Another Year with the Koalas

HEYO!

It’s that time where I tell you all what we did this year for new people because they don’t know and because everyone does this and WE JUST WANT TO FIT IN!! GOD!

Anyway, we started off this year on a high because we had finally started live performances. Last year, we popped our cherry with our first show at Clydes and we kept the ball rolling with a performance at Crobar on Crescent with our awful friends, Line Spectra for a nursing party organized by our hot friends from McGill Nursing.

We followed that up with a performance at Café L’Inconditionel, a venue which left much to be desired but we had a great time anyways and went to get blasted at Jumelji (I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE) around the corner with fans and friends. We also premiered our first new song of the year, Zombie Rock, which became a fan favourite.

There were many food-related days this year:

1. Deep Fryday in February in which we deep fried all kinds of food and felt awful afterwards.

2. Burger Summits in March and October with LS where we made giant burgers and were all fat and sexy afterwards.

3. Bacon Spheres.

4. Pie Night in October with LS with all kinds of different pies. It got sweaty.

We helped usher in a new class of bands by performing with Static Kings for their first show. They’ve gone on to perform many more times and we feel honoured to help them kick off their journey to being underpaid musicians.

We also understood the stresses of performing. We had a debacle on our March 12^th show at Underworld…Katacombs…Foufs…Playhouse! That day, the venue changed four times and we had to let people know the change in venue with very little time to spare. Luckily, the shows manager did an excellent job of finding us another place to play.

We put forward our first live CD that we recorded at Clydes where we played our whole repertoire as well as a couple of new songs, As I Do and Wake Into a Dream. Unfortunately, our newest song, Heartless, wasn’t ready by then, so we don’t have a recording of that one…YET.

We took a summer break because most of us were out of the country but I filled my time with performing in a Bon Jovi cover band and in a musical version of Hairspray (I HAD A MIDLIFE CRISIS, OKAY?!?!?). But we came back strong in July with performances at L’Alize with Inhale the Fire and another performance at Crobar during a mostly punk night in which we preformed a fan-poll requested song.

Flashing forward to September, we had a tuned up performance with LS for our most anticipated show so far, a party for the HEC students at UdeM. We popped in real quick and blasted some faces with Soul of Sam, who were awesome! We had a great time and it seems like all of the students did as well. SoS were a great bunch of guys (and girl) to be around and chill with. University girls; I get older and they stay the same age.

Our final performance of the year was back at Playhouse for a Halloween show. With LS, we helped debut Ready, Set, Bears!, a  new band Pete is in with his brother, Mike. It went late and got real moist but everyone had a good time.

Now, as the year is winding down, we’ve decided to also take it slow. Right now, we’re focusing on writing new material before we head back to the stage. We have one song almost there and plenty more ideas on the shelf that are waiting to see the light of day. We will keep you all informed on new shows and whatever else we think is interesting.

Thanks to Line Spectra, Static Kings, Inhale the Fire, Soul of Sam, Ready, Set, Bears! and all the other bands we performed with for making this year awesome.

Happy holidays from all of us,

Dan

i hate everyone in this band

Also, if Alyssa Milano is reading this, I'm in love with you.

Zombies, Starburns and Harvey Birdman

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to give a quick shout out to all the cool people that came to watch us perform at Playhouse last Saturday for our Halloween show! We had a blast and we were psyched to play with our good friends from Line Spectra and, Mikes new band, “Ready, Set, Bears! “ They were all awesome.

For those of you that, unfortunately, missed out, we played a set that consisted of Thriller, Basket Case (and yes, it took us about 5 minutes to learn), Resurrection and a medley where we jammed Starlight, Sugar, We're Going Down, California Gurls and Monkey Wrench right into the middle of next week, as well as some of our own.

There were great costumes from throughout the night that we will post on our Facebook page and just want to let everyone know that we will be taking a bit of a break from performing to write some new material.

We will see you guys soon with some awesome new songs to blast all over your faces.

