Back in April, we were asked to be on a TV show being produced by students at Emerson College in Boston. We’re featured in the final episode of the show performing the show’s theme song, “Ganges A Go-Go.’ You can see for yourself right here:
(Go to 16:50 in the video to see us perform “Ganges A Go-Go.”)
As you can see from the video, we had a blast filming for the show. Thanks again, Katie and crew!
We’ve also got some photos from our show on the 7th, courtesy of the staff at Cafe 939:
All smiles from Christian
Jackie Berkley, ladies and gentlemen!
Canary in black and white
Get. Down.
Juxtaposed much?
Screen, keys, and Dean
Canary in color
That’s about it. Don’t forget – we’re at Tommy Doyle’s in Harvard Square next Saturday, October 29th with Paperback. Show starts at 9:30PM and we go on at 10:30PM. Believe us, you do not want to miss this show!
We had a great time at the Red Room on the 7th! To those who came out – thanks so much! We hope you had as much fun as we did. To those who didn’t make it out – and to those that did (we’d love to see you all again) – we’re playing next Saturday, October 29th at the Loft at Tommy Doyle’s in Cambridge. We’ll be playing with another band called Paperback. The show starts at 9:30PM and we go on at 10:30PM. Come on out for an awesome night! It’s Halloween Weekend – come out and party with us!
We got around to uploading another video from our show in Maine last month. Here we have Searching For Mars featuring Alex Hartley on saxophone – check it out!
We’ve also got some pictures courtesy of Mark Jones:
Alex and Jackie
And Amy
Jackie, Kyle, and Alex
Amy and Dean
That’s all we got for now. Come on to Tommy Doyle’s on the 29th for more!
We’re very excited to be kicking off Berklee College of Music’s series of concerts called Fresh Prospects this year! Fresh Prospects is a series of concerts put on by the staff at Cafe 939, Berklee’s venue located at 939 Boylston Street in Boston.
We’ll be playing this Friday, October 7th at 7PM. The show is all ages and it’s free! And following us at 8PM is an awesome band called China Fox. You don’t wanna miss out on what is sure to be an awesome night!
Thanks so much to all of you that came to our shows this weekend! Your support means so much to us – you don’t even know! For those that were unable to make it out to our shows, here’s what went down:
On Thursday we had our very first show with our new lineup of Dean Davis on the drums and Alex Hartley on keys and saxophone. We played a solid 45 minute set at the Loft at Tommy Doyle’s in Harvard Square. It was wicked wicked fun! We debuted two new songs – Vagabonds and Handsome Stranger. We also have the entire set recorded so keep your eyes peeled for some songs from that show. We played all your old favorites, covered a few choice songs (Medicine by Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, anyone?), and had a lot of fun. A lot of fun. It was the perfect way to get the ball rolling.
The next day (Friday), we made the trek up to Biddeford, Maine, which is where I’m (this is Amy, by the way ) from. I helped organized a fundraiser for my former high school teacher’s mayor campaign and we got to play at it! It was a really really fun night, and it meant a lot to me to play for my friends and family who hadn’t seen Canary or really heard me play guitar because I never played out when I was in high school. I did play the National Anthem before the volleyball and basketball games, but that was it. We played a brand new song that no one had heard yet called The Devil Gets His Due. We have the audio for that show too. AND we have some video footage! My neighbor was awesome and filmed half of our show. Here’s one video for you all – as I mentioned above, we like to play Medicine by Grace Potter & the Nocturnals. So here it is live from the North Dam Mill in Biddeford, Maine:
We had a really great time playing in Maine, and I can’t wait to come back to my home state and play again sometime real soon.
The next day we packed Dean’s car to the max and drove back down to Boston for our third and final show of the weekend. See for yourself:
and THAT is how you pack a car!
We fit a keyboard, a Fender Blues Junior, my guitar, Kyle’s bass, an electronic drum kit, a saxophone, a keyboard stand, five backpacks, two other bags, a stuffed animal pig, and five people in Dean’s Toyota Land Cruiser.
We got back to Boston around 3PM and had to be at Sweetwater Tavern, where we were playing that night, at 8:30PM. So after a bit of downtime, Dean swung by my place – this time with his drum kit, all his hardware, my guitar amp, Alex’s gear (keyboard, stand, and saxophone), my guitar, and a microphone stand – and we went downtown to set up and meet the rest of the band there.
We had some major technical difficulties with the PA system there. I was told it was fixed – it had been broken recently and still was broken last night. After we loaded everything in, we set up the drums and then went to turn on the PA so we could get Jackie some sound. Well, we turned on the PA, and there was no sound. Kyle, Dean, Alex, and I did everything we could to get it to work – and we did. But then once Kyle and Alex plugged in, all Hell broke loose. Everything started clipping and we couldn’t fix it. Jackie went and got the manager who informed us that the board was still broken. Fortunately Dean (so much love going out to Dean right now) has his own mixing board, but he didn’t have it with him. So he drove back to his apartment and got it. Yay!
We plug in Dean’s mixing board and realized that the speakers won’t connect because they’re only good for the board that was broken. The manager then said that he has a speaker upstairs that might work. So he goes and grabs it and voila! More than an hour after we were supposed to start we FINALLY get to start playing. We were all getting a bit antsy, and we now have bass, keys, and vocals running out of one speaker.
