Tag: blog

milestones

I don’t know if this is all part of the human experience or if it’s some sort of songwriter / poet struggle but lately I’m pretty taken with the notion that the story we’re all telling never really ends.

That can be as depressing as you want it to be… but by my calculation, life is just as short as it is long. We’re all likely to be working day-in and day-out on something, and if we’re truly lucky then it’ll be something that matters to us on a spiritual level – but at no point can we expect anyone else to really care about it the way we care about it.

I write songs. I write songs and compose music with intensity and hunger, as if I’m going to write the most important song ever. And the truth of the matter is that I’ve written the most important song ever many times. Every song I’ve ever written is important and I’m going to be writing songs until I die.

I belabor every step of the process… from writing and composing to performing… from performing to recording… the mixing and mastering and duplication of the recording… back to performing and reinterpreting the recorded works in hopes that people will take a copy home with them… and back to writing and composing…

I’m fortunate, that in this day and age… right here in 2025, there are people who care about what I am doing artistically, but I would be remiss to assume they care more than I do. I’ve received many accolades and words of encouragement and as much as I appreciate the encouragement and am flattered by the kind words, these words do something different than you might think. Sure, my ego likes the boost – but really this encouragement sends me deeper and deeper into poetry and storytelling, because it affirms that I’m on the right path.

And this path is fraught with suffering.

This is what I’ve learned how to do, and if you’ve read this and understood it, then this is probably what you’ve learned how to do as well… suffer.

I’ve found it in my fitness journey as well. My progress on the running trail, or the mountain biking trail, or in the weight room at the gym… progress comes from a level of suffering that is just beyond where you’ve already been. I love the feeling of going to the limits of what my body can and ultimately seeing god when I get there, and knowing that the next time I see god it will be just beyond where I saw god last. Writing and composing is the same… when the work is finished, and I can step back and wonder how this piece of art came through me, because it is bigger than me.

And it is a cycle that never ends.
And I truly love it.

output

I’ve mentioned this before, and I’m bound to mention it again… but in my spare time, or rather, our spare time, we three Confusionaires are working on another record.

We live in exciting times, and in exciting times, time passes very quickly. We are already behind schedule on what my ideal timeline is… we started later than I’d wanted to, and now we’re recording songs in our ‘spare’ (ha!) time, gathering once or twice a week in our rehearsal studio to attain live-off-the-floor versions of songs we’ve been working on and playing live. This ‘spare’ time pops up once or twice a week between out of town shows, and at the end of long work days.

That said… we work pretty quickly. We can typically get a song done (recorded to completion and edited) in a couple evenings, so one song per week assuming we can get together twice that week. Birthdays, anniversaries, condo board meetings pop up every so often and gum up the works… but this is our process.

It’s difficult for me not to put a deadline on these things… I’ve issued deadlines that have been sorely missed but if I’m being realistic with myself it’s because I want it to be done.
Done.
And fantastic.
Done and fantastic takes time.

So I wrestle… belabouring lyrical choices and harmony vocal parts right up until the time they’re recorded, but also writing new songs that won’t even make it onto this album (but I have to get these things out and down on the page because they’re COMING OUT OF ME whether I like it or not, and this is a particularly fruitful season.

Yes, there are seasons to these things and I feel like it’s all hitting me at once right now, in the most amazing and glorious way. It’s truly exhausting and it’s actually caused me to almost completely forget to post to this blog – something I haven’t forgotten to do in this blog’s entire 3 years. But when it dies down, I assure you it’ll be very frustrating, and I’ll probably take to this blog to register my feelings about it throughout the world wide web. I assume some bolt of lightning will hit me and tell me what to do in that off-season but that’s ultimately a problem for future-Davey.

But for now… I make hay while the sun shines.
And despite the so-so weather forecast the Canadian prairies are getting these days… THIS sun is shining quite a bit.

environment

I think about the environment a lot this time of year. Not just THE environment, but MY environment, and not just THIS time of year, but ALL times of year… I just think about it more affectionately this time of year because it’s not actively trying to kill me at this time.

I’ve said it in this blog before, and although I cannot credit myself with saying it first, I will repeat it: The biggest error the human race ever made was to view itself separate from nature. A grievance I can take up with the church quite easily, but not something I can fix, especially by complaining about it.

