Looks like it’s time for me to start yet another blog.

I’ve been all fired up about making music lately. I blame the BT thing; it’s gotten me a little inspired lately. So I decided to start up a mighty subdomain dedicated to my noise:

music.stevechatterton.com

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I don’t know how he does it, but every time CityTV’s Breakfast Television (BT) co-host Kevin Frankish commands me to write music, I do it.

Yesterday, he mentioned they needed some music for a segment they call “ask Kevin and Dina” (Pugliese, the other co-host) as they threw to a commercial. My silly brain wrote this tune almost instantaneously, and by the time the commercial break was done, I knew what the song would be.

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The new year is upon us, and with it comes a whole whack of ill-advised promises to do better this time around. I just wanted to take a few minutes to mention what I’d like achieve in the next twelve months as far as this blog and others are concerned. So, without further ado …
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Download Impulssive

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Ableton Live’s Impulse drum unit: I love the versatility regarding control of every sample, but I hate being limited to only 8 samples. Read the rest of this entry »

So I’ve got this crappy old pawn shop find classical guitar that I just love playing. The action is ridiculously high, but the tone is nice & rich & I haven’t changed the strings in eons.Lately, my son (just under 2 yrs old) has taken to putting various items in the soundhole while no one’s looking. About a week ago, I heard a strange rattling while I was playing, only to discover that he had emptied the contents of a bowl of pretzels into my guitar.

Today, I made another pleasant discovery as I was picking out this tune I’m working on for a kid’s album I might get around to one day. Upon emptying the guitar, I found he’d given me a pencil, a multi-coloured plastic straw, and an expired membership card from Costco.

Sometimes I wonder what’s going on in his little head. Is this some sort of toddler’s postal service, perhaps, or is he offering sacrifices to the strange wooden beast who makes the music. I wish he could tell me.

BTW, the kid in the picture is actually my daughter about 3 yrs ago, but you get the gist.

So, we’re driving into London on Saturday for my show at Alex P. Keaton (which went really well, btw), when what do I spy with my wondering eye but the tattoo-yin to my tattoo-yang.

My first (and, so far, only) tattoo is this tribal-style treble clef on the back of my right calf (see image). If you’ve ever had to read sheet music, you out to know what I’m talking about. Anyway, as we’re driving down Dundas I see this guy with huge mutton-chops, a toque, and, believe it or not, a tattoo of the bass clef on the back of his right calf.

Chances are he plays the bass. I think we should jam. If our paths ever cross again, that is.

This Saturday night marks the last booking on my 11t1 roster. I’ve decided that it’s an avenue that I’m not much interested in pursuing anymore. 11t1 is my electronic project that I started 3 years ago when I first started getting into production, and sadly it’s just not inspiring me anymore.

I’ve wanted to get into digital music production for years now. I’ve always been frustrated by the idea that the moment you bring a song into a band is the moment you give up control of the creative process, so I initially thought that by getting a computer I could start recording my songs without having to pay for studio time anymore and without having to put all out the energy required to keep a band together (which also suited my new life as a dad very well). When I started my experiments recording, I had no experience and I had a really difficult time putting together decent recordings of my songs. I was, however, able to do some fairly interesting sound experiments inspired by artists like Autechre, Boards of Canada & Aphex Twin, so I decided to pursue that avenue for a while.

It turned out to be a fairly interesting route for me for a while. I even managed to attract some label interest (something I had never managed to achieve as a rock musician), and should have an album out soon as a result. You can hear a lot of the tracks here if you’re interested.

But somewhere along the line, I just lost touch with the whole process. I finished working on the tracks for the album in the fall of 2004 (yes, ‘04), and since then I think I’ve written a grand total of 4 pieces that are any good. I just don’t have the motivation to write anymore tracks that way, I guess. Also, every time I check with my label to check on the release schedule, I find out it’s been pushed back once again by their distributor. The last date I was given was late April, which I was told after I had booked a release party based on the evidently solid late-March release date. So, as late April comes and goes, I haven’t got the heart to ask when the disc is coming out anymore.

But, all that negativity aside, there is some positive news to report. Somewhere in the process of making the 11t1 record I guess I learned a thing or 2 about audio production. Out of boredom, I recently decided to try my hand at recording one of my old punk tunes, and it started to sound not too bad (or at least way better than any of my previous attempts). While working on it, I managed to uncover an ancient sound file I had created a few years ago (summer ‘02) when I first tried recording that tune with my friend Matthew on vocals (because I can’t sing to save my life). Even though the audio quality of the original vocal take was dubious at best, the resulting mix was fairly pleasant to my ears. I dug out Matthew’s email address and shared the results with him, and he tended to agree with me, thus re-forging our previous musical partnership.

So now all I want to do in my heart of hearts is concentrate on recording tunes with Matthew (mine & his - he’s a good writer as well). What this all means for 11t1 I really don’t know. What I do know is this - come Saturday night, I’m going to bust it out like it’s 11t1’s last night on earth. If you happen to be in the vicinity of Alex P. Keaton’s in London (Ontario, not UK) this Saturday, you might want to drop in and check out the results.