artist Echo Mile

We're in the studio again, doing overdubs. All guitars tonight; first Jay's acoustic parts, then my (one, tiny) acoustic part. Acoustic stuff went pretty well--as long as you know your parts, there's not that much that can go wrong, really. Nobody ever says "damn, the tone just isn't happening on my Martin tonight."

Then we decided to try and do as many electric parts as I could bang out in the hour and a half remaining on the meter.

And there's the problem. The meter.

Time is money, but time is also necessary for creative exploration. And when you are plunked into an isolation booth with an amp, a bright and snappy telecaster, and a pair of harsh and unforgiving headphones, you need some time to get in touch with your tone and your message.

Tonight I only acted like myself. I did a pretty good impersonation, too. But I didn't feel real for a second. My tones were close, but not quite. My phrasing was too rehearsed, or too sloppy, but rarely in that happy in between spot where good things just happen.

Yeah, I admit it. I cracked under pressure. Stuff I can do live in one take in the rehearsal room without breaking a sweat suddenly became a big deal. I forgot chords. I forgot which pickup or which pedal I was using. I forgot how to use a volume pedal. No, really!

I hated nearly everything I heard through the monitors, but didn't do enough about it because I was worried about wasting time and money, worried about looking like a control freak or prima donna agonizing over every note. So instead I let a bunch of bad music slide by, a bunch of reasonable facsimiles.

I guess haste really does make waste--because now I need to go back and take my time to do it right. To be myself, not just act natural.

On the plus side, Jenny's new tatoo is pretty cool...

First proper band practice in 5 weeks last night. It's great to be out playing, but when our only meeting of the week involves a gig, it's tough to stay tight, stay connected, stay together. We play music together because we love to, not because we want the work or the cash. So when the band focuses only on jobs, it loses focus. Band practice is a necessity. Not only do we remind each other how the music is really supposed to go, but we remind each other how awesome it is to kick back with friends and make a joyful noise.

So we spent 4 hours learning cover tunes for Nov. 15. Covers are a funny business--you want to play songs you love, but you don't want to be trapped by playing them in the original styles. But when you change the style, you lose the song. Always a balancing act--are we copying? Paying homage? Gently mocking? Or tap dancing on the grave? Last night we did some of all of the above.

Then we spent 3 hours (yep--a 7 hour practice!) working on our own stuff. Adam and Jay tapped out around 1. I physically unplugged Jenny and kicked her and Marcy out around 2:30 in a heroic act of self-preservation.

We polished off a joyless gluten-free vegetarian pizza and a couple joyful bottles of wine, and shared a stiff belt of scotch. (Mmmm...scotch and pizza!) We ran through a bunch of old favourites. We smoothed rough edges on a couple more. We sketched out ideas for at least 3 new songs, at least one of which is a tango--finally that lost chord progression has found a home in "Sink Into Me"!

I think everybody except Adam took a turn playing Jenny's new organ, and everybody except Jenny took a turn on drums. I played tambourine like Susanna Hoffs, and Marcy played tambourine like Jack Ashford. By the end of the night, I was thoroughly hypnotized, and totally in love with the sound we make and the people I make it with.

Damn, I like band practice.

Went back to Artword/The Pearl Company last Friday night. Was excited to play out, but was secretly dreading playing to an almost empty room, no matter how groovy the room itself is--and Artword has a great space upstairs, converted warehouse, hardwood floors, raised bank of sofas along the back. But they lacked a built in audience, and as we are just beginning, so do we. But we went anyhow.

And people showed up. Not a lot, but at the start of our set there were maybe 15 people in the audience, most of them people we invited. However, Artword also organizes a Friday night Artbus, doing gallery crawls. And the bus comes back at 10. So, at 10:05, an audience arrived, mid-set. We were warmed up. We were eager. And we lit up like roman candles. The mayor was there. About 80 other people wandered in, too. They pretty much all stayed. And listened, not just hovered by the bar talking about art. So we played until 11, then chatted with our new fans, promoted our next show, gave away our last copy of our demo cd (oops--better get that sorted out!), were offered a return engagement at Artwords and another at next years CLC Labour Day picnic, and packed up by 11:30.

