After some productive prep work on Tuesday, Nick Michaud is headed BACK to Halifax again tonight for the final jam before tracking "Learning To Lose Control".
-We'll tighten what needs to be tightened ... loosen what needs to be loosened ... and smooth what needs to be smoothed. They are "chillingly" good tunes because the place we are rehearsing and recording drums is a former meat freezer ... evident by the huge steal door as you enter ... and cool air, even in the heat of summer.


Directly following tonight's jam, we'll be returning to "The Vault" on Saturday to record drums. The goal is to record the ENTIRE album's worth (12 tracks) of drums in one monster session on Saturday afternoon/evening. Since Nick has proven to be a lunatic in previous sessions (okay, here's a speed-metal-punk song - so here's the fast-paced click with NO bed tracks ... aaaaand GO! clk cl kclk clk clk clk clk clk clk cl kclkc lkc ) ... I'm sure it will be nothing short of amazing, what he will be able to produce in this coming session. I'll be sure to take some video evidence of his dominance, for the ages.

After drums? Well, it's in our hands to build the layers of goodness overtop - and as promised - things are moving much, much faster than they did for the last album!

... don't blink ... you might miss the album being pressed, and placed on your cd shelf.

Peace
MP

Well, the Moncton jam was a big hit ... Our main man Nick has a sweet spot, no neighbors who could hear us, or care that we were jamming full volume (with the windows open) until the wee hours of the morning.

Songs that were expected to come together well, came together amazingly ... songs that were meant to have no drums, are being expanded to incorporate them ... aaaand, we ripped some good ol' "Hurt the Lion" tunes for good measure. www.myspace.com/hurtthelion


In the spirit of keeping the momentum going, Nick's headed to Halifax this week to keep the fires burning ... This long distance relationship is lots of extra work, scheduling-wise, but very worth it music-wise.

I've been dragging around the ol' video camera on some of the album prep-stops, so maybe a youtube vid with some jam footage, and general hilarity would be cool.

Until we meet again and the case is sol-ved.
MP

Hittin' the Road to Monkeytown

Eyoooooooooooo,

Some MPATM members are headin' on the highway to Monkeytown ... not for shows, but for a jamtime reunion with drummer supreme, Nick Michaud.
Nick re-located to Moncton about a year ago ... but after playing in bands with him for 7-8 years, there's always to desire to get together for good musical times.

On the menu will be: Final jam preparations before Nick makes the trek to Hali to record drum tracks for "Learning To Lose Control", the fast approaching album from MPATM!

It has been cut to a concise 12 songs of utter sweetness ... and in the painful process of having to cut songs, ANOTHER album has been berthed. Yes, indeed ... 2 albums are currently  being prepped. Other than '... lose control', a new addition to the future collection titled "Eternally Thinking" is in process right now. This album is mainly made-up of acoustic material ... and will be recorded at L3 studios (aka: my bedroom) ... Laura Lee Lane ...

Eternally Thinking is a type of double reference ... Both to the fact that my mind is a CONSTANT circle of random thoughts, ideas and memories ... and secondly, some of the themes focus on spirituality and the afterlife - thinking in an eternal, grand sense ... got it? good.

More on this later. Peace out.

MP

The nit-picking through new material is just about complete ... and somewhere between 12-15 chosen songs are written, arranged, demo-recorded, and being polished prior to the "real deal" recording process. So stay tuned, as I'm planning on moving much, much, MUCH faster in the production stages than I did for "Pursuit of Symmetry" in 2008/2009.

Pursuit of Symmetry was an album about looking ahead ... looking back ... trying to look ahead, and not knowing quite how ... being sad about it ... being optimistic about it.
But that 'pursuit' was of a symmetry in many different ways. The most dominant theme was probably about eliminating the inequities within myself, and things I thought and did that really didn't feel like 'genuine actions'; thus, finding a symmetry between what I thought, what I meant and what I wanted - and the outcomes and actions that followed ... seems to often they didn't quite line-up or make any sense. Another equality theme pops up from time to time in songs like "PeaceKeeper", where the equality being pursued is on a much more global level ... between the "rich" and the "poor" ... developing nations, vs. the wasting cultures that are supposedly so advanced, yet haven't quite figured out how to share and respect our brothers around the globe ... or down the street for that matter.

-I'm not going to claim 100% that after trying to "make me move" and to start "livin' again", that i've arrived at some superhuman level of Symmetry. But on a personal note, I can say today I feel a lot more like "myself" then I did while writing the songs for Pursuit of Symmetry. And from that growth, comes the new challenge ... You've got some pieces in play ... started to take a few new steps into new places ... learned some things about yourself, and those around you ... And then after all this movement and change you've gotta sit back and start to let some of these seeds grow up around you (in my case, one of those seeds will actually be growing in the form of my first child). I guess the main idea behind "Learning to Lose Control" is to, in a way, enjoy the madness ... weird as it sounds, almost get lost in the moments that present themselves around you. Soaking up a moment of crazy laughter with friends, getting lost in a smooth breeze or an amazing taste, or kiss ... Don't get me wrong, there's still lots of uncertainty in there - but it's a balance of trying to embrace the ride, rather than forcing it through pre-determined paths that may not always fit the moment.

