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News :: All 2005 News Postings
July 11, 2005 Woah! Where have we been for the past few months?? Ah well, nothing new there. Want to get the word about Celtic Music News out... a great podcast site to get info on many aspects of celtic music today. Our wee tour of S. Ontario is imminent, and we are looking forward to getting out and playing some SotW! Vince has been busy busy with House of Doc , a wonderful bluegrassy group he has been working with as album producer and de facto manager for the past year. The album is released and sounding great. John as many know has been enjoying much fame and fun in Miss Saigon, in Vancouver until July 17. Geoff, touring and recording with the paperboys, has some stories to tell about their new record-in-making... Hugh has been up to his earlobes in postproduction frenzy working in his teeny but pretty good sounding studio upstairs at Pacific Music Marketing in Victoria, putting final touches on many projects that pass through on their way to the manufacturing plants. Recently he was crawling under the "officehouse" installing wiring for two new phone lines for Canada Disc and Tape, who have taken over manufacturing and replication for PMM. Projects underway at the moment include final tracking and mixing for a new Colleen Eccleston album (long overdue). Upcoming is the new James Keelaghan album, a co-production with James to be recorded in England and Canada. March 14, 2005 The Inaugural Crawl Is A Success! Thank you, thank you, thank you to all Crawlers!!! What a fantastic event it was: a Pub Crawl across the North Shore all the way to The Railway Club! Spirit of the West would like to thank the people who worked so hard behind the scenes to make this event such a rousing success: Our friends at Okanagan Spring Brewery who made the whole thing pretty damn easy for us; the National PR crew (energetic, fun, and wearers of superior perfumes); Frontside Promotions who can apparently organize any form of chaos; and of course Jack FM who have been our kind supporter so many times. We mustn't omit a special thanks to The Troller, The Raven, The Square Rigger, The Queen's Cross, The Rusty Gull, Seymour's and The Railway Club not to mention all of our fans, many of who followed us from venue to venue like the army of mad hatters they are. By day's end they must have been as tired as we were. Here's to their being as happy as we were, too! Also, our thanks to our crack technical crew of Andrew White and Chris Young who worked themselves into exhaustion keeping the stages running smoothly, Yeomanˇ¦s service, to say the leastˇK February 24, 2005 Crawl Crawl Crawl Crawl "...From the Troller to the Raven...With all stops in-between...!!!" Spirit of the West proudly announce that, after years of saying to each other, "We really ought to do it someday", we are finally going to. Along with our friends from Okanagan Spring Brewery and with the help of JACK FM, we are going to re-create the pub crawl which was the inspiration for our song "The Crawl". Starting at 3 pm on Saturday, March 12th at 'The Troller' we will begin a day of musical Crawl-ing. We will perform a very short set in each Pub, there will be prize giveaways including Spirit of the West merchandise and CDs, and we will be happy to sign autographs for a few minutes. Then, back on the bus and quickly off to the next Pub! We are preparing ourselves for all sorts of madness & mischief. This will be our chance to see you, speak with you, and personally welcome you to join us one week later at The Commodore Ballroom on March 18th & 19th, for our annual St. Paddy's Day celebrations. Here is the itinerary for the day: 3pm – The Troller Pub Admission to each pub will indeed be free. People must be of legal drinking age. Those of you familiar with the song lyrics will note that a couple of our beloved locals no longer exist, such as The Square Rigger and the Park Royal Hotel. They will be ably represented by Seymour's and The Railway Club. From the original news release (download the Word document): For immediate release Okanagan Spring Brewery and Spirit of the West Team Up for One Night Six Venue Pub Crawl Tour Vancouver, BC - Okanagan Spring Brewery is teaming up with Spirit of the West to pay tribute to the pub crawl made famous in the hit song "The Crawl". The Spirit of the West - Beer of the West one-day concert tour is scheduled for Saturday, March 12, 2005, and will see the band bar hopping to six different pubs to celebrate the best of BC music and BC beer. "Spirit of the West and Okanagan Spring Brewery are two well-known made-in-BC success stories. The Pub Crawl concerts are a great way to bring together great BC music and great BC beer. The Crawl will also help promote Spirit of the West's annual St. Patrick's Day shows at the Commodore," said Bryce Zurowski, Marketing Manager for Okanagan Spring Brewery. Spirit of the West will visit pubs and bars immortalized in their song "The Crawl," including The Troller Pub, The Rusty Gull, Queen's Cross and The Raven. In