You might have already noticed that there is a new page on this site, "Alive!" which basically is what you would think, i.e. a listing of upcoming live performances.  Only one confirmed so far but a few more should be showing up there soon.  It's been a while since I last went through this process of getting gigs and I forgot just how complicated it can be.  Club owners/bookers tend to keep odd hours and getting them to respond to an email is pretty much hopeless.  Not to say I blame them, they are probably bombarded with requests - just have a quick look at Myspace and you will start to think that just about everyone in the world is in a band...that's a lot of people looking for gigs and since it has become almost impossible to sell recordings of music I imagine that many more artists are trying to get "out there" and get their share of the pie.  Whatever, I guess I'll just keep trying and see what happens.

So I will finally be getting out of the studio a bit, very necessary for my own mental health among other things.  But things are going well in the recording department and there will definitely be a release this spring.  It's not 100% decided but it will probably be an E.P. and will be released very early in June.  Exact release date coming soon...

All for now.

Didn't waste any time getting back into some serious studio madness now that the cold and earache are gone and the past week was super-productive, especially the lyric writing which has been like a crazy rush of adrenaline-fuelled controlled chaos.  Start one piece, get a verse done, take a few minutes to ponder the next move, think of something that could work for a different piece, move to that, a few minutes later back to the first one...and so on.  Sounds like a situation where nothing would actually get done but in the end a whole slew of tracks now have complete lyrics.  My head is spinning a bit but I am sure that will pass...

On top of all that there have been other pieces of these puzzles being put into place and then editing and on top of all that a whole new idea for separate sessions that would involve a bit of collaboration with an old friend from Toronto.  He sent me an email completely out of the blue a couple of weeks ago which included a poem which he "gave" me (although I am still waiting for clarification on this "given" status).  I read through the poem over and over until a soundscape started forming in my head and I immediately fired up the Ableton to start bringing it to life.  Most of the piece was worked out that afternoon in a mad rush and a few more touches have been added since with still a bit of refining to be done.  Very ambient, very moody, very "score"-like.  I wrote back to my old friend to let him know what I was up to and to ask if I could do this with a couple of other poems I have had from him over the years.  Only thing is, he still hasn't replied and knowing him the way I do it could be months before he bothers to get back to me about this.  It's just the way he is.  He's the kind of guy who will "disappear" for weeks, months and sometimes years at a time and then suddenly pop up in your face, either in person or by email.  Always a wild ride when he's around.  So we'll see how things go but one thing is for sure:  this soundscape I am working on and some others that have yet to take form will be finished, either with his words or with mine or with none at all for that matter.  Why not a few instrumentals to round out the mix?

Yes, a lot of experimenting going on in this laboratory/studio here.  But really nothing compared to the torture TV show experiment in France.  Now that was an experiment!  Not really a new idea, similar experiments have been done, but not in such a public and sensational way.  And the big lesson from this?  That the majority of people are easily manipulated and will obey orders blindly if they come from a figure of "authority"?  That the majority of people are cowards afraid of upsetting the status quo or breaking free from the herd? 

I don't like to be cynical but examples like these make it hard not to be.  And I am not going to be self-righteous, I know I have allowed myself to be manipulated at times in my life and I am not sure how I would have behaved if I had been involved in this experiment.

Maybe that bugs me most of all...

Game Of Death: France's Shocking TV Experiment

Unfortunately I had to put my plans for world domination on hold for a couple of weeks due to a really bad head cold and ear ache (pretty lame excuse you say?  If you had seen what I was coughing out you might think differently!)  Anyway, all that is almost over, just a bit more crap to get out of my sinuses and the ear is still a bit tender but should be back to normal in a couple more days.  So I wasn't all that productive in the past little while even though I tried to get some admin stuff done - actual studio work wasn't really possible because of the ear thing and concentration difficulties but I did start on something completely new which was inspired by a very unexpected email from an old friend - more on that later.  And what this "admin" stuff involved was often a lot of web/channel surfing and convincing myself that it was all part of the recovery process. 
Nice one, huh?!

But this little break of sorts did allow me to get back in touch with "current events", something I often ignore, not really intentionally, it kind of just happens that way.  So I was channel surfing a bit and feeling a lot of self-pity because nobody in the world had ever had such a bad cold as the one I was suffering and I stumbled across some "breaking news" on CNN.  Apparently there had just been a tremendous earthquake in Chile which had not only killed a lot of people and destroyed a lot of stuff but had also sent shockwaves through the Pacific Ocean which caused a few Tsunamis which could lead to further death and damage in other Pacific Rim countries.  Wow, I thought, and all of this only a few weeks after the catastrophe in Haiti!  It seems like Mother Nature woke up on the wrong side of the bed in 2010! 

But I am not poking fun here, events like this are truly tragic and the survivors need help, that is clear and it has been great to see the willingness to lend a helping hand coming from so many other countries throughout the world in the form of relief workers, food and medical aid, security forces etc.  Real help.  Not just some lame attempt to "raise awareness" - if you were not aware of the situation in Haiti at least a day or two after it happened then you must be militantly trying to avoid any kind of contact with the world around you and probably live on a deserted island somewhere or maybe deep in the wilderness in a self-made log cabin completely cut off from the outside world.  Which I guess brings me to my actual point.   "We Are The World 2" or whatever they're calling it.  Are you kidding me?!!!

Although the first version in 1985 had its flaws and the need to "raise awareness" even then was a bit in doubt considering that international news was obtainable by radio, TV, newspapers etc., the concept of a few pop stars getting together for a marathon recording session to churn out a single that would be sold with the proceeds going to help the cause they were singing about was kind of new and novel.  And music actually could be sold back then!  But to have a group of has beens and "almost famous" pop stars getting together to record an inferior, auto-tuned, rapped, version of the same song 25 years later to "raise awareness" about a situation that everyone in the world knew about within 24 hours of it happening is really pretty ridiculous.  If these people really want to help why don't they just quietly take out their cheque books and throw some money in the pot.  Or better yet, hop in their private jets and head on down to Haiti and start digging through the rubble in search of survivors!

I think this video puts the whole situation into perspective best of all:

Huey Lewis - I AM THE WORLD