Last weekend I had the pleasure of playing with Long Way Down at Boonstock 2010. Boonstock has quickly become one of the premiere summer rock events in Alberta with over 25 bands including local and national acts (Past bands to play Boonstock include Three Days Grace, Shine Down, Offspring, Chevelle, Mathew Good, Papa Roach plus many more). It grows every year and this year was no different.

Long Way Down played on the main stage on Friday and we scored a backstage pass for the whole weekend. We had a wicked set even though playing outdoors at festivals can sometimes be a little hectic and crazy… very in and out, no sound check, use the festivals backline, etc. Although we did have an awesome sound guy and stage crew, those guys are amazing!

After our set on Friday we ended up coming back that day as it started raining and we had no desire to sleep in a tent in the rain. We went back to the city, ate dinner, power napped, and headed to the Taphouse in St Albert to watch Econoline Crush! They put on a great show as always, and we all drank enough to drown a school of fish. It was an awesome day all in all… and the next day was even better.

So come Saturday we headed back out to Boonstock in the afternoon, making sure to be there with enough time to catch Chevelle’s entire set. Our backstage pass was extremely handy at this point. We brought our cooler full of beer backstage and patiently awaited for Chevelle to hit the stage. When the band started playing we went out the front backstage area (the stage viewing area for people backstage I guess you could call it).

There set was AMAZING! Thoroughly rocked my face right off. After they were done we got to hang out and drink with their bass player, although this didn’t stop me from introducing myself to all of the boys from Chevelle and got them all to sign a copy of the New Living Illusion Disc (Also gave them a copy of it as well!). Needless to say… one of the best weekends of my life…

And now I’m done typing.

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

Alright, well after many months of waiting for the album to be finished we have finally gotten our video editor/camera man extraordinaire to make a video for our title track Suffering, from our new album of the same name, using the footage from our CD Release Party show at the Starlite Room in Edmonton (That’s totally a run on sentence but I am in too much of a hurry to fix it). The video looks awesome, I could not have made it look any where this good on my own.

Hope you guys enjoy the video and like the new song!

Here’s the direct link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCvbvlordmM

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

The boys from Long Way Down have asked me to join them for a couple shows this summer playing guitar with them. Honestly, I should be focusing more on Living Illusion gigs but let me tell you, it is going to be freaking awesome to take a break from LI to play some shows this summer and only have to worry about playing. I’m so used to having to book the shows, promote the shows, get the band together, schedule every one, sell tickets, online marketing etc that not having to do that for a change and just having to worry about performing my parts is going to be awesome!

To kick off playing this summer with Long Way Down we’re going to be playing at Boonstock just outside of Edmonton at the end of June. Notable bands we will be playing with include: Matthew Good, Papa Roach, Chevelle, Offspring, Ill Scarlett, Swollen Members, Age of Days and Hail the Villian. Needless to say it’s going to kick some serious ass. I’m super stoked to be playing Boonstock and did I mention I get a backstage pass! Here’s to hoping I can party and hang out with the boys from Chevelle (one of my favorite bands of all time!).

Beyond that there are a bunch of additional wicked shows in the pipeline although I don’t want to mention anything until they’re 100% confirmed.

Keep on Rockin!

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

PS I will have physical copies of the new Living Illusion disc on the 25th of June, they will be up on iTunes a little bit after that.

Wow. Who would’ve thought that it would take a year and a half to complete a CD with only 9 songs on it. It’s been a long haul. We started Pre-Production in January of 2009 and now the chapter which is the follow up album to our first record is finally here. Why did it take so long you ask, well let’s do a recap.

Back in 2009 when we started this journey the biggest difficulty was finding a place to rehearse. Luckily our good friend Ryan had a house to himself in the little town of Leduc which was perfect for us to jam and write songs at (aside from the noise complaints from the neighbours that is). With regular rehearsals going off with out a hitch and our producer Kevin Hoskin working with us at the Jam space by April we were ready to hit the studio.

We moved all of our gear into Beta Sound Recording Studio and got pumped to start laying shit down. After some extra pre-production at the studio itself we started recording drums in May. Tracking drums was a breeze, Cal nailed all the songs in less than a day and you could really tell that all of our prior rehearsing paid off. Once that was done we took a little break for editing and had to regroup due to loss of our bass player.

Fast forward about a month and a half and we got back on track. Time to record guitars. This was by far my favorite part of the process. I basically hunted for all of the best amps that I could find. I did have a general guitar sound that I was going for, and seeing as I got all the amps I needed, our guitars sound freaking amazing and exactly how I wanted them to. Recording took a few days, we blew up an amp, all in all it was awesome.

