BC Rain

So here's the thing: I like rain. I love rain, in fact. BUT - I'm not so big on B.C. rain. See, the thing is, in Saskatchewan it's an event when it rains. It's refreshing. Everything smells so good and seems so new and fresh afterwards. In B.C. it's a regular occurence (granted, this summer's been rather dry, but you see my point), and instead of carrying this wonderful feeling with it, it just reminds me of winter, because that's all it does in the winter here. It's raining right now as a matter of fact (hence the topic), and I'm certainly not reminded of the beautiful summer rains we used to get in Saskatchewan. No, I'm reminded of how winter's right around the corner, and apparently practically on the doorstep. And really, I usually look forward to winter, if only the first two weeks, after which it loses it's allure and I wish for Spring. But then again, that's Saskatchewan winter, where it snows. That's probably one of the big differences between Saskatchewan rain and B.C. rain as well. You're not reminded of winter when it rains in Saskatchewan because it's such a radically different season there than it is here. Whatever the case, as much as I'm complaining about it, I've been enjoying the rain. It's just that today, for some reason, it's reminded me more of winter than autumn, as the previous days have. Menh. That's life, ain't it?

Onto bigger and better things, I'm very proud of myself at this moment. I figured out a riddle that was bound to bother me to no end until it was solved. I've gone to see "The Bourne Supremacy" twice now, and both times they've played this commercial (don't you just love how they have commercials before movies now too? Sheesh.) before the movie that has this song in it that sounded really familiar yet I couldn't place it. It had a David Gray-ish guitar riff, and then ended with someone singing "So come on" a bunch of times as the song climaxed. It sounded like a great song, whatever it was, so I took it upon myself to figure out what it was. I didn't think it'd be that hard, but no matter what I searched under I just couldn't find it. Finally, after much googling (that's for you Melissa), I followed a hunch and listened to a few clips of Death Cab For Cutie on Allmusic.com. Lo and behold, I'd found it. Turns out the song is "Transatlanticism" off the album of the same name. How satisfying is that? Ahh. Thankfully, Matt actually owns that CD, so I was able to stick it in my discman and listen to it as I went and smoked the Captain Black Amelia gave me. What a great way to end the night. I shall sleep soundly this fair evening, I believe. I wish the same for you and yours. Good night.

O Holy Night

Today's itinerary*:

7:30 AM - Get home, go to bed.
11:00 AM - Have Jesse burst into bedroom bearing bag full of McDonald's Breakfast Bagels and demands to play NHL 2002
2:30 PM - Watch last half of The Exorcist with Matt & Amelia and cringe like a little girl
3:30 PM - Fall half asleep on couch, experiencing sensations similar to those had at Grandma's house as a child; have frequent interruptions of good vibes by random mental images of possessed girl from The Exorcist
4:30 PM - Give up trying to fall asleep on couch while listening to Brandtson CD and instead write new song
5:00 PM - Record very rough demo of said song
5:30 PM - Leave for Langley with Jesse to attend "Fire and Freedom" service at Christian Life Assembly church
6:30 - 8:00 PM - Try not to be overly cynical and pessimistic when witnessing familiar-yet-now-foreign Pentecostal church service at said church
9:30 PM - Return home from Langley to find Matt & Amelia half-way into Alien movie which you were to watch with them
10:00 PM - Try unsuccesfully to write intelligent email to Ruth Ann
10:30 PM - Go outside to sit on "porch" and smoke Menthol cigarettes and drink Mug Root Beer with Matt
10:45 PM - Hear loud screech from woman two doors down and proceed to eavesdrop on subesequent barely intelligible conversation between neighbour woman and her family
11:00 PM - Hear loud rustling coming from grapevines and lattice ten feet from current position
11:01 PM - Investigate loud rustling
11:05 PM - Have Matt retrieve flashlight in order to further investigate loud rustling
11:07 PM - Discover raccoons pilfering landlord's grapes
11:12 PM - Proceed to wake landlord up with loud shouts at raccoons
11:15 - 11:30 PM - Hunt raccoons with garden hose and attempt to spray them, all while in pyjamas and house coat
11:30 PM - Re-enter house and eat half of chocolate chip muffin
11:45 PM - Make blog entry
11:55 PM - Make mental note to write intelligent entry in blog tomorrow

*Note - All times are rough estimates

Post Script

Why I feel compelled to include this little addendum to my already excrutiatingly long prior post I'm not sure, but for what it's worth, here it is:

I recently had the notion that our world is populated by damaged people (and I'm sure I'm probably not the first one to think so, nor will I be the last). That having been said, sometimes I feel positively wrecked. That is all.

Butterfly Effect? Mothman Prophecies? Qu'est-ce que c'est?

Just finished watching The Butterfly Effect with Matt, Amelia and Jesse. I'm not entirely sure what I think of the movie, although it is causing me to contemplate a little more thoroughly than usual how Choice works in life. Interesting...

Anyway, I had a bit of a surreal experience of my own just now, as I came directly to my computer after the movie finished to listen to the two song ideas I just recorded this evening. There's a magical time for me as a songwriter when I first listen to whatever idea I've recently recorded after giving it a bit of time to percolate and I've forgotten how it goes. It's really the only time I'm able to approach a song from a purely objective standpoint, as after those intial one or two listens after I hear it again the songs re-enter my brain as my own ideas and I'm no longer able to listen to them as someone who didn't write them.

