Well friends, it’s been fun. It’s been amazing at times and a let down at other times. When we finished our first tour across Canada in the summer of 2008, i described touring with the Painted Birds like a roller coaster ride between the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. There would be a good show, and then a terrible show, and then a mediocre show, but there was always that great next show.

That same year we embarked on an even longer tour across Canada in the fall and i discovered that the lows could last even longer. I recall a 12 to 15 day stretch of around 9 shows where there were no highs. No positive points, nothing amazing to lift our spirits. We were in the desert.

Ladies and gentlemen, for the Painted Birds 2009 was a return of that desert. While i’m only now reporting our demise, some among us believe that it actually happened about a year ago. Last February, for emotional reasons perhaps, I neglected to report to you, our friends and followers, that TPB had parted ways with one of its key members; Shane Lynch. While we’d parted with drummers before, Shane had worked his way into the fabric of the band. We told ourselves we could carry on but i don’t think we truly believed it, and some, perhaps at times, didn’t really want to.

The rest of 2009 was basically a front. For show. Like a married couple putting on the happy face to make it seem that everything is happy and ok, but behind closed doors we truly weren’t happy or ok. The Peak Performance Project seemed to offer some hope. Shawn recently explained to me that to him the contest was like a window in a jail cell; the last chance for escape. Josh had announced his possible departure from the band long before we didn’t place in the top 3. When we were included in the top 20 bands, Josh let us know that he would stick around to see if we could win it, but he hadn’t found the Painted Birds creatively stimulating for quite some time. If TPB was a struggling married couple, it had just become pregnant, and the Peak Performance Project was the baby that we thought we could make it work for.

All of this is not to say that we as people don’t get along anymore. On the contrary, Josh, Shawn and I are still great friends, and all wish the best for each other in our future pursuits. We just agree that this project has run its course. We were ok with being economically broke for a while, but something is gone. The dream of standing out and making it that brought Shawn and I together 4 years ago has died and all the B.S. of this industry with its too many promoters who, too knowingly, screw over band after band just toss more dirt on the carcass.

To draw this to a close, we’re done with this dream. We’re grateful for everything that has happened along the way. We met so many amazing people and are thankful for everyone who believed in us, let us sleep on their floor, listened to our music, and came out to shows. We’ll never forget that. I’m so thankful that Shawn was and still is my best friend, and i’m extremely grateful that we chose to pursue this exciting path together. It’s sad to him and I that we need to now choose new paths but i’m so happy that we can keep our great friendship and share all the memories. I’m writing this into our closing agreement right now, that though we as a band have retired, we will still be forced to play songs for whoever cares to invite us over for dinner as long as there are a couple of guitars or a piano around.

I will continue to make music and will let you know soon as to where and under which name it will be posted. I’m not sure whether Dominique Fricot is the best performer name…;)

Thanks for the ride.

So long
Farewell
Auf Wiedersehen
Goodnight

- Dom

A Must See Event! Do not Miss this!

Dom’s very excited to be playing the Piano Recital at the RIO on February 5th. This show is the closest thing to a must see event since Jared got his very own wine tasting with the Painted Birds.

Adaline, Dan Moxon of Bend Sinister, Jody Glenham, Prairie Cat and Dom Fricot will each be playing solo sets on a beautiful grand piano at the very intimate Rio Theatre at Commercial and Broadway.

Seriously, DO NOT MISS THIS ONE TIME OPPORTUNITY.
Partial proceeds will go to the red cross to support Haiti relief fund

That’s right, it’s red carpet time. Time to crack out the champagne and make a toast to the end of living in a house that’s falling into the ground. No more TV Dinners or showering at public pools because we’re out of hot water. We’ve made it baby. It’s big time time. For some reason the Universe decided to make the Painted Birds ultra mega super insane-o rock stars, and all in one week.
   Virgin Radio 95.3 FM Vancouver selected our new single “Wash Away” as their Best of BC song for this week (Jan 18-23). That means they’ll be playing “Wash Away” as if it were a hit for this whole week. Like 12 to 15 times. Man, I’m just imagining all the possible royalties we might collect off of this and while I write this I already have another window open booking a flight to Hawaii.
   We also decided to hit the world with a mass media double WHAMMY. We’ll be performing on Urban Rush this Tuesday, January 19th. Check us out on Shaw TV at 5 PM Pacific time. It’s gonna be awesome.

Dom “probably in too silly of a mood to make this post” Fricot

We’re very happy to announce the winner of our Facebook Contest and share with you a video. Our friend and fan Carly posted over 15 different status updates in our final push in the Peak Performance Project. As one of her status updates mentioned “what girl wouldn’t like to be serenaded by (our song) So Beautiful”, we took the initiative to bring that very private serenade to her house.

Congratulations to Carly and all that took part in our contest. We sadly did not place in the Peak Performance Project but will put our heads down and continue to power through it.

Watch Shawn and Dom’s covert mission here:

We’re very excited to be playing our last show of 2009 at Venue (formerly the Plaza Club) for The Peak‘s Xmas Party!

Doors are at 8pm and be sure to get their early as we’re on at 9!

Click on the poster to purchase advance tickets:

you could be as lucky as the girl in the picture we're holding...

As the Peak Performance Project winds down, and Christmas is fast upon us, The Painted Birds have decided to throw another awesome Facebook Contest!

As some of you may seen our video “The 100.5 Reasons TPB Should Win the Peak Performance Project”, you may have noticed that the amount of reasons posted did not add up to 100.5 reasons. In this contest we’re asking you, our friends and fans, to help us complete the list of reasons. Don’t worry if we go over 100.5 all the better.

How you compete is easy, simply type the reasons you think that The Painted Birds deserve to win as your status on Facebook and make sure to tag two things in the status:
1.The Painted Birds
and
2. One of the members of TPB, i.e. Josh McNorton, Shawn Berke, or Dominique Stephane Fricot.
Tagging is super easy, all you have to do is put an “@” sign before whatever you’re going to tag. i.e. @the Painted Birds or @Josh Mcnorton.

If you’re having trouble tagging the band make sure you’ve gone to The Painted Birds profile page on Facebook and clicked “Become a Fan” at the top.

So for example, if you’d like to take part in the contest and help us promote the band you could type a reason like this as your facebook status.

Because @Josh Mcnorton and @The Painted Birds have such sweet beards, oh i just want to groom them!

or

Because @shawn berke of @the painted birds doesn’t hear the bass, he feels it in his bones.

We’ll keep track of reasons and the person who comes up with the best reasons as well as the person who posts the most reasons as their status on facebook will receive…drum roll….

A very special surprise holiday package from the Painted Birds! Believe me, it’s gonna be sweet. Take a look at the Photo for this event, yeah, how would you like to be as lucky as the girl in the photo we’re each holding?? I’m sure you’d like it a lot

Now go, post some new statuses. Contest ends this Friday December 4th at midnight.

After a very long drawn out trip we had 2 great shows in Kelowna. On Friday night we played a show at the Habitat opening for Ohbijou: a great band from Ontario that absolutely delighted the room. On Saturday night, after getting new grippier tires for our van we had our very own show at the Streaming Cafe. Thanks to all that came out and tuned in online. For those of you that don’t know, the Streaming Cafe is a new venue in Kelowna that books music acts and films and records the shows to ‘stream’ them for the audiences watching live online.  The venue, the staff, the audience and the whole experience marks one of the band’s favourite shows of all time and we’re very happy to have great footage of the show.

For your viewing pleasure here is an acoustic performance of our single “Wash Away” at the Streaming Cafe.

Enjoy!