Happy Halloween,

Daniel

Pies, Dinosaurs and University Girls

Yo what up!

It’s been a while since we’ve written on this thing, so I thought I’d take the time and let people know on what’s been happening.

Since our show at Crobar and now, we’ve played two different shows.

Our first was on Saturday, September 3^rd with our good friends from Line Spectra. We were definitely hanging out with them a lot during the previous month having both a pie night and an epic burger night. 

Pie night was pretty explainable; we just ate lots of pies including a Mexican shepherd’s pie (yes, I know it’s not technically a “pie” but it has “pie” in its name and it was delicious) and three desert pies that Kathy and Diana made. There was much drinking and Diana and I did the Italian thing and just drank straight Sambucca all night.

The epic burger night was full of giant burgers with fried eggs, sautéed onions and bacon. Then we played the WORST Jurassic Park game in Dianas house. It was extremely disappointing and every answer is “Gallimimus”.

Oh yeah, we also played a show with them at Clydes! It was awesome and good times were had by all. It also gave our good friends at HEC a chance to record some of our live performance for their promo video. “Promo video for what?” you might ask. “A promo video for their huge faculty party!”, we would answer. AND GASP YOU SHOULD!

A while back, Pete was approached by a friend he met at UdeM and suggested that we play at the big party for the HEC faculty. We quickly agreed as we saw this as a great opportunity to reach new fans and get even more exposure. So, that’s where we played on Friday, September 30 with the band, Soul of Sam, to a raucous crowd of 200+ university students. We had a blast, the beer was free and we even had a backstage! It was very slayer. The guys from Soul of Sam did a fantastic job and a big thanks to them for letting us borrow their equipment. Also, a big thanks to the guys at HEC for helping us set up and giving us this great opportunity.

Our next show will be a Halloween Spectacular on Saturday, October 29 at Playhouse.  We will be performing with Line Spectra, CloudHopper and Pete’s brothers band, Ready Set Bears. It’s going to be a costume party/contest, we’ll rock the night away and we will also be premiering a new song! You should all come by, not only to see a new and awesome band in RSB, but also because we’ll be taking a break from performing after this show to write new material and maybs record some more tracks.

That’s about it, jokers.

Peace out,

Daniel

Review: Storming the Crobar V2

This post was written by fan Stephy G since no one else in the band had bothered to update this thing.

Last July 30^th, the Koalas performed at Crowbar in Montreal. There seems to be a recurring theme to all the Koalas show; awesome music, free beer and lots of MOISTNESS! It was REAL sweaty in the small venue, but the band loves being close to their crowd. After a rocky beginning due to technical difficulties, the show got on its way into awesomedome!

To keep us coming back for more, the Koalas decided to spice up this show by having a poll asking the fans what song they wanted them to cover. Fan input is extremely important to the band; as much as the guys want to have fun, it’s even more important that we, the fans, have a great time. For the show that night, “Joker and the Thief” by Wolfmother won out.

The band members seem to continuously outperform themselves. To compensate for the lack of cowbell, drummer Chris Analytis added some cool drumstick moves which entertained the crowd. Singer Ben Bernier demonstrated his many music skills by doubling on Pete Daigles bass. Pat Renaud made all the girls swoon with his keyboarding skills. Guitarist Dan Verucci switched it up by playing with different guitars in order to give certain songs a different feel. This seemed to have peaked the interest of Kaioken (the opening bands) guitarist as he was unable to pull himself away from Dan during the bands set.

They even outperformed themselves on a birthday song to their good friend, Nads. If some of you remember the god-awful song they sang for their friend, Steve, at the Playhouse show, this version was SO much worse. It must take some sort of skill to write a song THAT bad.

All in all, the night was unforgettable, moist and filled with great music enjoyed by all.

