Tag: music

another spin

I suppose it’s that time now.

If I’m being completely frank, I’m entirely satisfied that the interruption of my regularly scheduled food regimen and workout schedule is coming to an end. The holiday hours at my gym are less than ideal and at the risk of sounding like a total grinch, the notion that Christmas is ONE SINGLE DAY that seems to infringe upon us from December 20th until about January 3rd is irritating.

I like Christmas. Don’t get me wrong… but I feel like I am one of the few that acknowledges that traditionally, Christmas Eve is the day that a family would go out and cut down some unsuspecting sapling, then on Christmas morning the kind would open their (singular) present, and play with their newfound toy until dinner was ready. Boxing day is a tradition by which leftover food would be ‘boxed up’ and taken to the cornerstone of every community – the church – where the less fortunate folks go go enjoy a meal of leftovers…

… and that’s ultimately it.

What my brain knows about this holiday season, and what my credit card statement knows about this holiday season, are vastly different. My credit card statement’s knowledge of the history of christmas only goes back about 30 days.

It’s fine. I’m happy everyone had a nice christmas, and honestly, I had a nice Christmas.

I don’t live to work out. Nor do I live to eat.
I eat and workout to live.
And taking breaks is an important part of living.

But… now it’s time to get back into my regularly regimented program of eating nutrient-dense food and beating the absolute shit out of myself at the gym. My goals for the new year haven’t really changed much. My athletic goals are an augmented update of the previous year, and my artistic goals are an augmented update of the previous year… and with each passing year those things are more and more important.

My goals need to be steady, really. I’ve got a teenager in my house who is going to finish high school, become a legal adult, and enroll in a post-secondary program that will set her up in a better way than I ever was. Ultimately, I’ll be riding shotgun for those huge steps in amongst my own smaller old man steps.

I’m lucky I get to do that.
I’m stoked for it.
I’m sure you’ll get to read about some of it.

Happy new year, y’all.
All the best in 2026!

look at me now

Hey all,

Time for another one of these songwriting videos. This one is a fictional story about my car… but it draws from real life experience.

What I don’t mention in the video is that the impetus for writing this song came from Mike McDonald of Jr. Gone Wild fame when I did a songwriting circle with him, Kimberley MacGregor, and Sean Herbert (we actually did a few of those…) and I mentioned the 7-year cell-replacement factoid (mentioned in the video above) in relation to another story I was telling, and he encouraged me to develop that idea further.

Anyway… enjoy!

crazy is just what i do

Hi everyone,

It’s time for more of this:

I wrote this song in my apartment when I lived in the City Market building across the street from Canada Place in Edmonton… so in the first verse where it says “I watch the sunrise in the reflection of the building across the street” – that building is Canada Place.

I hope you enjoy this video and this song. It’s very fast, and sorta hard to play… but the song used to be much slower and much longer, and actually pre-dates The Confusionaires by a year or two, now that I think of it… but it drives the point home so I hung onto it!

Thanks for watching and reading.

many miles to go

Here’s another one of these.

This is me talking about what eventually became a really important song for The Confusionaires. Our first music video, the first song on our second album, the first song we self-produced, and really the first song we were each 100% excited with how it turned out.

Not throwing shade on the album before it, as we’re all proud of that one too, but this one definitely meant more to each of us.

The album was ‘From The Headache To The Heartache’ and featured a number of great songs we still play live to this day. ‘Many Miles To Go’ was the one that put it all in motion though.

a plan

Sometimes it takes a minute to unhitch the load of things I take with me everywhere I go. The stress of my family, the stress of my job, the pressure I put on myself to write, record, and perform music, my body dysmorphia… but there are times and places when I am able to check all that junk at the door and just be present and do what I came to do.

Generally, I have a pretty clear mind as I head into most situations. I’ve gotten pretty good at worrying about work when I’m at work, and worrying about working out when I’m working out, and worrying about music when it’s time for that… but those pressures are always there, even when I’m not acknowledging them.

But I’m learning how to check that stuff at the door on occasion and it’s really enriched my life in a big way.

What I’m realizing now is that I need a place for everything (and everything in it’s place) and that primarily pertains to my calendar. 6 weekly training days are designated, 2 evenings of recording new music, travel days for work, travel days for my main band, time with my family… it’s all in there.

Sure, plans change from time to time… but it’s a lot easier to change a plan if you have a plan to change, as opposed to not having a plan and having everything fall apart on you.

All that to say… I’m living an amazing life full of love and creativity. I spend time with amazing people. I accomplish amazing things. I travel to beautiful places and entertain wonderful audiences… and everyone that needs a piece of me seems to get the appropriate amount. I’m sure some people would like a little more… but I’m certain that if they had more of me, they’d send it back.

I’ve read up on stoicism a bunch over the past few years, and I’ve in so doing, I’ve managed to put into practice the notion of not worrying about things I cannot control. For me, this is paramount to a balanced life, because there are so very many things I cannot control… including, but not limited to:
– other people’s expectations and/or opinions
– other people’s artistic output.

The Roosevelt-attributed quote ‘comparison is the thief of joy‘ rings and reverberates off the inner walls of my skull a lot lately, and it’s such an important thing for an artist to remember.

I’m truly grateful for the opportunities afforded me and I hope there are more coming, and that eventually I can provide people with opportunities as well.

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.

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.