*Superbowl
*Watershed Festival
*Pic
*LOTR
*Canadian band everyone loves to hate
*Eds guitar article
*Rosemont NYE show review
*Ladies room letter
*Barenaked Truth vid clips
*New VH shows
*John Barry Article
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As reported by MYSD.org about 1 ½ weeks ago Fox sports officially announced that BNL will be apart of their Pre-game Superbowl Show taking place 2/3/2002. They will perform at least 1 song. The exact time of their appearance is not known as of yet. Check your local listings for more information in the upcoming weeks. Also check www.superbowl.com or www.foxsports.net for more info
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What started out as a benefit concert for a town in need has become one of the biggest and most anticpated events of the year. Featuring some of the biggest names in show business, Watershed III is sure to be a memorable, crowd pleasing day for all.
September 1, 2002 promises to be
a day to remember.
A total of 10, 000 early bird tickets, priced at $60,
go on sale
Monday, December 17, 2001 at 10:00 a.m.
in Walkerton only at the Chamber of Commerce
(519 881-3413), ending December 21, and resuming January 2 - 31, and will then go off-sale until April 5, when they will be priced at $80.00 at the Chamber of Commerce and all Ticketmaster outlets, in Ontario
Performances from:
The Barenaked Ladies and Blue Rodeo,
hard-driving honky-tonk superstars Brooks & Dunn,
Canadian songwriter Carolyn Dawn Johnson,
teenage heart-throb Adam Gregory, Calgary's Paul Brandt,
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band,
Australian chart-topper Keith Urban
Watershed III, central Ontario's biggest outdoor music event, will feature performances from the Barenaked Ladies and Blue Rodeo, who'll join hard-driving honky-tonk superstars Brooks & Dunn and a raft of other major country artists.
The event will take place in Walkerton on Sunday, September 1. Last year's event raised almost $61,000.00 for a number of local organizations, including the Walkerton CAT Scan United, the Walkerton Heritage Garden, and "Twice the Ice".
Minor Sports also received $25,000 from the event
FOR MORE INFO AND UPDATES PLEASE CHECK http://www.watershedfestival.ca/
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A BNL pic from their studio c performance can be located at:
http://www.kbco.com/studioc/gallery.html
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Snippet from an Australian Newspaper about Lord of the Rings:
Where's the harm in a little barefaced fantasy? There was a pregnant pause at the LA rock concert of the Barenaked Ladies when a discussion broke out on which The Lord of The Rings character was best -- Gandalf or Frodo. Band members said they were 'dorks or freaks' for liking the movie and wanted to write a song about it
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CBC to profile the Canadian band that everyone loves to hate
BY Tony Atherton
The Ottawa Citizen
Sunday, January 13, 2002
'When the music history of the '90s is written, Barenaked Ladies will merit only a footnote," according to the current edition of Maxim magazine's glossy musical spin-off, Blender.
An article rating greatest-hit CDs dismisses the music of BNL as "unbearably silly," but gives four stars to the Backstreet Boys' new compilation, The Hits -- Chapter One.
Ouch. Now we know what Steve Page means when he says, in a Life & Times profile of the band (on CBC Tuesday at 7 p.m.), that he never knew what it was like to be hated until Barenaked Ladies became popular. "People would call across the street: 'Barenaked Ladies suck!' " he recalls.
This was when the band enjoyed a relatively circumscribed popularity, just after the release of its breakout album, Gordon, when BNL was world famous only in Canada. And when the consensus was that they would never be anything more.
In The Bare Naked Truth: The Life & Times of the Barenaked Ladies, drummer Tyler Stewart says the knives were out then in Canada, in much the same way they glint on the pages of Blender today. Since the band had been more successful than might be presumed, given its geeky appearance, people "were ready to write us off," says Stewart.
According to the documentary (directed by National Arts Centre TV guru David Langer), the band was experiencing internal problems as well. The five guys from Scarborough had been together four years, gained success through hard work and enthusiastic word-of-mouth, and then found that it simply wasn't as much fun as it used to be.
