Drum Machine Demo #3: “I’ll Be Your Metronome”

May 16, 2012 By

Ah, echo. You’re so seductive. Will I regret you in the morning? Who cares.

I started an earlier demo of this song a few days ago, but it didn’t feel quite right. It was more upbeat, but annoying. So I stumbled on this laidback feel and went for it. Different than what I originally expected for the song, but still valid.

The first evidence of a song being born. I jotted this down quick in the middle of a piano lesson.

I wrote the song in March. Started with the title and hook lyric while in the middle of giving a piano lesson. I came up with the melody and feel on the subway, banging away on a big piece of cardboard, and I finished most of it at my favourite piano store, Paul Hahn & Co, an hour later.

At first, I wasn’t sure who I was singing to, and then it became clear I was singing to myself.

Filed Under: Blog, Creativity, Demos

Drum Machine Demo #2: “The K-Tel International”

May 11, 2012 By

“It’s just a demo, it’s just a demo!”

These words have been running through my brain for the last week.

The demo that got away from me. Well, it’s all a learning process. Yes, I spent a long time on this demo. Mostly experimenting and arranging. And troubleshooting. I enjoyed almost all of it. And the song has been in my head all this time. I’ll be glad to move on to something new. But I think it’s got a lot of joy and is possibly the most fun song I’ve written since “Soapbox Racer”.

I look forward to doing this song with a band.

Very liberal use of the Gaia synthesizer on this one. Maybe too much, but you only live once.

"I asked my little sis. She and her friends are doing the K-Tel International"

The song was inspired by a record I found for $.50 called Daffy Dances, put out by the K-Tel International label in the 70′s. I had some of their records as a kid.

Enjoy!

Filed Under: Blog

The Drum Machine Demos #1: “Lose My Grip”

May 2, 2012 By

Hey y’all, I’ve rented a Dr. Rhythm drum machine, a synth, a vocal mic, and an old-school (ish) digital workstation (no computer screen and all the mixing is in real time – it reminds me of my cassette 4-track days).

Chaos starts

I’m starting pre-production for an album – I don’t know when and where, with whom, and what money I’ll use to make this album, or even if these songs will even make it on to it. But as soon as I started my first demo, I realized this was a real necessary process for me. I’ve already learned as much about recording and the process as I have in a few days in the studio with a producer. So why not take the bull by the horn and learn as much as I can on my own?

I’m calling these “The Drum Machine Demos”.

The first song I recorded is called “Lose My Grip” and I wrote it a couple of nights ago. I felt it was fitting to jump right in with fresh meat. I like it. It’s definitely different from what I usually do, but that’s good. I like stretching myself these days. It’s meant to be fun and poppy. Here you can listen to it and download:

Listen:

Download:
http://t.opsp.in/1CuSN

I hope you groove to it.

Filed Under: Blog

Good Watermelon

April 23, 2012 By

This Wednesday, April 25th, I’ll be performing my album Good Watermelon in its entirety at Musideum in Toronto. My band won’t be able to make it, so I’ll be solo! I’d love for all you Toronto folks to come out, and be prepared to sing your hearts out, because this is a real sing-a-long album. I’ll teach you all some cool fun parts for most of the songs, and there are more than enough tambourines to go around too. I’ll also be singing some songs from Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers’ Jonathan Sings! Jonathan was a big influence on Good Watermelon. And starting the night off will be Chris Bartos, a great singer/songwriter, guitarist and fiddler.

Ok. I’d like to share some of the story behind the album and some demos and live recordings from the time. To start off, here’s the album the way it ended up sounding:

The album was recorded live to 2-track 1/2 inch analog tape at Breakglass Studio in Montreal in April 2008. There was no mixing other than what my engineer and Paul Forgues balanced while we were performing each song. When we came in to listen to a playback, that was the final mix! Wow. I was inspired to record this way after reading an interview with Bones Howe, who produced most of Tom Waits 1970′s albums. They recorded a few albums that way. I was attracted to the immediacy of the approach and the elimination of the options involved in modern recording.

