The next one is just two weeks later — a follow up to the very successful “We Are the Village” concert we staged in 2010. This concert — Sat. July 30 at Normal Hts. Methodist Church — will also benefit the organization building a school in a Cambodian Village. My original song will be featured once again and we will keep raising money until the school is built!

Bring Love Home, orders being taken now at chrishassett.com

OK, I’m excited. I admit it.

As my 60th birthday approaches (Dec. 8, for those who insist on sending a gift), I’m finally getting a CD out — with ten originals and a handful of favorite ballads and pop classics.

I hope you like it. For a preview, you can check out a few tracks using this tune widget:

Reverb Nation Player

Of course, my buddy Andrew McRory got to hear the whole thing and his help in nailing down the final product was much appreciated. Here’s what he told me — and I only had a moderate grip on his right wrist at the time:

“Chris explores big themes in his latest release, and his powerful, emotive, pitch-perfect baritone is perfectly suited to the tracks. The live, intimate setting makes me feel as though he’s singing directly to me. A stupendous storyteller and showman.”

And my buddy over at Gravity Music, Jim Bordner, was kind enough to add a few words of his own:

“Chris’s album, Bring Love Home, is a fine recording of a great performance — one in which both his voice and his convictions shine bright.”

I’ll be adding other comments as I get them and keeping you up to date on the release, along with announcements of upcoming shows and concerts.

Bring Love Home has been a labor of love and one that a lot of my friends, family and fans have been waiting for — for years! My original songs comment on some topical issues: homelessness, marriage equality, the importance of community, dealing with mental illness in a friend, losing a lover to AIDS, and celebrating the people you choose to have and love in your life.

When the CD hysteria dies down (if it ever does!), this blog will once again take a look and comment on trends, events, and new sounds in the pop world — so hang in there, OK?

And please check out the information on my new CD. Thanks!

www.chrishassett.com

www.reverbnation.con/chrishassett

And I was thinking — how can such a small country produce so many top pop stars? Same with places like Montreal. One thing is clear — when people live proudly in their culture and support their artists, their musicians, their writers, great things happen. A dollar spent at a concert or purchasing a CD is never wasted.

Support the ones who help us see, help us hear, help us feel. Or someday we may all forget how.

Enough quibbling . . . Here’s his cover of Tom Petty’s “Walls” — which I can’t stop listening to. It hits me hard, like “Wichita.”

So who else is annoyed (or delighted) by overbearing production levels on projects that feature great vocalists?

Kind of a cool logo, too.

Just a quick plug for an awesome site that always delivers the goods — to artists and fans alike. Here’s a paragraph from their “About Us” page:

Artists want to know, connect with, and be supported by music fans. Music fans want high-quality, free (or variably priced) music and to be rewarded, not punished, for sharing the music they love with their friends. We believe that if artists and fans work together, everyone can get what they want.

Couldn’t have said it better.

You’ll see live recordings, latest releases — and all of it at affordable prices and with very lenient downloading rules.

Enough of a pitch — I should be selling snake oil. Oh that’s right, I do! Best darn stuff available too.

What are your favorite music blogs and sites?

You can hear Scott’s version of the Huron Carol here.

Here’s what Scott has to say about the project (warning… gear-nerd talk ahead):

I heard the melody for this song on a Dan Gibson ‘Solitudes’ CD that my parents gave to me.  I don’t believe I had ever heard it before that.  It is a haunting melody (my favorite carols are those in minor keys – suits the crummy weather we have here in Michigan) and the backstory behind the song really intrigued me.  Bruce Cockburn has a webpage dedicated to the discussion of the song. I used his 1993 version of the song to help me with the pronunciation of the Huron lyrics.

I found a fairly easy arrangement of the song on Guitarnoise.com and used that for the classical guitar part. Even though it was an easy arrangement, I couldn’t play it without mistakes so I resorted to breaking it up into a bass and melody 2-part recording process. Both parts are “stereo” tracks where the left channel is the direct pickup and the right channel is my CAD M-177 LDC microphone. Once I had those recorded, then I corrected timing mistakes in my DAW software.

I then recorded the drums and electric piano parts. The drums are a very simple kick/snare/hi-hat part that has been processed with dBlue Glitch VST plugin and Bionic Delay. The electric piano part is a VST instrument called Mr. Ray’s (as in Ray Charles) 73 Mk II, from www.soundfonts.it. I put a chorus on it (charsiesis) to give it some movement.

