Here's a replay of Episode 9 of the Sunday Blaincast - A Songwriting Session, an A/B test of the iPhone vs. mixer along with a couple of rarely performed oddities from the Brian Blain Songbook. I tacked on another "Campfire Cameo" - back when the Campfire Jam hit the road and played a little town called Wallaceburg. I brought along Ken Whiteley, Paul Reddick and Julian Fauth. For the last tune, I brought up the promoter, John Gardiner, to sit in with us on bass.
This "songwriting session" features a couple of offbeat tunes that I never play, "The 17-Day Diet Blues" and "Arrested For Stealing a Kiss" and a Campfire Cameo with Julian Fauth, Paul Reddick and Ken Whiteley at the end. I also did a little A/B test to compare streaming with the iPhone vs a mixer. This Sunday (2pm ET) I will be exercising my flat-picking skills because my usually well-maintained nails are all broke up (whaaa, I need my nail technician!). So it's been a great opportunity to pull out some of my tunes with a bluegrass (or, in my case, "bluesgrass") flavour and last night I found a long-abandoned tune that I am re-inventing in a bluegrassy style. The tune is called "Loreena" and I recorded it back in 04 for the "Overqualified" album. Loreena McKennit had just experienced a great tragedy in her life and rumour was she was about ready to quit music. The tune was an appeal..."Loreena, Lady Broken Heart, Don't put down your Harp". It was an epic, fitting for the subject, with tempo changes and key modulations and great playing from the Downchild gang. Anyway, to make a long story short, a couple of friends of Loreena heard it and said she would be pretty upset if that came out, and I didn't want to be profiting from someone's misfortune so I never mixed it and just put it away. Years later I went looking for the rough mix and never found it. Everybody that played on it asked what the hell happened to that recording...like I said, it was Epic. But it's a lost epic. And I couldn't remember all those chords if my life depended on it. So last night I'm looking through old lyrics because I'm trying to come up with a new tune for the flat-picking edition of the Sunday Blaincast - and I come upon the lyrics for "Loreena" and I'm thinking, well, it's been 15 years, and the lyrics seem to fit nicely with this bluegrassy idea, so that's what I'm working on today and I may or may not do it on Sunday.