Our problems are solved, or so we thought. As you may recall from the post about our House of Blues show in April, my amp gave us a bit of trouble. I had fixed it,or so I thought. It had worked fine up until yesterday – and it’s working fine again right now. About five minutes into our set, my amp starts to make the most obnoxious noises you could imagine and then it dies. It just stops making sound all together. Kyle looks at it, looks at me and says, ‘..Do you wanna go through the PA?’ We laughed and I tossed him my cable to plug into the fourth channel. So we had bass, keys, guitar, AND vocals going through one tiny JBL speaker.
Despite all of the hassle, the show went really well. What could have been an awful night turned out to be an awesome night. And we got a great story out of it! I would never ever want to go through that again – once is more than enough. You live and learn. We had a lot of fun once we got going and the people that were there were really into it and I can’t help but smile and laugh about it now.
I hope you all had a great weekend! Our next show is Friday, October 7th at Cafe 939 in Boston. We’re playing with an awesome band called China Fox. The show’s free and it’s all ages! So everyone can go!
We’re wicked excited to tell you that you can now download The Emerson Sessions, Volume Two for FREE! Volume Two features our song “Sorry Johnny.” It was recorded with “White Boy Blues” way back when. Pete did an AMAZING job with this song – hear for yourself!
Pass the word along to everyone! The more the merrier when it comes to music.
And now here’s a friendly reminder for our upcoming shows this week. That’s right! It’s that time again. We’re wicked excited and we’d love to see you at one (or all!) of them:
Thursday, Sept. 22 – Tommy Doyle’s, Harvard Square, Cambridge
This is our welcome-back show as well as Alex and Dean’s debut performances! We’re playing another band called MC ‘n Friends who rock. It’s gonna be a wicked awesome time and we’ll be playing a few new tunes for you all. We go on at 9:30PM sharp! There’s a $5 cover, it’s 21+ (sorry, everyone under 21, this is our least favorite rule), and the address is 96 Winthrop Street, Cambridge, MA.
Friday, Sept. 23 – North Dam Mill, Biddeford, ME
This show is very special to us – it’s our Maine debut! We’re playing a set in the Help the Hungry / Rock the Vote concert for Amy’s former high school teacher, Alan Casavant, and his mayoral campaign. This is sure to be a party – and guess what? IT’S FREE! Just bring a a canned good to donate to Biddeford’s food pantry and you can rock the night away to Joe Boucher and his band (featuring Amy on guitar) and us. The North Dam Mill is located at 2 Main Street in Biddeford, the show starts at 8 and it’s ALL AGES. So anyone can go!
Saturday, Sept. 24 – Sweetwater Tavern (Downstairs), Boston, MA
We have a bit of a mini-tour here. We’re playing all night at Sweetwater Tavern so come on down and join the party! The show starts at 10PM, it’s 21+ (silly bar rules), and there’s a $5 cover. Sweetwater’s address is 3 Boylston Place, Boston, MA. It’s right by Emerson College and the Boston Commons.
We hope to see you at one or some or all of the shows!
We have some more news for you, but first the story:
Cole Bingham, our very dear friend and now former drummer, left the band at the beginning of May because he wants to focus more on school. Understandable and respectable. So with no hard feelings, we’re all still good friends, we wish the best for Cole and all future endeavors he pursues!
That being said, we’re wicked excited to have our friend Dean Davis playing with us this fall! Dean’s a fellow Berklee student, and someone I’ve been wanting to play with for a while now. Dean will agree that the two of us need to stop talking about everything we want to do together (play music, run, snowboard, the list continues) and start doing everything. Starting with what brought everyone together, the music.
So come September 22 at Tommy Doyle’s (and all our other upcoming shows), you’ll be seeing this handsome man bangin’ away on the drums:
Dean Davis, ladies and gentlemen!
We hope you’re as excited as we are about this, and we’ll see you really soon! We’re playing a whole bunch of new songs at Tommy Doyle’s so come on out and join the party! Believe me, it will be a party.
A couple weeks ago, I had an idea. A former teacher and family friend, Alan Casavant, is running for mayor of Biddeford, Maine, which is where I’m from. I really like Cas (that’s his nickname. One of them anyway) so I thought, hey, politicians have concerts for fundraisers all the time..What if we did a concert for Cas? I emailed him and his crew, everyone loved the idea, and now it’s happening! I love it when things come together.
So now that nearly everything is settled, here’s what you need to know about the show:
Where: North Dam Mill, 2 Main Street, Biddeford, ME
When: Friday, September 23
Time: 8PM to 11PM
Cover: a donation of a canned good or two
*Joe is an absolutely incredible musician that should not be missed. Seriously. You’re in for a treat. I also have the honor of sitting in with him and his band that night.
It’s less a fundraiser and more of an event to raise awareness for Cas and to help the hungry. It’s a double-whammy of a good cause! Really. Alan Casavant would be an excellent mayor. He loves Biddeford and truly wants to see it prosper.
Even if you’re not a citizen of Biddeford, you’re more than welcome to come and have a great time! I know that we’d love to see you there, and your support would be appreciated by everyone performing and Alan. This is our first show in Maine, and it’s really MY first show that is not school-related in Biddeford ever. I’m wicked excited, to say the least.