We were probably at our most dysfunctional at that point, says Page, "where Ed (Robertson) and I barely talked to each other at all, and we had almost nothing in common except the fact that we were the front men of this group."
Enter Vancouver-based manager Terry McBride, who realized the band was undermining itself. The Barenaked Ladies' public persona, portrayed in music videos and public appearances, was goofy.
Any seriousness that the songwriting had, the craft that they had ... they buried it, McBride says in the film.
McBride repackaged the guys, put them in leather instead of baggy shorts, and oversaw the production of some soulful videos. Given that BNL subsequently overcame its slump and became a popular touring act in the U.S. with a No. 1 hit, it is tempting to regard such put downs as contained in the Blender review with a certain knowing irony. Barenaked Ladies a mere footnote, indeed!
Before we climb on our patriotic high horse, however, we should note that McBride assesses the band's impact in much the same way, even if he says it with more grace.
They'll keep selling millions of albums but they're not going to be The Massive Artist. They're not going to be the high-profile media artist, he says, adding, perhaps ruefully, "but I think that's a choice they made quite some time ago."
The film shows the band members with their wives, girlfriends and babies, living suburban lives not much different from what they knew growing up. In many ways, they're still the outsiders looking in on the excesses of showbiz, still the awkward kids who, as Robertson says, would boast about their lack of cool when they drove their moms' cars from the 'burbs to play downtown Toronto gigs.
Their private lives are very important to them, says McBride, "and that's what makes them who they are as artists. That's what makes them Barenaked Ladies."
And that's ultimately what might limit their success, but it doesn't seem to bother them a whit.
Also coming up:
Mark Twain: Tomorrow, and Tuesday, PBS at 8 p.m. The 19th century humourist and moralist is an ideal subject for documentary filmmaker Ken Burns: familiar and nostalgic, a little controversial but touched with nobility. Burns's approach here is also familiar, not to say clichéd. Lingering shots of old photographs and evocative commentary by urbane experts are presented against a background of gentle period music played on simple instruments.
The film chronicles a childhood rich in the raw material of his later books, and a young adulthood spent plying the waters of the Mississippi as a steamboat pilot.
The author's later life is portrayed as a conflict: between him as the successful writer and lecturer Twain; and his alter ego, the overreaching and improvident Samuel Clemens.
At four hours (the last half of the biography airs Tuesday at 8 p.m.), the biography is thorough, unhurried and insightful.
First Monday: Tomorrow, CH at 9 p.m., or Tuesday, 9 p.m. on CBS. Donald P. Bellesario (JAG) would like to do for the U.S. Supreme Court what The West Wing does for the White House. But while this new series is pretty to look at and blessed with a remarkable cast (including James Garner as the irascible conservative chief justice, Charles Durning as his blunt, like-minded colleague, and Joe Mantegna as a more liberal new appointee), it doesn't have the heart or the head of The West Wing. The opening episode, about a request for a stay of execution for a death-row inmate who recently survived a lightning strike, is contrived and predictable.
Close-up: Wednesday, Star! at 8:30 p.m. Leonard Cohen looks just the tiniest bit frail in the most recent interview among this collection of chats and video clips dating back to the 1960s. A down-and-dirty biography, the retrospective includes archival comments by admirers like the Barenaked Ladies' Steve Page and Jennifer Warnes.
Antiques Roadshow: Wednesday, Newsworld at 10 p.m. They lined up for hours at the National Gallery last fall, clutching family heirlooms to share with the experts of BBC's travelling appraisal circus. Now the rest of us can see what all the fuss was about.
Muhammad Ali's 60th Birthday Celebration: Wednesday, CBS and CH at 9 p.m. Where does this hour-long gala leave off being a tribute and take up being a movie trailer?
Actually, there is no dividing line; it's a marketing ploy from front to back. Ali star Will Smith is the headline performer (along with Mariah Carey and R. Kelly) on the program, which also features behind-the-scenes footage from the movie.
