I hope everyone is having a pleasant holiday season so far and will continue to do so. If you’ve been really good maybe Santa will bring you the deluxe Station to Station boxset in exchange for your baked goods and milk. I have heard his exaggerated size can also be used to clean the birds nests and garbage out of your chimney, and will keep that pesky chimney sweep boy from loitering on your roof.

After a very busy summer filled with all kinds of awesome things, The New Weather Machine will be taking a performance break during the fall and winter to work on new material, record a new album, and draw uneven lines onto evenly spaced pieces of paper. If you don’t already have a copy, you can now stream the first album in its entirety from the music page for a finite period of time. Thank you to everyone who came out and/or supported the band, there are lots of exciting things planned for the future.

Thanks to everyone who’s been coming out to the gigs lately, they’re all a million times better when you’re there! Remember tomorrow(the 19th of September) is outside for Artsfest at Galt Gardens. We play at 7:45 rain or shine, see you there!

Also coming up in the next few weeks:

October 1st: All ages show @ the Gate with Incura, Sinister Odis, and Where Forever Dies Tickets $10 in advance at Blueprint or $13 at the door.

October 8th: At the Slice with Jesse and The Dandelions and the Nix Dicksons. This is a theme show and I think the theme is space. Lasers and robots galore!

A few chances to catch the New Weather Machine live and see some of the new songs:

August 28th @ Bigwood III
Bigwood on Facebook

September 3rd @ The Slice w/ Kill Matilda from vancouver(soon to be of montreal)

September 19th @ Galt Gardens for Arts Fest, all ages outdoors
Artsfest Program

My hands and voices are finally coming back into shape after the few weeks I was away from playing music.
New songs are coming along nicely.
The tone of the new album in progress is taking shape.
The lightning and thunder tonight was fantastic.
I’m going to be reconfiguring my recording setup next week.
I’ve been listening to the bowie mix of Raw Power, the 1970-1978 Sabbath box, the wonderful 2nd disc b-sides and live tracks from the not supposed to buy Radiohead reissues, Mudcrutch, and the new Dead Weather.
Rickenbacker 330’s are not for me.
We will be playing this Saturday at the Slice with Edmonton’s Red Ram and Mattias Kroller for Red Ram’s cd release party.

No really I am. I was in europe for a good part of the month of June taking in the sights, sounds, and food of France and Spain. Im still re-orientating myself and catching up on on what I missed or didnt do while I was gone, but I managed to focus my efforts and record another quick and dirty demo today. This one’s called End of the Road, I hope you enjoy it.

Jon

Im in the tough-but-good position of having written far more songs in the last few days than I have had time to do proper first demos of. This new one I started writing a few days ago, but finished it up and recorded it last night. It’s called Hold On and can be found for a short period of time on the music page. The recording was a fun experiment of 451’s, yippie. I’m also pleased to announce that I’m going to start recording a new record this month, that will hopefully be finished and out before the end of summer.

Ive been strangely busy the last week or so now that the school semester is done with tons of writing and recording/mixing work for a few other people.

Here’s the story behind this new demo:
I was in the middle of writing this new song a couple weeks ago when I realized it was the last day to have songs in for the South Country Fair songwriting competition. On a whim I finished the song and threw together a quick demo which with Ive been lucky enough to move on to the finals with (on May 15th at the Slice). Another opportunity that required having a better demo of the song came up on the weekend and this is the result. The song’s called Razor Heart Strings and can be found on the music page.

Yesterday, Jesse Northey and I recorded a tune we wrote with Branden Hamilton back in February for a school project and although its not really a New Weather Machine song, I thought id share it with you. I’ll leave the song up here to download for a short while, but if you miss the download it will be on the music page for a bit. Here’s a little break down of who did what.

The song’s called First Line

Lead Vocals - Jon/Jesse
Guitar/Bass/Backup Vocals - Jesse
Drums/Piano/Mixing - Jon

Written by Martin/Northey/Hamilton

Not that global warming needs any more arguments to support it, but +15 degree weather, flip your mobile home over winds, and snow should not happen on the same day. I heard something once about showers in april(and not the kind the guy down the street needs to take) and that saying just isnt holding up its end of the bargain. Showers dont need to be scraped off your car window. There are only a couple weeks left until of this shit ideally, and then for everyone that doesnt live in a hurricane zone, things can get much better.

