The Treble

Twenty Four Shows in Twenty Four Hours

     We are proud to announce that beginning September 28th, The Treble will once again be playing 24 Shows in 24 Hours, this year in partnership with Winnipeg Harvest, in support of their fall campaign.

     Last October, In collaboration with the Canadian Red Cross, The Treble played 24 Shows in 24 hours in 24 locations around Winnipeg, raising funds and awareness for famine relief in the Horn of Africa.  Basically, we talked to local businesses around Winnipeg and asked them for a small donation towards the cause, or just the opportunity to busk and collect donations at their location.

     The result was one of the coolest, organic, and exciting fundraising events that any of us had ever been a part of. In only one day, we raised a ton of money for a great cause, had some unforgettable experiences,  and met some really cool people, all while paying tribute to one of our favourite artists (see Frank Turner’s ‘The Road’).

     The song is called All My Friends, and if you haven’t seen it before, here’s last year’s video. This years locations will be announced within the next few days, and we’d love have you come and hang out for a few shows!

 Coming Home

Around a year ago now we settled on ‘Shaking Hands and Taking Names’ as the title of our first EP. It was the title of an old song of ours we thought would never end up being properly recorded. In the end, it has proved to be an apt descriptor of the year we’ve all had, leading up to our very first Treble  tour of the same name.  Since August 2011, we’ve had the opportunity to play everything from open mic nights to fashion magazine galas; from opening gigs to sold out video release parties;  from 24 shows in 24 hours with the Canadian Red Cross, to the MTS centre, to Los Angeles, California. To top it all off, this summer saw us embark on a 10 000km journey across eastern Canada.  This video captures the spirit and fun of that trip shared by 5 best friends.

We have had a phenomenal group of fans, friends, and family that have supported us through one of the most peculiar years in our lives, and for that we are truly grateful.  In hopes that the next year will be even stranger, please watch, comment, and share.

Camera work by the multi-talented Patrick Hansen

Song by The Treble

Oh My Sweet Carolina

When Colin mentioned to the rest of us that the girl coming over to be a guest in our upcoming acoustic session had herself a small collection of Juno awards, we didn’t quite know what to think. 

We we’d been planning on doing a cover of Ryan Adams’ ‘Oh My Sweet Carolina’ for quite some time, and had a few ideas for possible guests. When it turned out that who we’d originally had in mind wasn’t available the day we were planning on shooting,  Colin sent a text out to a friend he hadn’t seen in a while that “had a really nice voice”.  We also sent out a hopeful message to our friend Kyle Meyer from The Proud Sons, to see if he would want to play some guitar. Though two guests was probably enough, we couldn’t help ourselves, and asked Tj Stevenson and Rebecca Brusegard to come shoot/record again as well. Great song, great collection of musicians. This was easily the coolest video to be a part of so far.

The boys all worked out a wicked guitar/banjo arrangement while Colin, Rebecca and myself worked out some harmonies. When Alexa finally arrived, she blew the doors off the place, and we knew right there that this song, video and evening was going to be something we could all be proud of.

Watch, listen, enjoy, and if you please - share!

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Five guys, one upright bass.

It’s another week off for us Treblers, so it seems I should keep going on getting these old videos up on here. So here it is, ‘Acoustic Session’ number two! 

This was Patrick’s second time out with the camera. He was a lot more comfortable this time, though quite adamant that a shot be included of him with said camera.  If ever you’ve seen Walk Off the Earth’s cover of Somebody That I Used to Know, you’ll notice that this video is similar, but it is not the same. There is more dancing. There is also an upright bass.

This week’s feature artist was a lovely man we’ve come to know named TJ Stevenson aka Teddy Joe Jr. Tj is a rockstar in the most literal sense of the term. He’s played in bands for ages and has been touring steadily for almost ten years.

Many people remember him from his days playing the bass for the popular Winnipeg rock group Sick City. I remember him from the time he told me about his homemade shirt that read “F*** Vin Diesel” (I’m trying to keep this blog somewhat PG).  Most of all though, Tj is an old friend of Colin’s who was passionate enough about music to spend 10+ hours with a bunch of dudes he’d barely met. In the first of these blogs, I mentioned that it takes a special type of musician to do an ‘Acoustic Session’, and Tj certainly proved to be that. We’ve since adopted him as our part-time banjo/tambourine player. Though he’s off on a new adventure now, I really don’t think we’ve seen the last of Teddy Joe Jr. plucking the banjo with us Treblers.

Song: If I Fall - The Treble

Start time: 3:00 PM

End time: 4:30 AM

A while back I went to see a guest speaker that Manitoba Music had in from Vancouver, named Brian Thompson. He’s an expert in online marketing and social media stuff.  For any musicians out there, I definitely recommend following him on Twitter @thornybleeder. He’s all about positive approaches to going out there and actually ‘doing’ whatever it is you want to do. He does a podcast called The DIY Daily, that features tons of DIY music stuff. Anyways, we responded to a call to submit to be featured on an episode with our song ‘All My Friends’, and a little write up about our 24 Shows in 24 Hours fundraiser (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiq-Cu2pEyQ). We were featured today as song of the week. Click the Title to listen. Thanks Brian!

So we’ve been talking about getting this blog going for a while now, and really didn’t know where to start. I was bored today and thought it might be cool to post an old video.

This is the first instalment of a project we started back in December called “Acoustic Sessions”. A lot of bands do this sort of thing. It’s a cool way of getting new songs/covers etc. out there, without going crazy and shooting something ready for MTV.  

Since it wasn’t a new concept, we wanted to try and make “acoustic sessions” as original as possible.  We decided to give ourselves a few stipulations. One - Each video would have a feature artist from around the city (easy enough?). Two - That the song would be recorded and the video be shot all in one night (possible…).  By the end of shooting at 4:30a.m. (start time 6p.m. the day prior) we’d learned a thing or two. One - That for this project, it would take a special type of musician to be a feature in a video series that takes 10 hours straight to shoot, and two - Always make sure not to reformat your memory card mid shoot without backing up the data. 

This session’s feature artist was my sister, Rebecca Brusegard. She’s done tons of acting and singing in festivals, and we’d recorded together before.  Since we’d overtaken her living room (and entire house) to do the recording/filming, it was only fitting that she be our first guest.

Honourable mentions in this video go to our bass player Patrick Hansen, who learned literally, that day, how to use a video camera (most of the band can barely use the camera on our iPhones), and also to our keyboard player/home studio record producer, Colin “Cloin” McTavish, who demonstrated while mixing this song that cheese and barbecue sauce really do make a great snack.

We’ve got a few more of these up online (youtube.com/thetrebleband), and some already shot, waiting to be released. I’ll be doing my best to get them up here with a little blurb every time we do something new. Feel free to comment and share!

All the best,

Mark