the rebel wheel broadcast

Wah-Wah Face

2009-11-06T23:14:00.000-08:00

Ok. So listing the recording sessions in the order that they were done brings us to the earliest (in January 2009) at Shattered Wings Studio. The session was to start at 12 pm. I got there a little earlier and no-one was there yet. Around 12.20 Gary showed up, around 12;30 Aaron got there and around 12;45 Ange called in to say she wouldn't be there for another few hours; NOT an auspicious start.

We set the kit up and, as I had brought along a video recorder (the old type with a mini cassette) I set it up to record the action (right!). We put Gary and Aaron in Matthew's excellent drum room and I set up in the control room. I was using an Adrenalinn amp modeler just to lay down ghost tracks (which I would later re-do at home with one of my many tube amps), and I also brought my laptop-based keyboard rig. The plan was to put Ange in the booth so we could record her saxes and solos as the mood hit.

We started tracking D1 which was a hard tune and not to everyone's satisfaction, but I figured without Ange being there it made more sense to track the songs that she played a less than major role on. We ran the tune down a few times and made some revisions (making Aaron play a modified groove instead of a drum solo for example). By the time we had a few decent takes, Ange arrived so we promptly went on to Wordplay.

The reason for booking Shattered Wings was so that we could do this tune as it had an entirely improvised middle section and we would need to keep all the sax and drum parts pretty well as is. Like I mentioned, I was using an Adrenalinn (which I had actually bought used from Matthew several years earlier, indeed, it was in answering his ad, that I became of aware of his excellent studio in the first place) and although we wouldn't keep the tracks, I would need to duplicate what I had played so I would need to use them as a reference.

So we started recording and it became clear in a few minutes that Gary really wasn't into the song and even let some disparaging remarks slip past his talkback mic. I actually missed what he said, but I knew that Ange was pissed about something as she and Gary became snippy with each other. There was a long-standing issue regarding the song as Gary didn't care for Ange's vocals and felt the song itself was not really a proggy piece and belonged elsewhere. I understood his reservation about the tune itself (although not the quality of Ange's singing which was excellent), but I know when I originally wrote the music I was pretty happy with it. I loved Ange's lyrics and vocal delivery, as well as the arrangement the band had come up with so I wanted to try it. As such the job was to track as good a version as we could, produce it up and then decide if it was worth including.

As I mentioned, Gary's comments angered Ange, but all that did was put the fire under her ass and she played a killer solo. The band actually did a great take, although none of us felt Gary's heart was in it.

That was pretty well the pattern for the rest of the day; Gary played well at times, but mostly dragged his ass on the tunes he wasn't happy with. Ange was distant for a lot of the stuff she wasn't hands on with and Aaron, bless his soul, was kicking ass and infusing an otherwise dull session with fire. As you can see from the following picture, that was mostly an uphill battle. Seated from left to right: Gary Lauzon (bass), Rick Barkhouse (friend and sometime keyboard-player), Ange MacIvor (sax, vocals and keys), Matthew (owner of Shattered Wings and engineer extrordinaire) , Aaron Clarke (sighs and drums).

We filmed a lot of the stuff but I wisely left the camera on Aaron, especially as I used a wah on a few songs and didn't want to get caught making the ubquitous wah-wah face that ALL guitarists make when using that particular pedal. It is almost impossible not to mouth the words wah-wah along the foot movements. We tracked D1, D2, and Wordplay that day, and each tune had a wah-wah face moment. So wisely, no footage of me exists, BUT we do have some of Aaron doing D2. (this version is live off the floor and has Gary on bass, me on keyboards and Adrenalinned guitar, Ange on keyboards and effected alto sax).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=CA&hl=en&v=ZLlGSHCl3g4

Due to the mopey session, we never ended keeping anything but Wordplay, and even at that I replaced all the bass parts. It was shortly thereafter Gary left the band, but as we all could see he just wasn't into anymore, that was expected. As I am also a bassist, it really wasn't a big deal as far as recording went, but I didn't want to end up with another album like Diagramma, where I ended up playing all the parts on several of the songs. Although I think I did a good job, it also takes a lot of the energy from a band when the album they are promoting doesn't even feature them. To clarify; Aaron wasn't in the band when I recorded the bulk of Diagramma, and Ange, Gary, Alain Bergeron and Paul Joannis and myself, weren't really a band until the first five songs were already in the can. We recorded two songs as a band but the others were just me. NOT a thing I wanted to do this time out, in fact, I was looking for the total opposite, where we would track as a band live off the floor.

