Hey folks. Here I sit, on the comfy ‘used to be white’ couch. This little love seat has been my home for the last 12 days, back ‘n forth between the microphone and these plush cushions! It’s been an amazing process so far, here, tucked away in the basement of a church in Ottawa’s Glebe. With Dean Watson as my producer, I have been blessed. Dean and I have been friends for years and we work together even better. Not only does he have the ears of a bat, but he is an excellent musician as well. When I emailed him (or was it Facebook?) a few months ago, he was gung ho, and I was so excited by his positivity, he was happy to take on the project, and a 12 day project at that!! The first cd I recorded took exactl y one year from it’s start date to the CD release party… and I decided to do exactly the opposite this time and so far so good! Last Autumn, I won $5000 towards my career, through The Big Money Shot music competiton (Live 88.5 NewCap Radio) and immediately knew it had to be put towards this album. It also has to be said that I could not have done this without the help of my band mates; Rob Rose, Chris Hopkins & Rob Milicevic, their musical skills have saved me on more than one occasion. They are also featured on this new album, which will be called “Monkeys Under Stars.” As I sit here typing to you, Dean is working hard, and we are listening to “Got No Time” in its (almost!) finished version. With only one more song to go in the “mixing” department, the album will be ready for it’s mastering session (with Bova Sound Studios.) Mixing is akin to balancing things out; perhaps taking harmonies down in volume, or cleaning up the sounds of the drums (i.e taking the tom drum echo out of the snare hits) it’s actually a long process… cleaning up breath, aligning everythign together, syncopating it all, so there are no odd sounds or beats in the mixture! An analogy for the mastering process has been explained to me like this: take your favourite spaghetti sauce, it’s delicious!! Add to it a little parmesan, gruyere or mozzerella and the pasta dish just became even better… I never eat my spaghetti without cheese, and I suppose mastering is like the cheese! It polishes off the sound, rounds it out in a way… SO! The best news is yet to come… The CD Release will happen at The Black Sheep Inn in Wakefield Quebec on June 5th. See you there??? Xo (turns out we need to finish the mix on ONE more!! Day 13 it is!!)