The ongoing creative process
On the kids' music 'circuit'
Alt versions of Echo Beach
Marketing music
Gardening projects
22 in Cincinnati
So let's see:
Martha describes the process of making new music...
September for us seems to be the month in which a plan of attack is established. Mark and I now walk first thing in the morning. Then we make calls and tie up loose ends throughout the morning. Afternoon is going to be our creative time. The studio is not in the best shape right now so that will also have to be put right. I think we should write a song about procrastination - they say you should write about what you know. The ideas are coming and we feel confident about our songwriting. Getting those songs to the CD buying public is another matter. It is exciting what is happening on the internet with music and we can't wait until the day when all music comes to the listener this way, bypassing the record labels.
Mark adds the following:
As far as recent activities, we always think we're going to get a lot more accomplished during the summer than we do. As a parent I'm sure you're busy too trying to keep the kids gainfully occupied over the summer months. However, more lyrics and song sketches have been worked on for a new Muffins album and I recently worked on some things with Jocelyne for her own solo album project. Martha has written some great new kid's tunes which have to find their way onto a new album.
Mark had mentioned combining Treehouse gigs with pleasure trips, and I wondered abour the kid's music circuit. Martha elaborated:
Summer was slow and hot. Combining work with pleasure is a nice way to go and next year we may try to get a Canadian east coast children's tour together and squeeze in a holiday again. Mark and I did that in California years ago when we were on tour there with Martha and the Muffins. We drove down the coast from San Fransisco and spent some time at Yosemite. One of the great things about being in a band is getting to see some of the world.
The children's show has been pretty much close to home except for Vancouver last year which we combined with a vacation.
Mark is now playing with me on my school show which is called 'SONGS AND SONGWRITING FROM THE TREE HOUSE/ WE MADE IT OURSELVES' He plays accoustic and electric guitar and some percussion. We talk to the kids about how and why you write songs. The two shows we did this week went very well and the kids were asking Mark all about his gear. It's great to have him out there with me.
The newest song to be worked into the show is called 'MAMA, MAMA DON'T BRUSH MY HAIR' which we get the audience to sing along to in the chorus. It's a catchy tune so it works well in the show. (I play a wooden toy piano). I guess I had better get back to recording these children's songs. For some reason I became totally unfocused on them for a long while. The positive response to my new songs in a live context is now helping to motivate me to record them. I think I've been craving some grown-up creativity and our daughter has definitely outgrown this type of music. It's a shame that very young musical door opens for such a short time. All kids are growing up too fast in many ways I think.
When I saw the Mike Bullard performance, it struck me that this was, to my knowledge, the only alt-version of Echo Beach "published" (that is, loosely, released and archived in some copyrighted format). Of course, I was hoping that there might be other versions of M+M's most fanous song. So I asked, and here's how Mark answered:
Two friends videotaped
an early gig at the Ontario College of Art in 1978 which probably contains
Echo Beach. The sound and visual quality are terrible, (it was recorded
on open reel video tape, the pre cassette era!), and not something one
would want to broadcast unless within a documentary context.
During tours in the 80'
sometimes colleges and universities would tape gigs so there might be live
versions of several songs kicking around somewhere.
Also Tim Pope videotaped
us at The Electric Ballroom in London in 1980. He went on to be quite a
successful video director later on, but these things haven't been "published"
or broadcast to my knowledge.
Getting back to current projects, I had to put the question, when might we hope to hear any new music?
Martha: With no record contract to fulfill, timeframes only exist in our own minds and our minds get changed a lot so I think it's best left unsaid. The year 2000 in the 20TH anniversary of the original released recording of 'ECHO BEACH' so we're examining some sort of special release to mark the occasion.
In the meantime, Mark continues his twigman initiatives. First, he elaborates on his installation at the Harbourfront Artists' Gardens:
I was commissioned to design and build a garden for the 1999 Artists' Gardens project at Harbourfront this summer which turned out very well. (Harbourfront is Toronto's waterfront cultural/entertainment complex which encompasses several galleries, workshops, theatres and stores, etc.) The garden is titled "All Trees Point To Heaven" and incorporates a large blue-stained twig ladder that hovers over a variety of conifers and ground covers. As the plant material grows over several seasons the design will hopefully become more and more attractive.
While I hesitate to even mention the word "millenium", my garden project at Harbourfront was meant to encourage viewers to consider where they, individually, and where we, collectively, are at this point in time. And also where we are headed. The Artist's Statement that accompanies this work is this:
"Jacob dreamed of a ladder
linking Heaven and Earth.
Will we advance? Or
fall off? WHERE ARE WE?"
Simplistic as it may sound, I have a strong feeling that we as a species have been given everything we need to make our planet a "Heaven on Earth", but lack the vision and will to do so. So while we get a bit of it revealed to us in dribs and drabs, I think it's "there" waiting for us to be mature enough to know how to bring it about.
Still in the garden vein, my Garden Music project is coming along with several bed tracks having been completed. Some of it is going to be pretty weird which is good...
Basically, I've been doing a lot of research into plant names with the intention of choosing 10-20 names and then composing an instrumental piece based on each name, relying mainly on my intuitive response to each particular name. In addition, each plant will have a "portrait" in the form of painting. Each painting in effect, will have a "soundtrack" accompanying it. This "painting with a soundtrack" approach is an extension of some of the work I was doing as a student at the Ontario College of Art in the mid/late Seventies. However, it was Martha's idea that I should "do something" that combined three of my major activities - music, painting and gardening - into one project.
Intially, I thought the paintings and music would happen concurrently, but space limitations and other considerations have made it more practical to do the music first and then the paintings. This past summer I set up a recording situation in our studio where I could feed various things, (ie guitar, voice, sax, whatever), into a string of audio processors with a DAT recorder at the end. By improvising and allowing the chain of devices to manipulate and alter what I was playing I would either end up with garbage or something interesting. The worthwhile "improvisations" were often sonically complex enough to be kept as finished tracks on their own or could be used as the beginning point for more overdubbing. This is just one of the approaches I'm using to compose this album - there are all the conventional avenues as well. In the end, I'm hoping to have a CD out along with a painting exhibition in a year or two.
In a nostalgia vein, which arose in connection with the still-hoped-for CD re-release of This is the Ice Age, I asked Mark if the mysterious B-side "22 in Cincinnati" might be added on. He volunteered this information:
It's funny you mention that track because at rehearsal today my brother Nick pulled out the vinyl and played it saying it was his favourite Muffins track. Jocelyne, Martha and I were getting a laugh out of recalling where the track's lyrics came from - basically getting into an American city after dark (was it Philadelphia?), finding ourselves in the wrong part of town and reading the road map in the tour van with inside lights on..."turn out the lights, turn out the lights, we're all too white..." etc. That track is one of our favourites and will inevitably be part of a reissued "Ice Age". The lawyers in London are still awaiting Virgin's response to a possible licensing deal. The wheels move in a 19th century sort of way. Slowly to say the least.
Thanks for stopping by!
back to Cynosures Hiding in the Air
© 1999 Ken Hamilton All rights reserved