Capharnaüm

[Stephan]

Hi folks,
Just a quick update to vent out my pain... I'm going through a hard part in the new song named Harpsy that I'm learning.
It's hard for me since it's a more guitar-oriented part where I have to pick every 3 notes of this finger-stretching chord!
Don't ask me the name of it because if I find out, I'm starting searching for it right away and will beat the hell out of it! HAHA!!

Seriously though, it's been a while since I posted something and rest assured guys that I'm still visiting the site daily and read a lot, I just don't have anything to say for now because my thoughts are all directed towards the music I have to play!

Anyways, I'll keep you guys posted about how it'll go after the briefing meeting we have this thursday for the january 20th gig!
We will discuss about lighting effects with the lighting crew and I think we'll elaborate a stage concept with some sort of costumes to fit with the video effects that will be projected on stage while we play! This will be awesome I tell you! All this will be filmed by at least: my wife with our full HD camcorder, a pro team from the organisation that are letting us play for them and probably a small pro team of two persons which are friends of our drummer to film us for our personal pleasure and for promotion of course!
We also got news about some other stuff that will gives us more exposure to the local medias. (Possibly: TV, radio, journal, etc...
Good stuff is happening to us and doors might open for us in 2009!

Cheers!

[Brian Dobbs]

Stephan, totally awesome.  Thanks for keeping us in the loop.  Looking forward to seeing/hearing..

[Aswepe]

Looks like good news continues to flow in your direction. Along with those little challenges life seems to throw at everyone.

Congrats again & keep us posted.

[Stephan]

Well guys, this is almost it! Tomorrow we're hitting the stage once again!
We're playing at a small club named Les 3 Minots in Montreal along with No Land, an experimental progressive trio and Feed The Ghost (http://www.myspace.com/feedtheghostband), an alternative rock band with a nice progressive touch.
I think that after all the frustrations and bad stuff that happened to me lately, this gig will be some sort of salvation for me!
I just wanted to share my thoughts with you guys at this moment and I'm really sorry for the lack of updates lately, I'm very VERY busy!
Later!!

Stéphan

[Stephan]

Update:
The show yesterday was a great night for us (the band) and for myself personally!
I've not felt that euphoria often in my life. The only other time I felt that was when I played the first gig of a Dream Theater tribute a few years back nad it wasn't even close to what I felt yesterday. Yes I've made some mistakes in some of the songs but overall, the band was really energic and the crowd really gave us back what we gave to them!
The bar owner kept repeating me for like 15 minutes straight how beautiful our music was! He's a huge fan of the band for quite some time now.
During our song Atomic Disco, he had the idea to start the disco ball on the ceiling and he played with the light to create something really awesome! I have the chills just writting it! hehehe
This event was one of the pinnacle for me yesterday: I was in "the zone" if you know what I mean! Really into it and headbanging a bit looking down on my bass giving all I had during that sond and, at some point, there's this passage where it fells uplifting so, naturally, I straightened back and looked at the crowd and that's when I noticed the disco ball making small dots of lights turn everywhere in the place! Man, this was TEH awesome!! ehhehehe
There was also this really nice guy, Dustin, a friend of the band who was using multiple small cameras and my full hd camcorder and was filming us all over the place, this should get us some really nice footage!

Alright guys, I'm still exhausted, I've been to bed at 5h30 AM and got up at 10h30 AM to go get my dog back from the dog kindergarten(sp?) place and now it's 13:30 PM here.
I'll keep you posted on the next gig on january 20th which will be at least as fun as the one from yesterday!
Thanks for reading!

Stephan

[Brian Dobbs]

wow man, thanks for the great description.  How teh cool!  :-)  I can envision you getting into it.   Any pictures?

[Stephan]

There is a lot of pics on the facebook event page that I created:
http://www.new.facebook.com/event.php?eid=38419827142&ref=nf

[Brian Dobbs]

Stephan, are non-facebook members allowed to see the photos?  I don't have an account.

[Stephan]

Good question!
I just logged out and tried the link and no worky... 
Oh well, I'll see what I can do and post them somewhere, probably our MySpace... I'll have to ask the guy that took them first.
Thanks to pointing it out though!
Now, it might be a good reason for you to create yourself a facebook account? 

