So a while back I did a 6 songs in 6 weeks songwriting challenge put on by the Songwriters Association of Canada. Each week we had a new challenge to write and record a song and post it online for feedback and for the listening pleasure of our fellow songwriters in the challenge. It was a pretty tough concept, to to write and demo a song a week, to the point where you were ready to share it with other people.., Anyway I completed it.. (Actually did it two years running, but that is for another post)

Week 6 the Challenge was to do a Co-write.  I hadn’t done any co-writing in YEARS and was a bit tentative. I also didn’t really get on it right away and by the time I did all the people I kinda knew already had their partners..  So there I was having stress flashbacks to grade school gym class, getting picked last for the team! Anyway I posted to the group site that I was looking for a co-write partner for the exercise.  Almost immediately I got a message from Mark –  now our styles were very different, our ages were different and we lived in different Cities (Calgary and Vancouver) – regardless in the spirit of adventure and learning I said sure thing and we set up a time.

We did a co-write over skype – a first for me at the time. Mark had a cool bluesy electric guitar riff and after a few minutes we came up with an idea that we thought had enough legs to turn into a song and “Every Time” was born. We cranked out our demo over the next few days, sending audio files back and forth through facebook and before you no it we had it done. We chatted about doing another cowrite but time, distance and schedules kept us from setting it up.

A year later I got a message from Mark – his band The Bandolier Brigade, was recording their second album and wanted to cut “Every Time” as one of the tracks. Bandolier Brigade is Ponoka, Alberta’s finest power rock trio, so I was totally stoked! They pushed the bluesy edginess firmly into the Rock world, and the result is a pretty cool track. Anyway that’s the brief story about how I got my first cut on another artist’s album.. and I liked it. A lot!

We even got a feature and mention in Songwriter Magazine!

Here is the Demo Mark and I did during the Challenge:

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/142420091″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

You can check out bandolier Brigade’s version here:

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=3069551950 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=142692024]

 

I’m also working on a Bluesy Acoustic version which I will post soon!

Now I better stop typing and get back to songwriting.