Our new record will make you deaf

Well, hello.... so, it's been quite a process making this new record (which is likely to be called Can You Hear Me?). It was initially something that began as a demo which I was going to take with me to Toronto to shop around to labels and have something to pass along to musicians to form a Toronto chapter of the band while Matt, Paula, and I kept writing songs together. After playing back the dailies of the first couple days at Maximus Sound, however, there was a sonic character to first couple bed tracks (I believe it was "A Gentle Art" and "An Evening to Myself" but I could be wrong on the latter) which captured the energy we had been pouring into the songs as we wrote and performed them in and around Vancouver... So, the nucleus of a new record was born and we approached the remainder of the sessions with that general mindset.

We tracked and tracked for about two months, during which time I got married(!) and started to get things organized to move to Toronto. I think two days after I laid down my final vocal, I was on a one-way plane out of Vancouver with no furniture, no money, no set plans -- just a beautiful wife, a bunch of guitars and records, and a safety in knowing that if the plane went down, my last vocal tracks were on Claude Laforest's hard drive!

After the New Year, we shipped the tracks to EchoPlant Sound, where Ryan Worsley finished a few vocal tracks with Paula and went straight into mixing.

Mixing long-distance is strange; every record I'd played on up to this point usually involved everyone in the band sitting in the studio with the engineer for days and weeks hammering it out. This time, Ryan would mix a song in Vancouver, email it to me in Toronto, I'd make notes, pass the notes and songs along to Matt and Paula in Vancouver, they'd add their two bits, we'd send it all to Ryan, and he'd go back and work on the songs again. Every song has been fully mixed three times now, a couple (like "After") have had a couple extra passes.

As we're now in April, it seems like all the songs, shy of a few small tweaks, are done. All I can say is, "Wow," and "Holy freaking f*ck, these songs are LOUD!"

Of course, it's easy to lose perspective on things when you're totally hoiled up alone listening to mixes -- so the songs have been let loose on a few close colleagues to make sure that everything sounds as great as we think it does, and affirm that we're not losing our minds.... THEN, and only then, will mixing be complete.

But that doesn't mean it's over then by any stretch; there's still artwork, mastering, packaging, etc., etc., and the new lineup in Toronto has to get out and start rocking the faces off audiences.

Though you might like to know all this in the meantime.

Love,
Robb

What a drummer SHOULD look like....

Alas, Matt Laforest has reverted back to his original Homo Habilis state now that I'm not around to class him up every few days.... Please send him sympathy, pretty soon he'll be receiving government benefits. The definition below says it all: "Handy Man."

Homo habilis (pronounced /ˈhoʊmoʊ ˈhæbəlɪs/) ("handy man", "skillful person") is a species of the genus Homo, which lived from approximately 2.5 million to at least 1.6 million years ago at the beginning of the Pleistocene.^[1] The definition of this species is credited to both Mary and Louis Leakey, who found fossils in Tanzania, East Africa, between 1962 and 1964. Homo habilis is arguably the first species of the Homo genus to appear. In its appearance and morphology, H. habilis was the least similar to modern humans of all species to be placed in the genus Homo (except possibly Homo rudolfensis). Homo habilis was short and had disproportionately long arms compared to modern humans; however, it had a reduction in the protrusion in the face. It is thought to have descended from a species of australopithecine hominid. Its immediate ancestor may have been the more massive and ape-like Homo rudolfensis. Homo habilis had a cranial capacity slightly less than half of the size of modern humans. Despite the ape-like morphology of the bodies, H. habilis remains are often accompanied by primitive stone tools (e.g. Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania and Lake Turkana, Kenya).

Homo habilis has often been thought to be the ancestor of the lankier and more sophisticated Homo ergaster, which in turn gave rise to the more human-appearing species, Homo erectus. Debates continue over whether H. habilis is a direct human ancestor, and whether all of the known fossils are properly attributed to the species. However, in 2007, new findings suggest that the two species coexisted and may be separate lineages from a common ancestor instead of H. erectus being descended from H. habilis.

Studio Studio Studio!

You're probably wondering why you haven't heard a peep from us in a month. Well, we've been in the studio! Of course, this wasn't an easy task given that Matt and Paula both couldn't stop comparing penis sizes and whipping each other with their respective members... But it's all good now -- we didn't even have to bring in Phil Towle -- and we're tracking 8 songs at Maximus Sound. I've posted a photo album at our myspace if you're interested (see the links to the right).

Proud to be a Canadian?

Today, the minority Conservative government proved that political opportunism in the attempt to gain a majority government did nothing but waste $300 million of Canadians' money. After all is said and done, we are left with another minority Conservative government, hardly a scratch beyond what Stephen Harper and his cronies did in 2006 -- shamefully after criticizing the Liberal Party for frivolously calling more elections than necessary without fixed election dates and lobbying the change Canada's Elections Act to have fixed 4-year election dates. Hardly 2 years from their last "victory" of a minority government, Harper called the 4th Canadian election in the last 6 years -- a time lapse which would normally have been witness to just ONE election. Beyond that, voter turnout was 57% this year, which is all-time low, surpassing 60.4% in 2004. Granted, I tend to share Matt's sentiments that not voting at all is completely irresponsible, however, I can't help but feel that Canadians have been made to feel like voting in an election is a waste of time -- I disagree with that, but the results of this election prove that this particular effort was indeed a waste of time, and most importantly (sorry if I'm spouting out this number again) $300 MILLION FUCKING DOLLARS which could have easily been used for housing, food, shelter, drug treatment, health care, and other basic necessities which Harper and his government have proven time and time again that they do not care about. The only consultation for me in this election is that they are once again a minority, and do not have free reign to tun Canada into an elitist empire. And for that, we can only be grateful. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and put my head in the toilet.

