I got a call from Adam late one night,

“Jeff, me and Tony are coming over tomorrow morning at 9:30. Don’t shower or eat breakfast. We’re going to make a stop-motion music video for ‘Shame on Me’. It will be a day in the life of Fawker [his “clever” nickname for me… I don’t really mind it]. We’ve worked out the storyboard and everything.”

“Well… okay,” I said, knowing that I didn’t really have a say in the matter. I was actually pretty excited even though I had no idea what the plan was.

Adam and Tony came barreling in a half hour late and likely running on pure caffeine. My roommate and his fiancé sacrificed their quiet Saturday morning for our crazy antics (I guess I probably still owe them for that). We started shooting right away. Adam told me to climb into bed and slowly reach for the alarm clock. He shot at rapid-fire speed to get the stop-motion effect. We proceeded to shoot scenes all day. Most of the music video actually involved what I needed to do that day: eat breakfast, brush my teeth, practice music, etc.

There was one scene that is allusive and artsy where I am just standing completely still at the bus stop. We actually completely lucked out with this beam of light shining where I was standing. If we shot that even half an hour later, that light would have been gone.

The annoying part of making the music video was the editing process. For the longest time we struggled with the math of how long each of the 669 pictures should last for the 3 minute song. Then once we figured out the equation, the computer program wouldn’t work properly. So we gave up for the night and just poured drinks and shared stories.

A few days later we tried editing on a different computer with different software but the computer kept crashing. So we tried a third computer with yet another program. It ended up being Windows Movie Maker (a bottom of the barrel, free program) that worked in the end. It took three different computers and three different programs to get this short video to work. Editing engineers in the film industry have my sympathy.

Check out the video here or on my Media page.

I had always dreamed of featuring a cello or violin on my album, but I had the hardest time getting a hold of strings players that I knew. I almost gave up on that idea, but I figured I could try Craigslist as a last resort. I was amazed to get about twelve responses to my add in the first couple days. Who knew there were so many strings players in Vancouver! I guess money is a good incentive for them to come out of their hiding places and introduce themselves. Unfortunately I received mostly replies from violinists and I had my heart set on a cellist.

Eventually I got an email from Catriona, a cello instructor with 25 years of experience. I didn’t even bother auditioning her. I thought, “If she can teach it, she must be able to play.” And I didn’t think my cello lines were that complicated either, except for being in an awkward key for the instrument. My ignorant trust actually paid off. She was very talented and easy to work with. She even wrote the cello lines for “Broken and Beautiful” right there on the spot. Quite impressive. (I wrote the cello line for “Numbed” myself though. I’m pretty proud of that actually. It made me want to try composing some classical music). Anyway, the moral of the story is that Craigslist is a great resource for musicians.

My friend, Adam Roper, came to visit for a few days and we wanted to experiment with making some videos similar to the blogotheque style. If you’ve never seen a blogotheque video, go to www.blogotheque.net right now and be inspired (you can also type “blogotheque” in the search on youtube). I can’t say that our day of filming was a major success, but we had a lot of fun and learned a fair bit about filming.

We just wandered around the city and spontaneously shot footage of me playing some songs.

We actually had a meeting with a former professor of ours, Nelson Boschman, and on our way to the coffee shop, I played “Shame on Me” in the back of the city bus. Then after hanging out with Nelson for a bit, we wandered down to the beach and I played “More of Myself Without You” on top of a boulder that sits under a city art piece. That one didn’t work very well, so we searched the area for a new location. I saw a cool mural on the wall of an alleyway and wanted to shoot there, but we almost got hit by a truck, so we decided against it and just started heading to my house. On the way, we stopped at a skytrain station and shot “Tired Eyes”. The train dominated the sound as it came it, but it looked pretty cool. The other downside was that some chauch dove in front of the camera as he got off the train. Somehow that didn’t get caught on tape though. As we continued heading toward my apartment, we saw a violinist busking at Waterfront station. He was really good, so I asked if he would jam with me for a few minutes. We played “Numbed” together. He was a nice guy. I think he said his name is David. He had a thick foreign accent that I couldn’t pinpoint. Finally after a short sea-bus ride to the north shore, we walked up to the look-out and filmed me playing “Won’t Wake Up”.

