So Late, So Soon

by kelvin wetherell on January 4, 2026January 4, 2026

How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness, how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?

– Dr. Suess

Persistence Of Memory – Salvador Dali, 1931

It’s that time of year when our feeds and minds are full of ways in which we might improve ourselves. Usually rooted in feelings of lack, we use the new year as some kind of barbed yardstick to quantify all the ways we don’t measure up. If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that these feelings, the deeper ones, aren’t so easily tamed by taking up a hobby, losing weight, or any of the usual resolution suspects.

Earlier in the year, I found a book called When Things Fall Apart, written by Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun with a wonderful perspective. It both reminded me and helped me newly see that only when we’re okay with the parts of ourselves that we can’t stand to look at or acknowledge can we be okay with anything.

The past year was the most difficult I’ve experienced. It dawned with continued worsening of the chronic pain that’s plagued me for the last few years. In February, I released Stereophile, which felt amazing, but was followed by zero interest from the general public and shops that I tried to get the book and record into. Not helpful was the fact that, due to chronic fatigue and spiritual exhaustion, I wasn’t able to, or interested in, putting forth the relentless effort it takes to promote any creative work. I then found out that I’ve a heart condition that’s going to require surgery later this year. It sounds like a standard procedure, but nonetheless added another thing to the list of maladies. In the early spring, a romantic relationship came to an end, one in which the friendship and familial aspects, just as, if not more important to me than the romance itself, were subsequently decimated in the ending’s wake. Early summer saw some standard bloodwork flag the possibility of a rare form of cancer for which there is no cure. It took until December 1^st to get the final word. Turns out I don’t have cancer. Almost a half a year with that question hanging around. Egad. Add to all of this my role as solo householder and single parent to a beautiful, brilliant kid with a handful of her own challenges, and it’s fair to say there was enough cooking this year to leave a body wanting. There were many times I thought I might cave. I didn’t.

While the year was my hardest yet, it also offered great gifts. Revelatory is the word that comes to mind. Were it not for the intensity of the events I’ve listed, I wouldn’t have had the capacity to see where I stand. To own my behaviour and reactions. To begin befriending the parts made previously unbearable. In Chodron’s book, she talks about the importance of possessing unlimited friendliness toward ourselves. It sounds simple, but it’s dead elusive. We’re all so hard on ourselves. Our feelings of unworthiness eat us alive from within. They become the anger we inflict on others. The demons that drive us to addiction. They’re a departure from our innate humanity and basic self-worth. The work I put in this year has given me the ability to start seeing different possibilities. However tarnished by the hurt and suffering we endure, our hearts still shine. Whatever the depth of the darkness that surrounds, we’re still fundamentally okay. In the heat of the moment, clearly seeing what’s up is almost impossible at first. I’ve had recent experiences where I’ve been able to see where certain reactions are coming from, closer to the events themselves. This is usually after the reaction. With practice comes the ability to see it rise and catch it before it goes live.

Also present in 2025 were dear friendships. My appreciation for the support and understanding of a few close souls cannot be understated. Where nighttime reigned, there they were, reminding me of the dawn which was, always and inevitably, just round the bend. If you’re reading this, you know who you are. Thank you so much for always seeing me, and for your patience and love.

I’ve often berated myself for how far I have to go to be “whole.” The tandem filters of self-awareness and the things that hurt have a way of sending these messages. According to the Buddhist view, it’s all right here and available to us right now. With lots of life and twenty years of yoga under my belt, I understand that part. A life lesson revisited, from a perspective only experience can offer. I’m full of gratitude for seeing a bit more clearly. The ground needs constant, gentle cultivation.

If, from all I’ve said here, anyone is thinking that I’m breezing into the new year full of vim and vigor and ready to become instafamous for living my best life…I wish it were true (except for the nausea inducing instafamous for living my best life part). I came into the holiday season crawling across the finish line. The break has done nothing to improve my wellbeing. I’m currently on Herculean doses of meds, none of which are making my days pain free, but help enough to weather the day. I can feel my heart beating its odd time bebop rhythms in my chest and it’s dreadfully uncomfortable. My doc finally found a med that’s helping with the acute anxiety I started feeling partway through the year, which no amount of meditation could mitigate. It’s doing its job and then some. I wake up each morning feeling stunned psychologically and in dreadful pain from the chronic issues. My yoga mat (mindfully) mocks me from its dusty corner. I can’t remember the last time my body felt not only good enough, but average enough, to get through the day without deep discomfort. I list all of this, not for sympathy, but to illustrate how inspired I feel by the budding successes of Buddha-based technique I’ve had. If I can feel relaxed and okay with all of the crazy shit that’s going on, well, that’s an amazing thing to work toward.