Rock The Vote

On October 14th, Canadian readers have the opportunity, if not an obligation, to vote in our Federal election. If you're eligible, vote. Plain and simple. Not voting is both a disservice to you, but also to your country (as cliched as that sounds).

I, myself am voting later today in the advance vote due to the fact that I will be travelling on election day.

The core of this blog "rant" is that there is an increasing amount of apathy among first time or young voters. In short, educate yourself on the issues and ask questions. If I hear one more person say to me "Voting doesn't accomplish anything" or "I don't know anything about the election, therefore there's no reason to vote", I am going to fucking hurt someone. If you choose not to vote, please spare me the bitching and moaning about high tuition, your environmental issue du jour, the Olympics and the price of gas (to name but a few).

I myself am torn as to who to vote for. You might think that not voting is your big fucking political statement. To you I say...grow the fuck up! There are choices you can make at the polls that will reflect your distaste for the political landscape. Those choices will make a difference.

Not voting is suffocating your own voice. P. Diddy had it right when he said "Vote or die". So get out an vote.

You sexist pigs

Obviously Matt and Robb are picking on me because they're just jealous that my penis is bigger than both of theirs, and that the only people i've shown it to are the bass players that don't work out. I know they want to see it, but the most they'll get is that bulge down by the bottom hem of my jeans.

Little Book of Scottish Folklore

So, apparently Matt feels that I unfairly made him come across as anti-Scottish when I said on stage that he referred to Scotland as a "colony of retards." I will admit that this was unfair on my part, mostly because I did not give the context under which that statement was made. Matt claims that he wasn't saying he hated Scottish people; rather, he was saying that he hated Paula. So let me give you the entire dialogue as best as I remember it, and let you be the judge:

Paula: There's this documentary out, I don't remember the name, but it's about this isolated colony in the Northern UK that's inhabited by, and entirely run by, handicapped people.

Matt: I heard about that too.

Paula: Oh yeah?

Matt: Yeah, it's called Scotland.

...so, as you can see, Matt was clearly taking a shot at Paula and the one-fifth or so of her that is Scottish, and not at Scottish people in general (insert sarcasm here). Needless to say, it still won us a bunch of British fans.

Feel better, Laforest?

On a semi-related note, we have been auditioning bass players lately. In the meantime, our fill-in approach has been working wonderfully. The problem that we have with keeping bass players full-time, however, is that either Matt keeps subjecting them to his "Eau De Wrath" or Paula keeps sleeping with them. So we've decided to audition bassists who my gay-dar tells me aren't into women -- which means we only have to worry about Matt throwing drum sticks and other random bits of machinery at them in rehearsal (oh, and me trying to sleep with them if it's a Sunday).

But seriously though, Matt and I were at a party to launch Ryan Worsley's EchoPlant Studios over the weekend, where Colin Bales, the bassist in Dawntreader, remarked that he thought Paula was, "like a rock groupie who got lucky and actually joined the band." Although I had just finished asking Dawntreader how much longer they were going to replace Matthew Thomas with a male vocalist, Matt (Laforest) and I didn't much appreciate someone in another "band" talking ill of our bandmate. Remember, we can say all we want about one another, but if some outsider cuts us down, well, that's grounds for a monster beating.

So Matt and I dragged Colin's sorry ass down the hill and curbstomped him in front of his wife.

Canadians: remember to vote on October 14.

My turn!

Okay, hello my pretties! ...so, as Matt so kindly alluded to, I have been moving lately. Downsizing a little as well; I left with my record collection, guitars, laptop, and alcohol collection. I've been collecting bits of furniture, but nothing significant aside from a mattress and a blanket. I'm going for a very minimalist zen thing these days -- although I certainly make up for it with my diva selection of hair products! Was it not Al Pacino playing Satan in The Devil's Advocate who said, "Vanity: my favourite sin!"... regardless, I spent the long weekend doing a lot of writing! (this in response to Matt's previous post -- wait till we start going Gallagher bros.) -- some song titles in progress so far are:

After
We Are Not What They Are Wanting to Hear
Go to Sleep
Madonna

Yes, "Madonna" is an old, old Paint song for the faithful among you, but it's been completely re-written into a much more refined song -- kudos to Matt and Paula for their new energy and musical insight into all things Paint!

...more are being written still, and to reiterate what Matt wrote, they will all be debuted at the September 19th gig -- and don't forget about the radio spots earlier that week, where you can also get previews of the new tunes on radio or "internet podcast land" as Ben Lai at CiTR would say.

Ai'ite.

Bring The Noise

Alright Paint fans. Buckle up. We're getting noisy. We've been busy writing (well, the music anyways. Robb is too busy moving to write lyrics) and rehearsing. We have 5 new songs and they sound quite nice. I'd love to let you in on song titles, but that too falls into Robb's category. Let's just call them "Untitled 1 through 5". We'll be debuting these songs and hopefully more new ones at our gig on September 19th. Bring your earplugs!

Oh...and I guess I better educated Paula about good music. Sublime and the term good music have never been in the same sentence together (with the exception of this one). Sublime = talentless whining drug addict.

Don't remind me...

So I was thinking to myself if we do concerts for our families in school singing and playing their classic songs from their day and age, will our children be singing and playing Brittney Spears and 50 Cent for us someday? I hope not. I will swear an oath right now to educate my future children on good music. I will tell them about The Kinks, Sex Pistols, Cream, Pink Floyd, Sublime, AC/DC etc... I grow old to forget about the shit pop culture we have right now. I don't want my kids reminding me of it at the annual Christmas concert singing Jessica Simpson carols.