A Song for You by Leon Russell (performed by Ray Charles is my fav)

CHECK OUT THIS SONG!

I can't believe i have never heard it before. Ray Charles i think does the definitive version. Seriously close your eyes, block your world out, and listen to the passion, amazing lyrical content, and heartfelt soul. I cannot stop playing it. I just can't stop playing it. I just want to sing like that.

Red Tape got Redder... and it started pretty red

Hey everyone (implying a substantial number of people reading this),

I am hoping his blog will become some light office reading for those sitting at desks crunching out numbers and working out risk and dividends franked or not franked (i.e. probably my brother!).

This week has been one of the most challenging of my international career- i guess i can call it that. Anyone knows what it's like crossing a border or getting on an airplane these days. Those who have traveled for extended stays to work or study know the visa process is even harder. And once your at your destination you are at the mercy of every little administrative difference. It sucks. It's not that you can't do something, it's that you can't do it because of some superficial legality or provision in an agreement that was put there generally (and generally does make sense), but of course scenarios arise when there are a specific set of circumstances (haha, usually to do with you!) that should make you an exception or you feel wasn't considered in writing the rules. Then there are the lackeys/minnows in lower ranks that you have to deal with who to the 'non pain in the ass' can ruin their chances at everything. If you just take a minnows word as gospel you are fucked before you start. One thing i have learned here is NEVER EVER GO TO THE BOTTOM EVEN THOUGH IT MIGHT BE EASIER! Go as high and tall and high and tall as you can- even if it's the fucking C.E.O- make sure you talk to person as close to where the buck stops as possible. Anyone back in Australia just think of having to deal with the R.T.A (Roads and Traffic Authority- DMV equivalent) on a daily basis and that is what i am getting at. Nightmare. Just let me DANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I JUST WANT TO DANCE!!!!!!!!

NOW! In album news. Been listening alot to our first track and it is getting in my veins- love it, but the more you listen the more ideas you come up with about the mix, instruments, backing parts. It's really great. We are now onto guide vocals for song number 2- TODAY actually, i am writing this blog in the 'am' over a triple espresso i made myself in my new Bialetti espresso percolator. I have the new Elton John and Leon Russell album on in the background called the 'union'. Remind of Songs from the West Coast- which is one of my ALL TIME favorite Elton Albums. Now to my album: The second song is 'Educated Woman', and Dave was writing a guitar rhythm part and a great string line came to me from what he was doing, and we put it down and it sounds epic! It's actually really great fun building a song, writing parts, finding the groove- really finding the soul of the song. I think the song is universal. I was having coffee in the freezing cold at Starbucks after our session and was saying the lyrics to Dave and some old guy goes

'did you just come up with all that on the spot' and i said, nah its a song, have you ever met a woman like that.. and the old dude goes.. 'every woman i've ever met is like that'.. so i think we are onto a universal theme which is what i like!!!!! Not sure if it can be universal if it can only be applied to men's experience. Let's just say its a Universally Male Experience.

Thanks for reading. And may you all see the red tape early, and find the cheapest way to avoid it. I think it's more expensive because its Red. If it was just black or grey tape then it would be so cheap and easy to get around it.

Lots of Love

Alex

Guide Tracks, Great Advances and Red Tape

What a week. Learn to channel excitement, because if you get too excited life has a funny way of throwing it back in your face.

In any career in the arts you have weeks like mine. You finalize a guide for your first produced original song ever and you are proud of it. You feel you like you are made for this. You have had self belief for two years living away from home and get a great agent and start looking to a big hardworking creative future. You are in negotiations for a crazy 'big brother' type Xmas gig living in a makeshift house outside the biggest sport arena in Toronto, you are about to change agents and then your last agent all of a sudden has 3 auditions for you in one week, and you call to tell him, sorry i need to move on because its best for my career. All good. THEN, you find out that there is certain amount of ridiculous red tape that may prevent you from chasing your dreams which you think with a week like this, they are starting to be realized. WAKE UP CALL. Nothing is certain in life, and luck and love and even life itself can be taken away from you as quickly as you are given it. Unbelievable. Let's hope there is some common sense in this world that will prevail.

