Forest City Lovers

So a month ago we went to Europe. We took a lot of video while we were there… and it’s finally edited into some chunks. So, now we’re ready to show you! Once a week, starting today, and every Wednesday for the next month we’ll be showing a new vid.

So, I hereby present to you  the first installment of our post-tour-tour-video of Europe:

EPISODE ONE: Toronto – Paris or “Christian Gets Lost”
silliness in Paris, Christian’s view on Zappa, eating a lot of cheese, Sonny and Cher, Jian Ghomeshi and Kyle gets accosted by some drunk French guys…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoFOTL8OppM&hl=en&fs=1&]

Whee!! What a fun weekend. We worked really hard this weekend and everything is sounding really great. I’m quite excited to share the songs. They are a step up from the songs from the last album. Poppy but put together. That’s all I can say, but we’re excited. I can also say that.  We will still go into the studio one more day to get Mika’s violin and my vocals done. We shall keep this blog posted and up-t0-date. Or you can always follow our Twitter account if you are into birds.

Kyle laying down some hot bass lines.

Kat being bored sitting around waiting to sing. Decided it was fun to fill her mouth with water and take a photo of it.

So today we actually recorded! For realz for realz. It was an early morning, so Kyle and I made peanut butter-on-baguette toast and amazing espresso coffee (with my awesome stove top espresso maker that rocks) and hopped in the van to drive to Angles Up studio. Christian was already there, with his drums mostly set up.  We’re working with our dear and talented friend James Bunton for this weekend’s session, and he is always a pleasure to work with.

This is James in all his professional glory, talking to us about how the day’s going to go down:

Jamie!

This is a photo of how we listen really well to Jamie.

So Jamie and Christian spent the morning getting the drums to sound really good. Kyle and I watched.

Here is a photo of Christian and Jamie setting up the sparkly-tacular drums.

The drums finally sounded amazing and so we got the piano ready. Kyle lifted it with one hand. Jamie watched. We recorded the first song (tentatively called Phodilus & Tyto) and  it only took a few takes.  There was even a Kat-and-Mika-sized piano beside the real one, check it out:

We were happy with how the beds sounded for the first song so we moved onto the second song (tentatively called If I Were A Tree) and after twenty three takes (no jokes, we counted them) we got the guitar/drums tracks down. There is no excuse why Christian and I will ever mess that song up again. I promise.  Jamie coaxed me into doing some power chord chugs on top of the other guitar line, so I obliged.

So, as I said, it took twenty three takes to get the drums and guitar properly done…  It’s a really short song, but Kyle still fell asleep and wouldn’t even wake up when we poked him. We thought it was funny and took photos.

After the day’s work we went to our label guru’s house and had a couple beers and talked about our plans.  Stuart was covered with dust because he was stucco-ing his house. I thought it was funny so I took a photo:

We are excited to head in tomorrow. It’s a bass day, so it’s probably best that Kyle slept today because tomorrow he must work work work. We are also very excited for Mika to return from her Brazil trip and add her magic to the mix!

fulla beans,

kb

p.s. it’s NXNE here in Toronto and there are a lot of amazing shows. Tomorrow night especially has a lot of stuff going on….google away and find a new band to check out (let’s see…. The Magic, Ghost Bees, Ruby Coast, Olenka and the Autumn Lovers to to name a few. They might turn into your new favourites…)

Just a note to say that you should all check out the Polaris Prize long-list! We are psyched to see so many of our friends and fellow music pals on there, it’s AWESOME. I could list them all and all the reasons they all should win, but I guess that’s the point of the award so I will just wait…..

Yea yea yea! Excited to see who wins this year.

Well…. we aren’t recording quite yet BUT we’re getting close to it. Going to attempt to keep people in the loop with our progress over the coming months. Last night we rehearsed the two songs that we are recording next week (Phodilus + Tyto, If I Were A Tree) and it went really well! Everyone felt good about their parts and the songs came along quite nicely. I’m really psyched about the new songs, they have a good energy to them and they’re going to be fun to play live! Kyle was so excited from the songs and the pizza that he just couldn’t even stand up anymore.

Our friend Colin Medley and I (Kat) have been busy editing our tour videos and we’re almost ready to start posting them. Good times on tape. What more could anybody want?

Because it’s awesome (and maybe your new favourite band is on it)

We will be recording two songs in the next few weeks….and we’ll keep you updated on the fun times as they happen. We’ll be working with some great and talented people…. such as the lovely James Bunton, who recorded our last album, and the lovely Leon Taheny. Very excited!!