I thought I would write a note about what Supernal has been up to lately.

The recording process so far has been really fun. The studio has a great feel about it. There are drapes, curtains and mood lighting, and it usually smells like incense. In fact it doesn’t seem like most studios at all, which I think is awesome. We have spent a fair share of time in about 7 studios to date, and this is the first one that is truly comfortable. There is no glass. Usually studios have a glass that separates the band, or musicians from the control board and engineer. It’s sometimes a completely different room. You usually have to talk through a sort of intercom with “Talk” and “Playback” buttons. Here, there is no disconnected feeling between where the “magic” is happening and where the “magic” is being recorded. I really like that. We started our sessions with some pre-production where we figured out some song arrangements with the band and our producer. We were able to all talk to each other comfortably and quickly since we were literally standing in the same big room.

Here is a brief synopsis of how songs get recorded:

After the songs have been figured out and everyone knows who is playing what and how, we record a “take”. The band plays together and records separate “scratch” tracks of what every member is playing, which can be referenced back to as the recording process continues. The first stage of the real recording starts with drums. The drummer plays along with the “scratch” tracks (not including the drum tracks) and with a metronome to keep time, although sometimes a “click” is not used. There are often up to 20 tracks for a drum take, as every drum has a separate microphone, and microphones are also often set up around the room to catch the sound of the room as the drummer is playing.

The bass is recorded next, in which the bass player plays along with the new drum tracks. Often the vocal “scratch” take is also played, as a reference to where we are in the song. Guitars are recorded next, and the tracks build up from there, since often you will record a few different tracks of guitar, with different “clean” and “distorted” sounds, different parts, and inserting guitar solos as necessary. Keeping these tracks separate helps in the mixing process, and makes recording faster as you often will have different amps and guitars being used for different parts and songs.

Once all the different instruments are recorded, vocals are usually last. The lead vocals and sometimes backing vocals are often recorded in a smaller booth or room, but it is fun to play around with different sounds and natural reverb that occurs depending on where you set up the microphone. Different microphones and “pre-amps” also suit different voices (as is the same with amps and guitars) so you definitely want to test things out before you hit “record”. Once all of the performances are recorded, the mixing stage is next, done by the engineer and/or producer. Here all of the levels and equalization of all of the tracks are set until it sounds like a good song! Lastly you often choose to get the songs “Mastered”, which will unify the sounds of the different songs and make the music sound better for broadcast and duplication. This is the stage I know least about but I know it has to do with equalizing the “high and low frequencies” of the sound, and also sequencing every second on a record. That’s the works!

So that is basically what we have been up to lately. We are having fun and creating stuff that I hope you will hear in the near future!

So I have been told that it has been quite a while since my last blog entry…. And what can I say so much has happened to me that I don’t know where to start. 

Well… let’s start from about the time when I went to Australia. That was basically for the month of March and since then time has been in fast forward for Supernal. To speak of my trip to Australia; well it was an awesome trip and I saw and did so much that I feel that my “memory card” was full from day 9. My first journey was alone and was a 30 hour flight (including stop-overs) to Australia. I was a bit anxious about the flight, the length of it and the fact that I was flying alone, that I let my doctor talk me into taking a drug much like Valium; a relaxing anti-anxiety drug that had the potential for addictive dependency. I was actually looking forward to the relaxed, mellow high that was promised, since I am no friend of turbulence and flying over large bodies of water. Instead, I ended up feeling woozy and I actually threw up in Honolulu, which was a disappointment and only the beginning to my world of vomiting! I met my family in Sydney and flew to Cairns, which is a far-north, resort-type of region. That basically means that meals are about $30 on average but it also means that you are here in the middle of nowhere for a reason. I spent my first full day on a Sky Rail that went 6.5 km into a tropical rain forest, and then the next day I spent at the Great Barrier Reef. One of my best experiences “Down Under” was here, when I had the opportunity to snorkel in the Reef. I was so seasick from the ride 65 km offshore, that by the time we started seeing the coral and the tropical fish, I was so seasick that I ended up “Feeding the Fish”, or in other words, vomiting into the Pacific Ocean! It was actually so cool, a whole bunch of fish started swarming around me once I started throwing up, and apparently I was more than happy to feed the frenzy of tropical sea life that was there to greet us. Awesome experience, although I basically passed out in the sun after that and got a very painful sunburn.

