Heather McKenzie: NEWS

Last night was a blast! Nothing is better than singing your guts out with a bunch of hot dudes in spandex and really big hair! There were some great costumes, lots of people really put in the effort. There was some dude dressed up as Gollum from the Lord of The Rings that completely freaked me out. He kept coming up to me and putting these long gross fingers in my hair and following me around the bar. At one point I told him to blast off, and that just because you put on a costume doesn’t mean you can go around touching girls. Freak! Anyway, half way through the 2nd set this creep comes up to the stage, and lifts up his mask….and it was my Grantykins! One of my very best friends and guitar player in the ‘Heather M’ band. I can’t believe I didn’t clue in that it was him, he totally got me! That’s ok though, payback will be when he tries to get all of the glue and permanent maker off of his face and hands!
Grant was supposed to be playing guitar on some of these songs but I just ended up having Russ do it since he was producing them and was going to be at the studio all the time anyway. Grant has helped me in the past with a lot of my demo’s and has rescued me from my horrid guitar playing. I have written songs on the guitar and explained them to him, and roughly played them, and he has very patiently recorded great tracks exactly how I need them. This has been so helpful. When I wrote Undone I called him over and he totally got what I was going for and played the guitar tracks for me. I am very grateful for this guy! Some tunes on this album are certainly ‘Grant Inspired’.

GRANTYKINS














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HEYO
Happy Halloween everyone!
Had a blast playing at Jet with the Ratt Poison boys!



BB Gunzz, Barb Wyre, Nikki Lixx, CC Martini






















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October 31

Darn I am workin hard today! Sitting at home in my pj’s, drinking coffee and sending positive thoughts to Stew while he works on the songs. He has some ‘administrative’ work to do today and I am feeling like crap so he is on his own. We ended up keeping some of the original guitar tracks from the demo, so Stew is going to re amp them today and make them sound Stewpendous! Har har……Re-amping involves sending the signal back through a guitar amp, then re-recording that signal so you have a more live sounding guitar as apposed to a sterile digital sound.
This was the very last recording day at the studio, I still have backing vocal and piano tracks to do at home but the main parts are finally done. YEE HAH! I am feeling a bit less stressed, this whole month has been nuts. Now the songs just have to be mixed, which will take about 5 or 6 days, and then sent off to be mastered.
And today is Halloween! I am playing at Jet Nightclub tonight with Crush and the Ratt Poison boys, what a perfect way to end the month!

STEW















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Day 13 and all the lead vocals are finished today! Good thing too cause a cold is setting in and my voice is feeling a bit weary. Hope the ol vocal cords can hang in there for the Halloween gig at Jet. It will feel really good to sing for an audience after being under the microscope in an isolation booth! Yah baby, ROAR!!
Now the fun work for me begins. I am going to do all the harmonies and strings in my home studio, this will save me a lot of time and money. Its also nice to experiment and not worry about sounding like a doofus when you try new parts ….and its also nice to put on a pair of pajamas, pour a glass of wine and chillax in your own home. Bonus: my little studio is right by the washing machine so I can multi task. Downside: have to wait for the furnace to quit, or the hot water tank to stop, and its darn cold. I also have to overlook the fact that there is a huge spider down there just waiting to attack. Yahouwza I hate spiders. The other thing is keeping ‘studio dog’ quiet. My Lab has decided that whenever I am at the computer or at the piano, he would like to be involved. He either tries to sit on my lap, or climb up onto the chair and sit behind me, and then he whines and barks. If I am lucky he will give up and fall asleep at my feet, and then just when I am about to have an amazing vocal ‘moment’, he’ll let loose with a wicked ‘Doggie Special’. My nose hairs melt, eyes water, gagging begins, and no amount of air freshener, candles, matches, or rum and cokes can mask that odor. Have tried singing with a gas mask on, but it sounded a bit strange.

