O Canadia Recordings

I have hosted the recordings I made on my website and they can be downloaded in AAC (.m4a) format here. If you wish to know more about AAC and why I chose it click here

Track 1 Lying In Bed Just Like Brian Wilson Did Download

Track 2 Blue Download

Track 3 She's Like A Swallow Download

Track 4 Tin Angel Download

Track 5 It Makes No Difference Download

Track 6 Diana Intro Download

Track 7 Diana Download

Track 8 You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet Download

Track 9 Window Sill Download

Track 10 Shoreline Download

Track 11 Thompson Girl Download

Track 12 Blanche Comme La Neige Download

Track 13 Roll My Blues Download

Track 14 Jimmy's Tribute Download

Track 15 Safety Dance Download

Trackk 16 Memories Download

Track 17 Run To You Download

Track 18 Woodstock Download

Track 19 Sundown Download

Track 20 A Case Of You Download

Track 21 Hallelujah Download

Track 22 My Heart Will Go On Download

The Greatness of The Magnificence Presents: O Canadia

Well, it's almost been a year since Jesse's last GOTHMAG gig at the Cube and it was worth the wait. As part of a Canadian season at The Cube Cinema, Bristol, this was the opening event called 'O Canadia'. A selection of Bristol's finest musicians were all contributing songs made famous by Canadian singer/songwriters.

As before, on Neil Young Night, I decided to try and record the Cube event for posterity and to use the web to share the music and images with the artists. This time I plugged my DAT Walkman straight into the mixing desk, but wasn't able to monitor everything live, so the levels of some of the performances resulted in some unexpected peaks!

Each recorded performance will appear as a download link soon via another blog, but for now the songs appear in orange and bold type. Hopefully, images will be posted on another web site soon too.

Earlier that morning, I unexpectedly had a call from Jesse Vernon (GOTHMAG's founder) asking if I'd like to play drums on a couple of songs. I was then emailed a couple of MP3 tracks to rehearse, both of which were strangely familiar! They were Sundown by Gordon Lightfoot and Diana by Paul Anka. I downloaded both onto my iPod and mixed this through the headphones of my V-Drums so I could get the right balance and become familiar with the structure and tempo.
I also offered to help Jesse set up the PA, as I was free for the afternoon. When I arrived at the Cube, I found the house drum set... well not exactly a set, but a somewhat knackered bass drum and tom-tom, which I set up on stage with my snare drum, so we could get some sound level guides. I was told that there was the good chance of better drums arriving later, as this was rather basic equipment, no hi-hat or cymbals etc.

We then set up the microphones, guitar and PA and Jesse moved to the mixing desk, where he set up levels on each. I had a chance to see what is actually involved in the preparation for an amplified gig, which was interesting.

After the arrival of local Canadian singer/songwriter Jimmy Goodrich, I left for a while before returning at 7.30pm to find I'd missed my sound check! There was a drummer setting up on stage and I introduced myself and asked if I might play on his gear. At this point, I wasn't even sure whom i'd be playing with! I watched a few of the artists sound check and did manage to play through a little of Diana with Jesse to try and pick up the jazzier feel.

At about 8.30pm Jesse announced Jimmy Goodrich who opened the evening with The Canadian National Anthem, this and the first song wasn't recorded due to a technical problem, but then things went a little better for the rest of the evening. I found a seat in the back corner near the mixing desk from where I could check the sound levels occasionally and take some digital photos from that vantage point too.

First on stage was Quentin from No Primadonnas but this time as a solo performer. He gave us The Barenaked Ladies song Lying in bed, just like Brian Wilson did

Then came Iain Morrison, whose Joni Mitchell song Blue had apparently been testing Jesse's transcribing skills the previous night as the arrangement is so complex. Originally played by Joni on piano, this was now interpreted as a guitar version with Iain's rather affecting falsetto voice floating over the top of it. It worked very well I thought.

The Lumbering Angels followed Iain, firstly with a traditional Canadian folk song, She's Like The Swallow then with a stab at Joni Mitchell's Tin Angel They were each wearing a set of wings!

Paul McGuiness [bass] and Richy Paradise [drums] and Simon Van Der Lindt [lead vocal] then sang It Makes No Difference by The Band with Jesse [guitar] and Maddy Longhurst [backing vocals]. This was the first loud electric performance and when I reviewed the tape afterwards it is clear there was a problem with peaks on the recording levels, which is a shame.

I then joined Jesse and Paul on stage to play drums, but I still had no idea who would be singing and improvised the feel of the emerging Paul Anka song Diana which was introduced by a little country ditty for 'Fred' who I think is AKA Hannah? 

She sang Diana in a cabaret style, which was really fun.

Greig Ashby was on next, but was outside in the 'garden', so a bit of necessary filling in was done very skillfully by Jesse. Unfortunately for the tape machine, Greig wanted to perform acoustically, so his entire song was lost on the recording of the night.

Rosey Plain's following performance was also lost, perhaps because she too chose to sing and play without going through the PA?

