Presenting: The Heirs!!

Rock N Rolls Next Big Thing?

I stumbled across The Heirs when I was looking out for the newest Beady Eye track.  Some sneaky but clever marketing on YouTube and I was actually listening to The Heirs track “ Come N’ Get Some ”.  As of now 23, 827 other people have made the same mistake compared to the 1, 370 hits on The Heirs own YouTube page for that same song.

Noticing the Oasis influence on the song I was instantly hooked.  I needed more.  So much so that I had to track down Clayton Krebs of The Heirs to find out how I could get my hands on their music.  Lucky for me Clayton was generous enough to send me a couple of their tracks via email.  The tracks have quickly climbed into the 25 most played in my iTunes library, even ahead of some of my favorite Oasis tracks, and much farther ahead of any Beady Eye song released so far.

I asked a few questions as we were emailing back and forth, so I could better know just really who The Heirs are.  So click on a video below and listen to the wonderful sounds of The Heirs as you read the quick interview.  Let me know what you think in the comments!

Colin Enquist: How many members make up The Heirs?  How did you all meet?  Where are you from?
Clayton Krebs: Right now it’s two of us.  I sing and play guitar and Matt Blair who also plays guitar.  We trade back and forth with lead and live we both sing but on these recording you're hearing my voice.  When we play out we use different drummers or just play acoustic.  I expect to have a permanent drummer soon enough.  Matt and I are pretty much brothers we were raised together practically.  We hail from Ohio.

CE: When did you form your band? What inspired you to make music together?
CK: We've really only been taking it serious for the last year, maybe no even that long.  When we were in High school we were mad for Oasis and that was really the beginning of it.  Music kind of just crept in like a thief in the night and we were never the same; something just clicked.  Maybe we got a musical lobotomy one night in our sleep

CE: What genre of music do you consider your work to be? Who are your major influences?
CK: I don't know what genre we are I guess its a mix of things.  We've always said we will just write and put everything out there that makes the cut, kind of like The Beatles; they had so many different types of songs and we'll never limit ourselves in that same way.  Influences: The Beatles, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, Black Keys, The Last Shadow Puppets, White Stripes, The Who, QOTSA (Queens of the Stone Age), and The Kinks.

CE: Where have you performed? Do you have any upcoming shows?
CK: We've played round Ohio, Arizona, California, and we play bars, cafes, and campuses.

CE: Which songs do you perform most frequently? Do you ever play any covers? Do you have a set play list?
CK: We have a long list of originals already (most aren't online) but we love to play Oasis covers or Beatles covers the most but the set list always changes, we'll do an Oasis cover one night and The Raconteurs the next.

CE: Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs?
CK: The majority of the songs are written by me.  I'll start out with an idea or a mood I want to hit and then go from there.  Then Matt usually tidies up a few minor things and organizes my ideas.  Some take an hour to write or a few days to get it right or you have songs like "What’s Your Poison," where it took me 10 min start to finish

CE: In today’s day and age it is so easy to reach mass amounts of fans-to-be through the Internet, how are you using that to your advantage?
CK: Well its kind of like you mentioned "marketing", yeah some people were pissed to see that it wasn't really a Beady Eye track but the point is to get exposure and what better way then with an anticipated release and with a band that has a sound similar to ours.  I figure, this way, you're getting to people with a similar taste.

CE: How can fans-to-be gain access to your music? Do you have a website with sample songs or a demo CD?
CK: We're just using YouTube and MySpace right now. (The Heirs are also on ReverbNation and will soon be on iTunes)

CE: Any last words?
CK: Rock N Roll has been on the side/ back burner for too long and its time it took back its thrown.  There's something in the air, something big is about to hit and I want to be a driving force of that.

Thanks to Clayton Krebs for answering these questions for me.  I hope them all the best in their future endeavors and can’t wait to hear more of their music.

Make sure you check out The Heirs on YouTube , ReverbNation or on MySpace .  They just released a new track the other day called " More Than Just Pure (Sex Appeal) ".

The Great Burger Hunt - Delux Burger Bar

Tasty but expensive!!!!

This month’s version of The Great Burger Hunt actually took place in Edmonton.  Back to Winnipeg next month!!!

So Kelvin , Kevin , and I travelled to Edmonton for New Years Eve, to party with family and friends.  Since we were planning on a night of drinking we needed full stomachs!  At least I was hoping I could drink (and eat!) as I was still battling the flu at the time and was still having trouble keeping everything down.

Yet 2:00PM rolls around and Kevin and I were at West Edmonton Mall looking for a place to watch the Canada/Sweden World Junior Championship game.  With Hooters , Moxies , Earls , and Boston Pizza being restaurants we have in Winnipeg we decided to eat at Delux Burger Bar .

Now against better judgment I ordered a beer, and milked the shit out of it, since my stomach started rumbling as soon as the tasty liquid started filling it, while Kevin downed his terrible “house” beer.  Why people order those is beyond me.  We ordered our burgers and decided to split an order of sweet fries since the assumption was I was not going to eat much.

Kevin also got the server to bring him a good beer, Mississippi Mud, as we kept watching the game waiting for our food.  Almost as fast as Kevin’s second beer arrived our food followed.