So, here’s to us at the dawn of another calendar year. May we find more kindness for ourselves and each other. May childlike wonder and the wisdom of the ages be with us. May you and I continue to tread this chapter lightly, finding our way through the thick and thin of being, while the world rages on and time flies by.

As always, thanks for reading.

K. xo

Dark Horse

by kelvin wetherell on August 17, 2025August 20, 2025

Out of sorrow, entire worlds have been built
Out of longing, great wonders have been willed

– Nick Cave, Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair

-Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

With summer’s end approaching, the Khalil Gibran quote above is fitting. I’m rereading Gibran’s The Prophet, a well-worn standby. No one else comes close to putting divinity and unspeakable beauty into words. I’ve spent countless hours this summer barefoot in the grass at the local park. Much of that time has been spent singing for the people. Much of it has been spent writing & reading, and much of it spent starfished and gazing up at the sky and trees. These have been this summer’s meditation.

Each year, I always feel a sense of back to school energy. It’s a time of renewed focus and creativity. This has been a season of retreat, healing and (some) relaxation. Fall is a welcome one this year. I’m excited to be working on new music and keeping the Stereophile flames fanned. I’m writing today to share Dark Horse, one of the tracks from the record and book.

The oldest song on Stereophile, Dark Horse was written years ago, while house-sitting. The words and music started to come to me while sitting amongst piles of bird shit. Say what? It’s true. I was housesitting for a wonderfully eccentric, elderly neighbour, Nancy. She’d been an opera singer in Ireland in her youth. She married a U of T prof and they spent many happy years together before his passing. Nancy, in her later years, kept birds. Not wanting them to be stuck in a cage, she let them fly free about the house. They shat everywhere. She was happy to let sleeping turds lie. There was no shortage of crusty droppings lying here and there.

From these avian-based beginnings came Dark Horse. I’ve been working with depression all my life. At the time the song was written, I was particularly aware that a sensitive being, one prone to chemical imbalance, is also often one that’s very aware and insightful. While the lens we see life through can cause difficulty and be sometimes very messy and devastating (to us and those around us), it’s also something very special. It allows us to see and feel deeply. Nick Cave’s line in today’s first quote always hit me. Pain and longing, when brought forth, have willed great wonders.

Kelvin Wetherell · Dark Horse

Dear Subscribers: If you’re reading this via the email drop, the Soundcloud player doesn’t appear in your email. Click here to listen to the song: Dark Horse

As the years went by and Dark Horse stuck around, it began to take on new meaning. I’m close to someone with a number of different neurodiversities. I see a great awareness, insight and creativity in them. These traits are not limited to those of us who have experienced depression. So many of us with cognitive and emotional challenges look to art to allow us to process. To come back. Our sensitive natures often result in us feeling diminished by the heaviness of the world. Not just its obvious atrocities, but the ever growing isolation we’re feeling, and the general direction of disregard in which the speed of life is taking us. I’ve recently read, in don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements, that we’re all, as he puts it, living in hell. This hell is based on all the societal and familial agreements we’ve made with ourselves, those that beat the wild bits out of us, with an aim at domestication and burying our true nature. I don’t disagree. We’re in the throes of global human tribulation. Our masks are suffocating us and very few among us have found the means to shed our personas and all that we’ve learned, to go with an open, authentic heart.

The chorus lyrics in Dark Horse:

Don’t you know you’re not alone
I want you to know you’re not alone

While I’ve always been happy with the song’s verses, the chorus lines are crucial to keep in our hearts and minds. When we’re down in the dark hole of anxiety/depression/ADHD/OCD/basic human sadness, etc., and it feels like there’s no way out, they’re a reminder that we are not the first or the last to feel this way. Reconnection is always available, if we can find the wherewithal to drop our false notion of feeling like a burden and reach out. These words have for me more recently been a much needed reminder of our interconnectedness. We are not alone. Each of us is made of the same light, separated at birth and finding our way through this strange and beautiful place, so often feeling solo, when we are anything but.

