June 12th – 16th

Jeff: “You’re SO lying.”

Dan: “Whatever. It’s not a lie if YOU believe it.”

Jeff: “You can’t bullsh** a bullsh***er, Dan. That’s not how relationships, of any kind, work, unfortunately.”

Dan: “I guess I’m just looking for love in all the wrong places.”

– A portion of the ridiculous conversation that took place in a Mexican restaurant

And as we looked up onto the horizon, Smithers BC beckoned us!

What a busy week it was! Not only did we relinquish all of our accumulated road-tension (it happens) by hitting this beautiful town every day, for hanging out with some Llamas at the Smithers Main Street Festival, for great sushi, for some great local brews, a terrifying viewing of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, a couple of open mic nights, making tons of new friends at the Hilltop Pub and late-night adventures, but we also got to work and had a few writing sessions in our hotel rooms, some ideas for future plans finally out of our heads and onto paper via our makeshift recording set-up, consisting of programmed drums, an ancient desktop computer, a Vox Tone-Lab, our brains and a gigantic tangled nest of random patches and XLR cables. Cord-sex, as we sometimes say in the industry. Easy to set up, easy to take down. We got a few silly demos finished, but demos nonetheless!

Smithers is a truly beautiful town, as well as the people that reside in it. We had a tremendous day at the Jobfest 2012 activation, where quite a few of the locals came down to check it out, our ridiculous antics, and really seemed to enjoy our sets, as well as the programs and apps Jobfest had to offer. It was also great to see our new buddy Dustin Treanor, a beauty of a radio announcer from The Peak 106.5 in Smithers, a radio station that also reaches out widely to many other northern communities. He’s one heck of a guy. Unfortunately, as it came closer to our third set of the evening, the rain came in hard and fast, and we were forced to shut down early. Ain’t it always the way when you’re having a perfect day?

Since we were here for almost an entire week, we thought we’d try our hand at booking a show at The Hilltop Pub, one of our excellent new northern watering holes, where Tyson and Dan spent a lot of good times meeting people, planning many schemes and adventures involving a local party-house and an amazing local junk collector who calls an old school bus his home. Fortunately, we were able to book the show, Dan, his charming face and impeccable memory having that effect on people, and we spent Saturday night playing a couple sets with our good buddy and tour manager, the amazing Daisy Blue Groff to a fairly large group of locals, who again, seemed to really take to our goofy rock and roll antics. It was a good turnout and we are so thankful, as we had direct competition with various Grad-parties, and also “80’s Night” at the local legion, something that we all agreed, was a great thing. It was a pleasure.

Now that we’ve had some time to put our feet up, it’s back on the road, onward and upward to Houston BC. We’ll see you soon, folks!

– jeff, and all the other white walkers in Acres