The moon coming out over all the farmlands between Truro and Halifax. (You can kinda see my head/phone/fingers at the bottom there.)
ARCHIVES - December 2009
December 30, 2009
It's almost resolution time! Last year I decided that every year henceforth, I would try to do something to improve my health. So far I'm doing a decent job at failing that one. So at least, for the world of crissicochrane.com, I'm going to make a point of putting more free content for download up online. This last month has been pretty full of pictures and videos and news, so hopefully it's a good sign of things to come!
On this note, here's a new song!
edit: sorry, the mandolin just doesn't tune. if you'd like to assist in the correction of this problem, please locate the "donate" bottom on the bottom right side of the frame to the Crissi-Cochrane-needs-a-mandolin-that-isn't-from-ebay fund.
edit 2: this was written and then recorded over a span of five hours on the evening of December 29, 2009.
December 28, 2009
Just a quick update! Back home in Halifax now. Took the train home, it was a nice lovely ride (although the train was delayed quite a bit!).
The show last night at the Capitol in Fredericton was great, lots of fun, good crowd! By the end of the night, people were dancing on the stage (which definitely helped elevate my respect for Fredericton's music scene). The Belle Comedians and Scott Mallory played with me, and both were fantastic.
For now my next show in Halifax is February 6, 2009 at the Company House (2202 Gottingen Street) with Scott Biggar for his CD release. Dana Carly Andrews will be playing too! Should be a grand old time.
For now, keep warm (doesn't seem like that's hard here in Halifax, there doesn't seem to be any snow?), and get ready for New Years! (I will probably be dancing up a storm at the Gideon's show at Gus' pub.)
December 25, 2009
Merry Christmas from me and my family! I thought I'd post while I'm waiting for the turkey to hit the table. (This will be brief; I think it'll be ready soon!)
Check out the Twitter bar on the right there - thought it would fatten the page up a bit. Feel free to follow me on twitter, @CrissiEmma!
And, as a present, I found this old picture in my room and thought I'd share it. It's me in my old bedroom in highschool. Note the extreme slouch, the Blink 182 posters on the wall, the multiple guitars, and the awesome chairs/table (I had a big walk-in closet that I kept my bed in).
December 24, 2009
Happy holidays! I'm back in Fredericton, visiting my parents and getting ready to play at the Capitol on the 27th. In this week's issue of Here NB Fredericton, Kyle Mullin wrote an article advertising the show (being put on by foodclothingshelter), and including some chatter from me, Scott Mallory and Dan Tweedie about the importance of musical communities. Check it out! (Also, I've put a copy of the article in the press section, just FYI.)
I've been going through a lot of my old stuff as I usually do when I come home. Found a bunch of CDs backing up all my old files from 3 or 4 years ago and found this old picture that I used to use as a profile pic on music websites when I first started putting my demos up online.
December 19, 2009
Finally back on the East Coast! Tess Lucas came by today to drop off some pictures from a photoshoot we did in October. I've added six of the pictures to the Photos section (including the picture above!).
December 15, 2009
The 7th and Final Day - The Last Waltz Woke up this morning to the sun coming in through the blinds. Its nice to have such a lovely sunny day for our last full day in the Windy City (which hasn't really been windy at all! Thank god).
We went shopping again! I helped Scott find a present for his sister. I also managed to spend some more money (quel surprise). There's a lot of boutiques on Milwaukee Avenue, but lots of them look expensive so we checked out a couple thrift shops. In one of them, the man behind the counter was telling some crazy story about hearing a woman screaming for help in an apartment one night and finding that she'd been robbed. I kinda wanted to stick around to eavesdrop for the full story, but decided against it.
On the way to the studio, I was watching the sidewalk and saw this great heart that reminded me of a Postsecret from a long time ago. (See picture!)
Scott burned some CDs of the unmastered Gamma Gamma Rays album to drop off at random places. I meant to do the same thing with my demos but didn't really get around to it.
On my lunch break, I found a great necklace at Renegade Handmade. See picture (from site!).
We wrapped before 10 and stayed at the studio until about 1am, drinking and listening to wicked music. I have a giant bottle of gin that I've hardly really made a dent in, and I'm not sure whether to just leave it here for whoever inhabits this apartment next, or try to take it with me. It is in a pretty cool bottle though.