Interestingly, for all the years Dark Horse has been around, I’ve never until now recorded it and have never performed it live. I’d like to record a simple live video version of it here at home. Maybe in the fall. It’ll land in the live set at some point. This year has been quiet on the gig front and, for the first time in decades, I’m happy and comfortable saying that. That said, I’m feeling a bit itchy. We’ll see what autumn brings.

May we all find our way back home. Back to ourselves and each other, and the love that waits patiently, with open arms, for our return.

As always, thanks for reading. Enjoy the track…

K.xo

Stereophile Goes Live!

by kelvin wetherell on February 22, 2025February 22, 2025

Hi Friends. Hope you’re all well and warm. At long last, Stereophile is done!!! Please have a listen to the audio below. Also on this page are the credits and story that unfolded while making the record and book. Buy links are below the player. Hope ya dig…

Purchase your copy via PayPal or eTransfer me at kdub@kelvinwetherell.com
It’s $20 for your digital download of the record and physical copy of the book
Canadian residents buying in person (at shows, etc.) please add $2.60 for tax. Total $22.60.
Online purchases are $1.75 to ship anywhere in Canada. Total w/tax and shipping $24.60.
Global shipping fees to be determined according to distance and packaging requirements
Once you’ve placed your order, please email us, along with your address, at kdub@kelvinwetherell.com and we’ll send you your copy of the book. A download link to the record will be sent to your email address.

If you live in Toronto, I might be able to hand deliver the book and give you a hug. It depends on where you live, or if you like hugs.

Thanks so much for your support!

Credits
Kelvin Wetherell – Vox, Acoustic Guitar, Les Paul, Bass, Piano, Organ, Drums, Percussion, String/Vocal Arrangements
Howard Ayee – Bass on Grip The Raven and Dark Horse
Kaleb Hikele – Piano on Kinder Things

Produced, Recorded and Mixed by Kelvin Wetherell
Acoustic Guitars recorded by Kaleb Hikele at The Townhouse
Mastered by Howard Ayee

All Songs Written, Composed and Arranged by Kelvin Wetherell Copyright 2025

The Stereophile Story
On an unseasonably cold and grey day at the end of April, 2022, I pulled round the last corner of an east end townhouse complex, checking each address and looking for the mailbox with the music stickers plastered all over it. After successful location, with acoustic guitar in hand, I knocked. Greeted by friend/studio owner (and fabulous singer/songwriter!) Kaleb Hikele, we navigated the barking of his dear doggo, Bear, and headed down to the basement to get to work. The idea was to record five of my songs with just my acoustic. I didn’t know at the time what the heck I was going to do with them. There was certainly no idea that they’d become part of an eight song, full length record and book. Over two days we succeeded in tracking five songs. I was down with most of what I played, then, in the true fashion of (usually unneeded) songster angst, I thought everything was shite. I needed a break from what I’d tracked.

Enter the studio upgrades. I’d just been turned on to the world of plug ins (digital instruments, recording hardware, etc.). I’d been recording at home for years. My beater of a laptop, eight years old at the time, therefore prehistoric in terms of technology, couldn’t handle the new oomph I was throwing at it. I’d recently reconnected with my old mate, Howard Ayee, who’d produced on of my records back in 2009. It was great to reconnect with him. He’s responsible for my new plug-in-fanboy-geek-out status. He was forever dangling the many new carrots that make modern recording truly awesome. I bought everything he sent me. I also bought a new laptop, which, after six months of agony trying to figure out why it wasn’t recording properly, made me so irate that I shelved the recording for months and spent the summer barefoot and busking at Jimmie Simpson Park here in Toronto. I returned the craptop and swapped it out for a new one. I got it set up and was off again…

I spent 2023 recording in bits, whenever energy or will permitted. Some of my peeps reading this are already aware of my chronic struggles. I’ve been living the effects of a botched hip surgery and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in early 2023. At the end of that summer, I tore the medial meniscus in my knee and could hardly walk. My personal stars were not aligned and it felt like the universe was giving me the boots over and over. Still, we persist. I kept going, working my day gig and being a present, single Dad and solo householder. I kept up with my live playing and preparation, always wanting to keep my pickin’ and singin’ chops in shape, or “match fit”, as Jimmy Page calls it. 2023 was a great year for gigs. I played a bunch of out of town stuff and made some great friends. I was not much concerned that the progress of the record was not swiftly moving. In November, I decided to start creating the book that would accompany the record.

