my quintessential Newcastle moment: we are sitting on the floor in between sets waiting for the final installment of noisy experimental improvised music at Culture Lab, and there is noisy music playing, then a loud HUMMM as well. we all keep talking since it is probably a part of the song. after about a minute, someone tells us it is the fire alarm and we have to go outside. as the lot of us walk downstairs, everyone sings along with the fire alarm tone, harmonizing.
I’m a chump for not walking to dig my camera out and ruin the whole thing, but there it is in words anyway.
As you can probably guess, there is a neat little arts community happening up here.
I’ve finally arrived in Newcastle after a long drive in the rain with a dear friend.
I suppose I ought to explain what this whole trip is about. My dad is working on a documentary called “Exporting Democracy”. It’s about emerging democracies and whether or not Canada can and should help promote democracy abroad. My role in the thing is mostly to do with music stuff – I did a bit of production management for a shoot with the Yellow Door Choir and I’ll be doing the score as well. However, he recently hired me to work as a PA on their next shoot, taking place in Kiev, Ukraine next month.
Well, it was originally supposed to be happening now, but due to the H1N1 pandemic the entire country is pretty much shut down, so we postponed the shoot to December and I hopped a flight to England instead.
I couldn’t really justify being here without working on music of my own, so I’ll be spending the next week or so with Jeremy in Newcastle working on the album (with a healthy bit of party thrown in I imagine). Jeremy did an exchange year at UdeM in my first year, and being the two only anglophones in the program we spent a lot of time studying together. He is such a lovely person and some of my fondest memories of my time at uni are with him, biking to school and eating fruits while looking out over the city and quizzing each other on time code, and of course working on our final year project in sound recording, Lullaby, which will be on the album as well.
This is the place we’ve been walking our dog for as long as we’ve had a dog. After Thanksgiving they close the gates and you have to walk in, but it’s the best place to go during hunting season, and usually the park being closed means you bump into fewer people. My friend Michael and I sometimes go winter camping here as well since the park is closed and you have the whole island to yourself.
I never got around to posting this, so here it is! Recorded at our campsite at Algonquin Park in September. Here is a post about Lucy’s and my grand adventure hitchhiking out of Toronto and into the wilderness.
In other news, I’m going to Europe next week! I’ll write some more on that in the next couple of days, but it should be a pretty amazing experience and I will be coming home with more work done on the album as well.
I could totally live in New York. I’m not generally big on cities, but it is just such an immense, incredible place. There is so much diversity in the way people talk and dress, interesting characters everywhere you look.
I was only there for a few days to see Leonard Cohen, a legend and one of my biggest heros. and man, what a generous performer. He played for hours, with at least three encores. At various points he closed the show with Suzanne, Famous Blue Raincoat, Take This Waltz, I can’t remember what he finally wound up ending with. The intensity, passion, and sincerity he gave every note was such an inspiration and I hope I picked up a thing or two through osmosis. His performance of I’m Your Man was the best we’d ever heard and the audience leapt to their feet at the end of it. In Chelsea Hotel you could hear the memories behind the voice, it was very moving. Famous Blue Raincoat was mine for memories, from sitting on Aubrey’s roof in high school under the stars, to the night I met Charlie at The Range in Slab City. He seemed to enjoy singing his songs even after so many years, visibly giving himself up to the intensity of the moment on more than one occasion. At one point the Webb Sisters did a beautiful version of If It Be Your Will and as we all sat spellbound, the camera zoomed in on Leonard’s face as he mouthed the final words to the song.
He opened the concert by saying that he didn’t know when he’d pass this way again and that it was their intention to give everything they had, and they certainly did.
I left humbled and inspired, and with a commitment to to strive to bring that same intensity to my own performances, to stay present and to let myself go to the music, and to truly enjoy each moment to its fullest every time I play a song. I remember Charlie and I talking about how we would like to write a letter to Leonard Cohen thanking him for everything, and now I have even more to be thankful for.
Recently I’ve been playing around with the electric piano sound on my P90, and it’s been fun to bring out a different energy in a few songs. For the most part I think they work better on piano, but this one I’m not sure. I’d love some feedback on that. It’s tough when you’ve been playing the same song for five years to figure out if a change is for the better or if you’ve just heard it too many times the old way. You can also hear the old version here.
I started to write this song in my first year at McGill. I was pretty unhappy at the time, and wasn’t writing a whole lot of music as a result. I forced myself to sit down and play, and pretty soon the first two verses were born. I loved the sweetness of the beginning… but had no idea where to go with it. I’d never written a love song before and never had much interest in doing so. I put it away hoping the rest of the song would come soon.