Anyway, in regards to Wordplay, I wanted to salvage something from the session, so I took the piece home, added acoustic guitars, keys and bass and re-did the electric guitar. I kept Ange's vocal track, sax solo and Aaron's drums (all take 1) and used my ghost guitar part here and there. That was that and I then made a concrete decision to get a new bassist and have the band do all the other tracks AS A BAND. Here is a picture of me pretending to be a band again.

So while the session was mostly unusable, it served to make the decisions and subsequent directions easy and essentially paved the route for how we were (weren't) going to do the rest of the album.

Are we there yet?

2009-11-01T23:34:00.000-08:00

No. Not quite, so shut up back there.
Sheesh, this CD is taking its sweet time. I figure by the time we are finished, the CD format itself will have passed and the idea that anyone might actually BUY music won't even be a joke anymore. No matter, we are slogging along and the end of the tunnel is well within sight.

So here is what has been happening since I last posted: we finished most of the tracking around June or July. Then I started the mixing process. That was going well and we had most of the rough mixes done around August. Then I started doing the fine tweaking according to feedback from the members as I fired off round after round of rough mixes and re-mixes.

All that went swimmingly until September. At that point the CD was basically done and most of the fine mixes were finished. That was also about the time that I started experiencing equipment failures. Up in the boonies where I live, electricity is pretty stable mostly, but during the summer we get some pretty wicked storms and it isn't unusual for the power to go out for awhile. All my stuff is surge protected and the computers are on UPS units so that this kind of thing doesn't pose too much of a problem. Usually. This summer however the storms were far more frequent and far more powerful.

I am not entirely sure how, but during the stormy season, I lost 4 drives (each at roughly 600 gigs), my TC Electronics' Finalizer (sob), and one old Panasonic dat machine. I also fried an ADAT (we used some for remote recording...the venerable format still sounds pretty good) when I sent a spike through the system (my work boots are the culprit as it turns out; every time I wear them I get shocks when I touch any equipment!).

We were still able to procede regardless mainly because I have a LOT of gear and I am a stickler for backing things up. All along my G5 kept reminding me of an update to 10.5.7. I never update during a project so I put it off until I was finished. So I updated, BUT as it turns out I wasn't finished. I decided to remix two songs. Unfortunately for me my computer began showing signs of age (or so I thought). It began to grind to a halt loading up programs until finally it shut down entirely. I tried to re-boot but unfortunately my computer was effectively dead.

All of October I tried various methods of resuscitating it, but finally I had to cave in and buy a new computer (an 8-core mac Pro...yeehaw!). I really couldn't afford to keep my studio inactive for so long. I was able to retrieve all my files and, as I stated earlier, I am adamant in backing files up (to a spare terrabyte drive that spends most of its time shut off and alone, and to a thousand dvds I archive to constantly) so I did a disk transfer via firewire (Target Disk Mode; a neat feature that) and pulled up the files for remixing.

That was when the problems started. I went from a PPC based to an Intel based mac and a lot of the Audio Unit plugs I used needed to be updated and in some cases (digital fish plugs, KLC-1, and elemental audio plugs for example) were impossible to get recent versions. For the last two weeks I have been updating, re-authorizing, e-mailing developers, installing and re-installing over 300 plug-ins. Sheesh.

In some cases I had to re-install the plug-ins on my old mac (which I got running again after a fresh install of 10.5). Use all the old codes (which I meticulously filed away thankfully; or at least had done up until around May 2009) and then DE-AUTHORIZE them from one computer and re-authorize them on the new. I am a fan of intellectual copyright (being a composer for TV I earn most of my money from the exercising of such copyrights) but the sheer amount of time it takes, as well as becoming conversant with the myriad schemes that exist, is a real time consumer.