To summarize my Australia trip I had an amazing time and got to explore Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. I visited Steve Irwin’s “Australia Zoo” and got to witness a real crocodile feeding! I also got to hand-feed Kangaroos several times (they are actually very friendly and charming… well, atleast when in captivity) and I also got to pet and hold a Koala. I swear I have the pictures the prove it. The Koalas were my favorite and I was surprised at how cute and cuddly they actually were. An interesting fact about Koalas is that they sleep about 20 hours a day; not because of the heat but because the Eucalyptus leaves they eat are not very nutritious (and are actually toxic to all other animals) and they don’t have a lot of energy to spare during the day. I was very disappointed to see so many Koalas sleeping at all times but it makes sense why they seem so damn lazy! I saw a lot of the Australian landscape, including mountain ranges and many ocean views. My favourite ocean spot was Surfer’s Paradise, which is surprisingly a whole city that includes a vast region of high and dangerous ocean waves. Overall the best city to visit is Sydney, which has so much culture, history and an amazing skyline! Australia in general is very much like Canada; the culture, diversity and geography is very similar….minus the obsession with Cricket, the driving on the left hand side of the road (THAT was fun) and activities such as “Tea Time” and eating Vegemite! All the same, I felt like I didn’t miss much when I came back to the Northern Hemisphere. 

Right when I returned the band was very busy with the video shoot for “Light it Up”. It was a flurry of activity for 2 full days, and we had a blast. We basically had as much fun as you could have considering we had a 7AM call time, and were performing and shooting all day to the same damn song over and over! I can’t really divulge the details of the shoot until the actual video is released, but let’s say it was full of stunts, music, and bits of violence thrown in! Currently the music video is being edited, and I patiently await the edit that you will all get to see. What fun. 

The rest of the last month I am technically forbidden from talking about; let’s just say that I spent a week at the posh Fairmont Royal York on Front Street in downtown Toronto. I slept a total of 10 hours over three and a half days, and had the most stress and chaotic fun ever as I vocally trained with some of the most talented singers you can find across Canada. No, it was not for Canada’s number one-rated show of all time. And no, I wasn’t on camera at least 20 different times… 

As if all of this were not enough excitement for one to handle, we will be in the midst of moving the rehearsal space June 1st when Brent moves into a new house. This one is lacking a roof suitable for throwing trees off of it, and there will no longer be a basketball court for a driveway. It also is not across the street from a McDonalds, nor attached to a religious temple, so we will have to adjust. Conveniently it is located much closer to me, almost a drunken-stumbling distance away if you will, so I am looking forward to it. 

Supernal has been busy writing some new songs with our new drummer Jonny Swank. Jon Jon is nice. He smiles a lot and smells good but can beat the crap out of any drum you put in front of him. For this reason he makes me a little scared. But he also makes me dance and jump up and down…. I guess you just have to meet him to get it. He has a lot of flying experience that impresses me, and we are so happy to have found him; so the future is looking bright and sunny, just to match the weather out here in Toronto.

It has been a great few months since I last updated the blog which may just lead people to believe that Supernal has either a) moved onto warmer climates and took off to Mexico ;) or b) frozen altogether, just like our friends in British Columbia, who until recently never really understood why you would ever want to buy a big SHOVEL… (you mean, it’s not for potting really, really big plants?) The answer is neither, and in fact is just the result of laziness, or as I would like to claim, a really busy season…

Really, who wasn’t busy last month treading through the crowded smelly malls looking for that special something for those people who were written down on that lined sheet of paper that you make every year but then lost two or three times (maybe that is just me.) But anyways, yes, Supernal has been busy switching into warmer clothes, and enjoying the city life that Toronto has to offer… not to mention that it finally snowed for real only yesterday for the first time! Yesssssssssss.

