Check here for news, info, and more regarding Carolyn Arends. Your comments are most welcome...thanks!
Just posted last year’s Christmas lyric (”It Was a Holy Night”), which has previously not been publicly previewed (how ’bout that alliteration!), over at Conversantlife.
Please check it out and let me know what you think!
Happy Advent!
CA
This morning (at 6:20am Pacific Time, thank you very much), I had the pleasure of chatting with Lynne Ford at WBCL Radio in Fort Wayne, IN. Lynne and Char Binkley host the station’s Mid-Morning Show, and today’s episode featured the 30th Anniversary issue of Today’s Christian Woman
Hey All,
My November CT column is now online. You can read it directly at CT’s site or on my Wrestling With Angels blogspot. Either way — I’d love to hear what you think!
Shalom,
CA
Hey All — A piece I wrote for Today’s Christian Woman about my marriage is now online. It’s definitely one of the more vulnerable things I’ve written …
BTW — the photo they have with the piece is NOT Mark and me! 
Peace,
CA
My musical cohort Spencer and I were at The NOVA Conference (Willow Creek Canada’s Arts and Worship Symposium-thingy) this past weekend. One of the highlights was performing at the Saturday morning plenary session before Donald Miller
Spencer was likewise looking forward to making Don’s acquaintance. Their meeting went so well that I’ve asked Spencer’s permission to publish his recollection of it as a guest blog. Here it is, in the words of Spencer Capier:
“So ‘Don’ and I hit it off in the green room, talk about Marilynne Robinson
Okay then, he’s walking out the church door and I’m just finishing up with the merch people. So I follow him out to say goodbye, nice to meet you etc etc, as he’s getting into his rental to drive to the airport and go back to Portland. I think it would be a good idea to give him one of my business cards. My Life Coach said to always give out your business cards. As I follow him out the door I have a small paper cup filled with crappy church coffee in one hand. I’ve been up since 0 -frick- hundred hours and I’m not getting rid of this coffee, no matter how crap it is, but I want to smoothly extricate my business card from my wallet lodged in my back pocket. So, I’m walking towards his car as it now backs out of its parking space. I need to do this smoothly so I don’t look like a stalker. I could very easily look like I’m chasing him down as he leaves the parking lot of Trinity Baptist Megachurch. But, you know, I’m a pro, I connect with the CCM glitterati all the time. Sigh.
Okay here’s what happens. In one deft move I place the half filled paper coffee cup in my teeth, grab the wallet, saunter (yes, saunter) towards the now paused car, grab my wallet and remove the card. He nods at me from the window and smiles. I nod back. As one does when you’ve made eye contact with a famous author. Of course I did have a large paper cup filled with coffee in my teeth. Coffee kinda stings when it goes up your nose and in your eyes at the same time. I think it’s a testament to my general charisma and strength of personality that I still managed to make light conversation as I passed the dampened business card through the partially but not entirely open drivers side window.”
My review of High School Musical 3 is up at CT Movies, as well as my interview with actress Kaycee Stroh.
Peace,
CA
Hi All,
Next weekend is the Covenant Awards (Canada’s Doves/Christian Grammy’s). Last year I had the honour of co-hosting the award show; this year, alas, I will be busy performing at Willowcreek Canada’s NOVA Conference in Kelowna and will have to miss it. But — I’ll be watching the wire …
With nothing new out this year we did not submit anything on my behalf, but I was delighted to see several musical friends get nods. Among them, the wonderful Gayle Salmond (wife of my long-time collaborator Roy Salmond) is up for Folk/Roots album of the year (ORDINARY PLACES) and also for best art direction (courtesy of our fav designer Brent Flink). Our buddy Keith Kitchen is also up for folk/roots album of the year (BROOMTREE), as well as folk/roots song of the year (”Flame”, which, I mention immodestly, was produced by yours truly) and New Artist of the Year.
Our favorite prodigy, Greg Sczebel, is still making us wait for his new album, but has still managed to be up for Song of the Year with his teaser single “Love is the Anchor”. Meanwhile, the splendid Jacob Moon, who gave us both a crazy great live record and a Christmas offering last year, has gotten several noms for both projects.
