Murray and I got back from mastering on Tuesday night. We drove down to Portland, Maine to work with Bob Ludwig. It was a really nice, scenic drive from Montreal. Here’s what it looked like:
Anyhoo, a lot of people don’t really know what mastering is, so here’s a quick rundown of the whole process:
1. Recording [...]
Usually, a record is released and, via reviews, press and blogs, all the lovers and haters reveal themselves. It is part of the album cycle: and while it is a grossly stressful period for a musician to live through, it usually coincides with a tour - playing shows and getting drunk - and therefore the [...]
This is me, now: What To Call Your Dull, Trivial, Age-Related Angst, courtesy of The Onion’s A.V. Club. Kill me now.
Passive-aggressive signage spotted in Park-Ex. If you get this joke, then congratulations are in order.
So sorry for the lack of blog. What with the weather getting all nice (it’s supposed to be 20 C on Friday!), I’ve been mostly preoccupied with being outdoors. Neptune and I have reinstated our morning walk, and I’ve put the toboggan in storage, exchanging it for her plastic slide. We’ve been hanging out in [...]
Hey. So I just posted a clip of Murray and Rob listening back to the first print they did of “Disclaimer,” a song that is shaping up to be the opening track on the album. Murray had to re-do the vocals at the last minute, actually the night before this video was taken. The original [...]
This is what the patch bay looks like when a song is ready to print. It’s one of those controlled disasters.
Being part of a band that has been plunked into the “indie rock” category, I often struggle with the genre and what, exactly, it means. What is indie? I believe it is a dead identity: like how the title “alternative” was borne from grunge in the 90’s, and has since come to define bands like [...]
Murray and Rob (Arquilla) have passed the midway point in mixing: working on song seven now and quickly running out of time. Murray negotiated a few more days at the Hotel to finish the album, and due to scheduling conflicts we had to move our mastering date to April 21st. Aside from being totally exhausted, [...]
This is possibly THE most boring and tedious thing I have ever done, but my completist nature forced me into it, and I’m still disappointed because I don’t think it’s truly complete. I’ve compiled a year-by-year list of all The Dears’ tour dates. Info for the more recent years is pretty complete, but 2002 and [...]
