Posts Tagged ‘Events in Ottawa’
Crissi Cochrane at Ottawa Fringe Festival – S09E42 [Season Finale]
The wonderful folks at Ottawa Fringe Festival have been bringing the free live music programming. Last year, it was The Elwins and this year is Crissi Cochrane. To my own surprise, I didn’t expect her to be in Ottawa. I usually get into a semi-NXNE withdrawal and would need some live music to bring on the recovery.
For those who don’t know, Cochrane is originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia but is living in Windsor, Ontario since 2010. She has made a great 2014 as she released her second full-length album, Little Sway in January and was in the top 10 of CBC Music Searchlight contest.
It was my first time to see her perform live in Ottawa. I did see her perform at an unofficial fan picnic in Toronto’s Trinity-Bellwoods Park last year. It’s her first time playing in Ottawa.
The setting at Fringe Fest’s Downtown Rideau Stage was quite intimate. Cochrane played some tracks from her current album and played cover tracks from the likes of Billie Holliday, Amy Winehouse and The Bee Gees. Her style of music brought an influence of jazz, soul and R&B. It was definitely a nice Thursday night to go out and enjoy live music.
You can check out the photos posted over at Flickr.
There was lots happening in the downtown core. The TD Ottawa Jazz Festival had the legendary Earth, Wind and Fire while Mugshots had the Rehab Pizza Party with Ottawa’s Silkken Laumann playing and a DJ set by Cadence Weapon. Exciting times in the Nation’s Capital with festivals going on.
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What A Way To End May With Kelp 20 – S09E38
May was definitely a fun month with Ottawa Comiccon, a fashion show, a bit of Chinatown Remixed and having to go to Niagara Falls and Toronto. Also, an interesting Creative Mornings Ottawa talk from the past week.
On the last day of May, Kelp Records held their 20th anniversary bash over at St. Albans Church in downtown Ottawa. The Ottawa-based record label has survived and thrived for very long ever since the emergence of digital music in recent times. Kelp helped bring musicians and bands from the likes of Jim Bryson, The Acorn, and various Ottawa artists to the forefront.
The concert from Saturday night consisted of Flecton Big Sky, Andy Swan, Banditas, Chris Page, Evening Hymns, Andrew Vincent, Jim Bryson, The Acorn and Recoilers.
At the show, it was great to see people that I know and you see a few instant photos from below. It was the last time to see the CBC’s Amanda Putz as she’s heading off to the Netherlands. The sad news for the past month was the job cuts and program cancellations to the CBC. It was a privilege to get to know Amanda as I did not know at the time that she was doing work at RTHK and connected to a radio host who I have been listening to. Prior to getting into Canadian indie music and listening to mostly Hong Kong radio, I had been listening to Bandwidth on and off when I was in the car going to places.
It’s definitely an end of an era and Amanda Putz will be missed as she championed Ontario music on the fine radio program on Saturday afternoons.
The photo above was used on the pre-release of Impossible Project’s Gen 2.0 600 Color Film.
You can view the photos from the show over at this link (via Flickr). Apologies on the quality as I’m still working out the kinks of the Fujifilm X-A1 camera.
Happy birthday to Kelp Records!
Lastly, since it’s June, I will be wrapping up for the season on the blog in the upcoming weeks.
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Briefly Checking Out Chinatown Remixed 2014 – S09E37
After returning from Niagara Falls and Toronto, I rushed backed to Ottawa to check out Chinatown Remixed 2014. It’s located in Ottawa Chinatown on Somerset Street West. Chinatown Remixed is a month long event where artists promote their contemporary art to put at various businesses in Ottawa Chinatown. The event also provide live music and cultural performance to kick off the month long event.
For six years that Chinatown Remixed has been running, they got a major sponsor in the form of Porter Airlines and also promoting a contest as well. It’s great to see a small festival get good support from sponsors.
At Raw Sugar Cafe, there’s the #WeLoveOttCtown exhibit and one of my Instagram photos is on it.
I didn’t get a chance to check out all of the artists and there was some people I know who are participating. I was able to drop by one of the artists as I usually keep in touch on social media. It was Justyna Czujko aka Neon Lilith. She has unique photographs which she displayed at Chinatown Remixed.
Lastly, I finally got to take instant photos with her. The Impossible photos will be posted up later.
As usual, you can check the photos from my brief check out of Chinatown Remixed below.
Have a great Victoria Day weekend.
Stripes & Pins Fashion Show – S09E36
Following a hot sweaty mess at Ottawa Comiccon, I went to downtown for a fashion show by Marcelle Benedicte. It’s been awhile that I attended a fashion show. The event caught my interest because I have been hearing about Marcelle Benedicte for awhile. It’s due in part to The Weather Network’s Arda Ocal. He was the Ottawa correspondent back in late 2013 before moving to Vancouver not too long ago. Marcelle Benedicte was featured a few times on The Weather Network when Ocal was in Ottawa.