I get into Edmonton’s river valley almost every day in the warm months. There’s a path down into it less than a mile from my house, and between dog walks, recreational running, and mountain biking, I can say I am down there between 4 and 7 days per week… and even when I travel for work, most major Canadian cities have a river or two flowing through them, and I go find those, too.

In Edmonton, you don’t have to go far into the valley to feel like you’ve left the city, and if you’re down there pushing your own body’s boundaries, it’s not hard to find god – and by that I mean the infinite wisdom of the universe more so than the variety of idols adorning every temple under the sun.

I’ve dabbled with meditation; of course, but for my money, getting into nature and losing yourself is the best way. I like to get my heart rate into it’s beloved Zone 2 and see what god has for me – often by way of a message in a podcast or a new song, because my environment includes a level of privileged technology, though I wish I weren’t so married to my headphones. They have a tendency to distract me just as much as they inspire me and I’d like to be more of an antennae for creativity than a consumer of it. I suppose it can be both… and now that I think of it, it is both.

I don’t ride my bike with headphones. That’s as dangerous as it is uncomfortable. And I’ve been blessed with many songs, visions, and ideas on those rides.

I receive so much from my environment, and from the people and creatures that share it with me. It’s not enough to know that we are made up of the same cosmic stuff, but once we remove the man-made concepts of space and time, we are literally THE SAME stuff, all of history existing at one time, all creatures with no space between them.

If we looked at eachother with that in mind, I can’t help but think that none of us would find reason to kill another, be it for resources or religious differences.

This line of thinking reminds me why I am vegan.
Not that I need a reminder.

I’m not sure what this blog entry is about.
Perhaps it’s a reminder to myself what my role is here.
Maybe this entry has inspired something in its readers.

I hope I never find out.

legacy

I won’t lie… it does feel a bit ‘on the nose’ to write a blog post about Ozzy Osbourne, but I’ve been sitting with this news today and I felt compelled to wax about it.

Not necessarily about Ozzy specifically, though it’d be remiss of me to ignore the fact that if you picked up a musical instrument after the year 1977, you have been either directly or indirectly influenced by Ozzy Osbourne. You might not even like Ozzy, but I promise you that a whole bunch of your musical influences loved him.

But what an incredible legacy. This man; and he obviously wasn’t the only one, worked exceedingly hard at something that nobody really understood until he was approaching middle age, when all of a sudden, you could look back on the dozen or so albums he’d made; both on his own and with Black Sabbath, and conclude that he was both prolific and proficient.

I won’t put myself on Ozzy’s throne, here, but that’s a situation I relate to. A lot of musicians and writers probably do… but as I look back on my own dozen albums or so, and the artistic works I have ahead of me, I know what is to get into my fortieth decade and only now have people starting to put together the notion that I am actually fuckin’ good at this rock & roll thing.

Most of us leave this plane of existence, and all we leave behind are a few belongings and a name. Those of us who are fortunate enough to find our vocation might leave a little more. Life is not to be struggled through so much as it is to be lived with purpose, and it’s that purpose that gives meaning to our struggle.

Ozzy was fortunate in that he actually threw in the towel a couple weeks back. He played his final shows with all of his friends and was sent off… pushed out on the iceberg, so to speak… and for all I know, it was that sudden lack of purpose that put him under. I can’t and won’t speak to the notion that his death was assisted other than to acknowledge that there are rumblings to that effect, but I won’t join in the possible spread of misinformation. The more cynical of us might conclude that; one way or another, Satan called him home at the end of his contract, but I find that more than a bit dismissive.

If a shark stops swimming, it dies.

The same is statistically true for many retirees within a few years of their retirement, uness they find some new way to frame life outside of the career they’ve known their whole lives. Though, 10 days is a short time. I saw Ozzy in the neighborhood of 20 years ago and if you told me it would be his final tour, it would have made sense. He’d lived a life of excess, and been diagnosed with Parkinson’s years ago… so it’s probably more appropriate to attribute his survival to his final performance to sheer willpower.

At any rate, a Rock & Roll Titan has fallen, and I tip my hat to his prowess and his incredible legacy of music and influence. To say that I’m indebted to him and his small army of incredible performers and collaborators would be a gross understatement.

Rest in Power, Prince of Darkness.

you know i’m right

This is a little different, so stay with me here.

