What's the Buzzing noise????

How and Deee everybody!

Been a busy couple weeks so I thought I'd get right at her.

Me and the grade 2 corp have been busy working the kinks out of the new drums. Aside from the bass everything is ready to rock, the bass just needs some more dampening and we're there.

New heads, cybermax, are great but not quite my style. We'll be switching back to the coretec's after the Brandon highland festival for sure. Plus I have a large box of them in the basement and if you know my mother.... they need to go!

I've been really busy with work and school and so have semi restricted my attendance at grade 3 and juvenile practice for a few weeks. I'm happy to say I poked into grade 3 on thursday and Graham is doing a fabulous job keeping things on task. Great job to the whole corp!

There's always news in pipe band world. Rarely about us. But today is one of those days and since I don't know Andrew Bertoff well enough to call him i'll blog and watch the chain of info circle the web.

My corp has grown as of this morning.

We've got a lovely 8 sides in the grade 2 corp now, and several World Championships! Years of experience, and one killer moustache! All this comes from the addition of Winnipeg's most decorated snare drummer Mr. Blair "Buz" Brown.



Buz is one of those guys that knows everybody, and has played everywhere. His experience and knowledge will greatly benefit the young drummers in the corp as we travel to Scotland for the first time.

I have to honestly say I was very surprised Buz showed any interest in playing for me, but more importantly at first I was a little bit intimidated. I think the key is though I have one rule in my corp, put the band first. If everyone does that we all get along.

I'm looking forward to having a larger drum corp period but adding a seasoned veteran to the mix of young bucks is the great advantage we were looking for.

Having Buz play at home for the first time in God knows how long shows we're doing something right. We've built a family pipe band, that focuses on positive energy and hard, smart work. Obviously this is an attractive idea to some players.

I hope having someone of Buz's calibre and resume take me and the boys seriously enough to don a blue kilt will encourage the rest of the pipe band world to not shrug us off as to young, and to inexperienced. We are all students of our craft, first and foremost, and we deserve a good shake for our efforts.

Now I have to go email Buz all music and then prepare for the upcoming ppbam contest.

Cheers everyone

Sean

A Darn Good Point

Sup everybody!?!?!?

Back again from another Pop the Trunk road trip. This time to Morden.

It's been quite a stressful week or so. Pipe band's are all super busy, new drums etc., and among other things politics has reared up and taken a bite out of our smaller (wouldn't hurt a fly) group the grade 3 band. It's always disappointing when you watch people work so very very hard for something and somebody burns them.

Among everything else there's barely a month left of school this year, I got a new job, and Pop the Trunk is busier than ever.

I have noticed my blood pressure steadily rising everyday.

However, Friday me and the rock band piled into vans P.A. in tow and headed to the bible belt of Manitoba to spread the good word... or at least a word....

Joey and I met a man I can't quite explain... His name was Bryan, a self described "old fart" but at 61 he didn't look much past 50. While every town has one or two "characters" it's always very interesting to meet as many people as you can on the road.

So Joey and I stood outside and chatted with Bryan while he puffed on his smoke.

Turns out Bryan is one resilient fella. At 61 he has been in a coma (as a kid, parents even took him off life support at one point), he has had I think he said 4 brain surgeries and has only recently been give the majority of his skull back, recently divorced his wife whom he met in 71 I believe..., and to top it all off has Muscular Dystrophy and is losing approx. 8% of his muscle mass every year.

Yet here he was, in the bigger of Morden's two liquor licensed establishments, drinking coffee, dancing, checking out the band, loving life.

Saturday he came down and had dinner at the bar with Joey and I before we had to prepare for our second show. We sat and chatted about the B.C. music scene in the 70's and he even gave us a record (like a legitimate 33 record) of a friend of his.

Never once did he ever take a negative tone... about anything. He flirted with the waitress, kept a keen eye on the crowd, gave us advice on our show, recommended books, and finally gave me some of the best advice I have ever heard.

Don't sweat it

Remarkable, and simple, much like Bryan.

What does this have to do with pipe bands?

I think there are a tremendous amount of chances for us to take Bryan's words to heart in what we do. There are so many little things that we stress about sometimes just saying "don't sweat it, you can't change it" isn't the worst approach.

Obviously we can't completely shirk our responsibilities to our band and friends, but at the same time, perhaps there are more important things we are missing because we're so busy sweating the small stuff.

