At some point during the pandemic, the idea came about to compile a bunch of COVIDish songs by the Relish Sunday night open mike, well known in Toronto musical circles as Stir It Up Sunday, hosted by David Macmichael and Paul Brennan.

Here is the story as told in the liner notes:

This album is dedicated in loving memory of Steven David Morrison. 

Stirred. Not Shaken. 

Their single mingled voice emphatically proclaimed “Please join us next week when we will do something similar…yet somehow…completely… different!” 

Cohosts Macmichael and Brennan’s signature sign-off capped February’s final Stir It Up Sunday same as all five hundred and something antecedent Sundays. Then came COVID. 

Beauty blooms from the gloomy darkening of East Toronto’s premiere long running weekly open stage. For ten years Stir It Up Sunday at Relish Bar and Grill is where some of the city’s most creative songwriters and musicians gather weekly to sing, play, dine and drink.

Listen as this eclectic collective of artists comes together to create the wonderful Stir It Up Someday. The show that will not be shaken.

The playlist is impressive! I am humbled to be in such amazing company: (the late) Steven David Morrison, Dan Boggs, Jace Traz, Julian Taylor Band, Super Not OK, Mauve Grove, Arch Rockefeller, Mudlust and the Short Walk, Timothy Sheldon, Felix and the Cats, brilliantfish, Paul Brennan, Tom Rich, Sandra Bouza, Die Geschichten von Bargrave Willianhurst, Sal Indigo, Tyler Ellis and Mark Thackway, Ben Wood, Mr Kyle, Michael Cuddy, Liniaro & JP, Dean McKinnon, GardenOf, David Macmichael, Fraz Milne, Chris Scian, Bryan van Dusen and Johnny Ness.

I want to thank everyone involved in this project. For me, it’s especially momentous as it’s my first real song release. Particularly special thanks go out to Dan Boggs and Sal Indigo for having the Cats, Neil, Chris and I, “bigify” your songs. I learned a lot, and still have long way to go to make my recordings sound really pro, but I’m trying! Finally, a huge thanks to Joanne Clayton of Relish for the crucible!

Be safe and be well!

Back in 2016, those alcyon days, I posted about a song written even earlier, and the only original done with a cover band at the time.

Although I have performed it a few times with the Cats, I never felt it lived up to its potential, and have tried to alter it to see if that would give it the spark I was looking for.

Still working on that, but just for fun, here is the iteration I posted in 2016, plus two others: one redone as a blues shuffle, and the other most recently mostly to accommodate a key change, a hook, and more interesting chord changes.

Let me know what you think if so inclined…

Be safe and be well!

A few weeks ago, good friend Salabama got in touch to see if we could produce a “full band version” of a song he had written for and performed at East York’s (a former borough of Toronto pre-amalgamation for any of you non-local readers) Canada Day celebration. However, the pandemic put a wrench in the works, so the organizing committee changed the plan to having a celebratory website in order to maintain social distancing. A key component of this would be a recording of We Love East York.

Initially, Sal sent me an iPhone recording of live captured vocals and acoustic guitar. NeMo, Chris and I were able to add our parts after the fact, to the point where the recording was sufficiently fleshed out to submit to the committee for approval, pending a better recording.

Once we got the go ahead, recording the song while staying apart posed some challenges, but since many of those had been worked out on other demos with the guys, it went smoothly. Here was the process.

First came the basic guitar track with a click track/software drum track just to maintain a steady rhythm. This was sent to Chris and NeMo who recorded at home and added their parts (replacing the provisional virtual drums). These files were Dropboxed to me and flowed into the master mix.

To re-record Sal, the bed tracks were bounced and transferred to Garageband and copied to an iPad mini so I could go to Sal’s and do a remote recording. I set up on his back deck and ran the mic inside to record vocals, then changed the setup to mic his amp for the slide guitar overdub (geek note: Sennheiser MK4 for vox, Sennheiser e609 for amp, iRig Pro interface).

The chants and handclaps were dubbed after the fact and duplicated to create the “crowd” effect – thanks NeMo and Bender family! Could not have done this without you. Also many thanks to Sal for trusting me with this!

This project was a lot of fun to complete, and meaningful too. It’s always a treat to work with Sal, and East York, while not my community by only a few blocks, was where I first started working in education before the TDSB was formed. Below is the video produced for the song, and here is the link to East York’s Celebration site.

Happy Canada Day!

Be safe and well!