[Stephan]

Hey peeps!
It's been a long time since I've posted something in this thread, I know!
Here's some news about Capharnaüm:
Tomorrow (thursday), we are rehearsing with the full crew for the big event that'll take place on january 20th at the Club Soda in Montreal!
I'm ecstatic about it because last week-end, we gathered at Marc-André's house (one of our guitarist) to rehearse the 30 minutes concert we will give there and, we actually have assembled a new composition during those two days!!! The new song to me is really what it's all about when it comes to feelings and emotions in a song!
I've listened to it many times since and it just grows on me every days and I can't wait to play it live!!
I would describe the ambiance of the song as follow: Imagine yourself in a semi-sleep, sort of half awake, half-conscious and that you're feeling like you're floating and feeling so well. It's very mellow and melodic but also, with lots of polyrythms and the dynamics in the song are incredibly adding to it!
I can't stop thinking that I'll be part of the recording of this gem in a studio in the upcoming months!
Another cool thing about this session is that François played a lot of material for the new album and, I must say it here: this guy is a machine! The sounds he's creating and the moods that comes from them is unbelievable!
2009 will be a good year for music and especially for Capharnaüm! I don't recall being that motivated about something as I am right now and I think that feeling is shared among the four of us in the band!
Alright, that's it for now, thanks for reading this!
I'll keep you guys posted about how it went!
Take care!
Stéphan

[Brian Dobbs]

sweet man, as always, make sure to grab some pics.  i got the new song and i'll add that to the playlist soon.

[phyziczteacher]

Hey dude! That is swwweeeettt!

I really want to hear that new song you guys wrote after your description! Don't tease me like that 

Good luck with your gig Thursday! I know you guys will rock it out.

good to hear from you my friend,

Tim

[Aswepe]

Best of luck with the gig & the new song.

Knock 'em dead!

[Stephan]

This is it guys. This is the night me and the rest of Capharnaüm have been waiting for quite some time now!
We're playing a nice venue tonight at Club Soda in Montreal!
I've been at some video show rehearsing sessions as well as musical rehearsal and visually, it will be quite something!!
All this will be filmed and the sound will be taken directly from the board so, we'll have a very nice promo vid to get to that next level we all wants to get to!
We're playing for about 30-35 minutes consisting of the following setlist:

François' intro
Tokamak
Deo Gracias (new composition)
Feedback
Bulle (the newest composition)
Atomic Disco
Toutankamion (new composition)

Half of this gig is composed of new material and there will be many show business people attending there so, send us good vibes about them noticing us enough to talk about the band to higher instances of this industry!
Alright, I'm off to the soundcheck already!
I'll keep you posted maybe tonight after the gig or tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Stéphan

[Brian Dobbs]

awesome.  feedback is going to rock.

[Aswepe]

We're with you in Spirit Stephan!

Knock 'em dead.

[Stephan]

Guys!!! This show rocked my world the ENTIRE night!
I'm still a bit in shock about everything that happened from start to finish!!
What a great moment yesterday has been for me!!
Oh and before I forget, David from Neodyme was there and came to talk to me after the show!
Thanks David for coming and say hi! I really appreciate it and I'm sorry I haven,t talked with you more when we met, my wife was waiting for me upstairs and I had some friends that were about to leave that wanted to say hello and after that, I looked for you but I guess you were gone.
I guess you'll be of the next gig's crowd? I hope so!
As for the show review, as I'm writing these very words, I'm unloading my HD camera video files shot by my wife yesterday on my laptop and will burn them to an HD dvd and watch it. Then, I'll be more objective about a review of the show.
But my gut feelings are that this show was the most fun thing I've ever done in my entire life so far!
I'll keep you all posted very shortly!
Later!

Stephan

[Brian Dobbs]

oh that's cool that Dangig showed up!  How was the show Dangig?  Can't wait to see the HD footage.

[Stephan]

Man.... Just watched the HD movie!!!
The images is awesome, the sound is pretty nice but not excellent, I would have taken more bass into it!
Overall, it's as cool as I thought but there's one HUUUUUUUUUUGE detail that is pointing out it's nose BIG TIME: speed!!!
We play as fast as cocaine addicts on a rampage for neverland!
Boy it's fast!! It's tight, but way too fast! HAHAHAH
But, I'm still happy and satisfied! It's just something we talked about and tried to get working but it came down to this: we played too fast, that's done, it's over, we move on!
As for showing it to you guys and for that matter, the entire Web populi, I'll have to show it first to every band members and see what they have to say on it and about what we'll show if any of this is worth showing.
The thing is, we will also have a nice, well produced, mixed and packaged DVD of the entire show in a few weeks and it might be better for us to put bits from this one instead.
I'll keep you posted on this one too!
Alright, time for me to go to bed!
Thanks for reading!

Stephan

[Aswepe]

Congrats Stephan of the performance & on the video.

I remember many of my bands playing way too fast in the heat of the spotlight. It goes with the territory.

Judicious editing of you video may result in an acceptable package. Hope it works out man.