'STUDIO DOG'



















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Today was one of the best days I have had in the studio. Finally! Stew to the rescue! All it took was a new method to solve the madness! Stew suggested we try recording the vocal differently and his plan worked! I could have kissed his cute little bald head. We finished the lead vocals on 2 songs, ‘Undone’ and ‘Nothing to say’ and I feel very happy with them. Got half way through a rocker called ‘Different’ and have decided that the ending is way too long, I am hoping Stew can work his magic and take the scissors to it and fix it up.
I had more confidence in myself today, I was feeling really out of sorts from the last few sessions cause nothing seemed to be feeling quite right, but Stew has a great ability to smooth things out and make a singer feel at ease. He had me sing each song 4 times through, without stopping, then we went back and picked the best takes, this worked so much better than the other method. This way I was able to get into the song and put some heart into it, and really feel the words I was singing, rather than using the very clinical method of singing line by line and punching in. If I did screw up, or the alien in my voice decided to let loose, then Stew in his lovely bedside manor would blame himself and say “oops, my bad, I forgot to push record”, which of course he didn’t….which is just too cute…..and great for fragile egos. I have decided to re-do all the songs we did before, and re-sing them using this method. Just hope I have enough time.

Supa STEW


















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Today is the last day I have Russ here in the studio with me. He has to go back to Vancouver tomorrow. Poor guy has been staying at my house for the last 10 days. He has witnessed first hand the chaos that is my life. He has come face to face with ‘Morning Bitch’ (sorry, but there really is no other way to describe myself in the morning), fought off ‘Studio Dog’ and managed to remain slobber free, survived on peanut butter an toast in a vegan home, and quite graciously ignored all the dust monsters lurking behind the furniture. Think he might now be hooked on Sol and St Ives veggie hamburgers.
We finshed all the guitars up today, and I sang another 2 songs. At one point I
tried to convince the boys that the words ‘smile’ and ‘while’ were both 2 sylable words and absolutelty couldn’t be sung as a one syllable word…think about it…... Sigh. I can just imagine what they were talking about when the talk back mic wasn’t turned on! I am still not really happy with the vocal performance, everyone says its fine, but the last thing I want is ‘fine’. Man, I hate the word ‘fine’. I want Fabulous! Great! Wicked! even the odd ‘ Hey, cool man! Just not boring old ‘fine’. I know I can do better than that. Had to sing again with one headphone on, and my ear now actually hurts. I am thinking maybe its just a bit of a cold, you know the stuffy nose/ear thing. I don’t think volume would have blown it out, I play almost every weekend with one of the loudest drummers ever and have never had a problem. At least that it what I am telling myself right now. I am also telling myself to ‘suck it up princess’.

RUSS KLYNE


















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ARRRGH!!!

Ok, first of all
(a) the dog ate my new runners
(b) THEN, the dog ate my favorite gig shoes, my favorite lucky ones!
(c) finally found the source of ‘the smell’ in my kitchen…and lets not get into that….
(d) I have evidence now that The Incredible Hulk lives in my house because he picked it up, shook it, ate a 24 pack of pizza pops, and left the toilet lid up
(e) why can’t boys put DOWN the Toilet Lid..really… why?

So that was the start to my day. After cleaning the kitchen, settling for mac and cheese for lunch and having another shower (see (e) above) we went off to the studio.

Today we tackled vocals, and it was horrible! Who was this warbling chick in the vocal booth? Who put granola and glue sticks in my throat? Any particular reason why my ears just ‘shut off’? Good lord I questioned my abilities today. I was the excuse machine! I had good ones like: Uh sorry, Falafels have clogged my throat, not warmed up enough, mood lighting not right, the mic wind screen smells bad….but I was running out of reasons why I couldn’t get it together. We started with a song called Drive and I was so frustrated. Russ kept refering back to the demo of the song and stopping me after every couple of lines. I understood why he was doing this but it totally threw me off. I realized that he wanted the songs sung the same as on the demo, with the same vibe, but it just wasn’t working for me at this moment. Just as I would start to feel like I was into the song, he would stop and say ‘nope, lets listen to the demo’. I didn’t give a crap about the demo! I Just wanted to beat the crap out of this horrible singer in the vocal booth (uh, that would be me). Nothing was working. I wanted the vocals to feel honest and real, and they felt like a crappy 80’s sequencer. This, and having a bad headphone mix, completely sucked. So, to compensate for all the stopping and punching in, I put one headphone on my right ear, left the other head phone off, and cranked the volume to the max. This helped me stay in pitch better (and looks hilarious by the way, so totally spinal tap), but completely blew out my right ear. Yay. Ear blown. No fabulous footwear. Voice sucks. And, to top it all off, I’ll admit I wasn’t having the best hair day.
So I am feeling a bit worried because we are now behind schedule with the vocals, but its all good, right? I am going to have to watch the news and get my game back. That always makes me realize that I am way better off and have way less problems than so many other people in this crazy world.

