Last Christmas vidya

Audio: Vacuity - Last Christmas.mp3

Last Christmas vidya

Last Christmas

Here we have a done a recording of 'Last Christmas' by George Michael.

Vacuity - Last Christmas.mp3

I don't know if I ever imagined writing that sentence, but who could have known?

We had fun.

Happy holidays.

Peace.

g.

Last Christmas

#32

Toronto photographer extraordinaire, Pete Nema, has ranked Blanket Sky #32 in his top 50 albums of the decade. It is really amazing to see our album among so many other excellent artists.

I ran into Pete at the XM Satellite Radio Christmas party a few nights ago. He has an interesting project kicking off in the new year that I'm quite excited to check out.

Vacuity will be getting together at Art Bar in Kitchener for a brief set of music to bring in the new year. Tickets/admission are $10. This includes food and champagne at midnight.

We also have a special Christmas present for you all. Check back in a day or two and I will have it posted. Just in time for the holidays.

Peace.

g

#32

Re-Org.

A big re-org and a few "come to Jesus" meetings later Vacuity seems ready for the winter hibernation lock down that is needed to get this record done and out.

Right now I am listening to Greg set some different tones for We Own the Moon while waiting for my feet to warm in my winter ready Chucks...

I was checking out our ATCOTBS downloads the other day and realized that we are really close to hitting the 1000 mark. Not too bad for just slapping it up there and seeing what happens.
The few things that I learned while doing this was, for 1: People like music. 2: People like it to be free. and 3: If it's something they like, they will pass it along.

Thanks for passing it along and thanks if you continue to do so... we would love to hit a thousand before the New Year.

I wish everyone good luck with the Holidays.
Stay sane.
p.

Re-Org.

pleasant undertow

i know that if i leave now for the studio I "condemn" myself to less than 3 hours of sleep. i've been doing this all week. like a dog chewing his stitches. that's when you make time for a proper sleep. now, i'm well rested and ready to do it all over again.

this is my favorite part. the magnetic hum. the invisible gravity. the worst part is that just cos you work really hard doesn't guarantee you come out with anything good.

nothing to do but hug yourself and let it take you under. focus the good on the bad.

g.

pleasant undertow

shooting sinking relics

As I mentioned earlier in the week, we have been furiously hammering away at our epk. Last night we shot a live performance of a acoustic sort of arrangement we have for a song called 'Sinking Relics'.

The shoot began at 8pm and ran until about 3am. M82 even dropped in to keep us company!

I'm headed over to the studio to mix down the take of relics. I've been thinking about pulling all the blanket sky audio down from our myspace and putting up live/alt versions of the songs we're working on for this next release. We will see.

g.

shooting sinking relics

you light yours - we'll light ours

this past week we've shifted from tracking our new album instrument by instrument and moved more toward a song by song approach. It's more touchy feeley and for myself personally, eye on the prize.

we're also working furiously toward the completion of an epk. we've never done one of those proper and its about time. it has me thinking about transparency - should we be revealing the entrails of vacuity or crafting what we would like people to perceive as vacuity? a mashup? personally i like things that are very much real. call a spade a spade and all that. if you want to put it inside a nice frame or dress it in a blazer - that's okay - but it keep it genuine. otherwise it reeks of falseness.

this brings me to another arena of thinking though. it has to do with attitude. first let me clarify a few of my beliefs in this department.

1) you need to believe something is possible for it to become a part of your (possible) future. obviously this doesn't apply to things like contracting a disease (H1N1 anyone?). But for something like creating an infrastructure where you can pay your bills via the art you put together it applies in a very real way.

2) having said that - believing in something is not all it takes to bring an idea to fruition. necessary, but not even close.

I recently read a book titled, 'Empire of Illusion' by Chris Hedges. In one chapter, Hedges tears apart the world of positive pop psychology. The negative effects of living in a fantasy world are revealed.

I mention all this because I've always found art to be a way of expressing ideas (profound!). The ideas that interest me and inspire a lot of the things we deal with in our songs aren't always the best party ideas. And somehow entertainment has been largely marginalized as an unconditional "good time". But literacy requires self reflection. Doubt and scrutiny pave the way toward improvement. often the things with no voice are the most in need of a voice. we make music for literate people. If you buy into something like celebrity culture, I hope we can still make you dance, obviously keep listening if you please, but really... we might not be connecting.