All of the songs were written in 2006 and 2007 while I was living in Toronto, though some were written while on the road or on songwriting retreats. Ultimately, I used my Montreal friends The Ideal Lovers to be my band, but there were early demo recordings with my last producer Don Kerr at his Rooster Studio in Toronto. While on tour in the fall of 2007, I spent some time in Montreal with the Lovers (David Payant on drums, Zac Decamp on bass, Mike O’Brien and Joe Grass on guitars), and we started recording some of the songs in their own studio on an 8-track 1-inch recorder. We really gelled on these songs and had fun working out arrangements, but it was too much to record it and perform all ourselves. So that’s when I came up with the idea of bringing my old friend Paul Forgues in from Vancouver to engineer and co-produce with me. Paul had recorded my album I’ll Bring The Stereo in 2004. He was really into recording to 2-track, so we were off.

Because there were going to be no overdubs, I really thought out the arrangements and instrumentation for each song, and asked specific musicians for specific songs. But there was also some “in-the-moment” instrumentation, depending on who was around that day while we were cutting a song. All in all, we were in the studio from April 3-11. Some days we didn’t get any songs finished, due to technical difficulties, but some days we got 3 done.

Here are the songs and some stories and early recordings:

1. “Great Pop Song”
I wrote this about Ben Kweller’s “I Gotta Move” in the fall of 2006. It took me a while to finish the bridge the way I wanted. Here’s a demo from 2006, recorded at Don Kerr’s Rooster Studio, with Don on drums and David Celia on bass. Don and I are doing the backup vocals. The 2nd half of the bridge has different music.
Great Pop Song ( bass-drums)
The album version was recorded on April 5th, 2008. No doubt it was one of the most fun sessions. In the afternoon we had nailed “Me and My Love” and I had invited a bunch of friends to sing and clap for the evening’s songs. It became a real party. For “Great Pop Song” we had at least a dozen singers, drums, bass, 11-string guitar, tambourine, two violins and a viola, and my little piano Beatrice. We were all in the same room. In between takes, we played 50′s and 60′s tapes on the stereo.
Here’s a little slice of the rehearsal with the strings before we recorded in March 2008.
Great Pop Song string rehearsal
I always intended this song to start the album. And I love how it starts with people whispering to each other. One of the few regrets I have with this album is deciding to fade-out some of the songs. Someday I’ll release the full-versions of each song.

2. “We Should Dance”
I wrote this one in about 20 minutes one day in the winter of 2006-2007. I had a bit of time to kill before going over to my friend Liam Titcomb’s house to finish a song we were writing together, so I thought I might as well write a song. Here’s an early demo recorded in the spring of 2007 with Don Kerr and Liam playing bass:
We Should Dance (bass-drums)
This was the first song we recorded during the Breakglass sessions, on April 3rd, 2008. I had some friends singing backup vocals and clapping, and it was taking a while for us to loosen up, so I started goofing around during the intro, and it worked. We got a great take – but during mastering we ended up editing the intro to make it tighter (oops, I shouldn’t be telling you that!). The boys in the band felt inclined to retry this song later in the week with electric guitar, but it just didn’t match the vibe of this take.

3. “Good Watermelon”
I wrote this while on tour with Andy Creeggan in the Maritimes in the fall of 2006. I was reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the cover inspired me. Started it at Andy’s father-in-law’s house in Moncton and finished it a few days later at The Salty Towers in St-Andrews. Andy was there to help me finish it, and we were performing it that night. Here’s a video of us performing it later on that tour in Toronto:

And here’s an early demo done at Don Kerr’s with Don on drums and Dave Celia on bass:
Good Watermelon ( bass-drums)
We recorded this one on the last day at Breakglass, April 11th. Andy Creeggan came to town for a couple of days to participate and I wanted to save this one for him. I love how it came out. That’s Andy on vocal, Li’l Andy on bass vocal, and the Lovers on percussion.

