The Official Blog of Bobs & LoLo

The last month has been filled with pancakes and bubbles, cowboys and jellyfish, heat waves and hailstorms, singing, dancing and more! Our musical adventures have been a little like a rollercoaster ride over prairies, mountains and sea by boat, plane, car and foot! Since our last report from the road, we made it through 10-days straight at the Calgary Stampede, a flurry of shows closer to home in the Lower Mainland of BC and a visit to the remote beauty of the Queen Charlotte Islands. With lots of ups and a few downs (missed our flight home from Calgary!), the brightest parts have been the constant reminder of just how amazing our travels truly are with new friends, places and experiences around every turn!

North Beach on Graham Island!

Two short weeks ago we arrived home following a run of 35 shows at the Calgary Stampede…yes - 35! Highlights of our Alberta adventures included our wonderful host family (the Tait’s!), a nerve-wracking yet exhilarating performance on the Grandstand Stage for nearly 15,000 people, bike rides, chuckwagons, ice cream treats and many new friends at Buckaroos!
 

Westcoast cowgirl – Bobs!

Morning ride around the Glenmore Reservoir!

Some of the Buckaroos team in the children’s area!

Trekking from the Grandstand Stage back to Buckaroos!

Our visit to the Calgary Stampede flew by in a blur of crazy shows, sightseeing and sleep deprivation! On our return to BC we had a couple of days to rest up before jumping into some shows near home. Special thanks to the families that came out to support Canuck Place at the Agoo Kids’ Day in Kits and all of the kidlets who joined in on the singing and dancing at the Shadbolt Centre’s Discovery Days Festival. We had a fabulous time at both events. If you have pics from the shows, please feel free to share them on our Facebook Group - we’d love to see them!

Most recently, we returned from a performance at the Tlell Fair on the beautiful Queen Charlotte Islands. The best word to describe this trip is magical! We spent three days exploring pieces of the most stunning land on the planet and felt honoured with the opportunity to meet some of the most kind and generous people you can find. Our thanks to Doug Mark Louis and the rest of the Tlell Fall Fair committee for inviting us to share in this year’s festivities and special appreciation to the Richardson Family for allowing us to make the Richardson Ranch “home” for a few days. We feel privileged to have spent some time exploring the farm and the surrounding community - a true west coast paradise!

Enjoying the beauty of nature at Tow Hill!

Enjoyed our history lesson with Grandpa Doug!

Curious pair of the award-winning Herefords on the Ranch!

We were also thrilled to have Mario Vaira join us on this recent trip. Mario came along to lend us his musical talents (guitar and backing vocals), but we also have to give him a shout out for bringing so much more to our musical adventures! We often refer to Mario as the “ampersand” in B&L as he is an integral part of our team from performing to production to design. Mario actually produced all three of our albums, including Action Packed which was recently nominated for a 2009 Western Canadian Music Award for Best Children’s Album of the Year! Yaaaa! Check out some of Mario’s other projects at www.fivefathomstudios.com.

Sound check at the Tlell Fall Fair!

After all this, it is crazy to think that summer is only halfway through! We have a number of shows coming up, including three fabulous events this weekend. Please join us for lots of free family fun!

Friday, August 7 - Harmony Arts Festival
Location: West Vancouver
Show Time: 10am

Saturday, August 8 - Vancouver Maritime Museum
Location: Vancouver
Show time: 11:30am

Sunday, August 9 – Kidtopia
Location: Surrey
Show time: 2:45pm

Thanks for tuning in for some of our stories from the road! We hope to be in your neighbourhood soon!

Bobs & Lolo

We wanted to post a brief note to wish all of you a happy belated Canada Day and share some stories from our festive July 1st adventures before we dive into our run of shows at the Calgary Stampede. 

We’re writing this from a cozy basement in the home of our fabulous Calgary host family – the Tait’s! It is crazy to reflect back on how much happened yesterday and to think that less than 24 hours ago, we were just stepping onto a stage in Coquitlam, BC.

Our Canada Day festivities began in partnership with the City of Coquitlam during the first annual family celebration at Lafarge Lake. This fantastic event was capped by sunny skies, a fabulous team of staff and volunteers and hundreds of kids, adults and entire families sporting their patriotic reds and whites! Special thanks to all the kids and the super-talented Currie “Chuckles” Creelman (piano) and Mario “Marstar” Vaira (guitar) for helping us rock the show! Sadly, we didn’t get any photos from the performance, but if anyone out there is willing to share, please send pics to fanmail@bobsandlolo.com or post them on our Facebook Group.

