artist The Artist Life

West Coast here we go again! We're are so stoked to be hitting the road with one of the fastest punk rock bands on the planet A Wilhelm Scream! Joining us on this 2 week run is Richmond, Virginia's The Riot Before. If you haven't heard these dudes yet make sure to check out their myspace (myspace.com/theriotbefore) they rule!

Coming soon... We'll be announcing a bunch of dates heading East from Vancouver and back home to Toronto so stay tuned for that!

see you at the show!
blackie - tal

So it's summer and although the weather here in Toronto seems to be up and down like a toilet seat (a la' Mike Holmes) I'm still banking on the late July heat wave "surprise." You know what I'm talking about right? The day the air conditioner decides to crap out, your friend forgets to put chlorine in their parents pool and a water ban plagues the city. Sounds like a good ol' late July in Southern Ontario to me! What do you do to stay cool you ask? By cool I'm going to assume we're talking about the temperature and not your older brother's sweet 84' Camaro. Here's what you do; grab a handful of friends, a couple coolers, LOTS OF ICE and as many beers that can fit in said coolers. Hop in a van and drive to the nearest beach. Done. When the sun goes down keep in mind it might get a bit cold so if this happens "Let's start a campfire!" It's easy really, just take four dudes that play punk rock, give them instruments that don't plug in and put them in a studio with a producer who is a musical genuis and a certifiable mentalist at the same time...

Let's Start A Campfire is the acoustic counterpart to our 2008 release Let's Start A Riot. But don't let the same five songs fool you we promise lots of surprises! Some of our friends decided to drop by while we were recording and took over the microphones so maybe you can spot the guest vocals? August 11th is when this sweet digital EP drops so make sure to mark it off on your calander! Oh and if you order the record from We Shop Underground you'll get a special un-released song not available from I-Tunes. Wink wink ;)

August 11th! Get stoked!

This Saturday we'll be doing an R.S.V.P. only acoustic performance for The Audio Recording Academy Toronto (TARA) that will air on AUX.TV. If you want to check that out head on over to the facebook group and sign up! It starts at 5pm sharp and is all ages!

Ok, now let's talk about Cutting Edge Music Festival! Even better, how about the U.O. lounge at the festival!? We just might have a special acoustic performance along with some of our buddies in Stereos.  Cover songs anyone? We're so excited to be part of CEMF this year and we can't wait to share the stage with such amazing bands like The Roots, Ill Scarlett, Protest The Hero and many many more! Make sure to check this out!

And finally, East Coast here we come! Vanna and Trailer Swift are getting stoked about hitting the road again and so are we! We'll be on tour from August 8th to August 22nd with our friends in The Snips and Brights so make sure you check out all the tour dates on our page and if we're in your town come out and high five us!  And better yet, if you wanna help spread the word, check out the Sweet Team

I guess that's it for now... Actually it's not. Remember in high school when your friend would say "I have something to tell you... Wait, no I can't..." And after hours of coaxing your friend you would finally get it out of them?

It's kinda like that time... But not.

Hang tight. More to come soon.
see you at the shows!

blackie - tal

Yo!
A quick update from The Artist Life camp as there are some cool things coming up ya'll should know about.

First things first, a huge thanks to everyone who was out at L3 during our performance at SCENE this year, it's one we won't soon forget and we owe it all to you guys. Speaking of SCENE, did anyone catch Baptized In Blood before our set at L3? If you missed it, I feel very sorry for you. Unfortunately we had to miss our boy Ian singing a Rancid song with Stereos, but there's plenty of internet footage of that... I actually heard their making a Much TV show about it??? haha!
Check out the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/wat..ch?v=iKJ64nn9VDs

Next up - we're playing The Reverb in Toronto next Tuesday, July 14th. UO's going to be there giving away tons of free shit along with Converse shoes so get your ass down there and party with us, okay? It'll be our last Toronto show for a little while... and the summer and it don't last long baby!

Have all of you heard of AUX TV yet? Well, give your head a shake if you haven't. It's Canada's first interactive cross-platform channel dedicated exclusively to emerging music. Its programming includes Alan Cross's Explore Music and Ingrid Johansson's Band Foto (among many other kick-ass shows) and has just launched Secret Sessions this summer. It's a show that brings bands into TARA (The Audio Recording Academy) in downtown Toronto and has them record tracks down live off the floor. They bring a TV crew in and film the whole thing along with some interview footage as well. We'll
be joining Secret Sessions on July 18th and it's free for audience to come and hang out. The whole thing starts at 5pm so come check it out! Check out www.aux.tv and http://www.aux.tv/secretse..ssions/ for more info.

