So the holiday season has come and gone. What a chaotic week and a half! Between all the family commitments, album commitments and the massive amount of snow dumped on us during some of the most important days of the holiday break it was quite the wild week. But now things are settling back into normality (and I have finally stopped shoveling!).
The album is really coming together now. Recently we've had Scott Smith (steel guitar player for Aaron Prichtett) and Adam Dobres (lead guitar player for Ridley Bent and Dustin Bentall) lay down their skills and we're really excited about the sound that is being produced in Kirby's studio. We'll post some videos here soon. Matty "Boom" Bryant from Headwater has even put down some mandolin. We still have a bit more instrumentation to do plus and finally the back up vocals. As you may or may not know some of our album shots came back and they lookin pretty sweet. All credit to Mark Maryanovich who was brilliant as usual (check 'em out on the facebook group). So things are busy busy busy as usual. Hopefully, music gods willling, the album will be ready for distribution by mid-February.
We recently performed a New Years show up in Pender Harbour and it was our best night up there yet. The dance floor was packed until the owner literally had to kick us all out! A big January is ahead of us w/ Gabby's and Roosters on the burner and we're extremely excited for both these weeks!
So, we hope all of you had a wicked holiday season and we'll see you on the trail somewhere!
-Dave Borys
* Tuesday November 18, 2008 *
I though I'd also share a video I took at Mushroom Studio recording drums for our first album (due out in the new year). This is a very historic studio in Vancouver, and everyone from 54-40 to Tom Cochrane, Blue Rodeo, Marcy Playground, Trooper, Ringo Starr, Sarah McLachlan, and on an on, has recorded there. There is even a drawing supposedly authored by John Bonham of Led Zeppelin hanging on the wall when he quickly came in to do a recording while on the road. Of course I do not say this to draw any comparisons, but its very cool to have listened to many of these artists growing up, and then find yourself in that control room knowing who else has been there. Even when you walk outside, people passing by are always looking to see if they recognzie a famous face. We obviously dissapointed them. haha
We got to work on the sessions with a guy named John Webster, who has recorded with everyone from Aerosmith to the Tragically Hip, and was a longtime member of Tom Cochrane's band (I even got to hear an original demo of "Life is a Highway" ! ). Again the stories from this guy are amazing and we all felt pretty lucky to get him on board with his busy schedule.
The drums are usually the first part of a song to be recorded. So we did some quick guide demos over at our producer Kirby Kaye's studio - just vocals and an acoustic guitar recorded in time to a metronome or "click track." Then John just plays the demos through the system (thats what you hear in the background) and the drums get recorded in time to the track....easy. Well of course things come up and new ideas happen, like at the end of this video Kirby and John decided to do something else on the ending of the song. Now that the drums are finished, we can start re-recording the instrumentation and vocals properly, layering and bulding over the drums. There is the production lesson for the day...take care.
- Dave Hartney-
Hey everyone, welcome to our blog, this is a brand new feature on the website where we can tell you what's going on with us, share random stories, put up pictures from our last show or road trip...whatever we want.
* Sunday November 16, 2008 *
I want to use my first post to send out a big thanks to everyone who came out to Gabby's last week. We had another fantastic weekend and people treated us so well and really made us feel welcome again... we can't wait to come back in January.
For those that don't know, David, Garett and I grew up freinds in North Van, and one of our buddies (congrats Tyler) got married on the Saturday. Garett was in the wedding party and couldn't make it, so we quickly trained up a new bassist, Marty, for the show. David raced out from the ceremony and played the first set in his suit. Huge thanks to Marty for doing such a great job learning all the songs...we more than got through the night - Saturday was an epic party. What a blast.
We did not get a lot done on the Album this week, but now that we have a bit of time off, we should be over at the studio most days. Hopefully we get this done in December!
Hope you guys are all well and thanks so much for stopping by the website, esp. you girls who wrote on our guestbook recently!
