Oh my, things have gotten crazy around here!

We’re fairly certain that no a single on of us in the camp, except maybe the Rock Ridge Canyon staff, has slept in 24 hours. It is hilarious while being utter mayhem… being as delirious as we all are, we are still maintaining our positivity and sheer will to be educated, and to complete the songwriting challenge. For the past few nights we’ve been walking around the camp, listening to and observing the magic in the air, witnessing the creations of each like-minded individual here, and the wonderful collaborations… all to be revealed tomorrow night… we are dying with suspense!

Tonight was also the final showcase for the week, featuring “Yuca,” “Kuba Oms,” “Christina Maria,” and “Ben Sigston.” Every artist was amazing and we were a little sad for this to almost be over… also, we just wanted to say how great the idea was to play everyone’s “viral video” before each set. It was a good set up for the performances, and we felt as if it was an introduction into the minds of the artist. They were all very well done and it as interesting to see everyone’s different ideas.

We didn’t sleep again tonight, our recording session at the Nimbus studio was booked for 3:30 am until 6:30am, so we hooked the caffeine to our veins and readied ourselves for the next all-nighter! We did all the vocals for our masterpiece in 3 hours and we were so happy with it, it was probably the most exciting recording experience we’ve ever had! Lewis was so excited that he even passed out in the studio while we were finishing up and managed to sleep well into Adaline’s recording session, not even stirring at the sound of gang vocals and clapping. The little guy was all tuckered out, as were we all…

See you tomorrow night, friends… with our creation in hand!

We have 50 free tickets to give away, but unfortunately they are physical tickets (not guestlist spots) so here’s the plan…

If you’d like to get a free ticket from us, there are two options:

(1) Email us before Monday afternoon with your home address, and we will mail you the ticket, or

(2) Email us with your name, and show up to the Red Room between 8-8:30PM on Thursday. We will have someone waiting outside with your ticket.

The email to send to is: peakpptickets@acresoflions.com

Hope to see you there!
Jeff,Dan,Tyson,Lewis

It’s getting late, it is.

We here at the Boot Camp are going delirious from sleep deprivation, so we think we will keep this short for today… not that we don’t want to indulge you, but we are falling over tired amidst laying down guitar and drum tracks with Warne Livesey.

Here it goes…

Tonight we experienced beauty in it’s true form. The showcase featured “Said The Whale,” who’s horn section magically appeared above them in the loft, illuminated with a spotlight, ending the first song in their set. In their closing song, they surprised everyone by raining confetti down on the audience. They were followed by our good friend “Vince Vaccaro,” who displayed how powerful one man’s voice can be, as well as his love for this planet. Amazing. “Yes, Nice” literally brought tears to our eyes. The overwhelming feeling of joy that filled us when they sang the very first verse hit us in such a way that by the time our friend “Aidan Knight” hit the stage with his band, we were all tingling with love, and teary-eyed. His set reminded me of our old house, our good times together, all the memories flooding in… and how much everything truly means to us.

This PEAK Performance Project is probably… wait, definitely, the best thing to ever happen to us… all of us.

We love everyone and everything at this moment. Goodnight to you all.

It’s official, everyone here is capable of creating music, arranging parts in such an order that they eventually form something strong and beautiful, and the words and melodies just flow, inspired by the people and surroundings. It is truly incredible to witness,=. In an atmosphere like this, how can we not feel at ease? We can’t wait to fully share this experience with you all, through our upcoming videos and photo blogs and of course, our showcase at the Red Room in Vancouver on September 9th… we assure you, we have been working hard at becoming the band we feel you deserve. Kevin Pauls has helped us out with many tips for our performance, and we cannot thank him enough.

We’ve also been working on our songwriting challenge, long into the nights and between our classes, outside of our comfort zone, an “unapologetic pop anthem” if you will… it should be finished soon as we are hitting the studio after the showcases tonight. We can’t wait to show you what our years of secretly listening to Top 40 pop has done to our minds, nor can we wait to see the amazing bands tonight!

Talk soon! Love, Acres…

It’s probably a little too early to tell, but it would appear that we have set out to average about 3 to 4 hours of sleep each night while we are here. We’d like to think it’s not our fault, with all the late-night jams and activities that have taken place, but it really is. There’s just too much fun to be had here, too many things to experience with so many great people, and so much work to be done, that we couldn’t bear to fall behind. At any rate, we are keeping up and are praying we don’t burn out. If this should ever happen, I would imagine we could turn to our bunk-mates Christopher Arruda, for his antics and positivity, and Vince Vaccaro, for the medicine he may or may not have collected from the mountains, during his travels in the Arctic.

It was our turn to showcase tonight, and oh boy, we were nervous. We found it very strange how something we have done hundreds of times, the life we live through our music, can suddenly be set on edge by the thought of having to perform in front of our peers, incredible musicians, and of course, a judge-panel of trained professionals. It took us most of the day to calm down, but we pulled through it. There was a lot to do beforehand, a seminar by Warne Livesey, a friend and colleague, a live sound workshop from engineer Shawn Cole, followed by a songwriting seminar by two brilliant men, Don McLeod and Dane Devillier. We were then subjected to a songwriting challenge, the full course, and they even gave us a title to the song, “Last Night.” We definitely had our work ahead of us, and were thinking of writing a tune a little our of our comfort zone, which would be a melodic, and extremely gloomy, dance-party remix, in the key of Lady Gaga (??) Whatever that means.