addition, they will visit Seymour's and make one final stop at the Railway Club in downtown Vancouver. The band will be performing a short show for local fans at each stop along the way. "The pub crawl is a great way to thank our fans and to celebrate our BC roots. We also get a chance to visit the local pubs that have been a part of our journey in life and music," said Vince Ditrich, drummer for Sprit of the West. The one-night, six-stop concert tour is being coordinated by Frontside Promotions and the company will require a rolling team of audiovisual specialists to ensure the music equipment is set-up for each performance, packed up and shipped out for the next venue, all of which will need to be done in under six hours. In addition to the Pub Crawl Tour, Okanagan Spring Brewery has included a free CD sampler in their 12-packs of beer for the month of March. The CD features some of the band's most popular songs, including Morning in Bath Abbey, The Wedding Speech, Waiting for Martin and, of course, The Crawl. Okanagan Spring Brewery and Spirit of West have partnered on a number of initiatives, stemming from last summer's Okanagan Spring Pure Music Festival. Spirit of the West will play two concerts at the Commodore Ballroom on March 18 and 19, 2005 at 8pm. Tickets for the upcoming shows are available at Ticketmaster charge-by-phone at 604-280-4444 or online at www.ticketmaster.ca Okanagan Spring Brewery has been brewing beer for over 20 years in Vernon, BC where they brew a number of premium brands, including Extra Special Pale Ale, 1516 Bavarian Lager, Premium Lager, Old English Porter, Bavarian Helles and Munich Mild Dark. -30- For more information please contact: Valerie Wan or Nicola Lambrechts February 1, 2005 Spirit of the West officially welcome Ellis 'Jasper' James Frank to the world! Born last night, January 31st at 9:41 pm and weighing in at an impressive 8 lbs 7 ounces he is the 12th Spirit Kid to join the fold. We congratulate Lori and Tobin both. Love, happiness and good health to the whole Frank Family.
John, Geoffrey, Hugh, Higgs & Vince. January 24, 2005
In the meantime we are all busy. Hugh McMillan is taking time from a very busy productions schedule at Victoria's Thunderchild Studio to nip away to the UK with the legendary Canadian folk ambassador James Keelaghan. He has also just returned from some concert performances with masterful guitarist Oscar Lopez (of the song "Come Back Oscar", from our newest album "Star Trails"). Geoffrey Kelly is currently making guest appearances here there and everywhere. He will be on tour periodically with The Paperboys throughout the late winter and early spring. As well, the lucky lad will be going 'down under' as a featured guest with The Irish Rovers in August and September. John Mann is filming a movie in Vancouver, "Underworld Evolution" starring Kate Beckinsale, Sir Derek Jacobi, & Bill Nighy and, when shooting is finished, will begin rehearsals for the Arts Club Theatre's presentation of "Miss Saigon" at Vancouver's Stanley Theatre. John will be appearing as "The Engineer", the role made famous by Jonathan Pryce during the play's original run. "Miss Saigon" opens on May 25th. Vince Ditrich recently completed production of an album for Winnipeg's House of Doc, which will be available in a store near you in the spring. In addtion to riding herd on Spirit's day to day operations, Vince is currently recording a backlog of songs that had to wait through Spirit's busy 2004, and is all the while penning more material. There are upcoming album productions soon to be announced. Please also visit www.vinsynch.com for announcements, schedules and contact info. Additionally, Vince has signed on as a Producer for "Debt: The Musical" a play by Leslie Mildiner with music by Todd Butler, slated for its debut in the summer of 2005. Tobin the Gull Frank is, along with his wife Lori, eagerly anticpating the arrival of their new baby, due literally any minute now. We have it on good authority that this child will indeed be a boy, their second. We also have been alerted to the little gaffer's name, but we will not announce it here in case there is a last minute change of mind. This latest shrimpkin will make a total of 12 (yes, one dozen) Spirit Kids...9 boys and 3 girls! Good luck Lori and Tobin. SotW |
Although a British psychologist has recently named Jan 24th the 'most depressing day of the year', we Spirits seem to be in pretty good shape. On Jan 20, Vince Ditrich, along with Jack FM's Pam Stevens, Gary McDonald & Geoff Goddard of Frontside Promotions, presented a cheque to BC Children's Hospital Foundation in the amount of $2942.50, raised at the band's recent Christmas party held at Vancouver's Media Club. The chock-a-block sold-out event was a tremendous amount of fun and the Spirits would like to thank Frontside Promotions, Lili Wexu and the Media Club and of course Jack FM for all the help in bringing the show to fruition. As well we would like to thank our crew of Marty Borycki and Dave Allen.
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