Wednesday, January 03, 2007

New CD Peculiar Places

From Jan onwards I will be recording and finishing my first full length album finally, after such a long time, but I think it will be worth the wait and I feel like I am finally ready to put such a big piece of me out into the universe.

The CD is called "Peculiar Places" and will feature some of the tracks you might have heard on myspace including Bug Song, Enough For Me and High but will also include some newer ones I wrote in the past few years including "Friday Morning Lullabies" which will feature the lovely Sahra Featherstone on harp.

This CD is the story of my music, the people I have met, experiences I have had, from when I started 5 years ago until now. It will feature many dear friends, fellow musicians and some wonderful surprises and will be something you have never heard before. It's a mix of folk, jazz, intelligent pop/rock with a little latin, flamenco, roots and cabaret thrown in, with loads of piano, acoustic guitar, strings and celtic harp.

Check out the beautiful back cover that a local artist called Ray Sun did for me.



More updates as they come :)

What I did on Christmas Day, The Homeless, Bowen Island

This year I decided I was going to be less wasteful and less selfish and spent all of christmas eve with my partner cooking food to hand out the following day to the homeless in Vancouver. We managed to find two other kind souls willing to help and the 4 of us chipped in and made christmas lunch bags with lovely warm potatoes in their jackets, mushroom nut loaf, fruit, juice, chocolate and homemade mince tarts.We handed most of the food out on West Hastings and man was it an eye opener. I had mixed feelings; both sadness and happiness, that I could make a few people smile and also, I am glad that I went out on that street and and faced my stupid fear, of it being dangerous and not a place I would want to be. All the people that we handed out food to were friendly, thankful and there were definitely a few characters, especially the dude smoking a a cigarette and reading maxim in his sleeping bag LOL!We promised we would do this more often, not just on christmas.
On Christmas Day we had the same food we gave out and it was delicious and the best christmas in a long time for me. We ate at the house I am house sitting on Bowen Island, looking out onto the harbour. It couldn't have been better.
I took some photos today, so hope to have some up soon.I hope you have had a good holiday and hey, if you have any left over food from the festivities, why not drop it at your local food bank? You can find a bunch of them on yahoo or google....
em

The World Through One Eye

We got to Vancouver just over a month ago and it's been pretty tough. No drinking water, power outages and storms and 3 eye operations later, the last to fix what the first Dr screwed up it's hard to be positive but one thing is I have an eye patch, how cool is that?
I am in bed, as per usual, seems to be a running theme with me lately, and no not for any funny business, just resting and sleeping a lot. I have managed to practise my guitar a lot and added some links to my myspace page that matter to me. Once I am better I may even go out into the city and be a bit of an activist helping out handing out flyers about KFC's cruelty, but first things first.
They say there might be another really bad storm tonight, puhlease not now, it's not fun sitting darkness with one eye and a bad back in bed with no net or lights to read. I guess the planet is finally telling us how it feels. Is anyone listening? I hope so, if you are check out the link on my profile for an incovenient truth and pledge to see it and make sure you do, "hint" you can watch it on youtube.com for free in a bunch of sections.I am have been listening to a lot of Sophie Zelmani lately, she is nice during surgery and the wonderfully talented and still very sexy Tim Finn's new CD "Imaginary Kingdom" which has some really wonderful ballads on it. You know he was most favourite singer musician when I was 3. I used to stand in front of the TV enthralled by Mr Finn in Split Enz and wanted so much to be like him one day, he is my longest crush ;PSo it's christmas time again eh?If I am well enough this year we are going to volunteer some of our time at a local homeless shelter or something similar and pledge not to buy a lot of crap as we don't need it.
Over the holidays I will be house/dog sitting on a local island which will be really lovely, inspiring and restful I am sure after all this eye and back crap. I will be looking after a lovely dog with a big personality. The island looks so beautiful, I wish I could live in a place like that. I will take some photos when I am there and put them up when I can.
Ok so I should be the good little patient and eat and take my medication.
I hope you and yours are all well and remember this christmas week will be hard for a lot of people out there with less than us. Perhaps you too could spare an hour to help with a local charity gathering money, or helping with christmas lunches? Imagine how much your time would mean to those in need....xemaline