I thought it would be fun to create a music ‘video’ for my song ‘Cherryblossom’. The pictures were all taken by me at various points during the year. Vancouver is crazy beautiful, and I hope that you can see, through the images, why I was so inspired to write this song.
Vancouver is a city bursting with talented musicians. Two such folks are my friends Stuart and Faith. Stuart you may well recognize as a member of my band Even Handed Odds (formerly CROWN), but he’s also got his own solo stuff going on. He was one of the first people I met here in the city, and we’ve been collaborating ever since. Faith is someone I met through Stu, and is a country-fied singer/songwriter who has penned some really catchy tunes. When I was asked to fill out a showcase at the landmark Railway Club, I was happy to include my two friends on the bill.
At the end of the night, the three of us got together and played this classic Beatles tune:
In what might be the nerdiest I’ve ever done, I have arranged and recorded another all-viola cover. This time, I took on another classic, “Don’t Stop Believin'” by Journey.
This video also allowed me to address one of my pet peeves about the song: “South Detroit” is Windsor, Ontario. Downtown Detroit is right on the rover, south of which is the border to Canada (it’s weird, I know). So there.
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This is a ‘music video’ of sorts that I shot for my song Voice In My Head.
I am reasonably certain that I can cross “film-maker” off of my list of potential side careers. I shot this in my apartment using the webcam from my laptop. I figured it was better than a static image for the full 5 minutes the song plays for.
If there are any of you who possess actual talent at shooting film, I’m definitely interested in having some actual non-terrible videos done.
Getting good live video is tougher than I imagined. The lighting is always wrong, and the built-in audio on most video cameras is not that great. Luckily I managed to grab this tune from one of my gigs at Darby’s Pub.
Want to get some acoustic stuff up online soon as well, so look for that.
I put my cover of ‘Madness’ by Muse up on Youtube.
A year and a half ago I wandered into Tom Lee Music Store and found myself in the midst of a year-end sale. Because it was marked way down, and because I had wanted one for a long time, I picked up an Ovation round-backed guitar from the Celebrity line. While I loved the guitar to pieces (especially in relation to the one it was replacing), it wasn’t too long until I felt like I had outgrown its sound and was looking for something a bit warmer and brighter. It was along those lines that I found Emily, my new guitar, who is a Seagull Entourage manufactured by Godin.
In this video, I take her out for a test spin on one of my favourite covers to do at karaoke:
I’m looking forward to recording a lot of great stuff with Emily. Incidentally, my recording of Niall Connoly’s “Skin and Bones” was the first song I recorded with Emily, and you can really hear the difference in the guitar tone between that one and my older recordings with Sarah (my Ovation).
A local singer-songwriter with whom I am acquainted posted a new song she had written on Facebook. It’s broadly representative of why I love her music – elegant, deceptively straightforward, and full of potential avenues for reinterpretation and addition. I’ve been looking for opportunities to collaborate with Stephanie for a while, and when I first heard her song ‘Grown Up’ my mind was immediately flooded with ideas of how I could augment it.
The result of our collaboration is now available on Youtube:
Guitars and vocals are Stephanie, strings are me. I was going for the suggestion of strings rather than making the strings the driving force. As a result, I was able to add layer upon layer upon layer, in an attempt to re-create the effect of an entire string orchestra from a single instrument. There is a cello part (I used an effects pedal to drop my viola by an octave into the cello’s range), 6 syncopated ‘brush’ string parts, 2 upper-range ‘descant’ parts, and a solo/countermelody of three voices, as well as 2 ‘pizzicato’ parts. I recommend listening with headphones if you want to try and pick them all out (especially the cello, which sits underneath the bass guitar part).
I used a similar arrangement in my song ‘Saturday’, but made a conscious effort to make the strings more subdued to allow Stephanie’s haunting vocals to shine through. Stephanie too is a multi-instrumentalist, and I look forward to finding an opportunity to return the favour and have her contribute something to one of my songs.
I bought a camera to record my live shows. The video quality ain’t great, but if you can’t make it to a show, this is a reasonable alternative.
This is one of my favourite tunes to play. The long-buildup is great, especially since I don’t usually announce the tunes before I play them. Nobody’s really sure what it is until I start singing, which is the general idea. Anyway, enjoy!
I conducted a little experiment and let my video camera run while I was recording the vocal track for my latest release. Yes, that is my apartment. Yes, that is my laundry draped over the arm of the couch. No, you can’t come over – my place is a mess!
I’m still working out the kinks of the ‘home studio’ thing, but I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. Plus, I got to work out the drums on my new digital keyboard. The toys are slowly taking over my home…
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