Anyway. I JUST got back to the project tonight and did the remixes. The art work is done and the CD is ready to be mastered and printed. Finally.

Now all we have to do is wait for our official release date (sometime in January). So, until then I'll post some of the details of the process of this incredibly arduous journey. The point of this blog was to do that actually, but I have spent so much time mixing and maintaining that I haven't posted anything for months. Now I'll share.

The Grinding You Hear Is Not My Teeth

2009-06-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

It is my clock, grinding to a halt. Nah, not really, but this is taking a lot longer to finish than I had anticpated. Last week we were able to get the first part of the Epic tracked (re-tracked is more like it) with a set-up we are using in our rehearsal spot. The reults are fantastic. Aaron and Claude have a great rapport. We play as a band but tend to keep just the bass and drums as the sax and guitar bleed into the drum mics. We tend to track guitar through an amp modeller instead (the mighty Adrenalinn) to replace later, and the sax is eschewed altogether. Ange does get to play her keyboard parts though. So.

The last version we did has 6 takes which the rest of the band are sorting through now (in terms of approval; I already know which one I like best !). I took my favorite version and transferred it to my Logic software and tempo mapped it. We don't use a click track or record to sequences, so we are very concious of time. The song has is eight minutes long, has 21 time signature changes and two tempo changes, so there is a certain amount of drift to be expected.

We start out at 150 for tempo I and stay there all the way through the first 12 time signature changes (the song is in 9/4 but leaps about to 10/4, 11/4, 12/8, 7/8, 11/8, 13/8, 14/8). When it goes to the 12/8 groove we slow down to 146 (tempo II) then ramp it back up to 150 when we go back to a 1/4 note pulse. Through-out the whole piece tempo I drifts from 150 to 149 to 151, and tempo II from 146 to 148 (a set-up for a fill). That's pretty fucking amazing for an 8 minute complicated outing ! YayAaron. Yay Claude.

if you rebuild it, they will forget

2009-04-25T22:55:00.000-07:00

So. The new bassist Claude Prince is working out very well. He is a fast study and is learning song after song. He is a very welcome addition to the band, so much so that we have re-evaluated some of the tunes we tracked before he joined and have decided to re-track them with him on bass. Originally we were either going to use David's bass parts on some tunes, and replace the existing bass parts Gary and David had done on other tunes. Now we figure we'll re-record the whole epic song again, and replace the bass on the songs we feel are sitting well as is.

That obviously puts a serious dent in our schedule and we look like we aren't going to make our June release anymore. Pity. The amount of work David has put into the songs since they were tracked is HUGE, but even still, we all feel it is a better idea just to re-do the majority of them and miss our deadline.

On the plus side, at least half of the Cd is VERY close to being done. We have divided it up with the songy songs on the first half and the epic tune for the last. The first half is almost finished. All we have to do is re-track a bass-line, redo a vocal and track vocals for one other tunes. Oh, and add a keyboard solo from Guy Leblanc. And a fretless solo from Guy Dagenais. And...well, judging from the current addendums and add-ons: who knows? Still the album has a definitive shape and the last batch of mixes are very close to being final.

We hope to be done tracking and mixing by August and have the mastering done by September. This is taking a whole lot of time (more than any thing I have ever done before, and I typically grind out at least a 1/2 hour of finished, broadcast ready music a month).

No matter, the band is gearing up and the music is tighter and cleaner than before and that is very exciting!

A new wheel

2009-04-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

In January charter member Gary Lauzon left the band and we have been auditioning bassists since. Last week we had out last audition and we are excited to announce bassist Claude Prince will be the newest wheel. Claude has immaculate prog credentials having been a member for Nathan Mahl for their arguably most popular albums "Clever Use of Shadows" and "Heretic". As well he was the bassist for their now famous live gig at Nearfest, back in 2002, when they blew away many prog fans.

We had auditioned quite a few players, both formally and informally and were getting a little worried that we mightn't find the right fit. Quite a few had expressed interest but most of them balked when they realized both the work involved playing the tunes, and the distances needed to travel to rehearsals, (while we are basically an Ottawa-based band, we rehearse outside of the city). No matter, as it turns out, Claude came along and blew us all away with his chops and his personality. Not only had he learned the requiste tunes (pretty tricky ones at that), but he had also taken a trial drive by our rehearsal spot just so that he would know the way on the day of the actual audition.

