Nothing Much

November 2021  Paul helped me make a video of a dancing duck for the title track.  Take a look at either the YouTube or Bitchute page to find that.  Also made some lyric videos for a couple of other songs.  Still working on yet another mixing update that I still think I will just put here to download.  

Also there was the four song live session from last year that was done at Winnipeg Station that I think I will also make available as a download.  Some people seemed to like that performance.  

Let Them Hear

June 2021  Well the release date was technically May 21, 2021 but for all practical purposes you probably will not see it on streaming services until the end of the month.  This one was a lot of work.  No fancy way to put it.  Had I known how much effort it was going to take I am not sure I would have made this one.  I like the result, but I worked for it.

I do not like to think of this as an end.  But, and maybe I am just feeling worn out, I do not see myself ever doing a full album again.  Life is short you know.   And I sense that sort of became the theme of this album.  Letting it go.  Let the old go and bring in some new.

In the near future I plan to have everything freely downloadable from this website.  I have come to accept that I suck at mixing - and I cannot update the services with improvements as I please.  So I think here I will have updated versions of the music downloadable in the old fashion way here.

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Something new coming up

March 2021 - new music coming right up.  There is a new album recording and it is looking like I will put that out in May.  Through April I will put out a few songs, maybe each week or so.  So look for that at the regular places - or click the Spotify follow button here: SPOTIFY   If you have followed there in the past follow again, the profile had to be reset so anyone who followed is gone.    

This was the album that was supposed to be the follow-up to Show Your Blood in 2011.   It was what I was getting set to record in 2017 when we lost Chad.   So it has kind took on a mythical unicorn status in my mind.   Its just a dumb rock album but whenever I tried to approach it it seemed to jump just out of my reach.  

The first song to go out is Rhythm & Boom.  Look for that on April 1.  

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Show Your Blood returns

July 2020 - life is a little slower now  Show Your Blood has finally been remixed to my satisfaction.  This has been in the works since 2014 when I sat down and started making some minor edits and created a wishlist of improvements.  But that would not be the year it got done, and really, it kept getting pushed into the future.  This was too bad because it was always meant to be remixed.  The original version was kinda rushed out at the last minute because I was moving at the time and did not know when I would be able to get back to it.   As it turned out, it would be nine years.  

This is an expanded version, there are four extra tracks recorded between 2007 and 2012 that I dug out from the hard-drive that I think were cool and suited the tone.  Two of them are unreleased, the other was an extra track on some CDs we printed back when, and there is the return of Live Free or Die which I put out as a single years ago.

Channels are not moving as quick as they used to.  So although it is released it could be many weeks before it is actually available.  It could be August, I do not know.

In other news I have started a limited run VLOG.  Each day I talk about one of my released songs and see what memories it brings up.  Not sure it is a great idea but I am having fun with it.  Find the playlist on my YouTube page here: Song x Song VLOG

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A Time Of Madness continued...

April 2020 - things get done eventually  Time to show "A Time Of Madness" the re-edit (and re-titled).  At first I just wanted a quick update with just the remixed music added, but then I started adjusting this, then that.  Then I started creating entire new scenes for it.  Went a little further than I imagined I would but it was fun to work on it again.  Some stuff was cut, other stuff was added and in the end it turned out to be about ten minutes shorter than the original version.  No movie premiere this time, it'll just pop up on the YouTube channel on April 30, 2020 HERE.  There will still be a 3D version if you have the equipment for it.

Performing again?  In other news I had pre-taped a performance for the normally live WinnipegStation.ca which briefly premiered last Friday.  Sadly I guess the stream audio got mangled, so they decided to pull it down shortly after the premiere and I'll be returning very soon for a redo.  So subscribe to them to find out about it.  Would have been my first time performing publicly in years.  Which is too bad really.  Would love for that to change.

Currently I am working on remixing the Show Your Blood album.  Really should have been done years ago.  My guess is it will be ready for release around July which I think is almost exactly the ten year mark from when it was first put out.  Digging through my old files I found some cool tracks recorded at other points in time that I think go well with this collection.  So it will be remixed and expanded.

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A Time Of Madness

November 2019 - definitely different  It has been almost five years since it was first released.  Using material recorded at various points between 2008 and 2012 and first put out at the end of 2014 as a "soundtrack" to short movie I was making, and would continue to make until 2017.  This remix adds two songs that were left out in 2014, but ended up being used in the movie in 2017.  "Dream Away" and "A Rebel Song".  The movie is getting an update as well.  It's not done, instead of just updating the soundtrack I decided to also re-edit the movie and I like where its going.  Look for the ATOM movie re-edit in early 2020.

A big thank you to Michael from aatranslator.com.au - they make a program to convert DAW files between different platforms.  A big chore in doing these remixes is bouncing them off an old dated DAW I used until a few years ago.  To use modern pluggins I had to get into something new.  Sometimes Reaper, sometimes Studio One.  Anyway I had a problem with my conversion and Michael created an updated version of the program to fix the issue which saved me lots of work.  So ya, if you need to bounce between DAWs they are the place to go.

