Melodeoniously

Work continues apace on my debutante recording: last week I recorded a song at my friends Brad and Julia's house, on their piano. Brad helped set up the equipment and Julia played the big bad-ass double bass.


The song was inspired by my very brief time in Galway, Ireland, most of which was spent at the Central Bar on Woodquay Street drinking 1 million cups of tea and drawing in my sketchbook. I also walked around aimlessly a lot and talked to buskers, of which there were a good many in Galway City. One of the melodies I heard on one of my walks kind of got filed away in my head until I returned home, where it resurfaced at the piano and became 'Mrs. Murphy's Waltz'. The song still needs some fiddle parts, so it's not quite done yet, but it will be.... very soon.


I'm planning on recording two more songs for this project, one a Woody Guthrie song on dulcimer, the other is my newest shiniest song (on guitar). Stay tuned for a release sometime (hopefully) either in the very late spring or very early summer.


In other coincidentally Irish related news, I've come into the possession a button accordeon which belongs to my Grandpappy Antonio Couture (who is by the way a certified, award-winning Québécois Accordeon Champion), so I've started messing around on that. It's quite a challenging instrument on one hand but on the other hand it's fun to play an instrument that isn't just for right-handed people.


My friend Bronwen has invited me to participate in a collaborative live drawing event happening Monday at the Sustainable Concordia space (located above the Multi-Faith Chaplaincy on MacKay st.). I'm looking forward to it and I'll be posting some pictures of the finished work afterwards.


Here's a funny little thingie I found in an old magazine the other day: a few years ago, this middle-aged German divorced man created a CD of ordinary household sounds designed to "simulate the presence of a live-in partner" without the inconvenience and hassle of an actual live-in partner. Here's a selection of some of the track titles as further evidence of how weird Germans really are:

• Now and Then a Cappuccino
• Quickly Reading the Newspaper
• Blow Dry the Hair A Little
• Nothing on TV; At Least the Chips Are Good
• Fry a Roast Beef in the Pan
• A Bath Sounds Perfect

Strummin'

Head in the Clouds

Over the past couple of months I've been doing some home recordings on my beautiful 4-track cassette recorder, and last night my friend Brad helped me transfer them from their analog cradle to the digital world... which means that you will soon be able to hear them coming through your speakers. Brad also put down some nice dobro parts on one of the tunes

You can hear one new song that I posted on my personal mySpace page. It's a cover of the classic Drifters song "Up on the Roof"starring my ukulele and myself on backing vocals. Check it out!

Also I'm going to be involved in an event happening May 9th: I'll be playing an acoustic set with other musicians in the Mile-End Roerich Garden. It's for a cause that's dear to me heart, namely the preservation of particular vacant spaces as areas that are open to public use and not meant for any single designated (ie: private) use.

So that's it for now, there'll be new songs to listen to in the next while, so keep checking back!

Alley Art

Here's a mural I did a couple of years ago on the doors of the now-defunct Mile End Bike Garage. Funny story: a few days after I finished the mural, a guy showed up to volunteer who looked exactly like the dude with the mustache that I painted (except that he had real eyes instead of bicycle wheels)... cuh-razy.


I'd like to do more murals, so if you've got a huge empty space that you want filled, drop me a line!

Aaaaa-eee!!

Here's the poster I made for my next music performance happening in my old hood of Verdun (also lovingly known as Verdump). It's inspired by the mysterious ground drawings in the Naszca desert in northern Peru. There are about 30 of them over the entire face of the desert, and they are so huge that they can only be seen from an aerial perspective, yet they were made thousands of years ago. One of the drawings is of a man with an owl head pointing to the sky and the ground. I remember seeing it many years ago in one of my books in high school.

In other news, my friend Glenn and I recently watched an NFB documentary about traditional music festival that happened at UQÀM in the 1970s called La Veillée des Veillées. I listened to the record at Christmas and liked it quite a lot, so I was excited to see the concert itself. The idea was to have traditional Québecois, Acadian, Irish, French and Brittany music represented on one stage. I was especially stoked to see my favorite dude, a singer from Louisiana called D.L Ménard (He's called "the Cajun Hank Williams", but if you ask me Hank should be called the "Alabama D.L Ménard"). D.L (Doris Léon) lived in Erath, Louisiana his whole life, working as a furniture maker. He's still around, so hopefully I can hear him one day. Meanwhile, check out this video and you'll see that this guy is the real deal:

D.L singing "La Porte d'en Arrière" with the Louisiana Aces

Come check out the show happening in Verdun, it's gonna be off da hook!