I work (as part time as I can) for a corporation that boasts about how much they donate to charities yet pay their employees the minimum amount required by law. A law created by a government that operates in the shadow of business. Meanwhile as good consumers we're encouraged to purchase products (mostly future landfill plot junk), often manufactured under much crueler labouring conditions than 'minimum wage' in a first world country. If you want to critically discuss these types of behaviour you are breaking the illusion. You've got a bad attitude. (imagine the Savage from Huxley's 'Brave New World'.)

anyways, im digressing here which is what happens once i get going. the point i want to make is that I get anxiety as being branded as negative just by proxy. but i dont think vacuity would have been creating music together for this long if there weren't a whole lot of positive in it. for us and for you.

when i get thinking about an epk, i get worried about framing it so it doesn't look bitter. goddamn, the best moments of my life mostly involve this band, but i refuse to put on a shit eating grin and say to the camera, "Everything is alright! One day everyone on earth will be rich and famous. No one will be forgotten. All our troubles will wish wash away."

we're living in truly disturbing times. and as our friends over in the free press camp say - kick at the darkness until it bleeds light.



at the end of every day.
comes the night.

and we own the moon.




g.

you light yours - we'll light ours

Robot Surgery

Hey there,

I thought somebody might appreciate a post about the near heart attack experience of completely ripping your mac laptop apart and trying to remember where all the little screws went afterwards when putting it back together... run on sentence?

Step 1:

Make sure you have some sort of container for the screws from each part of the computer that you are removing... LABEL each container appropriately. I could only find 4 bowls to use... and I also did not label them. Big mistake.

Oh look! there's my modem, DC-DC board and keyboard turned upside down!

Step 2:

Ensure you have a 'static free' surface to place important vulnerable parts onto... such as a drum stool.

Shown here are the top tray from the casing with the trackpad, logic board, heatsink, and my hard drive!

Maybe I should point out that prior to this step it would be a good idea to back-up all of your important files... such as any files you may use in your live show/recording samples etc... I did not see the relevance to this and love living on the edge so I threw caution to the wind and said, I dare you to static shock my HD.

I'm blogging from the little guy right now, so far so good. All files in place.

The goal of this entire robot-surgery project was to free my brother's CD that was jammed inside of the optical drive in my mac... it has resided inside of Mr. Mactop's belly for nearly a year now. I was afraid to take it apart for obvious reasons, but decided to face my fear with aid from our video artist Jamie Usas, who had taken apart his Mac to replace the screen in the past.

Seen here is the 12" Powerbook completely gutted except for the Optical Drive... the smell of triumph was tickling our nostrils.

Step 3:

Take a break. Ensure your throat is well moistened with your favourite poison. Rye was the closest thing available to us at the time.

Seen here: Jamie muggin' it and Mactop's bigger brother with the .pdf guide on ripping out Apple intestines. (Step 0.1)

Step 4:

Put it back together. Properly. Pay very close attention to what size screw went where and this is where the labeled bowls come in handy.

In this photograph: The leftovers.

Hint: If you have any leftovers, you have made a mistake.

Needless to say, next week Jamie and I have a date with the mac laptops again.

There is a dimple on the underside of my laptop from a screw that must have been 15 mm when it only required one of the 13.5 mm ones. And the RAM plate on the bottom is slightly lifted due to another screw that was too long in the wrong spot.

Oh and keep track of all the 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 6, 7.5, 10, 12, and 13 mm ones as well... Fuck.

My brother's CD was removed successfully. Sorry it took so long Matt.

- Emeri

Robot Surgery

the new authentic

Our show at Maxwells in Waterloo was a blast! Images combined with text yield better viewing results. Once I get my hand on some photos from the night, I'll be sure to post them. Big thanks to everyone who made it out. It was most excellent to play for a hometown crowd.

The band is currently immersed in an interesting juggling act of recording, maintaining a live presence and working out what we'd like to try to do with this next album over the course of the next year. I must say, it is a very exciting time. We're teaming up with some wonderful new people and I think the results will be quite... authentic? :p

yours,

g.

the new authentic

maxwells rehearsals

today a friend of ours (thanks Jason!) cc'd us in an email he had sent out to a bunch of his friends, inviting them to our show with Trap Tiger this Thursday at Maxwells in Waterloo. if you're planning on coming out and want to let some people know, cc us and we'll add you + a friend to the guestlist.

many thanks. hope to see you there.

g.

maxwells rehearsals

5th of november

last night we met up at the studio. the intention was to do an inpromtu/stripped down live off the floor video performance of the 5th of november to celebrate guy fawkes day.

our video recorder - my digital camera - which has provided us with 95% of the picture/video we post is almost dead. the lens sputters and coughs when i turn it on, fully charged batteries are 'drained' and wonky mechanical noises are frequent. it's been a good run, but i fear my canon powershot is headed for the giant electronics landfill in China. where the mercury in the circuit board will poison the groundwater for generations to come. Hello disposable everything. Chuck Norris would approve. Have you ever seen how every piece of military hardware he uses is completely disposable? when it runs out of bullets or grenades - just throw it away.

so instead we were only able to record the audio. afterwards, we were like... hmm, it kinda sounds like an outake from the record, but here it is:

The 5th of November (live off the floor nov 05.09).mp3

g.

