2010 Year in Review: A Trip To Boogie Love
We started 2010 with the filming of Trip Around The World in New Orleans, Louisiana. This video was directed by Michael Maxxis and shot over two days, January 12 and 13, in the historical area of the city as well as near the college. The single was released February 2nd in Canada. The filming of this video would overlap a Saints playoff game. A team who had never won the Superbowl before and just starting their now very memorable run at the National Title. Was her touch of voodoo during her time in the city influential on their run? This writer thinks so 🙂
Between the filming of the video, release of the single and while eagerly awaiting the release of Voodoo there were some minor stories of note. We got to interview Alexz for the first time, the album art was revealed, and voodooo packages and their contents were revealed. Then the big day finally came!
Voodoo was released on March 10, 2010, available in physical form in Canada and digital everywhere else including iTunes. It contained 11 tracks designed to be listened to from beginning to end and was very cohesive. The tracks we know all know really well such as Taker, Mr. Jones, Boogie Love, and Voodoo.
Accompanying certain Voodoo packages was a signed Voodoo poster from Alexz herself. This is a highlight to me, where she made a video to show that the signature on the posters was really hers. You only need to see the video to understand why this was such a great moment:
Alexz performed the day of the release at the Rivoli. Our very own KatieMT reviewed this performance for us and we got videos, more videos, and pictures from the show. In this show she has performed some songs she hasn’t performed live since, such as Superstition, below.
Alexz would be interviewed an appear on TV shows for the next few months in support of her album. Magazine articles from Valley Scene and The Mountaineer, including the Toronto Star, would do stories about her. She would appear in CP24 and perform on Canada AM:
This brings us to June.
Alexz did an interview and performance for CiTR radio giving us an amazing acoustic version of Voodoo. You can listen to it below:
[audio:www.alexz.net/audio/AlexzJohnsonVoodooatCiTR.mp3%5D
The day after this radio appearance Alexz played a show at NXNE. We didn’t know then how big of an event this would turn out to be. We got video of this performance and the debut of a new song, Mary. It was at this show that Nelly Furtado and Demo Castellon attended. The NXNE show would also kick off Alexz’s tour to promote Voodoo.
A collection of ALL pictures and video can be viewed by clicking here.
The tour would take her to the House of Nonie Fashion Show, the Ottawa Bluesfest, to the Drake Hotel to help her friend Jessica Earnshaw, and end at the Live Green Festival.
We learned in July that Demo Castellon and his Demolition Crew were not just going to remix Trip Around The World, but the WHOLE Voodoo album! This news created interesting fan reactions which again, KatieMT summed up well in her post here. The tentative title for this remix album would become Voodoo Reloaded. A little piece of exciting news was that for Voodoo Reloaded Alexz recorded some more vocals with Demo. News of the progress of Voodoo Reloaded would continue throughout her Voodoo Summer Tour.
Like with her single Trip Around The World Alexz would again ask for her fan’s help in naming the new album like she did for the single. As the work on Voodoo Reloaded started picking up steam new plans started to be made. These plans included new release dates, a re-vamped website, and a new music video. A revelation came out about why Alexz’s album under Epic Records, “Weight”, wasn’t released.
Around this time we learned the single would be released on January 11, 2011.
On December 13, 2010 in Toronto the music video for the first single off of Voodoo Reloaded was filmed. It was shot over a single day with Director Aaron A. and will have a 1970’s vibe to it. The chosen song would be kept secret for a short time and it was only shortly after the video was done filming that we would learn it was to be Boogie Love. The video will have two of Alexz’s siblings in it as well as some old friends from a show that many of us became Alexz fans from.
Alexz also landed an appearance on The Listener! From what she tweeted to us she hinted she might be a redhead once again for the role, or perhaps another role since she was auditioning again around this time. While filmed this year it will likely not air until next year, so look for it on next year’s Year In Review! Alexz is a very gifted actress and it will be great to see her acting once again.
Now we head into a new year! There’s so much that can be accomplished and so much progress that can be made. I’m looking forward to an exciting year in 2011 and I’m sure Alexz will accomplish even more next year than she did this year.