When we got to my place we uploaded the videos and watched them over a late lunch. The sound quality wasn’t great and there were some things to be learned about simplicity with videography, but we had so much fun and it was an adventure. Perhaps art is supposed to be adventurous – breaking forth into unmarked territory with creative attempts.

The CD release concert last night was awesome!  There was a great turn out and I had so much fun.  The opening band, Oats, was fantastic too.  Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/oatscollective

At first I was a little unsure of my performance since I forgot the lyrics a couple times, but I think I need to keep remembering that perfection doesn’t match up with my style of music.  I’m a bit rough around the edges and maybe that’s a good thing.  Plus a lot of people encouraged me and said they really enjoyed the show.  Anyway, I love music and there’s no stopping now…

At the age of twelve I wrote my first song. Finally now – 10 years later – I’ve started to release my music to the public. I think there were four main things stopping me before:

1) I was convinced that I was unprepared

2) I was afraid of rejection (if I was unprepared, no one would listen to my music)

3) I lacked the finances to record

4) I was too lazy to put in the hard work

All of these obstacles continued to haunt me even through the recording of “Dark Before Dawn”, but I found ways around them. I think the ultimate reason I got off my lazy ass and decided to give my music a shot was because my friends and family challenged me and encouraged me. In fact, one of my friends confronted me with some tough love, saying, “If you don’t get started with your music now, you’re never going to do it.” Almost immediately after hearing this, I set some goals, made a plan, and started working – just to prove my friend wrong. I guess his reverse psychology worked on me.

Everything seemed to fall into place once I decided to just go for it. Somehow I had the finances. Somehow I became more motivated and more confident.

A saying comes to mind: “If you want something in life, you have to reach out and grab it.” This is cliché and lame, but I think it applies to my situation. I needed to stop dreaming about being a singer/songwriter and start doing what it takes to be one. It was a simple but profound lesson for me.

(1) On the first day of recording, we set up all the equipment, tuned up the guitars, and warmed up on a song or two… then when we tried to queue up the recording, the metronome* wouldn’t work. It took about an hour for Adam (my producer) to it figure out. Meanwhile, I was just sitting there silently, thinking, “I’ve made a terrible mistake….” (Arrested Development reference anyone?) Apparently Adam was thinking the same thing. So we weren’t exactly off to a good start, but things got much better quickly… until…

(2) I had recorded all of the guitar tracks for the original set list of the album and I wanted to record drums, percussion, piano and guitar for a new song all on the same day. We weren’t exactly set up properly for drums. I am a very rusty drummer – I was in my prime in high school (and in hindsight, I wasn’t even great back then). On top of that, we had a poor quality drum set and only two microphones. All of the drums and percussion we recorded that day was scrapped in the end. We didn’t get any piano done either. I did, however, record the rhythm guitar for “No One But You” that day. So at least I got something (other than a lesson well learned about recording drums) for my money.

(3) The first day of recording vocals, I experienced the harsh reality of my limited vocal range. All of my songs were too high. I could hit the notes, but they didn’t sound very good… or at least not professional. I was pissed off. I thought that I sucked and I seriously considered throwing in the towel and cutting my losses. I spent most of that day moping around the studio, feeling sorry for myself. Adam convinced me that I really do have talent and that I just need to find my sound and use my strengths. For the first time, I tried singing in my lower register. It felt weird at first, but I eventually started to love it.

(4) When the recording was finished and it came time to get the album professionally printed, I ran into a couple problems. First, the day before I was going to the printers, I tried playing the master copy of the CD in my computer. To my dismay, it did not work properly. We burned the CD in the wrong format. I almost panicked but Adam and I solved the problem the next day, just in time to get it to the printers. Then on the next day, the printers sent me a digital copy of what the artwork would look like and there was a new problem. My eye on the front cover got cut in half because of the bleed room**. This looked terrible, so I actually had to get Matt (my designer) to put a new photo in and re-send it to the printers. Thankfully, it all worked out in the end.

* A metronome, aka click track, is a constant beeping beat that keeps musicians in time (not slowing down or speeding up) when recording.

** Bleed room refers to the part of a picture that gets printed, but cut off in order to insure there is no unwanted white border.