The written part of Stereophile, affectionately known as Booky, is a collection of lyrics and images that my daughter, Ava, and I created. The first drafts were created in a free, Word-light type program. My old friend, Alexis Campbell, recommended moving the creation of the book over to InDesign. I did so. She also let me use her Adobe suite, without which I couldn’t have made the book. I then spent many days wanting to fire my laptop through the sliding glass doors that lead out to our back garden. Anyone who’s used Adobe in the past can attest to how frustrating their proprietary, weird-ass way of doing things can be. Still, we persist. No laptops were harmed in the making of the book or record. Bit by bit, I was making progress. Through days of pain sometimes so severe I couldn’t think straight, the record and book were happening!

Sleep, eat, parent, work, parent, record, rehearse, repeat. So it went for the next year. The sonic elements of the record were the easy part. I’ve made many records and written many songs. Writing and designing the book were new, as was working with the plugins. These were steep learning curves, happening while I was in full creative singer/songwriter/arranger/producer mode. I loved building the colours around the acoustic spines of the tracks. I worked extensively with strings and choral vocal arrangements, as well as digging in and creating unique sounds out of whatever was available to me, digitally and otherwise. The parts came fluidly. If an idea wasn’t cooking, it was scrapped. I didn’t wrestle with stuff not working. Usually, the parts sang themselves in my head. It was a matter of extracting them and finding the right sound, the one that fit with the track.

Also new to me was mixing a full length record. I’d released a few singles during the pandemic years and beyond. Mixing a full record is a different beast. Another learning curve. I mixed as I went. There was little to do when the tracking was done. I tweaked a few of the acoustic guitars and made some small changes. It was then time to master.

With Howard on board to master the record, we set to work finding the right chain of gear to put the final stitches into the Frankenstein. It was a looooooooooooooooooooong process. I’d always left mastering to others. I was fully involved this time. It meant going back to the songs and massaging the vocals deeper into the sonic landscape of the arrangements. I also had to tweak some of the levels on the instruments to sit better in the tracks. We wrapped the mastering and the end result is a beautiful sounding record. When I was able to take myself out of the recording and listen as just listener and not creator, I was touched. It felt like the singer was in the room with me. The sonic wormhole surrounding the vocals were what I had first envisioned. That coming to pass was a feather in my cap. While mastering, I was working concurrently on finishing the book and getting it printed.

The design of the book was going amazingly. I added a dedication, table of contents, afterword, all the things to make it feel like a proper book. The printing then became an epic situation, due to a ghost in the machine. The first run of books did not look like the proof I signed off on. Something happened in cyberspace that made one of the images look wacky. This required another few weeks of back and forth with printer and Alexis, figuring out what the issue was. It was mad. Finally, out of the murky mist, the final proof was good and off to print we went. I received the first run of books in the middle of February of 2025, which is the same month I’m writing this. With the book and record done, here I am, getting it set up for all of you to read and hear.

The creation of the book was important to me. As I mention in the afterword, I wanted you to have something to hold. Something tactile and real, to compliment and help heal the disconnect of all our modern digital trappings. As a kid I used to love pouring over an album’s liner notes, reading all the details about what went into making it; the names of the band members, the lyrics, the artwork, where it was recorded, and the little tidbits of random info that made you feel like you were on the inside of something.

So, here we are. A new record that I never thought I’d make. My first book, the first of many, I hope. Against the odds, with the help and support of dear family and friends, these creations happened. In hindsight I’m aware of the Herculean effort that went into completing this phase of my artistic life. There were days I wanted to die, not because of any garden variety artistic crisis, but because living with intense chronic pain, along with prolonged use of pharmaceutical painkillers, have a way of taking their toll on a body and being. It’s hard to stay ahead of the black dogs of depression when sitting still hurts. Still, we persist. I made it. It was no small feat. The record and book are beautiful. I hope the songs on the record hit you. Here’s to creativity and connection.

K. xo

That Feel

by kelvin wetherell on November 9, 2024November 10, 2024

“There’s one thing you can’t lose and it’s that feel
You can pawn your watch and chain but not that feel
It always comes and finds you, it will always hear you cry
I cross my wooden leg and I swear on my glass eye
It will never leave you high and dry”

– Tom Waits, That Feel

It’s been a minute. I usually attempt to pen these bits every other Saturday, when my daughter, Ava, is at her Mum’s. I sit down at the local, fresh cup of mud in hand, and try and make some sense of certain thoughts and feelings that have been rambling through my mind.