We were hungry. We were jazzed. We were not about to go home to bed (well, Adam was, because of a back injury, and Jay was, because he had to be up at 6 the next morning--but the rest of us were good to go). So Marcy, Jenny, Amy and I walked around the corner to Rebel's Rock for a drink and some pub grub.

And stumbled in to a cool little Friday night R&B house band. And chatted them up on the break between sets. And got invited to grab our instruments and jump up on stage for a song. And did, of course. And played a smokin' version of Kind of a Rain, with proper blues intensity for all the righteous old bluesmen in the audience. And a fan from Artword (the lucky woman who got the last demo cd!) bought us our drinks. The house band invited us back any time we like, and said they'd put a word in for us with the booking agent for Rebel's Rock. And also offered us a spot at a showcase the drummer promotes at the Corktown.

Went out ready to play but expecting a letdown. Played anyhow. Hit 100 people right between the eyes. Got four more leads on gigs. Guess that's how it works. You play the best you can for the crowd you are given, and you always use a lever when it is presented to you. You make your own luck. And Echo Mile is starting to feel lucky right about now.

Sometimes it's so strange to listen back to recordings of the band jamming. It's a sort of out of body experience.

I don't even know who that is playing the guitar: sometimes it's me; sometimes it's way better than me; sometimes it sucks so bad I can't even begin to admit it's me.

I think I said somewhere else that I write songs not to explain what I know, but to discover what I might possibly know. Apparently I do the same thing when I solo. I have no idea what I was trying to do, and scant idea what I actually did, but I begin to get a sense of what I might do next.

I think there's something buddhist about the whole improvisation process; something to do with tetralemmas. But I'll be damned if I know what that remark means, either, or even really what a tetralemma is.(OK, I have an idea. But I can't claim to be able to validate truth claims that suggest something both is and is not, or neither is nor is not. I guess I'm stuck in my Western logical ways for now. But not when I improvise. Which I guess is my point...)

Right. We're online. Only a year behind schedule. Apparently all it takes is deciding to get it done, and then doing it. Seems to be that time of the year. Something about the leaves making that bold leap--changing colour, drying out, and stepping into the void to make a crackling carpet of red and yellow for new rubber boots to stomp in.

But that's not a metaphor. We change colours, we step into the void every time we play. But there is no drying out. There is no stomping boot. The music is a source of renewal. We get younger every time we play. It's like baptism. It's like viagra. It's like seeing yourself in the mirror and realizing you're pretty damn hot. And that's before we even hit the stage. I think we've outgrown the rehearsal space, though. Time to leap into the void.

So we made a demo this summer. And we jammed, long sweaty jams until the not-even-so-wee-anymore hours of the morning. And we drank red wine. And we went outside in the rain. And we really got to know each other. We've been baptized. Baptized in sweat, in alcohol, in sheets of sound, in thunder and lightning, and even in a little bit of blood. We're a band now. We blink in unison. We don't even need to make the jokes anymore, just raise the eyebrow that means the joke. We anticipate each other. We complete each other. We make one big noise when we all push in the same direction.

Now lets get the hell out of my basement and unleash some baptismal fire on the rest of this unwashed city. Lets spread some joy. Let's make some noise. Let's break some hearts, and heal some hearts. Let's preach what we've been practicing, before we implode.

Jeff Tweedy said that Kim Gordon said "People pay money to watch people believe in themselves." I believe in us. Time to make some money.

Amy scored us a day in a marvellous hall (the guelph youth music centre) to do some recording. We rolled in between 7:30 and 9, set up drums a mile away from, but facing, the rest of the band on stage, plopped honeybun down in between, and turned on the little red lights.

Magic happened.

The drums sounded like, well, Amy's drums. Which was a novel experience for all of us, and quite enlightening. Amy is kickass, and has never been properly represented on our previous recordings--with all due respect to my living room, it ain't no GYMC auditorium.

