The Official Blog of Bobs & LoLo

Summer is motoring along, and it is the season for family road trips! Whether it’s a weekend away or just a day trip to the city, long hours of travel can be trying for everyone.

We are currently in the final week of a month long tour in Alberta, and since we left Vancouver at the beginning of the July, we’ve logged more than 1500km in the B&L-mobile.  One of the most common FAQ’s we get from families after our shows is, “How do you two stay friends through all the long hours on the road?”

Day 11: Our glamorous life on the road…nothing feels better at the end of a three-show day than a wet wipe & a toothbrush!

This is a pretty fair question given that we typically see each other more in any given month than we do our hubbies and a lot of our time together is spent in a fully-packed van or a small hotel room.

So, how DO we make it work?

Well, the fact that we LOVE our jobs is a big plus. We’re also very lucky that our personalities complement each other so perfectly.  We attribute a lot of this to the older sibling/younger sibling thing!

That all said, it’s not always happy dancing, smiles and bubbles. We’re the first to admit that life on the road isn’t always easy, and we both have our tired and cranky moments. Below are a couple of tricks & tools we practice to help stay sane and keep our friendship strong:

1. Snappy snacks. We always have crackers, trail mix or fruit stashed in the console between the seats. We’re on an anti-low blood sugar program!

2. Share driving. Switching drivers every 2 hours is simple yet effective.

3. Music. It is amazing how the hours fly by when you’ve got good tunes playing!

4. Make time to decompress. When we’re on the road for long periods of time, we make an effort to schedule in personal time. Workouts, movie nights or even sleep-in days all help!

5. Friendship first. We try to manage the ups & downs of the biz with cooperation and compromise and a lot of laughter. Fortunately, in our world we’ve got a lot to laugh about!

Day 18: We got spotted in the hotel pool by a couple of fans! The best part is that they came by in their pj’s to get us to sign their CD!

To see more pics from our recent adventures, please check out our daily photo blog at  www.facebook.com/BobsandLoLo.

Our next stop is the Capital Ex in Edmonton where we’ll be performing 2-3 shows per day in the Family Fun Town from July 28 – August 1. Join us! It’s the perfect excuse for a road trip…

What kind of tricks do you have to keep travel fun?

Bobs & LoLo

After a lengthy red-eye flight across the country, we arrived for our first visit to scenic St. John’s, NL!

First impressions:

1. Cold – snow flurries & biting wind all day!
2. Beautiful – love the historic architecture, colourful row houses and coastal views!
3. Tasty – fresh seafood and yummy local eats have been a hit with our entire group!
4. Friendly – the people are AMAZING!

We started the ‘work’ side of our trip with a special performance at Larkhall Academy. Nearly 350 elementary students and staff celebrated a $10,000 MusiCounts instrument grant for the school’s music program, and we were thrilled to be invited to share a few songs as part of the festivities.

MusiCounts, Canada’s music education charity associated with The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) is helping to keep music alive in schools across Canada. Since 1997, over $3 and a half million has been donated impacting 214 post-secondary music program graduates and over 250,000 individual students, their schools and communities, from coast to coast. It was a treat to meet Larkhall music teacher, Susan Lee and some of her students at the event!

Tomorrow we will be taking in a little sightseeing (weather permitting – did we mention it’s snowing here?!) and heading to our first official JUNO reception at The Rooms. We’re also really looking forward to meeting some of the other Children’s Album of the Year nominees on Saturday morning at the Kids’ Jam for Janeway concert. We’ll be sure to continue sharing stories throughout the rest of our trip. Please feel free to also follow us on Twitter or Facebook for regular daily updates!

Please send warm, sunshine-y comments only…:)

Bobs & LoLo

It seems crazy that only one week has passed since we received news of our 2010 Juno nomination. Thank you for all of the congratulatory emails, tweets, blog comments and Facebook messages. Your encouragement and support means a lot to us!

In our last post, we mentioned our excitement about travelling across the country to share in the Juno festivities. Against our rather conservative fiscal judgment, we booked the trip to St. John’s and splurged on guest tickets to the award events for our hubbies. As we started to swallow the price tag of our new Juno nominee status, we also received an email inquiry from a representative with MusiCounts – a non-profit organization dedicated to keeping music alive in schools across Canada - asking if we would consider flying to St. John’s early to do a show for a school-aged audience prior to the Juno weekend. Were we interested? Of course!