This week has been a very intense go. My day gig responsibilities are at peak requirement, to the point where I’m waking up at night going over the task list. This is never a good sign of work/life balance. The music is going well, though that’s generally an all consuming state. I’m okay with that, but having one foot in it and the other in the land of Responsible Adulting is a tricky dance. If you’ve read any of my other blogs, you’ll know that this is a recurring theme. Apart from all this, there’s the darkness of winter coming on. And, of course, there’s that thing that happened this week down south that I’m trying desperately hard to keep ahead of. Ahead in the sense of not falling prey to the vitriol, hatred and division that’s coming in from all sides.

There’s that sense of We and Them that never sits well with me, where we feel compelled to pick sides and point fingers at the “other”. I struggle with this myself: On one hand I’m down with following the Yogic/Buddhist approach of our interconnectedness, where we recognize that there’s a President Elect lurking somewhere in all of us, and we do what we can to be kind and open to all beings. Christ was on to something when he said “Forgive them Lord, they know not what they do.” We all have blind spots, where we are out of personal and universal alignment. On the other hand, I sometimes feel like all manner of retaliation, from slaps to armed revolution are appropriate steps to deal with those I share a foundational disagreement with. The fatalist in me feels that a global cataclysm, like the space rock that wiped out the dinos, is the only thing that will save us from ourselves.

The darkness that turning the clocks back ushers in each fall this year feels metaphoric for the spiritual darkness that’s fallen deeply upon us in the wake of the US election. These post covid years have already been dark. We’re missing so much, now more than ever. Social media, the rising cost of living, corporate piggery run amok, greed, stupidity, ego, mental illness, all of these and more layering our days, robbing us of our ability to see our commonality.

Not lost on me is the election falling on Guy Fawkes Day, the British celebration of the thwarted Gunpowder Plot, which, in 1605, was an attempt to blow up the Houses Of Parliament. That said, Fawkes & Co.’s impetus for the plot was to gain more tolerance for Catholics. I see election falling on November 5 not as religious, but symbolic of how satisfying it would be to blow up the current political model. To establish anew a system where one didn’t have to cast a ballot for which crass, double-talking greaseball will do the least damage.

We need to remind ourselves how Adolph Hitler was able to take the reigns in Germany in the 1930s. It was by the lack of awareness and inability for the commoners to inform themselves and not see past the poison they were being fed. Some may find me comparing Hitler to our current leaders off. With the current state of the world, I’d urge those with misgivings to look deeper. If things feel like they’re getting shittier, there’s a reason for that. It’s okay to be very fucking angry right now with the attitude that’s coming from America, and also with what politicians and the corporate model are doing to our own country.

After the election this week, myself and some friends, other creatives, talked about the outcome. The consensus was mutual: to go deeper into our respective modes and continue to create beautiful things. To continue live in that place where we are truly free, if only for those moments between our adult responsibilities. To bring Light & Love to the world, through art. To continue to foster the feel that Old Tom Frost refers to in the lyrics above.

It’s hard to keep loving and see the light, when around us is so much horror and disregard. May we continue to fight the good fight, without and within. May we learn to see ourselves in the basest actions of others, and for our basest inclinations to wither, in the spirit of connection, goodness and unity. May we harness our rage and use it to foster the highest in us all.

Lastly, and awesomely, Stereophile will be finished this week! I’m sending one final mix tweak to Howard today, and the accompanying book of lyrics and images goes to print early in the week. It sounds and looks grand. It’s very beautiful. I can’t wait for you to hear the finished work. I’m planning the official release for the new year, but you’ll all get dibs on the first listen. I’ll keep ya posted.

As always, thanks for being there.

K. xo

NYC

by kelvin wetherell on August 19, 2024August 19, 2024

“I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps…”

– Sinatra

“Now you’re in New York/These streets will make you feel brand new/Big lights will inspire you”

– Alicia Keys/Jay Z, Empire State Of Mind

“When you first took my hand on that cold Christmas Eve/You promised me Broadway was waiting for me”

– Shane MacGowan/Kirsty MacColl, Fairytale Of New York

“When you leave New York, you are astonished at how clean the rest of the world is. Clean is not enough.”

– Fran Lebowitz, Metropolitan Life (1978)

“I’m walkin’ here!!”