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Barenaked
Ladies'
Ed Robertson
www.bnl.org
With a name like Barenaked Ladies, it's hard to be taken seriously. That is, unless you're the five fully clothed Canadian men whose fifth American album, Stunt, could bring the zany group the mainstream stardom in America that they already enjoy in Canada. Their latest album, "Stunt", was released in early June of 1998, with a song already on 'Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks' top ten chart. I do a lot of driving and listen to music in the car, and, I have to say, I'm still listening to this album 3 weeks later. I really like the zany feel this album has. From start to finish, the music makes me feel great. From the Free-style rapping that Ed Robertson does in the albums first track (One Week), to the beautiful acoustic harmonies, this album seems to have something for everyone.
Recently, Ed Robertson (Acoustic Guitarist in BNL) brought his Larrivée guitars back to us for a bit of a reunion. Ed plays an L-09 from late seventies on stage, but also has a second L-09 from 1976 which is used solely for the purpose of recording. Apparently, this guitar is one of his most prized possessions, and it never leaves the hands of his guitar tech. Surprisingly, after 23 years away from home, 5 albums, and countless road trips, the guitars were in immaculate condition. We fit new saddles on both instruments, dressed the frets, buffed the guitar, and repaired some minor belt buckle damage. Here is a link to today's version of the L-09.
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Chicago's Thirty #&!@* Miles Away! - Barenaked in Rosemont, IL (12/31/01)
by Leslie R. from the Newsletter Jan 02 '02
The Bottom Line A nice way to say good-bye to a very bad year.
Chicago's thirty #&!@* miles away! is the line I'll remember most from the Barenaked Ladies' 2001 New Year's Eve show. It was part of their best rap of the night. Unfortunately, the Allstate Arena's acoustics and a pair of drunken concertgoers prevented me from hearing much of what the guys said most of the night. But, I'm going to try to relate an overview of the show from my perspective.
The Allstate Arena, located in Rosemont, IL, is home to the Chicago Wolves hockey team. Basketball is played there, and concerts are held there, too. I've heard bands in all sorts of settings, and I have to declare Allstate Arena the worst venue of all. It seemed that everything that was said and sung bounced off the back of the arena.
I know the words to every BNL song, so I was able to follow along. However, it was difficult to understand a lot of what the guys said in their onstage banter and in their raps. We were seated 5th row center and friends were seated in the lower level about 2 sections from the right side of the stage. One of the first things we all commented on when we hooked up after the show was the poor sound quality. So, I know the problem wasn't just from the drunks sitting next to me. Those two darling boys must've thought their singing was better than BNL's 'cause they subjected us all to their very loud performance in each song. They didn't have any interest in what went on between songs though, so I heard all about their personal lives and how great they were feeling instead of hearing what the band had to say. Luckily, they left before the show ended, so I was able to hear the last couple of songs in peace and also avoid prison because thoughts of strangling at least one of them came to mind.
After experiencing one of the best Barenaked Ladies shows ever (Buffalo, 12/31/99), I've been waiting for a letdown of a show, and I guess this one was it. HOWEVER, I want to be perfectly clear when I say that it was NOT BNL's fault. They were doing what they do best: entertaining their fans. The gods of concerts just weren't watching over us all night.
Steve's voice was strained, and he said he'd do his best. Well, he did better than I would've expected after hearing the difference in his voice. If I didn't know what he usually sounds like, I probably wouldn't have known there was a problem. He belted out all the great classic BNL tunes in fantastic Steve Page fashion. They even did "Break Your Heart", which has to be the most difficult song for him anyway, let alone when his throat is sore. It was funny to watch him prepare for some of the difficult parts of various songs, like the end of "Lovers In A Dangerous Time" when he kicks it into high gear. He'd look at the crowd with an expression on his face as if to say, "I'm going to go for it and we'll see what happens." He didn't disappoint.
It was obvious, however, that everyone was tired. The shows on New Year's Eve always get a late start so the guys can be onstage when the clock strikes midnight. Action Figure Party was the warm-up this night, and they came on around 9:30pm. Jim even sat in with them on a couple of songs in their set. It was well after 10pm when BNL took the stage. And they played until after 12:30am but performed just one song in encore.
