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Friday, February 26, 2010

Billy the Kid at SXSW

Going to South By SouthWest?

Here's Billy's Schedule:

Wednesday, March 17 - Stephen F's - 11PM
Thursday, March 18 - urArtists party Chuggin Monkeyn Time TBD
Friday, March 19 - BMI Lunch 12:45PM
Friday, March 19 - Hyatt Regency - 6pm
Saturday, March 20 - Holiday Inn Austin Town Lake - 7PM

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Billy On CBC

http://radio3.cbc.ca/#/bands/Billy-the-Kid

Monday, February 15, 2010

Billy in Toronto

Did you know my show at the Horseshoe February 23rd is the unofficial Canadian Music Week Volunteer Get Together?

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=292127596468&index=1

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Kitchener and S.S. Marie Shows Added

Feb 26th - S.S. Marie - Loplops
March 13 - Kitchener - The Boathouse

For more information visit the Billy the Kid Shows page

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

We're #68!

http://www.earshot-online.com/charts/2010/January/top200.cfm

Biggest Fan Reviews Van Show

Todd says this doesn't count cause my mom wrote it. i say it counts times ten! :P

Well now. For those of you who missed it ...WOAH!

Billy was AWESOME tonight! She mesmerized the ENTIRE crowd from the moment she stepped onto the stage, playing her guitar, keyboard, harmonica (okay...mouth harp!) and singing her little heart out ... until she stepped off ... after the encore!

The club was filled with 'All Fans Billy' .. standing up to see & hear her...as she talked, laughed, told interesting & funny stories & joked with her fans! She had them ALL singing along ... A M A Z I N G!

The entire crowd sang "Happy Birthday" (led by an old friend from high school) to help 'ease the pain' of the rotten birthday she had on the road...(thanks to one very miserable lady "Marnie" at the Communitea Cafe ... that's enought about her ... don't ever go there!) It was a very touching moment...

It was incredibly awe-inspiring to witness Billy's skills & learn that she has mastered the art of taking hold of a crowd, coaxing them into the palm of her hand & keeping them there for the entire ride! Reminded me so much of Bim ... back in the day! (for those of you who don't know who Bim was ... well, ya missed out on that one too!) lol

New song about the love of her life, Randall, is truly a beauty!

So hey ... next time BE THERE .. you WILL NOT be disappointed!

Signed : Billy's #1 Fan ... her Momma! lol

Many thanks to 'Aunty Elizabeth' who made the trip in with me (on Skytrain no less!) and made it fun ... not nearly as scarey as I thought it would be ... hahaha...

Monday, February 8, 2010

New Review

"This is one rising star you don't want to miss."

http://backstagevancouver.com/?p=3432

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Billy the Kid on The Radio

http://radiofalko.blogspot.com/

I love tour

Sometimes I feel like I live a week in a day.

Each day begins with waking up, most of the time well before I'd like to, and squeezing my bag and guitar back in to the '87 VW Golf my friend Aaron lent me for the West Coast portion of the tour.

Some days are the best days of my life. Some are a bit of a struggle. I just realized that what I'm doing, is actually kind of crazy!

I'm Touring, Canada, Alone, In January, In An '87 Golf.

Honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way :)

The last few days have been amazing...My man flew in to Nanton, AB and surprised me on my birthday! It has been incredible having him as a co-pilot (and pilot lol). He's so helpful, generous and thoughtful...I can't imagine life without him and it was such a treat to have a big strong good looking man help me carry things in to venues!

I had a ten hour drive and 4 hours of sleep when I arrived to Nanton on my "Birthday Eve". I got up to my room, an adorable old-timey suite at the top of the Auditorium Hotel, and couldn't figure out how to use the hundred year old heater. I slumped on to the bed in exhaustion and pulled the blankets over my head. Randy called. I proceeded to tell him how much I missed him, and how much I wished he were beside me. Then there was a knock on my door.

"hold on, I think there's someone at my door.."

I opened it, and there he was!!! :D

I jumped in to his arms and started bawling my eyes out. What a sweet sweet man. He flew from L.A. to Nanton to surprise me on my birthday. I got him for 3 more days until I had to drop him off at the Calgary airport to fly to Toronto and play with Chantal Kreviazuk. We had an amazing time driving around and going on a super fun road trip that just happened to consist of shows every night! :D

Randy used to play with Edwin from I Mother Earth and he just happened to be in Medicine Hat with ex-Our Lady Peace guitarist Mike Turner on a radio tour for their new band Crash Karma. It was pretty random when they walked in to the Derailed Pub, and even more random when we found out they'd eaten at the same Mucho Burrito we had....and Randy was the one who'd stolen the last of the mole sauce! :O Edwin was pissed lol

Last night I played the Olds Sportplex then raced over to Tracks Pub (where I'm playing tonight) to do a surprise couple of songs. This morning I was up early to do a few tunes at Rock 104.5. I'm really looking forward to the show tonight...the guys at Tracks are really awesome. If you're a band looking to play around Alberta, I'd highly recommend them.