Immediately following our performance in Coquitlam, we motored over to Kitsilano in Vancouver to set-up for a performance on the Showboat Stage. Set against the beautiful backdrop of Vancouver’s English Bay and the North Shore mountains, this was definitely one of the most picturesque venues we have performed in…and one of the windiest! The Kits Showboat Stage is managed completely by volunteers, and presents live entertainment weekly throughout the summer months. Our thanks to the families that joined us to kick-off the Canada Day entertainment and extra hugs to the kids for retrieving all of our wayward props that blew away in the refreshing ocean “breeze”.

If two shows in two cities in one 4 hour period wasn’t already enough craziness for Canada Day, scheduling a flight to Calgary right after the second performance definitely put the icing on the cake! It was a bit of a mad scramble to re-organize our stuff to prepare for the flight. Vancouver-ites may have even spotted us on the side of the road after our Kits show, although you may have easily mistaken our organizational strategy as a set-up for a sidewalk “garage” sale!

Thanks to a wonderful chauffeur (yaaaa Mario!) and a sweet airport limo (1974 volkswagon van!), we made it on time, with all of our luggage, to YVR.

Our next hurdle was checking in all of our gear – $350 in extra baggage fees this time around (ouch!) – and getting it through security. We had a fifteen minute hang-up when the metal-hinged tree stand Lolo decided to carry on flagged a security check. It caused quite a flurry of excitement for the security officials who put the bag through the x-ray three times over, unpacked everything and then stared in confusion at the brightly coloured green, collapsible stand.  Only in the B&L world…

We’re now settling in nicely in Calgary, and we are just about to head over to Stampede Park for sound check and final preparations for tonight’s first show. We’ll be around town until July 13th with 35 shows scheduled for the next 10 days! If you’re in the neighbourhood, please join us for some cow-town inspired musical adventures! For a full list of our Stampede performance times and dates, please click here.

Yeehaw!

Bobs & Lolo

Although we had quite a few shows during the month of April, we still managed to squeeze in some sun, sand and surf during our downtime. A huge highlight included a surf lesson on beautiful Cox Bay just outside of Tofino, BC. Playing in the waves was a great way to wrap up our shows on the west coast and celebrate Bobs’ birthday! Special thanks to our hosts at EcoEverything, Weigh West Marina, Wickaninnish Community School and the 1431 Beach Resort for helping make our trip extra special.

A big thank you to Surf Sister for a wonderful day in the water!

We’re now in the process of gearing up for an action packed spring and summer. We hope you can join us for some musical adventures! Below is a list of some of our stops over the upcoming month:

Kerrisdale Community Centre: May 18

Last minute long weekend fun for everyone! Join us on Monday at 1pm for a fun-filled dance fest at the Kerrisdale Community Centre. Check out our new set!  Jump into the kiddie mosh pit! Join in on the crafty stations with sea star popsicle stick puppets and paper plate sea turtles! Super fun-times for the whole family this Victoria Day!
 

Okanagan International Children’s Festival: May 21 – 23

We’re excited about our debut shows in the beautiful lakeside town of Penticton! Next week we will be heading to the interior of BC for the Okanagan International Children’s Festival.  We are honoured to be sharing the same stage as legendary Canadian children’s entertainer Fred Penner as well as a host of other mega-talented performance groups!

Surrey International Children’s Festival: May 28 – 30

We can’t wait to “hop” onto the Leap Frog Stage at the 2009 Surrey International Children’s Festival! Our full band is performing with us, and we guarantee that the amazing musicians lending us their talents for the three-day festivities will have the place rockin’ before the two of us even hit the stage! Be sure to check out the Saturday Family Special – two shows for the price of one!
 

Saskatchewan International Children’s Festival: June 3 – 6

We’re delighted to be a part of the 2009 Saskatchewan International Children’s Festival. We have heard fantastic reviews about this event from both families and other children’s performers, including local superstar Marnie Grey. This will be our first time performing in Saskatoon – we can’t wait! If you’re in the area, please join us for some musical adventures at the Kinder Garden and Knox United Church.

Bowen Island Children’s Festival – June 7

Located in one of our favourite spots, the Bowen Island Children’s Festival is sure to be a highlight of our 2009 event schedule! Just a skip, jump and a hop from the shores of West Vancouver, the island is a perfect day trip destination for families. Join us and our band for all the festival fun…more info coming soon!

We’d love to see you at one of our upcoming shows! Please check out our online event calendar for further details.

Bobs & Lolo

For the last four years, we have been trying to get involved with ArtStarts in Schools - a program that provides innovative arts programs for young people, practical resources for teachers and leadership in advocating arts in education. As you can imagine, we were absolutely thrilled to be accepted into the 2009/10 touring program!

