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

After an intense month of pre-production at Beta Sound with Kevin we are finally ready to start tracking! These songs have gone through so many amazing changes and we’re all really excited for what’s to come. We have one more rehearsal / pre-production session then we’re replacing all the skins and teching the drums with Bill George from Portal in preparation for drum tracking. It’s going to be a damn good birthday weekend!

My life since we moved into the studio has essentially been, work and studio… now repeat that every day of the week (well almost every day). I must admit though, it’s not all working at the studio, we do work hard but we play hard too, even Dave at Fail Safe Studio (in the same building as Beta Sound) has been joining in all the partying and playoff hockey watching. It’s one big happy family there and were this months adopted children… who pay to be there… okay not quite adopted children, lol.

It’s just crazy to think that we’ve already been in the studio for almost a month, time has flown by so fast! We will have some more studio footage posted down the line, videos and lots of pictures, but for the time being we’re all really focused on getting our parts as tight as freaking possible for the excessive amounts of recording we’re going to be doing. We’re going to use 6 – 10 guitar amps per guitar, it’s going to be a massive WALL OF SOUND

I can’t even begin to explain the advantages of working in a real recording studio. From the gear to the expertise, recording at Beta Sound has been a huge blessing, and we haven’t even started tracking yet! I can’t wait to hear the finished product, I’m going to be bouncing off the walls when we finally get to release this album and play our CD release party.

I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned much about the record itself yet in any of my blogs so here’s a litte rundown. We are still working on the track names for a couple songs but as it stands, we are recording a 6 song EP, 5 full band (guitars, drums, bass, vocals) and 1 acoustic track with some orchestral instruments. We have high hopes for the record, but with that being said we’re all doing it for our love and desire to play and write music.

Wouldn’t have it any other way.

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

I don’t even know where to begin seeing as life has been totally insane (in a good way when it comes to music) over the last 2 months and I have not even had time to blog! So as opposed to a full update on life, this is gonna be short and sweet and just about the band. On this coming Saturday (April 4th, 2009) we are moving all our gear from the jam space in Leduc (Thanks Again Ryan!) to Kevin Hoskin and Bill Kennedys Studio at Beta Sound. Sweet BuJesus it’s finally fucking happening!

Over the last 2 months we have been rehearsing our asses off getting our EP songs ready to go. In the last 3 weeks alone we did a whole round of Pre-PreProduction using our own low tech studio gear, and it was definitely worth it to get most of the kinks out of the way before heading into the studio. We multitracked drums, tracked both guitars, did up all the bass tracks and even got the vocals recorded. It will be interesting to compare these Pre-PreProduction tracks to the finished product when it’s all said and done.

The game plan moving forward from here (for recording) will be to do Pre-Production with Kevin at Beta for 2 – 3 weeks (about 6 – 8 rehearsals), then we’re into full on high end production mode, tracking everything as massively huge as possible. So freaking stoked I can’t even begin to explain how awesome this is going to sound.

So that’s the update, there is a lot more coming down the wire but nothing worthy of blogging about (unless you go by internet standards then everything is worth blogging about, ha). More updates coming soon and more frequently in the coming weeks and months.

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

Yay for four hours of sleep, gah. It’s 9am and I am sitting at the River Cree Casino / Marriott Hotel in west Edmonton running an Exhibitor Booth at an event, it’s pretty exciting. Just waiting for the day to be over so I can go pick up the guys and head to our jam space and rehearse. Speaking of rehearsing, I guess I should mention that rehearsing for the new EP has been coming along very nicely.

After getting our space a couple weeks ago I spent a few days hauling all of our gear out to Leduc (where the rehearsal space is at). I got the drums, bass, guitar amps, PA and all that stuff set up and running, even went to the local music store called The Turner Guitar Studio in Leduc and bought an extra mic stand. We’ve had a few rehearsals already and it’s nice and loud, ear plugs are much needed… we all imagine the neighbours don’t like us too much right now, ha. So next were making the space much more band friendly, posters of Hendrix, Cobain, and the likes will be plastered on the wall.

In the next week or two here I think I am going to buy myself a new laptop, that way I can take my mammoth computer to the rehearsal space and use it for what it’s meant to be, a ministudio for pre-production recording. We also have a $3,000 Yamaha Keyboard that we are going to haul down there, it’s a great keyboard for midi interface as it has as many keys as a baby grand! It’s wonderful to finally have the space to accommodate our musical creativity. At this rate we’ll be hammering out a new song every week.

I’m crazy excited for when we will finally get to share all of our new shit, it’s gonna be incredible!

All in good time.