– Al Pacino, Midnight Cowboy

It’s been a minute. I’ve been missing the regularity of writing for you (and for me!) while the irregularities of the summer schedule play out. One of those irregularities was a very much welcome one; Ava and I recently took a four day whirlwind trip to New York City. It was Ava’s first time on a plane and, for both of us, our first time in New York. We got back a week ago and I’m still processing. I think I will be for a long time.

Anyone who’s been to New York might well attest to its immediate effect. We took an Uber from Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey, across the bridge into New York. Total gridlock at 1pm. The traffic and our hunger after travelling couldn’t quell the excitement. We landed at our AirBnb in Harlem and dropped off our bags. Our host had left us snacks, which we made short work of, so we could get outside and start exploring. We were three blocks east of Central Park. Our first afternoon and evening was spent exploring the immediate area and finding a bodega to buy breakfast supplies at. So to sleep…

I’m writing this morning, not to give you a total play by play of the trip. I think that would be a ponderous exercise. I’m writing because I need to get the experience out of my head and onto the page. Since getting home, I’ve been met with intense flashbacks of our experiences, to say nothing of the level of havoc the amount of walking we did wreaked on my chronic pain issues. I could’ve posted a bunch more quotes to lead off today’s writing. The ones above all directly apply. I always assumed that Frank Sinatra and writer Paul Anka were talking about living the high, showbiz life when they talked about the city that never sleeps. I’ve always pictured Broadway and the eyesore that is Times Square when hearing this line. It was also true in our little neighbourhood; there was noise all night long: trucks, people, voices…constant vibration.

I’ve not travelled much. When I have, it’s never been in the tourist spirit. I prefer to take enough time to feel what life there is like. Well, what life is like from the perspective of someone curious beyond tourism, but nonetheless on vacation. I won’t pretend to know what living anywhere is like without experiencing all the usual suspects of adulting. I’m a helpless romantic, but even my romance has limitations. Life is hard. The cost of living is real. I will say that my attraction and connection to New York City were immediate.

On the morning of our second day, Ava and I took the tube south to the Brooklyn Bridge stop. Leaving the station, we were met with the bridge itself, on a misty, rainy summer morning, disappearing in a vanishing point across the Hudson River. My breath caught. Shivers. It only got deeper and sweeter from there. We wandered everywhere. One World Trade still has a gravity to it. There we stood, in a place where, all those years ago, the stupidity of mankind resulted in a staggering loss of life. I recently read a quote that said something about not finding anything typical of America in New York. This was true for me. I’ve longed held the way by which America is run, and attitudes typical of that ignorance and self-proclaimed superiority, in deep contempt. The line between the people and it’s financial/political/military rule must be drawn. Everyone we met in New York was amazing (except the security guards at the Chrysler Building, who had too much time on their hands and not enough to vent their testosterone on).

All the tube station names are done in this beautiful mosaic tile.

Since our return, some folks have asked what the highlight was. It’s almost impossible to pick one, but if I had to, it would be the revelation we received in the graveyard of The Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. The Basilica is an old church with catacombs beneath. Ava and I went in to ask what the tour was all about. Their 11:45 tour group didn’t show. We ended up having a private, guided tour of the church by a chap called Lee, who’d grown up in the area. He has a vast knowledge of local history. Martin Scorsese grew up in the neighbourhood, went to school across the road and was an altar boy at the church. The real life events from his film, The Gangs Of New York, took place where we were standing. The wall surrounding the church was put up explicitly to keep the church form being damaged by the warring religious factions. Ava and I are fond of graveyards and cemeteries, so this stop and our walk through St. Paul’s graveyard earlier in the day were high points, with their sacred sense of history and the Divine. We saw gravestones dating back to the 1700s. I still haven’t mentioned the highlight. While in the graveyard, Lee gestured to a building adjacent to it. It was an old brick buidling with a modern, grey addition added to the roof. Lee pointed out the terrace visible from where we stood. It was David Bowie’s condo from the time he bought it in 1999, up until the time of his death in 2016. Ava and I got all wide-eyed when he told us this. I have more shivers in the retelling. I pictured Davey coming out on to the terrace of a morning, coffee in hand and looking out across the big city. I saw him leaving the building to head to the studio to cut Blackstar, his last record and brilliant epitaph. I saw him in his final days, after the well-recorded courage with which he navigated his disease. This last image is the hardest, for obvious reasons. Oof.