I'm gonna try it, every now and then, I'll let you know how it goes!

From Bryan, to me, to you...

Don't sweat it.

Cheers,

Sean

Pearl's of Wisdom

(Sound trumpets)!!!!!

Today's the big day I get to say "THEY'RE HERE!!!"

Wes and I picked up the new drums last wednesday and we handed them out saturday.

Personally I couldn't be happier with the look, and sound, these new instruments bring to the band.

It's a big change, the colour choice was purely meant to make these drums stand out, and that they shall.

It's also nice to work with an instrument that is in top condition. You want the snares to go up, turn the height adjustment the right way and they go up, no guess work.

I started tuning my drum as early as Wednesday night. I had a gig and though I took both drums I spent most of the night with my Pearl tuning and cranking. Just seeing how far it would go for me.

It reacted beautifully.

By saturday it almost sounded decent. I'm quite pleased.

The other side to this is getting to see how proud it made the corp. They work very very hard on their music and it was nice to reward them with instruments of the same calibre.

We topped it all off with a bass drum christening saturday night.

Check the pictures from our first few days. Obviously there will be an actual in uniforms nice picture taken eventually, but until them i'm a proud papa showing off my new babies.....

All 17 of them.. take that John and Kate plus 8.

Anyways stop by practice tuesday any time if you wanna see the new gear.

Cheers,

Sean

The Grass On the Other Side of the Fence

Happy Monday!

Guess what this crazy drummer did this weekend...

After not sleeping two days in a row, due to gigging and some necessary drum maintenance, I took in my very first piping recital!!!

I've been sick too so toss some cold medicine into that and you've got a serious challenge on your hands.

It was really impressive. Matt MacIsaac opened for Allisdair Gillies, and I caught the whole show.

It really showed me how impressive piping can be. I often take a minute at practice to just listen to our wonderful pipe corp during their tuning. It amazes me every time, but yesterday's show really threw it down.

Of course, I would have loved a little drumming tossed in, but Matt played two whistles at once.... c'mon.

I'm b-lining for the end of the day and can't wait to hit my bed. But I just wanted to pop on and thank the Winnipeg Police Pipe Band for sponsoring such a great event in our city.

Cheers,

Sean

The Olympic Blog

HOWDY!!!!

Okay, pipe band news in short... we're busy, working hard, practicin lots!!!

Now onto the news of the day. CANADA KICKS ASS!!!

I've always felt that our country has an incredible patriotism locked away in each of us. We just don't know that everyone else in the country shares the same feeling. We take great pride in our country, and especially not bragging about it.....

But then there's hockey.....

BOOO YAAA!!!!

The Olympics have been an incredible success story for our wonderful country. Such a great show, great competition, and we broke a lot of records. We are all so proud.

But, perhaps the icing on the cake was the country coming together to watch the women's hockey team smash the hopes of the U.S, followed by Kevin Martin and his curling team owning the gold medal, and then the very very intense men's hockey final yesterday.

I decided yesterday to put my sticks down and head out with the boys and share in the great Canadian experience.

We headed down to the MTS Center, (Winnipeg's new arena) and joined a huge number of hockey fans watching the game on the big screen there. Willing our boys onto glory.

The first goal of the game caused an insane reaction in the Winnipeg crowd as our very own Jonathan Toews (number 16 in your program) snuck a beauty past Olympic MVP Ryan Miller to put Canada on the board. I thought the arena was gonna come down around us.

Then the tension built and the arena became scary quiet in the last second of the third period when the U.S. tied up the game at 2 a piece and we were heading for over time.

Nerves aside the whole country rallied and I honestly believe willed Syd the Kid to put that puck in the net. GOLD MEDAL BABY!!!!

After the medals ceremony, and an entire arena screaming our national anthem, we piled out into the streets, down to Portage and main to wave hundreds of flags and celebrate. Songs broke out, and chants of "SHUT IT DOWN" indication to police that there was gonna be a party in the street with or without them.

The WPS did an incredible job of keeping the mood light, allowing us to celebrate, and keeping us safe. Lord knows we needed it! Eventually Portage and Main was closed and a party/street hockey game began and went fairly late.

That's just Winnipeg!

I imagine the same sight all over the country. Such an out-pouring of emotion and pride in canada. Listening to the crowd chanting "SYDNEY CROSBY" and "JONATHAN TOEWS" or "LOUUUUUUU" new hockey heroes were born yesterday.

