Newfoundland or New-FUN-land?

April 15th, 2010

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 - Larkhall

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!

Photo op at Larkhall Academy

Fans at Larkhall

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

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Bobs and LoLo at the Junos

April 11th, 2010

Celebrations beginning in Newfoundland this week will mark the 39th anniversary of the JUNO Awards and a new career milestone for independent children’s entertainers and educators, Bobs & LoLo.

Bobs & LoLo are honoured to be nominated for 2010 Children’s Album of the Year. The award for this category will be presented at a gala dinner event in St. John’s, NL on Saturday, April 17th.

Bobs & LoLo will be travelling across the country from Vancouver, BC to attend the gala and share in a number of the JUNO Award festivities including an opportunity to walk the red carpet prior to the April 18th CTV broadcast event!

Bobs & LoLo will personally be posting stories and photos from their 2010 JUNO adventures on their blog throughout the week. You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter for daily updates.

In addition, Bobs & LoLo are looking forward to sharing some of their music and programming during JUNO Week at two special events created specifically for children and families.

April 15, 2010 – MusiCounts Presentation

Over 350 elementary students from Larkhall Academy will celebrate a $10,000 MusiCounts instrument grant for the school’s music program with a performance by 2010 JUNO Award nominated children’s performers, Bobs & LoLo.
 
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. MusiCounts includes Band Aid musical instrument grants, the MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award, Scholarships and other initiatives. 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.
 
Bobs & LoLo are thrilled to kick-off their visit to St. John’s with a special performance for students who will directly benefit from these funds.

April 17, 2010 – Kids’ Jam for Janeway
 
Bobs & LoLo, Charlie Hope, The Bee’s Knees and The Kerplunks, all 2010 JUNO Award nominees for Children’s Album of the Year, will perform at Kids’ Jam for Janeway, a free concert to benefit the Janeway Children’s Health and Rehabilitation Centre. The concert is sponsored by Kids Music Connection, an initiative to support music and the arts in the lives of children.

The Janeway Children’s Health and Rehabilitation Centre is Newfoundland and Labrador’s only hospital specializing in pediatric health care and serves thousands of children and families each year.

For more information about the event and free advance ticket reservations, please visit www.kidsjam.ca.
 
Kids' Jam Poster

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March Madness

March 31st, 2010

The month of March blew by in a whirlwind of exciting news (Junos!), memorable shows (yay!) and LOTS of travel prep. We recently returned home from an amazing week-long tour on northern Vancouver Island filled with ferry rides, vocal warm-ups in the van and not nearly as much sleep as needed to remain sane. We started the week with six shows in 72 hours throughout the communities of Sointula, Alert Bay, Port Hardy, Port Alice and Port McNeill. 

Port Alice
 
Check out a student blog post from Mrs. Watson’s class at A.J. Elliot Elementary in Sointula for a peek at some of our musical adventures! http://mrswatson123.edublogs.org/2010/03/22/bobs-and-lolo/ 

Highlights of our trip:
1. A nice visit and home-cooked meal with Lolo’s sister, Katie!
2. Riding on the bridge of the BC Ferry from Alert Bay to Port McNeill. Special thanks to the crew for the warm welcome and kind hospitality! Thanks for buying a few CDs too…we treated ourselves to dinner out that night!
3. Signing autographs at Robert Scott Elementary in Port Hardy – Lolo actually attended Kindergarten and Grade 1 here!
4. The long, winding road out to Port Alice. A beautiful drive!
5. Randomly discovering the world’s largest burl in Port McNeill!

Bobs & the burl!
 
We ended our short road trip with a couple of shows at the Errington Memorial Hall. Big hugs to the Errington Co-op Preschool for inviting us to share our music and programming with the community. We enjoyed meeting families from all over the island and even some out of province visitors too!

Now it’s back to reality with a few days of admin catch-up before we dive into more musical adventures over the long weekend.

Fun fun!
 
We hope you are enjoying the beginning of Spring and that you have an eggs-ellent long weekend!  Next stops for us:

Science World (Vancouver, BC) – April 4 & 5
Autism Speaks Fundraiser (Abbotsford, BC) – April 10
Coldstream Elementary (Vernon, BC) – April 12
Lavington Elementary (Vernon, BC) – April 12
Kids’ Jam (St. John’s, NL) – April 17 JUNO AWARDS!