The wall at the Old Basilica, where the Gangs of New York held court.

The other highlight for me happened unexpectedly, on our way to the subway to begin our journey back to Toronto. We started the day at a cafe near the AirBnb, I didn’t get the name of it. Coffee and pain au chocolat were excellent, as was our host. The scary part was paying for our stuff and needing the bathroom, only to find it occupied by some dude who was taking his time, if you know what I mean. After a few days of restaurant food my bowels were, aherm, compromised. I began to sweat, literally, but willpower trumped biological need, as I felt strongly that shitting my pants on our last day in New York City would be poor form. To be clear, not shitting my pants was not the highlight. Read on…

I was about to fork over about $175 CAD for the Uber back to Newark. There was a chap on the back patio of the cafe, with his babe sleeping in the stroller beside him. He was clearly a regular, as the owner came out to chat with him. I told them we were on our way back to T.O. and asked if they knew about flat rates with the NYC Yellow Cab Co. They didn’t, but it turned out that the young Dad, called Ajay, grew up in Scarborough. He told us how to get to the New Jersey trains down at Penn Station, which went directly to Newark Liberty. This info saved us a ton of money. It meant more legwork, but, even though the crush to get on the Jersey trains at Penn Station is intense and overwhelming, it was worth it. Reason being is that we had to walk across the top of Central Park to get the right line going south. On the walk, which happened to coincide with a car free Saturday morning in the area, not dissimilar to Pedestrian Sundays in Toronto’s Kensington Market, we came across Malcolm X Boulevard. This was unexpected. Ava was curious as to why I wanted a pic, as she and I have never discussed Malcolm’s legacy. Malcolm is a hero of mine. I read his autobiography in my twenties and it was hugely inspirational. That someone could emerge from where he started, as a criminal in the streets of Chicago, to where he ended up, is something. After his trip to Mecca, in the face of being blacklisted by the Nation Of Islam and subsequently assassinated by members of the same, he returned to America with the realization that there was hope for black and white to coexist. Mecca was the only place where he’d experienced being treated with love and equality by human beings with blue eyes and blond hair. His was a life of evolution and great courage. I feel glad in my heart that this was my final experience of New York.

The view from Central Park, looking east.

When we landed at Billy Bishop in Toronto and got in the Uber to head home, the first thing I noticed is how clean our city is. I was chuffed to come across Fran Lebowitz’s quote. It’s really true. I’m happy that my city is not filthy, but clean is not enough. There’s something about every aspect of New York City that gives it its depth. It’s magnetic. The city is magnetic. My most excellent travelling companion and I plan to return as soon as we can. We saw so little while we were there. What little we did see left indelible marks on our hearts and spirits. I see us being there together again. I see me playing shows there. I see more of New York in our lives.

Thanks so much for reading. I realize this is a longer entry and it’s not linear. It’s representative of the way the images and feelings of the trip continue to hit me, at random, inducing a fluttering of the heart and a wistful feeling for a city so new to me, yet so familiar. New York City had always been something that was almost a fictional point of reference. Some place I saw on a map and in movies, music and culture. Now it’s in me. So many cultural dots were connected on this trip. My world is a little bit smaller for the experience. There’s so much more to say, but I’ll leave it here for now. Maybe the rest will appear in song at some point…

K. xo

The Silent Accord

by kelvin wetherell on April 27, 2024April 28, 2024

The Silent Accord

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”

– Jiddu Krishnamurti

Sitting here in the window at the local. It’s a rainy Saturday morning. The studio is whispering to me from a few blocks away. Urging me in. Urging me on. I’m in a weeks long cycle of pain, illness and procrastination. I am one guitar track and one vocal track away from finishing Stereophile, my new record. I am mustering the courage, the heart, to lay them down. To breathe it all out and elevate out of this hard place. I’m aware that, while I moan about the delays, I’m afraid to finish. Afraid to release this work into the world, these bits of soul made digital, and see it mostly ignored, if my previous work is any measure. I’m at once hopeful, while feeling the cold whisper of the voice of ridicule and shame trickling down the back of my neck.

I drink my coffee and watch the people go by. I think of a better world. One where we are not so pressed and dented. Where art is not reduced to content. Where the substance of our silent accord is lived, rather than its loss bemoaned as a symptom of modern life. A place free of our Post Pandemic Disconnection, the cortisol coming in waves as we panic for breath, for a short reprieve.