I doubt this gets read anywhere important, but I'd like to thank all the athletes, organizers, volunteers, and the Government who helped make the push for the podium such a success.

On a Pipe Band note, nice job Andre, and Triumph Street!!! Really enjoyed the sound of the Andante out there on the ice at the curling final!!!! Very cool!!!

I gotta go though, it's mid-term exam week here and I have an accounting mid-term in an hour.

I hope the pride and passion we've always felt, but are expressing so much right now continues.It's a great day to be Canadian, but then, it always is!!!!!!

GOLD

Sean

Me and my 31 closest friends

What an incredible weekend we've just finished here in the peg!

Really just a fabulous all round weekend.

Wes and I really had our hands full saturday, between his judging, me playing solos, debuting our Two Rivers Students in solo competition, two grade 5 bands we work with, our grade 3 band, and the big grade 2 show.

But we made it!

I'm happy to report that the Dakota band from South Dakota travelled up here to Winnipeg to compete for the first time, and cleaned house! I couldn't be prouder of Brian and Peggy, it was a great pleasure performing with you guys.

Our grade 3 band debuted under their new direction, and won! More importantly they played well, I'm very excited about the direction Mark is taking the band.

Solos were incredibly successful. Of course I only really watch the drumming, but with the top 3 grades going to the SASPB drummers i'm very very proud.

I'm also gonna take a selfish moment as I managed to squeak to pretty good solo plays out and edge past Bob Ford (Ering Street) for the Professional prize. As exciting as that is, I woke up this morning to read Pipesdrums.com and there was my name on the results page!!! This is a first, and after being referred to as Kirby McRae at the line in Maxville it was nice to get mentioned.

I suppose the big story was the grade 2 contest. Which i'm happy to report we won!

We played every player we have in the medley, and it was pretty darn good. 20 pipers, 7 sides, 4 tenors, and 1 bass. That's a big band for the prairies. Blair "Buzz" Brown was kind enough to get the video of our medley up on you tube yesterday and after viewing it I'm pretty pleased.

I should mention that the drum corp was a bit upset over missing the best drum corp award, however, after reviewing the sheets nothing truly surprised me. We did however help our band secure first place with what can only be described as glowing ensemble sheets and a pair of 1st place ensemble finishes.

I know the drummers read my blog, so to them I'll say what I always do... We're not here to be the best drum corp, just the best pipe band, and Saturday we were. I'm very, very proud.

Hugh Cameron, and Buzz, have given us some great sheets to work on, and I'll be reviewing plent of video.

I've included some pics this time of the big blue machine in action. Stay tuned as we are expecting our drums very soon, I also have some other pretty good news up my sleeve!

Now I have to practice guitar, as apparently that's what I get paid for!!!!

Cheers,

Sean

Break a Leg

What a disturbing line?....

Depressing really...

Unles you're a musician like myself. Then it becomes the closest thing to "Good Luck" you can throw at someone.

Since this is a pipe band blog, and technically British based, we're going to use Wikipedia's British origin for this saying. Especially since it's the only one that makes any sense.

"Break a Leg" originated in Shakespeare's time. At the end of a great performance the performers would be tipped. The act of tipping would come about when the audience, during their applause, tossed coins at the performers. The performers would then bow to one knee to pick up the coins, thus breaking their leg line.

Fascinating..... of course I strongly recommend throwing wads of twenty dollar bills at the pipe bands saturday night. Inflation is a cruel mistress and Shakespeare's coin tossing era is long gone.

Yes it is concert week. I've been a busy, busy boy. The band has been burning the candle at 3 ends this week.... (go figure that one out)

Sunday night we had a great rehearsal at the University of Manitoba. Backing band, dancers, everything went so well. Tuesday was another great run for just the grade 2 band. Tonight, however, is dress rehearsal. 2 pipe bands, 1 backing band, 12 dancers, 1 stage....

She's gonna be crazy. I think I calculated 60 - 70 performers this year. This doesn't include backstage staff, or any other help we have upstairs in the lobby. Our concert has grown to a huge monster show. Not bad for little old Winnipeg.

There are a few tickets still available. You can contact any band member or me at 391 5057. We'll get them to you somehow.

If you are planning on attending our magnificent show, please refrain from throwing wads of money until the final curtain call. It distracts the pipers.

Have a great weekend, whatever you do. Next week starts the push to our first contest.

Break a Leg!!!

Sean