What was really cool and unique to Toronto was that I somehow won a draw to skate at the Air Canada Centre and meet Wendel Clarke. You may be asking “who the hell is Wendel Clarke?” and I will be honest, I said the same thing when I won, but I will assure you that he is indeed a true national celebrity… especially if you followed hockey in the 1990s and are a Maple Leafs fan. Since I don’t love hockey and frankly would never bet on the Leafs to win a Horseshoe Toss (Flames all the way baby!) I was more excited about the skate on real NHL ice at the Arena. It was the smoothest ice I had even skated on, and they even had to stop the skating every hour so they could “ZAMBONI” the ice and maintain the ice quality… I got to hang out and step on the FACE OFF circle as well as the goal areas… my conclusion is that it really would be hard to play in the NHL… I had a hard time going around the rink without falling; imagine having to race to a puck, start and stop AND have to get punched out and shoved in the process of trying to score! Anyways, I sound pretty lame going on about hockey so I will say that Wendel Clarke (the former Leaf’s captain) was very nice and I am going to stick to music!!!!

Another major event this winter so far was Supernal’s TREE TOSS 2007. We had purchased a REAL Christmas tree this year and had to get rid of it after, so what better way to do that than to try to blow it up? Or, at the very least, set it on fire in some way… First, I will tell you what was supposed to happen, and then… well, what ACTUALLY happened. The idea was that we were going to throw the tree off of Brent’s roof onto the driveway below ( over the live electrical wires going to the house and the neighbours’) and have three firecrackers go off as the tree flew through the air onto the concrete below. The first flaw in this plan is obvious…okay there are actually a few flaws, but what turned out to be the most dangerous was the fact that there were THREE firecrackers and you could only light ONE at a time. Tony and Brent were both in charge of the lighting… but as Tony lit one, Brent couldn’t’ light the other one before- and you guessed it- the first one went off…. Into Brent’s hands!!! As you will see in the video (and YES, there is conveniently a video of the whole thing) the firecracker exploded into Brent’s hand as he literally caught a fireball and Brent and Tony remember only that there was an explosion and they were sent sprawling backwards on the roof. The not-so-funny part was that Brent had second-degree burns on both of his hands and had to be rushed to the emergency room. I guess when they say “DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME” they really do have a reason for saying that… so take this as a lesson kids! I am happy to say that although Brent went through a lot and has serious burns on his hands right now, he is going to heal perfectly without scars and be able to kick rock ass once again. Way to take one for the team!

On the musical front, we have been busy writing, and more importantly, recording songs that will be released online until we have enough to formally release them on CD. We have been busy playing shows in Toronto too, and look forward to the days when we will be able to load up the tour van in T-shirts once again…. Until then, enjoy the new songs (“Glass” and Light it Up” are the first to be unleashed) and I hope to write of new exciting tales for 2007!


;) Angela


PS

The moral for this story: do not attempt to light firecrackers unless you know how long they burn until they GO OFF…. And…… the Leafs suck. Ha ha ;)

Can so many eyes not really see
what's right in front of her, him, you and me
Wanting some flames, it's always the same
no pain no gain, so use artillery

4-3-2-1

Light it up and let it die
Let the heroes close their eyes
When it's time to say goodbye
Light it up and let it die

Who would ever fuel this fire
when there really is no real desire
The radio is up in smoke
so tell me who you think is the real liar

4-3-2-1

Light it up and let it die
Let those heroes close their eyes
When it's time to say goodbye
Light it up and let it die 

The end doesn't have a start 
How can a fire burn without a spark, with a mark
Who will ever end this game
When the pieces play with only blame, now take aim

Now take aim

GLASS

Can you see my reflection
I've been watching for so long
A yearning that turned into a burning
This glass will soon shatter

Carry me into the sky
Like a wounded bird that needs to fly

Now all I have is shards of glass here forever
And cutting deep I cannot keep this together

Like in a dream
Running in place trying to escape
This will haunt me till the day I die
Somebody please reach out and close my eyes

Carry me into the sky
Like a wounded bird that needs to fly

Now all I have is shards of glass here forever
And cutting deep I cannot keep this together

Never Never gonna see you again
Never Never thought you would be my end
Never Never gonna do it again

Now all I have is shards of glass here forever
Now all we have is shards of glass here together

There are a great number of things to do in the Greater Toronto Area, and as the band has shifted gears from just trying to live in a strange, new, huge city, we have started to actually enjoy ourselves! YAY US!!!

