This thing is getting a little surreal on me. It's hard to put into words what is going on in my head right now. Excitement, fear, fulfillment, anxiety, RELIEF & hey... I'm just ready to GO! Wow... after 10+ years of writing, recording, re-recording, hiring musicians, web designers, CD Duplicators, merchandise company's and I could go on forever... it just ends all of a sudden? I'm programmed to head into the studio everyday and now I don't have to? So strange. But... here's the amazing thing: I want to more than ever now. Of course right? I now am planning the next CD which I'm thinking will be a Christmas Album. I've always wanted to do those traditional songs and put my own spin on them. I may do a Country/Jazzy thing. Who knows at this point.

I get a draft of my new website tonight and am so excited but REALLY freaked out cause I haven't even seen any of his ideas. I am just trusting that it will be phenomenal! This is just fun now. I still have a lot of work to do but the mandatory stuff is over and now I just get to see it all come together. Let's see where it takes me.

M.

My ears hurt! Haha. I have finished all of the singing for the CD.
I have an extra song called "Sweet Jennifer" I may put on it but time is of the essence so probably not. I have been doing the last adjustments on the mix for "If You Need Some Time." It's sounds great! I just like to take breaks from the mix and then go back and make sure it all sounds good. The reason my ears are tender is that I tend to mix at a high volume. I can feel it better that way. I do mix at low & medium levels as well but for the most part I crank it up!

I will send this to the Mastering Studio tonight and then it's off to pressing. That's a whole nuther ball game. I am having someone design the CD cover & insert. I just need to step back from it all and let someone else make it look great. I am directing them on how I would like it to look but they are the wizzards. :-)

M.

So I'm kickin ass in the studio. (Yesterday & Today) Lead vocal done for "Stephen Anderson" and I'm working on the lead harmony and background vocals now. I should have those done in a couple of hours and then it's mixing time. Well actually... it's more like tweaking because I have been mixing this song for probably over a year. I try to make it sound better every time I load it up on my system. ;-) Of course sometimes that can be worse. You have to leave great alone. If you keep fiddling with things you tend to mess it up.

I have a couple tweaks still n "If You Need Some Time" as well. That song is just a nightmare! Hehe. I know it will all be worth it though in the end....

M.

Hey all....

I've been down in the studio all morning/afternoon and it's really great when you get so much accomplished. But.... I am STILL tweaking "If You Need Some Time" This song will be the death of me, I swear! I guess I'm such a perfectionist that I keep hearing little things and want to make them juuusssst right. It has to be that way. It's the ONLY way.

You see... I still do things like I did when I was in school. You know... the project you had all week to work on and you decided to start AND finish it on the Sunday before it was due on Monday? I figured this song would be the hardest. I probably should've started with it but here I am leaving it as the second to last song! Damn.

I will continue on and get this song done once and for all. ;-)

M.

If something is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing right!

Holy hell! I got the lead vocal done for "If You Need Some Time" Harmony's are next but that won't take long at all and then some final tweaking on the mixing side of things. I still have to get this off to Andy at Silver Birch Productions. I also have to sing one more to complete the album... Stephen Anderson.

Yes that is the name of the song. "Stephen Anderson" He was a classmate of mine when I was in Vanier Elementary. He used to be quite annoying but then so was I from time to time. I guess you could say we picked on him a bit and when you get older and have children, you realize that that might not have been the best way to spend your time. I felt bad about being a jerk so I wrote a song about it. It's one of my faves for sure. All the friends I went to school with will get a kick out of it when they hear it. Maybe Steve will too but I haven't been able to find him on FB or any other means on the net.

I think I will head down to the studio in a bit to finish up the vocals.

M.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY ~ If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.

So I think I have Kidney Stones...AHHHHHHHH!!!
I was actually in my studio mixing "Through The Night" and I got this sharp pain, like an ice-pick that had been over a fire going into my side. It scared the shit out of me! I actually thought I was going to be in my car driving to the hospital ASAP. But... I got down on my back, flat on the floor and starting really breathing deeply and it went away within one minute. WHEW! Of course, just like any man I figured it would go away on it's own. I guess I had no reason to believe it wouldn't. But.. yes... it came back and I got scared again. Now I knew it was not something that was going to go away. Damn!

I got on the internet right away and started searching about home remedies. I found some!! One suggested 6 cans of coke (one every 20 minutes or so) and boiled-blended asparagus. The other suggested a straight 12oz glass of lemon juice. Then 12 more glasses (1 each hour) with 1oz of lemon juice with the rest water. I chose the coke method because it didn't take as long. I did it. Drank the coke in about 2 hours and just drank the asparagus. It actually wasn't bad. Good times. ;-)

Needless to say I haven't been in the studio at all today. I will head in there in a little while.

Chatted with my web designer today. It went well. My site should be up sometime next week. Lots of options usually delays things so we are trying to make the site simple. If you have any suggestions or want to tell me which sites you like the best... post a comment here.

M.

Success isn’t about being the best; it’s about being better than you were.