-Stephy G

Update

 Hey everyone, Pat logging in !
it's been a while since i've done so and since there's a lot to talk about, i figured it was a great occasion to pollute the internet.

so thursday night, we had our first gig of the summer. it was at l'Alizé on Ontario Est. A very nice place, very friendly in a not-always-so-friendly-neighborhood. We were playing with two other bands, Inhale The Fire and Wide Mouth Mason. I had to leave early after our performance but from what i heard from Inhale The Fire, they were awesome! You guys should def. check them out on facebook. We had an awesome time and a pretty good amount of people showed up. We covered for the first time the legendary GoldDigger (WHICH WAS SO FUN). We did however get cut on time because of some fuck-up during the soundcheck period. Result: we had to cut two songs....hey, nothing perfect!

So yeah, next show, pretty soon: SATURDAY JULY 30TH AT CROBAR on Crescent. If you want tickets, text, call, message, morse code one of the band members. ps: there's gonna be beer. be there.

Talking about greatness, for those who don't remember, we recorded a couple of months back one of our shows at Clydes. Well, guess what! The CDs for that are ready! we had some to sell on thursday and we'll have some also on july 30th. They're 5$ each (pretty cheap for awesomeness) ANNNND when we'll get our real CD debut, if you hold on to that live CD, you'll get 5$ off to get the new cd. Pretty good deal, no?

Also, we have koalas' t-shirts! we have different colored logos (you can see them on our facebook page). you just have to tell one of the band members your order, we'll do our own order and you'll get it in no time.

OHHH i was gonna forget something important and urgent: we've got a poll going on on our facebook page. We invite you to vote for a song that you'd like us to cover on the july 30th's show. right now, i'm pretty sure Bruno Mars ''grenade'' is winning. so if you don't like the sound of that, GO VOTE! if you do, then still vote to ensure that we do play that song.

anyways, i'm out to hockey

Peace,

Patrick

Breaks and New Ventures

Hey everyone!!

Dan, here, updating this long overdue blog. So, as some of you may or may not know, Pete has gone to Mexico or something to cook for some underprivileged mermaids. So, we’ve decided to take a break until he gets back. We have some shows organized for July, one on Saturday, July 30 at Crobar. Don’t worry; we’ll remind y’all when the date gets closer.

The live record is being mixed as we speak and we’ll be going within a week to listen to it before we give the go for the final mastering. We know you’ve been waiting a long time but, trust me, there’s nobody more anxious than we are for this! Until then...

So, since the band is on break, I’ve decided to try to use my time to pursue other music endeavors. Last weekend, I got together with the fine ladies of Line Spectra and a new friend, Chris from Luther Higgs. The girls called me up and wanted to know if I was willing to play keys for this little side project they were thinking of putting into motion, a Bon Jovi cover band. Being a recent graduate and, obviously, unemployed, I had nothing better to do with my time, so I agreed. To make a long story short, it was all kinds of awesome! I’m not a hug Bon Jovi fan but I can say that I had a blast with these maniacs.

My second adventure came just this Thursday. Lana, an old high school friend of mine, needed a guitarist for the WISTA rendition of the musical, Hairspray. Seeing this as an opportunity to learn some different styles of music and jam with new people, I said yes. I just came back from a rehearsal and I had a lot of fun. I definitely have quite a bit of work to do (I got the music yesterday and, sadly, that wasn’t enough time to learn 25 songs) if I want to be ready but I think it’s going to be really cool. I’ll be performing this Friday and twice on Saturday at LPHS in Pointe-Claire, if anyone is interested.

As I come closer to the end of this blog, I come closer to the end of my beer and I realize that I’m drinking on a Sunday night…and that’s sad.

Peace out,
Daniel

New song, recording and bacon spheres.

YO.

Despite being in the exam rush (everyone else, not me, I'm done. nice.), we've been pretty productive lately.

First off, we're just polishing off a new song that'll be ready for our show next Saturday (Underworld on the 30th) and I must say, it's sounding awesome. REALLY looking forward to the show/MY BIRTHDAY. WUUUUUT. That's right, it's gonna be real good times pre-during-post show so come out, bring everyone. Seriously.

