Heavy Things. Real Canadian. Real Rock..
Hailing from Tumbler Ridge, a small town Northeastern British Columbia Heavy Things has a sound that is both hard to define, yet comfortingly familiar at the same time.
With influences that run from folk to punk with stops along the way, Heavy Things has a sound that is all their own while still tapping into the spirit of Canadian musicians who have gone before.
While the band has a deep repertoire of covers, the emphasis is on originals. Their first album, Put to the Test, was released in 2009. You can listen to the entire album on the music page.
The band has been playing across Northern BC, headlining Peacefest and sharing the evening headline set at Grizfest with Theory of a Deadman and the Headpins in 2008. In 2009, they closed the Friday night stage at the Kispiox Music Festival.
For information on what the band is currently doing, read on. To listen to samples of our work, visit the music page. To find out more about the members of the band, go to the about page, and to book Heavy Things or to buy a copy of the CD, visit the info page.
Sweetwater, baby.
So next week at Sweetwater 905, there’s a double dose of Tumbler Ridge.
Not only will we be playing (and you know you want to be there for that), but Scott Cook will be there, too. Scott is a former Tumbler Ridgian, now based in Edmonton. He went to school with Ray, matter of fact.
This will be the last show for a while for us (nothing on the books for the forseeable future, and Blaine goes back to his masters in a few short days, so time to practice, let alone gig, might be scarce.) So, if you missed us at Grizfest. If you missed us at Peacefest. If you didn’t catch us headlining Lilith Fair, then you’ll want to at least come to Sweetwater 905.
Greetings from Marko.
Howdyo
It’s Marko here, writing on behalf of Heavy Things. We are being bad and neglectful website owners aren’t we? Three months since the last post and all the shows and fun in between??
I know we’ll get better, I just know it.
Here’s the story lately. We played in the Morfee Mountain Music Festival a couple of weeks ago in Mackenzie, BC. We had a good time playing and camping but the lack of people at the festival was a bit of a downer. Hopefully though they’ll keep their heads up and keep putting on the festival, we’d definitely go back there someday!
Last week we played at Bushstock 07 in Arras, BC. I wish we’d camped out all weekend as the people and the atmosphere there were just awesome, I’m really glad we played though, next year we’ll stay for sure.
This weekend we’ll be at Egan’s in Fort St. John with two other bands (Milking Chung? and Folky Strum Strum). Last time we played there (we opened for Nine Mile about a year ago) we played on their tiny tiny little stage. Heavy Things + tiny stage = Marko sweating. BUT they’ve got a new stage apparently! Come on out to the show Friday night (Jul 30).
And if you’re wondering why we’re missing from our own local festival that’s going on this weekend as well, let me know when you finally figure it out because I can’t. Now I don’t EVER get bitter at missing out on shows or having applications turned down, but a local music festival in a town/region this small and this hungry for some sustainable culture that we can call our own should lend itself to promoting local talent.
And not just us, there are lots of great acts in the Peace Region that would kill to play on a stage like that and for their friends and family. Every other music festival in the world (except the travelling ones) make it a point to support their local arts and culture…ours? Not so much. It’s like having a family reunion and not inviting your mother. And that’s all I’ll say about that! We’re pulling the trigger on our other offers and choosing to play in FSJ instead, which I know will be a great time!
See ya at the next show,
Marko
Sowing the Seeds of Vancouver.
Hey all.
We’re in the running for the CFOX Vancouver Seeds Contest.
Stage One is determined by popular vote. The 50 bands with the most votes move on to round two.
We’d like to move on to round two.
So here’s the deal.
Go to The contest page and scroll down until you see “heavy things.” Click on “Vote”. You’ll have to register, and then your vote counts.
Here’s the deal: you can vote once a day from now until the contest closes. June…7, I think.
So go back once a day, every day, from now until then and vote for us.
You don’t want to see us beg.
Or maybe you do. We can arrange that, too. Marko grovels with the best of them, so if you’re into that whole dom thing …
It’s on like Donkey Kong!.
Hey everybody. We’ve got two festival gigs coming up this summer.
The first is Morfee Mountain Music Fest in Mackenzie. We’ll be on stage Friday July 16, at a time as yet to be determined.
The second gig… oops, well apparently we haven’t finished the paperwork, so it can’t be announced yet. So, if you caught the earlier version of the story, just pretend you didn’t see that, okay?
We’ll try and get a few other gigs going, too, but with work and weddings and trips and, you know, just spending a day here or there with the families, there might not be a whole tonne of extra gigs. (We had to turn down at least three other festival gigs due to conflicts, including—and it breaks our collective hearts to say this—Edge of the World Festival, which we’ve been trying to get to for years.) There is one exciting bit of news on the horizon, but just a little far away…I can’t make…out…nope, sorry, can’t make it out.
But if we’re going to be playing somewhere near you, we’ll let you know, somehow, someway.
We’ll see you in Mackenzie in a couple months.
Heavy Things playing Dawson May 1.
Erect your Maypole, send in the Morris Dancers and crown your favourite May Queen as Heavy Things kicks of summer with a bang at Fynnigan’s Pub.
We will be pulling out all the stops for Beltane this year, celebrating the start of summer with a mix of original tunes and covers.
If you haven’t seen us live for a while, you’ll hear plenty of songs that weren’t on “Put to the Test” at the show. The new material continues our evolution as a band and is at turns more straightforward and more complex.
We’d love to hear what you think of the new stuff, so let us know at the show.
Amigos on Friday.
Just a reminder that this Friday is the Amigos show in Chetwynd. We’d love for you to be there, and we’d love to hear what you think of our new songs.
Why an ant?.
Some people have been curious what an ant has to do with the concept of Heavy Things, and why we have an ant on the front of our CD.
The underlying idea behind the image is that heavy is relative. One man’s heavy is another man’s lightweight. What is heavy for an ant, what puts an ant to the test is nothing for a human.
And yet ants are remarkable creatures and their strength to size ratio is phenomenal, as proven by this erecent award-winning photo.
Now, if only I could hang upside down while lifting 500 times my body mass with my teeth, I’d be set…
Three new tunes to debut at Amigos gig, March 12.
We’ve got three new tunes under our belt that we’re going to be pulling out for the first time at a gig at Amigos. Well, maybe second time, as we may be playing the Tumbler Ridge teen centre the week before.
Two of the songs were written by Marko and one by Ray, and you can tell which is which. The Ray songs have been practiced and practiced and practiced to get the timing and changes down pat, and I’m still struggling with the whole “which part goes where” concept. The Marko songs, on the other hand, we practiced once and were all like “Yeah, we could do that onstage tomorrow.”
That’s not to say that Ray’s new song (currently called “Ray’s New Song”) is difficult to listen to. It is actually quite listener-friendly; it’s just that to pull that off, there’s a lot of work that needs to happen on the back end. And the Marko songs are the sort of songs that just get into your brain, and the next time you hear them, you’ll swear you’ve known them for years. They just connect with you on that deep, primal level.
Anyway. All this is to say Heavy Things in Chetwynd, March 12. Be there. Especially you, Elvis.
