Posts Tagged ‘cowboy junkies’
Renmin Park, volume 1 (the sounds)
Monday, March 8th, 2010
When we first got to China one of the first things that struck me, aside from the poor air quality, were the sounds. Not only was it loud and unrelenting, but there were so many textures to the sounds that were completely foreign to these Western ears. So I wrote back home and asked brother Pete to pick me up a high end portable digital recorder. I had it, along with my camera, wherever I went. I’d spend hours in the park walking around and recording music and conversations, exercise classes and badminton games; in the streets I’d record the intense sound of the traffic; at the school I’d wander the halls and sit in on some classes and record the students chanting their lessons, or capture them at their morning exercise where the entire school of three thousand students would do their calisthenics. Even drifting by our apartment window were the calls of various hawkers, selling everything from vegetables to propane. I recorded it all.
When I got home I knew I had a treasure trove of really interesting and unusual “field recordings” and I knew that I wanted to somehow use them in the making of music, but I really wasn’t sure how to go about it. Eventually I bundled them up and sent them West to our friend Joby Baker in Victoria. I gave pretty vague instructions; create loops out of these sounds, let them spur your imagination. Alan, who lives on Vancouver Island, also got involved and the two of them proceeded to build musical structures with some of the field recordings as the foundations. They then sent them back East, Pete and I set to work on them in our studio, taking out elements that didn’t work for us and adding our own elements. And then I sat with them and wrote melodies and lyrics. Finally Margo came in and transformed them into Cowboy Junkies songs.
Five of these songs will appear on Renmin Park. Here is a taste of how two of them sounded about half way through the process:
Tags: China, cowboy junkies, Jingjiang, Joby Baker, Nomad Series, Renmin Park
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Target Cancer
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
We have donated a track (our cover of Ryan Adams, “In My Time Of Need”) to a worthy cause. You may have already downloaded the song from us (its also on the Acoustic Junk cd), but check out the Target Cancer site to find out more about the series and to listen to some other folks rarities.
Tags: Acoustic Junk, cowboy junkies, Ryan Adams, Target Cancer
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Tour Diary – Snowbird, UT and Santa Fe, NM (July 10 and 11)
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
Snowbird, Utah (July 10, 2009)
We spent today half way up a mountain at the Snowbird Ski Resort. Not a bad way to spend a beautiful mountain day. Snowbird is just one of the many ski resorts that sit above the Great Salt Basin, above Salt Lake City. Ski resorts like this one all over the country have gotten smart over the years and realized that their chalets and restaurants don’t have to sit empty during the summer months. The growth in summer sports like mountain biking have helped the bottom line and a lot of these resorts have added music festivals to their summer schedules. We usually have the good fortune of playing a couple of these every summer: no pressure gigs surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery in the country. Snowbird also has the added bonus of “fun time activities”, like a toboggan slide, bungi trampoline, zip line, a climbing wall and other cool stuff for kids and not-so-kids. There is also a gondola that brings you to the top of the mountain so you can look down on the rest of the world. It was a fun day, especially for Ed.
The gig was as enjoyable as the rest of the day: a Friday night crowd, the first night of the festival, a beautiful summer evening…..rock on.
Santa Fe, NM (July 11, 2009)
A long 14 hour drive from the mountains of Utah to the deserts of New Mexico. There is only so much sleeping one can do so we watched some really bad movies on the newly named SYFY channel (apparently Sci Fi was too confusing to us all). We didn’t see one square block of downtown Santa Fe, which is ok by me. I love this area but I find the city a bit too Disney….”visit olde time Santa Fe-land”….but I like the land and I like the light and I like the people.
The gig was at a decent little outdoor venue attached to the Santa Fe Brewing Company: a relatively small space with a good sound system out in the middle of nowhere. Son Volt was not part of the bill tonight. We had a very fun time tonight, it was very loose, with a few technical problems and a few guitar clangs and vocal miscues, but it still had a good feel and lots of good moments. It was helped along by an enthused audience. It was freakin’ hot out there today.
Tags: cowboy junkies, santa fe, snowbird, son volt
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Monsters of Alt Country Tour
Monday, July 6th, 2009
If you live west of the Mississippi (or are planning to be in the West in the coming few weeks) make sure that you check out our tour schedule. We are doing a bunch of dates with Son Volt as a co-bill. It should make for an excellent night of music. If you can’t be there in person then follow along by checking back to this page every few days. I’ll try and keep it updated with photos and incoherent ramblings.
Tags: cowboy junkies, Monsters of Alt Country, tour
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