First off, we went to Niagara Falls. It is only like an hour and a half away, and trust me, it is worth the drive. The falls themselves actually only account for a small percentage of interesting things to do there… it is an amazing tourist town, also the newlywed capital of Canada. There is a whole downtown area that is basically like a freak show. Several wax museums, novelty museums such as Ripley’s Believe it or Not and countless arcades and over-priced food line the streets. We took in a few of these; met several Hollywood stars and the like, it was a blast. The falls were nice too; unless you want to take a tour you are pretty much done with them in a half an hour. I will also note that the American side of the falls is not even close to the glory of the Canadian side….. teeny weeny even. You can imagine my joy at finding out we finally have one up on the U.S. in SOMETHING.

I also found myself at the Toronto Zoo last weekend, the premiere zoo in Canada. It is huge, about 8 times the size of the Calgary Zoo, which sounds impressive until you have to walk around that place. I calculated that the total length of the pathways that we traveled was nine kilometers. Nine. Even though I did get to see my first Rhino ever, I have to say that the zoo is better kept for a balmy day in October, not a hot steamy day of thirty degrees. Also wear really comfortable shoes and pack lots of water; it takes more than six hours to get around the place. What’s really cool in Toronto is that they have an African Safari here, where you can drive your own car through this exotic wilderness close to giraffes and lions and stuff (obviously on a trail, and not too fast, I mean these are endangered species!) I will have to try that soon, and live to tell about it in my next blog entry…

The best investment I have made since I have moved to Toronto is definitely my season’s pass to CANADA’S WONDERLAND. I remember seeing the commercials for it as a child, but I had no idea how frickin awesome it really is! There is absolutely no comparison to any theme park I have found in Western Canada, not even close! The park is filled with rollercoasters, like 12 of them, all totally cool. One goes backwards, one you stand up, one you lie down, and then there is also the largest wooden rollercoaster in North America……. I am almost peeing myself with excitement right now just talking about it…. There is also a huge outdoor water park (similar to West Edmonton Mall, but actually it’s not as good as Edmonton). I have gone 5 times this season so far, and July just started!

On Canada Day this weekend we went to our first Blue Jays game. (note: this is a BASEBALL TEAM. Baseball is this game where they hit a ball to run around a big diamond and score points……… for all the westerners who don’t know what the hell that is…….) I was extremely weary of the game based on my perception of it on TV, but I have to say that I loved watching it! It was so interesting to see live, and I actually understand the rules, which helped. The tickets for games are cheap, considering that the Sky Dome is still the only stadium of its kind and it also has the world’s largest Jumbotron. I love this place! It may also be that the Jays play 155 games a year… that’s a lot compared to like 20 in Hockey. We saw the most awesome fireworks inside too after they had closed the dome… and the fireworks by the water at night were so beautiful; the light display was literally 15 minutes long! It would have been more enjoyable had there not been the feedback from an Our Lady Peace concert nearby… but hey….. that’s Canada Day!


A lot has been going on in the city lately. There was Pride Week which was the talk of the town for like a month, all over the radio and newspapers and stuff. The World Cup here is ridiculous though. You can literally hear honking in the middle of the night when a team has won. Because there are so many different ethnic neighbourhoods around here, it gets pretty candid. When Portugal beat Italy, we couldn’t escape the sounds of people cheering and honking in the streets around Little Italy (College St. downtown)…. Ofcourse they were all Portugese people who drove in circles around the area and waved their flags as they honked down the street…. I will be glad when I can go back to not caring about soccer. Baseball it is.

As much as I love the nice weather, where you can go and sit on a patio at like 5 in the morning and it is still 20 degrees, it does get a bit too muggy here for me. By that I mean it is so humid that you feel like you can’t breathe when you walk outside on some days, and that you are glad you didn’t bother doing your hair because it just puffed out and went limp as soon as you walked out the door. I’ve never been a fan of any temperature over 25 degrees max, and it has reached 40 here already this season. The city announces Extreme Heat Warnings, but what concerns me most is when they issue SMOG WARNINGS! Does anybody out there gets what this means? This means that it is hazardous to your health to basically BREATHE OUTSIDE. They issue a warning that it is not recommended to exercise outside or do any other activity involving……….. your…. … lungs?!?!?!?! This totally freaked me out the first time I heard this, and of course it was on the day of an illegal Transit strike…. So half of Toronto is milling around the streets in the middle of a Smog Alert! That’s just great. Since then, I have become increasingly aware of a yellow haze that takes up half of the sky, so that on some days the CN Tower is barely visible. I also found out that we send our garbage to Michigan, as our landfills here have been “Optimally Utilized”. You can understand why someone from Calgary, which is like a small-town back-country to some here, would be horrified to hear about the dangers of pollution here, even if the wind currents only carry such extreme pollution our way occasionally… I admit it is not a common occurrence, but I am still trying to hold my breath.

