It was 2015 when I went up to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada to work on original music with my old high school friend, turned audio engineer Josh Hart. He had gone to college for mixing songs and had a sleek set up with his fancy Mac computer, MIDI controller keyboard (basically an electronic piano hooked into the music workstation program) awesome studio speakers, and a really nice Audio Techica microphone for recording vocals. If I remember rightly, the original home studio set up I went to was a house he was renting off Woodroffe Ave. in Nepean.
Josh wanted to make a name for himself in the music business and the company he formed was known as Josh Hart Studios, but would later become known as Josh Hart Recordings. I basically noticed he was posting pictures of his set up on Facebook, I was living and working in Cornwall at the time. I got back in touch and got a quote from my old pal.
The first song we worked on together was a sort of cover of an old Spanish ‘80s dance song, however I had changed some of the words around and altered the structure of the track from the original version. The song was called “I Want An Illusion” by an Italo Disco dance trio know as “Squash Gang”. My version was going to be known simply as “Illusion”.
Italo Disco, for those that don’t know, was a type of dance music that originated in Europe in the 1980s. It was what came after ‘70s disco and before ‘90s house music. The instruments were primarily drum machines and synthesizers, sometimes saxophone and guitar, with plenty of harmony and melody, and usually sung in English by people who didn’t know the language very well and sometimes had very thick accents.
By the end of that year I had shot a music video to go with it, in Cornwall, however I was having trouble contacting the original artists to ask their permission to release my version of their song. It’s a bit more complex than a straightforward cover considering I altered it considerably. Unable to successfully contact them I would eventually shelve the project and began to work on originals again. Josh and I would team up throughout 2016-17 to work on an 8 track album called “Wine” which I would then release but I’ll save that story for another blog entry!
https://www.joshhartrecordings.com
Looking back at some of the photographs of the music video shoot brought back some memories. Seeing the old Cornwall bridge in the background of some of the shots. We even filmed a portion of the interior shots in a dance studio downtown Cornwall above a music store, not sure if it’s even still there anymore. It’s just a constant reminder that nothing in this life is permanent so appreciate what you have while it’s here folks!
I’m glad to be back in Cornwall again and I can’t wait to create more music and videos in this great little, tight knit community. I’m hoping to rent out a nice studio apartment at some point if anyone knows a place that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, and isn’t an insane amount of money per month.
That’s all for now…
James
Pictured: James Hardiment lip syncing to the song for the music video. Behind him is the old Cornwall bridge before it was torn down shortly afterwards.
Pictured: “Cornwall bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down…”🎶
Pictured: James Hardiment poses romantically with a rose in his hand at an old dance studio which was used for a portion of the music video shoot.