I had forgotten how well I eat in Europe, and on tour in particular. We seem pretty fortunate to get great catering and otherwise I’m always fairly conscious about what I eat, since so much of the time is spent on a bus or waiting around for the next move. A good bit of time is spent lugging heavy gear all over the place, so exercise is plentiful enough too.

Sunday marked our first gig. Hellfest, held annually in Clisson, France, celebrated its biggest year to date, with 40,000 attendees over 3 days and headliners including Motorhead, Slayer, Stone Sour, Kiss, Alice Cooper, Fear Factory and Deftones (ahh didn’t get to see Deftones though). There were tons of other great bands around including Dillinger Escape Plan, Queens of the Stoneage bassist Nick Oliveri’s new band Monodo Generator and Behemoth. Met a lot of great people!

The show at Hellfest went really well. The guitar tech and sound guy hadn’t been around for any of the rehearsals and this band’s setup is a little different than the traditional rig, so there were a lot of last-minute issues to solve. Nonetheless, everything went down without a hitch and the first show of the tour, which also happened to be a main stage festival performance, was a big success.

Pictures coming soon!

Sunday night we piled into the tour bus and laid back as we drove towards Switzerland. We stopped short of crossing the border and took up residence in the parking lot of a Novotel in the small town of Dijon. Not a whole lot going on there. We basically walked up and down the highway looking for anything worth checking out and only really found restaurants, a grocery store and a bowling alley. A pretty boring day but we made use of the hotel showers and I got some work done on videos in the works. No internet!

Climbing back on the bus around 2am, we sat in the back lounge and listened to an early mix of Sunday’s Hellfest performance, which was also filmed and will be put towards some promo material in the future. The playback confirmed what the crew had been trying to convince the band of since the set- that it was pretty damn tight and all the ‘micro-mess-ups’ they were dwelling on were not going to come across in the mix the way they remembered them. Rad.

We’ve arrived in Switzerland! A quick trip to the local Media Bin (Future Shop?), obviously right beside an IKEA, and I finally picked up a firewire 9-pin to 6-pin cable we’d been missing for a little too long. Now we can record the shows. Super cool. And picked up the guys a copy of NHL ‘09 for Xbox. Tour bus tournament, commence! It’s been long overdo.

It’s about 7pm. Doors. Opener’s on at 8:15. DTP at 9:45. Should be a pretty good show! Tonight we’re at Z7. It’s our first club date, which for the most part presents an opportunity to iron out any outstanding issues, try some new things, and have a good time.

Hope to get some pics up soon. In the mean time, hope everyone is well.

Europe. Something is great about this place. It might be simply that I haven’t been here at any one time long enough to realize it just like every other place in this universe, or otherwise, maybe that’s just it- another place in time.

Traveling is one of my favourite things to do. It seems to provide a great opportunity for my two favourite things: exploring and creating. Hours on a plane, layovers, buses, hurry-up-and-wait. Half of traveling is waiting, for transportation, itineraries, and while in transit; these just happen to be my favourite moments to write. The world around me isn’t waiting for anything more than an arrival. Everything is up in the air until that time when we reach our destination and until then, possibilities and potential take advantage of the silence of manifest and make themselves heard, and I listen.

The paired side of this traveling coin of course is the arrival of whatever it is we’re awaiting - a destination, an event, more transit -and that just leads to more new experiences, more exploring, more inspiration.

There are a lot of reasons for writing this particular journal. Currently, I’m writing between rendering video files for a new Project video. More waiting : : more opportunity to be creative.

I am at present on a plane somewhere between Montréal and Paris, much closer to Paris at this point, but when all there is below you is ocean, I’m not sure it much matters. Touring with the Devin Townsend Project for the next 18 days is something I’ve been long anticipating, both explicitly and just in general: touring- right now the only thing better that comes to mind is space travel. Anyone have a ticket to MIR?