Given his lineage, all of us felt that his audition was more a matter of finding whether the personalities were a fit. Nevertheless he played the pieces with such aplomb that even if they weren't, we would still have been eager to have him join. As it turns out though Claude fit right in regardless, so the band is now poised to enter what all of us feel as being our strongest phase yet.

In other news, we are still tracking parts for our new CD, as well as another tune for a 10T complilation of twisted cover tunes called Undercover. The idea here is for every band on 10T to submit a re-worked version of an influential tune. We have chosen Cross-Eyed Mary and have almost finished it. Quite fun that.

So here are some pictures of various recording sessions we have done lately. We have used Shattered Wings, my studio and our rehearsal spot for the various tracking sessions. The mix is to be done in my studio (as before) and the mastering is tentatively set to be done at Raven.

If You Build It They Will Leave

2009-03-02T22:13:00.000-08:00

We have been taking a wee break these last few weeks. Well a break from rehearsals anyway as I have been slogging away mixing the tracks we have already recorded, as well as recording beds for some of the other tunes. I am just about to begin writing up the score for the epic The Discovery Of Witchcraft. Right now some parts are fully scored, but mostly it exists as several dozen pieces of paper with very quick jottings on it (those pages at the top are the kind of thing I mean).

The search is still on for a bassist. We have several people coming out to audition still and we excited about the calibre of player we are attracting. Of course, there are always those people who get in touch acting like playing the tunes will be a cakewalk only to show up barely able to play their instrument let alone some of the pretty convoluted tunes we do. It makes you wonder if some people actually take the time to read the ads they respond to (or check out the rather lengthy list of links we provide). No matter, we are pretty impressed with most of the people who have come out and those who we have scheduled.

Our next in-depth recording session will be in two weeks, where
we will be recording in my studio. It will be a week-long session so I am hoping we can pretty well finish all the band tracking and just tidy up some solo and vocal parts afterwards. We'll see.

upward and onward

2009-02-08T23:33:00.000-08:00

So we are proceeding quite well with the CD and have five songs pre-mixed and awaiting a few final details before they are in the can. Given that these songs are very long (even the short ones) we have gotten quite a lot done so far. The art-work is finished and only needs the final details regarding song length and order to get the templates all finished for the CD replicators.

Gary, our bassist has informed us he will be leaving in the next few weeks as the band is consuming too much of his time and effort. We are all sad he is leaving but look forward to the aspect of some fresh blood as well. As far as the album goes, the tracks he is already on (three) will stay as is but David will probably step in to finish the others. As David is a bassist anyway that poses no real problem. We still have plans to co-write Arachnophobia 2 and include it on the album, so Gary's presence will certainly still be felt on the CD. We of course wish him all the best and thank him for the six years of hard-work and effort he has brought to the fold. Adios amigo.

So we are now on the look-out for a new bassist. Ideally we get someone before we finish tracking so that they might be on the CD. As Aaron's knee is still on the mend we do have a bit of breathing room, but there is still a lot of work we need to do regardless. This coming week we will start auditioning and hope to find a replacement. A band is a delicate thing and we are going to take our time to get the right mix of personality and of course chops. We have a pretty bass-heavy sound so it will be tricky getting the right player, but Ottawa has lots of really good musicians and we are confidant we will find one without too much stress.

Here is a glimpse of a new track we are working on. There are no lead vocals yet, but there are bgs. This song was premiered at the Nuance Art-rock Fest with great success. This particular version has a lot more texture (live was just two vocals and gtr) and is been fun producing. It also is the first song David has played bass on for the CD (but not the last!)

This of course is a rough mix, but close enough to get a feel of. The song is called The Settling of Bones and is on our Facebook player:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Rebel-Wheel/41568152308

Studio Hijinks

2009-01-29T15:45:00.000-08:00

Well we have been hard at work in the studio getting the CD ready. We tried to get as much done before Aaron had knee surgery so we booked a 12 hour session at http://www.shatteredwings.com/ and tracked four songs. Considering each song is around 6-8 minutes long and we did quite a few takes of each that was quite a job.