After the balloons fell from the ceiling at 12am, and after everyone had popped most of them or batted them onto the stage, the guys started in on "Auld Lang Syne". Ed informed us that they had discovered the lyrics to ALL of the verses, so each guy then sang one verse by himself. It's something we look forward to every New Year's Eve. Unfortunately, this year's was tinged with a bit of regret because the guys had stated that they would be taking some time off. Well, to put it more bluntly, Tyler's verse included a thank you to all the fans, but he also said they were going to take some "mother &*#$! time off!" Kevin's verse was sweet, as always, as he wished that in the new year we could live in peace and no one would have to live in fear. If only...
As Steve noted during the show, the band has been working and touring nearly non-stop since 1995. If they're not in a town near you, that means they're performing somewhere else on the planet. They've given us 2 original albums and a Greatest Hits CD in the last 3 years. They've hit the airwaves via TV shows on all sorts of networks. "Barenaked In America" was made, and they performed in 2 Pay-Per-View events. And, if that's not enough, they have been involved in various side projects, like performing "Little Green Bag" with Tom Jones or making "Green Christmas" for the Grinch movie. Then there are the CD's and performances that Jim has done as part of The Brothers Creeggan and that Kevin has done as Kevin Hearn and Thin Buckle. And, let's not forget that Kevin was battling leukemia for a couple years, too.
We can all agree they deserve a vacation, but it will be a long year without them.
Barenaked Ladies have given me many years of happiness through their albums and their live shows. Each time a tour ends, I look forward to the announcement of the next one so I can start making plans to catch at least one show. We saw them 3 times in 2001 alone.
Now we can look forward to their next album and the accompanying tour. And I'll be there, whenever & wherever that might be.
Set List (*not* in correct order)
The Old Apartment
Get In Line
Pinch Me
It's All Been Done
Thanks, That Was Fun
Be My Yoko Ono
It's Only Me (The Wizard Of Magic Land)
One Week + Chicken Dance + Big Guys Kissing While Wearing Black-Rimmed Glasses
Lovers In A Dangerous Time
Jim's Solo, including Now I Know My ABC's & If You're Happy And You Know It Clap Your Hands
Conventioneers
Falling For The First Time
What A Good Boy
Enid
Too Little Too Late
Break Your Heart
Auld Lang Syne + BNL's Extra Verses
Million Dollars + Medley + Homeboy Dance Routine
Encore:
Brian Wilson
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Happy New Year Roomers!
For those of you who weren't aware, the fan club offices were closed from Dec.
21 through to Jan. 8th. We've enjoyed our holidays and are back working away.
Please note, if you sent an email or left us a voice mail while the offices were
closed we will get to it as soon as possible. We have many to tend to and are
working as quickly as possible. :) Thank you ahead of time for your patience.
So what are the Ladies going to do in '02?
Writing, recording and laying low it looks like. However, they will be doing a
show at the Olympics (see post from 12/19/01).
Steve Page is confirmed to be particiapting in Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank
Feedback Festival on the *7th* of that month. Additional information is still
to be confirmed.
A brand new BNL documentary, "The Bare Naked Truth: Life & Times of the
Barenaked Ladies" is set to air at *7PM on Tues. Jan. 15th, 2002* on CBC. For
more information, please visit http://www.tv.cbc.ca/lifeandtimes/ and be sure to
check your local listings.
We're really excited and happy to announce that the Barenaked Ladies will be the
hosts for the 2002 JUNO AWARDS!!! Here is a clip from the press release...
"Viewers can expect a heady mix of cheeky humour and high energy when the five
ladies"" - vocalists/guitarists Steven Page and Ed Robertson, drummer Tyler"
Stewart, bassist Jim Creeggan, and keyboardist Kevin Hearn - hit the stage at
Mile High Stadium in St. John's, Newfoundland on *Sunday, April 14 at 8 p.m.
(EST/PT*. The JUNO AWARDS, Canada's premiere music awards show, will be
broadcast live by CTV which acquired the broadcast rights for both the 2002 and
2003 awards shows in late August.
