Run Free - Eggs Taste Better!

By Ann Brody

Many of you are aware of Half Past Four’s last two shows in October and November and we thank all those who came to the Supermarket Halloween gig that we played with Orco Muto and those that came out to the Bolshevik Rox. A special thanks goes out to those who came out to both, namely our trio of fantastic fans Dave, Bill and John. We were left with stupendous impressions regarding the Supermarket “Clean up on aisle 666” event and consider it as one of the most triumphant shows in Half Past Four’s career especially considering many of the observations we heard about how this was Half Past Four’s best performance and sound yet. We thank everyone again for their warm compliments. It was wonderful to share the stage with the marvelous legendary band Orco Muto who boggled our minds with their extraordinary prog horror compositions. They really dazzled the crowd - especially the drummer Great Bob Scott who is by far the best drummer in Canada . I know I say this a lot when I see a great drummer, but this time it’s definitely you, Bob! In terms of audience costumes, everyone was very creative and many showed up dressed for the contest but the reason why the winner wasn’t announced was because it would have been rather silly if Finbar and Dasha who were dressed up as Devo and who we asked to MC, announced themselves as winners. Your costumes will not be forgotten, for you are men!

One more thank you goes out to all those who watched our show on the live webcast. The quality wasn’t that great, we know, but we greatly appreciate your co-operation of bearing with it. For those of you who were watching us for the first time, we hope that you got a decent taste of us and if not… too bad. Next time quit being lazy and just come out. Yes, that goes for you Swedish gals and English boys, I don't want to hear any excuses. In addition to that, it was also great to see all the members of the legendary band Look People present at out show (including Barenaked Ladies’ keyboard player, Kevin Hearn, TTG Lab's TV scoring wizard, Longo Hai, Orco Muto’s own Chris Gartner and Great Bob Scott and Jazz FM’s Jaymz Bee), what a great event to reunite at!

Well now that you heard the good stuff lets move on to the bad…but I warn you, this may be too intolerable for your fragile eyes. Let’s take a moment to reflect on the Bolshevik Rox event. We love the atmosphere of the venue but the gig we played last time turned out to be a complete disaster in terms of sound. What? You thought it was on our part! Ha! No you fool; you see, Half Past Four doesn’t make mistakes…muahaha, excellent. I am obviously kidding here but allow me to go off on a slight tangent. Dear friends, musicians make mistakes all the time. Its only part of our nature for you see, we are not perfect people and its only natural when we make mistakes because, really, this is what we are more inclined to do since we operate on our emotions (so don’t hire us to supervise your nuclear plant). Emotions are raw, unpolished jewels - that is - unprocessed. You get the wholesome product in its organic form. If you don’t appreciate organic products then you can go and buy genetically modified ones from the itunes supermarket in section "most popular."

Now back to the second gig. The night was supposed to be Russian Revolution themed, but no one even tried to make the slightest effort of expressing their love for Lenin and Stalin…how rude. If you were there you were probably just as surprised as we were at how short our set was. That was because we were told to cut it down since the DJ was coming, and lets face it, genetically modified eggs are easier to produce than organic, that’s why they come by the dozen. We all agree however that organic eggs taste much better, so stop buying GM and go to CDBaby for fresh organic eggs. I’ll even let you in on a secret; the freshest eggs come from the farm of Half Past Four ;)

Allow me to complain just a bit more! Musicians not only make mistakes but they are whiny too, especially when it comes to their sound on stage at a huge venue hall. So there you go, now you know our weaknesses and you can bring us down any day by fidgeting with the knobs of the sound board. Thanks to manager Grant for the modifications to the venue après gig! Nice to know we may be whiny, but not crazy.

In other news, our second new video "Johnny"is finally released and you can watch it here. This is the second video out of three that were shot this summer, directed by Kyree Vibrant

Some of you may raise eyebrows because it seems to be short of a plot, however, it is actually a non-narrative dreamscape meant to evoke the feelings and images of the song's lyrics which are loosely based on Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars. I personally read that novel and it has got to be the trippiest piece of literature I’ve ever encountered, I bet he's gotten some of his treats from Lewis Carroll’s oven. So we ask you to please take a moment to watch our video, leave some honest comments, even if it includes how it looks as though we shot a video after eating “magic brownies” as Wilton Said put it. Ironically, while watching last draft of the video in the studio on November 30th, we've got sad news about Pavic death. So we are officially dedicating this video to him and his work...

On the happier note, Half Past Four was chosen to be an artist of the month of December on Power Of Prog website. A very first artists of the month - since the site is very new, but growing rapidly... They also gave our album a very flattering review... Check that site out, prog lovers, its a tresure chest of ear-pleasers.

We will not be playing any shows during the winter months but rather, we will be hibernating in our studio baking fresh confections using only our finest, top quality organic ingredients in order to deliver you our promised full satisfaction to your listening pleasure.