Then reality set in. As we started looking at flight change fees plus two more nights of accommodation, the total costs of the trip seemed to be getting more and more out of reach. Could we really afford this? Could we afford not to? Friends kept telling us “it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity”…although no one was offering to pick up our VISA bill.

Rather than sit and dwell on it, we went out on a limb and sent a tweet to WestJet.

It read: Just changed flights to arrive at the Junos early to do a kids’ charity event and the travel costs are CRAZY! @westjet we need your help!

Imagine our shock when less than 2 hours later a representative from WestJet contacted us to ask for more information. By the end of that same day, WestJet had officialy offered to subsidize our flight change fees and waive the difference in the fares to fly out early (we got a sweet seat sale on our first booking). Here is a snippet of an email we received from the airline…

“As an organization we are very supportive of children and make flight donations to organizations that are focused on children’s health and wellness. While music isn’t directly related to children’s healthcare, it definitely affects their happiness and is an important part of their wellness. Since you are traveling to St John’s to donate your time for an event that will benefit children and music, we would be happy to reverse the change fees for your new flight.”
 

We heart WestJet. St. John’s here we come!

Bobs & Lolo

When our friends discuss work, career goals, job satisfaction and the general mish mash of “shop talk” that comes up in circles of young professionals, we usually just smile, nod and smugly reflect on the fact that we have the best jobs ever! We are also usually quick to throw in comments about the benefits of working for ourselves – bosses we love, jobs we love even more, PJs ‘til noon, meetings at the beach – the list goes on and on!

That said, we are constantly evaluating, assessing and revamping the ever-growing world of B&L. As we continue to muddle our way through the business side of things, we are always developing new strategies to manage an increasing workload while planning for the introduction of new team members. I believe we may have mentioned our dream of an office administrator and roadies one, two or many times in preview posts! We also informally collect feedback from kids, parents and educators on an ongoing basis to help guide the development of our live shows and other projects.

Contrary to appearances, it’s not all fun & games!

So, today’s project in review – the B&L Blog!

Our blog has served a number of purposes:

1. We use it to share information about upcoming shows.
2. We use it as a diary of sorts to recount stories from the road and/or behind-the-scenes adventures.
3. We use it to relay exciting announcements and news flashes.
4. And occasionally, we use it to share fun finds that we’ve stumbled across in the course of our many musical adventures.

Clearly, our blog is multi-dimensional and our posts often ramble along a not so well-defined path. Eerily similar to our careers…!?

So, what do you think? We know we have a few regular readers out there, and we’d love your input. Are there particular blog posts that interest you the most? Are there things you would add? Change? Do you love it as is?

What do you think?

Please feel free to leave your comments below or email us your thoughts at info@bobsandlolo.com. We’d love to hear from you!

Alternately, if you’d prefer to tell us in person, please join us tomorrow, January 30th at ArtStarts on Saturdays in Vancouver, BC. We’ll be delivering two special performances for families at 11am & 1pm. This unique and intimate performance series takes place in the ArtStarts Gallery at 808 Richards Street. Admission is FREE and no registration is required. Space is limited, so please plan to arrive a few minutes early to guarantee a spot!  www.artstarts.ca

Bobs & Lolo

We are excited to be taking our show home for the holidays with a special family concert in our childhood town of Nanaimo, BC. We’ll be hitting the stage at our high-school alma mater, Dover Bay Secondary this Saturday, December 12th at 2pm.

Having performed more than 300 live shows across Canada this past year alone, we’re looking forward to returning home for this event. The festivities are a perfect way to wrap up a crazy year and celebrate all of the wonderful musical adventures we’ve shared to date. With our newest album having received a 2009 Parent’s Choice Gold and a Western Canadian Music Award plus the whole Treehouse TV thing, getting an opportunity to celebrate with fans in our hometown will be amazing! Plus, we’ll be sharing the stage with our full band and both backing musicians are previous ‘islanders’ too. Mario Vaira will be on guitar and Mark Harvey on bass…the kiddie mosh will surely be rockin’!