Next up and this time successfully captured on tape was The Tones, none other than Tony Almo [guitar, lead vocal], Lucy Harper & Maddy [backing vocals] and an unknown musician [violin] performing a beautiful acoustic version of the 1974 Bachman Turner Overdrive hit You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet. With almost perfect timing, a revealing background image of Pamela Anderson appeared which made everyone laugh, including the band! 

Next, A track from Arcade Fire called Window Sill emerged after a few plugging-in difficulties on Maddy's guitar.

Some Bone Fide Canadians, called The Freebone Band were on after that, introducing a Broken Social Scene song Shoreline followed by Thompson Girl by The Tragically Hip.

Maddy Longhurst's and Lucy Harper were back to perform Blanche Comme La Neige a McGarrigle Sister's song in French with a folk tale style introduction, so the audience wouldn't feel totally lost in translation. After that Maddy introduced a Jolie Holland song Roll My Blues accompanied by Tony [ukelele]. Finally, Maddy played a tribute to Jimmy Goodrich, with some nice guitar picking by Jesse and backing singing by Lucy. I called it Jimmy's Tribute

Pat Reid's band The Great Admirer's followed up with "the greatest domestic hit of the New Romantic era" called Safety Dance by Men Without Hats. This was followed by a sing along song by Leonard Cohen called Memories  all together now...sha na na na na woa oh oh oh oh!

Susuki Boom Boom followed this performance with a provocative joke about Moose fucking before going into Bryan Adams Run to You - cut short by a broken guitar string - then Joni Mitchell's Woodstock

John Fergie Wood was sharply dressed in his Canadian threads and I landed the drumming job on Sundown a Gordon Lightfoot song from the 70's, which I'd rehearsed earlier, but suddenly sounded unfamiliar! I think we got there in the end...

Jimmy Goodrich finally closed the evening with three songs, Joni Mitchell's A Case Of You then Halelujah by [not] Jeff Buckley but Leonard Cohen. This was followed by My Heart Will Go On from the film Titanic. The Canadian National Anthem was sung again to play out The Greatness of The Magnificence Presents 'O Canadia'... 

Once again I want to thank everyone involved, especially Jesse and hope The Greatness of the Magnificence Presents will continue, it was a great evening.

by Olivejunkie 28th April 2008

Neil Young Night Recordings

I have hosted the recordings I made on my website and they can be downloaded in AAC (.m4a) format here. If you wish to know more about AAC and why I chose it click here

Track 1 Heart of Gold Download
Track 2 Like a Hurricane Download
Track 3 Sugar Mountain Download
Track 4 Oh Lonesome Me Download
Track 5 Sharpshooter Download
Track 6 Only Love Can Break Your Heart Download
Track 7 Powderfinger Download
Track 8 Helpless Download
Track 9 My My, Hey Hey (out of The Blue) Download
Track 10 Tell Me Why Download
Track 11 When you dance I Can Really Love Download
Track 12 Winterlong Download
Track 13 Out On The Weekend Download
Track 14 Cinnamon Girl Download
Track 15 Southern Man Download
Track 16 Ohio Download

The Greatness of The Magnificence Presents: Neil Young

The coach pulled into Bristol and I found The Cube Cinema easily.

I'd return later to find the door open and a guy surrounded by stage stuff, cables, microphones and the other usual tech paraphanalia. I walked over to the guitar player who was singing a familiar song and introduced myself. "Hi, you must be Jesse, I'm Richard from London". He nodded, said hello and indicated I should sit down on one of the cinema's red velvet seats.

It seemed tropical inside already and I began to sweat inside my retro-denim shirt, I could feel the perspiration trickle down my back. I got up and introduced myself to the guy setting up a drum kit. "Hi, I'm Richard, a drummer from London, can I help you at all?" He said he was Tony and didn't need any help, so I thought I'd relax a little and watch it all unfold from the red seat in the front row. When he was finished he came over and we had a little chat about whether or not I could use my bass drum pedal on his kit and also if I could use my new 'soft attack' lightening rods. He was okay about it. "yeah use whatever you like" Perfect. Now I'd just see when John and Sol would turn up.

I checked my mobile and there was a message from John, saying he'd be there very soon. Tony walked up the few steps to the stage and a rather large guy was plugging his guitar in and Tony did a flurry around his tom-toms. In a few moments they were playing loud rock and roll and I realised my approach to drums has changed a lot over the years and I no longer feel the need to play loud. Instead I like to listen and augment. This more sensitive approach seemed in tune with Jesse and he invited me to sit in on his sound check which I was happy to do. It is always very strange playing someone else's drums. Everything felt slightly wrong and I struggled with some adjustments to the cymbals and bass drum to try to make the thing fit me as a player, rather than trying to fit my limbs to IT. Seeing as the drummer is usually always sitting, one has to ensure you are comfortable reaching everything with ease.

