{{ July 5, 2005 }}
OK, so this has nothing to do with writing songs or making records at all, but on October 20, 2004 the most incredible event of my life occurred... my wife Julie and I gave birth to our first child, a daughter at 3:29 PM. Siobhan Elizabeth Bodrug - 7lbs, 6oz, 19" long. What a gift! THE defining moment in my life...
Here she is...
This update is WAY overdue... you think? Been working really hard on a bunch of amazing stuff. Here's the lowdown...
Hot off the press is the new EP "Love Me Again" by Toronto artist Mikey Bustos. Mikey was top 10 on Season One of Canadian Idol. This is his debut release and it's HOT! The sound's been described as "soulful pop". Mikey and I wrote a couple of the songs on this one with my good friend Robbie Patterson (Peer Music - Snow, Kalan Porter). The title track is one of my Creative Collective collaborations written with Dean McTaggart (Amanda Marshall) and Rebecca Valadez (Janet Jackson). Of course there's also an updated cover of the Lionel Richie classic "Hello", Mike's big tune from the show. Mikey's performing in cities across the country over the next several months. Check www.mikeybustos.ca for CD and show details...
Look for a fall release of "For Play" by Buffalo, NY band More Than Me. Energetic pop/rock, these guys have one of the best live shows you'll ever see. There's already been interest from the majors in NYC and Toronto. Ryan (vocals/guitar), Joey (lead guitar) and I wrote a bunch of new songs for this one. We've recorded 5 of our collaborations plus one of the band's fan faves. They're on the road across the US all summer and doing a cool west coast tour with another B-Group artist Scott Celani in the fall. Check out www.morethanme.com for more info. Can't wait for you to hear this one...
I'm really excited about the Fred Shafer solo project "Truth Or Dare" I'm just finishing up. It's a crazy BIG soulful rock thing! Did I mention BIG??!! Fred ended up in Upstate-NY by way of Las Vegas and Texas - he's got quite a story - you should hear it some time! Fred was formerly the songwriter/frontman/rhythm guitarist for Niagara Falls, NY band Klear. They had 3 top-ten charting hits on The Edge radio in Buffalo (including a #1 single), a number of soundtrack cuts and signed with indie label Good Charamel Records (Goo Goo Dolls bassist Robbie Takac is the label boss). Fred and I wrote some killers and have recorded 4. He's touring the US a ton as well - just finished up a month of acoustic shows and is now headed out for another 9 weeks with the full band. This guy is a rock star waiting to happen... www.fredshafer.com.
NYC pop/rock band 28 North are promoting the EP "This Planet Mercy" that we finished up last year. Things have been going REALLY well for the boys. In addition to a bunch of touring up and down the US east coast, the band signed a "shopping deal" with legendary NYC music attorney Paul Marshall. Not that Mr. Marshall needs any introduction, but he has worked with folks like The Beatles, Whitney Houston and Mary J. Blige! Since then, the major labels in NYC and LA have been buzzing. When summer touring lets up, Nate (songwriter, vocals, guitars) is heading to LA for meetings, likely in early fall. www.band28n.com
Into the editing/mixing stage of Lacey Block's solo project. Lacey, from Lethbridge, AB, was a part of the Popstars2/Universal group Velvet Empire. Her solo sound is moody piano pop in the spirit of Tori Amos and Vanessa Carlton. Lacey and I co-wrote 4 of the songs we're recording plus there's one gem of Lacey's that she wrote on on her own. Look for this one later in the fall. www.laceyblock.com
Finished tracking 4 co-writes with Toronto band The Bevy. There's a definite retro thing happening here, but with a heavy dose of modern thrown in... can you say "AC/DC meets Blink 182'? Coming soon to an iPod near you! www.bevymusic.com
Secured both OAC and FACTOR grants for a project I'm starting this fall with Toronto artist Diana Planche. We've already had one prolific week of writing with another one planned for late October. Diana and I have written the bulk of the material, but we also had Fred Shafer in on one song and Ryan Doyle from More Than Me in on three others. We're scheduled to start recording beginning of November. The sound of this one is going to be a little more electronic - takin' it back to my roots as a keyboard player!! Kind of a folk/rock, er, Bjork thing if you will?!?! Fire up the vintage and ah... virtual synths!! Man, I'm excited... :)
Just about to start another disc for Buffalo, NY pop/AC artist Scott Celani. This will be our 4th record together (3rd Solo)! The writing this time around is really special - the best we've done to date. And we had Ryan Doyle from More Than Me in on a couple of the writing sessions as well. We're going to refine the sound a little bit more this time around and hopefully complete a full-length release (the other 2 solo discs were EP's)! In the meantime, Scott's busy doing mad touring of Canada and the US and as I mentioned above, is hitting the west coast for the first time in the fall with More Than Me. Scott's had some interesting deal offers of late as well... a couple of indie lablels, some management and a major label deal from the Phillipines! We'll keep you posted as things develop. Check Scott's site at www.scottcelani.com
I've got another 4 songs that I co-wrote with Toronto artist Marqus Bobesich at various stages of completion. This is also my 3rd project with Marqus. Lately, Marqus has been on the road playing drums in a number of touring acts... I know you can't wait to hear those velvet vocal cords again!
