Iron Cock Head was uploaded to Flickr

Rooster, whatever.

Toronto’s City Hall

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http://flic.kr/p/SAK4RE

I took Iron Cock Head on September 09, 2013 at 06:07AM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on March 10, 2017 at 05:28PM

Cowboy Junkies – The Trinity Session

Cowboy Junkies Trinity Session
Cowboy_Junkies_Trinity_Session- cover

A few moments ago, the Cowboy Junkies best album1 came on my stereo, The Trinity Session, and I listened to it intently for the first time in a long time. Such a timeless LP, and of course, hearing the album triggered a bit of reverie down my own memory lanes and paths. I recall many late nights putting this album on my turntable, and being enveloped by its mood, as I drank red wine with some people who have since faded from my life.

Per Wikipedia, The Trinity Session was released in 1988, but I don’t think I purchased a copy2 until 1989 or even 1990. I’ve never been enthusiastic towards opiate-induced dream stupors, but I’ve been around enough people who were, and the slow-placed, languorous tempo of the Trinity Session evokes a similar state of blissful melancholy.

Thom Jurek writes:

The Trinity Session was recorded in one night using one microphone, a DAT recorder, and the wonderful acoustics of the Holy Trinity in Toronto. Interestingly, it’s the album that broke the Cowboy Junkies in the United States for their version of “Sweet Jane,” which included the lost verse. It’s far from the best cut here, though. There are other covers, such as Margo Timmins’ a cappella read of the traditional “Mining for Gold,” a heroin-slow version of Hank Williams’ classic “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “Dreaming My Dreams With You” (canonized by Waylon Jennings), and a radical take of the Patsy Cline classic “Walkin’ After Midnight” that closes the disc. Those few who had heard the band’s previous album, Whites Off Earth Now!!, were aware that, along with Low, the Cowboy Junkies were the only band at the time capable of playing slower than Neil Young and Crazy Horse — and without the ear-threatening volume. The Timmins family — Margo, guitarist and songwriter Michael, drummer Peter, and backing vocalist and guitarist John — along with bassist Alan Anton and a few pals playing pedal steel, accordion, and harmonica, paced everything to crawl.

(click here to continue reading The Trinity Session – Cowboy Junkies | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic.)

The lyrics and instrumentation of the album were lifted from the classic country groups the band was exposed to, and the song “200 More Miles” was written in reference to their life on the road.

As they had on Whites, the band wanted to record live with one stereo microphone direct to tape—it is stated on the album cover that the recording was made on 2-track RDAT using one single Calrec Ambisonic Microphone.

Peter Moore was enlisted and suggested the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto for its natural reverb. To better persuade the officials of the historic church, the band claimed to be The Timmins Family Singers and said they were recording a Christmas special for radio. The session began on the morning of 27 November 1987. The group first recorded the songs with the fewest instruments and then the songs with gradually more complex arrangements. In this way Moore and the band were able to solve acoustic problems one by one. To better balance Margo Timmins’s vocals against the electric guitars and drums, she was recorded through a PA system that had been left behind by a previous group. By making subtle changes in volume and placement relative to the microphone over six hours, Moore and the band had finally reached the distinctive sound of the album by the time the last of the guest musicians arrived at the church.

The band was unable to rehearse with most of the guest musicians before the day of the session. Considering the method of recording and time constraints, this could have been disastrous for the numbers which required seven or more musicians, but after paying a security guard twenty-five dollars for an extra two hours, the band was able to finish, and even recorded the final song of the session, “Misguided Angel”, in a single take.

Contrary to popular myth, the album was not entirely recorded in one day. In the hustle of the first recording session, the band forgot to record “Mining for Gold”. Margo and Moore recorded the song a few days later during the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s lunch break.

Sleeve notes state that the recording was not mixed, overdubbed or edited in any way.

(click here to continue reading The Trinity Session – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)

Michael Timmins adds more detail of the album’s genesis:

We had spent the past year touring Whites Off Earth Now!! around Canada and the United States, grabbing gigs wherever and whenever they were offered. We had sold an incredible (by the Canadian indy standards of the time) 3,000 copies of Whites and had taken the little money that we had made from touring and placed it all back in the band. With a pocketful of change and the inspiration from our travels we began to conceptualize our next recording.

While touring Whites we had spent a lot of time in the Southern States, especially Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas. For some reason the club owners down there took a liking to what we were doing so we spent a lot of time crossing the kudzu choked highways that ran through the heart of the old Confederacy. Those were the days when having to spend a night in a hotel room would mean the difference between eating the next day or paying for the gas to get us to the next town, so we spent a lot of our time sleeping on the floors of friendly promoters, fans, waitresses and bartenders. One of the best part about being “billeted” was that each night we were exposed to a new record collection and each night we’d discover a new album or a new band or a whole new type of music that was springing up in some buried underground scene somewhere in America.

(click here to continue reading COWBOY JUNKIES | The Trinity Session.)