The event was at St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and it was quite an interesting event as they had proceeds going to Solidaire Jeunesse. The designers on hand were Aria Frances, L’Hexagone, Babes & Gents and Marcelle Benedicte. All are locally based, which is good to see at a fashion show and to show the growing diversity from the fashion designers in Ottawa.
It was great to see a few people I know from the likes of Grace of 613 Style, Nick Bachusky of Lunch Out Loud Ottawa and a photographer at the event.
Overall, it was a hectic Saturday with a comic book convention and a fashion show all in one boot. :)
Instead of posting the photos, you can check the photos at this link (via Flickr).
Wandering Around Ottawa Comiccon – S09E35
The second day of Ottawa Comiccon was crazy busy and very packed. I was in a hot sweaty mess having to wander around to see people in costumes and try to recognize people that I may know.
On Saturday’s agenda, I had the opportunity to check out a few Q&As (from Summer Glau and Sean Astin) and a panel on cosplay harassment.
The panel was hosted by Hollaback! Ottawa and it was to explore how people are being harassed in their costumes. Since conventions have become popular over time, there’s become a sense of negativity from online as people posts photos over on blogs and social media. Mentioned in the panel is that if you make a crappy costume, you still make an effort to be part of the fun. Cosplay have really stepped up the notch from fans being very creative and dedicated their time making their costumes.
It’s Hollaback! Ottawa’s first time being at the convention and I would give kudos to the group and the organizers of Ottawa Comiccon for stepping it up and bring awareness to the subject. Their slogan was Cosplay =/= Consent, meaning cosplays is not consent.
The reason for checking the panel was that I know a friend who was part of the discussion. Unfortunately, she was late due to car trouble. I was able to meet with her later. The photos from the group is posted below.
As usual, I took several photos of the cosplayers and there are a few I remember from last convention, Ottawa Pop Expo. At least I was able to get a few Sailor Moon related photos and there seems to be a lot of cosplayers who dressed up as Poison Ivy. I didn’t take any photos of cosplayers dressing up from the Doctor Who characters.
After attending Ottawa Comiccon for two days, I’m feeling pretty sore from all the walking and there was another event I went after Comiccon, that will be on the next entry.
You can view the photos below.
Thanks to Ottawa Comiccon for making a fun jam-packed event in its third year.
Note: I noticed some of the quality from the photos didn’t turn out great. Late night editing can get to you. I apologize for the mistakes I made. To the cosplayers I photographed, I have the non-watermarked version if you want it.
Ottawa Comiccon 2014 – S09E34
Fans of comic books, Sci-Fi, Anime and horror unite for Ottawa Comiccon at EY Centre. It’s the third year that it’s running and as usual, fans flocked down to EY Centre on a Friday afternoon to be dressed up in cosplay or to wait in line getting an celebrity autograph and photo-op.
This year sees celebrities from Summer Glau, Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future), Bruce Campbell (Army of Darkness), Sean Astin (The Goonies), Edward James Elmos and a bunch of others. While comic book creators attending this year are Bob Layton (Iron Man), Tony Moore (The Walking Dead), Glenn Fabry (Preacher) and Neal Adams (Batman).
It’s my second year covering the event and I’m going around taking photos of cosplayers in their unique and very creative costumes that they spent time in designing. Friday was just a glimpse on how the setup was like and it’s good so far. I will expect to see a lot more for Saturday and will check out some panels.
For now, you can check the photos from Friday’s start of the convention.
PROMdemonium 6 – S09E28
Prom was all the rage this weekend and it’s not the high school type. My former colleague had her prom, Journalism style and she’s finishing up her studies. Elsewhere, I had the opportunity to check out PROMdemonium, held at the Glebe Community Centre. It’s their sixth year holding it and was sold out.
What is the event? PROMdemonium is a fun-filled event and is a fundraiser for local communities. As their website states, it’s a radical, community-oriented, gender-bending, bike-loving, enviro-humping, queer-diggin, slow dancing, big dress wearing prom that you never had. People reliving their high school prom but they can dress extravagantly and elegantly as possible.
Funds to PROMdemonium goes out to causes and organizations which bring out initiatives in social, economic and environmental justice.
It was my first time attending the event and I was there taking photos and carrying two cameras. One was a DSLR camera and the other being a Polaroid. It’s nice to see people be surprised in getting an instant photo. I posted a photo over at my Facebook Page. I didn’t expect to bump into people I know and be mistaken to another person. There was some great music played and it ranged from the classics of the 80s to the present. There was Drake played at the prom and some could groan about it. Photos from the event are posted below.
