Tag Archives: Tom LeClair

The Butcher Boy video

Happy St. Paddy’s Day

Stephen Pate, Butcher Boy

I first heard this haunting Irish folk song from Liam Clancy in the 1960′s on his Vanguard LP.

It stuck with me through all the years as one of the saddest songs.

The song is variously attributed to London town or Dublin town. It’s an amalgam of several broadside ballads.

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The song has been performed by Tommy Makem and other Irish artists.

Thank goodness the days of people hanging themselves over getting pregnant with uncaring lovers is past.

PS – If you were wondering where the stories were for a few days, I was working on this song and video.

On Sunday I performed it at Orwell Corner Historic Village at their St. Patrick’s Day concert. Tom LeClair and Charles Kennedy helped out with bass and guitar.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrTzTqF4-p8']

Blue Christmas from NJN Network

Merry Christmas from NJN Network with our version of the Elvis Presley classic song

We’ve been working on our Christmas present to you for over two weeks. Now it’s ready for you to listen and enjoy.

The band mates who performed on the song are Denis Larocque (guitar), Ronnie “Bunnie” MacLean (drums), and Tom LeClair (bass) and myself (guitar, vocals). Full credits and special thanks are covered after the page break.

You can share the song with this link. You can also download it for free by clicking on the download button on the Reverbnation site.

Many people are more than blue at Christmas. We’re encouraging a voluntary donation to the Schizophrenia Society of PEI, P.O. Box 25020,Charlottetown P.E.I. C1A 9N.

Or you can donate online in Canada or the United States. Any proceeds from sales of the song will be donated to either group depending on their origin.

As a matching donation, NJN Network is donating $0.10 for each time you listen to the song.

We had a good time recording this song and hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

Continue reading →

Mixing down Blue Christmas

Mixing down the best of 40 tracks for Blue Christmas was a three day affair made better and worse by the DAW software

Sonar Sonar X1 ProChannel, easy to use, powerful track and channel processing

Part seven of the Blue Christmas Diaries.

They say pioneers get all the arrows, in the back. The last three days of mixing down our rough recorded tracks of Blue Christmas has been like that but we’re still alive.

Update – Sonar X1b now ready for prime time

Since drums and bass are the foundation, I started sifting through bass player Tom LeClair’s takes for the best one on Sunday.

They say don’t sweat the details which would be good advice to take. Actually most of what Tom recorded could have been THE take so I obsessed over the little stuff.

Studio Economik sent me a K+H O800 sub-woofer that arrived on Friday so that was part of Sunday- hooking it up and balancing the room. What a difference that made. I tried some of my older mixes and could spot the bass weakness in the mix right away. I’ll miss that when it goes back in a few weeks.

Most of Sunday was spent playing with the bass track and the two track rhythm section, Bunnie’s hi-hat and snare. Timing seemed to be off a notch which turned out to be the internal latency when you play backing tracks and then record live. It’s about a beat and a bit off.

Using the Nudge feature in Sonar X1, Ronnie MacLean and I agreed on where the beat should land Monday afternoon. Continue reading →

Blood on the tracks Blue Christmas diary

Still 5 days behind in diary and recording, will it finish in time?

Denis Larocque laying down country licks

It was six days since the Blue Christmas recording project started and we were laying down the individual tracks with Denis, Bunnie and Tom. Despite extremely busy work schedules they gave up Monday and Tuesday night in our quest to record a Christmas song.

By the end of the weekend, all we had done in the recording was lay down the backing tracks on a digital recorder and get the chorus to sing their version of the song.

Things looked up on Monday as Denis Larocque and Bunnie MacLean promised to come after supper and record their best tracks. Tom LeClair was slated for Tuesday night. Continue reading →

Blue Christmas diary Thursday struggle in the studio

Recording a backing track turned into a nightmare

Zoom R16 recorder saved the night

Blue Christmas Diary part 2

The first step in recording Blue Christmas was to get a backing track with everyone playing the song in time. Sonar wouldn’t work so it was done on a small digital recorder instead.

After that we would record each part separately so it could be mixed and balanced without worrying about bleeding between microphones.

I spent Wednesday getting the studio ready. The mic’s were checked and then the headphone amps to make sure each musician got his own mix. We didn’t have enough headphones for 4 musicians and the engineer.

The guys started to arrive around 7 pm Thursday . They were getting tuned up and we ran through the song a few times. It sounded sweet with a light country flavor.

Tom LeClair brought his upright bass which was inspired. We tried a few mic set-ups until I settled on a large condenser for the bass.

Ronnie brought himself and brushes. Turned out his boss just closed the shop due to health and Ronnie was in transition to another real estate office. Continue reading →

Blue Christmas diary

It’s a little late but never too late to start a Christmas project

Elvis Presley Blue Christmas

Last week I got a craZy idea to start a Christmas video project. We were going to record Blue Christmas, like in the studio and make a video for YouTube.

This is my mid-point diary because Christmas will soon be here. We have to finish.

The song was picked because I’m an old Elvis fan and can sing the song without the words. The chords were something else so I checked them out on the internet. Continue reading →