As you all know, we announced our Eastern Canadian run with The Snips and Brights for August 8th-22nd. We can't wait to re-visit the cities we hit on the Unity Tour and maybe even play a few new tracks we've been writing for the upcoming full-length. If you wanna help out with the tour and join the UO Street Team (yes, perks included), then all you gotta do is head over here: http://www.undergroundoperations.com/sweetteam/ and click "Get Involved", it would mean the world to us! At the bottom of this note you'll see links to each of the Facebook events in each city. Feel
free to invite all your pals, ;).

Last but not least, we've been added to a couple really cool shows in September. They're with a band called Punk Rock Karaoke, and if you've ever heard of... hmmmm NOFX?? Bad Religion?? How abbouttt Social Distortion?? No? haha. Well, you're lying. Some dudes from these bands play in a punk rock super group if you will and each night they get on stage and play your favorite punk rock songs and get YOU to come up and sing them. Yeah, it's gonna be fun.

More info here:
Eric Melvin (NOFX)
Greg Hetson (Bad Religion/Circle Jerks)
Derek O'Brian (Social Distrotion, DI, Agent Orange)
Steve Sotto (Adolescents, Agent Orange)
AND YOU

Song list can be found at http://www.punkrockkaraoke...com/

Includes songs by Stiff Little Fingers, Sex Pistols, Misfits, Circle Jerks, Descendants, Ramones, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag and a LOT MORE

Sign up at the show to sing a song with the band!

Wow, I guess that's it... phewph, it's been a long one. My apologies. If you actually made it down this far, pat yourself on the back. Thanks for taking
the time.

Hey everyone! Remember that tour announcement we mentioned we could smell coming? Well guess what... we weren't talking about the garbage strike here in Toronto after all! We were actually telling the truth. The Artist Life will be hitting the road for two weeks starting August 8th along side our buddies in The Snips and Brights! We're so excited to be hitting the road again. The last time we were out East was last fall on the Underground Operations Unity Tour which was also Means' final tour (r.i.p.). We can't wait to get back out there and see everyone again! Halifax is a hot spot because you can order ridiculous amounts of beer per person and it's completely legal. But there is more to life then just beer right? Check out our the tour dates and remember once you find your city make sure to high five the first able bodied person you see and then shout "The Artist Life and The Snips are coming! Yes!" Speaking of The Snips, rumor has it they've been in the studio and have some new teaser songs up on their myspace? You should probably go check those babies out while you still can. They sound slick! Also for those who haven't heard Brights yet, check them out on their myspace! 

Yo! The fine folks over at Uncharted Sounds were kind enough to put us on the cover of their latest issue! Check it out and let us know what you think!
Check out the link! http://www.unchartedsounds.com/

Hey everyone! We've been hard at work over here at The Artist Life camp. Booking more shows and writing more songs. Speaking of shows, did you check out the new dates yet? Lots of great stuff coming up! NXNE, CEMF, PROPAGANDHI AND STRIKE ANYWHERE and maybe something that rhymes with beast... roast... cure...? Stay tuned for that!

How about a bit of the West Coast through the eyes of The Artist Life? We took the Underground Operations video camera with us on our trek across Western Canada w/ A Trophy Life. This being the first time that this band has been West, we wanted to make sure we captured as much as possible! I've started to get a hang of i-movie so hopefully you all dig the video! Make sure you leave us a comment telling us how much you love, or how much you hate the video and if I should stop trying to be a film editor all together.

Hey everyone! We've been hard at work over here at The Artist Life camp. Booking more shows and writing more songs. Speaking of shows, did you check out the new dates yet? Lots of great stuff coming up! NXNE, CEMF, PROPAGANDHI AND STRIKE ANYWHERE and maybe something that rhymes with beast... roast... cure...? Stay tuned for that!

How about a bit of the West Coast through the eyes of The Artist Life? We took the Underground Operations video camera with us on our trek across Western Canada w/ A Trophy Life. This being the first time that this band has been West, we wanted to make sure we captured as much as possible! I've started to get a hang of i-movie so hopefully you all dig the video! Make sure you leave us a comment telling us how much you love, or how much you hate the video and if I should stop trying to be a film editor all together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atv9F_-yxsY


Oh, and I think at this point everyone in the band has a twitter account now so add us all and share in our tweets!

Ian: http://twitter.com/IANBLACKWOOD
Dean: http://twitter.com/DeanRichardsTAL
Chuck: http://twitter.com/chuckietal
Jake: http://twitter.com/TourLife

All for now
cheers!
blackie - tal