Beginner’s Luck

Over the past couple of months, an album has been taking shape in my apartment. We started with some .wav files of the pieces of the beats. We did vocals for 13 or 14 songs in one weekend, if memory serves. I added a bassline and a piano melody; we re-arranged some bits. I did my mixes; we tweaked and then tested them on multiple soundsystems. Walking into the Gladstone to test them on the big PA was the moment of truth – and they held up. I was terrified the mixes would fall apart on a big system. But they didn’t. They held up in the car too. I would later hear that the mastering engineer called the mixing “transparent.” (For you non-audio geeks – that’s a compliment.)

We sent it off for mastering, another moment of truth. It came back as one giant .wav file – an entire album, sequenced (well, kinda) and almost there.

Now it’s a real thing. It’s been manufactured and is now a disc in a digipak that exists out side of my computer. It exists in people’s hands.

I’m immensely proud. It’s an amazing piece of work, and I’m so glad I got to be a part of its creation. It’s my first full-length album as an recording/mixing engineer, and it meant more than I can say to find out that I can indeed handle such a job, and have it come out well.

It’s called Beginner’s Luck and it’s by Nolan Natasha and a few of the songs are now streaming on his MySpace. I would love for you to go check them out.

Nothing to say

I feel like writing, but nothing I have to talk about feels very important. Or it’s too important to me, and doesn’t belong on this blog.

I’ve been listening to the new Grizzly Bear album a lot and ordering t-shirts off the internet. I have a hangover. All I want in life right now is a CD shelf and for things to go my way.

You are a party, and I am a school night

When matters of the heart go wrong, there are two types of grief.

There is the despair over an established relationship that has come to its inevitable end. You are mourning for everything you lost – the good things, the things you loved, but that have since crumbled like an old newspaper, leaving nothing but a layer of dust over everything you have and do and are. You cry for everything that happened, and will never happen again. The way things were, and will never be again. Each passing second takes you further from that point in time and it terrifies and relieves you.

Then there’s the type of grief you feel over something that could have been, but will never be. For a moment, however brief, you were in the same place – the two of you. Anticipation. You were both going to jump off the dock (like getting out of bed) but one person stopped and let go of the other’s hand, sending them careening into the icy lake alone. Now you’re treading water, knowing you have to give up sometime – whether it’s by sinking, or by climbing back onto the dock to dry off. Either way, you just got soaked.

The latter is the kind of grief that you’re not allowed to have. People don’t buy it. It’s not to be taken seriously. You’re a flake who falls too easily. It’s not real. You’re silly and naive and a bit over the top. You can’t be so upset after one endless weekend.

But it isn’t the after of one endless weekend – it’s the before of an indefinite stretch of could have been.

Where we end up

I was reading the Smiths Falls paper online today, and started thinking about I almost worked there. They offered me a job as a reporter after I had accepted my first job in Toronto. I can’t even imagine how different my life would have been at this point, had they offered me the job sooner. Yikes. Dodged a bullet there.

FOR REAL. I would have been living in a tiny town, working as a reporter. The thought terrifies me. (This is NOT a slight against any of my friends who work at newspapers or who live in small towns. I was just not meant to do either of those things.)

I think the realization smacked me extra hard today, because earlier in the day I was thinking about just how happy I am where I am right now. That can change from day to day or moment to moment, but right now I’m pretty excited about life.

Barf. Hahaha.

Life is good

Oops, it’s been a while. There’s been no time for blogging lately. Two major events were happening this week and they enveloped my life. In a good way.

On Wednesday my band played our first show ever. So basically my life’s biggest dream has come true. No biggie. I was shaking uncontrollably during the first two songs and felt like quite an idiot because of it. I couldn’t look out at the crowd, except to steal the odd glance. I saw lots of my friends and a bunch of strangers, including one who was bopping along every time I looked up. I don’t know who you are beardy-glasses guy, but you made my night.

