Aim for the Roses, an explanation

Aim for the Roses is the title of my imminent record.

It is the true story of Canadian daredevil Ken Carter, and his quest to jump one mile over the St. Lawrence River in a rocket powered car.

The man, the legend.

The record contains several seemingly disparate elements, but much to my continued amazement they seem to work together very well.

Narration: All direct quotes from Ken Carter, performed brilliantly by local stage legend Andrew Wheeler.

Songs: 11 songs throughout the record tell parts of the story. Some of the most talented folks in town helped me out with this including Scott Bellis as the Radio Announcer, David Marr as the Ramp Engineer, Joelysa Pankanea as the Statistician, Rick Maddocks as the Fuel Tank Team, Dave Gannett (who is also the engineer/producer) as Evel Knievel, and Tom Pickett as Harry Shermet (Assistant Manager of Westgate Speedway).

Loops: There are a ton of bass loops on this record. Under the narration are tonal bass loops, and in the songs the percussion is all bass loops. Try spending a 14 hour day doing nothing but looking at each individual loop. It hurts.

Pi: The structure of the whole thing is a musical representation of pi to 499 digits, realized through a solo bass part. This runs through the whole album, and all the songs, chords and everything had to fit into this structure.

Double Bass: With the exception of the voices, and an acoustic guitar part on each song, every sound on the record is made by my double bass. Yes, I'm that much of a nerd.

The Canada Council for the Arts was kind enough to give the project some completion money, for which I thank them.

Early in the New Year, before the Olympics make it impossible for me to leave home, there will be a listening release at the H. R. MacMillan Space Centre, or Planetarium if you like.

Like most projects, this one is way off schedule and over budget. The number of hours I've spent on it is horrifying, but it's almost done.

I swear, it's almost done.