So, it's the last night! How'd that happen? We gotta be up in six hours to clean and tie up some loose ends. Shit.
Anyway, this'll be brief because even though I didn't make a dent in the gin, it made a dent in me. But check out this really cool thing in the studio - it's from the 1950s, something used in the US army? The studio got it real cheap from some kind of estate sale, and it came with a manual that had a section about how to destroy the device to prevent it from being taken by the enemy. The different methods of destruction include smash, cut, burn, bend, explosives, and at the very end, just destroy. Destroy everything.
Ridiculous.
December 14, 2009
Another long day in the studio. Scott and I watched a wicked movie last night called Boy Eats Girl (which I'm going to recommend relatively highly). Slept in a bit and managed to get into Milk and Honey for breakfast! Had this crazy good egg/bean/cheese/veggie thing.
We mixed Coming Home, This City, and Kinda Late, and finished the work we started on Elevators yesterday. Only So Far Apart, Separate Cities and the waltz are remaining! The album is sounding friggen amazing - it makes everything else I've done look just laughable (or so I think, anyway). By the end of the day, Tim and I were starting to get a bit loopy from being cooped up in the control room for about eleven hours. (I wailed "TACO TACO" for a good solid hour until Scott and I finally went to a damn taqueria, which is a kind of place I've never even dreamed of, and it was GREAT. Then Scott and I smoked tons, or mostly I smoked tons because I don't wanna have to throw out my smokes/bring any through customs, and I took stupid Myspace angle pictures of a cute new dress I got yesterday.)
Gonna watch Christine! Best movie ever! I like to pretend I was named after it.
December 13, 2009
Woke up this morning to the sound of bells coming from the church next door. Absolutely lovely. The church is over a hundred years old, and the bells sound so strange. It was great to wake up to.
We're running low on rations in the apartment (we both had a busy day yesterday), so Scott and I were going to go to Milk and Honey (www.milkandhoneycafe.com) but it was just crazy in there, so we walked up the street and found a place called Moonshine, and had wicked cheap awesome breakfast.
Hit up a local store on the way back to the studio called Renegade Handmade (www.renegadehandmade.com). Bought some wicked presents and some cute earrings for myself!
Tim did some editing in the morning (I didn't really want to jump into vocals so abruptly in the day), so Scott and I did some hilarious jamming on piano and glockenspeil. Hilarious; maybe someday we'll do some recordings? haha!
Also, I put some shakers and cabasa in Coming Home. The shaker I used looks just like an apple, and sometimes when I get hungry and glance at it in my peripherals, I get all excited and think about eating it, and then I remember it's plastic, filled with beads, and not remotely edible.
Tim and I went to a nearby Mexican place for dinner. The food was good, except the plate was pottery-shatteringly hot (which is hot - I would know!), which made no sense because I was having a burger and fries. Also, I've noticed that in Chicago restaurants, nobody ever lets your water glass get even close to half empty before they come by and refill it. I've had people come and refill my water glass as I'm signing for the bill. And it's always half full of ice. It's like no one considers that it's a waste for your water bill and a waste of energy freezing ice cubes that you pour into the glass that you take away (still 95% full) five minutes later and then pour down the drain.
Back at the apartment now. Scott's making pancakes; he needed some eggs and found that they were actually frozen? Somehow?
December 12, 2009
Four days of tracking down. All that's left is vocals for Lonely for Me and Separate Cities, and then on to the mixing! The weather was good today; Scott and I got up and went out for breakfast because all we have is eggs (which frankly I'm getting sick of) and that Thai food from Day 2. We walked up to Milwaukee Ave and went to a little Italian restauarant for breakfast, and had giant helpings of pancakes and sausage/bacon (mm).
After that, we had about forty minutes until studio time (we pushed back our start to 12:00PM to give me a bit of time to check out some boutiques and the like). In my haste to find Urban Outfitters, I walked into the wrong store but promptly bought two dresses anyway, and then found UO and spent even more money. Saw a giant flock of pigeons circling a square just like starlings do; I had no idea that pigeons were smart enough to actually do that whole group-mind thing.
PS, Mexico is pretty friggen different now, but it's so amazing, and everyone is going to be friggen stoked.
