Live on CBC

Make sure you tune in to to Canada Live on CBC Radio 2 across the nation from 8pm-10pm on March 21st to hear a broadcast of James' concert at the Yukon Arts Centre, recorded April 2nd, 2008.

I'm pretty excited to hear it myself!

Things are coming along smoothly for the CD release. We are expecting a release date of June 9th, with a release tour to follow.

Be sure to join the mailing list. If you are a member you'll have the opportunity to download a track which won't be available on the new CD.

Click here to join.

The Pharmacist..

I had no idea before today that there even was a 6 AM!

At any rate, I'm up and about to head out the door to go be in a movie! The scene is being shot at a local punk club. I'll be playing the role of the guitarist in a Goth band..?? Chris, the drummer in my band will be playing drums too.

The movie, entitled The Pharmacist is a movie being shot here in Edmonton and stars Clinton Carew. Clinton was the director for my video, Transportation and was nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award for it.

I hear we'll have our choice of either Tim Horton's OR Starbucks coffee, on set! This is the big time folks!

New Album name....

Been a little busy as of late.
Sorry for my lack of presence in the blogging department...
The band and I have been busy with photo shoots, mix approvals, touring arrangements and a the other cool things that the music biz entails...
After the original songs for the album were recorded, I wrote a few more songs that I felt were strongest I'd written in a while, so just when I though the record was done, we went back in to my studio and tracked 2 more songs.
John Whynot is now working away, mixing the record and I gotta say, so far, it sounds really awesome!
Dustin Delfs and his assistant Micheal of Laughing Dog Photography were extremely generous in donating an incredible photo shoot for the album artwork.
The photos are now off with Nick Perreault, who designed the award winning artwork of my last record, In Transitwhere he is putting together the new artwork.
Now.... The answer to the burning question.... What's the name of the record?
Drum roll....
"Wondering Where The Rush Has Gone".

My friend Jon Nordstrom just popped by. Jonny has played bass with the band for almost 8 years now. He lives in Calgary now but was up to go to an Oilers' hockey game.
He dropped off a small Christmas gift; an edited video documenting the making of our doomed record, "Rise & Fall". It was a record that was never released, due to several reasons, primarily being that my record label wasn't crazy about it, which was too bad because the band and I were very proud of it...
At any rate, Jonny edited together an hour long documentation of the process, including our 3 day drive up to the Yukon, where the recording took place.
It re-invigorated my love of that record. I've actually re-recorded a couple of the songs which will be included on my upcoming CD, due in the spring. I'll try to post a few snippets of the video on my website in the next week or so.

Ouch!

Last Sunday, I played two games of hockey back to back... It was awesome!
I'm in two leagues that both hold their games at the same arena, so I was able to just stay in my gear and go right back out on the ice...
The first team we played were very chippy. Considering this is a "no-contact" league, they were bumping and generally playing on the dirtier side... I finally told one guy in particular, who we had nicknamed, Elbows, to lighten up a little... Well maybe I didn't say it that politely, but the next thing I know, I'm in the corner trying to dig out the puck and along comes Elbows and he gives me a good shot in the ribs... well, I went down and in the process, my stick went up. I received a high sticking penalty, while Elbows skates away, no call, looking like he was doing the Chicken Dance or something, his elbows still high and stuck out...
Well, that was in the 1st of my two games and I didn't really notice until the 1st break of the 2nd game that my ribs were still pretty sore.
Well it's 3 days later and they don't feel any better and having had broken ribs before, I can pretty much say that I have at least, cracked ribs at the moment...
Not sure if I'll be playing this weekend or not...

Snow day / Channeling ghosts...

So the first snow of the year has finally arrived! I was sort of wary before it came, it was looming in the distance for too long! Despite the cold, it's kind of a relief that it finally arrived...
I really like cross-country skiing, I used to ski competitively when I was growing up in the Yukon. I'd go on tours of different race circuits and did quite well... I was 4th at the Canadian Junior Championships about a billion years ago!
At any rate, now that the snow has fallen, my brain is fairly preoccupied with getting out on the trails.
The album....
Well, it's coming along slowly but surely. I got my friend and the band's former keyboard player, Dave Aide to play Hammond organ on it in a very unconventional manner: Dave lives in Nashville now so I emailed him the songs I wanted him to play on, he recorded them in his apartment with his keyboard. He then sent me his tracks back and I ran them through a real Leslie speaker cabinet (a rotating speaker that gives an organ it's recognizable "warbling" sound), re-recording it into the computer...
It was funny to be listening to the organ through the Leslie, without Dave actually being there... It was almost like channeling a ghost or something.

Deets on the new record...

Yikes!
Hard to believe it's been over a month since my last posting!
But when I think of all the things I've been up to, it's obvious why it's been so long...
Since October, I've been to Nashville, showcased and was nominated at the Western Canadian Music Awards AND... Recorded a brand new record!
The band and I just finished recording my 4th album. Unlike last record which took over 3 years to finally complete, this one has been recorded in less than a year since the last one (In Transit) was released.
For the first time, I am producing the record on my own. This is a very exciting endeavour for me. I get to make the record that I really want to make. I've been producing several records for other artists along with my studio partner, Chris Wynters for the last 3-4 years and felt that it was definitely time to try my own material.
We rented a space and brought in a bunch of gear from my studio. The idea was to capture the band in a very live state. I was really looking to limit the amount of overdubs and record the band the way we sound live at a show. The production was also very "dry" sounding and by that, I mean that the use of reverb and delay are limited, consequently the songs sound like they are being performed in your living room. The band lent their skills as well and were really able to shine. The feel of the record is slightly more mellow than previous recordings. There are also a few departures song-wise; there are two songs that we did that are very much story driven. By that I mean that the lyrics are very much a narrative. We recorded one song, "Canadian Summer", with just one microphone. We all sat in a circle around the mic and played it completely acoustically, in a very stripped down, rootsy feel.
At any rate, I'm excited for the record to be mixed and ready to be released for the spring of '09.