We first met at a Girl Guide camp in the late 1980’s and following a fun-filled weekend of campfires, sing-a-longs and outdoor fun, a life-long friendship was sealed. We were both thrilled to end up at the same highschool (Dover Bay) a few years later - Bobs & Lolo were actually our highschool nicknames! We soon started performing together through numerous choir concerts and piano recitals, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Retro Bobs & Lolo (~16 yrs old) - not much has changed!

We hope to see some of you at the event this weekend, and regardless, we’ll be sure to post some pics on our Facebook Group next week. Happy holidays!

Bobs & Lolo

Event info:

Bobs & Lolo are performing at Dover Bay Secondary on December 12th at 2pm. Tickets $8 in advance or $10 at the door. Children under one year FREE. Advance purchases recommended. Tickets are available at Kool & Child and Kiyo Salon in Nanaimo. For more info, please call 250-758-9727.

Doors open at 1:30pm. Be sure to arrive a few minutes early to enjoy the complimentary arts and craft stations. Kids will also be able to check out a fire truck with a special visit from the Nanaimo Fire Department (1:30-2pm).

As many of you know, when we first started performing for kids, we did a lot of birthday parties…A LOT! On average we would fit in 4 parties per weekend – a schedule we kept for nearly 3 years!

Molly’s birthday party! (Jun 2006)

Birthday bookings proved a great way for us to practice new content and learn what worked well with the kids. Plus, the experience gave us the confidence we needed to move onto larger audiences and transition from living rooms or backyards to real stages. Due to an increasingly busy schedule, we stopped offering our birthday party packages a couple years ago, but we have been thrilled to continue hearing from families that still include our music during their family celebrations.

We were excited by a recent Facebook message from the Wang Family, and we wanted to share the story of their daughter, Hayden’s, 1st birthday celebrations!

From Hayden’s Dad…

It was my daughter’s 1st birthday, and since she loves B&L, we had a B&L themed party.  We had B&L playing on the stereo (all 3 CDs I might add), and we had the On Your Feet DVD playing on the TV.  Everything my wife did in terms of décor was fashioned like the cartoon-y images on the DVD (bugs, trees, butterflies, flowers etc).  The room was filled with them. I even made little B&L name cards for the kids. There were also cut out music notes and flower confetti on the tables and “grass” centerpieces.  We even tried to get the cake like the DVD images with trees, lady bugs, flowers and more!

As the icing on the cake (pun intended!), here’s a copy of the text that the Wang’s included with their guest invitations – those of you familiar with our songs will surely recognize some of the words! We were super impressed with this…

Something special is in the air,
Flex your muscles and let down your hair,
Just like that I’m turning one,
Let’s go marching together and have some fun,
Musical adventures are what I adore,
Get on your feet and let’s hit the floor!
It’s sure to be an action packed day,
Just be ready to shake it up, okay?
If you haven’t guessed Bobs & Lolo are the best!
Get on the right track and I’ll take care of the rest,
One year already, how I go, go, grow,
So skip, hop, and jump and I’ll see you at the…..PARTY!!

It’s nice to be polite so please RSVP!

Our thanks to Hayden and her family for sharing stories of the birthday adventures with us! We were so flattered and touched to see how much they enjoy our music!

While on the subject, we wanted to flag a couple of great birthday ideas/resources. Be sure to head to Green Planet Parties for lots of tips and ideas for eco-friendly party planning and products. And, if you’re in the BC Lower Mainland area, check out the new nature-themed birthday party packages in Stanley Park! The Stanley Park Ecology Society will host a tailor-made party for your active, nature-loving kids. Bug hunts, forest walks, nature art and more! Program booking also includes use of a great party space (w/ access to kitchen) for snacks and gifts in the historic Stanley Park Dining Pavilion. For more info, visit www.stanleyparkecology.ca or call 604-718-6522.

Hope to see you soon!

Bobs & Lolo

Raindrop Pop season has definitely arrived in Western Canada, although we might have to create a “raindrop slop” version with all of the flooding, leaf sludge and mud puddles in our neighbourhood! On a bright note, given that the recent weather has provided a great excuse to stay bundled up indoors, we’ve taken some time to tackle a number of behind-the-scenes projects.