So we played, and we laughed, and we ate bagels and banana cake and Suzanne's thoughtful fruit tray, and drank an extra cup of coffee against our better judgement, and sang harmonies until we really had to leave because someone else was coming in.

Then we drove all the gear back to my place, parked in that spot that pisses my neighbour off, and Jay, Jenny and I tucked in some tardy overdubs. I finally found the tone and the notes I needed for For You. I got to crash a spaceship into the bridge of Carry the One.

At 8, Jay headed home (finally--thanks for all your reno help, my good man!) and I roughed out some mixes. They're really good. They make me happy in a silly, goofy, 32 toothy way. And they're not even done yet. How cool is that?

So we all (excluding Marcy, who was Thelma and Louising it across the eastern seabord) went to see Dave Matthews at the Molson Ampitheatre last week. He, as one might expect, rocked. It's been a long time since I got out to a full-scale rock show. Having kids will do that to you, if you choose not to neglect them.

But the atmosphere--the thousands of potheads on the grass; the singalong feel to every song; the wild flights of improvisation by the whole band, and especially that badass trumpet player; how I've missed that feeling. So when we practiced this week, we tried to channel a bit of that.

We set up in the basement, which--so it would seem--is not so good for recording drums (yet!). So instead of recording boomy, splashy, poured concrete resonant drums, we decided to just play.

We played all the songs we intend to record. We played a few we didn't intend to record. We played a few that didn't even exist until we started playing them (and they were the best songs in the world!). We formed a circle and made eye contact. We arranged the speakers so we could hear each other properly. We sang loud and proud. We trusted each other. We echoed each other. We laughed and smiled and rocked like a motherfucking house on fire. We played until a glass on my amplifier leaped to its death on the cold concrete floor, then got another glass and kept playing. I played drums. Amy played Darbuka. Jenny revealed a secret saxophone talent. I revealed a matching secret saxophone. Adam pulled out the coolest fretless 6-string bass you can get for under $150. Jay just plowed ahead like Galactus devouring planets.

We amaze me. We amaze us. What the hell are we doing making all this joyful noise in my basement, worrying about how to keep the volume down so nobody can hear us? We should be figuring out ways to crank it UP and get it OUT. I fully intend to be LEADING the potheads in their singalong next time I go to the Molson Ampitheatre.

Alright, it was a humble beginning. But everything's a beginning, and humility's a virtue, so it was a virtuous part of everything.

We played Arunas' house party last saturday night. We brought the gear. We set it up. We let the other acts use as much of it as they wanted or needed. We went on last. And the over-precious dude before us with the two-chord piano drama and the dadaist crap lyrics cleared the party. Even my grade 12 guitar teacher didn't stick around to hear what wonders he had wrought, 19 years later. (I'm a little hurt, Ron!) So we played for maybe 10 people, four of whom lived there?

But the 10 people had fun. I had fun. The rest of the band claims to have had fun as well. And we actually played reasonably well given the absence of a certain bassist (we love you, Adam! Take care of Matthew!) and the absence of rehearsed endings for about half of our songs.

Were we perfect? Nah.
Was the night perfect? Nah.

But my wife rode home with me, sleepy in the passenger seat at 1 a.m., and whispered that she liked our music and enjoyed watching us play so freely and so happily.

Who needs perfection? That was so much better.

Amy--slide me some photos. Jenny's already done the audio, and this blog post is naked!

Band practice. The usual time. The usual place. The usual suspects. A slightly unusual red wine, and a number of decidedly peculiar beers. Seven hours later, Tom is asleep on the sofa while Jay, Marcy, and Jenny work on something new. Tom can't even recall what, the next day. Adam and Amy have gone to their respective homes. By 3 a.m. the house is silent. In the interim, though:

We discuss cover tunes. We play cover tunes. The task of finding someone else's song that fits our own musical identity is a seemingly simple one, until we pause to think "just exactly who are we, anyhow?" Several iPods containing several thousand songs are hooked up to a PA. Tom brings a good old fashioned mixed CD. People run out to their cars for supplementary material. It's a good old fashioned riot!