The first guide track i am not completely satisfied with- the me part. The production is top notch and i have to say, Dave (my producer) really is a genius when it comes to compiling and channeling great ideas into a great usable product. What he has done with my first song is nothing short of amazing and its only a guide. My vocals still need some establishing. In that i mean, i can sing, but i feel i am still 'putting on' certain phrasing, long habits from playing in lounges, and crooning to guests around the piano. There is nothing wrong with this in its own environment, and its a skill in itself, but when you hear it on a powerful recording, its just not honest and doesn't give that message and melody the punch and feeling it needs. This is the process for me in becoming an original artist, not a cover artist. But i am learning to let go in the studio alot more, and just give over to the process. Simplify and build. Simplify and build. Simplify and build, build, build, build. I think i am making huge progress artistically, and i am sure the results are going to show long term, not only in my song writing and vocals, but in the finished spirit of the album. Bring it on. Its a consuming and emotional experience, but fucking fabulous.

Hope everyone in America has a great Thanksgiving. Although i don't celebrate it, i have alot to be thankful for, even if Red Tape is hurting my positive spirit today. Tomorrow's a new day, and who knows, maybe some good news.

The next song we are recording is a song i wrote called 'Educated Woman'- its about those woman among us who appear sweet and kind, 'the girl next door', the real heartbreakers- blonde tight bodied girls with big tits and tight butts and slutty clothes make men excited, but they don't break the heart like a brunette with blue eyes and soft skin and sweet voice, and artistic charm- they take your heart and run away with it, and they sit with you at coffee and go 'boys don't like me, what do you mean i'm beautiful'... BULLSHIT. You know it and you make it work for you every subtle way you know how. Daddy's girls break little boys hearts.

Lots of Love

Alex

Into Week 2, and Into my mid 20s

What a week! Huge week in my life really. I used to hate birthdays, thinking they were overrated, walking along with the mantra 'live everyday as if it's your birthday'. But i have been schooled once again by the world into the simple truth that Birthdays when you have great friends are great. People from all over the world were great to me. I am very lucky to have met so many people from so many different places, industries and cultures. It's nice to know that it doesn't matter about differences, and that it is possible to get along and be great friends with people from all over the place. There is a universality to being open and friendly that creates alot of love.

We have got alot down for a song i wrote last week that we are calling 'in my hands'- about controlling and accepting destiny and having the freedom to do so. Will put down a guide vocal this week so i can let the song sink in. Recording was tiring but a really involving experience. I learned alot about myself in just a couple of days. I heard some great news out of Vancouver yesterday. I spoke with my great friend Colin Bullock (www.colinbullock.com- check him out) who is a great singer songwriter from Byron Bay Australia who has just finished his latest album which will arrive in his hands in proper CD cases next week. Can't wait to hear his progress and his new songs. He let me know that another musician friend Andrew Allen (out of Vernon BC) has just signed with Epic Records. This guy has worked so hard and toured and toured and toured and poured everything he has ever earned into being better and better and getting more attention. I am so glad that he is not only in the Canadian Charts (top 20) but that Epic are throwing a heap of cash behind him to get his career going in the states. He is recording an album for them now and then goes on tour with JOSHUA RADIN across the states. So very very very cool- can't wait to see how big he becomes.

Went out to a Drag Bar called Zippers in Toronto and auditioned for a piano bar gig (same cover type gig i have been doing for years) and got the job. So i have a regular Friday and Sunday gig now. Hopefully can throw some of my new writing in and start building a fan base in Toronto. For those of you who know me they know i am an actor as well, and got some big news signing with a big new Agent in Toronto that will hopefully open some huge doors for me in the North American industry. All my hard work on American Dialect over the last year paid off (although i still need ALOT more work always) and the meeting went great. So it was a great week. Isn't funny that when you let yourself go and take chances, like recording an album, investing money, writing an email to 1000 immigration employees to find that girl at the xmas party (i have been reading the Sydney Morning Herald), that energy seems to follow you and drive you further and further. I definitely have opened my arms to Toronto (even though they are starting to get frostbite on them) and it is starting to breathe me in. That is not a bad lyric eh "Breathe me In"- its mine, i said it!!!! Unless you write it better than me...