I was down in WhiteRock today with my photographer, Jeff Fairbank www.jdfairbankphotography.com Very talented!
He told me about this little pub down there on the strip that he thought was cool. So, he picked me up at my place and we drove out there around 11am. Tons of really cool stuff in there which makes for great photos. It was a great day... overcast and no rain. We booked open the whole right side of the pub and took a few hours to take about 200 photo's. It think we'll get some good ones out of the shoot.

Back to singing tomorrow. ;-)

M.

I was up in Harrison Hot Springs, BC for my cousin Celine's wedding. It was the most fun I think I've had at a wedding ever! Good food, music, good people. You know... you miss your family when you realize how long it's been since you've seen them. It was nice to see the ones from out of town. Good times.

We're now heading up to Hope to see my son play his last game in the Hope Hockey Tournament. Funniest thngs happened though. We turned down a road to the rink and there was the guy that is carrying the Olympic Torch! Haha. It was cool to see I guess but I could really care less about all that hyped up crap. All I can think about is the massive debt this province will endure. Just bring on the frigging games already. :-)

M.

If you keep doing the things you've been doing - you'll keep getting the things you've been getting.

Got up and had coffee. Damn! I make the BEST coffee! After being in the studio all morning, I'm cooking oatmeal. Ran out of egg whites so I figured Oatmeal is the next best thing besides a protein shake but I just don't feel like making one of those right now. Makes a big mess. I also make those the best too! Haha.

When I was down in the studio I was mostly editing drums and cleaning up noisy amps from the recorded guitars. Gotta get rid of that hissing. It takes hours of patience.

Last night, I almost finished "If You Need Some Time" but got stuck at a high range vocal part of the song. I'm wondering if I want to put it in there anymore at all? Maybe it doesn't suit the song. Hmmm? I will do some more today and finish it up however I decide to do that. I know it will be great! ;-)

M.

You can change what you are by changing what goes into your mind.
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YES!! Well... not totally. Hehe. I am taking a break from singing "If You Need Some Time" It's going amazing though. I'm also calling for prices on CD Duplication and that's going ok. Not sure who I'm going to use yet but I know it will work out in the end.

So much to do... so little time. I guess it all depends on how you use your time?

M.

You are what you think. Think it TODAY. Become it tomorrow.
Nothing can help you or hurt you as much as the thoughts you carry in your head.
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It's creepy how things in your day-to-day life just get in the way sometimes of what you want to accomplish. Yesterday, I wanted to get the vocals done for "If You Need Some Time". Didn't happen. Oh well... I'm working on it for today.

When you're singing, you're not just working like at a job... it takes everything you have to get that performance fans will be moved by. (or should I say the track I am blown away by. I am SUPER hard on myself) You have to be healthy, feeling great about yourself, your voice has to be in top shape, the emotion has to be there among many other things. It's just a feel you need to have to lay it down. If you are thinking about bills or kids or whatever... you can forget about singing. It just won't happen. So when I feel not as good as I want, I will meditate or take the dog for a walk or whatever to get way from the studio and re-group. It works.

So... now Im heading out to pick up my kids from school, do some grocery shopping for dinner and later I hope to get the chance to get this song done. Hopefully tomorrow's blog will start with ... "YES!"

M.

~ It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog. ~

I've been writing out lyrics on the PC to all the songs on the CD this morning. By the time you get your completed CD (manufacturing, pressing, shrink wrapped) IN YOUR HANDS... it's amazing when you realize how many times you've heard your own songs! I mean it's OVER and OVER and OVER again! It must be in the 10's of thousands on this one because a couple of these songs were written in 1996! Wow.

Anyway, I'm getting prices for CD Pressing, artwork, merchandise, etc. Yesterday I had a mix that was too loud for the mastering engineer (Andy) and I had to open it up on my MAC (all of this record was recorded digitally) and pull the level down only to realize that I had deleted a couple of acoustic guitar tracks. They were out of tune a bit so I figured, ahhh, delete em... you won't need them later right, the mix is done?! DAMN. No big deal though. I re-recorded them in about 10 minutes and just sent the revised mix to Andy. Only took me about 6 hours to do the adjustments. ;-)

Now I'll sing that song that I thought I would get to yesterday. Hehe...

M.

So I'm sitting in my kitchen eating egg whites. They are actually amazing today! Haha. Must be because my CD is about 2 weeks away from being done. I have sent 8 songs to the mastering facility and I have 2 to sing and they are already 90% mixed. One of which I will get done today.

Not only did I produce this CD myself but after having a few songs mixed by grammy award winner Ken Lewis in New York [www.protoolsmixing.com], (one of which I didn't love the end result, hehe just me being the perfectionist I am) I re-mixed that song and mixed the entire album in my studio. Everyone that listened to the songs so far thought they sounded fantastic! Good thing. Believe me, I looked into the best in the world, Mike Fraser was one but even for an independent guy like myself, it was just too much money. $3000/song including studio time and then times that by 10 songs... yikes! I have already invested thousands of hours and a LOT of $$$$!

So on with it I say! Breakfast is sitting well... Time to sing. ;-)

M.