By this time we ended up finding our new bass player, Dave Stoten, and all the pieces came together for recording bass. It actually went by really fast, Dave is a machine. With only being given the gig to track bass for us with about 10 days notice Dave pulled through on all fronts. Also he is a perfect fit for the band.

Now for the last part of the recording process. Vocals. Vocals again were surprisingly quick, it helps that Jay has an amazing ear. It only took a couple nights to get it all done up. So by this time when vocals got completed it was getting into August 2009 and we made the executive decision to hold off on releasing the album until Summer 2010. No one wants to tour in the winter in Canada.

Now it’s June 2010 and the time has finally come. After remixing and remastering the record between September 2009 and May 2010 on three occasions with three different mixers and 2 different mastering guys we have finally finished. It’s done. There is nothing else that we need to do, it’s time to release the damn thing (especially because our CD release party was 2 months ago!!). All I can say is that I don’t regret taking the extra time, and spending the extra money to get it to sound exactly how it needed to.

If I have any advice to give here it is, don’t ever assume that mixing is less important or easier than any other part of the recording process. It is probably the MOST important. I have learned more about compression, EQ’s and SSL consoles than I have thought I would ever need to. Take your time with the whole process. Listen to multiple versions of your mixes and trust your ears.

AND THE MOST IMPORTANT THING: Never Set a Release Date Until the Album is DONE!

So that is that. It’s done, it’ll be up on iTunes and I’ll have physical discs to flog in the next couple weeks. Special thanks to Nathan Kidd for coming on board and mixing the shit out of the album.

Check it out new tracks on the website:
http://www.livingillusion.com in the sidebar

Or go to our MySpace Page:
http://www.myspace.com/livingillusion

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

Check out our new promo video for the band. It was produced, filmed, and edited by Dan Holden of Phase Productions and My Sister Ocean. He did an amazing job and we’re super happy with how it turned out. Stayed tuned for some more video footage coming soon once we officially release the new album online in less than a months time.

Check out the Living Illusion EPK Promo Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcnB2xjRPkc

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

How many more years do you think AM/FM radio stations will be around for? With the ever increasing ability to access high speed Internet via cellular networks, it’s only a matter of time until the standard feature for all new cars will be full access to the Internet at all times. Imagine going into the car dealership and being asked if you’d prefer Windows or Mac software as your cars Internet operating system interface… I’ll pay the extra for MacOS.

In all honesty though, I think that this is a lot closer to being a reality than most people realize. Cadillac and Chrysler have already started selling cellular wireless routers as an add on to some of their automobiles. Full access to high speed unlimited bandwidth Internet while in the car at all times is going to change things in big ways… especially for the AM/FM Radio industry. This is going to kill it.

Radio just doesn’t stand a chance. Having access to all media forms via the Internet while in the car basically means that every one is going to be custom building their own content choices and experiencing completely personalized programming. Each person will tailor make their content before they even leave the drive way. Radio, in a nutshell is fucked.

Don’t get me wrong I like radio. I enjoy the ways that it helps to weed out music with high quality production vs low quality production (I’m referring to sound, not song writing, because there is some terrible music on the radio), and it’s nice to have a medium where when I’m in my car I can hear new bands I’ve never heard before. But even with that being said, radio is still becoming archaic. It’s going the way of print magazines and news papers. It’s value is decreasing more and more every year.

In the past bands and musicians direly needed the radio to get their music out to the world, and it still today has a huge influence of the majority of the population. The only problem is that this too is changing rapidly. The masses finally have the ability to hear what they want, when they want, via the Internet. They don’t need the radio to hear new music and this has finally given the masses the power of choice. The power to decide what they feel is good music and not what the radio station tells them. (More on this in a future post).

The biggest down fall of radio is going to be money, or lack there of. As car owners become just as easily connected to personalized content from the Internet as they are to radio stations, radio listeners are going to drop off… and as the listeners drop off, so do the advertisers. Advertisers are going to move to the online multimedia medium instead of radio, and it’s already happening. People won’t even need to tune into the radio to get traffic updates, or time and temperature reports any more, it will all be available through the Internet in your car.

In a perfect world this is what radio will become: I foresee a service where you personally will choose any songs (or genres) out of the DMDS database (that’s the digital database all radio stations pull their music from) and add them to your own play-list for your drive. The service will be free and there will be ads and the occasional updates from the “fake” DJ’s along with having to listen to their “morning shows” in between your own chosen programming.