Tomorrow it's a nice 9 hour drive to Kamloops, a radio interview at 6 then I play the Dirty Jersey.

I love tour :)

Monday, February 1, 2010

The Communitea Cafe in Canmore Ruined My Birthday

I just have to say, before I post this...my boyfriend is the best person ever.

And the people at Communitea Cafe in Canmore, RUINED my birthday.

My man wrote this, and is letting me post it.

If you are a musician, please tell your friends never to play here. It's all we have left as a communi"tea" lol!!

Here's what Randy has to say. Baby I love you :)



The moment we arrived to load in gear this evening we were made to feel like a major inconvenience. (by Marni)

At first i didn't quite understand why we were getting some obvious negativity, but as this story unfolds, it becomes crystal clear.

Our first hurdle, and it was like pulling teeth, was to agree upon where we could set up merch. As you know, on a night like this when the guarantee is minimal, the merch becomes the most important aspect of making this stop financially feasible.

It turns out, they'd not only sold to capacity, which is why they (Marni) outright refused to let us have a table by which to set the merch up for display, but they'd OVER sold there venue. There were audible rumblings in the audience like "why did they sell more tickets than they had seats for?".

We were instructed to set up merch on a part of their counter where they serve their tea... of course, there were people sitting directly in FRONT of that counter so the merch was completely obstructed as well, the area needed for either of us to stand behind the counter to tend to any customers was prioritized by their staff for their tea duties making it impossible to be directly behind the actual product...

So, to sum it up... we had to stand off to the side for most of the time...getting dirty looks from their staff (by Marni) while trying desperately to reach over a counter to tend to audience members who loved billy.

Billy 'was' offered food. The offer was 'before or after'. She chose after.
Wrong choice.
The same woman (Marni) who was blatantly put off by the fact that we were there was so insanely busy selling alcohol that it would've been impossible for her to break away from her beloved cash register. Case in point, when i asked her (Marni) to unlock the office where our cases were stored, she delegated that to one of her friends who was an audience member there to do even that.

The accoms r a mute point. If billy had of been on her own, the 'spare' room would've been fine. Although, before she found out i surprised her and showed up, she was happy about this gig saying "at least i get to play to a full house, get 50 bucks, sell some merch, and i get my own hotel room. All 4 of those points seemed to be things she was sure were part of the deal.

The show.
Billy's banter had the audience laughing out loud, cheering, clapping etc...
They were all singing in unison to the chorus of "just tryin to get by"...

Does this sound anything like an audience's reaction to an artist who's energy wasn't good?

That was a quote from Marni. Directly. Spoken to me in front of the sound guy in the back kitchen.
She actually said, "If i'd thought her energy was good, I would've considered paying her something"...

We were all packed up.
I told Billy to go wait in the car, and i'd settle up.
I approached Miss Negativity (Marni), who I'd i'd been desperately been trying to kill with kindness all night with no success, and asked her if I could get Billy's fee.

She was, of course at the time, at her cash register, and instructed me to "hang on a moment".

Approx 25 mins went by as i watched her have friendly discussions with the only 3 people left in the bar. I sat there. In full view. Remember. Full house. Packed bar from the moment the doors opened until the last note of the main act.

50 dollars.

There i sat patiently.
Chairs were being stacked on tables, no-one from the audience was left in the bar now.

Enter billy to see me sitting there.

She asks, "what's going on?".
I say "I have absolutely no clue, but it's painfully obvious that i'm being blatantly ignored at this point".

Now I actually have to go looking for Marni.
Found her in that back kitchen having a conversation with the sound guy,
I had to actually interrupt them to say, "Hey, it's billy's bday today (which Marni knew), would it be ok to settle up so i can let her celebrate it in some other way other than sitting out in a cold car waiting for 50 dollars?"

It's then that Marni decides to tell me that there was never a 50 dollar figure discussed. It's then, for the 2nd time (1st being when we were trying to set up merch) that she reminds me that she had sold out and didn't need billy and that she was doing a favor for the agent.

Without belaboring the point of my decades in the music business, this was definitely the most rude insulting example of a artist being horribly treated I'd ever encountered.

Dear Marni,
I'm embarrassed for you that you work at an establishment called "communtea".
Plz get a job in the back of a warehouse somewhere, where you don't have to encounter any other humans.
Plz get out of the people business.
You're just not cut out for this sort of thing.
You know.
People.
That thing.