Want a FREE copy of the new Living Illusion: Suffering CD? Well then go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fst7qv8NME4 and listen to what MrTyBoze has to say and he’ll hook you up! Special thanks for Ty for making the video and supporting the band.

We all really appreciate the people who get behind independent music, especially when it’s ours Be sure to subscribe to Ty’s Channel which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/MrTYBOZE because well, he’s pretty freaking awesome.

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

Alright, well after many months of waiting for the album to be finished we have finally gotten our video editor/camera man extraordinaire to make a video for our title track Suffering, from our new album of the same name, using the footage from our CD Release Party show at the Starlite Room in Edmonton (That’s totally a run on sentence but I am in too much of a hurry to fix it). The video looks awesome, I could not have made it look any where this good on my own.

Hope you guys enjoy the video and like the new song!

Here’s the direct link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCvbvlordmM

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

The boys from Long Way Down have asked me to join them for a couple shows this summer playing guitar with them. Honestly, I should be focusing more on Living Illusion gigs but let me tell you, it is going to be freaking awesome to take a break from LI to play some shows this summer and only have to worry about playing. I’m so used to having to book the shows, promote the shows, get the band together, schedule every one, sell tickets, online marketing etc that not having to do that for a change and just having to worry about performing my parts is going to be awesome!

To kick off playing this summer with Long Way Down we’re going to be playing at Boonstock just outside of Edmonton at the end of June. Notable bands we will be playing with include: Matthew Good, Papa Roach, Chevelle, Offspring, Ill Scarlett, Swollen Members, Age of Days and Hail the Villian. Needless to say it’s going to kick some serious ass. I’m super stoked to be playing Boonstock and did I mention I get a backstage pass! Here’s to hoping I can party and hang out with the boys from Chevelle (one of my favorite bands of all time!).

Beyond that there are a bunch of additional wicked shows in the pipeline although I don’t want to mention anything until they’re 100% confirmed.

Keep on Rockin!

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

PS I will have physical copies of the new Living Illusion disc on the 25th of June, they will be up on iTunes a little bit after that.

Wow. Who would’ve thought that it would take a year and a half to complete a CD with only 9 songs on it. It’s been a long haul. We started Pre-Production in January of 2009 and now the chapter which is the follow up album to our first record is finally here. Why did it take so long you ask, well let’s do a recap.

Back in 2009 when we started this journey the biggest difficulty was finding a place to rehearse. Luckily our good friend Ryan had a house to himself in the little town of Leduc which was perfect for us to jam and write songs at (aside from the noise complaints from the neighbours that is). With regular rehearsals going off with out a hitch and our producer Kevin Hoskin working with us at the Jam space by April we were ready to hit the studio.

We moved all of our gear into Beta Sound Recording Studio and got pumped to start laying shit down. After some extra pre-production at the studio itself we started recording drums in May. Tracking drums was a breeze, Cal nailed all the songs in less than a day and you could really tell that all of our prior rehearsing paid off. Once that was done we took a little break for editing and had to regroup due to loss of our bass player.

Fast forward about a month and a half and we got back on track. Time to record guitars. This was by far my favorite part of the process. I basically hunted for all of the best amps that I could find. I did have a general guitar sound that I was going for, and seeing as I got all the amps I needed, our guitars sound freaking amazing and exactly how I wanted them to. Recording took a few days, we blew up an amp, all in all it was awesome.

By this time we ended up finding our new bass player, Dave Stoten, and all the pieces came together for recording bass. It actually went by really fast, Dave is a machine. With only being given the gig to track bass for us with about 10 days notice Dave pulled through on all fronts. Also he is a perfect fit for the band.

Now for the last part of the recording process. Vocals. Vocals again were surprisingly quick, it helps that Jay has an amazing ear. It only took a couple nights to get it all done up. So by this time when vocals got completed it was getting into August 2009 and we made the executive decision to hold off on releasing the album until Summer 2010. No one wants to tour in the winter in Canada.

Now it’s June 2010 and the time has finally come. After remixing and remastering the record between September 2009 and May 2010 on three occasions with three different mixers and 2 different mastering guys we have finally finished. It’s done. There is nothing else that we need to do, it’s time to release the damn thing (especially because our CD release party was 2 months ago!!). All I can say is that I don’t regret taking the extra time, and spending the extra money to get it to sound exactly how it needed to.

If I have any advice to give here it is, don’t ever assume that mixing is less important or easier than any other part of the recording process. It is probably the MOST important. I have learned more about compression, EQ’s and SSL consoles than I have thought I would ever need to. Take your time with the whole process. Listen to multiple versions of your mixes and trust your ears.

AND THE MOST IMPORTANT THING: Never Set a Release Date Until the Album is DONE!

So that is that. It’s done, it’ll be up on iTunes and I’ll have physical discs to flog in the next couple weeks. Special thanks to Nathan Kidd for coming on board and mixing the shit out of the album.

Check it out new tracks on the website:
http://www.livingillusion.com in the sidebar

Or go to our MySpace Page:
http://www.myspace.com/livingillusion

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

Check out our new promo video for the band. It was produced, filmed, and edited by Dan Holden of Phase Productions and My Sister Ocean. He did an amazing job and we’re super happy with how it turned out. Stayed tuned for some more video footage coming soon once we officially release the new album online in less than a months time.

Check out the Living Illusion EPK Promo Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcnB2xjRPkc

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

Talk about a gong show. With just over a week until the CD Release Party you would think that by this time I would have the finished album in my hands, but sadly this is not the case. After going through more mixing and mastering revisions than I would ever like to admit we have finally come to the realization that we may end up putting the damn CD cases together ourselves the day of the show. Was it all worth it? You bet your ass it was!