So as I am typing in my air-conditioned apartment, some 20 kilometers from Wonderland with a Blue Jays game tomorrow, I am happy to report all the fun things to do out here… a little update from the center of the universe.

;) Angela

So after several entries that I hope were insightful and descriptive of our time here in Toronto so far, I think it is time that I update with some more music-related info. I will recap the past few months briefly, to bring those who are new up to speed:

FEBRUARY- released NOT FOR SALE, played last shows in Calgary, packed up all of our belongings into the trailer and moved East. Almost died in Saskatchewan on Day 1 of the drive in a horrible snow storm. Picked up the pieces and lucked out with a spectacular drive until the final destination.

MARCH- found lodging, slept late, looked for apartments and did some job-hunting. Settled into new apartments/houses quite quickly, but waited for another 2 weeks for furniture to arrive… a little anxiety because you can only eat standing up so many times (try to live without a table or a chair for 3 DAYS, I dare you, it really sucks. I still cannot sit on the floor anymore to this day………) Hooked up important things like internet and telephone. Made friends with the neighbours.

APRIL – got jobs, and everything involved with SETTLING IN. Learned city streets and found all the best bars downtown. Started auditioning drummers in rehearsal spaces. Got lost more than once (missed a turn and headed towards Niagara Falls on the 401) Got traffic tickets more than once (got towed from Queen Street in the middle of the night) and probably a lot of other things happened more than once but I can’t remember them all. It’s the beer out here.

And that brings us to MAY. So far this month, we have been able to do a lot more important things, like find a drummer. A major decision we made this month was to release a GREATEST HITS. Basically we decided to compile our favourite songs from all of our CDs and make Samplers to give away. This nine-song CD is a nice blend of songs like How Do You Do and When Movement is Still. Brent wanted to call it Rhymes with Awesome and I thought that was too pretentious, so Tony just designed a nice design for the front and we pressed a whole bunch. I guess this is Phase 1 of the plan to take over the world…..

The rehearsal space is another success of the month. Just this week we put the finishing touches on the place. Tony bought some industrial-type studio insulation and sound-proofed it, and Brent got a new sound system so that we can mic every instrument and put it though the PA. For those of you who may be bored by this description, I will also add that we found some really nice fabric to create drapery all over the walls and ceiling, in a nice warm Burgundy and Gold. We also found some cheap Persian Rugs to complete the room, which we found at Honest Ed’s. (Side note: Honest Ed’s is this huge discount department store that is the size of a city block. It has so many staircases and levels that I have been lost more than once. It is like a mix between KMART and Las Vegas, because it is full of flashing lights and tacky signs. It is quite charming actually. It is also said to be haunted. Anyway, good deals; Downtown Toronto). A few blue lights and chairs finish the room, and we are finally ready to rehearse like crazy again, as we have filled the DRUMMER shoes at last.

The Audition Process was a bit lengthy, and tiring at times, but we met a lot of nice people and had a good time jamming. We also have a new appreciation for the practice space after spending hours in dirty, smelly rehearsal studios filled with dirty ashtrays and empty beer bottles (actually, to be fair, that was only one place we played, it wasn't great, where you don’t want to touch anything and you are afraid to use the bathroom). I guess we are either super-tidy and clean, or we are just spoiled pretentious assholes. Either way I am so happy to spend our time in our own place with our own stuff sounding just how we want. Now it’s back to work.

We will release some more info on Supernal’s new drummer shortly; until then, I am happy to report some productivity on the musical-end. New province, homes, jobs, CDs, website, and now THE SEARCH is over as well. Mission complete.

Now I just miss my mom. 