Everybody listens to everything. There are groans, cheers, laughs. Occasionally somebody raises an eyebrow. A  rather ironically named shortlist of several dozen songs is generated. We learn a few things about who we are, and a few things about who we are not. And we move one step closer to playing out for actual money. Which in itself may or may not be who we are, but seems like a likeable thing to do, if the circumstances are amenable.

And now, three days later and free of the sulphites, I pause to wonder--with all this talk about who we are, have we neglected to ask the question "who is our audience?" I show my short list to a few musical friends. They say "hmmm...." and other decidedly equivocal remarks. Apparently our idea of popular music is not everyones. And that's ok. In fact, I'd rather have it that way. The song everybody knows already is often not the one that needs repeating.  It's the one nobody has noticed yet. It's the one everybody forgot. It's the one that makes the musicians smile, because that's what makes the audience smile.

And that's life. We strive to communicate something real and positive, and we find out something real and positive about ourselves in the process.

A different sort of a friday night--a gig, instead of a practice!

Keep the Beat is a charity fundraiser for WarChild Canada. This is the second consecutive year it has been held at Saltfleet High School in Stoney Creek, Ontario. I run it, so I book the bands, so I gave us a spot. Besides, my guitar students expected it. Felt a little pressure to wail on the solos, I surely did.

The day was stressful. Technical and organizational problems abounded. High school students behaved like high school students. But the show proceeded. And as soon as I stepped on stage with a guitar, all the stress evaporated. Well, OK--as soon as I hit the big Dmaj7 chord at the bridge of Logic of Real Arguments. On the video it looks like I'm doing some calculated rock-star gesture, but in reality, I was just so happy to hear us play that chord that I became momentarily weak in the knees.

We played everything fast: some of it too fast. Endings were not always tight. I tried to play the chorus of BRC over the pre-chorus the first time round--8 bars ahead of myself with anticipation. The sound was muddy and indistinct. There are lots of things to do better next time.

But it was great anyhow. All the little things are just food for our next practice. And the big things: the songs, the players, the joy of playing--we've got it in spades. Nice to get out of the house, folks!

As a bonus, we raised almost $6000 to help rebuild schools in rural parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo that have been destroyed in that nation's brutal and ongoing civil war. Ask yourself where the coltan in your cell-phone came from. Then ask the manufacturer why they support such brutality, and what they are doing to stop it. As Barry Smith told my students this week when he came to share the story of his recent trip to the DRC, "Sometimes simply asking the right question can be a step towards finding an answer." Barry, you are a hero. Thanks for getting me in to the WarChild project.

Took pictures last week. Up in the attic, the six of us plus a handful of nefarious lamps. Mostly just goofing around, but the idea was to create a press-worthy band photo.

Looking back at the pics today, a few thoughts cross my mind:

1) Still photos don't represent music very well. We don't sound like what we look like.

2) A band with a wide range of sounds is difficult to peg with one definitive photo. It's a lot like pigeonholing yourself with a genre label. Are we rock? pop? adult contemporary? a jam band with hints of prog? And if so, what sort of pants should we be wearing, and how should we carry ourselves before the camera. Is there a facial gesture that says "guitarist" that isn't already a cliche?

3) I really like the people I play music with. I know I keep saying that, but it keeps being a central truth of the band experience for me.

As I type this, I am listening to Jenny's solo piano version of Blues with a Bright Red Crayon. It amazes me that she cared enough about the song to transform it for her own enjoyment. It amazes me that I wrote even the seed of such a beautiful piece of music. It amazes me that, as with so much of what we do, even our throwaway jokes and musical gestures are so fully integrated into a common experience.

Who cares what we look like? Have you heard us? Close your eyes. The photos are perfect.

We grow increasingly amusing. This is good--especially since we grow increasingly musical, too. It's nice when you can play the hell out of a song AND make the band laugh at the same time.