Lately, our non-show world has revolved around admin duties (boring!) and program development (fun!). One of the projects we’ve been working on recently is educational resource guides featuring curriculum-based activities to complement our music. Separate activity packages for each album are now available on request for teachers, educators and parents. We also hope to have the PDF versions available on our website soon!

We are also excited to announce that with the delivery of our most recent Musical Adventures order, all of our CDs and DVDs now boast eco-friendly packaging! The packaging for all three albums (Action Packed, Sea Notes and Musical Adventures) as well as our On Your Feet DVD is printed on FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified board-stock using vegetable-based inks and waterless printing technology. To top it off, the entire packaging, including the plastic tray, is 100% recyclable…and we manufactured everything locally at Precision Disc in Surrey, BC! 
 

 
We still have a handful of our original Musical Adventures stock left in the traditional jewel-casing. These will be marked as sale items at our live shows – perfect stocking stuffers! The original discs will be selling for $10 each (including tax) while supplies last. Sale price is only applicable at our live shows – all the more reason to join us at an upcoming event!
 
Speaking of which, we want to send out a big thank you to all of the superfans who joined us at the Roundhouse Community Centre for a SOLD OUT show last weekend! We loved performing with our full band (thanks Mario & Chuckles!), and we were thrilled see the kiddie mosh rockin’ in front of the stage!

Visiting with 2-year-old Alexa after our Roundhouse show! Thanks to Mom (Michelle) for emailing us this great pic!
 
For those of you that weren’t able to join us a the Roundhouse, or if you just need to break the cabin fever after all of these rainy days,  we have lots of musical family fun scheduled in for next weekend.

Kerrisdale Community Centre – November 28th, 2pm
Our first holiday event of the season! Be sure to bring your dancing shoes and caroling voices as we’ll be wrapping the show with a few of our holiday favs! Rudolph time folks! 
 
Inglewood Preschool Fundraiser – November 29th, 3pm
A perfect afternoon outing for North Shore families, this annual fundraiser is guaranteed fun for all ages! Face-painting, games, concession and tons of great door prize opportunities too!

For a full listing of shows, please check-out our events calendar. We hope to see you soon!

Bobs & Lolo

Typically a slow month in the bookings world, we really seemed to be on the right track with the number of performances we squeezed into October this year. Starting off with an unofficial Lower Mainland tour (Langley, Burnaby, Coquitlam and North Van) and ending with some out-of-province fun in Ontario and a brief trip on the Sea-to-Sky highway for some festivities in Pemberton, October delivered lots of memorable musical adventures!

The kids at the Toronto Zoo are on “the right track”!

Our thanks to the families and parent groups who helped promote our shows last month. All of the emails, Facebook and Twitter posts were greatly appreciated! We also want to send out a special thank you to the Yummy Mummy Club for their support. The YMC team enthusiastically jumped onboard to help with some last minute promotions for our performances in the Greater Toronto Area. Be sure to visit their site for a great selection of resources and event info for busy, yummy mummies across the country!

The stage hasn’t been the only action packed venue for us as of late. We’ve also been super busy behind-the-scenes with new projects (stay tuned for more info!), CD and DVD mania (yaaa for xmas orders!) and 2010 planning! We would also be remiss to not recognize the hard work and dedication of a couple of key peeps on our team.

Mario Vaira, affectionately referred to as the “ampersand” in B&L, has been working tirelessly on a number of projects including the design of our new B&L-mobile! Mario does the majority of our design work – print, web and audio. You’ll also occasionally catch him onstage with us when we perform with our full band. Check out some of his other projects at www.fivefathomstudios.com. 

Our new ride!

Another important member of our team is Eran Norton - the face behind the B&L bookings world! We first met Eran when she hired us for the 2008 Port Moody Festival of the Arts. We were instantly impressed with her energy, organization and communication skills. We feel so lucky to have her onboard our admin team! Please get in touch with Eran on Twitter (@EranNorton) or via email (booking@bobsandlolo.com) if you are interested in seeing us perform in your community.

The lovely and talented booking rep extraordinaire!

Be sure to follow us on Twitter for regular updates on our adventures.  And, if you manage to join us for a performance, please check out our Facebook Group to share your own comments and pics! Thanks to everyone who posted photos from our Ontario gigs. We love them!