We are trying to get a fairly live sound on the CD, which is not to say we won't be doing overdubs and punch-ins, or even some editing, but we want the thrust of the project to be live-off-the-floor (does anyone actually use that term anymore?). We were able to get good takes of all the songs and we were also able to video tape parts thereof. I just finished a video of Aaron playing drums on MadNight take 1 (a take we didn't use). This is all live in the studio except I processed the sax solo with an amp simulator and re-amped my di'd guitar into my Mesa. We are missing some keyboard parts and the mix is obviously a rough one, but all in all it is a fairly accurate representation of what we sound like. Listen to it here http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLlGSHCl3g4

Now we are finalizing the art-work and looking at a myriad of mock-ups. Francis has done a superlative job and once we decide on our final choices I'll post some of the stuff he has come up with. It seems that most bands these days are eschewing CD releases in favour of downloads, but we decided to not only release a CD, but to make it an elaborate and full-blown one at that. Our label 10T records, has a new download site they'll have up and running soon, so that those who want to just dl tracks can do so, but being an old-fashioned guy, I still want to have the complete package done up for those who prefer that kind of thing (me mostly it seems). No matter.

WE also have a new Reverbnation account AND a Facebook account (finally) so here are the links: http://www.reverbnation.com/therebelwheel and our facebook account is http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Rebel-Wheel/41568152308

They are both new accounts so stop by and share the love.

Ok, that's it for now. We are continuing our recording (or will be once Aaron is on his feet again...or as is more appropriate given the fact he is a drummer, on his butt) and are working on the group keyboard parts for the interludes that string our massive 35 minute epic "The Discovery of Witchcraft" together (how corny is that?).

The work continues

2008-12-14T22:59:00.000-08:00

Ahhh...what a great feeling! We are in the midst of rehearsals for our new CD and are currently working on our 37 minute epic, "The Discoverie of Witchcraft". We have been approaching it section by section (essentially 4 long convoluted instrumental variations of a signature riff, and 3 pastoral sections with vocals and 4-part keyboards), and are at the 28 minute mark. I am happy that the band has the discipline and the motivation to tackle something this unwieldy (and so easily denigrated!), but not only have we sunk our collective teeth into it, we are having a blast doing it.

We only have one section left and one other tune to do and we can hit the studio running. Aaron has a knee operation in January so we will record about 3/4 of the album before then and the remaining sections after he is back on his feet again. Our target date to record is January 4-14th.

On others fronts, Francis Dupuis is doing a great job putting our design together. At this rate we will have a package ready to go by the spring!

Sessions

2008-11-23T18:17:00.000-08:00

Well right now the band is slogging through rehearsals getting prepared for our studio dates. We have all the material for the album written and most of it arranged and well-rehearsed. Aaron has knee surgery soon so we trying to get as much tracked before then as possible.

As before, each member has a keyboard(s) so we have quite a set-up going on at our rehearsal spot (Ange's basement by the by). I thought I'd add some pictures. Ange's set-up is a Yamaha analog synth and a Roland Fantom (both of which are at the bottom right of the picture). Her Selmer Alto and Soprano saxes aren't in the picture.

Behind that is my rig, which consists of an M-Audio Axiom 61 going into a Dell laptop running Live. I use quite a few plug-ins and samples collected from various places but the ones I seem to use the most are Linplug's Albino3, Camel's Cameleon, U-he's Zebra3, G-Force's M-Tron, Mini Monsta and Oddity, and NI's B4. I also use the Live plug-in Sampler (and Simpler) as they are both stellar. Behind that (or to the left of that) I also have an M-Audio Radium 49 going into a Dave Smith Evolver. My Mesa-Boogie MarkIV and Marshall 4x10 are against the wall facing the laptop and Axiom.

Peeking through that is Gary's StudioLogic keyboard controller (nearset the bass neck on the top left). That goes out to a E-MU Vintage Keys rack mount. He also has a Trace-Elliot Viper 6 bass amp, an Ibanex bass (among others, but right there he is on his trusty Ibanez).