Felt inspired and wrote almost a complete song (minus a short bridge, but have some ideas for it) last night. Love it, just not sure what theme i want the lyrics on. I could go two ways.. romance or anti-romance, i want to write a song for the broken hearted to pick them up, not to dwell too much on romance and that there are lots of other things out there. I have had a few friends with broken hearts in the last few years.. so i might write it for them.

Much Love

Alex

Day 2

Recording is emotionally and physically tiring. I am discovering this. That is all i have to say. And also that peak hour traffic and rain adds almost double the journey time to anywhere. But you probably already knew that.

First Day of Recording 15th November 2010

Ok. I had some complaints- man you write so much, you write like you have A.D.D, write less. So i will endeavor to write a bit less. But i write how i write, so if you need to take a coffee break then Starbucks (or preferably your local indie coffee house) will be happy to accommodate.

Met with Dave out at Digital Underdog HQ at 2pm this afternoon for our first 'proper' session. I had written a song over the weekend that i was keen to show him- good news is that he loved it and we spent the afternoon honing in on it to find the right groove, right tempo and right soul to the song- as well as a Chorus. We were certainly both on the same page. The guy is a freakin' genius. I give him a solid piano riff of the basic chords and he goes into the zone and sits the song in his head coming up with idea after idea about instrumentation and feel and instrumentation and feel and instrumentation and feel and instrumentation and feel. Dave breathes a great creative energy and focus (something that i need more of). We laid down a basic tempo, i laid down the verse chords, pre chorus chords and the chorus chords. We spent the rest of the session trying to nail the feel of the verse. We played around with classic 'cock' rock (Dave's example was Oasis and Creed like) beats, and then some more driving soulful grooves. Then the genius goes to work with his multi-instrumental talents, and brainstorms bass lines and guitar leads and drum additions. What we came up with is a real song about exploring the freedom of creativity and the power to follow your own journey- an anthem for the people-this is what i want the song to be. There is so many places it can go.

The most interesting part of the day was laying down some basic vocals. I am so glad we did this- i have SO MUCH TO LEARN. Dave will not let me get away with staccato 'speak singing' (as i call it) that alot of crooning in lounges has created in me. Let the voice hang behind the groove slightly and feel the song, feel the soul of the idea, let it come out honestly, smoothly and directly to the audience. Playing back some of my takes, it is clear that i have developed some habits (i hesitate to use the word bad, because they were habits i developed as a cover lounge act) that just don't really cut it truthfully. It walked in after a bathroom break and said to dave 'I don't believe what i am saying' after hearing him replaying my take over and over. So this is going to be a work in progress learning to do lead vocals in a commercial style.

I love the process we have undertaken. We will record all the final vocals at the end of the album process. So we will develop the songs, then let them sit and breathe within me and let the grow, and the let the honesty of the stories in the song and the messages grow over a few months, then come to lay out the 'gold' at the end. I think this is a great idea, and a process that will benefit the final product greatly.

That is all i am going to write today, and i won't write everyday, but today was a great learning day, and on learning days that is when i want to write to constantly be growing.

'only time knows where i'm going to lie.. and so it goes, i'm writing my own life'

Alex.

New Ideas

With the direction we are taking with the album for a more commercial less lounge sound i am liking the idea of real profound anthem type songs- the songs that you want to listen to when you are down, or you would see on the montage of gray's anatomy. I know they are the sequences that get me, and probably get you to, putting beautiful powerful music to powerful images- that's kind of how i have always written. Come up with a few ideas over the last day and some nice simple honest progressions. I have found a nice riff to support the idea of making big decisions in your life such as creating the album.. the words are something like this scribbled down on my pad..

'Please, give me a sign, show me the light to guide my path.. I feel out of mind, cause i'm out of my skin, trying to begin. Only time knows where i'm going to lie. And so it goes, i'm writing my own life'

I like this theme of trying to find answers. I wrote some lyrics while still at school when dealing with religion and its effects and its truths and its practices. Mmmm. I wanted answers, i wanted to know why this was so, why my school would openly tell thirty 14 yearold kids that homosexuality is evil and that you will burn in hell if your practice it. I know now for a fact that two kids in that class are now openly gay, and i can only imagine what was going through their minds at that time. I liked the idea of a song that challenged religion, or this god or jesus we grew up being saturated with to come up with answers and prove himself in an honest, tangible form. I wrote these lyrics back then, and i think they still have soul to them now..

