The Big Mess is a Happier Big Mess! We were invited to perform this summer as a part of SEGI. What is SEGI, you might reasonably ask?
SEGI stands for Summer Entertainment Granville Island. It’s kinda like being an Elite Busker for the Granville Island weekends and holidays. We are so very happy to be a part of this! Come visit us in Vancouver!
The Big Mess cd front cover
Yep, it is totally true. The Big Mess has produced it’s very first cd. Now, as Kyle says, you can bring The Big Mess home with you!!! (Scary thought, and/but nice & fun cd!) We’re getting such a delightful response from it! YEA!
Who is having a blast busking in Nanaimo?
WE ARE!!! WE ARE!!!
The VoxMan and I got frustrated with having to make sure that our “case was closed”… so we purchased a group and individual busking licenses. Oh my god, we’ve unleashed a Monster!!
We’re having so much fun making music down at the waterfront. I mean REAL FUN. Dusk has never been the same!
The city of Nanaimo is very strict on what you can and can not do, so we purchased a small battery-operated but beautiful sounding system. Kyle recently purchased a cahon and the rest is history.
Last night, while we were in the middle of a song, our good buddy Mikaila Tombe appeared in the waterfront audience. As soon as I saw her, I had an idea… but it took all of us to play along… and it worked PERFECTLY. When we finished the song, I told Kyle to maybe ask someone in the audience if they might want to sing along with us. Kyle was on to where I was going with this, so he pointed to someone who he knew for sure wouldn’t join us. When they refused, he then pointed to Mikaila, who shyly played along… and then totally blew away everyone with “At Last”. I don’t think that anyone was on to our spontaneous little theatre act… even though Mikaila did a few more songs with us. Oh god, that was so fun!!
Mikaila, we have so much fun performing with you. Thanks bunches!
Kyle and I, along with Mikaila Artemisa Tombe, had a delightful afternoon with Jim Blair at his Ape Island Studio. What did we do that was so delightful, you might ask? We tested a whole bunch of different microphones!
Here’s how Jim put it:
What a great day! We had an afternoon of microphone comparisons. Neumann U87, Neumann M147, Lawson L47, 414BTL2, 57, Beyerdynamic M88, Royer 122 ribbon (both sides), 421, SM7, ADK A51TC, ADK A51V, ADK A51SL, all recording a male singer, female singer, and trumpet through an API 512b. Thanks to Mikaila Tombe, Marty and Kyle Shepard (The Big Mess), Todd Dunsmore at The Vineyard Studio, and Julian Bakker.
Essentially, we each recorded the same thing over and over and over again so we could compare the sound of a plethora of really really nice microphones. Male voice, female voice, trumpet. Trying to see what mic suits what purpose.
We haven’t even heard ANY playback whatsoever. Well, that’s not entirely true. Jim listened to it and messaged me: Had a quick listen to the tracks today. VERY interesting.
I know that this makes me a total geek/nerd, but I can not wait to hear the tracks and decide on my fav takes and see if my favourites are similar to other’s favs. Life is good.
Last night, The Big Mess played at Crown Isle Resort’s WineFest. Had a great time and received lots of great comments! Of course, the highlight of the night was when Kyle lifted his leg up and over the bass drum, totally ripping the seam of his crotch and down his leg. I good time was had by all the women! Kyle was wearing Bright Red underpants, thank you.
So, in the middle of the WineFest gig, we were asked if we could play a private party right after we finished. We said yep, and although we were pooped pups, we ended having a great time. God bless energy drinks!
The rumors are true. VoxMan Kyle is leaving on November 15th for a much-desired sojourn to South and Central America. He’ll be back just around March 15th, 2012.
On Saturday night, November 12th, The Big Mess will be at Acme Food Co, Nanaimo. It’s a celebration of 1. Acme’s Second (2nd) Anniversary AND 2. Kyle’s trip.
Marty will be staying in Beautiful Downtown Nanaimo, taking bookings for The Big Mess for Spring, Summer and Fall.
Oh, I suppose maybe perhaps I should consider saying what the rumours actually are, but what the hell, I’ll wait until I’m forced to divulge!!! And anyway, there are so many wild rumours about The VoxMan…
Oh, this is gonna be one heck of a good time. The Big Mess & Eric Harper! October 19th!!!! This is supposed to be a fabulously cool venue!
It’s been a bit difficult to get back into the flow of everyday life after returning from such a great time at Diversity Fest 8. Performing there was a rush! And being on the receiving end of all those comments and smiles… it can’t get much none betta’ than that!!! Much thanks!
Check it out… we’re performing on July 23 at 2:30 pm … to the best of our knowledge!!!
We are delighted to announce that The Big Mess will be performing at the 2011 Diversity Festival on Texada Island… July 8-11. We don’t know the actual times yet, but we’ll keep you posted!!!!
Woo woo woo woo Yeah!@!!!
We just posted some video snippets from our Headliners concert with Joëlle Rabu and Nico Rhodes. There is some fun stuff! This was shot on April 2, 2011.
May 19th is the date for The Big Mess to invade the Cottage Bistro in Vancouver!
VoxMan Kyle & I just returned from performing 3 great weeks in Puerto Vallarta. What a terrific trip and we wanna return there sometime. We had the whole audience up doing the Time Warp.
We’ve posted some videos from the shoot at the Acme Food Co’s lounge.
Click Video & Audio on the above menu OR you can always just click this:
http://www.big-mess.com/blog/video-audio/
Hey! Click here: Video & Audio
I put up a couple few live audio snippets. These were taken from a little recorder put on a table near us at Acme Food Co.
Yes! Sooner rather than later The Big Mess will have some pretty darn decent videos to offer up. Right at this moment, the editor of the project, our own VoxMan Kyle, is in Vancouver, participating in the Halloween festivities of The Parade of Lost Souls. As soon as he gets back, he will seclude himself and edit edit edit.
We will post the results as soon as it’s ready.
Kyle and I are hard at work on some new tunes… a healthy number of new tunes. I’m literally adrenalin-rushing with excitement about most of them. There are some big challenges with some of these BUT I think that there is the potential for a good number of high end show-stoppers!
I think that it’s a bit premature to give out names yet. We hope to have some ready for Nov. 5th and all of them ready for New Year’s Eve. Lot of work ahead of us, but there’s lots of motivation, too.
We got a last second phone call inviting us to play at the Acme Food Co. booth at The Bite of Nanaimo. Not only was it really fun to play, but also the exposure in front of 900 people was pretty darn nice, too!
We set up at the back of the booth and it must have been a bit of a sound challenge for the brave Acme people. They had to attempt to hear what people were ordering over the sound of Big Mess tunes.