Also, I finally cut my hair! I was just going to cut it for kicks, but then we realized I had enough hair to donate to help make a wig for kids with cancer, so we cut off about 10 inches of hair (did not really know I had so much hair). It's pretty bloody short, but I'm gonna make it work! And I feel pretty wicked that I got to donate it because I've been saying for the last year that I was going to do that once it was long enough. (See the pictureee)
Scott's been out at a folk festival all day and should be home soon! The heat still is pretty much non-existent, and the lights burned out in the ceiling fan, so I'm writing by oven-light (sigh).
December 11, 2009
Almost 1am here! Up a bit later because we've decided to hit the studio at noon instead of 11am tomorrow. I'm going to swing by a little craft store I've been eyeing to see if there's anything good to pick up.
Today, we recorded mandolin and lap steel/dobro with Jim Becker of Califone (www.myspace.com/califonemusic) who will be touring with Wilco soon! The tracks turned out amazingly. Mike Kinsella (www.myspace.com/mybandowen) came in and did some percussion, and some guitar on Separate Cities and Coming Home. We started doing back-up vocals tonight, and I finished up the main vocals for the waltz. Tomorrow I'm going to spend the day hammering out the rest of the vocals and putting in whatever else we can!
The weather wasn't so bad here today. Sunny and bright, cold, but not so bad. Guess I don't spend enough time outside for it to really bother me!
Also, I was pretty excited to learn that Tim Kinsella tends bar at a place right next to the studio. I'm not allowed because I'm not of age, and the ID that claims otherwise belongs to someone who is well acquainted with the bar staff. Chicago also has this interesting little bit of liquor licensing law that says that if you're caught serving alcohol to minors three times in a row, your license is permenantly revoked (and this particular bar happens to be at the two-stroke mark currently).
Anyway, exhausted. I think I'll be in bed soon. On a side note, I was looking for this old video that my friends and I made in Grade 12 Film/Vid class; it was a music video for Copeland's song Mexico. Hilariously enough, the video has over 27,000 plays on Youtube, and yet our teacher gave us like a 70% or something. I don't have any picture for you today, so you'll just have to add some plays to the Copeland music video instead for kicks.
December 10, 2009
NEW SHOW ADDED - foodclothingshelter Showcase at the Capitol bar in Fredericton, New Brunswick on December 27th! With Scott Mallory and The Belle Comedians.
It's just after midnight, and Scott and I are watching a Christmas special of Ghostbusters (wicked). Today was pretty much the coldest day in the history of the world, even though the sun was out.
My right forearm is a mess from the 20 minutes it takes to crush enough beans for a coffee each morning. Tomorrow I may just wait until we get to the studio to drink my coffee, it's just far too time-consuming.
Today, Mike Kinsella came in and did drums for Mexico, Lonely for Me, and the waltz. Toby Summerfield played bass and double bass on Mexico, Lonely for Me, the waltz, This City and Kinda Late. Everything is sounding amaaaazing! One song left to do guitars to, and then vocals for nine songs (although most all songs have scratch vocals, some of which are actually pretty decent). Tomorrow we'll be tracking pedal steel and mandolin, getting some concrete vocal tracks done, and then Angela and Ellen (www.myspace.com/angellencoins) will be in doing back-up vocals!
The band Maritime was playing at Lincoln Hall tonight, but we didn't get out of the studio in time to check it out... as much as I'd have loved to see them play, I guess I sort of have priorities for my trip here! Haha.
Just found out some fun info about Chicago: the average weather in Chicago for December. The city gets roughly 4 hours of sunlight per day (what the hell), the coldest temperature being -31 Celcius (just ungodly), with an average rainfall of 51mm daily. With how cold and snowy it is here, it's absolutely hysterical that Canada has the repuation of perpetual snow/cold/igloos.
No pictas today because the only way I can upload them is by emailing them to myself, and it turns out that it's getting a bit costly :(
Anyway, I am exhausted! To bed. <3
December 9, 2009
It's just after midnight central time, and Scott and I just got back into our apartment! Spent a good ten hours in the studio... tracked my guitars for six songs and vocals for one... scratch vocals for the rest. Tomorrow, Mike Kinsella is coming in to play drums, and Toby Summerfield is coming in to play bass.
