Solobrien 4!
Where to start? I began the tour to Europe on February 4th, and planned to be back in Canada on May 18th. During that time, I was to visit Switzerland and Germany, have a romantic trip to Tuscany with my wife — landing in Lombardy, near Milan — then to Holland to visit my brother who has just moved there, then off to Ireland ... I could go on.
All things started to change around the end of February when Louise decided quite rightly that going to Milan could be an issue, and that perhaps even coming to Europe might be dodgy. Many people quoted Bob Marley but we were worried, about lots of things.
So I was on my own on the Island of Rugen in the northeast of Germany waiting for a flight back home, and reflecting on the first part of the tour that I had been lucky enough to complete. Great shows and workshops as usual, but this time I also managed to squeeze in a little recording session in Grandmas Studios, in a small satellite town near Cologne called Bedburg, on the river Erft. Without being cruel to Bedburg, which I love, there’s really not too many reasons why the curious tourist might venture 30 kilometres northwest from Cologne, but I have many friends here and have wonderful memories of school workshops.
(However, if you are fond of steak, you must rethink the cathedral trip to Cologne and head off to ICI. I am not joking when I say this is the best steak I have ever had. It’s packed on a Monday night, for God’s sake. You cannot [well, at least you couldn’t] get a table without standing in a queue for at least 45 minutes, no matter how much you bribed the concierge with hand sanitizer).
I digress……
Enter stage right Hermann J Schmitz.
Bedburg born and bred. Whiskey connoisseur — he has a private account at Whiskey.com, and the girl knows him by his first name when he phones through an order. Over 400 bottles of different malt whiskey in his house, and Christ knows how many more buried under the hot tub. He also has a hot tub.
A huge fan of TOTO, and I mean huge. Has every album, DVD, tried every hairstyle.
Hermann is a fine pianist and choir director.
Hermann is the concert organizer for the main (possibly only) music venue in Bedburg. The schloss (or Castle, because it kinda is one) is where Hermann books classical and theatre shows, Rock n Roll and standup, and even the odd Canadian/Irish/Brummie singer songwriter.
I spent two days and two nights in Hermann’s Grandmas studio, and he both engineered and played keyboards on my new CD.
Solobrien 4 — I now realize I should have done a George Lucas and started with the first Solobrien album as #5 and then go backwards, but it’s too late for that now.
10 songs, some old and some new. Some previously recorded on my studio albums, some never laid down on tape (read: hard drive) before.
The first Solobrien was recorded in Stockfisch studios in three hours, because I did a trade with Gunter Pauler — I narrated an English instruction for a new technical thingy that Gunter was selling. Solobrien 2 was recorded in my little music studio on Vantreight Drive in Victoria BC. Solobrien 3 was recorded in Switzerland, and now #4 is born in Bedburg.
The vocals and guitar are completely live. Some keys were added live, some added later, but most of the studio time was spent using autotune on my voice trying to capture the ‘Cher’ thing. But it didn’t work, so you are stuck with out of tune voice in places…warts ‘’n all…which was my first idea for the title, but warts are generally thought to not empower the marketing dept.
If you want to know what mics and stuff we used, you have to ask Hermann.
I played my Christian Stoll guitar, and that’s about it.
The plan is to release it online, a first for me, while also combining a live Facebook concert (another first). If I can drag Hermann away from the Macallan, he might even join me.
Slan,
Paul