Next stops include Alberni Valley Elementary (Port Alberni – Nov 7th), Baby & Toddler Fair (Vancouver – Nov 8th) and a full band show at the Roundhouse Performance Centre (Vancouver – Nov 14th). Full event details and show listings can be found on our Events Calendar.

Hope to see you soon!

Bobs & Lolo

Happy Thanksgiving! We hope everyone had a fabulous few days with your loved ones. We had a wonderful weekend with a wee little reprieve from performing and lots of family, fun and feasts to fill the hours!

We started our weekend with a trip to the University of BC (our alma mater) for some musical adventures with the Wiggles!

Getting ready to watch the show!

The Wiggles’ show was super high-energy with lots of acrobatics, dancing and laughs. They played in UBC’s new Thunderbird Arena (future Olympic venue) to a screaming crowd of 4000 tots and parents. They also had another sold out show right after the performance we attended…these guys are HUGE!

Our favourite parts of the program - their cover of “Baby Beluga” (by Canadian legend - Raffi) and the big red car, of course!

Bobs was pretty excited! We think Anthony even waved at her…:)

We now have a few more days to recover from the last few days of relaxation (yippee!) before we dive back into our own musical adventures. While our shows may not reach the magnitude of the Wiggles phenomenon, we do promise that the kiddie mosh will always be rockin’! Next stops include North Vancouver and then we’re off to Toronto for a week! More details on TO soon, but see below for some info on next weekend’s gigs:

Saturday, October 17th – Jack & Lola’s 1st Anniversary
Show times: 9:30am & 11am
Limited capacity – tickets must be picked up in store. Available 9am, Tuesday Oct 13th. First come, first serve!

Sunday, October 18th – St. Catherine’s Preschool Family Concert (fundraiser)
Show time: 2pm
Tickets are $10 per person (under one yr are free). For ticket info, please call 604-980-1326.

Full details and all other event listings can be found on our events calendar. We hope to see you at a live show soon!

Bobs & Lolo

It is hard to believe that we’re in the final weeks of summer already!? With all the fun adventures of the last few months, we will definitely have a hard time saying goodbye to summer ‘09. Speaking of fun, we’d like to send out a quick note of thanks to all of the families who joined us at the Harmony Arts Festival and the 50th Anniversary Celebrations for the Vancouver Maritime Museum as well as Kidtopia’s Grand Opening in Surrey and most recently, the fabulous Kids’ Day at Filberg Park in beautiful Comox, BC.

We hope some of you will be able to join us for one of our upcoming performances to help us wrap-up the summer season on a high note! There are still a few tickets available for tomorrow’s show at the Tsawwassen Arts Centre. This little performance theatre is the perfect venue for your tiny dancers! We’re thrilled that the Delta Arts Council has invited us to share in their special Family Series this year. Be sure to buy your tickets in advance - tickets are only $8 or 3 for $20 when pre-purchased ($12 at the door). Please call 604-943-9787 for more info!

We are also super excited to jump into our show dates at the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) next week! We’ll be performing 6 dates on the Global BC Amphitheatre as part of the family-focused KC’s Concert Series. We feel honoured to be sharing the stage with the likes of the Doodlebops, Playhouse Disney’s Choo-Choo Soul and Johnny & The Sprites. Find us onstage at 3:30pm on August 26 & 27 and September 1, 5, 6 & 7. For more information, please click here.

In addition to a fun-filled performance schedule, we’ve also had a few other exciting projects in the works these last couple weeks. Those of you following our updates on Twitter or Facebook will already be in the loop on the next bit of news, but we’re very happy to announce that we finally have a new tour vehicle! We’ve been dreaming for years about upgrading our 1997 Geo Tracker and with the development of our new stage show this past spring, a new vehicle actually became a true necessity when we could no longer fit all of our props and gear into the little Tracker. Although, we’ll miss our first B&L-mobile (for purely sentimental reasons!), we are thrilled to be the new owners of…wait for it…yes - a minivan!

We’re hoping to get some graphics on the van in the next few weeks, so be sure to give us a little wave or a honk if you see us in your neighbourhood!

Bobs & Lolo