Well, upon review of these recent ideas, I must say that I'm pleased, if not a bit surprised at what I wrote. Both ideas came to me as I listened to the new Weakerthans album while riding the bus home from work this afternoon. The Weakerthans are just such a great band for their lyrics that I can't help but to be inspired to write my own music while listening. Due to this, I rushed home from my stop and was able to quickly jot down all three ideas I had before they escaped me. I promptly pulled out my guitar and turned the first idea into a song. If only it were always that easy. At any rate, I ended up figuring several harmonies out for both the bridge and chorus of the song, so it came out as this layered, older sounding thing, somewhat akin to perhaps Buffalo Springfield/Teenage Fanclub/Tom Petty. Yeah, like I said, I was surprised to hear it. It's a nice little piece at just under two minutes. We'll see what happens to that.

The other idea remained a lot more an idea than a realized song as the other one became, but it's in the vein of the stuff I like to call "Lonsdale Quay" (that's pronounced "kway" for all you detractors out there!). Weird rhythm to that one, but I like it because it kind of throws you off and surprises you (or at least it surprised me).

Anyways, that's as much as I'm going to boast about my own song writing for this evening (despite that I wasn't really boasting... you get the picture). I have to work tomorrow morning, so I think I'll get off this confounded machine and get some sleep. Good night all.

It's a beautiful thing

Matt and I just finished unloading the last of our gear from the car after we arrived home from recording drums at the Hive today. What a good experience that was (the recording, not the unloading). I had doubts that we'd be able to record all eight songs that we needed to do in one day, but it went quite quickly, and not only were we able to record all the drums to these songs, we also got the majority of the bass done as well. Sweet! I'm also very impressed with the quality of the recording we got, thanks to our friendly neighborhood engineer, Colin.

It's amazing how much I enjoy being in the studio. I mean, sure, it gets a little tedious after a while, but still, it just feels like that's where I'm supposed to be. It's also great fun to be the one being recorded rather than the one doing the recording. In a sense there's a lot less pressure that way (although I suppose they weren't my takes we were recording today anyway, so it's easy for me to say "no pressure"). Speaking of which, Tiff did a great job. I'm very impressed with the result. You guys are in for a treat once we get the rest of this nonsense recorded. Should be out for November hopefully.

And now I must go to bed as I have to work tomorrow. Uggh. From one world to the other, just like that. I prefer the rock star lifestyle, definitely. Someday...

Autumn is a Treasure

Just got back from practice in New West. It was an interesting time. We ended up playing these weird tripped out jams (sorry Melissa) for about an hour and a half, and only went over the real songs once. That's probably somewhat stupid and wasteful, but hey, we're young AND we're rockstars. What do you expect?

Well, at any rate, recording should prove interesting tomorrow, if nothing else. We go in at 11:00, and if need be we'll stay until 11:00 at night. We really only have the one day to record about nine songs, so we'd better make pretty darn good on the time we have.

Ok, so in other news, the last two days have felt a lot like autumn to me. It's strange, but there's just this particular feeling in the air. I can tell it's getting close. I was compelled to listen to The Weakerthans' Left and Leaving yesterday because of it. There are just some albums that scream autumn to me and I have a hard time listening to them during the rest of the year. Delirious' Metamorphis and Watashi Wa's The Love of Life both come to mind along with the Weakerthans disc. I suppose I could lump The Rankin Family in that same category, although that's more of a nostalgic thing I inherited from my dad because he'd always listen to them. They remind me of those first couple of weeks back at high school after the summer, when the nights would keep getting longer and there'd be this anticipation hanging about because everyone's excited to be back at school and to see what a new year will bring. Man I miss that.

Nonsense

Well, as you should be able to tell, I just posted a photo of myself up here. I got the photos from the shoot we did a couple weeks ago from Tiff, so I gussied one of mine up cause I think it makes me look purdy.

Yeah, but I've also been having a heck of a time doing it because they make you go through all this run around to get a picture up on this site, so I'm a little peeved right now (you heard me, I said "peeved"). Whatever, I'm now there in all my flourescent pink glory, and that's what counts. Oh, I forgot to mention that the gussying was done in MS Paint. I seriously hate that program, yet I use it far too often. SO LAME!

Had a really good practice tonight. There were some general bad vibes floating around beforehand for various reasons, but Matt's theory is that, like Fleetwood Mac, we could make our best music with that kind of tension. Maybe he's right, but I felt much better afterwards, so it wasn't all tension, but it certainly was productive. We worked a lot on one of our newer songs, "Go", as well as polishing a couple older tracks to get them ready to record. Probably the most fun, though, was figuring out my latest idea, tentatively titled "Summer". It's pretty poppy, very upbeat, and a bit different stylicstically. After that we had this weird psychedelic space jam for about twenty minutes. That was fun, but I broke a string.

And none of this is of any consequence. This is one of the many reasons I don't like blogs. I feel so dirty *shudder*. Menh. I'm pink.

Inaugural Post

Oh geeze, I feel so dirty. I can't believe what I've done. Perhaps I'll wake up tomorrow morning (afternoon, judging by the current time) and it all will have been a bad dream...

What have I done that's so horrible, you ask? Well, you're reading it, silly! I created my own blog. I swore I never would because they're evil, but then again, I had (have) the same opinion of MSN, and I just spent a good half hour on there this very night. What am I becoming? I'm afraid to know.

Yeah, well, anyway, I am Cameron Scott Fraser, and this is my blog. I'm not entirely sure how much I"ll actually post on here, or what exactly I'll post about. Isn't that just the beauty of it, though? No rules (save those included in that agreement that I didn't read when I signed up for this thing). I think I'll start by moving some of my posts from the band site onto this site, as they seem a bit less band related than Cameron related. Perhaps not tonight, though, as it's already 4:00 and I have to work tomorrow.

Like I said, who knows? Certainly not I. And that's a guarantee.