4. “Me And My Love”
I wrote this in 2007 in Toronto. I was inspired by Stevie Wonder’s chord progressions. And the story is a true one. This was one of the songs the Lovers and I began working on in the fall of 2007 at their studio. We really got off on the arrangement. It was finally recorded the same day as “Great Pop Song” and “Rockin’ Receptionist”, though earlier in the afternoon.

5. “This Soul”
Also written in Toronto in 2007, this song came so fast and easily that I initially thought it was unfinished. It was inspired by a walk through my neighbourhood at the time, Kensington Market.  I love the banjo on this one.

6. “Sweet Family Outings”
I started this one in early 2006 and it didn’t get finished until early 2008. I went through many lyric and music changes. I knew I wanted some kind of build and counter-melodies at the end, but I kept experimenting until I was happy. Here’s an early live version from 2007 with my then-girlfriend Sarah Greene singing – the bridge and outro are completely different!
MIKE EVIN LIVE 05_02_07 – Our Sweet Family Outings
One thing I’m proud of in the final version is we all did a live fade-out in the studio! There’s no trickery involved, we call just backed off the mics. The singers literally backed up!

7. “Piano Top”
I wrote this in Niagara-on-the-Lake at my friends’ bed and breakfast. I had gone specifically to do some writing, and my friend Josh Toal (also an Ideal Lover) was there and he helped me write this one. We were hanging by the piano and I wanted to write about a cool photo on the piano top. And then other things hanging there made their way into the song. Here’s the photo:

The Royal Cafe Orchestra

One of my favourite parts of the recording was getting my brother Mark to join us on tambourine. We ended up retaking this song and he came back to the studio to do his thing. He got really into it. Again, this is one of the songs the band and I began arranging in 2007.

8. “Rockin’ Receptionist”
This was written sometime in the winter of 2006-7, while on my way back on the subway from a doctor’s appointment. Of course, I was inspired by the receptionist! This went through some musical and lyrical changes over the months. Here’s an early demo at Don Kerr’s studio with Liam on bass. It’s in a higher key and the bridge is totally different.
Rockin’ Receptionist (bass-drums)
This was recorded after “Great Pop Song” – everyone a little drunker. I remember ending this take in my long underwear standing on a chair conducting the choir. Again, I wish I hadn’t faded this one out. One day! We tried retaking this one with a different approach later on in the week, because there were some technical problems with this take, but I ended up liking the energy too much – so we kept it.

9. “Goodnight Crickets”
Out of all the songs I’ve written, the experience of writing this one was the most spiritual and electric. It really just came through me from another source. One of my favourite experiences writing. I had gone up to my family’s country house in the Laurentians to write. The first few days I wrote some songs that were okay, but then one night I was out for a walk with my dad and we were talking about the universe and all. All the while I was listening to the sounds of night and looking at the stars. When we got inside, I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote the words real fast. And then I sat down at the piano, and the music came real quick too. Just like that. It took about 30 minutes. And I was totally possessed for those 30 minutes. Lovely. I love the way we recorded it. Joe Grass was on pedal steel and the rest of the guys were behind me in a semi-circle. It was like we were at a campfire. I always knew I wanted this song to end the album.

So there you have it. I will always look back at these songs fondly. They have a nice energy to them. I’m looking forward to singing them together on Wednesday.

Filed Under: Blog

Musideum Live Video

April 16, 2012 By

We had the chance to film my first Musideum show in Toronto in February, and this is the first song I’ll be posting from that concert. It’s “Do You Feel The World?”, with special guests Jim Creeggan on bass, Liam Titcomb on drums, and Amanda Mabro, David Celia and Joan Besen on backup vocals.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Videos

The January Muse

April 9, 2012 By

This Wednesday, April 11th, 2012, I’ll be performing my first abum, The January Muse, in its entirety at Musideum in Toronto. It’ll be more than ten years since I’ve performed many of these songs. I’d like to take a moment and share some memories and thoughts on the album and songs.

