Way to go Roberto!

Yay!

Video!

The video for 'It's Only Rain' is nearly done and I think it's being completed as I write; we watched the last minute 45 tonight and it's great - very west coast-y. I love it and Leo is a genius.

Only two weeks until the Christmas album goes to master, wondering if I can get the Christmas video done for 'My List' in time so it can go on the CD ------ hmmmmm. That would be a nice little bonus - but that time will also require purchasing the software AND learning how to use it - might be an interesting project!

This week, Scotty's Christmas tune, mixing two others, updating everyone's ReverbNation pages and sending one of Bobby's songs for drums. We did a scratch vocal with Melissa for one of the duets, but it's not quite there yet. We're deciding on harmonies.

Had down time with Melissa tonight and just watched a movie, also spoke to Graemme who was on the ferry coming back from Nanaimo where he was doing a seminar. He is on the road for the next couple of weeks, right up until the mastering of the Christmas album actually - oh will link to his blog if I can find it...

Perfection! -

There is nothing better than getting a good vocal...well, maybe for some people there is, well ok, maybe food water and a place to live, but this comes a close 4th......tonight...it was amazing. Melissa's Christmas song is now very nearly done and it's going to be a doozy (doozie/doozee?) - a whopper of a hit! Mark my words on that one. We also chose the tunes for the CBC and I'll mix those tomorrow night.

Took some great photos too...

Guitars, guitars, guitars - and tribbles

Working round the clock on Christmas tune guitars - nearly done - Happy Wedding to A&T!
So warm out - Indian summer - everyone has a cold, but for Buster - Back to it - we're on a roll!

More cleaning...

Missed a day again - dang!

Recording Tina Turner tracks, working on Christmas tunes and cleaning out paperwork - still and again - but nearly done, it's amazing the things you come across. I did discover that I have about 100lbs of lyrics and half a dozen PhD thesis topics....anyone, anyone?

Going over songs for CBC on Sat. with Melissa and hopefully confirming with Eddie that we'll be working with him in January!

Weekend/week

So much work to do this week - lots of recording, and C's new p/ups ( Fat 50's) arrived so those will go into something. Tried to work on some Christmas stuff tonight but to no avail. Have three nearing completion and one more to record. Received fiddle parts today for Lindsay's Christmas tune and wow - nicely done!

Melissa and Eddie's gig went well, full house and JS from CBC attended and was pleased.

Fall is here and it's chilly. Hard to play guitar with cold fingers...

'..and in the sky, a star moved.'

Had a relaxing night of nothing! Funny though how when I stop, more ideas just seem to pop into my head.

Lindsay checked in, tour is going well - good press.

Melissa and Eddie share a gig tomorrow night and I'm starting to think about Melissa in Australia for next year, she's receiving so much radio play down there.

Busy week of recording coming up.... and hockey!!

Oh,and last thing tonight: congratulations to all of our friends who have received BCCMA nods this year! Good work guys!

Hmmm, well well well, what have we here?

This looks interesting. Thanks for passing this along JW...and so close to Christmas!

Friday Night...

Loads of paperwork and contracts today, and drums on Melissa's Christmas tune. Getting festival submissions ready for Blind God and Melissa and booking fall and winter gigs. Tomorrow night Melissa will track bobby's duets and the final Christmas tune vocal.

Spoke with Doug today who just acquired MDI, very exciting, AND the weather sounds great out there! He's picking apples from his tree! The weather on the coast this summer had been so cold, our neighbour's old Macintosh tree only has apples the size of crab apples this year.

CBC called for Melissa, we're playing phone tag...not much else new, so busy but thankfully we now have Lynda giving us a much needed hand with the Christmas album marketing!

Oh had an email from Rich up in the Yukon, I hope he's getting some fishing in! Lucky bugger!!

C had to play tonight, so our week began early. When he gets in (around 3:30), we'll watch the rest of The World's Fastest Indian; Anthony Hopkins is SO good playing Burt Munro!! Even if I didn't love motorcycles, I would watch just for this performance....(even though his accent oft slides into undertones of a Dubliner...he can be forgiven!).

Oops!

