The New Weather Machine is pleased to officially welcome Jason Oakes into the band. This Wednesday (the 8th) we’re playing with a cool band from Vancouver called Free City Collective at the Slice, and the mid week rock party will be Jason’s first show with us and a killer time for everyone!

The New Weather Machine and Lustre Creame will be joining forces on Friday January the 6th to start 2012 off properly. $5 at the door for an evening of combined rock dual music power. Kudos to my brother for doing the poster. You can check the event out here.

After further listening to the Pink Floyd remasters, I give the “Most Improved” award to The Wall and Wish You Were Here, with an honourable mention for Meddle. I don’t know if the other 15 versions of The Wall I have are different, but it seems like there is so much more revealed that I’ve never heard before on an album I’ve listened to about a gazillion times. Im particularly impressed with the new depth of field and re-focus on some of the background happenings.


A listen through a stripped down song like “Goodbye Blue Sky” now reveals all kinds of subtle synth work harmonizing the vocal and extra sounds effects that got completely buried/lost (on me anyway) before hand. I’ve noticed the same thing on the rest of the album as wel. I’m sure if I go back and listen to an older version I will be able to hear them, but only because I now know they’re there.

On a slightly different note regarding The Wall, I really appreciate the renewed strength in the instruments sounds. Particularly in the guitars, bass, keys, and kick drum (is there anything left?). Lot’s of the bass tones on the record are really cool as well; the more driven ones sound exactly like a Ampeg SVT, but it’s probably a Hiwatt of some sort. Actually, a Hiwatt DR103 head (a very clean high head room tube amp) sounds a lot like an SVT (a very clean, very high head room tube amp) on the normal channel. John Entwistle, of Who fame, used an army of DR103’s in the late 60’s and early 70’s when his tone was subjectively the best. Roger Waters studio bass tone doesn’t get talked about much, but I’m a really really big fan.

The Wall as a whole feels more cohesive and a little bit more slick, but in a very good way. This improves the presentation and adds both depth and interest (possible?) to the already killer album as a result. This same trend is evident in Wish You Were Here and Meddle as well. Aces in my book!


Last week I also had the amazing opportunity to play a couple of times with the amazing Danny Michel. Danny, who had a gig booked for Wednesday night, showed up a day early and made it to the Jam on Tuesday. He ended up sitting behind the kit to rock a few Bowie songs with us and great times were had by all we all. To my surprise, at his gig on Wednesday he asked the band if we would join him, after his awesome set, to play another set comprised of only Bowie songs. How many times does that happen? It turned into what was a second bizarre night and a hell of a lot of fun. I’ll see if I can dig up any “photographic evidence” *update, see blurry iphone pics below*. Thanks Danny!


On a second and more significant note, Mr.Michel has a great charity for school children in Belize, no middle man, no wasted money, no bullshit, all good. Please check it out here, and if your situation allows, throw a much appreciated donation in the pot.

The New Weather Machine will be playing the awesome outdoor Bigwood IV Festival this year on August 27th with a ton of other great bands including Phantom Creeps, Berserker, Leeroy Stagger, Dirti Speshuls, Duus Blues Band, Toques & Beards, Treeline, Kellianne, Mr:Personal, Blue Sensashun, Gravity Crash, Andrew Scott, Lustre Cream and The Horrorshow Groodies. Last year it was a kick ass party with lots of roasted meat, good times and proceeds going to the food bank. I expect this year to be no different!

The New Weather Machine will be playing in Calgary at the Distillery next Wednesday the 13th during Stampede week with Shred Kelly. Jesse and the Dandelions will also be playing. You can check out the facebook event here. If you’re in, or going to be in Calgary on the 13th it’ll be a great place to show off your brand new cowboy boots and hat, or conversely, find someone else in their brand new cowboy boots and hat.

I will be performing an acoustic set today at the Dragon Boat races at 5:45, just prior to the opening ceremonies. Im not exactly sure of where it is, but it will be on a big stage at Henderson Lake. See you at the....races? Really...? How often does that actually get used in context?

Summer feels like it’s finally here, it seems like it’s been raining forever! I’ve added a few new dates into the calendar, some of which are outdoors, and should be a lot of fun if the sun holds out.


I’ve been spending the majority of my time working on the new album/new album related things. I’m really excited for how things are coming together and even more excited to share it with you after it’s done!

Ive posted a brand new live video of “Waiting for Tomorrow” pulled from our March 26th launch night. You can check it out below as well as on the video page. Special thanks to Leslie Ohene-Adjei and his crew for doing such a great job on the video!


Due to some unfortunate circumstances, my friend Will was not able to make it to Canada and as a result I was forced to cancel some tour dates in June, these have been updated in the tour section. Also a special thanks to Clayton Smith for picking up the drum slack and helping out! Go check him out at the Treeline CD release party this Saturday June 4th at the Slice.

I’m trying to make the best of the situation and make some moves on the recording front, hopefully it will yield some exciting results! I’ll keep you posted in the coming weeks.

**Because the video is widescreen the right side is chopped off a bit, here’s a direct youtube link**

This Thursday (May 19th) The New Weather Machine will be playing The Magnetic South Festival, which is a unique little event that takes places across several different Lethbridge locals and includes a ton of different bands from different music circles. For $20 you get a wristband that lets you go freely between locations and check out bands all day. We’ll be playing at the Slice, I’ll update with a time when I get it.

**Update - Our time slot is 11:00 at the Slice **

Ive posted a plethora of new tour dates - if you live in Alberta of British Columbia there’s a really good chance were playing in or close to your home town and it would be awesome to see you there.


I would also like to announce a very special guest who will be joining us for the dates in June. Will Sealy (in the picture below) will be coming in all the way from Somerset, UK and will be making some wonderful drums noises.

The “Unplugged” show is going great, you still have quite a few chances to check it out if you haven’t already.

This Thursday at Vern’s in Calgary we started our trek around Alberta to play the Nirvana Unplugged album in it’s entirety and a lot of the the members material acoustically. I can guarantee you you will be happier to see it than I was while I was watching the election results.

Check out the poster for what’s happening in May:


The band will feature Andrew Scott, Paul Holden, Dino Scavo, Kyle Harmon, and myself and we’ll be doing all of the Nirvana Unplugged album as well as a selection of songs from members of the group.

Well here we begin. Officially my new project The New Weather Machine is a go. I’ll bring anyone who cares up to speed.

-Im working on a mildly ambitious concept album
-In the last 3 months or so Ive written roughly 30 songs for the project and have demo’d about a third of them
-The album will be 40-45 minutes long
-I will be doing as much as I feel comfortable with for the project including all the writing, mixing, and producing
-Touring and live performances of the album will happen at some point, right now its impossible to tell when - but sometime after the release of the record
-The album will be released sometime before the fall(sooner rather than later)

I guess that about sums up the current state of the project and the “band”. I thank you for checking out the site and the music, and hope you’ll stay tuned.

Cheers,

Jon