Full details available on our events calendar: http://bobsandlolo.com/blog/the-big-calendar/

See you soon!

Bobs & Lolo        

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Our Juno Trip Takes Flight

March 10th, 2010

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.”
 
TY Westjet!

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

Bobs & Lolo

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2010 JUNO Nomination

March 3rd, 2010

We are thrilled to announce that Action Packed, our most recent album release has received a 2010 Juno nomination!

Following on the heels of a 2009 Parents’ Choice Gold Award – essentially the Grammy’s of the kids’ music world – and a 2009 Western Canadian Music Award, we are overwhelmed and absolutely thrilled with the ongoing national and international attention for our third album. Warm thanks and huge cyber hugs to all of our fans, friends and family for the ongoing support of our musical adventures! This latest accolade is truly a mega highlight!

Action Packed

Action Packed features 12 original songs such as The Right Track, Snappy Snacks and Friends. The album is geared at connecting children to behaviours that positively impact the world around them. Using kid-friendly analogies like trains, superheroes, adventure stories and more the songs address themes such as literacy, health, teamwork and friendship.

The album was produced, arranged & recorded by Mario Vaira at Five Fathom Studios, with drums recorded by Ryan Stewart at WineCellar Music Studios and the tracks mastered at Suite Sound Labs – all of whom are located in Vancouver, BC.

For a full listing of 2010 Juno nominees, please click here.

The Juno Awards weekend will be hosted in St. John’s, NL on April 16-18. We’ve decided to fly across the country with our other halves (Mario and Kavie) to fully embrace what is sure to be a memorable and fabulous celebration of Canadian music. This might even give us an opportunity to finally do a show or two on the east coast!?

If any local BC families would like to celebrate with us this weekend, please join us in Burnaby on Saturday, March 6 for a special free family performance. Full details can be found on our events calendar.
 
Woohoo!!

Bobs & Lolo

 

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A Sea of Red and White

February 13th, 2010

The 2010 Olympics have officially opened in our home city of Vancouver, BC! With true Canadian pride we watched our city come alive this last week as a sea of red and white now appears to be moving through the streets. Canada has definitely caught the spirit of the 2010 games, and we are excited to be a part of the festivities!

Celebrate Coquitlam
Pre-show with Mayor Richard Stewart at Celebrate Coquitlam

Our thanks to Mark Efford – photographer and proud papa to 3-year-old Austin – for sending us the above photo which was captured at the City of Coquitlam’s torch relay celebrations. Extra thanks to Mark for his creative use of a little digital magic to give our jackets some extra B&L love…can anyone spot the added detailing?

With Friday’s 2010 Opening Ceremonies preceded by the tragic loss of Georgian luge athlete, Nodar Kumaritashvili, we can’t help but be reminded to appreciate all of the special moments we share with our loved ones. Our hearts go out to Nodar’s family, teammates and country.

Torch Relay
Lolo and husband, Kavie, share a squeeze before his torch run!

We hope you can join us for some family time at our shows this month. If you’re not around Vancouver or Whistler, please follow us on Twitter or find us on Facebook for ongoing updates about our musical adventures.

February 13 & 14: Experience BC @ Robson Square (Vancouver)

February 20: Whistler Olympic House

February 21: ValleyFest (North Vancouver)

February 26 – 28: Whistler Live! Town Plaza

Full event details can be found on our events calendar at http://bobsandlolo.com/blog/the-big-calendar/.

Go Canada Go!

Bobs & Lolo

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More than Just a Song And Dance

January 29th, 2010

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.

Fun times!
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?

Huh?
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

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Home for the Holidays

December 10th, 2009

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.

Dover Bay

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. :)

Bobs & Lolo - highschool
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).

Bobs & Lolo

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Party Time

December 7th, 2009

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! (June 2006)
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!

Hayden's 1st birthday!

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!

B&L place settings

Table settings!

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

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Raindrop Slop

November 19th, 2009

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! 
 
Musical Adventures
 
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

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