Mike Evin

Dancing with Parkinson’s

I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. I’m back, baby!

Just wanted to pipe in quickly… gotta run to give some lessons.

last night jim creeggan and i performed 3 of my songs for a Dancing with Parkinson’s fundraiser. what an amazing experience.

the DWP gang at the end of the night

the dress rehearsal

the highlight for me was at the end of the night when one of the dancers, an 83 year old man, came up and started asking questions about the songwriting for ‘wait for the tea to steep’. he wanted to know who margaret was and wanted clarification on some of the lyrics. he was really into the song. to see how my music can affect people is really humbling and touching.

the dancers were amazing!

talk to more soon!
xo Mike

RECORDING blog #1

this past weekend howie beck and i began work on what will eventually be my next album (but these first 3 songs i’m going to release as singles sooner than that!).

anyway, i’ll tell you a bit about how it went. we did 2 days at revolution recording, in the leslieville neighbourhood of toronto. this studio has been open for a little less than 2 years, and it’s been getting a reputation for its return to the high standards of old recording studios.

the control room of revolution looking into studio A … neve console!

it was an awesome place. i haven’t worked in a studio like that since 2003, when i worked with the brothers creeggan on some demos at the now-defunct reaction studios in town.

i have to admit, i was nervous about working in a big studio again – it’s expensive, and you’re always under the clock. i wondered if it was really worth it – or would it be better to work more leisurely in a makeshift setting and have more time to experiment.

but we were prepared and all the staff were incredible to work with … so nice. i never once felt intimidated. and the sounds we came home with were indisputable – wait ’till you hear them.

chris and jack (revolution staffers) and the yamaha grand before we started recording

we decided to put the piano in the large live room, and put the drums in one of the isolation booths. howie and i recorded the basic tracks for each song with just piano and drums (live). howie’s a fantastic drummer, and knows how to play simply with groove.

a few strips from the neve console

howie wanted to start with ‘al green’, because it’d been in his head all night. it took us a while to warm up into it … it’s very groove oriented. but we eventually found a take that worked. next up was ‘lose my grip’. instead of playing to a click track, we played to the drum machine track that i used for my demo … and we decided to keep it as part of the drum sound. howie later added a floor tom overdub which makes the track really hypnotic, kind of like kate bush’s ‘running up that hill’. last up was ‘if there is a one’. this one’s got a few different piano parts, one high and one lower. it came together really nicely. all of the songs flowed out really smoothly in the studio.

howie beck, my producer, and his trusty perrier

the second day my friend brian macmillan came in for an hour to put some electric guitar on ‘al green’. there was a buzz coming from his guitar, and it only went away when he would lie down on the floor, so that’s how he played most of his parts!

brian macmillan lies on the floor to say ‘bye’ to buzz

the last few hours of sunday we put aside to try lead vocals. most of my experience making recordings i’ve done my vocals live while playing piano … either that or overdubbing them rather quickly with not a lot of fanfare. for these new recordings i want to take extra time and effort make sure the vocals are top-notch. howie and i both decided there was no pressure to get all the vocals on sunday at revolution – we could always do more vocal work later. but we gave it a stab. it all went by so quickly. i blasted through them, just trusting that i was doing some good work. never got a chance to really hear them back. so i was understandably nervous before hearing them back yesterday when howie and i met up to resume work. but i was so pleasantly surprised … they sound good. i think we have all the lead vocals! just from those 2 hours. which is awesome. that is definitely the most important part for me.

so there’s a little synopsis of my time at revolution. yesterday howie and i met up at jim creeggan’s studio to do vocal comps and start overdubs. we did some really fun background vocals and synthesizer parts. these songs are going to be really fun, full of cool hooks. i’m very proud of the work we’ve done so far. the plan is to have them finished by the end of next week, and then start mixing them

more soon!

RECORDING Pre-Production Blog #3

I’m a day and two nights away from heading into the studio to record 3 (or 4) new songs! Can you tell I’m excited? Well, I am.

I’ve received some real nice support from the folks at the keyboard department of Long & McQuade, so I’d like to give a shoutout to Darryl and Alli over there.

An inspiring note from a master

This past week I’ve been mostly working on the actual songs, making sure they’re air-tight before Howie and I start messing with them. I’ve never worked this hard and long on songs – on the lyrics, more precisely. In the past, I’ve been much more accepting of the first or second draft of lyrics, and was of the mind that “whatever came out must be what the song was meant to be”.

With one of the songs I’m recording this weekend, that is the case – “Lose My Grip”. I actually started writing it while walking back from Long & McQuade last May after I had rented some gear to do demos with. Once I got to my piano, I finished it super quick. Everything flowed real nicely. So I decided to make a demo of it the next day with the new equipment (a drum machine and synth). The song pretty much has not changed since then – except for one word! Here’s that demo:

A song like “Al Green”, on the other hand, has taken forever to feel right. In fact, I just changed the lyrics to the 2nd verse last night and it’s feeling a lot better. It’s been a process of simplifying and stripping away until I’m left with the essence of what I’m trying to express. I like this quote by Suzanne Vega:

“To me a song is like a piece of sculpture. You hammer it from all angles until the pure thing is left in the middle. And then if it works from every angle you know you’ve got something.”

“Al Green” started very passionately, at my kitchen table (where songs sometimes start). I was listening to music on shuffle mode and Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” came on. Around this time, I was having serious doubts about the relationship I was in, and hearing this song crystallized something for me – I cannot come out and sing ‘I’m so in love with you’ to my girlfriend. I just don’t have that kind of passion for her. So why am I in the relationship. Immediately I came up with the chorus line -

someday I wanna be in love and sing like Al Green

The rest took a lot longer to get to the pure feeling of it. But I had to start somewhere. Here’s a writing demo from that first session:

A few days later I revisited it, not knowing if it was any good or not. I came up with the line -

I don’t have the fire in me to kiss my sweetheart the way she needs

Boom … that came straight from somewhere real. A keeper. And I kept hammering away. I started performing it shortly after that, even though in hindsight it was far from finished. But there was still something strong enough about it, a real purity, that enabled me to really dig in with my singing in performance. And people responded nicely. So I knew I had something special. But I still wasn’t satisfied. Here’s the version I had when I started performing it in December:

Here’s a demo I made over the winter holiday, with more lyrical development:

It’s mostly the lyrics that’s kept me working on the song. It’s been a long time since I’ve been that obsessed with making sure a song expressed what I felt inside. And every time I found a new line that worked, I didn’t really know why – but it would just feel real to me. That’s all I’m asking for – and sometimes I had to leave my pre-conceived ideas of what I wanted to express and just let the pure stuff show itself – and then sleep on it. Over the last few months the music has sharpened too. I’ve had to drop a verse, amplify the hooks, shorten the first chorus. Last week in pre-production with Howie, the music took another big change – the chords in the bridge completely changed! I’ll leave you guys hanging a bit as to what the music sounds like presently, but here are the most up to date lyrics:

This love deserves a chance
but I feel out of romance
and I don’t have the fire in me
to kiss my sweetheart the way she needs
Ooh la la la

Chorus:
Someday I wanna be in love
and sing like Al Green

I don’t want to waste more time
nursing a love that doesn’t feel like mine
I don’t know where, I don’t know how
but there’s a real love if I want it now
Ooh la la la

Chorus

Someday I wanna be in love (x3)
it’s a love within my reach
someday I wanna be in love
and sing like Al Green

Alright guys. That’s it for me tonight. I’m gonna go practice my voice. I’ll take some photos and shoot some video during the weekend to show a little of what went on. Lots more to come!!

Love,
Mike