Olympic Recap and Studio Times

As I promised, I am going to give a bit of a recap of our time in Vancouver for the Olympics. I got laid-off from my job as an audiovisual tech about a week before the Olympics started in order for our building to be turned into Germany house. It’s mildly amusing to think that the Olympics promised to bring lots of work for locals but instead many people were in a similar position to myself, getting laid-off while the companies that took over their spaces and so on outsourced to their own workforce.

Nevertheless, while I was hurting for cash, especially weeks before leaving for tour and quitting my job forever, it did give me more of a chance to focus on our new recordings working with Howard Redekopp. In the past I’ve worked almost exclusively with Shawn Cole of Fader Master studios. I have always considered him a genius and would recommend any band to work with him, however this time around our label and team thought we should try someone new which I think is also a good idea. You never know what your going to get when you work with another artist or producer and I think learning and working with new people is very important to expand your artistic horizons. Anyway, we went to work the Monday after the opening ceremonies which I watched up in Whistler where my girlfriend has been working for NBC for the Olympics. You could definitely feel the excitement all around Vancouver and Whistler, but we went to work at the Armory Studios where I was most thrilled to see a YES song progress chart up on the wall in the tape room.

We recorded everything to tape and worked there for two days straight, focusing on three new tracks. We had a bit of time too to record some live versions of three more new songs, however we have yet to mix them. Howard definitely payed close attention to performance as we worked takes of some songs 20-30 times… However, after every five takes we would listen to them while we transferred from tape to pro tools. We’d also head upstairs to watch the Olympics on the big screen television until we were needed again.

The following day we had off from recording to rehearse and head to Surrey to play a show at the Olympic site they had out there. It was a huge tent with around 3000 people watching and we fought hard to win them over as many were unfamiliar with our music. Halfway through the set we busted into our version of Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, which I dedicated to Canadian athletes competing in the games, and the place went crazy… I think I saw about 500 cellphones turn on to start filming in the audience. You can check it out here:

We were set to leave town in a week and a half. Before that, we got back to working on new songs. First Joseph and Henry laid down any guitar overdubs we though were necessary, though Howard wanted to keep as much of the live band from the initial session as possible so they didn’t put too much more on. Afterwords I laid down the lead vocals over two days and we had three days left to finish backup vocals and any other ‘colour’ parts. I spent one last weekend seeing my lady in whistler and then got back to Vancouver just in time to watch the USA vs Canada hockey game at a friend’s house. I’m not a sports person but I sure got into it, and every time Canada scored you could hear the roar of cheers across the city. After the game I rode my bike to pick up the van at Henry’s place and every person or car I passed was honking or waving or cheering.

Overall, I didn’t really party too much downtown for the Olympics cause we were focused on recording and I didn’t want to screw with my voice, but I walked around a few times downtown and the surge of crowds were ridiculous. I wanted to check out some stuff but you had to wait in line for an hour or two just to get in to any of the pavilions or see any shows so it was a bit of a write off. Only show I saw was Usher up in Whistler because Abigail had complimentary passes. Usher rules.

So now I’m writing this on day seven of our journey out to Toronto but I will fill you in with that in a few days! Here’s a pic from my time with the Olympics!

Dan