In the end Kenton Thomas the lead singer of Portal became our savior and mixed our record at the 11th hour. He busted his ass to help us have one hell of a finished product. Every member of the band Portal had a hand in some aspect of our album and we’re stoked to have such an awesome group of musicians to work with.

Next up is getting back to our rehearsing schedule so we’re ready to go for the show. The clock is ticking and we need to get everything done in the next week. That being said, there should be a wicked batch of hoodies and tshirts coming down the line as well as the CD! I’ll post another note once I get them in hand and can set it up so every one can buy them online.

Alright, I’m done ranting – expect some new music to be posted next week!

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

Finally, after months of procrastination and weeks of hard work, it has arrived! The new LivingIllusion.com. With the music and entertainment industry going in the direction they are I figured it best to ensure that our new site be built around easy access for visitors to find new content from the band. I wanted this new site to reflect the constant stream of updates and content that we plan on posting while keeping the site dynamic and  giving people a reason to come back. Not to get into too much tech speak, but I used a blogging/content management system called wordpress to build the site.

So big things are in the plans for us these days. We’re going to be releasing our new album at our CD Release Party which is booked at the Starlite Room in Edmonton on April 9th 2010. We’re going to be playing with not only our friends, but one of our favorite bands, PORTAL! We’re going to be pushing to get our record on the radio with our good friends over at Oddball Productions, plus more things that I don’t want to mention quite yet. I will have a proper announcement for the cd release party in the coming weeks once we have tickets, posters and all that stuff pulled together. It’s going to be a wicked show, not to mention that we’re finally releasing our album!

Alright, well I’m off to bed, it has been a long day, but it’s great to finally have the new site finished (for the most part). There still will be lots of updates and changing pages in the coming weeks as I fill out and update old content pages plus pulling new merch together and posting songs!

Feel free to check out the site and post a comment to let me know what you think about the new site and if you think I should make any changes!! I’m always open to creative criticism and want to make the site as awesome as possible:
http://www.livingillusion.com

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

Alright internet, I just finished the new MySpace page for the band and figured I would let ya know. After two weeks with a designer and an awesome photo shoot with our photographer this was the end result.

You can check it out at http://www.myspace.com/livingillusion.

Special thanks to Mike Ofstedahl our photographer he did an awesome job. The picture we used as the header for the MySpace page was taken at the studio and was definitely one of the best. Sidenote: Rick our graphic designer for the MySpace page is freaking amazing.

So what do you think of the MySpace page? Does it look classy enough for ya?

Now I just have to finish the new Living Illusion website.

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

Winter is slowly creeping up in wonderful Edmonton Alberta and I am wishing that I was back in Hawaii (Just got back from a 10 day vacation in the sun last week). I figured seeing as it has been months since an update that I should get to it.  Lately, we’ve taking time off from album production to deal with the website, myspace, album artwork, photo shoot, t-shirt designs, radio promotions, etc. We even have a Living Illusion photo shoot tomorrow afternoon.

The new album is 92% done. Jay finished all his vocals, Kevin finished all the editing, the cello player tracked her parts, and I even went back in and tracked extra guitars for some segways. Currently we’re tweaking the final mixes of the new album and Kenton Thomas from Portal is working on an Industrial style remix of one of the songs. We still have quite a way to go to finish and it probably won’t be the new year until we do an official release and have a proper tour pulled together.

This week we signed an agreement with Oddball Productions. They are the company that has gotten many bands like Long Way Down, My Sister Ocean, Portal and many more on to radio. Speaking of radio, I did a radio interview with Barefoot Bob on the University of Hawaii Radio Station a few weeks ago, it was pretty awesome, we spun some new Living Illusion tracks . Next week I will be submitting one of our tracks to The Bear’s Songwriter Competition that they do every year.

Last, I will be putting up one more video from our sessions in the studio of the acoustic guitar and vocal tracking. After that I think we’re going to get some more viral videos rolling out, there gonna be really fun so watch for those. On a more personal note, it has been 3 months with out smoking and I am quite happy about my new addiction… my iPhone, and my lungs are pretty happy too.

And that’s what’s new.

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com

So we’ve finally rigged up this massive lot of sweet guitar amps! We’re running a Mesa Boogie Rectifier, Marshall Plexi, Deizel VH4, Randall, Orange, Top Hat and a Burman, plus a couple more vintage tube amps. It’s going to be a massive wall of sound, and if you don’t know, yes we will be running all the amps at the same time. We’re shooting for 9 – 10 amps total, but even if we only use 7-8 it’s still going to sound amazing and freaking huge.

Today was basically a night of getting sounds, figuring out what the best sounds are from each amp and building their sound out to compliment each other. This is definitely the most exciting part of the recording process for me, seeing as I’m a guitarist that obviously makes sense. I am essentially tapping every amp resource I have available to make this possible and the fact that I got the Diezel amp is out of this world. Special thanks to Ryan Chipeniuk of Grounded Star for that one, YOU ROCK!

After we get all our sounds we’ll get started on recording rhythm guitar parts then do leads and overdubs later in the week. Any way, that’s all for now, I’ll post something next week of the guitar tracking. It’s going to take 7-10 days to get all the guitars done so I’ll have lots of pictures and possibly another cool video to post.

Shane Lamotte
shane@livingillusion.com
http://www.livingillusion.com