'Bread of Heaven, sing hallelujah's, now turn my water into wine.. there are answers to all your questions lying waiting to be found. Somewhere, Sometime, Some feeling waiting to unwind. What you don't know won't hurt you. What you don't know might set you free. What you don't know might save your soul for redemption at the end of the road. What you can't see can't tempt you, where you don't go might ease your mind, what you can't feel aint ridicule, its just a lesson, apparent in time'

I think these are just ideas and outlooks that lots of young people like me go through- and as you get older, Dave and i were discussing the other day, you become far more aware of your mortality. I have flown in planes for years now, hundreds of hours especially in the last few, and all of a sudden i have developed a fear of flying- i had to ask the air canada stewardess last trip to Disney to sit next to me talk me through what she described as only light turbulence. But i think that a huge part of growing up is learning about your mortality and coming to grips with it. Tony (an old friend!) used to always ease my mind by saying 'Alex, you aint going before i go, so don't even start worrying about till i do'.. that helps you for a while, but the more you learn the more you learn to question.. especially now Qantas engines are blowin' up??

The Process Begins

Welcome friends, music lovers, and those just wondering what i'm up to having been away from Australia for so long.

As the description above says, this is a blog/journal of the making of my first studio album that has been a long time coming. There have been so many adventures that i have experienced over the last 2 years living overseas that i regret not documenting. I have learned that any artist should write as much as possible, it doesn't matter what form it takes, or how public that writing becomes, but writing (or i guess any type of active documentation) is part of expressing what is going on in your world, your observations about what is going on in you and around you, and increasing that ever so important (but often lacking in society) quality of self awareness. You can only grow as an artist (and person) if you are self aware. But there is a huge difference between being self aware, and serving yourself- hopefully this blog and this album will not be to serve me and my ego, but to be truthful and create something greater, and more profound and lasting than aimless self promotion and ego chasing (which i undoubtedly have been guilty of at times, and still am, probably more than i'd like to be).

My journey over the last two years has taken me from the end of my Law Degree in Ottawa, Canada (on exchange), to Vancouver where i thought i was going to get into film and television again, however that was put on hold when i got a great contract working for Disney Cruise Line out of Orlando Florida. I've never worked harder as a musician. Those long Friday nights since i was 19 years old driving in peak hour traffic to Wenty Leagues Club and Castle Hill RSL in Sydney, Australia, seemed alot easier than playing 4 hours a night 6 nights a week (and then seven nights a week and more in Europe) for month and months on end. A great training ground, but as a singer not sustainable for the rest of my life. Lounges, pubs and clubs are great, they in many ways have made me the performer that i am today and have led me to so many great friendships and connections all over the world. I feel so privileged at my age to have played some of the places and for some of the people that i have. But this album is about taking a new creative step- not just playing and interpreting other people's music, but creating something from me entirely (with the help of a good producer). I can say at the outset i am not super confident, when you spend so long learning other people's songs and stories (albeit interpreted in my own way) its scary thinking of seeing how your stuff can measure up- your ideas, your melodies and i guess your artistic soul which is at the essence of it all. But a sayings i haven't heard over in Canada, but used to love in Australia is 'we're not here to fuck spiders', and 'have a concrete milkshake and harden the fuck up'. I am not here to fuck spiders and i have taken that concrete milkshake and am ready to just dive into it. That's the only way you move forward. I dived into the overseas adventure, dived into American Dialect training, voice lessons, dived into Disney not knowing what to expect, fell into a long term relationship for the first time at the time i perhaps shouldn't have, dived into the Larry Moss workshop in NYC- there is alot of diving going on, but although there is probably a better metaphor than diving in, that's what you got to do to keep growing as an artist and a person. I am fully expecting that no record company will like my sound, or my voice, or my ideas, or my writing- but you never know what could happen if they do or more importantly the people at large do. At worst, my kids one day can go, 'my daddy tried to be a rock star once' and i am sure they will have a good laugh at my Tim Bowrey inspired Skinny Jeans and Designer stubble.

Welcome to the next few months of my life. Welcome to my artistic process, i will try and be as honest as possible. I really hope friends i haven't seen for a while will enjoy reading this blog and coming on this journey with me from start to finish.

So much love to everyone and send me creative genius vibes

Alex