For those who know me, I rarely dress nice as it was prom, I attempted to do selfies and slightly failed at it. You will see it below the photo section. I have been enamoured with products from Hudson’s Bay very recently. I’ve been liking their famous multi stripe. Before heading to the Glebe for PROMdemonium, I went to Hudson’s Bay and picked up an iPhone case by Gelaskins and a Chambray multi stripe bow tie. As least, I was being fashionable.
Overall, I had a great time and I’m slowly getting back into the Ottawa events scene. To whoever got the Impossible photos, hope you liked them! Read the rest of this entry »
TEDxElginSt – S09E27
It’s been awhile I have wrote a blog entry. Some of you know I had been going through a rough patch and a lack of music coverage coming from it. Aside from that, let’s get on with this.
On the weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the inaugural TEDxElginSt at The Canadian Museum of Nature. The conference was to bring about ideas to spread around through the speakers and videos presented. TEDx is more on the local and independent event on a smaller level. The theme to TEDxElginSt was Rethink, Rebuild. The event showed how much there is to Ottawa to being an exciting city. It showcased some of the speakers about the importance of thinking and building things from start and succeeding from it. Ironic that the event being held at the museum showed that it went through changes over the years and bringing the old meeting the new mentality.
The speakers (linked to their Twitter) who spoke at event were Dave Conabree, Jess Tomlin, Tabatha Soltay, John A. Gorman, Michael Grigoriev, Sean Blanda, Sarah Gelbard, James Boettcher, Stephanie Vicente, Tim Barber, Nicole Belanger and Katie Zeppieri. The MC was Ian Capstick.
It was definitely a great line up of speakers and some were from Brooklyn, New York, Calgary, Alberta and Toronto, Ontario.
The topics ranged from the public service to gaming to architecture to solar power to mental health to the power of the bystander. All of them were excellent and it brought along some thought provoking ideas to the inspirational and to the witty speeches.
Overall, my experience attending TEDxElginSt was positive and fun. I have been hearing a lot of buzz and popularity with TED events being held throughout the world. Kudos to the organizers and the team for holding an amazing event and a privilege to come in as a photographer along with my brother. My brother should take more credit as he’s the better photographer as I am.
I had planned to post some edited photos on here. Instead, you can check the photos over at Flickr by clicking here. Lastly, I was also in a photo over at loveOttawa, you can check it out by clicking here.
See you around!
The 2014 Lunar New Year Parade in Ottawa Chinatown – S09E25
It’s become a yearly thing as we parade through Ottawa Chinatown for Chinese New Year. It’s the Winterlude Lunar New Year Parade to celebrate the Year of the Horse. Luck was on our side as the weather was not too cold, no major snowfall and it was a nice sunny day.
At the start of the parade, it was feeling cold but as the parade progressed further into Chinatown, it didn’t get very cold. My fellow lion dance buddies were getting sweaty as they were using the lion.
Chinatown Remixed joined the parade this year as the group has become prominent in the Ottawa arts and culture scene. Some of the members were holding horse signs as it’s the year of the horse. There were the zodiac animals and another dance troupe joining for the parade festivities.
As usual, they were firecrackers, red envelopes and lettuce as it ward off evil spirits and to bring good luck and prosperity.
You can check out a few photos from below. I was able to shoot some of it during the parade. I tried shooting with the Polaroid camera but the image quality didn’t turn out right.
This concludes the major activities and performances for the lion dance troupe as Chinese New Year winds down for another year. Kudos goes out to the Ottawa Chinatown businesses for bringing the fun and endearing the cold for the parade.
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Continuing With Chinese New Year, The Year of the Horse – S09E24
It’s been an exciting weekend with the lion dance performances and continuing to celebrate Chinese New Year. Monday was an off-day for the lion dance troupe but I had the radio show with the annual Chinese New Year show. Lauren returned to do the Chinese New Year show as I had Candice join me on last year’s edition.
Being year of the horse, it’s Lauren’s favourite animal as she kind of owns a horse. I got to explain the strengths and weaknesses of anyone who’s born year of the horse.
We also got to talk about food and there’s one I’m not fond of and it’s red bean. I know I will get some backlash as it’s their favourite food and dessert. To keep some happy, I played the song by the late Teresa Teng as part of the CNY show.
As usual, there were the familiar Cantopop tracks played and there were several band and song names with the word, ‘horse‘ in it. I was able to find some Canadian indie tracks with the particular animal name.
The best “horse” song would have to be Horses Fell by The Darcys. It’s still new but the band has become a favourite of mine.
I took a couple of instant photos by Impossible and finally got to use the gold frame. There are a few from Sunday, February 3rd. You can see the photos from below.
You can check the playlist over at this link and the audio is posted below.
Lastly, don’t forget about the Winterlude Lunar New Year Parade on Ottawa Chinatown. Happening on Saturday, February 8, 2014 and starts at 1pm. Hope to see you there.
Again, Kung Hey Fat Choy!
