To whoever gets this message:  I am not stranded on a desert island with only a beach ball for company that I’ve named Wilson and speak to in order to maintain my sanity.  I’m just blogging.  Although I imagine the feeling is about the same.

News!

I am playing with the fabulous Amy Millan who is touring on her new album Masters of the Burial. That show is on November 8th at DC9. It is significant in my life for two reasons. One, it’s my last show as a DC dude. What started in The Grog and Tankard ends in DC9. Ashes to ashes, tiny club to tiny club. TWO, it’s the first show for Canary.

I’ll be giving out the Canary disc, free for anyone who even remotely gives a shit!  Hell, even if you don’t odds are you’ll leave with one.

And in closing; Send help!    This beach-ball keeps telling me to go to law school

Mastering. Such a dominant term for making a track essentially, louder. Now many will say there’s a lot more to it then that, and i”m sure there is. But I don’t know if Canary needs a master. Canary just needs a friend.

first things

So myspace needs some gentrification, it’s detroit out there.

so Canary is moving into my old myspace.com/martinroylemusic

eventually, I’ll figure out how to put this song right up here, but for now, please go to my myspace and listen to it. I hear there’s a Starbucks coming after that!

I don’t ask for much. All I want is to write a song that makes the entire world sigh into its beer and look longingly at an old photograph; all i want is a pop song so strong that miley pays attention; all i want is a stage show to make lady gaga think ‘how strange!’. I don’t ask for much. Just a couple of hugs and some drink tickets. Maybe a fan or two. I don’t ask for much Brooklyn. Just a couple of kids who want to be in a really fun indie band called Canary. Will I find this in Williamsburgh, or will the world say ‘meh’? Canary songs coming really soon. Don’t ask for much.

Well, it’s almost official, i have a new band called Canary. It’s my first project since Balloons last winter and my first pop band since Washington Social Club.  Usually I’d say I’m working on ‘demos’, but after years of making good demos and then strangling them in the pursuit of perfection, i’ve given up the practice. So in a couple weeks i’ll be giving up the first Canary music, and i won’t be re recording any of it! I also have a new theory on recording. Sober and Free!  How you listen to Canary however, is up to you.

The hater principle: in the media-weary world of America, to hate entertainment is analogous to liking it, and the degree of hatred is proportional to  the degree of both talent and potential.  John and Paul Thornley have most things going for them, and I count the haters in this category.   For these brothers possess pure, clean piles of talent, both creative and technical, garnished with old fashioned country soul.  Their band is US Royalty.  In addition, my wife says they have style, and although I don’t notice such things I HAVE noticed lots of US Royalty fans wear makeup and watch Mad Men.  Did I mention they have haters?  

At 8:30 pm tonight,  they will have all of these things plus a bar! 

Solly’s, on 11th and U Street in Washington DC.  And what else?  Me as well, my songs and lyrics for you to enjoy, or if I’m really lucky, hate! 

love,

Martin

Sadness follows me over the boarder as I pass through the gateway to the states; the gigantic national forests of upstate new york. Sadness at leaving Montreal, a city that like Pittsburgh, always seems to welcome me with open arms.  The northern cities get my music.  Why?  A northern soul maybe? I don’t know.  All I know is that leaving Montreal feels like leaving home. Trust, warmth, harmony from a country untarnished by a violent past, existing peaceably in a violent present.   Torquil, Moya and baby Ellington, I love you all and I pray I’ll be back soon.  I’m going back to get my wife pack up the wagon and head……..somewhere.