The time is nigh! In three weeks we head into the studio to start recording The Living Record.

I’ve been rolling out details of the recording on Facebook  - so far that Niko Friesen will be joining me again on drums (he played on both Fell Out of Oz and The Wedding Singer and The Undertaker) and Rob Becker will be playing bass, electric and upright for those wondering. Also that after starting with a list of 20 songs, and recording demos of 14, Steve (that would be Steve Dawson who’s producing the album) and I narrowed it down to 12 that we’ll take into the studio.

Phewf.

Steve and I have started hashing out some ideas – here he is at his studio kindly tuning my guitar for me:

(Confession: I find changing the tuning on my guitar like playing Jack in the Box – a tense game of anticipation! It’s not often a string breaks, but the times it does it always manages to startle the bejeezus out of me).

Meanwhile, I’m practicing more often then I usually do (I can be terrible at such things) and because it was a cold winter day, lit a candle to warm my music room up a bit:

Isn’t it amazing how much heat can come off one little flame?

Upon lighting the candle, seated at my piano, intending to practice one of the 3 (of the 12) songs that are piano based, I instead began to sing something new. Always one to jump on distraction and procrastination, I followed that tune to its conclusion and then put it to tape – er iPhone – to share.

So here I am with that passing moment, that candlelit song – Come Here Little Shadow:

Lyrics:

Come here fire
Here candle light
Help me to stave off the cold
I’ve been singing for hours now
Trying for these songs to take hold
The good part I guess is that playing makes sense of these fears

Come here secret
Comer here little shadow
It’s time to pack up and go
I’ve been waiting
They’ll all be waiting
For us to put on a show
Ready, get set, practice makes perfect
And the best part still is that we get to make sense of our fears.

Well we try to.

 

Now back to work…

HOLY. SMOKES.

(Note: I reserve all caps statements for only the most special of occasions).

The IndieGoGo fundraising campagin for my next album, The Living Record, came to a close ten days ago at a total of $9,390. HENCE THE ALL CAPS because it’s REMARKABLE. There were a couple weeks there where I wasn’t sure we’d even make my goal of $8,000 but in the last two days it just click-click-clicked its way up and beyond!

It reminded me of this guy and how we are attracted to momentum. I’m grateful for it, so very grateful for it. (more…)

When we left off last night the hideous dragon had carried the maid to his cave by moonlight
He gnashed his teeth, and breathed his fire – the heath quaked, and we trembled in fear

I LOVED that song in high school – my musical theatre phase, or at least the height of it. I sing it still – it was often a lullaby for my babe – and anytime I think “where were we?” the lyrics are instantly on the tip of my tongue.

And where were we? When we left off last week, Cris and I were on tour in Ontario… (more…)

It’s a line I’ve sung many times over the past eight years. The song, Pussycat Pussycat, I wrote in my early hours back in Canada after a year of living in England, on a bus from Toronto to Montreal… I love performing it live and aimed to include it on Fell Out of Oz in 2005, but Futcher wasn’t feeling it. It clearly didn’t fit on The Wedding Singer and The Undertaker and I began to consider it would be a song I often sang but never recorded.

But I think it might be on The Living Record. At least, I’m going to run it past the gang. Despite her years, I feel she could fit in with the new crowd. She’s one that keeps being true for me and I’d love to see her get her dues.

Indeed, where have I been?

This trip, and I’ve been away just over a month now, has felt like a hundred journeys in one. (more…)

It’s official: I’m making a new album called The Living Record.

Since I made my last album, the concept of “pre-sales” as funding has reached a whole new level of awesomeness, for all concerned, as “crowd-funding” has taken off with the likes of Kickstarter, FundBreak and IndieGoGo.

Thus, it is also official: I’ve launched a campaign to support the making of The Living Record. (more…)

I have this friend Lindsay.

She makes whiskey cake, lives for the punch line, and sounds like a hummingbird for all that she can accomplish in a day.

But before that was true was this – I have this friend Susan. (more…)