This Sunday @ St. Andrew’s Wesley Church ( 100 – 1022 Nelson St. Vancouver) 4pm – 5pm More info! An hour that blends spiritual words and our music. This is one of the coolest places to watch and perform music in the city. Come join us!
Sister Says Line Up
Gillian: Vocal/Percussion
Robert: Bass/Vocal
Lonny Eagleton: Guitar/Vocal
Geoff Hicks: Drums
The last few weeks we’ve been rehearsing as a band, in the studio adding more bgs to tracks, had a photo shoot and have received updated band photos (which we’ll post soon!). We look forward to gigs we have ahead of us. This weekend we’ll be performing at Car Free Day on Commercial Drive. We’ll be performing at stage 2 on Commercial and East 3rd at 2pm. Come out and lets all try to bring the sun out.
xo
Gillian
Fine folk,
Rob and I found out a little while ago that a show we were on (individually as artists) called Live from the Hundred Years Cafe is nominated for a Golden Sheaf Award at the Yorkton Film Fest for its jazz episode featuring Andrea Menard, moi, David Larocque and MJ Dandeneau! We also found out that Live from the Hundred Years Cafe is nominated for a Rockie Award at the Banff World Media Fest in June for Best Music and Variety. Live from the Hundred Years Cafe is a show on APTN that features talented Indigenous musicians from various backgrounds in music. It was a blast to be on the show.
Also… the album is coming along! Currently keyboards are being mixed and I’ll be back in the studio soon to add bgs. After that (we don’t think that we’ll be adding any more instrumentation) all songs will be mixed and mastered.
xo
Gillian
Good Morning!
This week has been a pretty inspiring week to write lyrics. Been listening to a lot of new music again and also having fun just playing more keyboard and enjoying the temporary Vancouver sun with friends. Rob and I also checked out podcaster’s Jesse Thorn, Graham Clark and Dave Shumka’s event at SFU, where we laughed and learned a lot.
Part of a lyric idea…
Empress:
She keeps rocks in her pockets
and dandelions in her shoes
Crashing all the rockets until way last June
The stars they wrap her like a young empress
Got a twinkle in her eye, what a hot mess
Bridge:
Everybody moves so fast
Can’t keep up with the pace
Everybody moves so fast
Better get out of the way
This week we’ve been working on getting back on track with releasing podcasts + a few other things. Yesterday Rob and I recorded a podcast over the phone with a talented artist from Quebec we met during our time at AMP Camp. His music is blues/folk/rock and has a rockabilly vintage feel, much like his fashion sense. It was great talking to him, reconnecting and listening to his songs. Stay tuned next week to hear more about this artist (we’ll tell you who it is!). Rob and I have also reconnected with another talented AMP Camp artist named Brad Bellegard, from the hip hop group “The Local Onlyz.” We’ve been collaborating on a song with him and have been having a lot of fun doing it. We look forward to getting back into the studio soon to wrap up recording bass, keys, and backup vocals on our album, too. This weekend Rob and I will be seeing our fam over Easter dinner and plan to eat a lot of good things….
Happy Easter everyone!
xo
Gillian
Gillian and Robert catch up on this episode’s podcast and talk about what they’ve been up to individually and as a band. Conversation covered includes: Rob’s New York trip, concert going, and the recording of the band’s second album.
So….we’ve been in the studio recording and we’ll be back in the studio next week. Rob has some words he’d like to share with you about New York, too. I think I’ve been vicariously living through Rob, and his wife, Tina’s, New York experience this past while. I was having some Patti Smith moments and shared with them a poem Patti had written about New York. Then I started looking through the book I have of hers…Just Kids.
I saw this post (below) up on an art blog, where Patti Smith is talked about, and am trying to figure out if it’s actually something Patti Smith made or said. Apparently it’s from her exhibition Camera Solo. Either way, I think the quote below is something really special.
I went to see St. Vincent last Tuesday, with Reneltta, a talented artist and very good friend of mine. She’s back for a little bit from a tour she’s been in of Night, a moving theatre piece. Seeing St. Vincent was so great. I saw her a while back opening for Arcade Fire, at Deer Lake Park, when her first album Marry Me, just came out. Ever since seeing her I’ve been a huge fan and thought she was an exceptional vocalist, guitar player, and songwriter. It was really interesting to see how much her stage presence has transformed and changed. There was choreography, stories about making angel wings out of garbage can lids, and a character she assumed. That was another part of the show I enjoyed, quite a bit. Over the months I’ve participated in an ensemble with actors, writers and dancers. I’ve been inspired by the performance aspect of making music. I really don’t know how, if I was to integrate it into a music performance, it would happen; but I think subconsciously what I’ve learned is something that will shine through, even in a small way.
A lot of reflection has happened with the making of our second album: 1.Because of the time in between of not being the studio, and 2. Because of the new experiences Rob, the band, our producer, and I have all gone through while making the album. As much as Rob and I are pushing to have the album out earlier this year, we’re beginning to understand that the extra time we took allowed for the process of finding ourselves in the album. We’re thrilled with the tracks. We feel like it just keeps getting better and better.
xo Gillian
Rob and I met up this week with producer and studio engineer Dave Meszaros to come up with some planning around finishing the recording of our second album and to also check out Dave’s new recording space in North Vancouver. It was very nice!
Next week I jump back into the studio to record final vocals for our tracks. I’m really looking forward to it…. We’ll be recording more guitar tracks too, soon.
Also, look out for summer performance dates for Sister Says. We have a few already booked, which we’ll post soon in our event listings:)
xo
Gillian
I’ve been up to some interesting things outside of music, lately, that are semi-related to what I do in Sister Says. Those things include assisting in marketing and fundraising for an Aboriginal performing arts festival and also recently attending the First Peoples’ Cultural Council – Cultural Protocols & the Arts Forum at the En’owkin Centre. As I juggle life and the many things that happen day to day I’ve realized that music is what grounds me and keeps me from drifting off somewhere. I feel very privileged to be part of so many communities of artists and to hear their stories. It was good for me to pack my little guitar with me to the forum, in Penticton, because, as much as conversation about art and political issues feed the soul, at the same time, I start to get itchy and find it difficult to function without physically making music. I actually kind of lose my mind after a while!! I think most musical people can attest to how this feels. At the forum I kept thinking about the contradiction of life and balance. Maybe there is no perfect balance but what you can do is keep creating and making holistic spaces for yourself and others.
xo
Gillian
Last week we spoke with Jett Pace of music project Old Man Canyon, about creativity and life, on Meet the Collective Podcast. In my living room over coffee and cookies Jett, born and raised in BC in the beautiful mountains of Lynn Valley, described Old Man Canyon as “basically a collaboration between all the different sounds I’ve loved from my past merged into one.” Jett’s first musical endeavours started in Hip Hop and classical training on the cello. His album Phantoms and Friends, recorded with producer Dave Meszaros, over a six month period in 2012, has been circulating rapidly and getting the attention of many. Music on the album has been featured on both Showtime’s Shameless, as well as MTV’s Awkward, and USA Network’s Suits. We had a good time talking to him.
-Gillian
SISTER SAYS 