Over the next 2-point-something weeks I’ll be acting somewhere along the lines of drum tech, stage monitor engineer, live recording engineer and alien from the fourth dimension hellbent on finding the ultimate cup of coffee and destroying every planet that comes up short. Though the work never really stops (here’s hoping it never does), there will always be the forced moments of potential, when the world turns off except for the passing by of whatever crosses a window, and in the case of airplanes, I might as well be in a sense-deprivation tank. Dim blue lights, 200 sleeping bodies, the all-encompassing sound of ventilation and pen.

er, laptop.

…and Final Cut Pro. Damn these Planet Earth cuts look brilliant. You know there’s something missing in your life when you go out and buy a dvd to experience the world. And by something I mean everything.

The video is looking great. We land in an hour; it will be 8:30am in Paris and I will have been up for 19 hours, having slept about 3 hours the night before, and looking at a full day ahead of me. Couldn’t be more excited!

Next stop, Clisson, France.

p.s. The lights in the fuselage have slow changed from near-darkness with a tinge of blue, to rose. I guess the ’sun’ is coming up

My most recent release is streaming and available for purchase at projectmusiclive.com : : check in for the news

So I messed this blog up good. I tried installing a 3rd wordpress platform on the same server and managed to replace some important files and everything stopped working so well.

…and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men (and women) couldn’t put this blog back together again.

…and then I couldn’t get to sleep last night at 230am…

…and then I woke up this morning at 545am…

…and after a quick breakfast at the neighbourhood’s best greasy spoon, I realized my folly, replaced some letters with an underscore, and voilà: this house is once again a home.

In other news, Jon Chandler writes great songs, Kris Ward is sharing his new record with you, I haven’t heard enough from Trevor James, and can’t stop listening to the new Patrick Watson record.

My record is available, June 28th.

It’s done. The record is off to press and should be ready mid-June. Still figuring out release details.

In the mean time, please check out the brilliant photographers who provided some really great artwork, which will be included with the record, and which I think really takes the experience to another level:

(in no particular order)
Pawel Dwulit
Blair Gable
Chris Warunki
Jamie Kronick

Thanks for the great work.

In the mean time, how does this thing work…

The record is finally done. Whence it returns from mastering early next week, all that will be left is to send it off with some imagery files to a magical warehouse in the mountains where it will spend many intense days and nights duplicating itself, dressing in fancy packaging, and being shrink-wrapped, for your pleasure.

There are a couple pieces of that puzzle still left to be sorted out, oriented, and put in place. And that brings us to my latest idea.

There are 5 songs on this record:

Hope
Hiding the Stars
Canyon & Skye
By Southwest
Altitude in Motion

Each of them loves their place in this universe and are happily anticipating exciting the cells of your vestibular membranes; however, we’ve agreed that it would be wonderful to pair a photo with each, to be included in the album artwork.

Since I am no photographer, but feel like I know a fair deal of talented camera-wielders, I’m putting it out there. If you’re interested in collaborating, please get in touch.

I like this more than approaching just one person for a number of reasons, but the bottom line is community. The more the merrier. Let us express.

I’ll admit, this didn’t really go as planned. The blog, I mean.

Last Sunday I began a recording session that has since consumed my life in its entirety, every moment of every day, for the last 10 days. I had originally intended to post photos, journals, even video of things as they went down; writing, producing, engineering and performing on your own record however, doesn’t leave much time for contemplative reflection it seems, let alone uploading pictures or video or any blah.

So here I sit, day 10. Collectively I’ve spent over 160 hours in this environment, setting up, mic’ing, checking, tracking live off the floor with some great players, tearing down, tracking strings!, guitars, editing, editing, editing and finally mixing. It’s been a really great experience so far and the songs are sounding awesome.

It’s been interesting doing a record without vocals. There’s such a space … for drums! … and other things of course It’s been an experiment in building grooves, creating atmospheres and manifesting some bonkers visions in music. I think it’s turned out quite right.

