Whew! That's a wrap on the new Will Knox album.
We've been tracking all week at the amazing Flux Studios in the Lower East Side. The tunes came together really well and I'm excited to hear the final result.
Headin back to CO tomorrow, and will be going back in the studio to finish my album in november, I can't wait and am diligently crafting my banjo parts. I am so ready for this record.
Many neat shows in oct so check the calendar, more soon, I've got a plane to catch!
Been on break from the site...but not from the music!
Wanted to drop a quick note about a couple great show this weekend.
First off:
Friday July 2nd @ The Walnut Room in Denver
I'll be opening the show for a really amazing songwriter, Bill Mallone. Joining me for an in-the-round performance will be my good friends David Rynhart and Gabby Louise. Tickets are just $9 dollar so come on!
Saturday July 3rd @ Ranch Del Rio
The show is Realm Fest presents Campout for the Cause II. I'll be joined by Adam and Joe from Head for the Hills performing tunes by Andrew McConathy, this is sure to be a great festival!
Gotta run, more soon!
kj
So, the last week resulted in a 4 day 50 hour insane creativity frenzy...o man I'm tired.
The tracks are sounding AMAZING, I'm so thrilled with the way everything has turned out sofar. Everyone in the band really came together and made the songs come alive, I can't wait to share them with you all. Check out the "Look" section for lots of great pics from the sessions.
pretty exciting!
Thanks again for all of your support, and if you know anyone who would like to contribute to the ongoing effort, please have them contact me at kjameshauser@gmail.com
And for those of you in the Denver area, come check out a few new shows @ the Walnut room this month!
more soon,
kj
PS ~ Check out this live performance on Radio 1190 from last friday!
The record is well underway and i've got lots of exciting news and developments! New songs, great players, neat shows, all great stuff!
This week i'm starting my series on introducing the amazing crew i've assembled for the album, every week for the next few weeks, i'll give the history of one of these incredible people. So, first up is...
I met Jayme on craigslist...and no it wasn't in "casual encounters". It was summer of 2007, i had just graduated from Berklee and was thinking about moving to colorado, but really wanted to find a teacher i could study with. Jayme's ad was the first i found, and after checking out his website, i realized i should probably for sure study with this guy. A few months later we were in full study swing and Jayme had, in short order, completely blown apart my playing, i was discovering new tone, style and technique that i had never seen before, and it was good.
About a year later i was trying to decide what was to come next for me, my living situation in Colorado was coming to a close and i was thinking of heading out to one of "the big 3" music cities. It was around this time that Jayme casually mentioned that he might like to produce my first solo record. Naturally I accepted and a few hours later had found a place to live in Boulder, where i currently live.
I'm extremely honored and excited to have jayme produce my record, he brings a wealth of wisdom, technique, experience and passionate hard work to the project that would be hard to match. Over the past two years he has become a monumental influence, a source of inspiration, a mentor and a friend.
Looking forward to it Jayme!
Jayme Stone keeps an ear to the ground. His curiosity and unlikely set of reference points started early with the quirky physics of the banjo, led to a mysterious librarian who stocked his local public library with a vast trove of banjo recordings, and landed him long-lasting lessons with a series of maestros, from Béla Fleck to Bill Frisell. Influenced by Japanese poetry and Brazilian literature and featuring what he calls a “tiny symphony that takes place inside an imaginary light bulb”, Stone’s album, The Utmost, won the 2008 Juno Award for Instrumental Album of the Year.
The most recent chapter in Stone’s musical travelogue takes place in Africa. He went knowing what’s still news to most: that the hide-covered instrument with an “extra” drone string we call the banjo actually comes from West Africa. He became particularly curious about the music that may not have made it across the ocean on slave ships headed west from Senegal and Mali in the 1700-1800’s. An eight-week trip to Mali was supported by a prestigious Chalmers Arts Fellowship and found Stone sitting in with Toumani Diabate and the Symmetric Orchestra in downtown Bamako, lost in circles of Wassoulou polyrhythms and in a rural Dogon village with no electricity where he inadvertently discovered a banjo predecessor unheard of in the West. The resulting album, Africa to Appalachia, is a boundary-crossing musical collaboration with singer and kora maestro Mansa Sissoko. Produced by David Travers-Smith and featuring celebrated ngoni master Bassekou Kouyate, the recording won the 2009 Juno Award for World Music Album of the Year.
Stone is at work on new album that explores music based on folk dances from around the world: hornpipes, mazurkas, straphspeys and sambas from Sweden, Scotland, Brazil, North America and more. The album will feature fiddle pioneer Casey Driessen, gravity-defying guitarist Grant Gordy, Gaelic songbird Julie Fowlis, nyckelharpa craftsman Olov Johansson, trumpet great Kevin Turcotte and others. Recording is set for spring 2010 with an album release in fall 2010 (Canada) and spring 2011 (US and Europe).
Spent the entire day yesterday recording with Adam Kinghorn of Head for the Hills. Adam and I have a long, long history together starting with a punk rock band in high school, "Shortchanged". We picked that name cause we felt so shortchanged by girls and the lower-middle class suburban paradise we grew up in...but mostly girls.
Times have changed since our angsty youth, we still feel shortchanged, but now its by rent prices and *@#$-ing student loan repayment schedules. *sigh*
Anyway, we decided that it was time to put together a short collection of songs we love to play, and share with our friends. So, we buckled down and tracked 7 tunes yesterday, and with me at the helm, armed with a macbook and a preternatural understanding of engineering, its sure to be a gold record in no time.
Not really...but it was fun, and I'll have something to share from it soon. We'll be joined on the record by the lovely Ms. Ayo Awosika, and the lovely Mr. Sloppy Joe Lessard, bringing actual credibility to the project...they're good.
More soon...
Spending some time with more site changes today, different layout, slightly different colors...etc. etc. Will have a new design coming early next week...
The record is chugging along, made contact with the band, and potential studio location, more on that later. I'm also happy to announce that Rachel Solomon will be returning to finish our cowrite of "Peter & Glaydis" for the album. She's great.
listening to the new Laura Veirs record right now...pretty darn good. And its sunny. And there is a banjo in the corner...hmmmm...
the study.