I’ve decided to embark on a bit of a stretch of my comfort zone.

I play in and write songs for a rock & roll band called The Confusionaires… and much like this blog, when I write, it’s generally about something.

So periodically, I’ll be posting some of these videos of me talking about songs. It’s bound to get into some new subject matter over time, as there are definitely things I write songs about that have not been mentioned here yet… and some that are a direct result of a line of thinking from this blog.

Anyway… I hope you enjoy this.

Also… be gentle, these videos are bound to improve with time so if you find the voice a bit quiet, or you find me to be a little twitchy or nervous, just… pretend I’m flirting with you or something.

Thanks in advance.

output

There are few things as simultaneously satisfying and consuming as making a record, and for those that don’t know… I am perpetually making a record.

I am constantly writing and composing, flushing out ideas, scrapping ideas, ash-canning entire songs, re-writing, changing keys, piecing concepts together, and woodshedding songs. I honestly can’t tell you how long it takes or how many songs I go through… but if I had to guess, I’d say I spend between 12 and 18 months writing 1-2 songs per week in an effort to get 12-15 that I am really happy with.

The best of the best get brought to my band, where the finishing touches are put on them, they’re tightened up, and performed live a handful of times to unsuspecting audiences, and then when there’s enough of them… typically at least a dozen, but as many as 20… we set up microphones and record them.

The recording process; since we have historically done it ourselves, takes another 3-5 hours per song (1-2 evenings per week) before we send it off to get mixed by someone else… a couple months later, we have a final mix. Within a month of that, we have a master, and roughly 3-4 months after that, we have vinyl records and songs you can stream.

I won’t get into the financial part of if, because it doesn’t matter, and we do as much of the tactile work ourselves as we can stomach which saves on costs, but we’ve also done this many times in our various bands before this.

By the time the record we just started tracking is ready for public consumption, some of these songs will be a couple years old. One of these songs is as old as the band… as it just never got recorded because it was never ready. I’ve rewritten the lyrics 3 times over before finally deciding to keep it instrumental, and spent some time building voicings around the original melody.

All that to say this:

Whatever you’re doing is happening in the time it’s supposed to take. The main criteria is that you’re happy with the finished product… and if you’re not, then it’s not done.

Nobody will ever know; or be able to put a monetary value, on your process.

The best art is made because it’s in you to make it.

anywhere else

I got back from a trip to Vancouver recently.

It might be hard to imagine for a person who values music as highly as I do, but I’ve never just gone there for a concert before. Every trip to Vancouver I’ve ever taken since I was 16 years old; with the exception of 1 family Christmas, was to perform… and I’m certain that we were underpaid in almost every instance, but that’s beside the point.

I went to see Drive-by Truckers and Deertick. Both were astounding, but Deertick were particularly surprising. That show made me want to write songs and make rock & roll records and go on tour. I’ve seen a lot of shows… some of them are good and you’re glad you went. Some of them are life affirming and stay with you for a long time. I didn’t have a religious experience, or anything like that… but I did feel the fire in my belly – the fire that was already there – flare up a little bit.

Along with that, Lu and I ran the perimeter of Stanley Park, I bought too many records from too many cool record stores, and we put on around 27,000 steps a day seeing cool shit and eating amazing vegan food and staying in a nice hotel.

As an Albertan, I have to strongly encourage you to get out of Alberta periodically. This place is mega-hard on your soul, particularly if you’re a creative person.

I’m lucky in a lot of ways, not the least of which is that my friends and I can pile into a Ford Explorer, hitch up a trailer full of gear, and roll into towns & cities where people don’t know us personally and we can all commune in a bath of rock & roll guitars and pounding drums, and we can all come away from the experience with our cups filled up. I get to do this in places that don’t know about our day jobs… don’t know our families… they only know what we tell them, and we only know what they tell us. It’s a magical experience where we see people as people… with none of the pretense.

Traveling to Vancouver was a similar experience.
Nobody asked me what I do for a living.
Nobody knew anything about me… I was just a spiritual being having a human experience and I truly enjoyed it.

If you haven’t gotten far enough away from home to feel that for a while… then it’s time.

Today, I am loading up the aforementioned trailer with those friends and driving to Twin Butte, AB to play Soulfest. It’ll be a riot. If you’re going to be there, come say hey!