FRIENDS!

we’ve missed you here in myspace blog-o-rama land. I can’t tell you how many times i’ve thought to myself ’self…get on that dang blog horse and blog!’ and now here i am..in Sheboygan,Wisconsin in my hotel room attempting to update you on the past few months of chic gamine life.
I apologize for not updating you all sooner! i know you’ve been racked with anticipation and you’ve been feeling neglected but just know we love you here at ‘team chic gamine’!

..well HERE goessss nothing. or something. or blog.

so as not to overwhelm you i will be updating you in a three part blog series entitled - updatefest 08′ with the sub points reading as follows:
point one : strawberry festival
point two : september/october what the heck
point three: to wisconsin and beyond!

Firstly:
the last time we left you on our journey it was the middle of august and we were in brookings,oregon staying with some great friends and doing some house concerts out there. well it’s hard to sum up three crazy months but i’ll try to make some clear and concise points for us all to follow..this is one of those times in life that i wish i could make a nice little power point presentation and use one of those long pointy sticks or a laser pointer to bring your attention to certain very ‘powerful points’. BUT alas power point we will not…we will only POWER ON to the real points. (good one?)

point one: STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL (in yosemite, california)
WAS AWESOME. what can we say? it felt like coming home to momma..and momma turned out to be a few thousand of some of the worlds coolest people all camping out among the red woods ,listening to some great music, jamming into the bitter hours of the morning and just appreciating nature and each others company. We actually got to stay the whole weekend festival this year and had our own chic little cabin by the man made lake/pond/pretty hole with water in it.
highlights include:
-performing on the mainstage and feeling like we were home
-spontaneously jamming onstage with marc broussard (editors note: holy my-lanta is he great live! awesome dude…awesome band…basically they are killer all around..check them out on myspace or at www.marcbroussard.com….that-there is some sweet sweet music my friends!!) and then hanging with marc, his band, our good new found strawberry friend tyler hilton (editors note: he’s also a killer musician..go to his myspace or to www.tylerhilton.com to check out his stuff and to see a video of him and Alexa from chic gamine singing a lil’ duet) and ‘the sheriff’ as they called her afterwards. fun times i tells ya!!
-meeting mavis staples and jamming backstage with her
-meeting all of the awesome festival goers who were SOOO nice to us and invited us to their camps/jammed with us/encouraged the crap out of us/loved us/fed us/were the best.
-andrina’s birthday=’ain’t no party like a mustache part cuz a mustache part don’t STOP’ = the best mustache party i’ve ever been to.
-the sunday morning revival
-partying like it was 1999.

the list goes on and on and on…we only wish we could come back again next year but alas we realize that us being invited back for a second year in a row was more than we could ever hope for and we had so much fun coming back again! heck i may just go back and enjoy the festival myself next summer! whooooo knowssss?!

in conclusion, we love strawberry festival and all you crazy awesome people that we met there. Thanks so much for welcoming us back with open arms, supporting us and just being the great people ya’ll are. (ya’ll = you all/everybody)

IF any of you have pictures/videos/anything from the mustache party/any other event at strawberry we would LOVE love love to see them! shoot us a message here or at our email address chic.gamine@gmail.com or just post them up and let us know!

editors note:
After strawberry the summer was then nicely capped off by a house concert in the beautiful bear valley,california…it was a great way to end a truly magical summer!!! thanks to all who were involved in making that happen!

This concludes point one of updatefest 08′!

you may now turn the page (*ding)

Friends, friends, friends.

you…all…everybody.

This is the final installment in our three part blog series entitled updatefest 08′.

Don’t be sad folks…just because this series is over does NOT mean that there won’t be more blogs to check out from week to week! Keep checking back for new info,pictures and/or blogs from the chic gamine ladies and gent themselves!

ALSO before i start talking about other things i wanted to mention that chic gamine now has a youtube channel.

Just go to:

www.youtube.com/chicgamine

..to find us on youtube…take a look around…click subscribe and you’ll get all of our latest videos and greatest videos…giving you insight into what it REALLY means to be in the band chic gamine. i’ll give you a hint…it basically means…you’re crazy.

we just started it up so we’ll be adding more almost everyday..so keep checking back!

NOW onto our regular blog-o-rama!

POINT THREE : to Wisconsin and beyond!

So now we’ll finally talk about the lastest goings on of the chic familia.

Just a few short weeks ago..we embarked on a mini tour/journey/adventure time through wisconsin and minniesota to play some shows and boy did we have a good time.