You can listen to the album here:

Many of these songs were written around January 2000, while still in university. I had a crush on a girl that I was never able to express other than in songs, thus the name The January Muse. The album started as a series of demos I recorded at DNA Studios with my sound recording class TA Danielle Duval. My brother Mark played drums and our friend Jonah Lewis-Van Wyck played upright bass. These songs went well and after the summer I decided to continue recording and make a full-length out of it. It was a great learning experience, and for the most part, I’m still proud of the results. Some of the lyrics I cringe over, and there’s one song that doesn’t do it for me anymore.  These are the last recordings of mine that feature my guitar playing heavily. Here it is song-by-song:

“Sloopy’s Serenade”
This made it onto my next album with one less verse and a new bridge under the title “If You Were My Girl”, but here it is in its original form. I wrote this on a Casio keyboard in my parents’ basement late at night after a concert by my friends Bear Left.

“Girls You Don’t Have To Pay For”
My first “hit”! It became infamous at Camp Massad in the summer of 2001 because of its raunchy chorus – which I’m a bit embarrassed about now, but it was really earnest back in the day.

“Goddess Of Love”
I wrote this on the same day as “Girls You Don’t Have To Pay For”. I was really starting to incorporate some of the jazz colours I had learned a few years back into my songwriting.

“The Lord Writes All The Ragtime Songs”
I don’t remember writing this one. The lyrics mention “telescopic sleeves”, one of my grandfather Harry Evin’s patents. It’s fun to see that my love for old time and New Orleans jazz was already alive at this point.

“When The Jazz Is Over” / “All Your Exmuses”
These two songs were recorded many months after the others, and are actually about a different muse. I call her the “August Muse”. By this time, Danielle and I had learned how to get a richer piano sound and we recorded the bed tracks as just piano and drums. I overdubbed another piano track and Danielle played electric bass. These are the “rock opera” inspired songs on the album. The opening and linking sections were recorded “in the field” at the Yellow Door Coffeehouse during one of the weekly meetings of the McGill Folk Society.

“The Camping Ground”
This song was recorded and produced by me and Ezra Soiferman, who I had met at a performance after he came up to tell me what a great song he thought it was. He offered to record it on his 8-track. We did it in one afternoon and in the process struck up a friendship that’s still going strong. So much fun!

“Caribou”
I wrote this after seeing Dances With Wolves. This is also the first song of mine I heard on the radio. That instrumental section was a spontaneous imagining in the studio and still gives me chills.

“Grand Facade”
The only song that I’m less than thrilled with. I think I overproduced it and put too much on it. But it was fun at the time. Another song that was written in January 2000.

“If I Were A Farmer”
I remember listening to the playback that first night before the vocal was recorded. I was lying on the control room floor and in heaven. It sounded so good! I played all the instruments on this one.

The album cover:

The artwork is based on a painting by my grandmother, Doris Evin, circa 1970.  I did the graphic design myself and somehow the whole thing took almost as long as it took to record the album. Since then I’ve learned to delegate and make more time for music making. But as I said, it was a learning process. Everyone’s gotta have a first album.

This is mine.

Around this time, I was listening to The Band heavily, so we’ll be performing a handful of songs from their second album at this show. Joining me will be Liam Titcomb on drums and ganjo, Brent Titcomb on percussion and harmonica and Ben Whitely on upright bass and guitar. Opening the night will be a very charming old-timey duo called The Everlovin’ Jug Band. You’ll know these folks from Lake of Stew.

See you at the show.

Design by Cheryl Cheung

 

 

Filed Under: Albums, Blog, Shows

High School Music Rocks!

March 29, 2012 By

Two nights ago, I went up to the suburbs of Toronto to see my cousins perform in their high-school music program concert.

I was so moved by the whole evening. Some old feelings inside me were reawakened and recharged.

Josh is in Grade 11 and he plays drums and percussion. Benji is in Grade 9 and he’s been playing the french horn for only eight months.

The program and ticket stub to my cousins' concert

The concert was titled “Sounds of Spring” and it was held at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts, a small theatre in the old village of this suburb.