Ive been playing around with the 51 tele reissue ive got for the last few days, and although its very primitive, unforgiving, and not that much fun to play, it is actually a lot of fun to play. Something about the weird overtones and “plank of wood with string”ness of it is inspiring. The finish on the neck is pretty gross though and seems to collect dirt like a sponge, but Ive managed to write quite a few songs on it in the last month or so for one reason or another, which in my book makes up for any short comings as a facilitating instrument.

Ive been listening to some albums I wouldnt normally put a lot of time into lately as a means to research some recording gear ive got. Among these are Pet Sounds, Van Halen 1, LA Woman, late 60/early 70 Frank Sinatra, and some favourites like Harvest. The specific reason doesnt really matter, but what does matter is that the 2007 Remix/Remaster of LA Woman is just terrible. Every subtlety of the record was bastardized and over exposed, as were the weaknesses of the band that previously slipped under the radar under the guise of intent. I dont understand the purpose of remixed albums for the most part. I mean really, a million years ago when the record was made they were in a moment of time and took a 40 minute snapshot of that moment, for better or for worse. A million years later, when the initial creative decisions have been long long forgotten, someone gets paid to strip all the uniqueness, charm and spark. Now, the awful remix is the only version you can buy and the mystery is gone. Ive always thought that I would like to hear a remixed Beatles catalogue, but this serves as a fierce reminder to be careful what I wish for. Garbage +1 - 2007 rev. of LA Woman 0.

An exploration of different creative perspectives today has both piqued my curiosity, and completely ruined the very little tv I watch. The basic idea is that there are 6 possible view points in a given scenario or dilemma. If you are aware of the classification, the roles are easily identifiable in most television shows and social situations. Maybe it’s just that insight into the creation of something I know nothing about stole a piece of the magic, but in any given scene of an episode of Law and Order the characters fall so perfectly in these categories that the obvious scene writing formulas ruin the sense of social drama. That being said, using perspective swapping as a creative tool out weighs knowing that a fictitious cop will side with a fictitious rapist. This supports ideas from a book im reading about how different personality types are perceived in social situations. The benefits and disadvantages of appearing shy, outgoing, mean, deceptive etc. exaggerate themselves over time and dictate the strange, awful, and wonderful the things that people do or dont accomplish as well as opportunities that present themselves. Anyway, on to music.

Now I know that last month I was talking about a side project album, so i might as well mention that. After the first 2 or 3 get togethers life and school regrettably intervened, and only a few songs were written. I wouldnt mind recording a couple of them in May or June just for a souvenir. Speaking of May and June, Im gong to start recording the next Weather Machine record in May, and planning to have it finished by July or August. Although I havent really come to any conclusions about who’s going to be playing on it or anything, Ive been enjoying the writing process and think this is going to be an somewhat of an oddball album.

If you’re looking for something new, try a mono overhead or check out my brothers sculpting site.

February is upon us and, as some of you know, its Record Production Month. The basic goal is to write and record 10 songs or 35 minutes of music solely in the month of February. Last year I had a go at it, but did start until the last few days and only really got 6 songs written and 4 recorded, which I suppose is a fail. This year I’m taking another swing at it, but I’m starting at the beginning of the month and have recruited 2 of my classmates to join in on the fun. We’ve got 3 songs written and, given that today’s the 2nd, I think we’re in relatively good shape . The group is yet to be named, but I’ll keep you posted.

Hmm what else, oh yes! There are a number of happenings being spoken about on the interweb that could lead one to believe that Mr.Bowie will actually be making a go of it this year. I am currently in the hopeful mindset that Tony Visconti is recording a record for him right now (check out his twitter account). There’s a ton of stuff online if you look around.

The recordings I’m doing for treeline have been turning out quite well. While I haven’t done any proper mixes of the tracks yet, I have been experimenting with a Michael Brauer inspired mix method that is quite challenging and quite powerful. If it works out the aural payoff is definitely worth it.

As far as whats going on with The New Weather Machine, I still working on new songs and sounds. The other day I got a couple of new pieces of gear that are going to have a pretty significant influence on said sounds in very positive way. Especially if you like 1964-1968 british invasion music. hoorah!

Hope everyone is having a david bowie new year. As long as the weather stays warmer I’m peachy. Working on some great new music I’m excited to share with you in the coming months. Im also doing some recording for a local band called treeline that may surface in the near future and is definitely worth checking out.