What the hell am I up to?
My EP, 2010-1982 CTD., is now available at bandcamp. A few more tracks from the sessions from my last album, three more original songs and three more 80′s covers. The EP is available for digital download only, so sorry if you prefer a hard copy. I’m just happy that it’s no longer collecting digital dust. Here’s a little video for “City of Champions” taken from the loft a few nights ago. It was -32 outside. Seemed fitting.
I’m releasing a new digital EP next week. It’s more of the sessions from 2010-1982. It will be available at bandcamp.com and all the other usual outlets next week.
I’m coming to the end of a week of powerwriting and working with the talented students of Lord Beaverbrook High School in Calgary. We’ve been workshopping a new musical I am writing based on Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare, set in a modern international news network. Still don’t have a title for it, and there’s a long way to go, but it has been an exciting week and we’ve accomplished a lot, including recording a six song CD of some of the music from the show.
I will be starting a new blog for the new musical as soon as things get a little less hectic.
Holy-moly has it been nice this fall. Summer is finally here Alberta…and I haven’t blogged since back in rainy June!
Nearing the halfway mark in the run of “Four Lads Who Shook The World: The Beatles Story Part 1″ at the Mayfield. If you’re planning to come to the show you’ve still got about five weeks left before it closes. I’m having a great time singing all those fantastic songs doing my best to sound like a chippy kid from Liverpool. Mike Ross wrote a little story about it in gigcity.
I did finish Saint Aggie’s ’84 for the most part and it has been sent off to the good people at the Weaver Academy in North Carolina to peruse. I don’t think it’s quite ready to go yet and that I’ve probably got one more rewrite to do. It would be nice to schedule a reading here in E-ville if time permits.
As soon as I finish blurting out this little note I will be getting right back to Draft 1 of the new show that I’m writing for Lord Beaverbrook School (Calgary) / Scona High School (Edmonton). This yet untitled new musical, based on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, will be running at three separate occasions including a stint at the Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland in the Summer of 2012. Thanks to both the AFA and the Edmonton Arts Council for funding!!!
Thanks for reading. Now back to work.
I have not been running. Injured leg. So I have been swimming, which doesn’t make for much of a photo, not to mention that it would destroy my iPhone. And although I find swimming great exercise I find it incredibly boring, you can’t listen to music and there’s all the counting (lengths) and all that business about trying to remember to breathe, etc…it’s just too hard to think. So for the past few mornings I have been riding my newly refurbished 12 year old mountain bike that is a bit too small, but will have to do. This morning as I rode I listened to some demos of the new show I’ve been commissioned to write. I promised myself that I would finish Saint Aggie’s before I launched into this new project, but as it turns out the new play will be due first, and I’m feeling a need to get a feel for it, if nothing but for my peace of mind. I’ve decided that I’m going to finish the opening scene/song and a few other stand along songs, and then I’ll get back to Saint Agatha’s Academy.
June 9, 2011 – 7:05AM (+9 degrees Celsius)
I’ve been running but not putting these up for the past few days. I’m not sure why I’ve not been posting them. This morning, I listened to the latest Decemberists record, The King is Dead. I’ve been listening to it on and off for the past few months and I have actually been in enjoying it, however, yesterday I heard them talking to Jian on Q about how they got Peter Buck from REM to play lots of the guitars in the studio (well…barn), and now the whole thing makes much more sense to me. This is the danger of purchasing music from iTunes and not having liner notes to read. I’d been thinking that “All Arise!” sounded more than a lot like “Orange Crush”. Ahh…..now I get it.
April 23, 2011 – 8:27AM (-1 degrees Celsius)
April 22, 2011 – 8:01AM (-2 degrees Celsius)
April 21, 2011 – 7:17AM (zero degrees Celsius)
Religion and politics should never mix, but there’s nothing wrong with a healthy pairing of governance and good old rock n’ roll.
…or Folk ‘n Roll…
…or country.
Remember when Canada was cool!
On May 2nd let’s consider our options.
Check out this character. He looked pretty rockin’ in his pre-Bloc days.
He almost looks a little like this guy…
…Chris Murphy from Sloan.
And what about Jack?
Nothing to say but: rock star!
Elizabeth May has enlisted the services of rockstar hockey enforcer Georges Laraque.
Even Iggy’s been sited with Rob Baker from The Tragically Hip…
…and some even more iconic characters.
But Harper? Who’s Harper hanging with? Oh, yes.
This is how you will be reminded…a vote for Harper is a vote for Nickelback.
Listened to Saint Aggie’s again this morning (God there’s some stuff I’d like to remix) but thought mostly about the (yet as unnamed and still formulating) new show. Trying to come up with a good newsy line like “Keeping them honest” that is a catch phrase for one of the main characters. It would be great if it could end up being a song title. Meh. It’ll come. Going to work Tuesday on the new Aggie’s songs…and one more re-mix of the Wheat Pool.
April 17, 2011 – 8:21 AM (-5 degrees C)
Listened to the cast recording of Saint Aggie’s ’84 this morning. I wrote two scenes for the show yesterday and I’m thinking the two week completion deadline might actually be achievable. I’m going to start on a new song for the show on Monday which I think I’m going to call something like “HOW CAN THINGS BE WORSE THAN THIS?”, about being characters stuck in a musical adaptation of Shakespeare.
April 16, 2011 – 7:45 AM (-1 degree C)
I have to finish Saint Aggie’s ’84 in the next two weeks. That is the deadline I’ve set for myself. This morning as I sloshed through the ice and slush I thought through the directions in which the play is going to go. Some of the ideas are going to shake things up considerably. On my headphones was Radio 3 again. I love that Danny Michel song, “Switchman” that’s from last year’s Sunset Sea record. I’ve heard it a few times on R3 in past couple of weeks. The “Switchman” in the song is the guy that switches us between the tracks as we chug along rails of our lives where we have little of no control. It’s all up to him, the “Switchman”. Well, “Switchman”, just let me finish writing this damned show, let me figure out how to fix scene 3 and don’t let me slip on this f#@KINg ice.
April 15, 2011 – 7:25AM (-2 degrees C)
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