Veda Hille

here’s the penultimate song from silver. the line “the heart does not pound without cause” is from the poet anna ahkmatova, and was pointed out to me by my friend stephanie aitken. (Continued)

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howdy folks. gosh, i’ve gotten so accustomed to this blogging thing that taking a week off seems like a sin. i guess this is how it all starts. slave to the internet. i’ve been home recuperating from tour, which always takes longer than i want. but thankfully, when i wake up at 4am with jetlag i can lie in bed and think about the new record, which is a compelling and lengthy obsession. i have an incredible band for the show in vancouver in january: martin walton on bass, skye brooks on drums, peggy lee on cello, patsy klein on voice, jesse zubot on violin, and ak coope on clarinet. killer. worth flying out for, if anyone is feeling wealthy out there. it’ll be a premiere of the new songs with full ensemble, plus a reworked version of field study.

here’s one of the new songs for you, actually a song almost 2 years old but just now coming into its own. this recording was made at the hive (on barry’s birthday, as you will hear) with about 30 pals stuffed into the main room all singing and playing together. we added a few instruments later, and made this spirited version of lucklucky. (Continued)

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As this post appears i am arriving in london! i love the magic of time stamping. London is the home of bedlam, of course. The Bethlehem Hospital was one of the earliest and longest running mental hospitals in the worlds. i mean the world. The word ‘bedlam’ is a quick version of the word ‘bethlehem’. i believe the hospital building is now the war museum, and i’m hoping to get a chance to go there this trip. they had an interesting use for photography in the early days at bethlehem hospital. they would take your photo when you were Crazy, and then again when you were Sane. my god, i’d love to see those photos.

this is the version of bedlam from silver. it’s the same performance as on auditorium, just a different mix. you can go watch the video for a very different version of bedlam on myspace. and now i promise i will never post about bedlam again. (Continued)

 bedlam: Download

another song from silver. a kind of fake eastern european wedding song paired with lyrics from a book of songs for jewish soldiers. there’s another version of this song that i reworked for the leaky heaven circus production of Birthday Boy in 2003. that one has lyrics taken from the Song of Songs. maybe i’ll put that on the new album (recording in april 07, probably for release in the fall), since i have a kind of biblical theme going on. just warning you. (Continued)

 comrades: Download

Here’s another song from silver, the limited run ep that sold out years ago. This is one of my favourites, and co-written with one of my favourite people that i’ve never met. Ove Karlson is a great swedish musician and writer, and I unwittingly stole this music from him. I heard it on an album of folk music, i didn’t read the liner notes and assumed it was traditional, and wrote words for it. When i was putting silver together i went back to the folk album and realized that in fact the music was written in the 1980s. I promptly contacted Ove to explain myself, and lucky for me he is one of the warmest people on earth. We have since become close friends over the email and the snail mail, and I hope very much to visit him on his island in sweden one day. I imagine him as a large and friendly cello playing bear.

As this post appears we are landing in Berlin! (Continued)

 Nostalgia Song: Download

so there are a few bugs in our ordering system, but everything is still going well and people are receiving their records. basically, any money coming in through paypal is working great, but a few times the order hasn’t shown up through word press. in these instances, i’ve been emailing folks (because paypal sends me contact info with the deposit notice) and finding out what they’ve ordered and how to send it. weston (my superb webmaster) is sleuthing around, but if anyone has notes on the process and how easy/awkward it is please send thoughts over here. never fear, the orders are going out fine. you people are keeping me busy! thanks.

and here is a song from silver, my ep that sold out long ago. i’ll be throwing the whole thing up for download over the next while; this song is called Stepdaughter’s Delight. (Continued)

 Stepdaughter's Delight: Download

this is a live track of my band (barry, martin, patsy, peggy, ak) with nick krgovich as a Special Guest at the album launch for kildeer in vancouver, april 2005. nick is the ringleader of the band p:ano. he arranged and played all the instruments on the kildeer version of bedlam, and for the show he came up with a completely different arrangement. full of arrangements, that guy. (Continued)

 bedlam live w/nick: Download

alas, although we have debugged our paypal connection somewhat, it is still not up and strong and walking around. and now weston, my webmaster, has gone off to gambier island for the long weekend to build an outhouse. which just goes to show that even internet geniuses still have to deal with the stinky physical world.

so fingers crossed for next week, as with all the other indistinct elements of the site. but there’s still lots to look at! and here’s one of my favorite songs from Silver, played live at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre last year with barry, peggy, ak, martin, and patsy. a toast to good ideas. happy labour day. (Continued)

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the fits will be joining p:ano as back-up gals at richard's on richard's this friday, sept 1, and even more exciting, the fits new record Seize to Amaze will be released sept 23! worldwide, in person! check tour page for details.

and the fits sound like this: (Continued)

 Go Get the Axe My Lovely Horse: Download

after almost 2 years of being out of stock, we finally have “you do not live in this world alone” back in action! this is one of my epic records, full of strings and horns and drums courtesy of my band and compu-glitches courtesy of mr. christof migone. here, take a listen to “born lucky”. ford pier wrote the string arrangement. (Continued)

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