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CLICK HERE to preview all the tracks!
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ALBUM UPDATE: Hope and the Sinner final artwork and a full song for you to hear!
Thrilled to share this latest update on my album project! This is the original album artwork by the extraordinarily talented local artist Ava Hardy! She basically listened to the unmixed tunes and created these seriously moving pieces based on the themes she heard. I was absolutely blown away by how close to my vision she came. What a marvel. THANK YOU AVA!
And for good measure – here’s the back cover.
….and finally, here’s the mixed but not mastered cut “Purpose” featuring the masterful guitar work of Neil Chapman!
“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal… To hope is to give yourself to the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable” ~Rebecca Solnit
HNY! A first taste of the new album!!
In the spirit of the new year and stepping out of my comfort zone, here is a quick sample of a song called “Purpose” from my upcoming album – tentatively called HOPE AND THE SINNER. Still in the very rough stages but getting closer 🙂 Over the next few weeks we will be posting clips here – hope you’ll have a listen and we’d love your feedback!
Solos & Duets
Join me and Lisa as we take you through an evening of stories and songs – both together and alone – in this virtual concert benefitting the Find Your Light Foundation at The Center for Addiction and Mental Health.
Please donate generously at http://give.camh.ca/goto/findthelight
The Big Epiphany – That’s Why I’m Here
“Fortune and fame’s such a curious game.
Perfect strangers can call you by name.
Pay good money to hear Fire and Rain
Again and again and again.
Some are like summer coming back every year,
Got your baby, got your blanket
Got your bucket of beer.
I break into a grin from ear to ear
And suddenly it’s perfectly clear.
That’s why I’m here.”
One of my faves James Taylor wrote this 35 years ago. He had an epiphany about his purpose on the planet. He spent years working on his career to the detriment of everything else around him, constantly fighting against the legacy of incredible music he had created to focus on the music to come. After a slew of personal tragedy, he realized the simplicity of his existence. His main job was to entertain, to enlighten, to relieve the burden of everyday life from the world – if only for the 2 hours he played. People “paid good money to hear “Fire and Rain again and again and again”. So that’s what he would do. He said himself that he hasn’t been the same since.
I’m taking my lead from old JT.
I’ve been very reflective the past few weeks. A lot has gone on. And through it all, something became very clear to me. My Mom always said to her children that the only way to guarantee a legacy is to positively influence at least one person. Of course, like everything else in life, the gravity of this statement never really occurred to me until I got much older. I always doubted this about myself. I always felt like a bit of an imposter – that people’s expectations of me were far higher than I could ever achieve. But recent events have since brought me to the realization that I have left a positive mark on this earth – no matter how small – and that focusing on those things will lead me to a fulfilled future. So I am taking it seriously.
A lot of you will have noticed that I have doubled down on promotion the past few weeks. I know it may seem self-serving, but the reason is plain. I have been very lucky in my life, and I am profoundly grateful. It’s time for me to focus on using that gratitude to ramp up my ability to make positive change – whether through business podcasts, mental health advocacy, or other creative endeavours. It’s become very clear that – just like JT – that’s why I’m here.
So here’s my new FB Page, which will allow me a better audience reach to help me facilitate that change. It will also allow me to keep my personal profile a little more private because who the fuck wants to take the chance of being hacked again lol.
I’m hoping you will all like this new page and follow me as I try to make a difference. I can’t guarantee success, but I can assure you that we will have an amazing time trying 😊
SURFACES now on all Streaming Services!
Hello friends! For those who have been asking for years – my indie album SURFACES is now on Spotify and all other major streaming services!!
Originally recorded in 1988, this album was a collection of some of the songs I had written since 1984. I pretty much locked myself in the piano room at my parent’s house with a Fostex 4-track recorder, beat-up keyboard, microphone and trusty black Yamaha piano – and tried to capture the essence of the songs as best I could. I was very proud of how SURFACES ended up, and it really gave me confidence to start performing live whenever I could. People started hearing the album, and soon I couldn’t press them fast enough. Nearly 1000 were sold over a period of 2 years. Even more surprisingly, I was hearing stories about copies being made as far away as the Middle East.
Listening to the songs again, it’s easy to identify the poor recording quality and the shameless sentimentality that soaks them throughout. I’m not making any excuses – I was in my late teens after all and everything was a crisis. But, at the time, I really put my flesh and blood into these songs and they took me through some difficult periods.