Josh and Benji go to a Jewish day school. So did I. My high-school, Bialik, didn’t have a music program. It breaks my heart when I think about all of the students who might have  developed a passion for music but were never exposed to it. I was lucky that my family invested in piano lessons for us, but the nurturing I received – amazing as it was – didn’t compare to what I saw on Tuesday night.

Photos from the students' trip to Montreal last year. My cousin Josh is on the bottom left at the drums.

Not only could I close my eyes at times and imagine I was at Massey Hall, but the enthusiasm, passion and excitement which accompany the beginning phase of learning an instrument and those first bunch of performances – this was all very affirming for me. And I envied the group spirit these young musicians so obviously shared.

The instrumentation consisted of woodwind and brass instruments (clarinets, saxes, flutes, trumpets, trombones, tubas, euphoniums), orchestral percussion (timpani, chimes, bells, tambourines, castanets, xylophone), drum kits, electric guitars and basses, piano and a choir.

This was the first time I heard the word “soli” – meaning more than one solo.

The repertoire was very eclectic – ranging from a couple of Jewish melodies performed for the first time in over 500 years to Stax soul.

The concert programme

One of my favourite moments was “Stardust”, which featured an alto sax solo by a Grade 12 young woman that made the hairs on my arm stand up. Amazing tone.

Being at the concert reminded me how lucky I am to be a musician and to never de-value the time that I put into developing my craft and art. Music is where it’s at. What those students experienced on stage that night was heavy. As one of the music teachers put it (and she said it so eloquently), music transcends all other disciplines: it’s an art, a science, a language, a form of prayer and so much more. I sincerely hope these students will keep music in their lives after they graduate.

Filed Under: Blog, Music education

Ten Albums, Five Shows

March 23, 2012 By

Starting in April, I’ll be playing a series of five shows in Toronto at Musideum where I’ll be performing each of my albums in its entirety, plus some choice covers from a different favourite album of mine each show. Joining me will be some of my favourite Toronto musicians and special sets by great songwriters. Here’s the poster, designed by Cheryl Cheung. Check out the dates and the info in the Shows section.

Design by Cheryl Cheung

Filed Under: Blog

Birth of a song

March 8, 2012 By

I wrote a song today, and I’m still buzzing. So I figured I’d tell you all about the process, and share some of the rough lyrics and a demo.

The song is called “A Love Less Hyped”.

I’m still riding the “songwriting high”, so I’m a little biased – but I’m very proud of these lyrics (though you can’t hear them too clearly in this demo).

The lyrics:

A LOVE LESS HYPED

Cape Breton, kayaking, 2007
I caught the sun setting, it was a slice of heaven
So I brought it home with us

June ’08, Stowe, with Joe and Debra
We did the Rockette leg kick for a roadside mirror
And I brought it home with us

And it’s hard to say what will grace your window sill 
As you get on
This morning I brought the frames in tack to Goodwill
They’re long gone

CHORUS:
Did the light look that good in real life?
Were the rays of red and green that fine?
I’ll have a love less hyped
I’ll have a love less hyped
And more camera shy next time

When we were passing through Tanzania
And we almost opened up that restaurant
Instead we brought it home with us

I needed to give you starfishes, Sandy
I needed to give you more than you want
And I brought it home with us

And it’s hard to know what you’ll have to show next year
When your cousins come in
This morning I wrapped and packed up all my gear 
Into storage bins

REPEAT CHORUS

And here’s the demo:
http://t.opsp.in/1ArBd 

So here’s how it happened.

Mid-morning in Toronto’s Junction Triangle neighborhood. It’s the first real Spring-like day. I went for a short walk and discovered a park one block away that I didn’t know was there. Back at my apartment, the plan was to practice voice for an hour and then get into songwriting. But I made the dangerous move of sitting down at the piano first, and I liked the sound and vibe of what I was playing. I’ve been doing this long enough to know when the songwriting spirits are speaking. So the plan changed.

