December 2015 – The Parry Sound Project

Building A Song – Part One

Building A Song | Video
Building a song | video

OK, so this whole Parry Sound Project thing….. Basically it’s a group of guys that get together whenever they can to make music.. I know, I know, some middle aged dudes trying to relive their youth cheesy clichéd trope blah blah blah… Actually ya that’s kind of it, kind of not, we’re not really trying to relive anything. I think most people at this stage of their lives can relate to working crazy hours, rushing home to get the kids to whatever activity night it may, wait… crap is tonight soccer night??? Oh no I’m good.. wait where was I? Oh right, kids activities, then family and friend obligations and shit, where did my forties go? So we make a little time for ourselves in this life we lead just to get away to a darkened room with others of our life persuasion and try to do art. It’s a weird thing for a middle aged clichéd wanna be rocker geeky IT nerd Dad to say, but that’s what you try to do. You have no disillusions of grandeur, or real ambitions, or maybe you do, does it matter? It’s a great escape from reality doing something that’s good for your head.

So with all that being said we thought it would be fun to record the process of writing a song. Since we started last year we’ve been bringing in little riff ideas, working them out basically and moving on. This started as one I brought in, Dan was playing with us more so I wrote it out to three different guitar parts, Dan got busy in life and we put it on the back burner. So last Sunday Scott thought we should try it out again. We practiced/rewrote a basic arrangement, and then Scott added a new guitar part, solo and surprise surprise… a vocal line. I think the search for singer is over, but we’ll have to talk him into that. So this is where we are as of this past weekend. I like it, I think it’ll be fun to see where we go from here, we have ideas…. that can’t be good 😉

-Rob

The Influences – Devin Townsend

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Devin Townsend | Devin Townsend Project | DTP | influences

Do you know how hard it is to get a bunch of middle aged men together in the same room once a week…. err once every couple of weeks… errr once a month to make music?? Apparently pretty friggin hard because we haven’t been able to… Though it’s not from a lack of trying. Hopefully that will change this weekend, and we’re really looking forward to it because we have some new/funny ideas to try out on you fine people, but in the mean time I hate seeing this site unupdated (my spell checker tells me that’s not a word, but fuck it.. it is now) so I’m going to start doing something about that.

I stumbled upon a video this week which is called DEVIN TOWNSEND: The ULTIMATE Review-Trospective (apparently the author doesn’t care if he uses made up words either), while I might argue with some of the authors choices, his sentiments I completely agree with. At the same time Robin and I were sharing some prog metal band discoveries with each other and he commented about how great it was to have someone to talk about that stuff with. So I got to thinking it might be fun to share videos and music with you fine people that you may or may not have heard of.

So Devin Townsend. He is one of those guys I can still remember where and when I discovered him. I had heard his name mentioned in music blogs, and had looked him up on youtube, I found the video for a song called Deadhead, honestly I didn’t get it. But I found myself going back to that video and thinking, I know I’m missing something, but I just don’t get it. Eventually I tried another video called Gato, this time all I could think was, that was kinda weird, BUT there was a hook in that song that ate away at my brain, I continued onto Supercrush and the album Addicted and I was done… That album was the musical equivalent of heroin to me and all the parts that I didn’t get before fell into place and began an obsession.

The great thing about being late to the game with an artist is that you have all their work there for you to discover as quickly as you can consume it, and Devin has a TON of it. I became obsessed and shared that obsession with anyone/everyone that would listen. I won’t drone on, but if you love heavy music you owe it to yourself to listen to his work with Strapping Young Lad and his solo work with the Devin Townsend Band and The Devin Townsend Project (seeing where I ripped our name off from yet? 😉 ). If you’re not into heavy stuff, Ghost or even more so Casualties of Cool are absolutely amazing. I’ve watched a ton of him being interviewed and speaking, and he comes across as a really honest, humble, goofy individual that is extremely likeable as well, which just attracts you to the guys music even more. So check out this review-trospective, it’s fun and gives you a good introduction to the man and his music and hopefully a few of you will join me in my crazy obsession for all things Devin.

-Rob