My last show with the RLB is tonight!
I'm back in T-Dot (Toronto) for Noah's wedding and to settle some personal business, and I also have a show tonight with the RLB. It's likely going to be my last gig with them and I'm sad about that.They have FOUR bass players coming out tonight to see the gig and get a sense for the music in a live setting. Auditions for my replacement start next week.
Playing with this band has been a spectacular honour, a humbling experience, a wonderful time, an artistically fulfilling moment and a beautiful part of my life.
Getting BACK into playing live music was one of the best things I did for myself in my late twenties. I was working too hard, spending too much time thinking about business, and not playing much at all, and I'm so, SO glad I decided to start auditioning for bands, and even gladder that I found this one.The calibre of musicianship in the RLB is staggering. Between Gentleman Keith Reid on sax, Brian "Big Lips" Elkin on Trumpet, Larry Kline on drums, Russell Leon on Guitar, the insanely talented Ansgar Schroer on Harmonica and percussion, and the ludicrously gifted Dan Restivo on flutes and penny whistles, I've had to play up and drastically improve my own musicianship over the years in order to catch up, keep pace and rock out.
When the album is released in the fall, you'll all know what I mean...
Being a full member of the RLB for almost three years has been wonderful, and I'd like to thank them all for letting me have that in my life. It's been magical to perform with them, and I'll remember these experiences always.
As a 31-year-old business-oriented Canadian now living in Europe and working in a very intense, fast-paced, high-pressure industry, I'm not sure if and/or when I'll play in a band again. As I've often heard, Rock 'n' Roll is a young man's game. And while I can't say whether or not I'll have another shot at performing live, I'm completely stoked, excited and happy about what's going on tonight at The Reverb.
We're headlining one of the A-list venues in the city on a Saturday night, in the same building where we opened for Ike Turner and Russell Leon and countless other bands. It should be mad fun! And I hope any of you who might read this blog entry in the few hours between now and when we go on (at 11PM tonight) take the time to come out.
FYI, this is what's been posted on KickInTheHead.com for the last few days:
The Good Word
I'm a proud Canadian. I'm a music fan and a musician, and also a technologist. I built this site in 1998 for the Canadian music community because we needed it.
I know it needs an upgrade. I'm working on that this summer. The site wasn't built to serve 20,000 page views and half a gig of bandwidth every day (more than 145K hits/day). The Google Ads that run here usually cover hosting costs, but not always.
My last gig with The Russell Leon Band is this Saturday night (July 16) at The Reverb in Toronto. I'm moving to Europe to pursue a new job and this will possibly be my last gig ever with a band in Canada.
In seven years, I've never asked this site's users for anything. The site is free to use and unmoderated. While some people take advantage of that, tens of thousands of Canadian musicians benefit. As a one-time favour for me, come to The Reverb and show some support for a great Canadian Band. We go on stage at 11PM and cover is about $7.
The band is an 8-piece Rock/ Reggae/ Ska/ Latin/ Celtic/ Funk/ Pop/ World music band with some very serious players. We're sort of a cross between The Police and Spirit of The West on a very hot August night, and are really tight after playing together for three years.
Cheers. And thank you.
Jeffrey Haas
Executive Producer, Programmer, Webmaster, Proprietor
KickInTheHead.com - True North, Strong and Loud!
Posted: July 15, 2005
Also, this is what I posted here after our surprise gig @ NXNE.
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