The musicians due to play that evening gradually assembled and sound checks began in earnest. By this point I was still wondering how we would end each of the songs that had been hot on my iPod for a week and were floating around my head in a rather annoying way. The sound check was rather lost on me as I couldn't hear the vocals and so much wanted to, there was no foldback for the drummer, which I accepted but felt awkward about, as I don't like playing too loud now, how will I possibly know?

I was originally due to play on four songs, hich I had learned from the Neil Young recordings John gave me. Winterlong and Out On The Weekend with John [guitar & vocals], Sol[bass], Sally [backing vocals] and also on Southern man and Ohio with Tony [guitar & vocals] Sol[bass] Ruth & Sally [backing vocals] Pete [guitar] Jesse [guitar & vocals] and John? [guitar & vocals]

I wanted to additionally document the evening's sounds and visuals, so I had brought my DAT Walkman and my Canon digital IXUS. I had so much to do and was rather frantically trying to delegate the DAT machine and camera to others until I realised that unless I did things myself, something would be bound to go wrong! I bumped into Jesse who asked me to plug in the DAT machine to the mixing desk, something I had certainly not planned to do and had not brought the appropriate connecting cable, but I decided to go up to the mixing desk anyway to meet the sound engineer and find a safe place to set up the DAT gear.
By the time I had everything up and running no primadonnas [see image above] were already half way through a song. They performed Like a hurricane, Heart of Gold & Rockin' in the Free World.

The Cube was becoming full of people and I saw a few friends had turned up to see the performances. I managed to spend most of the first half running about like a blue arsed fly between stage and mixing desk, trying to press pause and record and attempt to get the recording levels right.
Something had to give and in the end I lost a whole acoustic performance of Sugar Mountain from Kat [guitar & vocals] and Charlotte [guitar & vocals] simply because I didn't press the pause release button!

This was followed by an acoustic gem by Jesse's partner Kate in which she forgot some lyrics and laughed it off and I found to my astonishment the audience laughed with her too - this made me instantly at ease! She began again and accompanied her lovely singing with a banjo.

Next came Tony who sang Sharpshooter with a very convincing Neil Young-like nasal sound. He then was accompanied on Only Love Can Break Your Heart by Lucy and both had told me earlier I may be required to add a rimshot on every off-beat. Then Tony called out from the stage "where is Richard... Richard rimshot, where is he?" I climbed down from the mixing desk to the stage to add a little light hi-hat and the required rimshot to help them keep time.

Next came John [vocoder] & Sally [backing vocals] singing a trippy version of Powderfinger which sounded amazingly different to the original.

Jesse then came on with his band performing helpless, which featured Kate [Vocals] & Kat [Vocals] plus two unknown musician [Bass], unknown musician [drums] I recognised Jesse's naturally effortless guitar and singing style... The band sounded like they had played together before too!

I was then ushered onto the stage by the slightly alarming John FW, we had done his sound check together earlier. Not knowing the song, I quickly asked Jesse how it went and he just played a chord or two and we were off! My My, Hey Hey (out of The Blue) was probably most fun because it was totally improvised and went down well with the audience, there was an electric guitar solo too. The singer John FW had clearly won them over with his colourful/manic stage persona!

Matt Douglass came on next with Tell Me Why and When you dance I Can Really Love, which had an authentic NY vocal sound and was well strummed but timing left little awkward gaps occasionally. The vocals featured a harmony sung by a singer whose name I don't know.

Next up John, who before introducing Winterlong was rather unfairly heckled by someone in the audience, whilst trying to acknowledge Jesse's superb efforts in organising the event and coming over specially from Paris. John's voice sounded a little strained reaching the high notes, Sally was singing some occasionally tasty "oooh shal alala las" my drumming went slightly AWOL too, but I liked John's ending fade out coda to the audience "yeah its all about love!"

Out On The Weekend, with the same line up, got off to a better start and was the right tempo and the audience did hush after a little encouragement, Shhh! was heard clearly on the tape!

Cinnamon Girl is another song I had not expected to accompany, but was delighted to when asked and we rehearsed it a little in the sound check. This arrangement had Ruth & Sally [vocals] who created some arabic-sounding melodies, which I augmented with some twinkly cymbal playing and Doors-like tom-toms, Tony [guitar & vocals] was joined by [Pete] Sol i think was still on bass... In the recording you can clearly hear a conversation near the microphone, which rather spoiled the resulting recording. My fault for leaving the device in the wrong place really.

Southern Man was more of a rock-out number and featured Sally & Ruth [vocals] with Tony [guitar & lead vocal] It also had a short electric guitar solo, and ended with a vocals-only-in-harmony coda, in which we dropped out the bass and drums.

Finally, we began to play Ohio, which I think had the wrong chords on the intro, so Sol and I were looking at each other but it rather threw me, also the guitar wasn't up enough in the mix, so perhaps the sound engineer was having a nap!

A thoroughly enjoyable evening all round though and a marvellous Bristol debut for me. A big thankyou to all the musicians who took part and to Jesse and John for their efforts to organise the evening :-)