my dad sent me an email to say he's very happy to see how often i've been journalling lately. that's so sweet!

we played the show in Uxbridge last night. photos will be forthcoming... Greg King took a bunch of great shots and gave them to us on a cd. i gave in and brought my new guitar out to the show instead of my regular acoustic guitar. It was so much fun to play. we mic'd it up and it sounded great. when i put the photos up you'll see it.

it was a small crowd out last night though... definitely the pre-holiday syndrome. I think everyone is either out at a xmas party or rabidly shopping for gifts till the stores close. kind of a bad time of year to be doing a gig but it was a good warm-up for the c'est what gig on dec 29th. (which, by the way, is usually a much better time to do a gig - right between xmas and new years.)

today i have a recording session and then i'm going to see Howie Beck at the Rivoli. A friend of mine plays in his band, so i think i'll check it out.

i myself finally sent off the last of my gifts expresspost yesterday.

we have a last minute-ish show in Uxbridge tomorrow night. Yesterday at rehearsal we tried some new things... Marc has a new bass and i have a glockenspiel (which marc ended up playing while also playing bass - really hard!). I just get to smile and play guitar lol. Gonna play a couple new songs out there, and a new cover. The first time we played in Uxbridge (a few months ago) the people were really cool, really interested. I hope we have another good night like that again. Would be nice to see some familiar faces!

i'm late on sending stocking stuffers home to Winnipeg. Will have to expresspost them out today. Expresspost is my friend. :) Just realized i sent something expresspost a few weeks ago and the slip i got had a scratch and win area on it... that i never scratched. where the hell did i put that slip? maybe i would have won something big, and now i'll never know.

have a session with Tamara to work on her record today. We've finished all the bed tracks (bass/drums/piano/acoustic guitar) - ok not all those are "bed tracks" but to me they are lol. It's shaping up quite nicely, though we still have other instruments to record. I sure am enjoying producing this record.

i had another frustrating session of my own yesterday, trying to get in the right mood to do a vocal for a song on my record. Correction: re-do a vocal. I already have one but i don't like the mic i sang on. As I sang to the track i started hearing things in it that i wanted to change... (in the track) and now i think i'm going to recut some stuff. sigh. sometimes it feels like this record has been dragging on forever. but that's what happens when you're only one person... it takes much longer.

wine is a very good gift. if ever in doubt, give a bottle of wine. omigod i just had to erase a bunch of stuff i just typed because i was beginning to sound like Martha Stewart or something, giving logical gift giving advice. This was the year that i thought i probably wouldn't celebrate xmas much at all... things have been too busy, Marc and I aren't religious, find it rather commercial and pro-corporate... but yesterday we pulled the fake tree out of storage and put it up. My sister sent me these very cool disco-ball ornaments that she said made her think of me.... i love it!

i went record shopping the other day and found Stars on 45! Dad used to dance me to sleep to their medleys. I wonder what effect that had on me.... i still enjoy a little beatles medley with a dance beat mixed in really loud throughout.