The vocals were the hardest part for me, mainly to get timing and pronunciation done correctly for the triple tracking that I did (each vocal part was recorded 3 different times) using my CAD mic again. BTW, once I read Bruce Cockburn’s page on the song, I knew I wanted to sing the Huron lyrics and not the English lyrics — as the Huron is supposedly the original lyrics written by the French missionary so many years ago.

I think the reverb I used on the vocals was the Anwidasoft DX Lite reverb. There’s a synth flute/lead in there as well that I did using Camel Audio’s Cameleon 5000 VST instrument.

But it was still wanting – that’s where I was thinking of your fretless. I really appreciate you sending me the part.  I ‘fattened’ the tone with a freeware bass amp simulator VST called ‘Helian 2nd bass’ and also the Charsiesis chorus that I used on the EP.

I also really wanted to have a native american flute played. There’s a guy who hangs out at http://www.kvraudio.com who goes by the name VicDiesel who has done some early music pieces as demo songs with wooden recorders and whatnot, so I contacted him to see if he would record some native american flute for the song.  He didn’t have any that are in G, so he did wooden recorder instead. The parts are great and really could stand by themselves as a recorder ensemble.

Lastly, I used a couple of nature sound samples from the freesound project to fill out the nature aspect of the song (which is what I heard in the Dan Gibson CD mentioned at the top of the post).  The specific freesound filenames are included in the comments of the .mp3 file.

I stayed up way too late a few nights ago assembling all the parts to be able to mail it out in time for Christmas, and to enter it into the monthly song competition at www.kvraudio.com.

This all came about when I stumbled on his August 2008 release, Misadventures in Stereo. This album should be on everyone’s iPod. And if Jim had his preferences, he’d have us pick it up on vinyl (yes, it’s available!) and spin our way to musical happiness. So take your pick — but (as I’ve said before) — get this album!

And now — after you see our man in action on his YouTube site — you can read part 2 of my email-mediated interview. You’ll see that he’s got some exciting plans for the near future and, who knows, maybe a roadie position will open up for you.

What else interests you in life? Politics? Culture? Art? Botany?

Well, right now the World Series!

I tend to follow politics pretty closely. The financial mess has actually been pretty fascinating and I’ve really enjoyed in a perverse way learning what credit default swaps are and exactly how exceptionally dodgy loans were bundled together and sold as securities. Amazing what we let happen. And now the same people who got us into this mess by saying don’t regulate the markets are asking for money but then saying but don’t regulate the markets. I wonder if Americans will actually wake-up to how badly they’ve been bamboozled by the neo-cons on everything from the economy to foreign policy to the environment. My hunch is we’ll forget pretty fast. A few Britney Spears dramas and a season of American Idol and we should be ready to be taken for another half trillion.

Oh, I’m also very interested in science, which is another thing the neo-cons have hoodwinked us on — global warming being a liberal conspiracy and Adam and Eve riding dinosaurs, stuff like that.

How have you managed to balance your music and personal life?

What balance? I became a musician when I was 5. They’re one and the same.

From the beginning, how did your knowledge of technology and the internet shape your musical development?

In the beginning, there was no internet!  My favorite technology is still old stuff. I have a mono reel-to-reel tape machine from the 60s, a consumer one that was meant for dictation or recording things off the radio, that is still my favorite thing to record with. I always use the slowest speed so it has almost no high-end and you can really hear the tape. I love that sound.

What can you say about the relative success of different distribution modes for your music? iTunes, for example. CD mailers. Vinyl. What does your experience tell you about the future of music distribution?

I think in the near future there will be practically a total collapse of the recorded music market. From a financial point of view it is not viable.

I make no money from any distribution method other than selling CDs or vinyl directly to fans at shows or through CDBaby.com. I see nothing from any sales over iTunes or at retail stores or Amazon or other online sites, even when people DO buy the music, and the idea that stealing music is perfectly fine is now entrenched in the culture — it’s not even worth railing against anymore.

So, ultimately while you CAN make a record in your bedroom for next to nothing, there’s a lot of limitations to what types of things you can do in that scenario, but the money to go in and finance actual recording sessions and musician fees is drying up fast, so the bedroom is going to be the only studio anyone can afford soon.