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Sunsets Video

I've gotten a little fat The camera doesn't lie but it is all good.  A new video for Sunsets is out and has me wandering around in the sand.  Years and years ago a friend got some funding to make a movie.  I had a small role and it was filmed in this mini-desert an hour from the city.  I loved the location and always wanted to return and shoot something of my own there.  My earliest draft of ATOM was set there instead of the prison.  I changed the location because I felt it really wasn't doable.  Even my friends movie just went out there for a few shots and it was a long day to get it done.  And in making Sunsets I confirmed that was a good decision.  There is so much working against you when your in the middle of nowhere - I actually came home from shooting Sunsets and thought the shots were all a mess.  But it edited together well and I am happy.  Little fat though.

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More Remixing

May 2019 - never good enough  Wreathe Remix is up.  A few things were redone that always bugged me about the orginal, but there was also a lot I liked about the original so I didn't want to change it too much.   I am continuing the remixing with ATOM now.  Though I put it out only a few years ago it was largely recorded right after we (it was we back then) did Wreathe.  So it seemed like the logical next step in my mind.  I had the notion of remixing everything this year but ATOM has turned into a major undertaking.  And I have no doubt that SYB would be that x10.  So that might have to be next year's project.  

There's also videos, new and upcoming.  I am in the process of filming a third (or fourth if you consider the Whiteout one a video) video for Wreathe 2nd.  My YouTube channel is currently RenagdeMusic and I am sorry to say I sometimes forget I have this website so things will show up there long before I link to them here.  Which isn't great but it is the way it is.  As I go through the remix process I hope to update the old videos as well.  Which I've just done with Breathe, and hope to have an updated Rise up sometime in June.  

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Wreathe the 2nd

January 2019 - making music again  And with one last click its done.  Wreathe the 2nd should start to pop up wherever music is heard beginning on Friday, January 25.  If you're looking for it remember some places it is spelt Renagde others its Rena G.D.E., and some its both.  Five years since ATOM, Seven since SYB, and a bit over ten since the original Wreathe.   It wasn't the album I was planning to make.   As I mentioned earlier I set out in 2017 determined to finally make the sequel to SYB.  And I still want that to happen but the drive for it just wasn't there.  So I went down to Scott's studio and just for something to do we jammed out Whiteout and Blood Of Roses.  From there I started picking out songs written over the years but abandoned or forgotten about.  The notion of Wreathe the 2nd was a rejected idea from a few years ago.  I guess that is what this is, a collection of rejects.  But Scott seemed to like it.  Said it was best one I've done so far.   Wreathe 1 is getting a much needed remix and should be back up on Spotify or wherever in a few weeks.  The old multi-track files were a mess, remixing it has turned into a chore.  But the results have been good.  

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Saying goodbye...

November 2018 - A little late I'm posting this well after the fact as it doesn't seem right to not say something here.  I guess I haven't been looking for reasons to get into it.  About a year ago my childhood friend and bandmate Chad Baker passed away of pneumonia.  What a shock it was and continues to be.  At the time I was actively working on recording new music I was hoping we would record together.   Actually Chad had been actively bugging me to get on that particular album (a follow-up to SYB) for several years now.  Chad, your timing really sucked.

There is no way I can sum up Chad and his influence.  And I am not going to try.  I trust his stories, influence, and spirit will come out for the rest of my life.  It has been weird not having him around.  Even when he wasn't active with the band he was always the first person I showed or played anything new to.  I dropped that SYB follow-up recording for now.  I'll get back to it.  But I decided to record something else.  It will probably be out in December.

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A Time Of Magick - the movie now online

May 2017 Well I promised Ed I wouldn't release the movie until it was shown in a theatre.  Well Ed, you did't show up to the theatre so here it is online for you to see.  Though I thought it looked great at the Cinemateque.  I was pleasantly surprised it translated well to a professional 3D screen.
Now for the little screen.  You can find the link to the various versions on the video page.  Over the next few weeks some additional behind the scenes stuff will be added to the super secret login area.  But mostly I look forward to recording new music over the summer and not doing any movie stuff at all.  

And now, many lifetimes later...

April 2017 On April 22 2017 Rena G.D.E. - A Time Of Magick will be screened in 3D, at the Cinemateque in Winnipeg at noon.  

Four years!  Four screaming sheep hollering years!  That is how long it took to make Rena G.D.E. - A Time Of Magick.  Which was really, just supposed to be a long music video.   Not some detailed piece of artistic expression.  However, for all of its faults, which are many, it is exactly that.  A mind exploring artistic expression.  The music video aspect got tossed out during the journey.  Any notion of the movie being a big commerical for this band is gone, though the music is still there.  

It took so long because as they say, life happens while you are busy making other plans.  Like I was telling Kevin, the lead actor, if I didn't have to work and had no one else to consider, this would have been wrapped up in three months.  But it was fun twiddling away at this thing for the past few years.  Though I think I will stick to short videos for awhile.

I will try and get it online soon after the premiere.  I am unsure the best to make it stream for VR, as 3D TVs have largely gone away.  It looks great on VR but you have to wrestle with YouTube to make it look right.  

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A bit of sadness...

End of 2016  So Leonard Cohen has died.  Been a big year for musical deaths, but there was one in particular that I had more to reflect on.  Leonard Cohen has been singing about being old and at the end of it for so long now somehow it seemed like his shtick rather than a reality.  I was lucky enough to see him perform twice in the last ten years. And I think he was at his best and still getting better.  Death sucks.

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Progress on "A Time Of Magick"

SUMMER 2013 The music is all recorded and mixed.  Now its movie time!  This will take a while to complete.  Its like shooting ten videos.  I will post occasional update pictures on the facebook page.

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