It's been awhile. Nothing much overt to report, though. Just a lot of logistics and grunt stuff that wasn't in the brochure that sold me on this vocation. On the plus side, we played North Country Fair in June to a die hard audience that somehow stayed up to see our 4 am set. That was the extent of MMB's public activities so far this summer. I've been spending my time producing two albums. One, obviously, is the upcoming MMB debut album. Producing involves more than doing the music bits, it's getting the money to record as well. I also finished working on Blue Bill and The Barn Eyed Girls. Blue Bill is Carolyn from Victoria's The Vinaigrettes. For years, her and I have discussed a country album suitable to our tastes, and the only way to accomplish that is to make it ourselves, we figure. So, instead of it just being all talk, we're set to actually getting something recorded. We had Sherry-Lee Heschel on bass, Larry Shelast on drums, Chris Smith on pedal steel, Ian Martin on electric guitar, me on acoustic guitar, and Carolyn on lead vocals and piano. Every country recording needs killer B.G.s, so we got the DING-A-LONGS (Paul "Duke" Paetz, Dale Ladouceur, myself, and Carolyn) It's like if Patsy Cline was around our age and lived in our neighborhood and liked the kind of stuff we did and never died in a plane crash or anything. We did 6 songs, and Bill is going to do 6 more back in Victoria, and then we'll try to find a way to put it out.
As for the MMB project, It looks like it'll be produced by Kobayashi Miru, and will be an entirely independent release. We'll be recording as of Sept. 1 at Crowtown Studios, home of Dale Ladouceur, Bill Hobson, and Barry Nighswander. It'll be mixed and mastered by Dave Mockford. It'll be engineered by Bill Hobson. It'll be called Mad Cows and Englishmen. The other thing that I've been doing is the composing for a play being performed at this year's Edmonton Fringe. It's an adaptation of The Little Prince (yes, the one we all know from our childhood). It's being directed by Rebecca Starr, and stars Joel Finnestad (of Hookahman) as The Little Prince, Crystal Hansen (Mary, from The Messiah) and Kent Gallie as all the other main characters. I get two small parts: the Lamplighter, and the Switchman. The music is live, and I'm doing that as well as the composing. The times and address of our show are posted in the upcoming dates page, so tune in there. Sorry this particular note won't get me an A for imagination. Life's been a series of facts this year. It takes a lot out of you. Anyway, after these albums and the Edmonton Folk Fest ( Sherry-Lee and I had a smokin' set at the CBC stage. I finally met Tommy Banks, and he gave me the greatest intro onstage followed by the greatest ovation. It was a great time. Steve Earl was amazing) and The Fringe, I'll get back to it. By then it'll be touring time, and I can tell you all about it in person. Ta ta for now...
Mike McDonald
Remember, the MMB home page is interactive. Just e-mail me or Steve, and that's all there is to it. Thanks for listening.