Tim managed to locate me an ID (and Scott's already got one that says he's 26), so we went to a venue called the Darkroom on West Chicago street to see some local bands. Ellen and Angela, the two lovely ladies who will be singing back-up vocals on my album, were performing - check them out on MySpace; they play under the name Coins (www.myspace.com/angellencoins). Tigerspirit (www.myspace.com/tigerspiritband) headlined; their frontwoman is some kind of work of art, and killed it even though it sounded like she might have had laryngitis (you could only tell when she spoke between songs).
The weather is disgusting, ps... it's the sort of cold that makes your chest burn if you haven't eaten quite enough before venturing out. Tomorrow it's supposed to be in the negative (Farenheit, even). I have been living in my Owl hat.
This blurry photo does not do justice to how beautiful this girl is. Check out the band, Tigerspirit.
I had no idea what street we were on or what the name of the venue we were in was until I went to the bathroom and found a poster for tonight's show. (I was too busy trying to memorize my new name and birth date.)
Written on a random storefront on Damon. Makes me think of Postsecret.
I always flush public toilets with my foot, and for some reason this flush lever was ridiculously high up. I had to do a high kick to reach it. It sounded like the girls outside my stall were doing coke, so hiding in the stall and taking pictures of a toilet seemed like a safe plan of action.
Neon sign outside a store called "Natural American Spirit".
December 8, 2009
Finally here in Illi-noise!
We arrived in Toronto to discover our Chicago flight had been cancelled, and we were to get the next flight out, departing about two hours later. The weather was grey and gross in Toronto, so we sat in the bar for a while. On the flight to Chicago, it was too dark and foggy to see anything out the window. We were worried that Air Canada would enforce US liquor laws once we flew over the border (making us minors again, ugh), but they served us! Awesome.
Chicago is messy and wet and slushy today. We cabbed from the airport to our little apartment just a couple blocks from the airport. We have one little room that is a kitchen and living room all in one, a bedroom that basically is the same dimensions as the bed (but with like a foot wide gap between one side of the bed and the wall), and a tiny little bathroom that closes with a heavy vinyl foling curtain. This place looks like it gets a lot of travelling visitors; there are tons of maps of the city, tourism booklets, random CDs and demos that people have left behind (Scott and I have gone through lots; most of it is weird ambient noise that gets excruciating after about two minutes - right now we're listening to an album of Love Songs from World War II, brilliant), binders of maps and local menus and notes from previous visitors. We even have some rations that were left here - milk (doesn't expire for another two weeks), some bananas, and coffee (thank god).
Also, Chicago is two hours behind Halifax. I thought all the clocks were wrong in the apartment, and then realized that this is the furthest west I've ever been in my life (same for Scott). We visited a restaurant called Leona's on Augusta here in West Town, incredible food.
I'm taking as many pictures as I can with my phone, but I'm having a hard time sending them to myself to post online! I've got a couple from earlier today, though, and I'll post the other ones when I can.
So, recording! Tomorrow! In about 12 hours! Insane. I've essentially been up for the last nineteen hours. What the hell?
Peter looking out over the tarmac before we take off on our flight to Toronto (and then connecting to Chicago).
The lovely view as we fly into Toronto.
Peter enjoying my Gin and Tonic.
Peter, exhausted from the ravages of Central time.
Scott in our kitchen!
My tiny little bedroom... not tons of space for luggage, but a nice cozy bed!
Saw this sign at O'Hare... no idea what it means.
December 7, 2009
Felt like this day would never come! In 24 hours, I will be in Chicago, getting ready to figure out where my apartment is located, along with my friend Scott from our band Gamma Gamma Rays, and preparing to FINALLY (and I stress, FINALLY) record my full-length album. We've got a little place rented out just blocks from the studio, Soma EMS. It's going to be a busy week, but I'm going to try to post updates every night about how things are going!
My little friend Peter the Bear is coming on the adventure too, so I'll be sure to post pictures of him! Right now he's in my luggage, waiting for tomorrow morning, and praying for a safe trip.
December 3, 2009
The video of me performing Elevators on Vimeo has been moved to a different location on the same site, so if you bookmarked it, the new link is http://vimeo.com/7931036.
I'll be flying to Chicago on Tuesday to record my new album! I haven't any shows booked currently, but I'll be sure to post them as soon as events are confirmed. For now, I've just been focusing on getting things together for the album. Ah!