In choosing the multi-platinum quintet as hosts, CARAS President, Daisy Falle,
said: "We're pleased to have the Barenaked Ladies back on the heels of their
fabulous year in 2001. The fact they've gone on to even greater international
fame since last year's program only adds to their unique and outspoken 'star'
quality for what we believe will be the best JUNO AWARDS show ever."
Please check your local listings as we get closer to the broadcast date for more
details.
A number of other programs, most of which are repeats including "Spill Your
Guts", "The New Music" (Music Without Borders clips) and others can be seen in
the coming days on various TV stations. Also, "Barenaked In America" will be
broadcast a few times as well. To source this information, please visit
http://www.musicstation.com/cgi-bin/rotv/rotv_cgi?search_type=artist_exact&sort_by=artist&type=tv&search=150194
More soon...
Thanks for reading...
From Sawrowe on the Chatter:
VH1 tunes into trio of original series
Monday January 14 3:32 AM ET
By Melissa Grego
HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Cable network VH1 has at least three new original series being readied for March debuts, including one that follows musicians as they plan and perform surprise gigs across the country.
``Guerilla Concerts'' is a weekly half-hour featuring adventures with two artists in each episode as they find a place with a personal connection, such as a favorite discount department store, and play.
The other two new weekly series set for March are the half-hour documentary series ``Being'' and the hourlong ``Ultimate Albums.'' VH1 also is planning a news special on hate rock to debut in the first quarter of this year. The network is expected to announce these projects during the company's presentation at the TV Critics Assn. Tour in Pasadena Monday.
VH1 is also likely to discuss a new original movie, as well as the show it has been developing under the title ``Live From Hollywood.'' VH1 had been negotiating to produce the live show at the new Hollywood & Highland complex, however insiders said that the show's location is not nailed down.
``Guerilla'' locations could range from a karaoke bar to a Home Depot. Alanis Morrisette, Barenaked Ladies, Five for Fighting and Nickelback are all on board for the series.
``Being'' attempts to convey what it's really like to live the life of a rock star. It uses the latest technology in order to be photographed from the artist's point of view.
``Ultimate Albums'' goes into the making of music's pivotal albums, with profiles of records by such artists as Def Leppard, TLC, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Bon Jovi, No Doubt, Led Zeppelin and Motley Crue.
``VH1 News Special: Inside Hate Rock'' will address the allures and dangers of the music known as hatecore. It explores the evolution of the movement, tracing the story of hatecore pioneer George Burdi, who left the movement. It will also examine the rock against racism movement.
Meanwhile, VH1's schedule will incorporate some changes this week. ``Behind the Music'' will start appearing as a seven-day 8 p.m. show, with new episodes premiering Sundays. Upcoming new profiles include stories on The Cult, Hall & Oates, Busta Rhymes, Garbage and Sheryl Crow.
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From the washingtonpost.com
JOHN BERRY "All the Way to There" Ark 21
JOHN BERRY
All the Way to There
Ark 21
Recording for an independent label has its advantages. Working at home, for example. Country crooner John Berry recorded "All the Way to There" in his Georgia basement studio after gathering a few songs from Nashville pros and writing eight new tunes.
The emphasis on original material is a big plus, since it creates some distance from Music City's orbit and helps produce a more personal and intimate sound. Not surprisingly, the self-penned tunes also suit Berry a lot better than some of the songs he's covered in the past. He's never required a great lyric to sell a song -- his striking, heartfelt tenor usually does most of the work anyway -- but it's good to hear him performing a collection of tunes that consistently sound tailor-made.
In playing to his strengths, Berry doesn't stray far from what mainstream country fans have come to expect. But this time around, most of the love songs and inspirational ballads, including those co-composed by Fastball's Miles Zuniga ("You Make Me Believe") and Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson ("He Makes Me Want Her Again"), are a cut above average. And adding to the album's homespun charm are some rousing harmonies, which envelop the standout track "Let's Find Out" and the tuneful ode "Eternally."
Mike Joyce
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