I seemed to have skipped a day - C is recording the Rod Stewart stuff and I have been reading and doing paperwork, trying to get everyone's Press Kits ready for Barry. He's having his photo shoot right now, we're hoping to get the cover of the October issue. I've heard tell that Rolling Stone may pick it up, that would be so good for everyone!

Back to work - just having a tea break. Had some kind of Chilean Cab. Sauv. with dinner and it was almost like Port, feeling a little deydrated now... We've had some good Chileans in the recent past but this one was just too sweet. Should see if the Zen master has tried anything new recently...hmmm...where is the Zen master> May have to send Buster out on another search.....will he turn up at the AES in San Fran next month I wonder?

Today....

Took some time today to eat peas in the garden with the dog (for some reason he'll eat the peas and then go into the garden to retrieve the shell ~ and will proceed to eat that too).

Spent the day on paperwork and articles and making plans for the Christmas album. Melissa sent a scratch track for the next country album, it's amazing ~ as always.

Tonight going to try and read and think about what to do with 50 lbs of zucchini....

It's almost the weekend!

Gosh time is flying by! Lots accomplished tonight though. Article filed, nice note back from editor, we may make the cover next month, signed all the artists up on ReverbNation, did a few rough mixes of Melissa's tracks from last night (myspace.com/melissarendean) and answered emails.

Oh had a nice review, in German, translated it on Babelfish and it came through ok (http://countryjukebox.de/pages/world.htm). That album is doing well in Germany and Australia.

C home in just under 2 hours, and we'll have noodles and watch the rest of MI3.

The sunny days linger and it feels odd watering the garden when nearly all of the leaves are dying. I hope it keeps up, maybe the tomatoes will have a chance to ripen. I have no recipes for green ones.

Sunday night/Monday morning

So tired but finishing up interview. Melissa left a while ago, we did three guitar and vocal tracks and tried for the Christmas tune vocals but it was so late. Ate grapes instead, listened to Rodrigo y Gabriela and looked at photos of the Mexico house.

Tomorrow is submitting article, Jeff is suppose to file photos by the afternoon and then maybe relaxing...well... who am I kidding, we'll be working on a Christmas song I think...and then tomorrow night, maybe recording Melissa again or doing paper. Blind God want to do a mini tour of the Island, so may start setting that up. Also have to book the TV show in NY for Dave, he is applying for his P2 and they said it will take 120 day to be approved, so they'll have to slot them in, somewhere in the spring of 09.

Also time for festival submissions.

Need to get on Christmas marketing as well.

It's 2am, C will be home at 3:30 and we'll probably have popcorn and watch MI3.

We watched the new James Bond (C loved it, I am still a die hard and think Goldfinger was the best one), over the past three nights and before that Blood Diamond. I have never known why people want diamonds, good advertising tells them they do I guess, but after seeing that movie, I would never even consider it.

Having a clean up.

After having been inside the past week I tried to get outside and of course ended up right back inside cleaning the basement. Well, I had to, after the flood.

So the first part of the day consisted of getting up at the un-Godly hour of 9am(middle of the night for us around here), and meeting Marcel, our Polish plumber at the scene of the crime. With no major difficulties and a relatively painless trip to the wallet, we spent an interesting hour with our plumber because he is one of the most interesting people I think we know. He is God fearing, but self governed ("Oh I'm bad, I'm a bad man...you don't want to be around me young lady..."), loves to hang out at the nude beach and spouts philosophy and physics, while cursing a blue streak (and apologizing to me every other word while he shakes my hand - 5 times in an hour today) while snaking the drain. We love it when he comes over, in spite of the wet reason that he is here.

Today he left us with: "Do you know why we always run hot water through the pipes at the end of it all? ~ Because it feels better on our hands than cold..", and this little ditty: "It's quiet when you die, but noisy till then."

The next part of the day consisted of cleaning out the basement. With various deaths and moves, we have three full housefuls of stuff under one not so huge roof, and I need to get it down to a more manageable one houseful of stuff. We did quite well, but more importantly I found my old backpack, and you know that game where you see what's in your purse? Well I thought it quite funny to see what was in my old pack. There was:

~ an article entitled The Great White Shirt from the Sept. 30th 2000 issue of Saturday Night (I'll be passing this along to Thomas)

~ a fairly smashed box of Curious George thank you cards, with envelopes

~ an Italian coursebook (Buona sera, signora Rossi)

~ a receipt for dental work in the amount of 60.$ from my dentist in Rarotonga (now that's a good story)

~ a bit of yellow scrap that reads: "You can't give away responsibility, only control" hmmm

~ a photo of me in younger years beside my garden (very long hair!)

