Tomorrow’s the big day, the 2007 MTV Europe Music Awards!
We had our award show a day early, I won for Best Everything Ever. It seems like I get that award every time there’s an award show…ah well, I’m not complaining.
If you want to watch, MTV.ca is streaming it live at 4pm or you can watch it on MuchMusic. Pre-show at 7pm, show at 8pm. Should be a good night.
</shameless promo>
-gh
EDIT: Foo Fighter’s performance = incredible. Amy Winehouse is a trainwreck, I felt bad for her but was laughing at the same time. And I can’t believe Avril won Most Addictive Track over Rihanna. Also…Snoop should never host a show ever again.
I’m moving out of the apartment soon-ish, hopefully before 2008 comes around. I’m looking for a house, apartment life is just not for me. Me and my friend Vanessa from work are looking around, we’re checking out a place tonight so fingers crossed!
I spent my Saturday night in Oshawa at Adam’s Hallowe’en party and I was absolutely amazed by how well 8 people can live together. I’m living with 3 other people right now and it’s a disaster. They have 8, all who do their chores and pay their rent on time and make an active contribution to the house. Why can’t everyone be like that?
The new place, and the new people, should be great.
-gh
EDIT: The place was a bust. But turns out someone at work has a friend who’s looking to rent out her house, and it’s PERFECT for what we want. So things are looking up!
EDIT EDIT: The ‘perfect’ house may not be up for rent anymore, and only for sale. Which is lame. BAH!
Filed under: Blogs, Music | Tags: halloween party most serene republic attack black mtv m
Last Thursday was quite the day…
For fear of this becoming a very long post, I will try to keep this to the essentials. Thursday night was our staff Halloween party, and by Wednesday night I was still costume-less. Last year the party was over the top, and with this year being a joint MTV/MuchMusic party I expected even more craziness then last year. People go all out with costumes and the party itself is just plain ridiculous. So Wednesday night I go out with MK to pick up supplies and make my costume. I was going a 50 Cent, but not the simple way. You see, I enjoy puns, so my costume ended up looking less like a rapper and more like this:
Double sided, took about 3-4 hours to make and cost about $50-$60 in the end. Even had 9 bullet holes. Check the pictures to see more.
So that was that, and Thursday came around. Worked during the day, then had to decide whether to go straight to the party for 9 or go to the Most Serene Republic show first. Ended up going to the TMSR show (which was incredible, really. Best I’ve ever seen them play), I left during their last song and grabbed a cab to the party.
The party was, as last year, ridiculous. Hundreds of people at the temple dancing like fools (myself included). There was a dj spinning for a while before they had the costume competitions. Winners for different categories got some pretty great prizes, like XBOX 360’s, iPod touches and box seats for the Spice Girls show. I didn’t win anything and am still XBOX-less.
After the prizes were handed out we finally got to see the first of 2 surprise performers, Attack In Black. They played a half hour set in full costumes, I had a blast! After that DJ Dopey spun for a while before our second surprise performer, K-OS, hit the stage. I must say, he was dang entertaining. Even threw in some Idioteque for a brief moment which made me happy.
Most of the night was a mix of trying to maneuver through the crowd in my costume, a few trips to my desk downstairs to fix my costume (the straps kept falling apart) and the majority of the time was spent dancing like a fool with a few hundred other dancing fools. I’m not going to lie, dancing like a fool is one of my favorite pass times that I only get to enjoy once every few months, if that. This night ranks #2 on my all time dance-like-a-fool list, right behind Kyla’s wedding.
I grabbed a cab and went home at about 2am, the party was still going off but I had to get some rest as I worked the next morning. Why do they throw parties on a Thursday night? Really.
T’was a good night. And that was just the short version…
-gh
In honor of The Most Serene Republic performing on MTV Live today (at 6pm e/t), here’s an old video I made using some of their music.
Tune in, or come down. It’ll be amazing. And that’s a promise.
-gh
Filed under: Blogs
I went to Best Buy on my lunch break today to get a new enclosure for a portable hard drive. I borrowed my friends drive to put some files on it for him, but when I got home the case was broken. I wasn’t sure if I had broken it or if it was already like that, but I assumed it was me so I went to get him a new one. (sorry Joel.)
Anyway, I was standing around looking for someone to help me for about 15 minutes before I finally got someone’s attention, then he told me they didn’t have the right size, that maybe I should go down the street to Futureshop (great sales technique buddy…) but he then said to talk to someone on the ‘Geek Squad’ and they could help me. So I did, and he just looked at me arrogantly before going into the back and told me someone would help me, just sit down.
I sat for 20 minutes. Nobody even acknowledged me. And the guy who told me to sit was just chatting away in the back, then he came out and started talking to someone else.