Did you realize early on that being a successful musician might not require getting signed by a label? How did that play out (or not)?

Well, I’m on a label but, yeah, the majority of my career and opportunities that happen for me are not related to that.

I think what has happened in the last 8 years or so is that there’s a lot more opportunity to gain a following in the margins through word of mouth as opposed to what it was like before, which was essentially you either hit it big or you washed out. I don’t think I could sustain myself doing music full-time before this kind of seismic shift that occurred with the internet and the indie movement.

What is it like for you to perform live vs. record in a studio session? Do you feel your equally well suited for both?

It took a while for me to understand the differences. Growing up, I always had tape recorders and listened to records but I didn’t live in a place where I was able to play live much or even see a lot of live shows. Consequently, when I first started playing out live I used to think the idea was to just play things exactly like the recordings. I have to say that meeting Jill Sobule and playing a bunch of shows with her as essentially her musical sidekick really opened my eyes to what a live show could be about. Jill taught me, just by watching her, how to connect to the audience in the room and make them an active part of the show so that you were all creating this unique moment in the present together. So, that’s much more my focus playing live now.

How has your fan base grown or changed?

It’s always changing, so you can never really pin it down to quantify or characterize it.

The thing I have noticed over time is the types of venues I play seem to have become more about listening to music and less about it being a bar. That’s everything from rooms in NY like the Living Room or Hotel Cafe in LA, which serve alcohol but have built their business identities around being about the music to house concerts, which I’m starting to play a lot more of.

What’s next for you?

I think in 2009 I’m going to try to focus on Europe more, maybe base myself there for three or four months and try to see if I can develop enough of a following to make it sustainable. I’m not sure yet whether that means working to get my records officially released over there or just approach it in a more guerrilla like fashion, but I’ve played London about 10 or 12 times and I’d love to use that as a base and then travel in a lot of the other countries.

____
All sorts of Boggia-based web adventure:
http://www.jimboggia.com – Home of official propaganda.
http://www.myspace.com/jimboggia – Be my friend.
http://www.boggiamusic.podomatic.com – Fill your Pod with Boggiamusic (it’s a podcast).
http://www.youtube.com/jimboggia – See me move.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimboggia – See me not move.

Well, the spell hasn’t lifted. I still listen to Jim’s latest album all the time. At the risk of showing up on some stalker website, I badgered Jim with requests for an interview and, despite his better instincts, he has finally complied. Today, I give you part one of my Q&A with Jim. By the way — get this album!

Your just-released album, Misadventures in Stereo, is garnering critical acclaim. How proud are you and what on the album are you most pleased with?

I’m really happy with the record. I just listened to it the other day — I always have to take a break from it when it first gets released because you wind up second-guessing everything — and I thought it was strong and consistent.

I guess what I’m most pleased with is that I feel like I proved to myself that I could “captain the ship” and put the whole thing together — from the songs through the recording process — and be happy with the result. To me, it sounds like my record in that it reflects my taste and personality.

How does the album reflect your growth as a musician? As an artist? As a person?

I was definitely lost for a couple of years before making this record. I was questioning on some level whether I was really any good, having a crisis of confidence. Making ‘Misadventures in Stereo’ helped me find my way out of the woods on that, to believe in the songs and do what I think is good musically and not have doubts based on what I think someone else might think. To the extent that some of my favorite moments on this record are things I KNOW some people won’t like. An example of that would be something like the bridge on ‘Listening to NRBQ’ when the lyric says “And then Big Al took a solo and it went like this” and then Big Al Anderson does, in fact, come in and take a solo. I know some people – and I’m actually thinking of SPECIFIC people I know who are brilliant songwriters that I love and respect – who just aren’t into that type of meta-moment. But the truth is, I LOVE stuff like that and with this record I wasn’t afraid to go there and please myself.

Who were your musical idols when you were young? What were the first few 45s or albums you bought?

Oh, the usual suspects: The Beatles still have the best batting average and slugging percentage of all-time. I love the Kinks as well. Early Rod Stewart/Faces. Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson, Burt Bacharach. I had a lot of those records from my parents and aunts and uncles from before I can remember, because they used to give me records and I’d learn how to sing them at 3 years old and I think they thought that was pretty cute. I didn’t sing for my supper so much as I sang for my record collection.

Who out there is doing work that really “wows” you now?

