Okay gang… This is my official BIG FAT THANK YOU list for the past events… These are people who understood the concept and actually “get it”. Please read, and if you ever bump into these people, you should give them a little shout out personally because without them, IME would still just be thinking about “doing some stuff”.

The Shows

First and foremost, a massive thanks and dirty man hug goes to Zeke Myers and the entire Sound Academy gang. Zeke has been after us for 8 years to play again and well… we just gave in so he would leave us alone. He has been an instrumental partner in shaping our re-onion, and planning and executing two sort of flawless nights of fun. His sensitivity to our concept was consistently accepted with a common sense approach that made sure he wasn’t the one “that ruined I Mother Earth” with these shows. He made it so that it was 100% our fault if the legacy became tarnished. Just how we like it. So thanks for that and here’s to looking ahead together.

Also manly yet very professional hugs to the great people around Zeke. Riley MacDonald, Mark Fortuna, Tony Grossi, Catherine Fowler and even “rest of staff”… (I don’t know you all but feel a little closer to you for some reason). The Sound Academy was gracious enough to let us use the facilities to “work our shit out” and didn’t make fun of us trying to relearn Meat Dreams. You deserve big fat raises along with the thanks…(well, not Tony and Catherine for obvious reasons) Just email Zeke, i’m sure he’ll take care of it.

There are a whack of Live Nation peeps who deserve a huge thank you. (I’m not sure if a bunch of promoters together is called a “whack”… maybe a pod, herd or den? Pretty sure they are called a skein when in a migrating formation though) Jacob Smid, Riley O’Connor, Brian Kehoe, Candace Valin and of course the wonderfully intimidating and divine Vanessa Arscott, a great big thank you to you and all of your staff for believing this pig could fly, and for asking people to pony up the dough to witness it. Hope we did you proud and we hope to work together again real soon like…. How’s your July looking?

The Edge 102.1 needs a thank you for getting involved and presenting the shows, and for years and years of support. Special thanks to Dave Bookman, Josie Dye, Dean Blundell and Ross Winters for helping us come back in this manner and basically showing the country what IME has always been about.

An intense full frontal full eye contact thank you to Jason Wells for keeping you all informed via website, facebook and twitter. He has worked together with my company Segment X for a long time and be assured, he knows more about you than your parents do … dirty birdies.

We also wouldn’t have been able to do this without Jacob Hamayda. Jacob has graciously allowed us to “work our shit out” at his studio and hasn’t complained once about the stuff we blew up or perhaps stole from him. (sorry you had to find out this way)

Our Crew

A massive thanks to our patchwork crew who came off nothing short of amazing throughout the week. These are the folks behind the scenes:

Sound: Chris Kaplinski. Chris and IME go waaaaay back and it was awesome to finally work together in this capacity. Thanks for a full week of hard work and two great nights. (and for not fucking with my tone!)

Lights: Jeff Sneyd. “Klinger” has been blinding us for a ton of years and we are thankful for it. Strobe seizures aside, it was great having you back in the fold. Thanks again for working with us throughout a long week of rehearsals and for the flawless shows.

Guitarland: Aron Gillman. Aron worked tirelessly building my rig from scratch throughout our 3 days of rehearsal as well as Bruce’s makeshift set up. We had a clean slate, boxes of pedals and switchers and miles of cable and through a ton of trial and error, got something up and running flawlessly for the shows. If you noticed, on the second night I even played my old beat up guitar with the writing all over it that I have had since I was 12-13…. Aron worked on that thing all week to make it playable and finished it right before hitting the stage on friday. Meant a lot to strap that one on. Thanks Aron for a great week, and just remember, theMothers is in E. See you in July. Shalom.

Drums: well, actually we didn’t even have a drum tech on these shows but at the last minute, our old drum tech Adrian “theTorso” Gorizzan just kind of popped out of nowhere. One minute there was nobody there, then I turn around and see the Friulano Phenom eating sandwiches and saying politically incorrect shit behind Bruce’s cabs. Thanks for just showing up and helping… loved having you there. Question: how did you get past security? Must have been the dress pants.

Film and Sound: huge thank you to Paul Taylor for organizing the documentation of all of the events for Segment X. Brandon Cooper from Dazmo for the awesome gear and for helping us accomplish what we needed to…So many cameras, so many people… All good. Michael Hurcomb Photography for getting involved and for the billions and billions of photos that rival even the best cell phone shots on facebook (yikes and egad!!) Saved By Technology for helping with our little software issues and sending in Steve Andrews for the recording on such short notice.

Other notable folks include Mark Fortuna, who bent over backwards for us throughout the week and handled every crisis in his abnormally calm and collective way. It’s disturbing I tells ya… makes me wonder what you have in your freezer. Also Ed Collins for keeping us up and running with the monitors even though we are old picky bastards… you responded admirable to our endless requests of “more”. Mike Kerwin, Dan Preston and Stuart Evans from Frontier Sound and Light: you guys are like family to us, ’nuff said. (you even know what we look like naked…. musically speaking.) p.s. Sorry about the milk crates.

On the Gear front: I just wanted to personally thank a few people who helped out in the gear department and in effect, got us up and running. Joey Osisek at Randall Amps for the absolutely kick ass awesome cabs I was using. They felt fantastic to stand in front of… can’t wait for the customs! (thanks to my old friend Steve Borisenko for introducing me… give some love to Nuno for me!) Mike McAndrew and David Koltai at Pigtronix: Stellar guys building stellar stomp boxes that help me sound way better than I do… like my sonic glue and ego boost…so much more to hear from these guys! Jessica Luther at Voodoo Labs. Ive been using their products for years and don’t plan on stopping anytime soon… simple and incredibly useful tools which every guitarist can’t do without. Joe Barlow at Long and McQuade Oshawa. Joe always knows what you need before you finish explaining and it’s why every guitarist gets told to “just go see Joe”. Stand up guys like Joe (who is also a kick ass player) should be the highest paid guy on the floor…. make it so L&M, it’s why we all shop there. Thanks for not making him wear a tie.

A very special kind of love goes out to the gang at Carparelli Guitars. What can I say? Mike Carparelli is a rare gem. Kudos for your tireless work getting high quality guitars into peoples hands, your constant effort raising money for various charities with your company, and most of all just being an incredibly decent human being. Of course Im happy playing your guitars, but most of all really just happy to know you… as more people should. Extra thanks to your right hand man Al Farrugia Ballach… Who actually has to put up with me on a more regular basis and hasn’t even tried to kill me yet, as well as Matt Antonacci from the custom shop for the beautiful neck! Support good Canadian companies like this people… We need more just like them!

On the personal front, just want to say thanks to Joel Carriere, Alan Cross and Nancy King for the kind words and good vibes you’ve put out there. Really appreciative to know people like you.

So thats it for now! As I keep remembering people I will add them in of course so forgive me if I have overlooked anyone…. It’s not on purpose! More thanks to come with regards to the recording of “We Got The Love”… Just give me a sec, I some other shit to do first!

jT