent the last few months living in an abandoned hermit's-hut on High Lake (a 2.5km snowshoe from the nearest civilization). When not helping out with the Crooked Brothers website, Ben spends his time acquiring knowledge of wilderness survival, tool making, and getting to know the local flaura and fauna. Ben has an excellent blog which we encourage you to check out!
