Our last little weekend warrior tour in Lloyminster and Lethbridge was a good send off for Jay, and even though we did have a little acoustic show planned in Edmonton sadly we weren’t able to pull it together before Jason left. I’m doing my best now to not look at this as an end of an era but as the beginning of something new and exciting. There will definitely be a new dynamic style with the band moving forward.

Currently I’ve got a new acoustic guitar and Dave and I are working on new material that we’ll hopefully be able to start recording later this fall. I plan to write an EP worth of new songs all on acoustic to start and just see how that goes. We’re trying to move away from being so attached to writing things with a computer. And hell, I might even give some open mics a shot and get back into singing more again. Only time will tell.

With that, I just want to say thanks to all of you for your continued support and I hope to see you at one of our shows sometime soon.

Much Love,

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com

Facebook Event Page

Weekend Confirmed Ep. 52: 03/18/2011

Click here to download the Podcast.

Featured Music “Disconnected – KTS” by Living Illusion: 01:41:58 End: 01:45:10

Here’s the little write up they posted for us: Living Illusion is an independent rock band hailing from Edmonton Alberta Canada (also the home of BioWare). The song “Disconnected – (Kenton Thomas Splice)” is a remixed track off their new album “Suffering”. Both versions of the song and the full album are now available on iTunes. For more from Living Illusion check out their official site, myspace, youtube, or facebook page.

Special Thanks to Del Rio and Garnett Lee for choosing us to be featured on the show!

- Shane Lamotte
www.livingillusion.com

Our amazing drummer Cal Beaudoin has entered into a drumming competition and this is his submission video. He has already made it into the Semifinals and has been voted by the judges to be one of the Top 10 in Western Canada. The drum solo is pretty bad ass if I do say so myself. Be sure to check it out!

Cal Beaudoin – Senior West Division 2010 – Direct Video Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eldr3UcFK0o

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

PS Send some love to our good friend Brent Gerlitz as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1keQSApB_8g

June 18th 2010 – Taphouse – St Albert, Alberta – We were a surprise headliner at the Alberta Last Band Standing Competition. We played with Hollywood Assassyn, The Flash Jam, R.C Sindicate, Oldbury, Heaviside, White Lightning, Apresnos

June 25th 2010 – Boonstock – Gibbons, Alberta – There are far to many bands to mention but here’s a bunch: Matthew Good, Ill Scarlet, Shout out out out out, Christian Hansen and the Autistics, Static in the Stars, The Offspring, Papa Roach, Chevelle, Age of Daze, Hollywood Assassyn, No Heat Tomorrow.

July 1st 2010 – Sawfest – Canada Day – Slave Lake, Alberta –  We got the opportunity to play and hang out with Wide Mouth Mason and Kim Mitchell. It was a wild party after we played and the backstage treatment of the bands was incredible. The people up in Slave Lake really appreciate having live bands up there.

July 15th & 16th 2010 –  Opening for Crash Karma – Union Hall – Edmonton, Alberta – The Taphouse – St Albert, Alberta – These we’re two amazing shows to play. We had an awesome time opening for a rock group with some of the members from bands we’ve been listening to since we were kids. If you don’t know who Crash Karma is, it consists of Edwin from I Mother Earth, Mike Turner from Our Lady Peace, Amir Epstein from Zygote and Jeff Burrows from the Tea Party. And yes, they’re fucking awesome.

August 14th 2010 - 3rd Annual Day of Destruction – Grande Prairie, AB – Long Way Down performs live along side 50cc Dirtbike races, Car & Truck Stunt Show, & a 125 Foot Waterslide with kicker for launching pedal bikes into the lake!

Well that’s all for now I’ll probably do one more Long Way Down update at the end of the summer if I play any more cool gigs with them.

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

Want a FREE copy of the new Living Illusion: Suffering CD? Well then go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fst7qv8NME4 and listen to what MrTyBoze has to say and he’ll hook you up! Special thanks for Ty for making the video and supporting the band.

We all really appreciate the people who get behind independent music, especially when it’s ours Be sure to subscribe to Ty’s Channel which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/MrTYBOZE because well, he’s pretty freaking awesome.

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

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.

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