Any one have a couple million to invest in my idea?

Didn’t think so.

So what does this mean for the music industry and the reach that record labels have over the mainstream population? Well when it comes to radio, we’re all fucked. But that rant is to come in another post. I’ve gone on long enough about this one.

I think we may have picked the wrong faucet of the entertainment industry to get into.

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

Talk about a gong show. With just over a week until the CD Release Party you would think that by this time I would have the finished album in my hands, but sadly this is not the case. After going through more mixing and mastering revisions than I would ever like to admit we have finally come to the realization that we may end up putting the damn CD cases together ourselves the day of the show. Was it all worth it? You bet your ass it was!

In the end Kenton Thomas the lead singer of Portal became our savior and mixed our record at the 11th hour. He busted his ass to help us have one hell of a finished product. Every member of the band Portal had a hand in some aspect of our album and we’re stoked to have such an awesome group of musicians to work with.

Next up is getting back to our rehearsing schedule so we’re ready to go for the show. The clock is ticking and we need to get everything done in the next week. That being said, there should be a wicked batch of hoodies and tshirts coming down the line as well as the CD! I’ll post another note once I get them in hand and can set it up so every one can buy them online.

Alright, I’m done ranting – expect some new music to be posted next week!

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

Alright it’s finally time to hit the stage and once again do what we enjoy most, rocking out hard and heavy on stage for your entertainment! After a year and a half long hiatus from playing live we’re finally coming back for an awesome night of hard rock to kick off the launch of our new album! On Friday April 9th the Starlite Room on 10030 102 Street NW in Edmonton, AB will be hosting us for our CD Release Party. Sharing the stage with us will be Grounded Star and our favorite Canadian band and previous Sonic Band of the Month Winner PORTAL!

To say you have to be there would be an understatement… YOU MUST BE THERE! It’s going to be a wicked show, with an amazing line up and at a great live venue as well, plus you can pick up a copy of our brand new album which is being released at the show. Over a year in the making, the new album showcases the evolution of Living Illusion with a focus on quality, progression, and a refined style of songwriting… and it sounds freaking HUGE! It’s been a long time coming and we’re all stoked to finally get to share it with the world.

Here’s some more show details:

Doors open at 9:00PM

Grounded Star – 10:00PM
http://www.myspace.com/groundedstar

Living Illusion – 11:00PM
http://www.myspace.com/livingillusion
(New Songs to be Posted Mid to Late March)

Portal – Midnight
http://www.myspace.com/portalband

Tickets are only $10!

Call me (Shane) @ 780-904-7625 or email shane@livingillusion.com to get tickets.

See you there!

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

To be more precise this would be the title or prologue theme to Blaster Master. This game was an awesome one from the Nintendo Entertainment System. I wasn’t actually introduced to it until last year by Classy Man over at The Game Heroes, I know it’s crazy… both that I’ve never played it, and that I still play NES games. This is a little different than the other covers, this time around there was a lot of electronic instrumentation to keep the eerie and haunting feel from the original version of the song. There is some guitar and drums but it is mostly just sounds, effects, synths, and various other good stuff.

Here’s the direct link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vn-6fvtcTY

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

Finally, after months of procrastination and weeks of hard work, it has arrived! The new LivingIllusion.com. With the music and entertainment industry going in the direction they are I figured it best to ensure that our new site be built around easy access for visitors to find new content from the band. I wanted this new site to reflect the constant stream of updates and content that we plan on posting while keeping the site dynamic and  giving people a reason to come back. Not to get into too much tech speak, but I used a blogging/content management system called wordpress to build the site.

So big things are in the plans for us these days. We’re going to be releasing our new album at our CD Release Party which is booked at the Starlite Room in Edmonton on April 9th 2010. We’re going to be playing with not only our friends, but one of our favorite bands, PORTAL! We’re going to be pushing to get our record on the radio with our good friends over at Oddball Productions, plus more things that I don’t want to mention quite yet. I will have a proper announcement for the cd release party in the coming weeks once we have tickets, posters and all that stuff pulled together. It’s going to be a wicked show, not to mention that we’re finally releasing our album!

Alright, well I’m off to bed, it has been a long day, but it’s great to finally have the new site finished (for the most part). There still will be lots of updates and changing pages in the coming weeks as I fill out and update old content pages plus pulling new merch together and posting songs!

Feel free to check out the site and post a comment to let me know what you think about the new site and if you think I should make any changes!! I’m always open to creative criticism and want to make the site as awesome as possible:
http://www.livingillusion.com

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com