I love this woman — Keren Ann. She’s from France, but lives in NYC a lot now and sings in French and English.

At the moment I’m flipping out over the new album by the Major Labels, which is a band project Mike Viola is doing with Bleu and Ducky Carlisle. I’ve known Mike for a few years now and he’s one of my favorite people to play with and this new record is a jaw-dropper.

What is your songwriting process? Words first? Melody first? “Feeling” first?

The music is almost always way ahead of the music.

When I hear the music it’s usually pretty fully formed right from the start in that I’ll hear not only the melody and chord progression but large bits of the arrangement as well. I’ll have a pretty good idea of what instrumentation will be involved and hear where background vocals will go and what the harmonies are  That stuff usually all comes at once.

After that, I’m trying to listen to the music to figure out what it’s supposed to be about lyrically. So, that’s when getting a feeling comes in. Something in the melody or chord progression will give me a feeling which then suggests a subject matter. Then it’s the process of figuring out how to get out of the corner I’ve painted myself into. Because the melody is already there, so the number of syllables and rhyme scheme – even the emphasis of syllables is already dictated by the melody and you’ve got to fit a lyric about whatever the subject matter is into that form. Not surprisingly, I have albums worth of melody, chord progressions and arrangements and the bottleneck is the lyrics.

I commented in my blog that you were equally strong in your songwriting and in your arrangements. How do you approach these two aspects of the music business?

Well, as I said, to me they’re usually one and the same. Because we all grew up with recorded music, as opposed to how it was a few generations back when you’d sit around a piano with sheet music, those elements were always intertwined to me. It surprised me when I found out later that it wasn’t always the songwriter who came up with the arrangement bits. You know, I was sort of shocked that The Beatles didn’t have the baroque piano solo in ‘In My Life’ I their heads as part of the song when they wrote it. I was a bit naive, but it made me think in those terms when writing.

——-

Later this week, I’ll post the second half of my Q&A with Jim. You’re probably thinking, hey, he’s a pretty thoughtful guy . . . and you’d be right. He’s also a hell of a musician and songwriter, so check out his many links below (with his descriptions also provided):

http://www.jimboggia.com — Home of official propaganda
http://www.myspace.com/jimboggia — Be my friend
http://www.boggiamusic.podomatic.com — Fill your Pod with Boggiamusic (it’s a podcast).
http://www.youtube.com/jimboggia — See me move.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimboggia — See me be still

And remember, get this guy’s music in your iPod or player of choice soon!

Run away!

Most cover bands tend to play it as a G7sus4, or if they follow “The Beatles Complete Scores” (pretty much the bible of Fab song notation), two guitarists play a (combined) Gsus4/D (a G suspended chord with no third and a D in the bass, supplied by Sir Paul). Usually one guy will play (low to high): D, G, C, G in open position, while guitar 2 plays a Gsus4 barre chord at the 3rd fret.

But as close as that sounds, it’s not *perfect*.

It’s been assumed for a while that there was more going on than meets the ear — namely George Martin (or one of the Beatles overdubbed) playing a piano chord mixed in with the 2 guitars and bass. But George and Geoff Emerick both say they just don’t remember what was happening during that session. So, according to the Wired article linked above, Dalhousie University professor Jason Brown and some fancy Fourier transforms figured out the secret sauce:

Guitar 1 (George/12-string electric guitar): a 4-note chord, low to high A, D, G, C (the nature of the 12-string supplying octaves and unisons on the higher strings)

Guitar 2 (John/6-string [Ricky?]): a high C single note

Bass (Paul/Höfner bass): a high D on the G string

Piano (George): low to high D, Fnatural, D, G, E

Now I’m waiting for science to explain who greenlighted the plot of “Magical Mystery Tour.”

But this time promises to be different. As heard on NPR’s Song of the Day, Macca’s new direction for his mythical extinguisher of flames is decidedly more rock/pop than downtempo — and still different from his two most recent solo releases. Think U2. Think Peter Gabriel. Think Arcade Fire.

Think I’m gonna get it when it comes out on November 17.

From the press release on Paul’s site:

Earlier this year The Fireman donated a new track, Lifelong Passion, from Electric Arguments, to the charity Adopt-A-Minefield.

Here’s a link to a free song download at NME (caution — the site is SLLLOOOWW)

And one more (same tune as the NPR link above):