london – Jean-Paul De Roover

March 16th & 17th – London and Ottawa

March 21, 2012March 21, 2012 By Jean-Paul De Roover Tagged as avant garde bar, BBQ, dude ranch, FUBAR, green beer, london, northern ontario, Ontario, Ottawa, shirt, Socialism, St Patrick's Day, tour, Year of the Loop

Finally played at the Dude Ranch in London! It’s this awesome punk rock basement where they host shows on weekends, and I was originally scheduled to play there a while back, but the basement flooded. I was glad to be back in a little haven of Northern Ontario settled in the South. Seriously, everyone involved in that house is either from TBay, Schreiber, Marathon, Terrace Bay, etc. Unfortunately, they’re moving out / moving on, so this was the 3rd last show at the house. I only managed to take one photo throughout the whole night, but there was lots of sweat, singalongs and BBQ throughout the whole night! Big thanks to the fellow Ranchers for hosting me, and I’ve already been sporting my new shirt for the past few days.

Here’s the snapshot of Thousand Young, but Black Frame Spectacle and Arkham Dispatch also killed it that night.

Thousand Young at the Dude Ranch - London, ON

Ottawa was a fun time – y’know – hanging with Ignacio and Alicia (the usual folks I spend my birthdays with), but this time it was a St Paddy’s day partay. Josef Mieto (Ottawa), Redbird (Vancouver) and Portage and Main (Vancouver) also joined me at the Avant Garde Bar – where the theme isn’t so much green, but red – it’s a socialist Russia themed bar. Again, my pipes and shirt fit the theme well and I didn’t have to worry about colour coordinating with the occasion. Turnout was decent, but thankfully we didn’t get a lot of the rowdy green-beer-drinkin’ drunks. I think they were upstairs with Deaner from FUBAR.

London – a moment of fail, but friendship wins

March 21, 2011 By Jean-Paul De Roover Tagged as dude ranch, flood, grooves records, in-store, london, mini skirts

I wrote earlier that I have a ton of friends in Ottawa, which is true, but I think I may have a similar number of friends in London. Regardless, everytime I always end up staying at Reggie’s place. This time though, him and his housemates (all TBay ex-pats, and 3/4 of the band Freeground) had finally gotten their band going. They were scheduled to play Saturday night with me, at what was going to be an awesome basement show at a place called The Dude Ranch. They even have their own t-shirts!

In-store pipes - photo by Shannon Lepere

The bad news, however, was that their basement flooded, so the show was canceled. This was a fail, but not so much their fault, as there was literally one brick in their basement that prevented water from flowing in, and this one wasn’t cemented in properly. Thankfully, Dustin (head Dude) was good friends with the band Staylefish playing at Call The Office that night (a legendary venue), and I was offered an opening slot on that show so that I could still perform somewhere that night. It was a ska-themed show, so I was the odd man out, but everyone still dug it, and I mean, c’mon, what’s not to like?!

Performing at Call The Office, London, ON - photo by Shannon Lepere

But, before that, I also did an in-store performance at Grooves Records. I had only found out about them since they had ordered physical CD’s of mine direct through CDBaby, so I looked them up and saw that they did in-stores, and were glad to have me!

In-store performance at Grooves Records, London, ON - photo by Shannon Lepere

Also, random side note; after the Call The Office show it was snowing crazy amounts (even a few hours before the show), yet I still saw the largest number of mini skirts walking around downtown in a blizzard thatI have ever seen in my life. You do realize that it’s early March in Canada, right?

March 13th – London – East Village Arts Co-op

April 8, 2010 By Jean-Paul De Roover Tagged as interrobang, london, photo, pinup, punctuation, radiohead, roller derby, shannon lepere, tour

Shannon "Lace Ventura" Lepere - photo by Dana Brushette

Shannon had an excellent time in London. She met up with her old photographer friend Dana Brushette for a pin-up shoot. “Lace Ventura” looks stellar in her roller derby skates! She even gave me a copy of the photo to keep on the sunblocker on my car, similar to a war pilot. London is also one of my favorite places in Canada, probably because Reggie lives there. This time I didn’t have a bar show, but rather a smaller show at the East Village Arts Co-op. It’s a small hole in the wall, about the size of your grandparents’ living room, in a part of town that might be called a “rough neighbourhood”. It was structured as an open mic followed by full sets from myself, Jef-Something and Mike Wolski. I’ve known Mike for a few years (he’s from Dryden), and he started the second half of the show with some covers and an original. Jef-Something came next, and I was stoked to find he was a one-man-band too! His setup was mobile though, as he does a lot of busking. I dedicated a Radiohead cover to him, as he did 2: Creep and another from Kid A (I forget the name).

My set went over quite well, having Reggie join me on a conga for a few tracks. It reached it’s apex on the last song when I picked up one of the strands of stage lights and wrapped it around my body as I finished the track by getting people to clap along with me.

You can also read Maggie McGee’s review of the show in the Interrobang (which is also my newest favorite punctuation, pushing the umlaut to 2nd). For those of you that prefer synopses, she found some of my songs “reminiscent of Nick Cave”, and that “De Roover manages to carve his own niche and express his personality and parlay it into a personal chemistry and stage presence that is something distinctly his own. If the innate optimism and excitement can be maintained and nurtured through experience, De Roover’s growth as an artist will be impressive and will come as no surprise.”