~ the entire Section B of the Aug 5th, 2000, Vancouver Sun with the article about Drake's visit to the Province in 1579 (I was saving it to read and still haven't had time)

~ 4 postcards from PEI

~ a copy of "Micky and Goofy explore the Universe Of Energy" from Epcot Centre (I have no idea...)

~ the lyrics to Donovan's 'Try to Catch the Wind'

~ the instruction book for my sewing machine

~ a letter from the Taoiseach dated Jan 12th, 1994 including a copy of the Joint Declaration(of Dec 15th, 1993), in response to an article I wrote that was published in Irish papers in 1993 ('A Plea For Peace')

~ a book of English floral pattered wrapping paper (18th C designs by William Kilburn)

~ a certificate of course completion (Families in Crisis training from about a million years and another lifetime ago)

~ two taped conversations of a psychic I actually went to (I'll let you know if anything actually happened, I was so skeptical when I spoke with him)

~ and the best of all - my long lost picture of Dave. Sigh.


Now I'm back at it and as soon as C left for the gig I called Barry and got my interview - it's going to be big and I feel so fortunate to have gotten 'the scoop' as they say.

For the rest of the night I will be outlining the story, sending out invoices, and what the heck, studying Italian...

Friday/Sunday

Fridays always feel like Sundays because C begins his work week tomorrow, and when he leaves for work, I get to the admin part of our lives.

Bobby left today after a great big breakfast, (I even made waffles!) I'm sure he is happy to get back to the fam.. Lindsay left on tour today, I hope it goes well, still trying to book her a few more shows while she's there.

Richard and Blind God played tonight and I sent Ryan M out to film the show. Rich was so happy to be playing with them, he really wanted to jam some Delta, so I hope they did.

Plumber in the a.m., and then have to write my interview questions for Barry and call him in the afternoon. Tomorrow night is paperwork, Sunday Melissa has 6 or 7 songs to track and not sure about Monday yet.

The week begins!

Day 4

Finished, we did it, the marathon week is nearly over, but for the video and celebration breakfast! An amazing week. It's such a great experience recording Bobby, even though his songs all tell a story, it is the story behind the song that is so interesting and moving for me. It really helps build the song later on, when I can go back and recall his experience and what led him to write the tune.

We had another good song-writing discussion today and we all agreed that what appeals to us most is what is left unsaid, or unplayed in the spaces - it's all about what's in the emptiness, the part that gets filled in by the individual listener that matters most.

Another day done....

Did 9 songs today plus maybe 6 overdubs. Everyone is pretty tired. Tomorrow Bobby is going to AG's rehearsal before he comes over for 2. Tomorrow is just more overdubbing and noodling around with parts etc. Trying to write out interview questions for Barry in the spare moments, but there aren't many of those this week.

Sunny days, but we only have a studio tan.

Cleaned up after the flood from last night, but Marcel can't come until Sat. and we couldn't get through to the other plumber.

The days turn into nights and they all run together sometimes.

Tuesday is over....

We did it, 9 songs today!

9 more tomorrow.

See Jenn - See Jenn record, See Chris, See Chris record - see Bobby, see Bobby sing and sing and sing.....

Good singing Bobby!
Good recording Jenn!
Good recording Chris!

Goodnight Bobby!
Goodnight Jenn!
Goodnight Chris!

Elvis Helping Lindsay with her tune for the Alz Soc.

Bobby's Sessions Day #1

Busy day! Bobby showed up early, and was ready to go right away in spite of having been up and travelling since 4am! After a good discussion on songwriting, we laid down guitars and vocals for three new tunes and did a vocal overdub on a session that he brought with him. We'll be doing vocals on three tunes that he recorded live from the floor (to 1/2") at Audities in Calgary (http://www.audities.org/audities/index.html)...oh sorry, was I drooling?

He left to take the train back to the house where he's staying and will be back tomorrow at 2, when we'll try and get 9 songs done.

