we make love

Just got back from playing our first acoustic set ever at Guelph’s St. George’s Square as part of War Child Canada’s Busking For Change tour. After being invited by War Child a few weeks ago to play this show on a bill with The Balconies, Bass Lions, Dinosaur Bones and a bunch of others, we set out to break down our usually overdriven, synth-fueled tracks into something simpler… and the process of stripping our songs down into their simplest form was awesome. But it wasn’t quite as awesome as what happened just after our set when Bass Lions were playing. Germany had literally just lost to Spain and minutes into their set a bunch of Spanish fans descended on the Square and began singing. But rather than compete with them, Bass Lions invited them over to jam.

And they all came over, but there was no confrontation at all. Just a few guitars getting passed around and a few new songs getting learned.

Then, after a few songs, some improvised, some soccerized, the Spanish supporters moved on to take the party elsewhere (and it was really going elsewhere)…

Thanks to everyone who came out to see us and donated money to War Child by buying our CD and throwing money into the case.

And thanks to War Child and Audioblood Media for inviting us.
-Scott Birke, The Craft Economy

OH… guess Bass Lions weren’t the only ones to get the Spanish treatment.
Schweinsteiger OWNED!

I had an egg in a basket this morning. Probably my favorite breakfast choice right now.

TCE is writing some songs and preparing to record them in the New Year. We are all BA-nanas busy with our full time jobs, the holidays and band stuff. Everything should get back to normal by January 2010. If you’re at Blue Mountain Dec.19th then come to Kaytoo. We’ll all be there rockin’ the new songs (and some old ones).

Here’s something cute. It’s somewhat brilliant, actually.

http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs13/f/2007/077/2/e/Animator_vs__Animation_by_alanbecker.swf

So we’ve been asked to join an awesome bill coming up on Saturday May 16th at the Silver Dollar Room.  The Kinetic Stereokids are a five piece out of Flint, Michigan, home of Glen Rice (who had one of the prettiest shots in the NBA - back of the rim, straight down), Morris Peterson (of Toronto Raptor & Michigan State Fame), and the United States of America’s largest brownfield in Buick City.

They’ll be another band joining the bill - we’ll keep you posted.  

New room for you, two new songs (!!!) for you to hear, new bands, good times.

Upcoming Shows

Friday, February 20th, 2009
with DJ Lawrence & tons of Dancing!!! @ The Boat, 158 Augusta Avenue, Toronto.

Friday, March 20th, 2009
with Beth in Battle Mode, for their CD release party, at the El Mocambo in Toronto.

Thursday, May 7th, 2009
with The Bicycles, at a venue TBD, as part of the Discover Indie festival in Montreal, Quebec.

We’ve just confirmed a date - May 7th - to play the Discover Indie Festival in Montreal. Cool part is that we’ll be playing with The Bicycles, another great band from Toronto.

Wicked. We are getting ready in this here hotel room before our show. Linda and Konstantine are elsewhere becoming beautiful and we are eating chips and drinking beer and watching hockey in French. This is going
to be an awesome show. We can’t wait.

What a cool weekend. Despite the remnants of hurricane Ike ripping through Toronto just as we took the stage on Sunday night, it was an awesome show. And our first show with Jake on bass. And our first show with Andrew’s daughter Sadie there to see. So all in all, it was a super good time. Thanks to everybody at the Queen Street Art Crawl for putting it on.

Okay. And we finally got the E.P. mixes finished, and the entire thing mastered last night! So now we just have to find a cheap producer of CDs, and get them pressed. We’re going to be releasing a special, limited run, Pop Montreal only CD for the Pop Montreal show on the 4th. We’ll likely have the CDs pressed and ready for release in late October, so stay tuned for a CD release party show then.

So we’re playing on Saturday October 4th at The Jupiter Room in Montreal. But here’s the cool thing. We were a winner in the Sirius stage, selected by people at the festival and fans, so we’re playing a pretty cool showcase with Brazil’s Lucy & The Popsonics and Montreal’s Les Handclaps.

Thanks to any one who actually voted - this is very cool, and is going to be a very very good show.

This just in—The Craft Economy is playing another awesome No Shame show at Rancho Relaxo (300 College Street and Spadina) this coming Thursday, September 4th with Kingston’s Magic Jordan http://www.myspace.com/magicjordan3223 and Toronto’s Tonka and Puma (from Hooded Fang) http://www.myspace.com/tonkapuma after headliners Black Hat Brigade dropped out of the bill. It’ll be our first show with our new bassist Doug, so come out and and introduce yourselves. Doors are at 9 p.m. and it’s $5.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve been invited to play this year’s POP Montreal, which takes place from Oct. 1-5. Check us out at the Jupiter Room (3874 Rue St-Laurent.) Saturday, Oct. 4th. More details to follow….

Oh, and POP’s put up a bunch of music from the other bands playing this year on their website….  vote POP or POOP for what you like or don’t like here:   http://www.popmontreal.com/en/popthumbs/