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

Hey everyone we’re looking for Photographers, Graphic Designers, Web Developers, Artists and anybody who wants to contribute Artwork to our upcoming Album… and YES, if you’re professional you will get paid (well, as long as it’s reasonable)! As opposed to just opening the yellowpages and hiring people to work with us, we figured why not send out a call to you all first and see if there’s anybody out there that wants to work with us on the LI project. So I guess I should start by giving you more of a break down of what we’re looking for:

- professional photographers (for shoots in and around Edmonton)
- graphic designers to help us develop a look and feel based around the new album
- web developers to integrate the new art and designs into Word Press & MySpace
- and last, anyone with wicked Artwork who want us to use it in the album!

And hey if you know somebody that you think would be a perfect fit, then feel free to drop me an email (shane@livingillusion.com) about their wickedness and I’ll contact them myself! Those who work with us will get full credit for the job that they do. Hope to hear from you soon.

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

Holy BuJesus (Yes, that’s right, Buddha and Jesus) we found a freaking Jam Space! No, no, wait, that’s not right… we actually HAVE a Jam Space! It took months to find out that nothing was available in Edmonton, so now in this positive turn of events, I am completely relieved and totally stoked that we finally have a place to rehearse. I’m actually heading out there tonight to start hauling gear!

Special Thanks goes out to our buddy Ryan who is the one offering up the space for us. Without him we would be stuck back in the world of tirelessly trying to find a rehearsal space so thanks man!

That’s all I’m going to update for now but Ill post more as things get moving double time over the next few weeks.

Hope you had nice holidays and are ready to take on the New Year!

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

Going to bed at 9PM is not conducive to sleeping through the night, it’s 3AM now and I’m out of bed and completely awake. Surprisingly things with the band finding a Jam space seems to be going pretty good. Between my Ad in the SEE Magazine and contacting every musician in Edmonton that I know, I got some call backs and found two really good possibilities that we’ll hopefully have hammered out by the end of the week. I don’t want to get my hopes up too much cause Jam spaces always seem to fall through, but this time it looks like we may be good to go. Yay!

Something else worth mentioning, this weekend I got a chance to go to the band Lipht’s CD Release Party at Jet Nightclub. They put on a great show and had wicked chemistry on stage. Their new album “A Generation Removed” (which I picked up a copy of) has freaking astounding production and some really great songs. It was recorded at the same studio we’re hitting up this winter and is a testiment to Kevin Hoskin the Engineer/Producer and the guys from Lipht. It’s nice to see those guys doing so well after all the time and energy they’ve put into their music and the new record, great job guys.

Aside from that there’s not a whole lot to report. We’ve all been keeping busy working hard and dealing with life outside the band. It’s good that things seem to be coming together for us and we should be rehearsing regularly with enough time to get ready for the studio in the coming months.

Either way, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this all pans out.

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

Wow, I can’t believe its been three weeks since my last post, and that was when I was in Cleveland. Since I’ve been back, the distractions of life and difficulties of pulling the band together have hit again. Now that fall has come to an end and winter is pretty much here, our unheated jam space is no longer an option for rehearsing and we are falling behind. Having a place to rehearse is a huge road block (if not the biggest) especially since studio time is right around the corner.

In the last few weeks I’ve frantically been trying to find us a new place to rehearse, which you’d think wouldn’t be that hard, but it’s quite difficult when the real estate market in Edmonton is utterly stupid and none of us own a house. Sometimes I feel like the economy works against artists and musicians, but then again, whether it be housing or gas price fluctuation’s I think we’re all affected equally. With that said, we’ve come up short with finding a new rehearsal space and everything is on hold until we get one. It’s almost to the point where I’m going to need to buy a home on the outskirts of Edmonton just so the band can have a place to practice.

So I guess this isn’t so much a rant as it is a plea. Do you want or know some one who wants to make some extra coin that has a heated garage or space that won’t be getting used this winter in Edmonton, Sherwood Park, or Leduc (seriously we’ll drive out to Ft. Sask if we have to)? LOL, Who in there right mind would give up their heated garage in Edmonton over the winter, we are so fucked.

“Looks like the band is really ‘in a jam’ this time. Will they possibly be able to avoid a ‘jarring’ conclusion? To find out, tune in again next week, same L.I. time, same L.I. channel!”

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

What can I say, it’s just been messed, this whole summer I’ve been having experiences which make me re-evaluate my entire life. From the passing of the first girl I ever loved, to attending the wedding of a friend I have known for over 20 years… this has been a summer of deep contemplation. One for the history book of my life, and it has, without a doubt, given me inspiration to play my guitar.

That’s pretty much all I have to say for now, I just wanted to give a quick update seeing as I haven’t posted in over a month. I’ll be posting another note soon, with an update for our next gig which is going to be at the Starlite Room on the 19th of September. The show will feature some of the best progressive rock Alberta has to offer so check back soon.

“Summertime and the livin’s easy”

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