They say seize the day, but that's an awful long time ... 24 hours ... 1440 minutes ... 86400 seconds ... forget trying to seize 86,400 seconds in one complete moment of appreciation ... Hell, take 5 seconds to take a deep breath and appreciate everything good in your life ... take 60 seconds to think of something caring to say to someone in your life ... seize the moment ... the momentS ... all of 'em. There gonna be a song on the new album called "All I Know" that's kind of a lovesong about reflecting on my relationship with my wife - and how to summarize that crazy journey ... and the only words that could come out were just a gentle "la dah dah dah", and to me it completely suited the situation. It's beyond analysis and description ... Just take a deep breath and join me in Learning to Lose Control.

... the hunt is on in Movement land.
-we're looking for a new drummer! We're winding up to kick into another zone of recording, gigging, and overall bandness ... and with the departure of Nick Michaud to his homeland of Moncton, we're looking for a pro with abilities to rock along with some funk beat, rock out, or find a pocket and just chill to the beat.
If you, or anyone you can think of fits the bill ... please get in touch. The spaceship is about the launch again, and we need another crew member to make the foursome crew complete.
talk to you soon.
MP

Hey everyone, wanted to check in and let you know that I have posted a new song on my myspace that I'd really like to share. It's a "first-take" recording of me sitting down with an acoustic, and singing at the same time - once through.

www.myspace.com/matthewpickupandthemovement

Then Tommy Rich recorded a very tasteful keyboard part in the background and added some nice backups later in the song.
-I'm hoping to put up lots of random home recordings in the near future on an ongoing basis, as I have recently bought a mini home recording scene for my computer.

so, check out the tune ... I hope you like it

also started work on a new page for The Crows Union:
www.myspace.com/thecrowsunion

word bird ... I have been a bad blogging/updating man ... mainly because so many music things (with new bands, new tunes & recordings, members, band names, etc.), I wasn't honestly sure WHAT was gonna go down. But the dust has settled.

From the dust rises some exciting prospects, and hot new tracks (some recorded, some not yet). On the myspace page for MPATM i've posted a few new tunes that have a really smooth, chillin', alt-country, John Prine wanna-be, feel to them. These tunes were recorded in demo versions with Tommy Rich at Denmark Productions ... and they sounds pretty cool indeed ...

www.myspace.com/matthewpickupandthemovement

The first one "Forever Travellin" is a tune by myself and longtime friend and sometimes co-writing musical pal Wes MacLeod. We wrote is while outside in the rain in his parents backyard, sitting under a boat ... haha ... great times, great tune. Optimistic and hopeful in nature. The music on the track features my mandolin debut!!! And I also play acoustic, sing, djembe and some other percussion, and backups ... also with Tom on the keys, bass, more percussion and some backups.

The second is another collaboration this time with my lovely friend Tanner Comstock, as well as Mr.Wes sitting on the couch. It was a lazy spring afternoon "off sick" from work, when hanging out turned into - writing lyrics ... then creating a tune. We hammered out some great basics, and I polished up some details after the fact. The result is "Feelin' Fine", another great smooth tune with an upbeat feel and positive outlook. Listening to it always makes me smile. Demo recording features much of the same playing breakdown as described in Forever Travellin'.

One other awesome thing going down is the emergence of "The Crows Union". This new band features Myself, Thomas Rich, Paul MacRae, Ryan Malcolm and Matt Wight. We're writing lots, have some great material complete, and some nice demo recordings to put up on the world wide web! Stay tuned for more info soon on new pages and sites when the Crows Union takes flight!!!!

PEACE
MP

Check out this review for "pursuit of symmetry":

http://www.exclaim.ca/musicreviews/latestsub.aspx?csid1=115&csid2=870&fid1=40142

Always cool to hear a random strangers opinion of your cd ... she picked out the Pete Yorn influence for sure, which I take as a big compliment.

My favourite quote: “The debut CD from Matthew Pickup & the Movement is proof Halifax, NS
continues to be a hub of solid rock'n'roll in Canada"

Eyooooo,
Fresh off the presses ... this weekend MPATM go our first cd review:
http://www.cosmosgaming.com/articles.php?id=2089&articletype=review
All in all, no too bad I must say. I agree with him that the best is yet to come.
-Thanks to our work with our publicist we are also now getting our cd air time on university radio stations across the country, and we're waiting to hear back where we're being charted ... and hoping to hear back about a few more potential cd reviews.

I polsihed off the "wedding pipes" to sing at my good friend Ciaran's wedding this weekend. Didn't play any MPATM material, although we did get pretty "close to the bottom" of a few bottles of disaronno at the reception, where I unleashed a "Goulet" impersonation ... or more accurately an impersonation of Will Ferrell doing a Robert Goulet impersonation ... sometimes you just gotta go for it!

Cd sales are continuing to go well, as we're over half way to my goal of summer cd sales (which I set a bit higher than I actually thought we'd sell ... but you gotta push it sometimes). And although we're still in the "new release honeymoon" phase, the new album is being written and planned as we speak. Shows are great, jamming is great ... but to me, the #1 amazing thing about being a musician is creating ... since the last few months have been busy with a lot of promotion and awareness type stuff for "Pursuit of Symmetry", i'm taking the next week or so as "creative time" to chill at the apartment and try to tap into the feels that are gonna push the next album ... AAaaaaaaaaaand I can't freakin wait. There's already some free government money burning a whole in my pocket to record, so now i've gotta start preparing the dough to go in the oven.

Hope the battle finds you well ... and not battling very much ...

P.S.-I finally watched "Once" last night, and I am now on my way to the Czech Republic to find the girl who'll play piano on the next record  :)