When I got home
You were sleeping
Dreaming away under the oppressive heat.
Your eyes shut, your breathing soft
Your mouth slightly open
Right there on the couch
Your arm draped across your tired eyes
Two years later, the song finally got finished, albeit sadder than I had hoped. I would have loved to keep the sweetness to the very end, but I couldn’t find a way to keep that feeling strong while living up to the opening words. The story was inspired by a friend of mine, since I had no love life to speak of and guess I kind of thought I was too young for all that mushy stuff anyway.
Here are the rest of the words:
So I tip-toed across the room skipping that old board
The one that creaks when the cat walks around in the night
Right then and there, I said a little prayer
Your dreams would be happy
Turned off the tv, and pulled up a sheet to your rising chest.
And you say you don’t see how I care for you deeply.
So I walked down the hallway and into the kitchen
The flowers on the windowsill look like they’ve had better days
I wipe the dust off of the vase and pour in fresh water
But I know they won’t drink
As a leaf breaks against my shaking hand.
And you say you don’t see how I care for you deeply.
So I’m walking away wondering when you’ll awaken
When you’ll open your eyes and you’ll ask yourself what here has changed?
And maybe you’ll smile and then maybe feel happy to see me
’cause things aren’t as bad, no things aren’t as bad
As you think them to be.
It’s Thanksgiving Day in Canada, and I’m happy to be spending it in Nova Scotia with my mom and dad. You know, as much as I try not to take anything for granted, it’s just impossible to go through each moment with a feeling of overwhelming gratitude for good health, happiness and relative peace in this part of the world. But this year it’s hitting especially hard how blessed I have been in this lifetime, and just how lucky I am to have such kind, wonderful people in my life. But it’s also hitting me how things can change so fast. I mean waking up one morning with a phone call that tells you someone you’ve always counted on being there is sick and might not getting better. Or that there was a car accident and your oldest friend is on life support. More than ever it feels like each moment is a gift that can slip away so quickly.
Anyway, I hope you are spending today and always with people you hold dear, and in a place that nourishes your heart. Mom, Dad, Emilie and I walked into the woods and recorded a small video of me playing “Autumn Leaves” on the guitar, which I may post here if we can ever figure out how to get it off of the camera. It’s been a beautiful day folks.
Y0UNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES – Galactic Tides By Night
(sadly, not on his website. his other work is very neat though, go look!)
some videos other people took:
What an incredible event, and I really only saw a small bit of it. What did I miss? If I’m still in Toronto, it would also be fun to participate as an artist next year. Anyone want to collaborate on something? yeah!
We sat by the lake and sang songs, walked for hours and hours, met some wonderful and inspiring people, didn’t quite freeze our asses off and all in all had a grand ol’ time. Lucy is one strong amazing woman and it was such a delight to spend a couple of days with her in the woods.
We hitchhiked out of Toronto, and waited the longest for a ride getting out of the city. What a difference it is hiking with another girl though. I’ve hitched with guys and I’ve hitched alone, and the reactions are so different. When you’re a chick with a dude people generally don’t pay too much attention to you (I would imagine it is the same for dudes by themselves), and by myself the most prevalent look is somewhere between disbelief and parental disapproval. But Lucy and I, with our big backpacks, bigger smiles, and a cardboard sign were met with waves, thumbs up, honks and cheers. It was such a huge outpouring of positivity that it’s a little unreal to think it took us a little over an hour to get our first ride. But at least we brightened a few people’s day during that time.
Once out of the city we made pretty good time, with one person stopping to see if we wanted a lift before we even had a chance to put our thumbs out. A dude went 30km out of his way to take us to the entrance of the park, and then a very sweet couple took us to Mew Lake campground, where we got our permits and started our hike into the wilderness.
God, I love the woods. Seriously, I do not belong in the city. We had a beautiful spot on Provoking Lake, hiked the Track and Tower Trail on our second day, saw a black bear, and got mocked by squirrels that stole our peanuts on the first night. Without all the light pollution of the city, we could see stars beyond stars and a cresent moon lit up the sky. I came home refreshed and feeling more alive than I’ve felt since coming back to Toronto.
I travel around North America and play music and am interested in a whole bunch of projects ranging from songwriting to musique concrète to instrumental composition. I love stories, the woods and pianos.
Right now I'm working on an album of folk songs and a radio drama off the grid in Slab City, California. If you like what I'm about, please follow me on twitter or join the mailing list.
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