We had the privilege of sharing the stage tonight with our good friends Christopher Arruda, who’s set was absolutely stunning and brilliant, Steph Macpherson, a gal we’ve known for some time now and who’s set was heartfelt and beautiful, and a new friend by the name of Bodhi Jones, a folk and pop singer songwriter who has refreshing and magical sound. We hit the stage last, the butterflies still in tow, but we worked through it and had probably one of the most exciting experiences we’ve ever had on a stage, in a rather large wooden room, a hall really, but it was still so intimate. Everyone here was our friend, and there to support us, and they had as much fun as we did. The 4 songs we chose to showcase went by so quickly, and before we knew it, the night was over and the judges said their part, and they certainly were kind. There was a lot of love in the room, and we definitely felt it.

See you tomorrow, friends!

Well I must say, it’s just like We Are The City described it, the food here is amazing! The fact that we get breakfast, lunch and dinner breaks, and it rocks, is more then we could ever ask for, and are in fact, healthier meals than we make for ourselves back home.We would like to take this time and thank the R-Ridge Canyon staff, for making us feel welcome and making the food do said rocking. Stoked to be nourished, finally.

Like we said in the previous blog about the busy schedules, it wasn’t a lie. Many workshops, involving industry professionals, teaching us how the music bizz works. I do believe subjects such as music law, radio and tv interviews, songwriting, live sound and performances, production and many more, we assure you. Also, Apple computers has provided a full “Mac Lab” for us to brush up our social networking skillz whilst simultaneously recording demos on Logic, way too cool. A wonderful man named Grant Lawrence also showed us how to use Twitter properly, so you may be hearing a lot more from us on there, loooollll. He also told us that we did a great job at the radio and tv interview sessions, but that Jeff used too many unnecessary hand gestures, who knew? This is awesome.

We met a lot of people today, fellow bands and artists, and the camp was literally alive with music. Every space, corner and stairway, there was someone perched, writing a song, or rehearsing. It was magical, and with so many new and old friends here, it is quite the environment to be keep up the creative flow. We were also introduced to many producers and technicians, people we will gladly be consorting, and hopefully not getting into too much trouble with (LIES) Kuba Ohms told Lewis at one point, that he was beautiful and it got his confidence way up, it was a nice comment.

Later that evening, we experienced the first of many nightly showcases, 4 of the top 20 bands, playing a 20 minute set for everyone in the dining hall, on an elaborately decorated stage (Disco ball and everything) with some equipment provided by Long and McQuade, a place I think we are all familiar with, and sound run by Shawn Cole, an amazing engineer, who we will get to know more as this story goes on. Tonight, we had the pleasure of watching sets by Vancouver based artists “Adaline,” “41st and Home,” “Debra Jean” and an immensely mouth-dropping set by a man we’ve shared the stage with before, “Greg Sczebel.” It was a creative and constructive night and we look forward to more, and to our showcase tomorrow night.

Stay tuned! Another yet to come!

We arrived here early with our dear friend, Vince Vaccaro. I want to say around noon-ish but I feel like it was much before that, I can’t remember these things. We had driven from Victoria to Hope the night before and stayed in a cheap motel, naturally, wishing we were on tour together. Instead, we entered RockRidge Canyon, wide-eyed, not knowing what to expect, full of excitement and wonder, anticipating the event about to take place for the next 7 days… and, not going to lie here, at all, it was going to be hard and we were mostly nervous as hell. I mean, when we thought about it, our band, Acres of Lions, has been doing this for awhile now, viciously touring, recording and writing silly songs, local gigging (yup, gigging), releasing an album, learning how to be a better band by advice from trained professionals we would run into from time to time, trial and error, and getting into situations we thought we would know how to handle, but the truth is, until we got here, received our rather busy schedule and basically, were shown how the PEAK Performance Project had laid out our vigorous music industry “training” for the week, we thought otherwise. The next 7 days would be very much like school, class after class instructed by industry professionals, and since none of us here in Acres of Lions Inc. really paid attention in class when we were growing up, it was time for us to be those attentive little boys in a big school and retain the free, useful knowledge that was going to be delivered to us daily.

Later that day, we were shown to our cabin, and to our surprise, we had been grouped together with Vince, and our good friend Christopher Arruda, who is absolutely fantastic in every way possible. As expected, a jam, not sure in what style, but a jam nonetheless, broke out in the bathroom, involving, Vince, Christopher (The Rudes) and I. Tyson and Lewis later joined in, and we settled on a name, “Young Leaf,” in the spirit of the purpose of this project and how we, the PEAK performers, are learning to how to grow up and shape our careers. With this much creativity flowing from us in one night, I can’t imagine what we’ll get into the rest of the week. I love my mountain men and my cabin.

Stay tuned, friends! Lots more excitement to come!

Tickets are free, but you have to win to get in – listen to 100.5 the PEAK for ticket giveaways, become a PEAK VIP, or follow your favourite top 20 artists online to win tickets from them directly.

For more information, check out 100.5 The Peak’s Facebook Event.

The event is open to all-ages, and includes food and a beverage garden.

For more information, check out the Victoria Fringe Festival website…
http://victoriafringe.wordpress.com/special-events/

To suggest a song, go to the Canadian Cover Song contest page.

Just enter your name, email address, and the song you think we should cover, and if we select your song you will receive an Acres Of Lions prize pack. The winner will be announced on August 26th.