So I followed the first guy’s advice and went to Futureshop. I’m not a fan of FS, but I went in and had a couple of people ready to help me right away, I didn’t even have to look. It took me less time to get help, find what I need, pay and leave then it took me to get someone’s attention at Best Buy.
Best Buy used to be great to me! Great prices, great service…now they lie to me about the cost of products and don’t help me at all. What happened? What happened to the way things used to be?
And now I have to wait 3 whole hours for Heroes…
-gh
Yesterday my room mates left the apartment to go grab some groceries, just enough time for me to quickly record a vocal track for a new song we’re writing. I don’t like recording vocals when other people are in the apartment. I don’t know, something about singing alone with no other sound at the same time (as I’d be wearing the headphones) is just weird.
So I listened to it yesterday a handful of times, then today re-wrote some parts and just finished a final demo. Now let’s see what the band thinks, re-write to everyone’s liking and there’s a new song done.
We’re recording another split in mid-November, either 3or4 songs each with Rockets!. We have 2 nearing completion right now with quite a few ideas floating around. I’m really excited. Not just for new songs but it’s just another step forward which is great.
-gh
i’m listening to…
Weatherbox ‘Trippin’ The Life Fantastic’
Manchester Orchestra ‘Anything Left’
Radiohead ‘Body Snatchers’
Brand New ‘You Won’t Know’
Filed under: Blogs, Concerts, Music | Tags: gary hampton blog brand new detroit oprah girl 10/19/07
On Wednesday night I got a message from Viv asking what I was doing Friday night. Turns out her friends ditched her and now she had extra tickets to go see Brand New in Detroit, so I went along. I was debating whether to go see the Toronto show or not since the venue is terrible, so the prospect of seeing the show at the legendary Fillmore was more than inticing.
We left Toronto shortly before 4pm and headed out on the supposed 4hour trip, getting there just before 9pm. Crossing the border was no problem, I found my passport just minutes before we left. We found parking and went inside. Wow. The Fillmore is one of the nicest venues I’ve ever seen. First stop was the washroom (after the 5 hour car ride) and they had screens set up to watch the show from the basement. We missed mewithoutYou (sadly) but caught Thrice before Brand New went on.
The show was great, as usual with Brand New. Last time I saw them was in Buffalo which was, and still is, my favorite Brand New show I’ve ever seen, I don’t think they’ll ever top it. But last night’s show was still great, with only a few complaints. One which I will address below in my:
Open Letter to the ‘Oprah’ Girl at the Brand New show in Detroit (10/19/07)
Dear ‘Oprah’ Girl,
I’m glad you enjoy Brand New. They’re a great band and one of my favorites to see live. But standing behind you at the show made my night less fun then it should have been and I blame it entirely on you.
First off, be aware of the people around you. You almost hit me in the face multiple times, as well as the people on the steps beside you. I’d like to be able to enjoy the show without worrying about your elbows knocking my teeth out.
But mainly, please learn to keep your mouth shut when people are talking. Namely the people on stage who everyone came to see.
When 2200 people are completely silent while someone on stage is telling a story about a young girl being decapitated in a car accident and her mother crying while holding her decieced daughter’s head in her arms, it is less than appropriate for you to shout out ‘I SAW THIS ON OPRAH!’ It is also less than appropriate for you to continue yelling ‘OPRAH! THIS WAS ON OPRAH!’. Even after an approximate 20 people around you turned and told you to (and I quote) ‘shut up’, you still continued to yell things such as ‘if you all would just watch tv you’d know what he was going to say.’ Well, I work in television. I watch tv on a daily basis. And I did not know what the song was about, and frankly I was more interested in how the story affected him and why he wrote the song than where you had heard the story.
Please be more respectful. As the guy standing beside you put it so well, there are 2200 people in the building who paid to hear what these people on stage have to say and 0 people who care what you have to say. He is the one with the microphone, so maybe you should (“”) shut up.
Thank you. I hope to never stand behind you at a show ever agian.
Sincerely,
Gary Hampton
After the show we attempted to cross the border back into Canada, and after being yelled at for not having a residency card and having our car searched, we were on our way. I tried to sleep, but it didn’t work very well. But we stayed awake, sang along to the stereo and made it back home at 4am.
All in all, a good night. Next time I just hope people have the decency to listen to the people on stage and refrain from ruining a very touching story.
-gh
…I decided it was time to get back into the blogging world. So I bought the domain and am starting to set this up and make it fancy.
The decision was made after I read back on some old journals I found in my room. Reading back was very entertaining, so I found some old blogs I had forgot about which were also entertaining to read back on. I realized I had stopped writing, so years from now I’ll have nothing to look back on to entertain myself, so here I go. Starting it up again.
It will be a slow process…but this will be my new online home.
-gh
I Am Gary Hampton. 