ROY























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I have such good friends! My pals came down today and sat on the couch to give me some moral support. It can be SO boring sitting in the studio when there is file transferring, and boring stuff like that going on, and you can’t talk and disrupt Stew while he is editing, so it was nice that they were there. Roy came down and so did my buddy Martin, both fellow bandmates in Crush. Martin was the only person besides Russ to hear my demos, and helped with pre-production on a song called Pilot. I wrote and recorded the song with just piano and vocals, and he added drum loops and guitar parts, which basically set the tone for this song, which is turning out to be one of my favorites.
I discovered today that Roy has great shoulders for napping, so I kinda took advantage of that and zoned out for a while. Completely missed Lane recording the bass track for All I Need but I am sure it was fine. I Hope it was fine… (turns out it was great! But not really what I wanted for this particular song… so Stew pulled out his bass and wrote a great part, yay Stew!) All I Need is a song that I hope will get airplay on Magic 99. I can’t wait to play everyone these songs!

MARTIN N ME






















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WHAT DID YOU DO?

























I am sitting here at the studio writing this today., and hey, its 10th day, 10th month and its 10 pm! That means something good will happen! I was feeling really weary today, not physically tired but metally tired, thinking about the crazy amount of housework piling up and the mountain of laundry that needs washing, and all the work that needs to be done here…and had to stop and take some deep yoga breaths! Then open a bottle of large bottle of cheap red wine. Ok. much better!
This did turn out to be a great day. Russ started putting down some guitar tracks, and man can this guy play! It is so amazing to hear my crappy guitar parts turned into something musical, and played with such great feel. He had a very clear vision of what he wanted to play on the songs and managed to get 4 tunes done in 3 hours which is crazy fast! It is very humbling to be in the company of such an accomplished musician, and very cool to watch someone so talented totally rock out.
We had another bass player come down today to put bass on 6 songs. Lane Arndt is a guitar player/bass player who I have known for a very long time and worked with on past recording projects. We played in a band together when he had just turned 18 and share a lot of scary road stories. He reminded me today of the time we almost died together, on an ice road, 7 hours away from Yellowknife. One of the scariest moments of my life and I think, his. Our bus hit the ditch in the middle of nowhere ( the driver was ‘mowing the lawn’ and lost control) and it was somewhere around minus 40. The engine was packed with snow and there was no heat. After an hour we were all freezing to death. At some point a trucker came by and rescued us. I remember being carried off the bus, just too cold to even move. It took 2 days of hitching rides with truckers and some a Christian country band to get to Yellowknife. Good Times. And Never Again. Anyway, darling Lane came in and blew us all away with his ideas and great parts. The songs are sounding awesome and I am so happy with what he played!

LANE ARNDT





















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Finished up the remainder of the drum tracks today and I am so happy with what Byran played. He has put down a great foundation so now everything else can be built on top, which is so important. After he was finished, we packed up the drums and cheered Byran on as he carried them up a zillion flights of stairs. Yes Stew’s place is at the very bottom of an office building with no elevator, which is great if you are worried about getting a couch butt like me, but bad if you are a drummer with 3 huge kickdrums, 6 snares, and a mountain of hardware.
Now we can start on the bass tracks. Yay! I had a bit of a hard time picking the players for this album. The problem is that I know so many awesome musicians that it was really hard to choose. I had to narrow it down to two bass players, one that I have worked with in the past many times, and another whose playing totally suits the style of certain songs. I pray that the people who won’t be playing on this album aren’t hurt or offended….still think your all awesome!
So I asked my fave guy to come down today to put down some bass tracks for me, Mr. Roy Shermack, bass player extraordinaire. He plays bass in a cover band I am in called Crush. He did a great job on 3 songs, Nothing to Say, and Too Far Gone, both up tempo pop tunes that suite his style of playing and he nailed them both quickly. On a song called Drive he pulled out the 5 string, which sounds so cool when it hits those really low notes, what he played suited the song perfectly. After we were done the tracks, I told him all my problems, got advice on my footwear, and posed for some really unflattering pictures…in almost every one I was stuffing my face with some form of junk food….hmmmmm, maybe that’s why my butt is starting to look like Stew’s couch, eech.
**yikes!those shoes!**