  Angela

So as I have spent a bit more time here in Toronto, I have started to learn tricks of the trade, as some things around here are a bit different from Calgary. Some things also perturb me, for example, the area codes in Toronto. Toronto is so big that there are 3 area codes used in ONE CITY. For example, my cell phone is a 416-number, but my home phone number starts with 647…. 647?!?!?!? That is the most un-memorable number in the world…. Not only do you have to remember a seven-digit phone number, but you also have to verify which Area Code to dial first. Every phone call made in Toronto has 10 DIGITS. 10. My biggest headache is that my call ID only recognizes the actual phone number, so 1. I have to guess which one it is if I want to call someone back who has phoned me, and 2. I can’t even push REDIAL because it won’t automatically dial the area code!!!!! You can imagine the annoyance at having to do all this dialing… at least on my cell phone I just select a person and hit TALK. Going home to Calgary seems weird when you just have to dial 7 numbers, it seems like the most basic thing in the world.

One thing that we have been forced to learn is how to plan our drinking….. I know this may sound a bit weird, but drinking in Ontario really is an activity that has to be planned, at least if you want to have a beer in the comfort of your own living room. In Ontario, all of the Liquor Stores are government-owned….. called LCBO stores (this is also true in British Columbia as I have earlier noted). What this means is that you can buy alcohol until about 9pm, or earlier depending on the day, when the stores close. And, there are only so many stores as they are regulated, so I have to actually drive a good 10 minutes to the closest one to my house. My problem with this is: I can’t decide to have a drink after work, or get drunk and try to score more beer later on in the evening…. Instead I have to plan to stock up before and ensure I have beer (or wine) on hand at any time, and that I have enough for whatever occasion or guests that may come over, because I can’t decide to pick up more later because the store is either closed or I’m not going to drive there because I have had a few already. I miss the Albertan days of deciding to go to a party or a friends place, pick up a 24 on the way and stumble to the corner AJ Liquor when a few extra friends pop in and we need some more….. it may sound like I am some kind of alcoholic, and sometimes I feel like one when I go to the LCBO store and buy like a liquor cabinet’s worth of alcohol, just so I don’t have to go back there again….. really before anyone starts an intervention…. I am NOT an alcoholic, I just like my options to be open, that’s all. It’s restrictive when you are used to the good ‘ol right wing philosophy of privatization which Alberta is known for. Not that that can’t change now that The King is stepping down in Alberta (you should see the way the Toronto Star portrays Alberta, it’s quite funny). I wonder what is going to happen in Alberta when old Ralphie is gone………. No more bribes… er I mean cheques in the mail anymore I assume. But politics should be in another BLOG entry entirely! On the bright side, I do now collect AIR MILES when I purchase alcohol, which I think is just funny.

Between myself and Brent, we have had quite the luck with parking here in Toronto. In the first two weeks, we got towed once and three separate parking tickets between the two of us. Basically I think there is a conspiracy against people who drive cars here, because there is always a NO STOPPING sign even when there appear to be parking meters nearby, enforced at all hours of the day. Does this make any sense? I think they want to give the impression that it’s okay to drive around town, but really they don’t want you to, and instead you circle the same damn block for half and hour to catch one of the eight spots to park in all of Downtown Toronto. I actually do like the Subway, and the transit system here is really good, and the price of gas here reached $1.10 last week, so maybe I will sell our tour van and instead become like the rest of Toronto and walk in front of cars instead of drive them……

I have already become a Torontonian because I have purchased an air conditioner, joining the rest of Southern Ontario. It was actually too hot for us in March, so I went to great lengths to buy one when the season doesn’t actually start until May. Sears didn’t even have any yet, but I was in desperation at the 15 or 20 degree level already. People have told me that I am probably going to die during my first summer here. I know they are probably kidding, but I have been here before in the summer. Supernal toured here for one week, and it was like living in a friggin sauna, except you are IN YOUR CLOTHES THE WHOLE TIME. I remember my pant legs sticking to me as I walked…. Gross. I plan to shower about 3 times a day, but now that I have an air conditioner….. maybe once a week will suffice?

