edson crazy days

You know you've made it when you're being asked to sign old hairy asses.

Yup. I'm a pretty big deal.
This particular ass is from the Nitty show, the picture is taken by the Reverand Lovejoy, and he so graciously sent it to me from his iphone and I have decided to share it with you my pretties.

As we were signing that ass, we were drunkenly booked for a birthday gig in edson, playing for the dude booking us, Brian, who had planned a surprise birthday party for his wife. So we get all set set up for this gig, drive down to edson, turn at the big
"Happy 40th Birthday Biatch" sign and get set up to play. But first we made ourselves alittle special friend. His name is Darcy. Old, self important, drunk, and quite sure that the Fab Tiff Hall is gonna go outside with him, smoke dope with him, then drive her band up to Revelstoke to play for his family, and then crash at his house. Yah, he's probably right, I'm totally into doing stupid crazy stuff. Not stupid crazy stuff with dudes older than my dad thank you very much. I'm an alcoholic, I'm drunk all the friggin time, and my beer goggles have been fine tuned.
The gig went well, we had some beers at old Castaways again, and tried to make friends with the band playing there. Who knows what they thought of us, but we didn't get kicked out of the hotel and I consider that a successful night for Tiff and the Jews. (Not our real band name, just a really bad inside band joke. But I'll keep it if you like it!)
Anyway I've sobered up since then, finished writing the last tune on the next album with Jesse Peters http://www.myspace.com/paramedicmusic and started looking for the next date I can book time with Jeff Olson at http://www.phoneticsound.com/ (who actually has a really cute blog posting about me if you'd like to see it!)
I've been a busy busy girl.
heart tiff

Western Gear

Adventures of being a warm up band for a band you've actually heard of. And so have your grandparents... my Papa most def knows "Fishin' in the Dark" I bet he can do the Cadilac Ranch. I apparently can't spell it, but I bet my 75 year old grampa can shake his ass to it... And knowing him, he's got a few ladies shakin' it on either side of him. #pimpdaddy
Did you see that? I just put a hashtag in my blog. What is this shit? Twitter? No. It's not. What are you doing up at this hour tiff?

So I finally get my shit together and print out my contract for this gig this weekend, and there are a few questions I have about it so I call up the dude that's taking care of it. We sort some shit out and then I throw in, mostly as a joke, "It says we have to wear western gear, is that fo' real?" I don't call him homeboy though... but he essentially told me yes. It's in my contract to wear country western gear.
I can't even write this blog without laughing to myself over that one. I'm relatively new to this music thing (in the grand scheme of things) and I haven't seen this yet. I'm prepared for the crazy ass things I'm going to encounter in this line of work, but I guess I didn't think I was going to be signing contracts that say I have to wear western gear. Oh well, I was born to break the rules, especially if they're rules about employment. So I told the band I didn't care what they wore, they just aren't allowed to look like the city kids they are. No scarves and skinny jeans boys.... Kyle always makes fun of the kids on whyte ave, says he can't drink on whyte unless he's wearing one of my scarves, but I have a memory (very blurry) of him dancing like Michael Jackson in a white jacket of mine that didn't cover his belly button, under one of those purple light things...
The whole thing is ridiculous! My shit! Nitty Gritty's shit! Cowboy hats and 1400 people doing the line dances... how did this happen???? We're not a country band! We're not even a rock band! We're not even a blues band!!!! But we know how to get the party started and I'm interested to see how this goes...
Like, look at those guys!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now picture me with my hot pink buttons that say "mother fucking fab" and my mother fucking blog, and Karma, and I just want to take his shirt off, and all my pretty shoes....
HAHAHA WHY THE HELL AM I OPENING UP FOR THESE GUYS??? WHO DECIDED THIS WAS A GOOD MATCH??!!! Of course, I want to do this, I want to play in front of any amount of people, let alone a sold out show of 1400, but why the hell did anyone pick me? Hey, I know, I kick ass, but in a whole different arena of kick ass then them. I'm in a different province of kick ass, if they're B.C. I'm the Hudson Bay or something...
Look! That's me! Hunting gophers in a cute poncho from Le Chateau... that's the only time I've ever spent any significant time on a farm and I had ballarina flats, a poncho and hairspray...
Oh well!
Then the next day I'm at Kyle's mom's house eating turkey and drinkin' tequilla like everything's back to normal!
heart tiff