ME AND ROYFRIEND

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So, I have discovered the key to great drum tracks…..Beer, chips, and a great vegetarian casserole! And yes, having an amazing drummer helps too! Russ did a great job of getting the best out of Byran and we worked him hard today. I think we managed to get 6 more songs done. Russ had Byran try out and use a lot of different snare drums so each song would have a different sound. On a song called Loser Boot Camp he used a small Pearl snare drum that sounded amazing but we were worried that it was way to ‘in your face’ for this song. I love it. I wakes you up and slaps you around a bit.
The last song took a bit longer than most because we were all starting to feel a bit weary, but someone showed up with some Sol and Doritos which was just what everyone needed to get the job done. So far all is well and still on schedule!
On a slower tune called Drive, Stew put opened the doors to the drum room and put up another mic in the middle of the studio. This mic picked up mostly the snare, and the ambience and ‘largeness’ (if that’s a word) of the room. He then put a bit of echo on this mic, which added a new rhythm to the snare part. This, in my opinion, sounds great and really adds to the song. The best part of recording is having these great creative moments, and having them actually work out!






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Ok, now you guys are going to here all the good stuff about making rock and roll history…today was the first day in the studio and it was crazy! People were swinging from the rafters, huge parties going on, cute male waiters serving sandwiches and champagne…..it was so wild that I cant even begin to tell you about it here…..yeah right, back to reality!
Today went really well. We got the drums all set up and spent a few hours working on sounds, sometimes this can take forever but today it went really fast and the drums sound killer! We even managed to get one drum track completed on a song called Loser Boot Camp, which put us a bit ahead of schedule which is great. Stew Kirkwood at Sound Extractor Studio’s is engineering the project and he is totally ‘on the ball’ as one would say. He knows his gear and has great ideas, as well as an awesome sense of humor which will come in very handy during these long hours. Tomorrow we will start tracking all the drum tracks for each tune and work at getting a really solid base built for each one before adding all the other instruments. All the work we put into pre-production for these songs will really come in handy now, as all the formats, tempos and things like that have been worked out. Byran Bueckert is playing all the drums on this album and I am very thankful for him today, he is such great player and is more than capable of pulling off amazing tracks. I am thinking right now that I am a very lucky girl! Well its 3am and I better get some zz’s. Till tomorrow…


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Hey Everyone

Sorry I haven't updated this in a while, been crazy busy!
I am so happy to say that I have received a grant from Rawlco Radio to record a new album! I have been writing new songs and getting everything organized to make this happen. We are ready to start on October 5th! Yee Hah! Make sure to have a listen to Magic 99, they will air my 'studio blog' and post it on thier website to keep everyone informed on the recording process. Should be very cool!
Thank you so much for coming out to our gigs and supporting the band. We are taking a bit of a break to concentrate on this new album, but will start doing shows again in January.
Stay groovy!

Time is tickin! Only 3 days till we start. I am excited and stressed out a bit. I worry about things like getting sick and not being able to sing, or what sort of things my 11 month old Labrador retriever will eat while I am out. Once he ate a box of craft paints that I had on the dining room table, there was paint everywhere….my couch, the rug, my poor little Shit-zu…..he tried to look so innocent when I got home but the evidence was all over his face in neon colors. Last week I bought a huge brick of cheese, you know that good Armstrong kind…extra old…..probably paid about 20 bucks for it….well, I cut one slice, went to answer the phone, then came back to kitchen to find that the cheese had disappeared. And there’s my dog, with the wrapper hanging out of his mouth and stuck all in his teeth, trying to look so innocent. I don’t think that dog pooped for a week after that. Anyway, how does this all relate to recording? I’m not sure, but I do know that the ‘cheese factor’ is very important in music. I have always felt that it is very important to use lots of cheese while cooking but not while songwriting. Being ‘cheesy’ is great if you’re a sandwich or a pizza but not so good if you’re an artist.



















