YEAR OF THE RAT

It’s only the end of January and already I feel much acquainted with 2008, year of the Rat. My sister’s a rat. Maybe it’s her year to shine. My girlfriend’s a pig. It’s funny how I’m allowed to say that, or am I? My brother’s a dragon. I used to covet his Dragon, but that was when I was younger. Now, I realize it doesn’t matter what Chinese animal sign you are. You still have the same problems. I think it is funny how proud dragons are to be dragons. “Oh, yeah! Well, I’m a dragon!” they say with great zeal and thunderous ownership, as though they might just start breathing fire. I’m a dog. Loyal. I suppose I’m loyal, but I don’t really see a lot of myself in Dogs. I’m much more stoic than dogs, although some dogs are quite stoic, but generally I find them a bit toady, always fawning over their owners who look just like them. I don’t really look like my parents. People think I look a lot like my dad, but it’s not quite true. It’s in the periphery that bares our resemblance; a way of holding ourselves; a shared mannerism and hue, rather than noses or mouths. I have my grandmother’s evil eyes, though. My dead grandmother’s evil eyes.

Anyhow, January is moving along at a good clip, churning out the moments, turning in the days, and reminding me that it doesn’t take long before the fresh scent of a new beginning starts to smell a little musky. The goal posts move inward, and our steadfast resolutions fall to the wayside, albeit, one of mine was to blog more, so here I am, true to my word. Even though the past is just a thing of the past and there’s no better place to be than here right now, I’ve managed to spend sometime reflecting on last years toils and triumphs, particularly those belonging to Mother Mother, and well, it was a good year, as far as good years go.

In February we released Touch Up on Last Gang Records, and toured our pants off in North America until December. We played all sorts of shows in all sorts of places with all sorts of bands, sold some records, not 50,000, but not 500 either, and managed not to get chewed up and spit out by the big bad music industry. We made a music video and learned less about mermaids and more about what not to do next time. Perez Hilton wrote a nice blog about us, and “Love and Truth” appeared on NBC’s “Men in Trees”. We mutually and amicably broke up with our drummer, Kenton Loewen and replaced him with our new drummer, Ali Siadat, whose addition to Mother Mother is a big YES! and big BEATS! We finally got our own rehearsal space where we’re just finishing up pre production for our next album which we start recording on Sunday, February 3....and that's about it.

The last bit of news is most exciting. We’re going into Mushroom studios in Vancouver with our dear friend Mr. Howard Redekopp who’ll be mixing, engineering and co producing. We’re all giddy about this album; we think it’s going to be really good. The new songs are very special and show a new maturity and growth in the band’s sound.

TOUCH UP did pretty well for an album of its kind. Molly, Debra-Jean and I started this band three years ago as a weird little folk trio, met up with Howard and recorded a bunch of songs around a mic in our living room. We added drums and bass on a few tunes, took from a grab bag of unconventional instruments like plastic bugles, penny whistles, and blenders, decided on a three headed rooster as our logo, and independently released the Mother, self titled album to the world, but not really, more like Vancouver. We got a rhythm section, then got another one, played for Last Gang in Montreal, got signed, added drums and bass plus two new songs to the Mother, self titled album, re released it as TOUCH UP under a new band name, Mother Mother, added two more chicken heads, toured a bunch, lost half of our rhythm section, replenished it, toured some more, and now here we are, a unified band in the year of the Rat about to make one album in one time frame. This feels like a better way of doing things. I don’t regret this band having done the goat dance in order to get to a place of balance, trust and camaraderie, I’m just glad we’re here, and am so excited to bring these elements to a new album full of new songs.

I’m going to post regular blogs on how the album takes shape, among other things to do with Mother Mother. I really am. I will stop flossing my teeth and forget to drink 8 cups of water a day, and stop doing crunches, and stop reading non fiction, and stop doing the dishes before I stop blogging, so please check back in.

Take care,

Ryan