There was this moment where we all had a foot up on the monitor simultaneously--even Amy, whose feet are really rather elsewhere occupied, still managed to do it spiritually.

And the schtick where I slip "Sweet Child O'Mine" in to the song at the least appropriate moment, yet Jenny always counters with "Music Box Dancer."

There is the eighteen inch joke. The hamster motif. The increasingly rambunctious ending to Silence--which is approaching Skynyrd proportions. So much of what we do, even so much of what we fail to do, is cause for merriment.

And all of it makes us closer. Makes us a better team. Makes us more musical: the music ceases to be a series of notes, ceases to be a test of concentration, memory, and fine motor skills. Instead it becomes a celebration of friendship, a collective emotional and social experience, a manifestation of living in this time, in this place, with these people as my friends. The music becomes an expression of us.

I couldn't imagine being in a band with people that didn't laugh at my jokes, that didn't make me laugh until I can't breathe or speak, that didn't want the music to transcend the plane of ordinary noise-making and enter into the plane of joy-making.

I couldn't imagine being in a band with anybody else.

This is perfect.

You are perfect.

Thanks.

We practiced without Marcy last night. It was illuminating to realize how much we cue off each other, particularly off the vocal. When one part goes missing, the rest of us get disoriented.

After Adam and Amy went home (party-poopers!) Jay, Jenny and I sat around jamming and talking until almost 3 a.m., by which time the buzz from the wine had died away and we could drive home safely.

We wondered about our musical identity--do we have one? Is it even necessary to have one? Would it be better to have several? Does one just emerge over the course of time and constant playing and writing together?

Seems to me, in the words of Frank Zappa, "you are what you is." Identity is inherent. Personality isn't something you put on. Sincere music isn't a costume party. I try to just play what makes me happy. I hope it makes the rest of the band happy too, and usually am willing to accommodate their wishes.

Maybe I'm just getting old and crotchety, but I don't much care anymore whether it pleases the audience. It would be nice, but I don't need it to pay the bills, and I don't need it to feel good about myself when I go home at the end of the night. This may limit my commercial potential. Boo hoo. Milli Vanilli had commercial potential, too, you know.

In the words of a great Hamilton band, Tiny Bill Cody, "we have no more heroes we need to impress."


Identity just happens. And last night, I felt like we were happening. I felt like I identified myself by the sound I made, like I identified with my band by the sounds we made together. And I liked myself while I made those sounds. Isn't that enough? Isn't that why we make music in the first and only place?

The pickups work! Except they are wired left-handed. The tele has been returned to it's regularly scheduled snarl. Volumes have been balanced. The 4-way switch has been decoded.

And work resumes on the house. Concrete is being poured to by the good people of J. Ott Home Renovations to create a shock-and-awe-proof bunker where the band may practice. The attic is being sheathed to store crap.

Progress is being made. In what direction, we cannot always say. But it continues to be made. Someday we shall arrive somewhere. Hopefully it will be where we want to be. Hopefully we will recognize it as our destination.

Last night was kind of awkward all round. We had company at rehearsal, and we wanted to sound good, so we tried hard and played too loud, too fast, too flashy...too something, each of us. Consequently, we all more or less sucked. The sound was muddy, the groove was forced, the parts didn't interlock because we were all worried about our own parts and how they would be received, rather than focusing on the sound of the band as a whole. We forgot stuff we ought to know by now, and generally played like aimless yaks.

Didn't help that I spent the first half-hour of practice installing my new Kinman pickups (incorrectly--damn those non-existent ground wires that my out-going EMG pickups didn't have) and that I then had no idea what tones would be produced, or even which pickups were on, whenever I changed settings, since I hadn't had time to read the clear, simple instructions. Every new section of every song was a dangerous adventure, and as often as not, I ended up sounding rather unlike what I thought I would, simply because I wasn't prepared.

On a related note, I'm working on this guitar solo for Blues with a Bright Red Crayon. Although it's supposed to be loud and flashy in a "look at me! I'm the guitarist, soloing! My foot's up on the monitor!" sort of way, I've noticed I can only play it properly if I play it very quietly and as if I didn't really care whether I succeeded or not. Bear down on it, pick hard, and it all falls apart.