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We have the final 12 songs. I am breathing a sight of relief because the start date is creeping up fast. Russ has taken all the songs into the pre-production stage and made complete demos of each song so we can hear what everything will sound like with drums, guitars etc. He has come up with some great ideas, allot of cool things that I never would have thought of, and once I made it very clear to him that under no circumstances was anything to sound ‘light and fluffy’, the songs really came together. I really dislike light and fluffy, hey its cool for some people, but not for this girl. I am so grateful that as a Producer he is on the same page as me, things could be really ugly if they weren’t. Now when the action gets going I will very confidently be able to hand over the reigns and let him run the show, all I have to do is sing and play the piano, and that rocks my world.















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Opinions. Hmmm. One of things I have heard a lot lately is ‘in my opinion’. Everyone has them, and yes go ahead and express it if you must, but don’t get all worked up if the person you are expressing it to disagrees with it, or simply doesn’t want to hear it. Everyone in the music business has an opinion, I have learned the very hard way to give them all some thought but in the end go with my gut and stick to what I believe in. Like picking the songs to record for example, and picking the direction to take them in. A giant melting pot of too many opinions just creates confusion, and I don’t want that. A very wise person once told me to quit trying to be something I am not, and be true to myself, ……I hired that person as my producer. His name is Russ and he will be along with me on the whole recording ‘ride’. He seems to get where I am coming from and really has his craft together. He has worked with great artists such as Nelly Furtado and Bif Naked, and spent the last 5 years touring as the guitar player in K-OS. An all around great guy and a talented/creative person. He is staying at my house while we are in the studio, and so far is the only man besides my husband to see me in the morning without makeup on…. he hasn’t run off screaming so he certainly is the right guy!

I have been writing like a maniac lately, but allot of these songs wont’ make it onto the album. Writing and singing is like therapy when everything’s going crazy, and there is nothing better than putting on the headphones and getting lost in the creative process and pouring your guts out. I have a selection of songs I have labeled ‘from the physiatrist chair’, which is a large collection of super-sappy dark ballads that no-one would have interest in. I used to play them for one of my closest friends, until one day he called me up and threatened to poison his own brownies if he had to listen to one more wretched heart breaker… point taken. I have since started my collection of happy-sappy-high on life songs, which is a place I am at almost all the time, but you might as well serve these songs with crackers and pickles cause they are soooo cheesy – and not a good cheesy…. bad, moldy, no-name brand cheesy. I am grateful that I have kept a little folder of songs I call The Keepers, ones that I can listen to, that I Like, this is the folder where the tunes to be recorded are kept. I just have to pick 12.

Here it is the start of the blog! Right here, right now! Whoo hooo
Kurt Leavins, the music director of magic 99, suggested to me long ago that I apply for a grant through his station to record another album. I took his advice and fortunatly was accepted! Kurt is totally my hero right now! I am so grateful for him and for Rawlco Radio for giving me and other artists the opportunity to record music! Thanks to their generosity, I will be recording my 2nd album very soon. I’ll be keeping a blog of the process and will do my best to keep you all up to date on the latest news so you can join me along on the ride…

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Heyo!

Hope you are all well and happy! Thanks to everyone who came out to support us at On The Rocks last weekend, it was a blast! It is so nice to look out into the audience and see some familiar faces rockin along with us. Our host for the evening, Lolita Lemonbush, was looking particularly ravishing....
















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Friday night we made 180 bucks off of cd sales and donated it to Kids with Cancer, and Saturday's Mulletfest brought us another 200 bucks to donate. There are some incredibly generous people in this city....thanks!!!! Wil from Team 1260 ditched his mullet to raise funds for this cause and ended up having his entire head shaved, thus reclaiming his 'hot guy' status once again. The club raised alot of $$$ for kids with cancer...KUDOS!!

























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Check back here often for new gig dates, some big stuff is in the works. Hope to rock with all of you again soon!

Toodles,

Heather































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