Full Steam Ahead

Nailed down first and second songs' form and lyric melodies.  Possibly our most productive session to date. 

We are officially past the demo phase and have 2 sets of drum tracks locked in for full blown recording.

We're hoping to have the first song completed by Christmas.  Ambitious since we can only manage one session a week.

This week we plan to have all the guitars tracked. There's 3 in total - 2 acoustics and 1 electric.  Time permitting we may do supplemental percussion tracks. However it will most likely be all Mike as apparently  Ken and I were all kinds of wrong with our chimes and tambourine techniques. Comment below if you can spot the infractions.

Seasonal Patios

Dunlop St. Barrie, Ontario

There's been some discussion about possibly making Red River Road one way in the Entertainment District to facilitate patio space in front of some of the restaurants.

Thunder Bay is very  seasonal with a bulk of its year being not so patio friendly.  But in the few months of summer we do get  - patios would be awesome.

But does it warrant some significant permanent construction?  Will it work?  And if it doesn't?  Do we undo it at great expense?

My suggestion- go Seasonal.  Cities with similar populations that are in relatively the same climate zone as Thunder Bay have a hybrid temporary or seasonal approach.  

Barrie a Ontario for example have their main strip on Dunlop setup with temporary boardwalks that allow all the restaurants and bars on the street to have seasonal patios.  When the summer is over, the patios fencing, furniture and city's boardwalks are put away and the street returns to normal in time for when the snow flies.

Kenora has also experimented with seasonal patios.

I think Thunder Bay should consider this option - even as a test pilot.  If it looks to be successful - then perhaps do something more permanent.  The restaurants could pay a bit more tax for the extra space and be responsible for their fences and furniture - the city would be on the hook for the board walks.

What do you think?

Here's the article pertaining to this: http://tbnewswatch.com/news/291977/Ga 

Quick Tilapia Taco

I was in a rush for something quick and somewhat healthy to make and eat for supper.

Frozen Tilapia cooked in the microwave.
Chopped celery.
Chopped tomato.
Store bought salsa.
Store bought cucumber dressing.

Done and yum.

Not the best thing to eat - but certainly better than fast food!

Bavarian Studio Session

Let's see.  How do I go about describing what was 'Schnauzer Studios'?  A lot of laughs - but also a lot of productivity.  And food,  including home made salsa and 'old fashioned' potato chips.  

If you're familiar with South Park, you will understand why there's a random picture of the chip bag.  Ahem.... Moving forward.

So Mike was able to record drums days before this session so that Ken and I could lay down some tracks last night.  Our first foray into tracking for this project.  Exciting stuff!   

Ken only needed a few takes to get the acoustic guitar parts down.  I needed a few extra to get the electric guitar bits laid down.  

Due to some technical difficulties with an auto-envelope DOD pedal, I resorted to having to manually 'wha' the parts with a very stellar VOX wha.   Up strum string attack instead of the traditional down strum really helped bring out the brightness I was seeking.

Bass was recorded last.  Bizarre as per usual - its normally recorded after the drums.  I was hesitant as I really didn't know what this song called for with respects to the bottom end.   The vibe of the room was good and I accidentally on purpose started messing with notes within scale this song was written and came up with something I was pretty happy with.  Was able to pull this off for all 3 sections of the song.

We'll shall see what magic Mike can we've with his mad pro tools skillz.

#Tbay lunch walkies

A co-worker and I have made a habit of walking to the Bay St. Area at lunch once a week.  We find it really helps the creative process to disconnect from all the technology we work with every day - we are Systems Administrators. 

We try to vary the walk and get perspectives on the neighborhoods and see what new developments are occurring.  Thunder Bay is in a state of transition - its turning over a new leaf - but only by walking can you really see the subtle changes.  

Eventually it will explode and will be very apparent.

Today's walk took us down Red River by the new Law School.  It is possibly one of the most stunning buildings in the city.  There's a mock up of the interior court house simulation on a billboard.  I'm sure it could double as film set when not in use.

Down Algoma and over to Bay Street we went, eyeing up all the residents that have been spruced up, and sadly many that have not tried.  If only I had some extra money to throw around and develop some of these run down buildings. But that's a rant for another day.

Some other sightings included a protest in front of a fairly prominent food place, a cheery fellow in Leafs attire busking outside the Hoito, a residential apartment undergoing some serious renovations and the backside of Hill Crest park.

Idea for a Screen Play

So I had this incredible vivid dream the other night and figured I'd jot it down to reference sometime in the future to see if I'm some sort of prophet.

Here goes:

I'm at the strip mall near the beer the store on Red River involved in some sort of Boot Camp exercise training.  From this vantage point I can see the harbor while in the midst of doing some jumping jacks.

A defining explosion occurs and as I gather my senses I look towards the water and a volcano has just emerged from the depths of Lake Superior - spewing an ash cloud that instantly darkens the sky.

Those around me profess this as a doomsday event and the world is about to end.  For an instance I consider this, than in another I'm in my vehicle racing down the free way that hugs the coastline of the lake.

This roadway which is similar to that of Toronto's Gardner Expressway is the 'old Water Street'.  Traffic comes to a halt.  An accident up ahead has frozen traffic.  People are wondering the road in a panic.

I'm stuck behind a transport that is hauling one the giant propeller blades from a wind turbine.

Everything is getting darker as the ash clouds thicken and block out the sun....

More Studios

A week later after thinking we had everything charted out properly, Mike had done some drum takes over the weekend only to discover that the charts were incorrect.  Sometimes things like this are good.  It gave us the opportunity to re-jig the song.

Drawing on all our influences and experience - we were able to look at the chart and figure out what was wrong and what was missing.  This was indeed a 'happy accident' as we allowed for some real pockets of creativity to be planted into the song, as well as a pretty catch riff to marry to the vocals during the parts of the song that repeat itself.

Of course a little Lighthouse Merlot does help with the creative process - and gouda of course.  We like to keep it classy in the studio - all credit to Michael.

This weekend, Ken and I hope Michael will get the new drum takes done and we hope to start building on top of what should be a very strong foundation of a song.

If we could only just put  our day jobs on hold for 2 weeks to finalize our songs and get all the tracking done - that'd be awesome. Ah the toil of part time musicians.