As we excitedly celebrated this new milestone, we found that just getting accepted into the ArtStarts program is not the biggest hurdle artists face. All approved performers are scheduled for a 12-minute showcase to evaluate the educational and entertainment value of their show for the Artists Directory, and this step proved to be one of our craziest B&L experiences to-date!

Last week our nerves hit an all-time high when we showcased our program at the Roundhouse Performance Centre in Vancouver for a room full of delegates representing schools districts, festivals and community events throughout Western Canada. In the lead-up to the showcase, we succeeded in thoroughly stressing ourselves out by developing new scripts, choreographing new songs, constructing new sets and rehearsals, rehearsals, rehearsals! We do think the hardwork paid off and neglecting a few butterflies (OK - a lot!), we’re pretty happy with what we delivered. Below are a few pics (photo credit: Mike Hawley) from our moment in the ArtStarts spotlight…

Bobs & Lolo during the 2009 ArtStarts Showcase!

Opening song - Action Packed!

The delegates view…

Bobs in action!

Raindrop Pop!

While we didn’t have any major hiccups during our showcase, we were both so nervous that we honestly don’t remember most of the experience. We received a lot of positive comments from the organizers and delegates immediately following our performance, and we will definitely keep you posted on the “official” feedback when the reviews are released at the end of the month.

In the meantime, if you are interested in bringing our music and programming to your community, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We regularly perform at schools (elementary & preschools), children’s festivals, community fundraisers, performing art centres and a variety of family-oriented events throughout North America. General inquiries for booking information can be sent to Eran Norton at booking@bobsandlolo.com.

Thanks for reading! More soon…;)

It’s been another action packed month for us with lots of live performances and many exciting projects behind-the-scenes. We’d like to start off with a big THANK YOU to all of the superfans who came out to help us sing in the spring during Spring Break at the Vancouver Aquarium. The venue was jam-packed this year and the kiddie mosh pit was definitely the place to be! We loved meeting all of the new faces and connecting with familiar ones too…especially those of you that showed up for not one or two, but three or more shows over the week! If you have any pics that you want to share, send them our way and we’ll post some on our blog and our Facebook page!

Speaking of new faces, we’d like to welcome Green Planet Parties to the B&L family! We had the pleasure of meeting the company’s owners (both named Suzanne!) at the Coquitlam Family Fair. Green Planet Parties offers a great service with their selection of eco-friendly party planning ideas and products. We’re excited that party planning wannabes can now discover our music in the mix of great tips and tools on the Green Planet Parties site!

If you haven’t had a chance to pick-up your own B&L CD or DVD yet, you do have a limited time opportunity to get them for FREE! Soapboxmama is hosting another colossal gift basket giveaway, and we’ve added some goodies to the loot bag. Click on the image below to enter for a chance to win over $800 in prizes!

We hope to see all of you at a live show sometime soon. Be sure to keep an eye on our calendar for full details on all the musical adventures! Upcoming shows include the Kiddies Korner Imagination Fair in Port Coquitlam (April 4), two special family concerts at the Errington Community Hall in support of the Errington Cooperative Preschool (April 5) and the Pedagogy Toy Store’s Anniversary Celebrations in New Westminster (April 11).

If we’re not in your neighbourhood in the near future, keep an ear out for our tunes on Treehouse Radio. The digital radio network, hosted by Max Trax, has just started broadcasting some of the songs from our Action Packed CD as part of their regular programming - be sure to send them some feedback if you like what you hear! You can send in your requests here.

Well, we’d better get back to work! We’re hiding away in rehearsal for the next couple days while we prepare for our ArtStarts in Schools showcase. On Wednesday morning, we’ll be delivering a 12-minute snippet of a show we’ve developed for elementary school-aged audiences. ArtStarts in Schools is a not-for-profit organization offering educators, artists, parents and students a broad range of  programs, services and resources to promote arts and creativity among BC’s young people. We hope to work with the ArtStarts team to share our music and programming with communities throughout BC during the 2009/10 school year. Wish us luck for the showcase (we’re a little nervous!) and check us out in the artist directory at the end of April! www.artstarts.com

Here’s a cute little video that ArtStarts posted on YouTube to wrap up this post:)

Hope to see you soon!

Bobs & Lolo

Those familiar with our music and programming are most likely already in tune to our love of the outdoors and our goal of connecting children to the wonders of nature through music, movement and make-believe. And, while our audience (the kids!) are our main focus, we also definitely value connecting with like-minded individuals in the greater community too. We’ve been thrilled that the worlds of Twitter, Facebook and MySpace have introduced us to a diverse network of socially-conscious artists, entrepreneurs and educators.

