First is my good friend and yours, David Myles. The album is called Turn Time Off, and it was one of the funnest, most fulfilling  musical experiences I’ve had. We recorded the record in the fall of last year with Joel Plaskett at his cozy studio in Darmouth, and the comfort vibe comes through. Could have been the Willie Nelson, could have been the wine, but the whole things ended up sounding rich and smooth like a cream cheese filling on a smooth cake of some sort. A little bit of bitterness and not too much sweet.  We’re dong a bunch of release shows for the album, including one here in Toronto on May 19th at Hugh’s Room, and I’d love for you all to come? But why would you come if you’ve never even heard of this maritime hippie or his songs? Fair enough, here’s one that I like a lot –

Genius number 2 is Dean Drouillard. He finally released his remarkably remarkable new record “The Bear Lake”. It’s a beautiful, understated record, by an understated beautiful man. It, and his other albums are up on his bandcamp site. Go send some love directly to his very own bank account and in return get some great music. That sounds a little demanding I suppose, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, I’m just saying you’d probably really enjoy it, that’s all.

Watch this space throughout the day; I’ll be putting up pictures, some video, some sounds that didn’t make it, some bad jokes. etc. If you like what you hear, talk to me, and if you don’t like it be constructive with your criticism and talk to me too……

update #1 where and why and how

We all know that things have changed a huge amount over the past 10 years in terms of how records are made. The fact that I can make the music I do here –

– is pretty great. A lot of people complain about the fact that when anyone can have access to recording equipment the amount of “bad” music that gets made exponentially increases and the market gets over saturated. I’d like to think that rather then a huge influx of bad stuff, there’s some much more innovative music out there getting made, things that record companies and management people would never want to take a chance on due to lack of marketability. It allows me personally to make music in a relaxed place like my home and take all the time I need to make things sound the way I want them to, whenever I want which is why this ep was fun for me to do.
These tunes were some of the more interesting things that came out of some very late night experiments. As a musician, I get home late quite a bit, and generally aren’t quite ready to go to sleep right away. The world (especially in east end Toronto) looks a little different after midnight, and sounds a little different too. The tunes kind of reflect that time of day and how it feels to be looking at it and being in it.

Also, not as exciting, but I got some good work done on some new music yesterday. Here’s a very fresh sampling of something that came out.

Every time I finish a project I always feel ready to get right back at it, which is how I feel now. I have some good people that are going to be helping me promote the Nighttimer ep ( that now has some art and is loaded and ready to go) and I’m sure it drives them crazy that I’m already on something else, but that’s how us flaky artists do it I suppose. I learn a ton from everything I work on, and I want to apply that knowledge right away. I think it makes sense.

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.

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.

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.

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

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….

let me hang out with their babies –

….and fed me some cucumbers they grew in their garden.

I also spent some time producing a tune with the lovely Sarah Kurtis the other day, and we’re working on a sweet sounding little thing that goes like this so far….

[audio:

Here’s a tune that didn’t quite make the cut. I had posted some parts of it hear before, but here it is in a somewhat finished form, just so I can feel like we’ve had some closure, and don’t start calling it up in the middle of the night trying to figure out why things just didn’t work. Was it the song? Was it something I said? Who’s really to blame??

Here’s a piece of a tune from this album I keep talking about though – - I swear it’s almost done….in fact check back here next Friday May 23rd for the release of the first single from it on a shiny new webstore that will be going up very soon……until then have a great long weekend…..