And our hero Steve Bell, riding the artistic wave of last year’s beautiful symphony album, is up for his usual array of categories, including Artist of the Year.
Not so coincidentally, we’re proud to have every single one of those artists in our FeedTheLake family (our online store of music and books we respect and love) … and as much as you might think recognition in the Canadian Christian Music industry means financial security (NOT!) — you can do your part to support any or all of those artist by getting their music. You won’t be sorry.
Should be a great weekend at the Covs! Congrats again to all our friends!
After a several week layoff we were back at it for a few short days this week. Tuesday, Oct. 8, I cut a rhythm acoustic guitar for THE LAST WORD. For every guitar part, there is a mind-boggling array of choices, starting with which of Roy’s amazing guitars to use. I knew on this tune we probably wanted a dreadnought, so that “narrowed” the choices down to:
1965 Martin D28 (this guitar has been on every album I have ever made)
1977 Martin D35 (had some trauma and was rebuilt by John Larivee. Has a neck like a baseball bat, but sounds great)
1967 Gibson J45 (has a hole in it that we fantasized was a bullet hole, but the local guitar repair guy said probably not)
1970s Mark Beneteau
Handbuilt J Duncan “Chocolate”
Handbuilt J Duncan “Vanilla”
After trying ‘em all, we decided the winner was … the J Duncan Vanilla. (Not its technical name, but one of the Duncans is a dark brown and the other is light, so what would YOU call them?) This was my first time playing the Vanilla — sounds amazing.
After we pick the guitar, there are always more decisions to be made. Which mics? Which preamp? Which compressor? Which EQ? At Whitewater there is an almost wicked level of unbelievable options; we are trying our hardest to use them for good.
In the end we went with a stereo pair of Neumann M-149s (why have one Cadillac when you can have two??), through the Portico preamps. I’m guessing Roy used the ADL compressor and maybe his API eqs, though I can’t say for sure.
I am aware that 99.9% of the population doesn’t give a rip what we used, but for the .01% of you that does … cool, eh?
Anyway — our guitar set-up looked like this:
Here’s the fun part — after cutting the acoustic, we decided it needed an electric rhythm part to keep it company. I hardly ever get to play electric. We had the same ridiculous overabundance of choices (which electric? which amp? which mics? which pre? which compressor? which eq? — never mind which part I should play!). In the end, we went with the yellow tele through not one but two amps — the Fender Princeton and the Vox. Sweetness!
Of course … sweetness comes at a price. Whilst rocking, I sustained a finger injury. It wasn’t a very impressive one. One of my acrylic nails (I get them just on my right hand for fingerpicking — my Vietnamese salon technician calls me “One Hand Lady”) flew off … but I can play hurt. I rocked on.
After my rhythm parts were done, the tune seemed to be crying out for a lead guitar, so Roy strapped on his Les Paul, ran it through the not-so-ironically named “OCD” distortion pedal, and played great.
That brought Tuesday to a close.
Thursday, we cut acoustic guitar for ACCORDING TO PLAN (the chocolate Duncan through the 149s and the holy grail of preamps: the D.W. Fern) and then played endlessly with options for the song. Wound up printing a keeper Hammond organ part and scratch lead/arpeggiated acoustic part. It was a short day, so that was all she wrote.
Unless some studio time opens up, I won’t be back at it until mid-November, so you will be spared obscure gear and instrument analysis till then.
Peace to you!
Carolyn
Days 1-6
I know, I know … new releases are not, strictly speaking, “records” any more. More like “audio files”. But they are still recordings. So I’m sticking with that terminology. At least I am not calling them “eight tracks”.
Anyway, I’ve mentioned here and there that I am recording a new project. I haven’t quite documented the process to date the way I’d like, so here’s a bit of catch up.
We were slated to begin August 6th. My last disc, Pollyanna’s Attic, was released back in May, 2006, so it’s been a while. I’ve had a restless, antsy urge to get back to the studio for months. But as of this spring, I only had two new songs (”My Favourite Lie” in 2007 and “Willing” in Feb of 2008). This was a problem.