[dangig]

Hi,

As Stéphan said, all four members of Néodyme went to see his show Tuesday night : great show!! Guys are tight and play with emotion. Maxime (drummer) really impressed me with its playing and its enthusiasm on stage, his way of living the music is quite special and really cool to watch. So is the entire band! I would like to say more about Stéphan, but could not hear him really well... that's the only negative thing I have to say (and it ain't the band's fault), we really could not hear the bass. I went in different spot in the venue, but the sound was the same overall.

But, since it was a show organized by the School of show business, sound man was probably learning. Those things happen... Still, it was a really great show!! You guys prog!! And the crowd was very receptive and liked it a lot!

It's totally normal Stéphan that we could not talk more, it was a special night for you and seeing your friends and wife is more important. I totally understand that, there's no reason to feel sorry about that :-)! As I live 30 minutes from Montreal and have to get up at 4:45 am, when the clock hit 10:00pm, it was time for me to go!

And by the way, my name is Daniel and not David (no offense :-)).
Continue to prog on Capharnaum, congratulations!

Daniel & Néodyme

[Stephan]

First, sorry for naming you David, Daniel!
Second, I got some more feedback from people that attended at the gig about the sound and it's true, the bass wasn't getting through enough to be heard as it have should.
The soundman of the club soda stayed in the backstage so he wasn't able to help the student that was doing the sound.
What can I say? Shit happens even at the most important gigs, no biggies!
As for Maxime, true, this guy's amazing both musically and personally! I enjoy him being around when we hang out, he's a cool dude! So are the two other band members, François and Marc-André!
Thanks for the cool comments and I hope to see you at another gig either to ours or yours!

Stéphan

[Brian Dobbs]

it's just so cool how you guys were able to hook up.  small world, isn't it?

[Aswepe]

it's just so cool how you guys were able to hook up.  small world, isn't it?

True That

[TheKillingHand07]

Just listened to Atomic Disco, very cool I must say! Great melodies and very tight!

[phyziczteacher]

Just wanted to say congrats my friend! When I get more time, I'll really check that out!

Rock on!

Tim

[Stephan]

Hello everyone.
I haven't posted about Capharnaüm in a while and for a good reason.
That reason is that I'm no longer in the band. It's a mix of personal matters and common agreement with the other band members.
I wasn't feeling "at home" even if i tried really hard to make me believe I was. Don't get me wrong, it's not anyone's fault, especially not other band members' but more, of just a feeling that won't go away...
Maybe I have been on the bench too long doing simple muic, not keeping the chops up and tight, I don't really know.
What I do know is that 2008 and the beginning of 2009 have been bad for my wife and myself on a lot of aspects and I think it got to me more than I could realize at the time.
I still LOVE Capharnaüm's music!
I have the same respect and friendship feelings with every members of the band and, I will for sure continue to foolow them wherever they go in the future.
On their side, they also had issues with my lack of "getting there" with my playing which was putting me in an uncomfortable position on their end because, they didn't really know how much time I needed to finish the learning of the existing songs so we can move on to the composition process.
Composition-wise, I know now that I didn't had what they expected me to and, this is also a factor I believe.

All in all, I had a fun ride with them as a member of the band and will have a hell of a ride following them from a fan perspective!

They asked me if I could stay on stand-by for 2 gigs (big ones) in the summer if they don't get a replacement that can learn the songs fast enough and I accepted because, I still know the songs I've learned and I still continue to play them as they are good exercises to keep the chops going hehehe!

I really wish the best for Capharnaüm and hope you guys will still be interested in them with anything new they will put out!
Anyways, I'll stick around in here to keep y'all updated!

So, my final word goes out to François, Max and Marc-André: Thanks guys for the ride and I wish you the best!

Later folks!

Stephan

[phyziczteacher]

What I do know is that 2008 and the beginning of 2009 have been bad for my wife and myself on a lot of aspects and I think it got to me more than I could realize at the time.

Bro, I've been there and know where you are coming from. I'm sorry to hear you had to part ways with Capharnaum, but it does sound like it might be for the best, because all efforts should be made to help save/salvage or get through rough spots of a marriage (whether they be from the marriage itself or outside circumstances).

My prayers go out to you my friend. Feel free to PM me about anything.

All the best,

Tim

[Brian Dobbs]

Stephan, you already know this because we've exchanged PMs, but I'll post here anyway...

I'm sorry to hear about the situation at hand.  If you wouldn't mind, can you let the rest of the guys know that they are still welcome on this forum and we'd be really interested in hearing more about Capharnaum

[Stephan]

Hey Brian!
Of course I can do that! Actually, I'm pretty sure they will pop in here sometimes when there's news! The only guy from the band that might come is François because he's the only other band mate that has internet and uses it a lot. But he's away for his work right now so, it'll maybe take some time!
I'll pass the message anyways!

Later!