Tomorrow, engineer extraordinaire Brandon Cherrington and I will be doing some final revisions and printing the finished tracks to be sent for mastering in New York, at Sterling.

It’s been great having a hand in every aspect of this project, except playing most of the instruments I guess, which I wouldn’t dare do… I’m excited to hear the finished master and get this thing off to press. Which brings me to the next point…

Names. I’ve never really been one for band names. Or at least that’s to say, I’ve got some in mind, but they don’t seem to be jiving with the locals… maybe I’ll just go with what came first.*

That’s all for now. Gotta get back to mixing. In the mean time, anyone out there interested in putting some creative video to music?

M

Today I’m heading into a studio in Vancouver to record my first record. I’ve played on a dozen in the past, but never before have I been the composer, producer and drummer. It’s been three months since I decided to jump in with both feet and commit to this project; every day since I’ve spent a little or a lot of time writing, demoing, practicing, finding the right musicians, finding the right studio, the right engineer, mastering studio, etc.

Finally, it’s time to set up a bunch of expensive microphones and make some noise in a room entirely unlike the imagined environment this record intends to create for those listening.

DCM Studios is a great little facility hiding away in the Deep Cove neighbourhood, just outside of Vancouver. Though it hasn’t aged quite long enough to develop the sort of character that you might find at some of the country’s great studios, like the Warehouse, and the Factory out west, or my favourite Sound of One Hand in Ontario, DCM Studios has all the right gear, conditioning and experience to create an organic, technologic, warm and tight production.

The schedule for the coming week is pretty intense. Starting today, Sunday, with a 4 hour setup and soundcheck, we’ll then dive into six straight days of 12-hour sessions: Two days of tracking, two days of editing and two days of mixing.
If all goes according to plan, next Monday we’ll send the mix off to be mastered by a good friend in Miami and with that in transit, I’ll take a couple days to finalize the album artwork and prepare everything for manufacturing.

I’ll be posting as many pictures, videos and blogs as I can over the course of the sessions. Anyone interested can check it out and comment at will

In the mean time, if you’ve any fingers free, now would be the time to cross them.

Thanks for reading.

Mike

Album of the Month is now Album of the Week

Waiting, waiting, waiting and still it’s not time for next month’s album.

ii. There are just too many good albums coming out every month to constrain this space to just one addition every 30 days.

c) I’m looking to procrastinate so it’s time to add a new album.

.·. Behold, April 27th’s album of the week:

Patrick Watson - Wooden Arms
Amazon.com | iTunes

Full of great arrangements and nifty production.
Strings, marimba, great drummer, wild west slide guitar, whip snaps, pots and pans… This guy knows how to write a song.

You may recognize Watson’s voice from the Cinematic Orchestra song (from their album Ma Fleur), called That Home, which was used first at the climax of the season premiere of Greys Anatomy, last year, and then subsequently on a million other evening dramas… Also a great tune and amazing record.

Wooden Arms is definitely a quirky, however beautiful album. Needs either headphones or a quiet space for listening though. Nickelback could take a lesson in subtlety from this piece of work.

If you’re excited for Where the Wild Things Are, coming to theaters October 16th, Watson’s (presumably) written a track for the movie, which appears on this record.

Check it out!

Dear Mr.President,

Patriotic retirement:

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force; pay them $1 million apiece severance with stipulations:

1) They leave their jobs. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3) They either buy a house or pay off their mortgage- Housing Crisis fixed.

All this and it’s still cheaper than the “bailout”.”

This is not my thoughts… but interesting, hey?

Kanye has lost his edge
He’s lost his edge
Kanye has lost his edge
He’s lost his edge

Kanye has lost his edge
He’s lost his edge
Kanye has lost his edge
He’s lost his edge

Kanye has lost his edge
He’s lost his edge.

The room is still

A heart beats
Lungs inflate
Hair stands up
Pupils dilate

The room is still

Lights flash
Sounds clash
A sweet symphony for the numb

The room beats

The heart is still