Joshua Van Tassel

We did a super fun photo shoot in high park yesterday with Carly and Mark involving lamps, a generator, a disobedient dog, and Coronation street. Mark did and awesome job getting it all together, and Emma-Lee shot it who’s also a great song writer too.

Also, my roommate bought a projector, and it’s basically the awesomest thing you could do in a loft space. 30 Rock gets funnier when it’s blown up and shown on a sheet, I swear.

And what am going to now you ask? I’m going to try to make some music out of a full box of cereal. That’s right parents, encourage your children to be a musician, let them spend four years in a post secondary institution,  and they too may eventually make what’s sure to be lucrative piece of music out of cheerios.

ps – I’m playing with Joshua Cockerill at the Horseshoe tonight, and also the Long Haul. It’s all for Jadea Kelly’s cd release party, should be a fun night…

Joni Mitchell speaking about Bob Dylan in a recent interview -

“Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I.”

I feel like a helpless little kid about to watch parents start arguing. Mom dad stop it!! Stop fighting! I love and respect these artists so much, and I don’t know if I want to hear them bicker back and forth. Unless Bob Dylan has a really clever witty and slightly obscure retort, then bring it…..

We’re excited, lots of tickets sold and a back drop that’s a giant photo of the st. John river. Epic.

Here’s the bicycle piece finally as per Christine’s request. It took longer then I thought/wanted it to take, but I’ve learned my lesson I promise. Which is – Expect nothing and try everything.

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And the whole ” I want to finish this project in 2 weeks thing?” Pffffffft, I’m a fool. These take more time then I bargained for, plus I have somewhat of a life. Kind of. Annnnnnnnnnnd I just got a practice space so I can actually become a real drummer again, awesome. And I’ve also been writing real songs on actual instruments with strings too, who would have thought…….

I’m headed to Fredericton tomorrow for some D. Myles cd release shows, but I’ll start the beer can on Monday morning, right away. I’ll miss you unless I see you in the maritimes…..

How am I supposed to get anything done with attractive looking distractions in coffee/animal/human form all around me?

Working on the bike piece, started over 4 times now, frustrating. I think the problem is that I went into this one with a concrete idea of what I wanted it to sound like, and spent too much time chasing after it when it didn’t work out the way my ears thought it would. The fun of these pieces is the discovery end of it all, and the fact that once I get started on them they sort of fill themselves in. I’m trying not to think about structure too much, which is hard because I’m such a sucker for a good song. Anywho, here’s clip of where it’s at now which should tell you where it’s headed……or not at all. Who knows? The bicycle.

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In other news, it’s RECORD STORE DAY TOMORROW. Please for the love of all things musical and my career, go support a local record shop and buy some music. Like, actually purchase a physical cd, just for old times sake,k? Lots of stores are offering discounts and fun stuff, check out the site here to see if someone close to you is participating. No, amazon.ca does not count. I’ve been saving up for 3 weeks and I’m going to treat my ears to something great, I can feel it.

The new Jakob Dylan/ T Bone Burnett produced record ” Women and Country” is AWESOME. It sounds warm and dark and huge, the band is amazing, and the songs are really really nice. Here’s a NPR video from a very cool series called “tiny desk concerts” which are pretty much exactly what they sound like.

Taxes. You hate them but you have to do them. If you’re an artist there’s nothing straightforward about this time of year, but it can be done. Christine Bougie posted this quick guide to help you out, and it certainly helped me out.

Also, in the process of doing all this one piece stuff it’s been pointed out a few times that many other people have done the exact same thing over the years, I’m not doing anything new, etc. I totally understand that I’m not really braking any new ground or blowing anyone’s mind with a whole new concept of music making. I’m doing it because it’s fun and challenging and I learn a ton from it. In fact, UK sound freak and excellent composer Matthew Herbert has a record coming out that uses only the sounds from a single pig. Slightly more exciting then ice cubes. It’s funny, whenever I write something on the guitar for exampe, no one says to me, “ummmm I don’t know if you noticed or not, but Neil Young just recorded a record with the acoustic guitar too. Everyone’s going to think you ripped him off.” Right.