Bob Kemmis 
Tribe: Just Bob
Tunes: melodic singer-songwriter, sometimes with band, sometimes without
To Contact: 309-3495 Cambie Street, Vancouver, BC V5Z 4R3

Talk about guest stars. Among the guests on Bob Kemmis' debut album, Kemmisutra, are three members of Odds (the fourth, Steven Drake, co-produced and mixed the CD) and Ryan Dahle (Age of Electric, Limblifter).
Four of the seven songs were recorded on the Neve console at Greenhouse Studios in Vancouver; the same half was mixed at The Factory because, as Kemmis explains, "Greenhouse sold the Neve and The Factory were the only other studio in town who had one available." Maintaining consistency with the board was important "to Steven because of its warm characteristics."
The liner notes credit the other three songs to "Now Suck! Studios" which, Kemmis wryly notes, "Is the term of endearment that we gave to the ever-changing surroundings that the portability supplied us with." The 'portability' came in the form of Northey's 8-track hard drive recorder, which Kemmis and co. set up wherever they could - the basement of Vancouver's Roxy, the homes of Northey and pianist Simon Kendall, among other places.
Craig Waddell (Moist) mastered the album, in one fell swoop, at Gotham City Studios. Kemmis notes, "[That] helped to give the songs a continuity and consistency that might not have occurred if we had mixed and mastered in the same patchwork style that we recorded in."

Hennessey 
Tribe: Pam Brennan (vocals, percussion, keyboards), Rory Dyck (vocals, guitars), Ari Tapiero (drums, percussion), Stuart Watkins (bass, vocals)
Tunes: super-groovy power pop with a twist
To Contact: To contact: P.O. Box 4824, Station E, Ottawa, ONT K1S 5H9 (613) 231-1295

If Ron McLean ever decides he's tired of Hockey Night in Canada, he might consider taking up a job in A&R. Seems that Don Cherry's sidekick took a liking to this Ottawa quartet and phoned up Kneal Mann, Music Director at 102.1 The Edge (CFNY) in Toronto. Mann thought the band had potential, and by mid-June, they had a spot on the CFNY New Music Search CD and a coveted Saturday night slot at NXNE.
Hennessey began as a duo with songwriter/guitarist Rory Dyck (September Child) and singer Pamela Brennan (Watercan). In 1996, the two recorded what they thought would be five demos with producer Trina Shoemaker (The Tragically Hip, Sheryl Crow, Midnight Oil). They returned to Ottawa, added drummer Ari Tapiero and bassist Stuart Watkins, and over the following year, recorded the rest of Dig it Up. "Whenever we got 50 bucks, we'd go in and do a vocal track, or spend a couple hours in the studio. We kind of finished it piecemeal like that, when we had a bit of money." Dyck's guitars (a Paul Reed Smith and "an old Ovation with really thick strings") and a large part of the vocals were laid down at Sound of One Hand in the capital city.
The band then headed to London for a three-day mixing session with Dan Broadbeck, who Dyck had worked with and trusted. Broadbeck tweaked the band's sound - which is not unlike a more melodic Letters to Cleo - And the rest is Music Night in Canada.

¡Que Vida! 
Tribe: Andrew Whiteman (guitar, vocals; Dan Kurtz (bass, vocals); Daniel Stone (percussion, vocals); Josh Hicks (drums)
Tunes: self-described "Latin sleaze"
To Contact: Paul Davies (416) 469-1600

Toronto-based ¡Que Vida! recorded their debut EP, New Shots From the Indestructible in a extremely creative and cost-efficient manner. First, the quartet laid down bed tracks on ADAT with Eric Ratz (Big Sugar) at his studio, The Opium Den. They then did a sub mix-down, which gave them two tracks of drums and one of percussion, which they recorded to a Fostex D90. Kurtz then took the D90 to his house, where he uploaded the tracks onto his Mac clone computer.
For the rest of the tracks, the band moved to Five Star Studios (a/k/a Kurtz' house). "We ended up doing vocals in the bathroom, putting guitar amps in the bedroom closets, etc.," he explains. They recorded to the D90, and "once I'd filled up the D90 with eight tracks, I'd move them digitally over to my computer using Pro Tools."
In what Kurtz calls "the coolest part" of the process, he borrowed a CD-writer and saved the five songs on five CDs. They took the CDs to Phase One, then synched the tracks up with the original ADAT bed tracks and "ran them through really old tube-y kind of gear." They got the best of both worlds and managed to come in under $6,000. "I'm not really a big fan of digital stuff," Kurtz explains, "… but if you take advantage of what the digital part actually gives you, editing and synching up a bunch of stuff without any hassles, that's the best part of it. And it translates to almost-as-good sound quality and very affordable recording."

Credit: Sarah Chauncey is a Toronto-based freelance writer.

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