Our European tour fundraiser was a great success, and we’re extremely grateful to everyone involved. The Gentle Infidels, Danny Echo, and We Landed On The Moon! put on amazing performances. We raised more than we had expected, and the great atmosphere and your enthusiasm that night helped inspire us at a time when we really needed it.

We have run into a few challenges over the past few months. In June, Marcus’s father died after a brief illness. In July, Bruxelles learned they would be unable to join us on the Canadian portion of the tour. And then in August, personal reasons forced our drummer Rob to leave the band, one month before the scheduled start of our tours. The stress and logistical difficulties of these events brought us very close to the point of canceling our fall plans entirely.

After much reflection and with encouragement from others, we have decided to do whatever it takes to keep our European tour. So we are very pleased to be bringing Niko Friesen (Kelly Rowland, Marcy Playground, Hannah Georgas, Adrienne Pierce) on board to drum with us in France, and are excited to be working with him on this adventure.

While we will still be touring Europe in October, we have had to postpone our September dates in Canada. We want to bring you only the best possible performances and we will need more time to prepare. We’ll be back to see you as soon as we can.

We’re overwhelmed by the support of our fantastic friends and fans who have been there for us, and have learned a lot about our own drive and dedication. We’re more determined than ever to take ARCTIC to Europe for this terrific opportunity to tour with Bruxelles. We’re excited about all the new people we’re going to meet, and the great stories, photos and videos we’ll be able to share with you. And we can’t wait to see what happens next.

Thank you.

Kirsten Starcher and Marcus Martin

You can also get tickets for our raffle with great prizes like BC Lions tickets, t-shirts, web hosting, dinner giveaways and more. And for the week of July 12, we will donate half of all raffle ticket sales to help Harley, the New Westminster cat who was doused in paint thinner and is fighting for his life.

We’re very excited to announce ARCTIC’s tour plans for the fall.

We’re partnering with Bruxelles, a band from Clermont-Ferrand, France, on an intercontinental expedition. Bruxelles will come and tour with us in Canada for a few weeks, and then we will travel with them in October to tour in Europe.

Exact dates will be announced later this summer, but you can expect to find us in Paris, Clermont-Ferrand, Riom, Montpellier, Lyon and potentially Germany and Switzerland.

We’ll be posting regularly on our tour blog with updates, as well as Twitter and Facebook, and making videos along the way. After all, when you put two bands, who barely speak each others’ language, in a van together for five weeks… you’re bound to get some pretty good stories!

Fundraiser Show

To help us get across the ocean, we’re holding a fundraiser show at the Railway Club in Vancouver on Saturday, August 7. We’re grateful to our friends The Gentle Infidels, Danny Echo, and We Landed On The Moon! (all the way from Louisiana) and are looking forward to returning the favour in the future. Advance tickets are available on our website - buy a ticket now to get a free download of our new song “White Walls"!

Win all sorts of stuff!

We’re also holding a big raffle and the draw will happen at our show on August 7! So far our prizes include:

• Two pairs of tickets to see the BC Lions
• T-shirt by Laundry Room Press
• An autographed photograph of 54-40
• Mini photo shoot by bOB HOmer Photography
• 1 year of free web hosting by outside in the sun productions
• Cameo necklace by Oyster Designs
• $50 gift certificate to Sweeney’s of Yaletown
• Purse by Jabu Bags
• …and more secret surprises to be announced!

You can get tickets for the raffle and the show on our website. You don’t have to be present to win the raffle, though it’s going to be a fantastic time and you probably should.

Thanks for all your love and support - we’re looking forward to seeing you while we’re on tour, whatever continent you’re on!

Enjoy!

Then, on June 25, Marcus will play a rare solo show at Blim along with Ghost Cousin from Edmonton (Facebook page here).

And on July 10, you can catch us again at Howe Sound Brewing in Squamish for a free show at 9PM.

At the time of this post, the BP oil spill has extended towards Florida, and we’re starting to see the impact of the oil on the Louisiana coastline and ocean wildlife.

It’s hard to get your mind around the massive scale of this disaster, but it starts to become clearer when you superimpose the Gulf spill over your local area and see how far it reaches.

And, at the time of this post, BP doesn’t seem to be anywhere near stopping it.

Of course, according to drill-baby-drill Sarah Palin, this is all the environmentalists’ fault:

“Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country’s energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up safer areas. It’s catching up with you,” Palin tells environmentalists. “The tragic, unprecedented deep water Gulf oil spill proves it.”

Because of course, dear Sarah must think it impossible for a spill of this magnitude to ever happen close to shore… never mind BP’s horrible safety record in the past, or the 200,000 gallons of crude oil that were dumped near Palin’s stomping grounds in Alaska. Palin also claims the USA shouldn’t trust foreign companies to handle American oil. Wonder what her husband thinks of that - after all, he worked for BP for eighteen years!

While the political bickering and corporate waffling continues, and the oil continues to flow, the rest of us on the planet are starting to get very, very pissed off: because nothing is being done, and there is nothing that most of us can do besides write angry letters.

One such angry person started a Twitter account under the name @BPGlobalPR, and began posting bitterly cynical messages that appear to be coming from BP Public Relations. He recently released a message to the media explaining his actions:

Why has this caught on? I think it’s because people can smell the bullshit and sometimes laughing at it feels better than getting angry or depressed over it. At the very least, it’s a welcome break from that routine. The reason @BPGlobalPR continues to grow is because BP continues to spew their bullshit.

[…]

You know the best way to get the public to respect your brand? Have a respectable brand.

Go read the full message here - it is well worth your time, and does a great job of capturing the frustration and helplessness that we feel in the face of this catastrophe.

Perhaps the worst is knowing that no matter how much BP is required to pay, no matter who is held accountable, there is no amount of money that can repair the ecosystems, save the wildlife, or restore peoples’ livelihoods.

This spill is the start of something. It’s already the biggest environmental disaster in history, and it is still growing.

Combined with the coming climate changes, it could be the worst wake-up call we’ve ever received.

It could also be a chance to make some changes that matter, now, while peoples’ eyes are finally opening.

Take that anger, take that frustration; let’s turn this into something good. Corporations are given power by human laws - we should be able to change those laws. We should be able to keep this from happening again. Stay informed on what’s happening; sign up to Seize BP’s Assets, join Protest BP on Facebook. Let us make an example of them to the rest of Big Oil. And demand from your politicians that you want clean energy, safely obtained.

And tell someone else to do the same.

Full article at the Straight