The Goodwill "Mega-Frame"

Last week at Goodwill I bought this mega-photo frame, with someone’s photos still inside, for $6. The photos are all very striking, mostly shots of the sun and moon in different locales. There’s one cool shot of four people posing in front of a road-side mirror, with the camera facing the mirror. I wondered why someone would want to give away all these beautiful photos. They seemed like memories of some adventurous traveling. The other day the frame accidentally got knocked over and one of the photos fell out. On the back it read “Cape Breton, kayaking, 2007”. That’s when a story started to spin in my imagination about who these people were. Maybe the photos ended up at Goodwill because a relationship had ended and the photos were too painful to look at.

I brought the frame into the music room and started to play around in Bm. I wasn’t trying to solidify anything right away. I was just creating a mood, playing around and looking at the photos. I began to feel a little emotional, almost like I was watching a movie.

Okay, I was hooked. I knew I wasn’t going to be getting to my voice practice, and I knew I was curious enough to stick it out and dig this song out from the dirty place where all songs live – just waiting to be retrieved. Kind of like the song version of the SPCA. And that’s one of the keys for me. Writing a song usually takes a commitment, even if it takes just a half hour to write. I need to be there 100% and not worry about my “to-do list” for the day. And that’s why it’s challenging for me to write in the city in the midst of my daily routine – or my vain attempt to have one.

Back to the song.

The Bm vibe wasn’t doing it for me anymore. I took a short break. When I came back I started to jot down snippets of lines, not anything particularly poetic and in no specific order. Just guides. One of the lines that called out to be the opening lyric was “Cape Breton, kayaking, 2007”. So I was off. But I still had no melody or chords.

The beginnings of the lyrics, mostly stuff that didn't make it, but set the mood

Pretty soon though, I hit on something I could bite into. I almost black out during that process. It happens so fast and the less I think about it, the better. Now there was no going back. It was only a matter of staying curious and engaged – the more I want to find out how it all turns out, the easier it is for me to finish it.

The first two lines happened pretty fast, even before I had the music to match. I like having lyrics before music, but it doesn’t happen often enough. It leads the music in interesting directions. Something about the rhythm of a lyric will suggest a fresh melody. And because I’m not writing to any music, I’m able to be freer with the rhythm of the lyric – sometimes they don’t even rhyme. And the music always ends up being cool. It’s a fun way to work.

So I had the first two lines, but the rest I had to labor over. There was only one photo with a description on the back. I made up the rest of the story. Tanzania just popped into my mind – and the original lyric started with “Tanzanian moon”. While I was writing, there was a group of thirty somethings outside my building snooping around. I know that the restaurant on the main floor is up for lease, so I figured they might be there to check it out. It seemed exciting. Opening a restaurant. So I worked it into the lyrics.

Here you can see I'm really trying to fit in the restaurant in Tanzania - more backstory than I need.

All of a sudden this story was unfolding: this couple who have traveled a bunch, and the guy is into taking photos of their adventures – but maybe there’s more excitement going into the photos than into the actual relationship. I could relate.

Writing for me is a little bit of leading and following. I’ll have a certain idea I want to explore, but then new ideas will present themselves very unexpectedly and fleetingly. It will be up to me to take the bait. They could be gone in a flash. So the rest of the song worked like that. I had no idea what the chorus or the title was going to be, but very quickly I jotted down a rough version of the lyrics and the music came shortly after. I liked the idea of the guy realizing that maybe he’d been fooled by the photos and missed out on the real thing. The line “A love less hyped and more camera shy” seemed really interesting, so I got very excited once I worked that in.

Here's where I discover the chorus - exciting!

So there you have it. The creation of one song. Even if nothing comes of it, I still enjoyed writing it. I love the detective work involved in uncovering a song. There are clues everywhere I look. It’s kind of like a “Choose Your Own Adventure”.

Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Blog, Creativity, Songwriting

A Return to Musideum

February 29, 2012 By

Next week I’ll be playing another intimate concert in Toronto at this cool space called Musideum. Special guests include Liam Titcomb on drums and Ben Whitely on upright bass. Here’s the poster designed by Cheryl Cheung.

Filed Under: Blog
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