Joshua Van Tassel

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to make music like this. Craaaaazy…maybe minus the saxophone and have a sweet keyboard.

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I was having a coffee with Samwise the dog this morning and I remembered having conversation with a group of people about the best meal they’ve ever had. Everyone gave their speech with watering mouths about beautiful restaurants throughout Europe or India, which all sounded amazing. Then, one person told us about being home for a week’s vacation at his parents place in BC. He had just come off a pretty gruelling tour, and woke up early to a super bright ocean side day. He made himself a coffee and toast with jam, and sat down to eat, not really thinking any out of the ordinary thoughts. As he took his first sip of coffee, he said that he felt like any endorphin charging drug he’d ever taken all flooded back to him and kicked his palette into over drive, and all of a sudden he was drinking the best coffee IN THE HISTORY OF MAN. The perfect amount of milk at the perfect temperature in the perfect mug. As he was recovering from this steaming perfection, he took a bite of toast and almost screamed in a twisted form of delicious agony. His toast was exquisitely made with the exact ratio of jam to surface area needed. Unbelieveable. He had been all over the world, tried exotic foods in dozens of countries, and it turns out the perfect meal was to consist of things you could buy at a Tim Hortons. I’m sure a very large part of the amazingness of the meal had to do with his environment, but still it’s a nice story about appreciating the little things.

Annnnnnyway. Got asked to work with a great songwriter on what may be a really fun challenging project for me that’ll push my boundries and how I think about using sounds and loop making. Here’s a clip of a demo of stuff I’m making using just his vocals, layered and layered and pushed and pulled.

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Also, album tracking is finished!!! I had a busy and awesome weekend getting Burke Carroll and Jaron Freeman Fox in to do their magic, and it’s great. They’re amazing. here’s a clip of the end of tune that needs a name.

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Having a super quiet Sunday morning, getting messed up on coffee and learning to use my new H4N. I beat the living shit out of my old H4, and it was time for an upgrade. The new one is a little clunkier, but far,far easier to manoeuvre around menu wise, has better sounding built in mics, and an option to do 4 channel recording by running the on board stereo mics and 2 external ones as well. Thank you ebay and you’re overstocked electronics warehouses for such a sweet deal. The first sound I recorded on it? Samwise licking my hand. Up close and in 120 degree stereo -

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Also, upon recommendation from a bunch of respectable musicians, I started reading Twyla Tharp’s “The Creative Habit”. Really interesting and motivating without being preachy. I like the fact that it deals with not just feeling inspired, but what to actually do with that inspiration. I seem to always have a dozen thoughts about interesting sounds or pieces or projects going on in my mind at once, but I lack the discipline sometimes to actually just do one of them. There seem to be some ways to examine this kind of thing in a realistic manner in the book, so we’ll see how it all goes.

What’s that? You’d like another book suggestion? Well, ok, sure. Finally found a sound related book that’s written in a language that the common human who doesn’t have a degree in advanced physics and a minor in acoustics can understand and enjoy. It’s called “The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want” written by Garret Keizer. Enjoying it so far, really clears up what I define as “noise”, and the human relationship to it over the years. A good one.

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And that makes me a fool.

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This is from the stuff Jo and I are doing, and we’re both excited.

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Working a lot more again on the kaoss pad lately, and learning a ton from checking out youtube videos actually. For every funny chewing a dog’s tail video there’s an informative clip of someone doing something worth watching.I think that’s the beauty of any touch based or intuitive type of electronics, everyone uses them very differently, and it’s literally impossible not to because of the nature of how they’re built. Speaking of, holy smokes, where did this come from?? And why don’t I own one? Oh right because they’re thousands of dollars. I swear I’d use it for the powers of good if someone was feeling generous.

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here’s the last minute or so of the new record……

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My good friend and unbelievably talented songwriter/keyboard playing friend Joanna Borromeo and I have started a fun project today. We’re using dropbox to pass  little ideas back and forth to each other and stretching them out into something that we feel resembles something we like. She sent me a super weird just-in-time enough-for-3 bars drum groove that I’m doing some fun production stuff with. Excited to hear what she’ll hear when she hears it.

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Also, a boyhood dream has come true and I got a small mention in modern drummer magazine. That’s one for mom and dad’s fridge. Many thanks to Matt and Los Cabos for the sticks and sweet sweet indestructible brushes that have been keeping it all together.

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Nice to hear some happy people on the TTC.

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and then there’s this which will be turned into a real live grown up song in the next 2 weeks.

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In other news, there’s a band in the works that I’m going to be part of which I’m super extremely excited about. It has most of my favorite musicians in it, and I’ll get to do all manner of weird and normal things. I’ll tell you more about it as it progresses along.

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Nothing like investing a bunch of dough to get you motivated to use what you’ve got. My sweet little dog is finally being a sweet little dog and letting me get some work done. It’s actually insane, she pulls her bed over beside me and lays there. I love it. Here’s a clip of something from yesterday. I actually wrote out a recording schedule and got in touch with the people I need to and got their schedules, so it’s halfway to feeling proper. Look at that! Final deadline for recording/mixing is June 10. Even if no one else has any interest in this little fact, it helps me to make a bit of a proclamation or commitment on cyber paper.

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Just guitar/drums so far but there’s an arrangement in mind. My mind.If there’s one in yours by all means let me know.

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This weekend’s Toronto Star had a very interesting article on sound levels in restaurants around town, and even went as far as to measure the SPL levels and decibel readings of a handful of them. An interesting side note in the article is the fact that the readings were done using a $20 iphone app which has been proven by a university audiologist to be within a couple decibels of a $6000 pro meter. Check out the article here
And here are the readings, and a helpful little diagram for context.

Parts & Labour: 90.4 dB

Pizzeria Libretto: 89.1 dB

Lee: 87.2 dB

Bier Market: 97.8 dB

Rodney’s Oyster House: 87.2 dB

Nota Bene: 80.7 dB

Oliver & Bonacini Café: 89.9 dB

Terroni: 88.9 dB

The Boiler House: 77.5 dB

Ruby Watch Co.: 88.5 dB