(I did have a reassuring conversation with my hero, singer/songwriter Steve Bell. He called about something and asked incidentally, “Are you writing these days?” I lamented my paltry two songs. “Two songs!” he exclaimed. “Well, aren’t you God’s favourite!” Turns out Steve’s been writing even less than I have.)
I decided to book some studio days anyway, on the “If you build it they will come” theory. As the time drew nigh, one more song materialized (”I Am a Soul”, which I blogged about here). That brought the grand total to … three. I wasn’t totally panicked, however. I’ve been wanting to do a hymn/old gospel tunes record for ages, so I started working up covers. That was going OK, but I liked the 3 originals I did have, and I wasn’t sure if they would fit in with the vintage material. I was in a quandary.
Then, about 8-10 days before we were to begin recording, songs started pounding on my door, arriving pretty much as fast as I could write them. That never happens. If I recall correctly, they came in this order:
Something Out of Us
Be Still
Roll It
Nothing Can Separate
According to Plan (which I blogged about here)
The Last Word
So, for those of you keeping score at home, that was 3 songs in 3 years, and then 6 in 10 days. For those 10 days I was a manic insomniac, but a happy one. I was just so darn grateful to see the muse again. I had thought maybe it was gone for good. I got a brief chance to jam a few of the tunes with Spencer … he gave them the thumbs-up, and he’s not one to waste thumbs. So I was relieved.
Anyway, I am now recording 9 originals, along with 2 favourites from the covers I had been working on: A reinvention of the old classic, “Standing in the Need of Prayer”, and my best attempt at my brother’s brilliant tune “After the Flood.”
We began as scheduled on August 6th with Jonathan Anderson on drums. Jon plays most anything and is not known primarily as a drummer, in fact I know him better as a producer/engineer. (We collaborated on a Keith Kitchen project … Jon produced 8 tunes and I produced 3.) But I had heard Jon do some drumming in pre-production for Keith’s project and I LOVED the way he played. (It reminded me of Jon Brion, the multi-instrumentalist/producer who drummed on some mighty fine Aimee Mann records.) I asked Jon if he’d be willing to take a run at a few of the songs for my project and he was game.
Jon came in for 2 days and played on 5 tunes. I love his instincts — he has a great way of dialing into my guitar rhythms and playing off them (probably comes from being a guitarist himself.) Very fun. While Jon was in, my co-producer/engineer Roy Salmond played guide bass parts … and though I am planning on sending the tracks to Chicago to have my long-time bassist Adrian Walther do his thing, Roy did a darn fine job. Adrian’s got his work cut out for him!
After our days with Jon, we had a couple of revered session guys come in — Phil Robertson on drums and Miles Hill on upright bass. Phil played on Pollyanna’s Attic, but I had never worked with Miles before. Phil and Miles have played together for years, and they have a freaky musical ESP; they feel monster fills and grooves at the same time without discussing them. Definitely goosebump — and grin — producing. Phil and Miles were in for 2 days and played the remaining 6 songs on the record. We also had Phil play some of the same tunes that Jon had played on, just to give us the too-good-to-be-true luxury of mixing and matching great drum parts. I love my job!
A bonus on the Phil/Miles sessions — Miles had just returned from several months working with Van Morrison all over the globe, and he had some very strange and entertaining stories to tell. Wish you coulda been there!
Here are some blurry pictures from the Phil/Miles sessions:
After the four days of tracking, we spent a couple days cutting decent guide vocals and acoustic guitars and experimenting with various versions and approaches. All just enough to make me fall in love with the recording process all over again … but then we were out of time. We didn’t get back into the studio until this week, which I will write about in my next blog.
Right now — gotta sleep. Have to be able to play in the pocket tomorrow!
Thanks for reading …
CA
Hey All — Just put a new lyric called ACCORDING TO PLAN up at my Conversantlife blog. I’ve entitled the blog “Pop Songs and Theodicy — Should They Ever Mix?” which is my obscure way of asking how folks connect to the lyric. Please stop by, have a read, and lemme know what the song says to you.
Much appreciated!
CA