Lessons learned? 1) Prepare in advance. 2) Play for the band, not for yourself or the audience. 3) Do, or do not...there is no try.

So at the end of the evening, company gone, we tore through a 5 song mini-set of much more focused music. We knew our parts, I'd sort of figured out my settings, and we weren't worried about the audience. And we all felt better as we drove home through the slush and snow, out of the sound and light of rehearsals and into the dark silence of March, coming in like a lamb while the city slept.

Now Adam has a baby--congrats, man! We've begun shopping for appropriate baby clothes, but nobody seems to make spandex tights that small. Hopefully the baby is more grunge than metal.

The Friday nights continue unabated even though there's a gaping pit in the backyard, an 800 lb. cast iron rad in the middle of the kitchen, and we can't open the front door. We work around. We adapt. We move forward.

Our plans to finish a 4 song demo keep getting derailed by our songwriting. How can we justify spending so much time documenting last week's good ideas when this week's are so much better? However, the demo continues to creep forward, and will be a fairly good document of who we were when we starting making a demo, even if we're a different band now.

This week, Jay's "Awakening" finally awoke when Amy plugged in a click track, Marcy scatted the phattest guitar solo ever, and Jay-z himself doubled the vocal in a hoarse and maniacal shout. I brought another song in (Closer to the Sky), and Marcy intuited what I really meant to sing, as always saving me from the pine bark croak of my own voice. We all jumped a lot (except Amy), and I only injured myself on my own telecaster twice--one fat lip, one stab wound to the picking hand. The electricity was palpable. The jokes were hysterical. The wine was palatable.

Time to start booking gigs. I guess I'll have to find a Prince-approved suit to match my telecaster and my shattering dance moves.

As always, we met on a Friday. This time we brought headphones and ALL our mics. This time Jenny brought chocolate peanut butter nirvana. This time Amy brought the smack-down.

Last week we labored over three shabby-sounding drum tracks. This time we tore righteously through 6 drum tracks, and even got keeper-quality guide guitars (or in two cases, keyboards) down with them. Could have been the click track. Could have been the improved monitoring setup. Could have been those peanut-butter bombs.

Whatever the cause, we were still stoked at 11, but tired of recording, so we terrorized the neighbours by playing through a rambunctious set of all the songs we hadn't attempted to record. I'd like to think the electricity in the room wasn't just a consequence of the recently completed rewiring of the house (yay! now I can get insurance!).

And may I just say that "The Kind of a Rain that Could Go On All Night" is rapidly becoming my favourite Echo Mile song, even though we haven't finished writing it yet! It's so good, I don't even feel the urge to play on it. I can just listen to my marvellous bandmates, and smile and feel good that I had a part in the creation of such combustion.

Peace on earth and major chords to all.

Alright. So it's time to make a real recording. The living room has been rewired. The songs have been rehearsed. The requisite books have been studied. The dust has settled (more or less) on the process of selecting 5 songs from the catalogue to work on.

We started on Friday, Dec. 7. Hampered by a lack of suitable headphones, we pressed on gamely. Amy showed her true metronomic colours, playing rock-steady beats while Jay strummed an acoustic guitar softly in the front hall, Marcy lip-synched, and Tom did an interpretive traffic-cop air-guitar dance to cue section changes and dynamics. Adam provided comic relief, and Jenny curled up in the fetal position under her keyboard.

We finished three drum tracks (with guide acoustic). The skeletons now exist for full-featured frankenstein versions of For You When You Return, Blues with a Bright Red Crayon, and All this By Tomorrow(minor patches required for BRC; haven't yet reviewed Tomorrow).

The "trial and error" portion done, we now have mic placements worked out and a system in place. Next week we hope to bash through three more drum tracks and still have time enough to add basic guitar, bass, keys and vocals--optimistically, we could even get harmonies and solos done if we can stay focused.


Onwards and upwards!