SOCIAL MEDIA – MrCrippin

Watching Two Masters at Work

Every once in a while I get to do some really cool shit. Like today. Hang at the Armoury studios and watch two masters at work. Totally inspiring. That’s Paul Silviera on the left and Devin Townsend on the right. In 94, I met Paul. He was the runner at the brand new Armoury studios, and I was teaching my first album. I was 19. The Producer was Bruce Fairbairn (Bruce is the guy that produced “Livin’ on a Prayer”, and if you don’t know that song then you can go away), the engineer was Erwin Musper, and second was Mike Polotnikof.

Today and for many years Paul runs the studio and engineers at a very high level. Mike has been working with Howard Benson for years. The studio has survived a massive market crash. Devin is recording his, I want to say, 25th record, on a guitar built just for him and it’s awesome.

I could be regarded as unemployed.

An Early Jam Space

Beyond this door lies a room that smells like gasoline, and houses my young soul, for it is in this place from whence i came. Behold! MrCrippin.

I was just 18 when i started renting a space here. This door is one of those old school, sliding to the left on a wheel, on a thick metal band types. We were called The Smoke Eaters, and we played experimental rock tunes and dammit I cannot find our recording. I think it might be terrible, but that’s what I like about it.

It was a cool vibe, big rooms too, low ceilings, and pretty good separation. I met a lot of people there, and many of them I still know today. So many bands came through there. It was a good time for music, and creativity, and a good time to be a young single guy trying to make his mark.

Oddly, I feel like little has changed.

No Rest for the Weary

No rest for the weary. On the train to Montreal, and still plowing away at the new MrCrippin record. After you write about 6 new songs, a more defined and focused sound begins to appear. After your next 6 you can start to sense and album, and still more direction. Then another batch makes you think the first batch sucks and that your second would be pretty strong B-sides. Then that keeps happening and each time now, two songs get dropped from the bottom. I’m hoping to bring in 30 to our prospective producer. Thats how Dad did it!

Day In and Day Out, We Work

It’s not at the beginning. There aren’t any photos of that. I think I was camera shy, or maybe there wasn’t enough to think it worthy of photo ops. After a year Tarek had set up his first studio outside of his home. It was fortunate that we managed to live in the old NAL building for another 12 months before it fell to the unyielding need for growth and another Starbucks outlet. I bought that guitar because our resident drummer Aleks mentioned that Devin Townsend was selling this one and that I would probably dig it. He was right – I don’t think i put it down last year.

Day in and day out we work to create a new thing, and still it isn’t good enough for our producers. Sorry everybody, you’ll just have to wait till Eddie and Gretch give it the green light.

New Website for New Music

Working away at new things. We’ve got a long term plan and are planning to share some demos in June this year. Check here for them:

https://mrcrippin.com/product-category/qhrys-and-duece/