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…
This is a session I organized and hosted for the Freethought Blogs online conference, FTBConscience. I put together a panel of atheist bloggers/personalities to discuss representations of atheism in popular culture.
Horror films are a wonderful source of escapism, where we can feel the thrill of terror in the relative safety of our living rooms or a crowded movie theatre. One of the all-time classics within the horror genre is the zombie movie: hordes of shuffling, shambling atrocities hell-bent on devouring the flesh of the still-living. One of the iconic images of any good zombie movie is the panic-stricken victim of a zombie bite who is slowly turning from human into monster, as all morality and reason drains from their body while their comrades feverishly debate whether or not to put their erstwhile friend out of hir ‘misery’ courtesy of a well-timed shotgun blast to the face.
Cinema. … Continue Reading
Part of the reason I haven’t been writing as much is because I have been playing more guitar. I recently bought a fancy new effects pedal from Line 6, and I have been learning to master it and incorporate it into my live performances. The options are virtually endless, and the going is slow. Here’s one of my favourite new things to do with it:
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