Gittin' Gritty

Oh fer sure we're in. We had no doubts evah. Evah evah. If they didn't let us open up for Nitty I was gonna give up music all together. I know there's only a few things I'm good at, one of them is performing. Actually, until recently I thought maybe that was it! That was the ONLY thing I was good at, but maybe I'm alright at blogging. Lovejoy keeps telling me that my blogs make him laugh, so maybe I'll just keep blogging about our crazy road trips. And Oh em gee guys, the new band? They are crazy. We most def will be having crazy road trips. I can't even tell you about what was talked about on the way to Edson, it was seriously crazy! Funny/gross stories had to be stopped because they were pretty gross.
But we get to Edson start getting our stuff in there, I don't have a piano stand. We get up on stage, I don't have a piano pedal. No biggie. I'll play the piano laying on my belly and without any sustain-age happening. (no.)
Guess what else I don't have? The power cord. Oh! Sure, Tiff doesn't need a piano. I'm just queen of dueling piano extraordinaire and have never performed without a piano in front of me. So we do it sans piano. And obviously we killed it. Not 100% sure what to do with my hands, but I like moving around on stage, being able to turn and look at the boys, make my way over to whatever safe place I've put my beer....
and oooh nelly there were some of those afterwards. We make our way over to Castaways after we're all done, and there is a STELLAR band playing! Zoo Lion from Calgary who, apparently, opened up for fucking Bon Jovi. Same kinda situation as we just went through, they entered a contest and the prize was BJ (hahaha)
They were great. We chatted with them, got our drunk asses home, and woke up the tenant downstairs. He had no shirt on, and it was 6 30 in the morning... weird, but I was drunk enough still it didn't phase me. In fact I stayed drunk until we got back into the city, where I finally sobered up enough to pass out again.
Nice.
So if you're in the edson area, come check us out Oct 9. Word on the street is we're in Hinton on the 10th, but thats not confirmed. We're also at the Brixx Oct 29 but I'll get ya some more details on that when I'm done recording my demo today : P

heart tiff

Gettin' Nitty and gritty and possibly dirty

So I grew up in Edson Ab. Say whatever you want about it, I won't say anything here. But I've got some old family friends there and they let me in on something happening this weekend. We're trying out to be the warm up band for Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Now I know... I'm not a coutnry artist but what the fuck do I care? I like gigging, and I like gigging with names that I recognize. And I have to play fishing in the dark or that other one with the line dance all the time at work (ahem cough cough dueling pianos. feel free to book me to duel at your venue) so why the hell wouldn't I want to open for them? I think it's neat-o. And of course, the band has yet to have played together. YIPPEE. So speed rehearsal tomorrow! Not that I'm worried, they're good players, and it's typical cover stuff we'll be playing anyway. I'm more worried that I haven't heard back from the organizer of the event about how long we play for, if they want covers, or originals, what kinda gear do we need... so I don't even know how many vehicles we need to get to edson. Sigh. The worst part is that I'm sitting at home with nothing to do but wait for a list of people to get back to me. And I can't think of anyone else to get to in the first place so that they can get back to me too! So I play some dorky computer games, stalk people on facebook until I find someone else I should be getting in touch with. It's a hard job. It is!!! I don't know what to do is the hardest, so how do I do it? Anyway, I found this, so I'm doing something this weekend.

I played the ol' dueling pianos at Overtime in Sherwood Park this weekend and to my pleasant surprise, I was playing along Jesse Dollimont from The Consonance. We only got one boy to take a shirt off, but we gave away some shots and that makes for a good night of dueling piano in my books. Check out: http://www.youtube.com/theconsonance cause they've got some good stuff up there.
So... just checked the ol' email. nothing from noone.
This might not get me famous, but it could get me skinnier, which could get me famous so I might as well put it up here: I'm looking to join a soccer team again! Nothing competitive, just some ladies my age running around and having some fun. I like to practice and play games and I miss it. So if you're looking for a funny, once-was-actually-pretty-good-but-now-is-starting-to-get-alittle-older-and-fatter kinda player, then let me know!
heart tiff