5th of november

devil's night in waterloo

Friday night Rob and I played through a few renditions of some of the songs we are working on these days. My inexperience with the tightening of floor tom legs, a laptop crash and the worst mic clip in history were working against us. All said and done, it was a fun time. After our set, good friends Sex Dwarf brought down the house. Where were you?

This week we will begin rehearsal for our show at Maxwells (in Waterloo on November 12th). My well loved camera is in its death thralls, but I'll try to capture some of the moments that ensue.

Next year - Devil's Night in Detroit.

g.

devil's night in waterloo

every page we turn

here is a video of Rob and I performing a song called 'sinking relics'. and yes, that is a sweet VACUITY pumpkin carved by Paul. It took him until 8am.



Rob and I will be doing a set of songs with stripped down arrangements (kinda like this) tonight at Maxwells in Waterloo to raise money for CAAT (which is more than just a very large cat).

g.

every page we turn

monday morning

france pizno 430am

g.

monday morning

review from music emissions

Below is a review of blanket sky from music emissions:

"Managing to have definitive sound in a cookie cutter genre isn’t easy. A raspy vocalist and grungy guitars are just some of their unique quality. I think we’ve only just now begun to hear of what should be a prosperous recording career for Vacuity. Fans of Jimmy Gnecco and Ours should flock immediately."

It's not too late to vote for us over at music emissions.

Hope to see some of you tomorrow night in London.

g.

review from music emissions

you'll never play in this town again!

This Saturday we will be sharing the stage at Call the Office with a band from Regina called The Library Voices.

and for those of you on the homefront:

We have paired up with another band from KW called Trap Tiger for an evening of entertainment at Maxwell's Music House in Waterloo. We want to explode this place with people, so mark it down and set aside your favorite outfit.

Cheers.

g.

ps - stole the top poster image from M82. Brilliant image. Cheers Mike.

you'll never play in this town again!

more north house

'Beckoning' has been featured to a time lapse video showing the construction of the North House for the 2009 Solar Decathlon in DC.



g.

more north house

through the crowd

Last night we were invited to provide quieter acoustic-esque arrangements of our music to accompany a fashion/design show put together by Liz Stolper and her team at JBU/Pink Elephant Group.

There were a lot of pretty models, sporting neat, trendy clothing. Some excellent paintings by local artist and our friend, Brianna Harvey, and also Kevin Suess who plays in a band called Trap Tiger. We are putting together a show with them which will be announced this week.

With only two rehearsals under our collective belt, we muscled through a really fun set of new songs and old songs rediscovered. Big thanks to all of those who offered kind words, hi fives and handshakes - it is amazing for us to know that you like what we love to do.

g.

through the crowd

instrumental mixes

Here are the mixes that were provided to accompany the Solar North House video we linked to a little while back. Our visuals friend, Jamie, is in DC right now working on team Ontario/BC entry. Ideas like this are amazing and keep me ever excited for the future. It's nice to see people steering things in a positive direction.

A number of people have been asking me about obtaining these instrumental mixes. Here they are. (right click 'save as...')

Beckoning (inst mix)
The 5th of November (inst mix)
All Aboard

Enjoy.

g.

instrumental mixes

welcome to the real world

late night on a rooftop in the city. some feeling of grandeur being up high above everything else. I feel guilty cos it's probably some subconscious ego complex, but some days you gotta give in, indulge. if you don't, someone else will just do it for you.

in between discussions of infinite smallness and infinite largeness, Emeri and i cut some drums for a song we have called 'we own the moon'. a while back, Rob showed us a demo of the song - if i remember correctly one of us wasn't sure it was something we should develop - had a kind of country swing not usual(?) for us. we wrote it, toured with it, came home, changed it, recorded it, decided we liked it better how it was and now have just re-recorded it. sometimes that's the way it goes with vacuity.

is between albums a transition period for everyone who makes music? or is it just some bands? is it just me? always feels like a bizarre period. I'm really looking forward to adding another piece to our body of work. there are so many fascinating aspects to creating music and setting it out into the world - the arrangement of sound in time and the cause and effect that has on emotions is just one infinitely small tip of the infinitely large iceberg.

stick around and we'll try to make something great.

g.

welcome to the real world