In the meantime, Lindsay and Melissa have a gig tomorrow night, Rich and Blind God are gigging Friday, and Lindsay leaves for her tour on Friday as well, so lots of PR going on in the chinks...

Simon sent piano over for Melissa's Christmas tune and it is perfection, as always. I can't wait to build it!

Next week I have to start on Christmas album marketing and Melissa's Christmas video.

Jerry checked in from FLA and is having hockey withdrawals, especially because people keep calling him and asking him to sub in! Wed hockey should be starting soon too, I think?

Rodrigo y Gabriela.....

......I just bought their first full length album from iTunes - you HAVE to check them out, amazing. Have a look here, you can hear them and check out a live video clip:

http://www.songlinesinteractive.co.uk/interactive/053/

(R brought me this magazine, new to me, it's now a favorite and will get read cover to cover along with Tape Op).

I also want to check out, "In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2" - sounds wickedly promising!

Simon Broughton and Paul Geoghegan are my new heros.

Successful Tone Quest

It seems like all yesterday's work on the LP has paid off. C called from the gig to say that the p/ups were not microphonic, so that's great news!

No recording today, but we did listen to the music we are working on and came up with a few ideas. We're eagerly awaiting Ian's fiddle on Lindsay's Christmas tune, it's going to be amazing. Waiting for artist feedback right now on a few others as well.

Also began to set up for Bobby next week, but mostly went outside and enjoyed the fall sunshine, ate peas out of the garden, played with the dog and realized that once we get started on the Christmas album, time really flies.

It's difficult to believe that it's already past Labor Day, and the summer was so cool and busy that there was not much time for badminton, kayaking or even swimming, but we did get lots done.

Waiting to hear from L and see the revised first minute of video for 'It's Only Rain', and can't wait to get going on the Video for 'My List', Melissa Rae Anne's Christmas tune. Hoping that we'll have enough room to put a few videos on the Cd itself, as per Graemme.

Tone Quest

C was going to write his first blog tonight, but the Mojo order came right after we finished re-doing the solo today and it's been guitar bits everywhere ever since. It actually came at a good time, it was good to give our ears a break after yesterday and last night.

This weekend I have a fiddle session for Beth's album and some mixing on Melissa's Irish tune, 'Culcavy Road'. Ian finished the fiddle parts and it sounds great. Hope to also finish this duet and Lindsay May's tune also.

Next week will be really busy as Bobby is flying in to start on his second album and he also wants to do scratch tracks of 15 or so songs. So nearly 40 songs in four days... we'll be ordering in....

SOCAN says we have to get permission from L. Cohen to use the Hallelujah chorus on the Christmas album, so I've put in a call to S at Sony.

I'll also finish outlines for the next three month's worth of articles and do some PR for Blind God's upcoming shows. And we still haven't finished watching the Ten Commandments!

3:20 am ~ closing down for the night

C is making noodles and I've just send Scotty and Melissa a mix. It's sounding good; today we did guitars, violins and listened to the bass again - rethinking it, then leaving it in the end. So hard to work when tired, always second guessing and doing a lot of work for nothing, because in the end we almost always use the first takes!

I also sent 20 pages of the Finland journal to the Dept of Migration in Turku, Jouni said we should hear some feedback within a month, Olavi will be heading to Alaska, but he'll take it with him to read.

Tomorrow we hope to get this song to nearly finished, and V is bringing a few guitars over for us to look at.

The new issue of BC Musician should be online, so check it out, I should have a few articles in there this month.

We're part way into The Ten Commandments - so going to watch a bit while we eat - and I'm loving seeing all these men in skirts - hey whatever happened to the 'Utili-kilt'? Thomas - can you bring that back?

;-p

Jumping on the Blog wagon....

Ok, here we are - adding yet another task to our 30 hour day, but we just can't help ourselves there is too much to share! So, just so you know ~ today we are working on Scott Jackson and Melissa Endean's Christmas duet for the Very Vancouver Christmas Volume 3 album. There are only a few tunes to finish up and we'll be done really early this year (that is my wishful thinking anyway)! I updated the Myspace page last night (www.myspace.cmveryvancouverchristmas) but I don't like the colours, and hey, we are still searching for a web person to work on the Christmas site this year - what a great opportunity for some lucky individual - ok - coffee....