Freakin' the Fuck Out

So I take myself on over to Long and McQuade. Buy two keyboards. Right there on the spot! But my stomach's trying to catch my attention and say "Dude! Don't do it! I'll poop right now if you do this!" I didn't poop. Don't worry. But I was pretty freaked out. I'm not the most financially stable musician out there right now, but I needed 'em. They're not as technologically frustrating as that last MONSTER I owned, but they have so few buttons that I am proud to say I already know how to work them. They have all the sounds I need, and there are two of them. Which means, Kyle better get his sweet sweet ass to work and build me some shells! And I have to save up money to get the rest of this fucker up and running. Like a new website. And my taxes. Apparently I'll need to pay taxes before anyone is going to let me be a legit business. Fuck them. Haters.
But I did pick my business name. Don't remember if I told you or not, but my company will be "The New Fab Music" and both of the musical acts will be "The New Fab Players" (that's a dueling piano show, and a full coverband act)
So slooooowly I make myself grow up and be more adult. And its scary as shit. But it's probably good it's taking so slow, cause I'm also scared shitless, so as long as I'm waiting to get some mullah together then I'm not stressing about the next step.
heart tiff

Coffee - nose cleaner

I want to tell you a quick story about me. About being computer retarded. I JUST noticed that there were any comments on this blog! Now I owe huge apologies to Andrea and Jesse cause I just saw them and they're good enough friends to comment even though I should be in Computer Kindergarden.
Also, another quick story: The Reverand (Nick Lovejoy drummer for the Gods) told me that he was reading a blog of mine and laughed so hard he had coffee coming out his nose. ehehehe I never meant to hurt anybody, just make them laugh until coffee came squirting out their nose.
Also, I'm writing today! With LoungeMD aka Jesse Peters (check out his blog as well! and his music!)
http://paramedicmusic.blogspot.com/
so we'll soon have something to show you guys.
ALSO. I'm buying a keyboard today, one of the two that will make up my new dueling piano company. Which I've decided on a name for! "The New Fab Players" will be up and running as soon as Kylie-wiley can do some building for me, and I can get this car-insuring-monkey off my back. Then I can buy the second keyboard and we'll be makin' some gravy! I'll let you know when you can check out a website, but it'll tell you to about the dueling piano show, also the cover band that you'll be able to book. (don't worry, it's fronted by me so its awesome) then I'll be a fancy business lady or something.
Thats it. Thats all I got for you at the moment. But come out to Overtime in Sherwood Park this weekend and I'll be there, dueling the face off of other piano players!
heart tiff

Makin' Musac

I've decided to like blogging. If it's not a chore then its funer...funner...something like that. It's ok. I can write about any old thing that I do and if it's funny to someone, awesome. If it's not, I'm not getting any famous-er right now anyway, so I might as well be blogging!
Had some drinks with Ms. Harper last night, talked about the dueling piano thang. We're trying to come up with business names for me. Something along the lines of "The Fab Tiff Hall and the Playas" Something... any ideas are welcome! I've got to go to some online thesaurus and look up different words for party, machine, hire me, and paying rent. I'm sure the anwser is somewhere in there.
Also went for drinks and found some bandmates!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jumping on board with me is the very handsome, talented, and smelling of nice young boys, I proudly introduce to you:
Ajay Paterson: the bully-er of all basses. No bass guitar can have any confindence after Ajay has spanked it all night long.
He's funny, he's single (ladieeeeees) and he told me his friends were drinking at Hudson's last night, and they weren't, so it ended up being just the two of us talking about our lives for the past 4 years or something.
Drew Malcolm: Guitar serenader! Guitar mamma's hide their young, soft, supple guitar baby girls away when they see this handsome young feller around! Lock em up! Lock em up! Drew's in town! He will make them love him and leave their guitar nest to follow him around the countryside! Playing Fab Tiff Hall shows and making human girl's scream and cry!
Last, but never least, but the shy-est of the group (I know, it's funny cause it's not true) Nick the Reverand Lovejoy: His anniversary is almost my birthday, his wife is gorgeous, and he'll give me a run for my money in a loud-obnoxious competition ;)
He'll also drum the shit out of any song on any setlist, and his parents will come and watch the show and entertain the band with stories of hilarious bumper stickers! He now has seniority over the other two, being in the band for probably a month or two longer than them. Feel free to wedgie them Nick. And to take the biggest piece of chicken.





Those are the boys! I may have some other fine musicians to introduce you to right away, so keep-on-a-readin! Also, if you have a gig, please book us! Or if you have any idea what my biz name should be, please tell me! If you see me on the street, please feed me!
heart tiff