It's hard to see from the above picture, but tucked between Gary and Aaron is an Alesis Micron which Aaron uses. Aaron's Rogers kit is to the right of the keyboard. Connecting all of this to the various PAs and amps is a morass of patch cords. Pretty cool actually.

I have met with artist Francis Dupuis who is going to put our package together for us. Aaron is an artist as well, so among the three of us (with some licensed art-work from other sources) we are sussing out the package design quite nicely. All in all things are coming along quite swimmingly.

More news, less whining.

2008-11-07T16:16:00.000-08:00

Ok. Desite the last post which, while posted today is actually several months old, the album is already written and is well on the way to being recorded. We have been rehearsing twice a week together as a band and been getting together often in smaller units to work on specific things like vocals and various instrumental sections. The work has been paying off.

We had several live gigs to finish up before we got down to the business of recording. This year has been VERY busy for us with gigs in Toronto, Philadelphia, Quebec City and of course our home town, Ottawa. The last show we did was at The Nuance Art-Rock festival in Toronto. It was a great festival with lots of good people and good bands. We were determined to have a good time so we got there early and watched each band's performance. We were pretty vocal in our support too. That may have been a bad thing though. Because we had driven so far (well Ottawa to Toronto isn't actually all that far, but considering the awe people had there about us driving that far, I guess others think it is) and were so vocal, I am pretty sure the other bands figured we were a desperate wannabe band. As we played after the dinner break (it was an all-day fest) only Wilton and a few of his band-mates actually stuck around. The others, despite polite and unasked for assurances that they would stay, didn't bother. Thanks lads.

Well regardless, we went on and played up a storm. I won't pretend I wasn't disappointed in the other bands (obviously I really was) but the crowd was so friendly and enthusiastic we were more concerned about giving them a good show. We did! The band was well-rehearsed and all of us were ready to rock out. Our stuff ranges from total angular dissonace to some fairly straight-ahead songy-song type tunes so we mixed it up a lot.

Here is a review from the gig itself:

The last band up at the NUANCE festival was 'Rebel Wheel'. I had heard of them, but had I had never heard their music before. I, and all of us, were in for a real treat! Unfortunately, the only flaw in the show was that there was no lighting at all on the stage! I had to check the web site to see what they looked like! Other than that, Rebel Wheel simply blew me away! Intricate melodies weaved through amazing arrangements that soared through the the night! They had a touch of King Crimson with a taste of Mostly Autumn in their sound, and I could give no higher praise. However, they really do have a sound all their own, and they are an absolute delight to listen to! This is what great prog music is; fantastic playing at breakneck speed, with intricate facets of each piece shining like a diamond!

For those who get a chance to see this incredible band live, do not hesitate to do so! They are an absolute delight to watch and listen to. They have a CD out, but you have to order it from the website. It's not available in stores. Stupid stores. A great show, and a great ending to another fantastic NUANCE show. A great thanks to everyone involved, especially Wilton!

Doug LeBlanc "

Thanks Doug. Now to the album.

We have contacted some artists and they along with our own talented artist-in-residence (our drummer Aaron Clark) have agreed to let us use some of their art in our package. We would like to thank amazingly unique clockmaker Roger Wood http://www.klockwerks.com/ for letting us use some images of his work as well as artist Socar Myles for licensing (and selling us) some of her very beautiful art http://www.gorblimey.com/ . The design is still a work in progress, but we are very excited about it and hope to have something to show soon.

We are almost ready to record and intend to use my home studio (a fairly well outfitted one as I am a professional composer and gear slut). There will be a short hiatus throughout as Aaron undergoes knee surgery, but we will probably have everything done by Febuary 2009. We have some amazing musical guests lined up but we won't divulge who they are right now.

Ok. Thats the news and with the exception of some post-gig-fellow-band complaints, no whining.

The MaCullums Don't Build Bungalows

2008-11-07T15:40:00.000-08:00

As I have mentioned in prior, now somewhat ancient posts, my band The Rebel Wheel are hard at work writing, arranging and rehearsing music for our 2nd CD for 10T Records. We have decided to name it "We Are In The Time Of Evil Clocks" and plan to feature music that deals loosely with that idea, as well as songs that are inspired by Jonson's "The Discoverie of Witchcraft". So. I'd like to say everything is going swimmingly, but alas, due to the bad habits of my neighbours and their pets I am having serious doubts whether I can get all the material ready in time.