Kevin’s Chipotle BBQ Chicken ($10.50) arrived loaded with caramelized onions, red peppers, pancetta, BBQ mayo on a fresh Kaiser bun.  The Delux ($11.50) I ordered was an 8oz Black Angus beef, blue cheese infused burger topped with caramelized onions, portabella mushrooms, double smoked bacon on a ciabatta bun.  It smelled like heaven.

The sweet fries ($6) came in a little shopping cart.  Kevin was thrilled about this shopping cart.

I had not eaten much food the past 3 days so I devoured this burger.  And yes it stayed down, even though my stomach kept rumbling like it did not want it to be there.

The Delux was exquisite and had a superb taste all around.  My only nitpick would be there was almost too much bun, being a rectangular bun, and a round burger.  I really wish more places used portabella mushrooms on their burgers, as they are one of my favorite toppings.

The only thing holding me back from ordering these all the time is the steep price, well, and that Delux Burger Bar is in another province.

Kevin said his burger was “better than sex”.

The sweet fries were good but not great, and a little undercooked.  The dill dip that came with the fries was top notch though.

Overall I think Delux is more of a treat than a normal burger joint you would frequent because of the price.  One day I will try their Kobe Beef Burger, but at the price of $20 it will take me awhile to pull the trigger on ordering one.

What I got: The Delux and sweet fries $17.50 (before tax).

Burger: 5/5

Fries: 3/5

Price: 1/5

Selection: 4/5

Overall: 3.25

A Review - Pedro & Me: Friendship, Loss, & What I Learned

"We honor those we love by remembering them" - Judd Winick

Pedro and Me is an autobiographical graphic novel by Judd Winick that truthfully does nothing less than educate you about AIDS and emotionally drain you.  The story is about Winick’s own friendship with Pedro Zamora , whom he met on the set of the MTV reality television series, The Real World: San Francisco , and how it changed his and arguably Pedro’s life.

I am not going to lie; I don’t handle books like this well.  Investing myself into a fictional character is one thing but investing myself into a story about a real person, when I already know it does not end well for that person, just leaves me crumpled in a ball of emotional frustration.

See Dear Zachary , I was an emotional wreck for about 6 hours after I watched that.

But Pedro & Me is almost always perched on top of peoples “best of” lists, even though it always seems like an afterthought once you are done scouring the rest of the list, but I knew it was a must read.  It sat in my Amazon shopping cart for a long while, always the book that got bumped because the order was too expensive.  Finally the book made its way into my hands.

Knowing full well what was in store for me I opened the book and began reading.  Right away Winick shows what being a minor celebrity can be like with one page, before quickly turning the next page into a sadness that he has to deal with because of that same celebrity status.

Pedro came into Winick’s life through MTV’s The Real World, and Winick begins the book by telling each of their life stories before they met.  Winick uses his own life as a history lesson on how misinformed he (and the rest of the world) was about AIDS.  But Winick tells Pedro’s tale like Pedro lived his life, as an educator to the misinformed (like Winick was).  Pedro’s friends were shocked, upset, and supportive when he told them he had AIDS. He tried to help as many as he could but it was not until his roommate Alex convinced him that the best way to reach so many people was to audition for MTV’s The Real World, which was where he met Winick.

Winick is honest about the awkwardness between him and Pedro at first, admitting that Pedro must have been more scared than he was, as he had everything to lose.  The bulk of the next chapter was all about the growing respect that Winick, and some of the rest of the cast, had for Pedro and his quest to educate as many people as possible.  Throughout this chapter Winick shows how Pedro was a wonderful person that you cannot help but love.

Knowing what was going to happen next does not make it any easier on you.  As Winick paces the story like an eternity, which I imagine it must have felt for Pedro’s family and friends over his last days.

Winick extends the story after Pedro is gone to show how meeting strangers (a little girl, a cabbie, and a stranger in an airport) has affected himself on the road as an AIDS educator.  These scenes were just as gut wrenching as the loss of Pedro was.

The fact that Winick told this story with you already knowing the ending and you probably will still managed to well up, like I did, throughout the entire book, just makes those closing chapters that much more emotionally devastating.

This book may have finally made its way into my hands but now this book has made its way into my heart.

Stories like this I cannot forget.

Please, donate to AIDS Research here .

Goals...

....guess I should set some.

Tis the New Year, tis the time to do some blogging finally this year, and tis the time to make new goals for oneself.  Or extend the goals from last year that you failed to achieve.  But since I honestly cannot recall any of my goals from last year I won’t require extensions.

The flip-flop my life took midway through last year probably changed the goals I had previously set anyways.

For this year I am not setting lofty goals, keeping my expectations lower so that I will complete them.  None are major goals but I still expect to hit them at some point.

Drink less beer – I don’t mean drink no beer but I really need to cut down on this tasty beverage.  This will be easy; at least I think so, since I have tried most, if not all, of the beers that the MLCC has to offer.  I see more Jack Daniels, bourbon and scotch on the horizon!

Write more – This has been a yearly goal for the past couple years.  I have probably accomplished it each year but I still need to write more.

Improve my editing skill s – This is my worst part of writing.  It needs to improve stat!

Cut down on my sports – Lets face it.  I watch far too many sports.  NFL, NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball, some NHL (playoffs for sure!), NBA (playoffs only), and EPL, and this doesn’t include events like World Cup, WJC, and the Olympics.  How do I find time for anything else?!

Managing my time better – This is always a problem for me.  Fixing this should be a priority.  No more last minute running around.

So what are your goals for the New Year?