Let me break it down for you:

We left on november 12th from winnipeg, manitoba and piled ourselves into a rented mini van. we were like clowns at the soccer mom circus (in no way are we meaning to offend/degrade soccer moms)…it being winter where we come from..naturally we packed more clothing..and maybe an extra pair of boots or two…suffice it to say the van was so packed we could barely see eachother from one seat to the next.
IT’S A LIVING FRIENDS..it got us there safely and we still enjoy looking at eachother so that’s all that matters.

anyways our first stop was the beautiful platteville a cute little wisconsin town. We played in their retro (we’re talking mustard coloured curtains and seat covers..it was glorious) performing arts hall to a wonderfully warm crowd. Thanks to everyone that made that happen and then went out with us after to try some great food at the local bar..even if we were making a spectacle of ourselves.

NEXT on our journey was BELOIT, wisconsin. We played on their college campus in a cute lil’ church and had a great time. We also ate a lot of cookies…that may have been my highlight (and lowlight all in one) Thanks to everyone that came out to that and helped out!
(ahem…liz, cassie, ashley and was it..briana? if you have those pictures from after the show we would LOVE to see them! post em’ up!)

After beloit we motored to the conserve boarding school..near land o’ lakes. If you get a chance to check them out on the internet..do it! We were boarded in some of the guest dorms and stayed at the school for about three days..doing workshops and shows for the students and some people in the community that were brave enough to man handle that weather and make it down. The school is basically set in the wilderness and their focus is on ethics..nature and preservation..students come from all over the world to go there..i think there were over 15 countries represented this year…it’s one of the most beautiful highschools i’ve ever seen..and the students and teachers there were so welcoming!
We even got to participate in their student kareoke night…and in between attempting to play ping-pong and gorging ourselves with animal crackers we managed to belt out the late-ninties hit from space jam - ‘i believe i can fly’ by r.kelly. I was a little nervous to go up..thinking maybe i wasn’t cool enough to pull something epic like that off…but i think we really inspired the kids to be more than they could ever be. or at least we got some of them to wave their open cell phones in the air.
Thanks to all the students and teachers at conserve that made our stay so enjoyable! we can’t wait to come back!!

After our departure from the conserve school we made our way to Sheboygan, also in wisconsin!!! What a name to say…sheboygan…love that.
Once we got to our hotels and got over a few minor ’settling in issues’ we knew we would have a good time. (editors note: the ’settling in’ issue i am referring to is the fact that somebody peed on ariane’s hotel room floor before she got there…it took her about an hour to solve that mystery..but really WHO PEES ON A FLOOR? suffice it to say we all had a good laugh..or maybe it was just me that found it so funny..but then she got moved to a room the size of a small village right by the concierge’s desk…too bad we didn’t have time to invite snoop dog over..her kitchen was the size of my apartment back home…so next time you want a great hotel room..get someone/or something…to pee on your floor…works everytime!..just kidding. that’s gross….horrible idea)
We stayed in Sheboygan for about four days and did vocal workshops with various age groups..basically from age pre-school to age highschool..all of them great sports and cute faces! We also had two regular performance shows in between to balance it all out. Most of the gigs/workshops were played at the kohler arts center…a beautifully structured art gallery/performing arts venue/some of coolest bathrooms i’ve ever seen.
We also made our way to lincoln highschool (word word word) and got to hang out with highschool students that are way cooler than i was when i was in highschool (and lets be honest…that wasn’t even that long ago)
We met some great people on that tour..and generally had a great time in sheeeeboygan!

Then we were SHE-BOY-GONE!!! (see what i did there?)

We made it to our last stop of fairmont,minniesota and had a hootin’ jamboree (that means good show) at the fairmont opera house to a near full house..it was a great way to end a great lil’ tour!

Thanks to everybody that made this tour so darn enjoyable..we met some real cool/greatly hospitable people this time around…so thanks thanks triple thanks!

NOWWW we are home,happy and healthy…gearing up for the holidays! (eeekkk i’m not readdddyyy but it’s commmiiinnggggg!!)

So keep checking back for new updates…we’ve got a great lil’holiday present for ya’ll coming in our pictures section soon…so you won’t want to miss that!

Also i will say these important things:
1. thanks to everybody that supported us on our Canadian folk music award nomination…The awards took place on the east coast last sunday night and unfortunately we didn’t win but we’ve talked and decided that we’ll just pass around ariane’s bowling trophy from when she was younger and pretend that we won. I think i may be first in the rotation. let the false validation begin!!
but really thanks for the support and congrats to all the winners!
2. go to our youtube channel www.youtube.com/chicgamine
3. check out our website www.chicgamine.com and our myspace www.myspace.com/chicgamine
4.check us out on facebook!!

and finally
5. we love you chic gamine fans and friends and thanks for being so great to us this fall!! If any of your have pictures/videos/comments from or about the last tour please post them up here or send us an email at chic.gamine@gmail.com..we would love to see/hear from you!!

thus concludes our long winded and final installment in the series UPDATEFEST 08′…wooo wooo wooo woo wooooooooo! (those were ‘we’re having a party’ noises)

Thanks for checking in and be sure to come back often!

love love love love and hearts,
alexa
on behalf of us all on team chic gamine

ps. we’re making track suits.