The problem is my neighbours (three in all) have bought dogs for their kids. That really shouldn't be a problem in and of itself, but when the kids in question don't care for their pets and the parents never intended to, you end up with neglected and unnecessarily despised nuisances.

The neighbours who live across the street from me bought a Golden Lab puppy for their daughters. At first they were enamoured and played with it constantly until one fateful day the dog nipped one of them (as puppies are wont to do). From that point on the dog has been put on a leash all day long. That is pretty sad but it is compounded by the fact that the same kids play just out of compass of the leash so the dog goes into loud exasperated barking mode from around 7:30 in the morning until around 7:30 at night, with a couple of breaks through the day when it is put inside. They never walk their dog, they never play with their dog, instead they taunt it and torture it by playing just out of reach of its leash. Yay neighbour # 1.

The neighbours who live several doors down from me also have a dog that no-one walks or plays with. The dog was for their kids who have since moved and gone on to university. In this case the leftover owners don't chain it up, instead they let it run around the neighbourhood. It seems like it prefers my lawn best of all for having its daily dump, but that doesn't really bother me so much as the fact it rips my garbage apart, growls at my kids (when they are in their own yard) and barks and attacks any other dog being walked down the street. Most of the people in my small town are very considerate and walk their animals (and even scoop up the poop) but thanks to the exploits of Maggie (demon bitch dog from hell) they get penalized for it by the inconsiderate ones. Yay neighbour #2.

The people who live just down the street from me have two new small yappy dogs they recently bought for THEIR daughter, and as is the trend hereabouts, that daughter has lost interest in her doggies. So now her puppies are chained up outside and bark continously (at each other, at fate, at everything that bloody well moves). At least the kids don't play in front of them (instead they play street hockey on one of the busiest streets in my admittedly small town...often after dark!). Yay neighbour #3.

So on any given day I might get 1/2 an hour of silence from the dog pack. I tend to write during the night as a result, but then the next day starting at around 7:30 am, I am kept awake by the continous barking. This is not the stuff that good tunes are made of but I trudge on regardless and have written some pretty good pieces. Unfortunately there are far too few.

I should have seen this coming when the vacant property next to me was purchased. There was an existing very small house on it but it was promptly torn down. When the new owner (a direct relative of Neighbour #1) was asked what kind of bungalow they would build there the answer (which has become synonymous in my house for pretentious yuppy bullshit) was:

"bungalow? The MaCullums don't build bungalows!!!"

Indeed they don't. Instead a McMansion was crammed into the small lot and threatens to explode onto my property and the street. Good fences build good neighbours, and so do good manners. This place hasn't got much of either.

The rewards of Sisyphus.

2008-05-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

Rolling the rock. Up and up. That's what it feels like sometimes keeping a band together and keeping material flowing, the excitement fresh and the many egos content. Very tough and very tricky. This time however it seems like an exception to the rule.

The writing for the CD is well over half done; we are resurrecting a couple of old tunes I had written years ago (decades even) along with some brand new ditties fresh off the pencil. Now that the band is a four-piece it makes a lot of arranging decisions and production directions easier to assess. The problem earlier incarnations of the band had was that often times we would create something in the studio that was almost impossible to re-create live without a lot of players. Well the band has had a LOT of players at times so that while we could recreate the larger, denser tunes, the other songs didn't require that many people, usually had to be re-arranged.

In this case however, we have found a great dynamic we can refer to and build from; we have a real improvisational feel we can access pretty well all the time so that when we rehearse we often let ourselves take some part or section and jam on it. That has yielded some very interesting asides and alternative arrangements.

For example, at our last two gigs (Rosfest after-hours party and Quebec's Ninkasi gig) we brought out a new tune that was only several weeks old. It started life as a gtr-synth ditty (more demoing patches than actual composition) and gradually evolved into a showcase for Ange's vocals and sax. I wrote the basic melody and structure with my gtr-synth (A Brian Moore thingy which can switch from synth to gtr etc.) and my new pedal board (thanks to Rob Dontigny for that) and brought that to the band. We played it through and everyone added elements to their parts. After several rehearsals the tune had transformed into an alternative-indy type song with a Pink Floyd-like vamp. Very interesting.