Anyhoo – the more you listen, the more money goes to CAMH (all proceeds go to them) so listen and share and like and review and whatever else you do. Thanks for the support!!
2AM at Windsports – The Origin of a Camp Song
2021 marks the 35th anniversary of (I Wanna Go Back To) Tamarack. Howie (the original camp owner) announced to the camp that I was writing the new camp song. Which was cool. Except that it was the first time I was hearing it too.
1986 was a bizarre, wonderful, tragic summer. It was the year we lost Jonathan Miller to a freak boating accident, and suddenly the camp was in mourning, which – as I’m sure you can imagine – is about as strange and foreign an emotion as you will ever have at camp. It seems to rise above that somehow. After Howie announced it, at about 2AM that night, I ventured out to windsports on my own with only the night sky lighting my way. I sat down on the picnic table with my yellow legal pad and a pen and could not for the life of me start writing. I was 19 years old and well established in my own emotional turmoil. I was on the cusp of starting university, which I was not looking forward to as I did not have Clue One about where I was going. My parent’s marriage was also slowly slipping into oblivion, so I was about to head back to more chaos than I could bear. All I wanted to do was stay at camp. With my family of friends. Who would shield me from the rest of reality while we idyllically breathed in an endless summer.
So that didn’t happen.
But what did happen is that I found myself immediately writing. About leaving friends, about things I would miss, about tumbling with unforgiving speed from a child to a man. And somehow, it all got flavoured with my overwrought feelings of longing, and sadness, and dread of the future and what it held for me. Suddenly the page of my yellow legal pad was full all the way to the margins with these little thoughts, and within an hour I had the song. And what was most surprising to me was that even though I had written it with sorrow and doubt and fear, it was overwhelmingly filled with joy when I put it to music.
I wish I could explain what it feels like to hear 35 seasons of staff and campers sing that song. My mom always taught me that the only worthwhile goal in life was to leave this world a better place than you found it. If you can have a positive effect on just one person, your life was worth it. That is the camp song for me.
Recently (for obvious reasons) Rob Cooper (the first Head Of Video at camp and now an award-winning writer and producer (Wikipedia Page here) sent me a long-forgotten video he shot for the camp song in 1986. I was surprised by how emotional it was to see myself in all that youth and angst and vulnerability (and hair), but it was a humbling and loving reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I will play that song for as long as I am asked to. Because it takes me back to a snapshot of comfort and safety and belonging. It always will.
AAA – AWESOME ALBUM ALERT – LORI MCKENNA’S THE BALLADEER
Fellow lovers of the singer/songwriter genre,
I have know about since Lori McKenna her first record. Had to drive into the city and back today, so I listened to her new one. I think I cried the entire time. An altogether joyous and painful look at how aging changes relationships – be it sibling, spouse, or children – and how it all just goes by in an instant. It seriously floored me. The music is simple, mournful and sweet in the best sense of classic Americana, and the lyrics are devastating. Feedback welcome.
RIP Neil Peart from this broken Rush freak
Forget the fact that 2112 was the first album I purchased (8 years old) or that I saw Rush no less than 35 times in the last 40 years. Neil Peart taught me how to think. I learned about individuality from 2112, being true to yourself from Cinderella Man, the precious and tenuous relationship between the US and Canada from The Trees, the dark side of fame from Limelight – I could go on and on ad infinitum. Everything I learned about writing I learned from Neil and ironically I sit here lost for words.
As a 52 year old male Canadian musician, Rush is nearly genetic. It’s in my blood. I never really got the full-throated weight of that until I read this Dave Bidini article in the Star years ago. He really nailed it – I’m thrilled that I could actually find and post it. It stuck with me for a long time.
The Sweet Rush Of Adolescence by Dave Bidini
I’m feeling broken tonight, as I’m sure many of you are. Cranked up my Rush Spotify playlist on the way home and played YYZ three times in a row. I know I’m gonna be fine. But today I’m remembering Neil and the countless concerts and albums and angst he unknowingly walked me through. I’m thinking of Geddy and Alex and how they must feel like they’ve taken a bullet in the chest. And of course his wife and 10-year old daughter, and the wife and daughter he lost so many years ago. I’m thinking about a lot of things but mostly about the epic drum part in La Villa Strangiato. Good Night Maestro. You are already profoundly missed.