Recently we stumbled across the website of a Vancouver-based company called Naturebag. Created by Sylvie de Sousa and Katharine Byers, two moms with one vision, Naturebag is designed to help children and their families reconnect with nature through hands-on, curiosity led games and activities.

We love what these two moms are doing…so much so that we have offered to sell their product at our live performances! Be sure to check out the Naturebag website or email us for more info. The kits really are fantastic tools that inspire exploration and discovery with kids, and the organic cotton bags are perfect for carrying around a snappy snack or two as well:)

Besides connecting with fun and creative small businesses like Naturebag, we’ve also been blown away by the vast and supportive world of bloggers who value many of the same things we do. Below is a short list of some of the sites we have connected with recently. One of the greatest things about these sites is that most are written and hosted by moms - true experts in the realm of kids! In addition, a lot of these sites feature tons of product reviews and give-aways. If you love free stuff (who doesn’t!?) be sure to check them out!

Feisty, Frugal and Fabulous
Tot Trends Weekly
Kid Trends Weekly
BarefootMommy
4BabyandMom
Modecokids

Things also continue to be busy for us away from the online world and back in the land of live performances. We had a great time throughout the month of February with shows all over the Metro Vancouver area as well as trips to Vancouver Island, the U.S. and the Gulf Islands. Highlights at the end of the month included a fantastic sold-out event at the Roundhouse Community Centre, a beautiful trip to Saltspring Island to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Saltspring Island Daycare Society and a number of amazing school shows, specifically Qualicum Beach Elementary (Qualicum Beach, BC), Hillcrest Elementary (Victoria, BC), Holly Elementary (Surrey, BC) and Kingsford-Smith Elementary (Vancouver, BC). March also started off on a high note with the Coquitlam Family Fair on the 1st of the month, and there’s still lots more to come!

We are really looking forward to seeing some of you during Spring Break at the Vancouver Aquarium. We will be performing three shows daily in the Underwater Beluga Gallery (11:30am, 1pm & 3pm) from March 14-22, 2009. Please join us for lots of singing & dancing and a chance to say hello to all of your favourite animals while also checking out the new Birds of Prey in Flight program. For more information, please visit http://www.vanaqua.org.

And finally, while we put out a call for votes a couple of weeks ago on Facebook, if you missed the announcement, we are thrilled to let you know that we have been nominated for a Canadian Indie Award for Favourite Children’s Artist of the Year. Final winners have been selected by fans - voting closed on March 6th. The winners will be announced at the 9th Annual Independent Music Awards on March 14th. Keep your fingers crossed for us and stay tuned for more soon!

Phew - we jammed a lot of info into this post!! There’s lots more to share though, and hopefully, we will get a chance to write again before the end of the week. We do want to sign off with a BIG thanks to all of you for your continued support and encouragement. You are truly helping make our dreams a reality every day!!

Bobs & Lolo

January proved to be a busy month behind-the-scenes with lots of office clean-up, bookkeeping catch-up and meeting blahs.  Admin work is definitely not our forte, and we are dreaming about the day when some super-talented office administrator will help organize our lives (send resumes to workforfree@bobsandlolo.com). :) Below is a snapshot of what our world looked liked for the last three weeks…

While we may not appear organized at first glance, we did manage to get a lot done this month. More than anything though, we can’t wait to get back to singing and dancing next week! Eran Norton, our booking agent superstar, has been busy as well and has jam-packed our tour calendar with lots of fabulous family events over the next few months.  We have plenty of shows in and around Metro Vancouver (see highlighted February shows below), but we are also starting to travel more too. Some of our upcoming musical adventures will take us to Salt Spring Island (BC), Albany (Oregon), Penticton (BC), Saskatoon (SK) and Calgary (AB). Be sure to check out our online calendar for a complete listing of shows – hopefully, we’ll be in your neighbourhood soon!

We also wanted to let everyone know that we are bringing in the boys for a full-band celebration at the Roundhouse Community Centre (Exhibition Hall) on February 21^st. Our good friends Mario Vaira, on the guitar, and Ryan Stewart, on the bass, are guaranteed to help make this concert rock! Those of you familiar with our On Your Feet DVD will recognize these two talented musicians from the Raindrop Pop music video – check it out on YouTube here.

Other upcoming shows definitely worth checking out include Winterfest (Feb 7 -Surrey) and the Inglewood Family Concert (Feb 8 -West Van). We look forward to seeing all of you soon!

Bobs & Lolo