Second, we got the chance to listen to an almost complete version of our recording from Clydes a few weeks ago and it sounds great. We didn't hear the complete finish product yet, but already, crazy props to our friends for doing such a good job already. The second it's done, you'll hear it.

FINALLY. Bacon Spheres. Glad you asked. This is the brain child of The Koalas and Line Spectra, and Martin.  Martin is not in a band, nor is he a band, but he's a pretty cool guy.
So, Bacon Spheres are jalapeño peppers, cheese, egg and bacon, wrapped in spicy Italian sausage. We then take the cores and pop them in the oven to make sure they get real cooked. Once that's done, we wrap them in baconweave and put them back in the oven. Now I know what you're thinking. "but Pete, how am I gonna eat a bacon sphere without getting my hands dirty???". Baked potato skin buns. You're welcome.

OK IM DONE

- Pete Stains

Of Kings and Burgers

Good news everyone!

It’s been a few days since our rockin’ out of your ass return-to-Clydes show. First of all, we just want to give a shout out to all the people that showed up. You guys made it a really fun night and are awesome fans.

We’d also like to thank Static Kings for wanting to play their first show with us. We had a blast and thought that they played VERY well.

We thought that this show was the best one so far and demonstrated how we’re able to work cohesively together more and more. So much so, that we took the liberty of recording the show! Our friends, Dennis and Joe, helped with that and said that the recording was good quality. We should be listening to it real soon and getting that out to you guys ASAP. A huge thanks to them, as well.

On Saturday, we went to go see our very good friends, Line Spectra, perform at Piranha Bar. The place is pretty small, so it felt like we had the privilege of a private performance. Obviously, we danced and made asses of ourselves to the point where Vanessa started laughing while she was singing. They played a great set and are just some of the coolest girls we know.

This led to yesterday, where The Koalas and Line Spectra met for Burger Summit. Yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like. We got together with them and a few friends and made gargantuan burgers with onions, sausage, jalapenos, BBQ and hot sauce already in the meat. Then, we dressed them with sautéed peppers and onions, tomatoes, grated cheese, salsa, avocado and poutine. Needless to say, we were all fat and sexy afterwards.

Just a heads up, our next show will be in a month, April 30^th at Underworld. We’ll be taking the month of April to work on some songs and deal with finals.

If you want a custom made Koalas t-shirt, then let us know with the size, shirt colour (black or white for now) and logo placement and colour and you’ll be the bell of the ball wherever you go.

Keep it real,

-Daniel

March 12th Gig

Hey Everyone,
Patty Onions reporting on the underworld, katacombe, foufounes electriques, Playhouse Cabaret Gig, yesterday night.

First question you might ask: what the Hell happened? Here's the answer:

So on Thursday night, Kevin Fernandes (who booked us for the Café l'Inco show and yesterday night's show) was talking with the guy that books people for underworld (where we were supposed to play). The underworld guy says ''Alright, dude, i'll see you on monday'', to which Kevin responds ''AHAHA, NON! see you on Saturday!''. The guy: '' AHAHA! NON! you don't have anything on saturday. we've got a contract with some Asian people.''

Conclusion: Underworld double-booked the place. So even though our gig was the one announced on the  Underworld's website, and even though everyone at Underworld thought we were playing, we got bumped because the booking guy had a contract with the Asian people. SOOOO PANIC.

All day friday and Saturday, Kevin Fernandes tried to find another venue: He called Katacombe first. not available. Foufounes? Available, but i don't think they could find any staff for the sound so that went down the drain. Finally Playhouse Cabaret: Available AND staff available.
So the Venue was chosen at .... 3 pm on Saturday, so less then 6 hours before the show. you can imagine how everyone (Kevin, the band members, some friends that knew about the situation, etc.) were really stressed about this.

Even though the time/place change affected a good number of people, A LOT still came to assist to an amazing evening of music. For us on stage, it was awesome! the crowd at least gave the impression of having a good time, which is gratifying for us ! Crowd surf, (very) special happy birthday wishes to Steve, good music cheap-ish beer, the night was the perfect recipe for AWESOME.