Footnotes:
  1. that I’ve heard, at least []
  2. used, from Waterloo Records, I believe []

A Photo For All And None was uploaded to Flickr

Spadina, and Dundas, Toronto

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http://flic.kr/p/qbFSR5

I took A Photo For All And None on September 20, 2014 at 11:09PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on November 28, 2014 at 05:32PM

King’s Noodle Restaurant was uploaded to Flickr

Spadina, Toronto, after a rain.

embiggen by clicking
http://flic.kr/p/pC9rcH

I took King’s Noodle Restaurant on September 20, 2014 at 11:08PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on October 11, 2014 at 04:09PM

King’s Noodle Restaurant – Contrasty BW was uploaded to Flickr

Spadina, Toronto, after a rain.

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http://flic.kr/p/pkE7ma

I took King’s Noodle Restaurant – Contrasty BW on September 20, 2014 at 11:08PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on October 11, 2014 at 04:09PM

One Eye Upon the Heavens was uploaded to Flickr

Downtown Toronto somewhere

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http://flic.kr/p/oy1oqZ

I took One Eye Upon the Heavens on September 09, 2013 at 11:19AM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on August 01, 2014 at 03:29PM

Zanzibar and Rye was uploaded to Flickr

Yonge St, Toronto.

Wikipedia entry:
http://ift.tt/1ljhvUu

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http://flic.kr/p/ozKzED

I took Zanzibar and Rye on September 09, 2013 at 11:04AM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on August 01, 2014 at 03:15PM

Mendel’s Creamery was uploaded to Flickr

Kensington Market, Toronto.

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http://flic.kr/p/nGL2Em

I took Mendel’s Creamery on September 07, 2013 at 05:33PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on May 22, 2014 at 04:15PM

She’s Not A Girl Who Misses Much was uploaded to Flickr

Dundas St West somewhere, Toronto.

Actual title and artist unknown.

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http://flic.kr/p/npkL11

I took She’s Not A Girl Who Misses Much on September 07, 2013 at 06:54PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on May 21, 2014 at 03:01AM

Lil Demon Guitarists’ Pro Shop was uploaded to Flickr

Dundas St W, Toronto

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http://flic.kr/p/npef5S

I took Lil Demon Guitarists’ Pro Shop on September 07, 2013 at 06:52PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on May 20, 2014 at 10:45PM

Former Location of Mandels Creamery was uploaded to Flickr

among other things.

29 Baldwin St, Toronto.

Not sure what the Hebrew/Yiddish says

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http://flic.kr/p/hKGs4J

I took Former Location of Mandels Creamery on September 07, 2013 at 04:56PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on November 22, 2013 at 04:46PM

You Miss All The Shots You Don’t Take was uploaded to Flickr

Toronto Islands

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http://flic.kr/p/gLgsRX

I took You Miss All The Shots You Don’t Take on September 08, 2013 at 12:25PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on October 18, 2013 at 04:04PM

Favorite uploads to Flickr in November 2013

After a hiatus, here again are my personal favorite photos processed in the last month.

(click here to continue reading Flickr: Archive of your uploads to Flickr in November 2013.)

250 items were uploaded to Flickr, but some of those are not public (such as photos of our Thanksgiving dinner with a  neighbor). Click any image to embiggen…

Continue reading “Favorite uploads to Flickr in November 2013”

Gordon Lightfoot Sounds Like A Jerk

War Memories
War Memories

Uncut editor Allan Jones recounts interviewing Canadian curmudgeon Gordon Lightfoot sometime in the mid-70s…

How we come to be talking about it, I can’t remember, but the next thing you know, Gordon’s lambasting the young American draft dodgers who made lives for themselves in exile in Canada rather than get shipped off to Vietnam. As far as he’s concerned, Canada should have booted them all out, sent them packing back to the States or banged them up in prison.

A man, he says, is nothing without a sense of duty. If he’d been an American, he would have volunteered to fight in Southeast Asia.

“Only Americans know the anguish of that war, but what kind of leniency can you extend to a guy who skips out of his country when 50,000 men get killed in a war?”

I may in some circumstances have let this pass. But during the long wait for Gordon, I appear to have grown somewhat cantankerous. So I launch into a patently ridiculous speech about America and Vietnam and the peace movement, generally coming on here like a veteran of the Weather Underground or the SLA, a history of random bombings on an FBI rap sheet, guns stashed in every cupboard of a South Compton safe-house, Patty Hearst trussed up in a closet close-by, peeing on the carpet and going out of her mind.

“Why didn’t I write about the war?” he says, in answer to that very question. “It was none of my goddamn business,” he says. “The United States at that time was a target for every loose tongue around. I didn’t think it was my place to say anything. I have,” he goes on, “a lot of sympathy for America. I also make a lot of money there. And if you don’t mind me saying so, some of the nicest people on earth are Americans and I wish you wouldn’t dwell on this particular subject. I suggest we talk about something else.”

(click here to continue reading ‘Even worse than Lou Reed. . .’ – Uncut.co.uk.)

Yeah, screw you Gordon Lightfoot. I never liked your schmaltzy songs in the first place.