Joshua Van Tassel

Once again our favorite political blogger nuncscio has eloquently and informatively summarized a hot Canadian arts issue for us who don’t speak politician. Today’s topic – The cuts to many arts funding programs in Canada. Go here and be enlightened, thanks Graeme….

Musicians rejoice, this one looks good…….

Bandcamp Screencast from Ethan Diamond on Vimeo.

I was very lucky to get on a last minute flight this weekend to go to Nova Scotia for my good friends Emily and Ian Parliament’s wedding (affectionately renamed by Ian to the post title. Long story, if you’ve met him you’ll understand). I lived with Emily as a room mate for 5 years and Ian for one, and I they’re 2 of my favorite people. Here’s the sound of 2 people looking and being unbelievably happy -

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And here’s the sound of my other new favorite person, Emily’s grandfather tearing it up on the snare drum and brushes. A man after my own heart, and if I’m even half this cool at his age, and able to keep time half as fresh as he does then things will be going pretty damned good and I’ll get myself one of those sweet hats that only cool old men can pull off.You know the kind I mean.

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Happiest man at the wedding, coolest guy ever.

every day. Thats what a good friend told me a little while ago, so here’s mine, a weird vocal loop. I am not comfortable singing. Do something that makes you feel like someone or something else today, I dare you. Do it. If you do, let us all know what it is.

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There’s an alarmingly large number of posts on my blog involving raccoons, about raccoons, songs written for raccoons, etc, so I figured it’s high time to learn a little bit about these fun filled creatures who flip flop between being completely lovable and terribly annoying.

First off, the word raccoon itself comes from the Algonquin word ahrah-koon-em, which translates to ” one who rubs, scrubs and scratches with its hands”. This makes sense, seeing as raccoons have five hyper sensitive fingers on each of their front paws, and more then 2 thirds of it’s brain is devoted to it’s sense of touch. Wikipedia also tells me they can hear the movements of earthworms underground, but I’m not sure about that one.

As most of us know, if you put your little green bin outside the night before compost collection, you may as well just dump it all over the sidewalk yourself, and save the raccoon the trouble. They will get in, and they will make a very large mess. A study in 1908 by a scientist named H. B. Davis showed raccoons were able to open 11 of 13 complex locks in less than 10 tries. I have problems opening my front door after a gig at night, and I have a key. Impressive.

Anyway, that’s my little infomercial for the day. Want to see some video of some Toronto raccoons versus the green bin? Check it out.

Annnnnd here’s some music that I’m working on. I think this may turn into something soon.

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Are they our friends? Not when they scream like howler monkeys outside my screen door all night. This guy was looking for the sneak attack from the tree last night, but I’m on to him.

Joanna learns about rss feeds under the pretense of ” mixing a record”. What a farce.

Here’s a gang of raccoons that tried to jump me last night. I’m not even kidding. They were blocking my doorway and it was scary. I think they may have been even shooting dice, I couldn’t quite tell.

And here’s some beats I’m working on today -

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When the tattoo is on in Edinburgh, these guys mean business. I forgot about this sound; you get to hear a bunch of different accents all in a 45 second span, I love it.

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Minutes after pulling into picturesque Edinburgh, I jump out of the van take a deep breath, look around for some scenery…..and see a man’s wallet with the credit cards scattered amongst used needles, bottles, a crack pipe, and a can of red bull. Lovely.

So the past couple of days have been spent at Canterbury Studios mixing the Outlanders record with the band and Jeremy Darby, the fantastically talented, big hearted, and dirty minded engineer. It’s been a lot of fun, but also a a lot of work, more then some people realize. Over the course of a few hours we came up with this analogy to help anyone who hasn’t gone through the laborious process of listening to themselves over and over for 2 days straight understand what it’s all about.

So you’re about to go out for the evening with that special someone for possibly date number 2 or even 3. you’re excited, you’ve spent enough time together to know that it’s got the potential to be really good and long lasting. You want to look your best obviously. So, call up four of your friends and a make up specialist. Get a giant not only full length mirror, but one that magnifies your every blemish, mark, pimple, tiny scar, everything by 100 times. Next ask each person in the group what they think would help fix the blemishes, one by one. Now, chances are, they’re all going to have differing opinions about what to do. Some will make sense, some will be totally ridiculous, and chances are someone will have been on the phone or writing an email and need to have all the options repeated to them again. It can get messy, or sometimes everyone agrees on a little bit of cover up ( reverb), a little something to smooth out the skin (compression), and voila you look great.

Does that make any sense? Here’s a something that’s just been started yesterday, unmixed mind you. This is like going outside in your Budweiser t-shirt with no pants and cigarette hanging out of your mouth to get the paper on a Saturday morning.

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These headphones cost more then my rent. For 2 months. They make me nervous.

I’m very lucky to have written some music for a great play called Norway Today, put on by everyone’s favorite independent theatre company Theatre SMASH. It’s a very affecting play revolving around the stories of two people who meet in a chat room and decide to kill themselves together by jumping off a very very large cliff in Norway.

Sound bleak? It’s not actually. The cast and direction bring out all the humility and humor the subject matter could offer, and the sound design and usage of video really sew things up. Anyway, enough with the commercial, go see it at the Tarragon Theatre at Bathurst and Dupont starting Tuesday the 9th. Here’s a clip of one of the pieces I wrote, and a shot from the first run I saw….

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