This actually accented the idea I had had for this album. We are a prog band so it is almost incumbent upon us to have some epic tunes (that and the fact I LIKE epic tunes). I hear a lot of criticisms of "padding" and "lack of discretion" levelled at bands with epic tunes, as if to say that if the band had better chops, editing skills and taste, the tunes wouldn't have been epic but rather a succinct songy-song that actually works, instead of a "cobbled together" sprawling mess. I have read many threads on Progressive Ears that state that 40 minutes of well written music is better than 70 minutes of good tunes and not-so-good padding.

Well I like songy-songs and I like epics (and I often wonder just how familiar people are with the suite form) so we decided to cater to everyone! What we intend to do is around 40 minutes of songy-songs (and by that I mean non-epic tunes both vocal and instrumental) and then a roughly 30 minute suite. For people who hate padding they can eject the CD before the big EPIC.
For those who like their CDs packed to the brim they can listen on. Seems fair eh?

So the songy-songs will have a loose relationship to the albums title ("We Are In The Time Of Evil Clocks" in case you've forgotten) and the epic is tentatively titled "The Discovery of Witchcraft". The term is not my own (are any?) rather it is a title of a manifesto written in 1584 by Reginold Scot. I don't know how much actual stuff we'll take from the manisfesto itself (other than the name of course) but along with Scot we do intend to use a lot of verses from Ben Jonson's The Masque of Queens.

I am a HUGE Robertson Davies fan and of course in his book, "A Mixture of Frailties" one of the characters (Giles Revelstoke) is a composer who has a piece that uses Scot and Jonson and is coincidentally called "The Discoverie of Witchcraft". His piece is angular but apparently doesn't use "wrong-note modernism" whereas mine is angular and abounds in it. I use 12 tone rows a lot in this one (although they are far from modern so I suppose only the "wrong-note" aspect is true).

As an aside, I once had an idea to use another Robertson Davies idea; the concept of the Seven Laughters. In The Rebel Angels, the character Maria, while waiting to fall asleep, is worried that her academic prowess is being chipped away by a comfortable marriage. To assuage herself she reviews some of the learning she has acquired. She goes over lots of things but the most interesting was The Seven Laughters of God. As she is a Rabelaisan scholar, I thought the Seven Laughters was some monkish writing (obvioulsy I am NOT a Rabelaisan scholar). As it turns out, I am not the only one inspired by Davies, as painter F. Scott Hess has a fairly famous series of paintings called "The Seven Laughters of God" (and he doesn't hesitate to credit the idea to Davies). Apparently it is Egyptian myth. Oh well.

In any event " The Discovery of Witchcraft" is coming along beautifully; the trick is to try and limit myself to something that is playable by four-pieces (mostly...like Gentle Giant say, I have no real objections to re-arranging a studio construct for live performances leaving out all the many overdubs and ancillary counter-point parts beyond the basic ensemble size).

So...with any luck this venture will something in the nature of a reward for old Sisyphus. When he reaches the peak this time he can sit back and smoke a butt and watch the sunset.

we are in the time of evil clocks

2008-05-07T00:09:00.000-07:00

My band The Rebel Wheel, signed a good old fashioned record deal last year with 10T Records. Part of the terms of the deal was to deliver two albums. We delivered the first almost immediately, (having had most of it recorded, mixed and mastered before we even approached the label) and we are just starting work on the second.

I created this account to document the "process", as we are in the primary stages. So far all we have is a title we pinched from a story my 10 year old son wrote called "We Are In The Time Of Evil Clocks". In the original story the hero gets preyed upon by a wi game and an evil clock. After some various travails, the wi game ends up having to work at Wal-mart (hey kids....do all your shopping....AT WAL-MART!!!). Not being a concept album as such, I doubt that our CD will have the same plot lines, but the name is sufficiently intriguing and evocative in and of itself that we decided to use it (with Nick's blessing).

So. We are in the time of evil clocks.