Consequences:
#1 The guy from Playhouse said pretty much this : whenever you wanna book with us, the place is yours if you can bring as much people as you did tonight. pretty awesome!!
#2 Some important music person-producer-guy was there and loved us. more on this soon when we meet with him!!!

Anyways just to say that last night was awesome, again thanks to you guys who showed up! for those who didn't, no worries. We have a gig on friday the 25th of march, at Clydes in Pointe-Claire Village in the west-island (familiar place!). Also fun to know, we are going to be recording this show live, so we're gonna play ALL OUR SONGS (and we'll have more time on stage then at Café l'Inco, for exemple)!!! REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THAT!!! go see the event's page http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=185240121498857 . We'll be playing with Static Kings: their first concert it'll be very interesting to discorver what awesomeness they have to offer!! BE THERE!!!!!

Anyways, i think that's it.

going back the study the theory of the hermeneutic circle from Gadamer. someone wants in??

-Patty Onions out-

Grease

Last weekend, we had done something probably only hardcore Americans have ever done before.....

For starters, it's SPRING BREAK!!! Which means we are drunk all the time (not really, but really), and we had a Deep Fryday Sunday band practice, which was surprisingly productive.

You guys might all be asking yourselves: "Well The Koalas, what are a Deep Fryday Sunday band practice?" Well, to answer your question as best as possible without confusing anybody, we all went to the grocery store and bought a ton of everything: no-name brand oreos, avocado, broccoli, Reese's p-b cups, onions (not Pat... though we were debating deep frying Pat at some point), and finally all-dressed Belle Pro hot dogs. We then made an Alexander Keith's beer batter and covered all of the above then placed everything violently in the deep fryer. Surprisingly the hot dogs were the best part of that meal (if you would call it that).
Soon after we all felt like crap and were sweating profusely though we weren't moving much.

Much to our surprise, grease makes the creative juices flow and we put the final touches on the 2 songs mentioned in the previous blog. Chris's recently purchased cow bell provided a sensual touch as well. With only a couple more weeks left before our next show at Underworld, we are scurrying to perfect these 2 tunes as much as possible so we can blow your minds.

We all hope that your spring breaks are as eventful as ours,

- Chris (and Patty Onions in spirit)

Dreams, Plans and Nicknames

Heyo, everyone. It’s Dan writing this blog all up in here and bringing you updates and things.

So, it’s been a week and a half since our super sketch show at L’Inco and we’d, again, like to thank all those who showed. We’ll try to play in less feels-like-I’m-going-to-get-raped-at-any-moment places in the future.

That being said, we’ve been busy planning and song writing. One of our new songs (which is entitled Wake Into a Dream) is coming along nicely and we’re really excited about it. Also, New Song (which is a different song, KEEP UP!!) is pretty much done in terms of music but lyrics need to be written. New Song is a little more upbeat and different than what we’re used to writing which is what we really like about it!!

As for planning, we decided to take a break from performing for the month of February but we have two shows scheduled in March:

1) March 12^th, we will be performing at Underworld on St-Catherine’s and there will be a few other sweet ass bands as well. This venue definitely has heating...and walls...

2) March 25^th, we will be performing at Clyde’s once again with Static Kings. It’s their first show, so they asked us to usher them into the real world.

Last Friday, we had an acoustic band practice with our good friends, Nadina on violin and Mike on viola. It sounded really cool and we’re definitely going to try and plan a small show like that sometime in the summer.

Also, we’re in talks about having our very own t-shirts made and we will hopefully get that done by our March 12^th show so everyone can be cool and buy eight and a half.

On a final note, last night, the band got together at Brasserie Manoir here in the West Island…well, everyone except Pat who was at school. We had a grand old time with a few friends and that is when Ben took the band in a direction that will no doubt help us reach our goals of fame and fortune. Upon asking for Pat’s phone number, Ben stored it under a moniker that would, quite possibly, make the poets of old shit in their graves in amazement: Patty Onions. How did he think it up? Well, to divulge that secret would be like telling the world how to turn lead into gold. In other words…

Keep it real,

-Daniel

Show Reviews: From the Crowbar to the Bomb Shelter

Now, before I go on talking about the bands last two shows, one at Crowbar January 22nd and the one this past Saturday the 29th at Cafe L'Inconditionnel, I need to explain that I'll be doing this blog in two parts.