I feel like perhaps this is just a Blog full of complaining, so I will mention some great things about Toronto, other than the obvious, like the music scene. We saw Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders last week (the drummer of Foo Fighters new band) and Toronto was the only Canadian date on the whole tour. It was awesome. I also love the neighbourhoods here. Toronto has a neighbourhood system, kind of like the philosophy found in New York City, where you should have a bakery, butcher, grocer, medical office etc. all within walking distance in your own neighbourhood. The city promotes all ethnicities as well, so I have seen city signs that say LITTLE ITALY, LITTLE PORTUGAL etc. all over town. We actually live near LITTLE JAMAICA, which made so much sense since there are so many Jamaican eateries and services (like a travel agency) around here. Brent lives in the Jewish area, where half of the grocery stores have Kosher isles and Falafel joints all over the place. I have to say I am becoming a bit of a Kosher junkie, as some of the food just seems to taste better, although it’s more expensive! I am craving a Shawarma sandwich right now actually, so I will end this little ditty. All in all, it is a bit of a change for us out here, but we are excited to be here (and tanned I will add.)

Next week I will post an update on the band front, which is moving quickly, and we are planning a trip to Niagara Falls too………. So much to write!

Angela

So here we are, in Toronto. It has been just over one month since we packed our bags (and guitar cases) and headed for the Center of the Universe (of Canada). It may seem derogatory for me to say that, but it is at least fitting in some ways, and many people I have talked to in Alberta say it is true when they have moved from Ontario. In one day, at two separate banks, I had one person say oh Calgary, where is that? and another say thats not a province, is it? I rest my case. One girl I work with just told me yesterday that she had just found out that Edmonton was indeed in Alberta, and not in Winnipeg as she had thought, but I digress

I want to share some things that I have noticed and experienced here so far, and particularly some of the differences between Calgary and Toronto. First off, one of the biggest changes for us so far is the additional 8% tax here. That SUCKS, I mean really it SUCKS. For every $6 that you spend, for example on a hamburger, an additional $1 is paid just for TAX. No, you cant eat that $1, it is not going to melt in your mouth like the rest of your meal, but you have to pay that dollar just to order the friggin thing. This is a big change to us Albertans, and you can only imagine how it feels to pay 15% tax on big purchases on like, say, a computer or a television.

To offset some of my frustrations about tax, I am happy to describe the weather here. It is just about as sunny here as Calgary, perhaps with a few more clouds (which I will pretend is NOT pollution that is harming me!) and there has not been any snow. Ontario has this thing called Seasons. In the Springtime it is sunny with a bit of rain, and in the Autumn the trees change color to beautiful reds and yellows. Summer lasts more than two weeks here too, and I look forward to many days, and nights of 25-plus degree weather. When you grow up in Alberta you are used to two seasons: one of snow, and one lacking snow with a couple weeks of hot weather, in which after a couple days the farmers complain about the lack of rain. The weather is not as unpredictable here either, although I suspect that I may be writing another Blog entry complaining of the stifling heat in the coming months. I figure it just means that I should buy another bathing suit and just walk around in it all the time or something. Thats what they do here right?

I find that no one says eh here as much as back home. The whole city is so much more multi-cultural that I think that was the first Canadian slang to go. Good Riddance I say, eh? There are so many awesome places to eat; from Shawarma pita sandwiches on Queen St. to the tasty sushi I have discovered on Bloor St. there will not be one food on earth that I will not have tried by the end of the year! What an exciting place.

The music scene here is obviously bigger and varied. We took in Canadian Music Week when we first arrived, and it was awesome to see so many people out just to see live bands, ones that they might not have even heard of. Another difference from Calgary, not that people didnt see live music. The sheer numbers of venues and potential audience is so much bigger here but of course I would say that now wouldnt I?

I hope to have more Supernal-stories soon, once we are completely up and running again.
People in Toronto dont have two heads or anything; they enjoy Tim Hortons just as much as the rest of Canada, and will run any red light in town just to find the nearest one (yes, if you ever visit, keep in mind that people are friggin crazy on the roads and drive like they are a day late for something). The people here may lack that well-known Calgary friendliness, but there is still a feeling of belonging, to the biggest city in Canada, about 5 times the size of Calgary.. I will continue this narration soon, perhaps you may read about that renowned CN Tower, until then, wear your seatbelts kids.

Yours Truly,

Angela