It was fun in retrospect, but I have a feeling it will also start to be more fun during the actual show when I’m not deathly terrified.

Thursday we finished the album I was recording/mixing (except for a tiny, tiny change to one song we made on Friday). Earlier in the day we had gone to the Gladstone to listen to it on their PA, which was the first test of the mixes. I was terrified they might fall apart outside of my apartment, but they sounded good. Then we listened to them in a car, where they also sounded good. Triumph! The final validation came after the mastering engineer had listened to the album and said, “Feel free to knock a few bucks off my rate because it’s mixed so well.” High praise! I was so happy I cried. Yes, I’m kind of a dork.

We celebrated on Thursday by going to the Henhouse for “a drink,” which turned into starting with a glass of tequila each and then about four drinks after that. We ate pickled eggs and used all of our plays on the jukebox to pick songs from Hole’s Live Through This. I can’t think of a better way to end the creation of an amazing, fiercely feminist album (although my head was pretty mad at me when I had to get up for work in the morning after having gone to bed at 4:30am).

Anyway – some of the tracks that will be on the album in their new forms are on Nolan’s MySpace. Listen! Then buy the album when it comes out and listen to that!

The Weirdest Day

Yesterday was pretty odd. The word “random” gets thrown around way too much, but yesterday was a day that warrants the description.

I got to work thinking it would be a normal Thursday (whatever that is), but then the first thing I heard upon arrival was that The Dears’ tour bus had been stolen overnight. As in, the night before they were supposed to be heading out to Toronto for the first show of their 6 week tour. So then I Twittered about it, answered some info requests and wrote an email that the band’s publicist and I sent out to our contacts, and which Eye Weekly published in its entirety. I’m flattered to know they like my pithy email writing skills. Then I pondered the questions, “How do you steal a 45 foot tour bus?” and “What do you do with a stolen 45 foot tour bus with a smashed window?”

After work, I went to the Exclaim! party, where we accidentally butted in front of a whole line and almost caused a bouncer to fall over on our way in when we pulled open the door he was leaning on. Oops. Turns out the party wasn’t open yet, so we had to go back and stand at the back of the line that didn’t look like a line. It was an open bar. I drank a lot. I met a guy whose email press release I had once replied to with the word “PANTIES” in giant pink letters, even though I had never met him at that point. It’s a long story.

Then it was home to drop off some shit before going to a cafe/gallery opening. Hanging on the railing on my front porch was a giant stack of t-shirt pattern pieces that had clearly been delivered to the wrong place. We Googled the company and found out that they make incontinence underwear, and sweat-wicking t-shirts for ladies with hot flashes. (I tracked down the owner today, determined where the patterns were actually supposed to go and found out that her daughter’s name is also Carly.)

Next: gallery opening! Packed house! Mariachi band! Tequila and grapefruit juice! New favourite drink!

Next after that: Wrongbar for the Green Go CD release. Nothing much weird happened there. I got my hair snagged on someone’s button, but that was more painful and embarassing than weird. It’s bound to happen, considering the length of my hair. And bound to happen often – I also got it stuck between my chair and my desk at work yesterday. That made a nice ripping sound when I moved my head, not knowing my hair was sandwiched. Ouch.

So all that was well and good. But as I was having a day that was out of the ordinary in a fun, quirky way, my sister was having a day that was out of the ordinary in a traumatic, heartbreaking way. As she was sitting in her apartment, she heard a loud bang and looked out over the balcony to see a girl lying on the ground, a girl who had gotten there from the 17th floor. By the time Laura got downstairs, the police were there. Not long after, the girl’s body was covered up. I can’t help but wonder about how strong despair would have to be to overtake the fear of jumping from 17 stories up, and what if she had changed her mind. Laura said she found it sad to think about how the investigators were there for a couple of hours, and then the girl was taken away and that was it. She was gone forever. I hope she’s at peace wherever she’s gone to.