The show at Crowbar will be titled, the not-so-sober show and the show this past Saturday will be the sober show.

Now that we're all clear on that I'll begin.

I had a drunken, good ol' time at Crowbar. As far as atmosphere goes, it was the perfect spot for the Koalas to play a show. That nice mix of intimacy with that sloppy, carefree bar feel that's just screaming to be rocked. The band made the most of the cramp space (half the band was off the stage in order to make room) and put on a very solid show. Now, this is where things get a little hazy for me. I was about two and a half pitchers in once the band came on and I remember two things: I could finally hear Pat's piano which I took great joy in and I remember getting pretty stoked about "Zombie Rock," the band's new song that they debuted that night. All in all, it was a good follow up from the show at Clyde’s. I also would like to give a quick shout out to Line Spectra, who once again headlined with the Koalas. Those three ladies are absolute pros.

As for the sober show, I need to first express my reaction to the venue, Café L'inconditionnel, itself. Upon walking in with a friend, we both looked at each other, unsure that we walked into the right place. There was no heating, there wasn't much of anything there and it reminds me of the kind of bomb shelter Hitler and Eva Braun hid themselves in before they committed suicide. It was a fucking hole in the ground, but at least the stage was bigger.

ANYWAYS, the band's set was filled with a whole lot more energy than the week before (Due, in part, to a few of us in the crowd screaming the lyrics to Free Bird prior to the set). One particular moment that stands out was the newly tweaked version of Senseless Infinity, which carried a much better flow. Again, I'm aware that this is a slower number, but I point this out because it reflects upon the band's progression and their willingness to improve, which all good bands should do. Albeit a bit sloppy (perhaps something to do with the lack of heating), the show was more outgoing than the past shows and you could tell that the band was having a lot more fun, along with the audience. Zombie Rock was once again well received and was even followed up by an encore demand from the crowd. The Koalas encored with their cover of Cee-lo Green's Fuck You and ended the show on a relatively high note. Even with the venue being a frozen shit-hole, I could confidently say that everyone, including myself, left being pretty pleased with the band's set.

Oh, and that "sober" part of the night quickly became "not-so-sober" at the band's after party.

-Stevie

Post New Year News

Yo Guys,
Patrick writing. The Koalas have good news to start the new year.

UNO:
We have just finish a brand new song which sound amazing! Great riff (as always), crazy drums, awesome vocals. Everything you like! Teaser: the thematic is very...unorthodox.

DUO:
(a) We are playing our second concert in two weeks. On January 29th at the Café L'Inco. We'll be playing with 5 other bands and this should be a grand evening of musicality (all the details are on our facebook page).
(b)We are also playing for the nurses of (I imagine) McGill next Saturday (January 22nd). Dunno many details, except that it's at Crobar. If you wanna pass by enjoy good company (nurses), good music (Line Spectra and The Koalas and some other band) and have a good time, you are very welcomed, of course! Once again, it'll be our pleasure (and the people present's pleasure) to play with Line Spectra.

PS: if you think that two Koalas show is too much, the playlist is gonna variate very much between the two shows, so you definitely won't have an impression of déjà vu on the 29th if you were there on the 22nd.

TRIO:
Last friday, we started working on yet another song and sincerely, if the vocals that Ben is gonna create live up to the music that we've developped (which he will, of course!), this song is going to be, by far, my favorite. hopefully it'll be finished very soon.

QUATTRO:
we should be able to start recording in a very short period of time. All the band is very excited about this. the «démarche en studio» will be a great experience for us all.

I think that's it. I hope none of this was suppose to be kept top secret. If so, then screw it.

I'm out

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