And last but not least, a project that's been in the works for a long, long time, we're finally going to get those bed tracks down for Toronto guitar slinger Adam Cassidy and his band The Beggarz. While we made sure the songs were right, Adam's been in doing live-off-the-floor acoustic recordings. This is our second project together, but the first that I will produce in it's entirety. www.beggarz.com
Writing, writing, WRITING! Been doing a lot of writing in the last year! Of note, was invited to participate in the BMG Canadian Idol Writing Camp in the fall. It was amazing! Wrote some fantastic tunes with some fantastic writers from all over the world. Too many writers to list, but let's just say a lot of my heroes were there and I made some amazing new friends. And Randy Bachman even played guitar on one my demos!!
After the Idol camp, I was once again invited to participate in Creative Collective 2004. Because the timing was really close to my wife Julie's due date, I was only able to write on two days, but it was fantastic as usual! The writers I worked with this go-round were Matt Hales (BMG-Aqualung), Kelly Levesque (Walter Afanasieff, The Neptunes), Dan Broadbeck (The Salads) and my good friends from the band Stand Over Radio (formerly The Beautiful Truth).
Also got in on a couple of writing camp weekends at Peer Music - one for Mia Kulba (Universal) and the other for James Murdoch.
Toronto artist Natasha Waterman used an OAC grant to host her own writing camp. The first day was here at Sly-Fi, and the other day was hosted by Derek Brin. Lots of familiar faces and lots of fun!
Over the Christmas holidays, a good friend of mine and amazing writer Rob Wells (Sony) invited me to write with Canadian/UK artist Karen David. Karen lives in London, England and has a deal with EMI Publishing over there. She's a bit of a movie star apparently, has a show on MTV Europe and has been working with some of Madonna's producers on her latest material. Anyway, the three of us wrote this ridiculously great track called "Chaos Theory". Her team apparently flipped out over it and subsequently invited Rob and myself to go do some writing at the EMI studios in London. Pretty cool! I'll keep you posted on this one as well...
Contrary to how it seems, not all the writing I do is at "writing camps"! I also did lots of writing here at Sly-Fi! In addition to the writing I did for my production projects, I wrote with the following artists...
Toronto artist Alex Horvath who I've known for a few years now, but we had lost track of each other until the Idol Writing Camp... turned out she was the demo singer!! Anyway, Alex and I hooked up with Fred Shafer and wrote 4 tunes. Looks like it just might lead to a recording project! Think Faith Hill-meets-Sheryl Crow on this one...
Vancouver artist Alicia Johnson. Alicia and I met at the Idol Writing Camp and really hit it off musically! She's traveled out this way a couple of times for us to write. It's been going really well. We have some songs that we both think are fantastic. There's more writing to do and a recording project in the works... Imagine a Sarah McLachlan record with William Orbit producing!!
Winnipeg artist TJ. One of Luke McMaster's (Universal) develoopment projects, we wrote a song called "How'd You Get Me". I LOVE this song. TJ was awesome to work with. And of course Luke's always amazing to work with!!
Long-time B-Groupie Jeigh Madjus made an appearance and we wrote a couple of new songs.
Martin Acosta from Stand Over Radio got together with me, Bryan Potvin (BMG - Northern Pikes), and Robbie Patterson (Peer Music - Snow, Kalan Porter) to knock out a little Tom Petty-inspired ditty called "Tell Me So".
I wrote one AMAZING song with London, Ontario artist Jessica Mitchell. Jessica was top 32 on Canadian Idol Season Two. I saw her on the show, thought she was great and got hooked up with her via one of the show's producers.
And Fred Shafer and I collaborated on a song with a B-Group artist "blast from the past" Julie Kim.
PHEW! Lots of typing! But before I go, the disc I did for Tanya Philipovich is pressed, looking good and doing really well for her! My bestest music store friend in the whole world, Michael Puntis from Long & McQuade brought in his project k. for a drum session. Can't wait to hear it once Michael does his thing! And finally I did this really cool remix track for Toronto pop/r&b artist Rob Blanchett. Hopefully it'll make it onto one of Rob's future releases.
OK y'all, hope it was worth the wait. Keep checking the MP3 page for new tunes www.bgroupmusic.com/mp3.html
I'll also post some new photos soon that I took of Mikey Bustos, Fred Shafer, Diana Planche, and Lacey Block!
Over and out, B aka these days as "B-Rent" or most recently as "The Drug"... inspired by the coffee I serve at sessions... I guess my coffee's REALLY good!!