I think I may be in the wrong lane. It may be time to hang up my modest public presence in the world and beat a retreat. I’m sick of the spiritual shithole we’ve made of this place, with all its potential for greatness and kindness. I’m tired of the helpless, hateful rage I feel towards our politicians, and the corporate world, who continue to refuse accountability for the widespread damage born of their relentless pursuit to hoard and boast. These for whom money has replaced the hardwired neanderthal idiot male need to compete and dominate. The depth of this greed is an uncommon stupidity in this day and age. For those of you feeling like this is a finger wag, make no mistake, I see myself in these people. I see all of us in each other and everything else. We all have the potential to shine or shit the bed.

Coffee is almost done. Time to head over to the studio and get embryonic, while my heart longs for more real time connection, to be among a group of souls. Maybe that’s what’s missing. Maybe, instead of retreat, I need to get out more. For me, and everyone I know, having the energy and making time for something as simple as seeing a friend has, due to the relentless hustle to make ends meet, become elusive.

We are fragmented. The societal machine we continue to allow to run is sickly and wrong. The silent accord I mentioned earlier is the feeling we all get, in the quiet moments, where Love comes in and fills us with its amber glow. That light is in all of us. It is the eternal, fixed point, like lights along the landing strip at night’s most impenetrable hour.

I’ve been sitting here for a while now, thinking about a succinct way to wrap this one up, but I can’t find one. This is an ongoing trip. One without end. We are Divine Misfits made flesh and bone, each with our own story, each flawed and returning, missing home and looking for the runway lights…

K. xo

The Hemingway

by kelvin wetherell on April 13, 2024April 15, 2024

They’d all died, but just for a bit. One of them, a doctor, had gone over a waterfall in her kayak and was submerged and lifeless for a half an hour. She recovered and carried on with no cognitive impairment. There were others. Their details were different, but they all flatlined. I learned their stories recently in a Netflix doc.

They all felt profound bliss. They all had the same look in their eyes; a shine that those of us who haven’t died and come back are missing. There’s a knowing in that look. These people experienced a fleeting insight into the big question: What happens when we die? In most cases, these people were met on the other side by a loved one or guide who told them their work wasn’t done and that they had to go back. Imagine feeling that freedom and having to come back to our Right-Side-Left-Side-9-to-5-Cancel-Culture-Social-Media-Fame-Whore-Post-Pandemic-Great-Big-Mess-Of-A-World after having had a glimpse into the union we yearn for all our days.

Recently, a friend posted a memory about the anniversary of a friend’s suicide. It got me thinking about the folks in the doc who had died and come back. In each case, their temporary deaths were the result of an accident or ailment. What happens to a suicide? If we die by our own hands, do we get bliss? Or do we cross over somewhere further down the river, where the sky is darker and the general feeling bleak rather than blissful?

While all this was going on, I was revisiting a song I wrote a few years ago. It’s called The Hemingway, so named after Ernest and family, who were no strangers to despair, addiction and murder of the self. While writing it, I kept in mind the story of Kevin Hines. In the throes of delusion and illness, Kevin launched himself off the Golden Gate Bridge in an attempt to end his life. As soon as he was airborne, he felt one overwhelming emotion: Regret. He instantly wished he’d not done it. By the time he hit the water, he was falling at 75 miles per hour. 240 feet down in four seconds. He broke a bunch of bones, but he survived. He now travels the world to share his story, to help others through their dark nights, inspiring many to seek the psychological support they need, in a global society that still harbours a dim and emotionally unintelligent view of mental illness.

The Hemingway is a place that I imagine we end up, filled with the same regret Kevin Hines felt. How many of us have committed suicide and felt the same regret after arriving on the other side? It must be a terrible destination. A terrible way to spend one’s time. The song is also a reminder to me in my own struggle with depression, anxiety, trauma and daily, intense chronic pain. That, even when I feel like everything is going to shit and it’s all hopeless and wretched, and I want nothing more than the hurt to stop, I’m likely to end up spending eternity wandering The Hemingway’s lonesome halls. A fate that, unlike our earthly troubles, which rise and fall over time, might be forever.

The lyrics to The Hemingway are below. I hope they in some way help or inspire. You’re not alone. You’re cared for more than you know. Reach out. Call a friend. Call a crisis line. Drop me a line. We’re all in this together and we need to take care of each other.

Love,

K. xo

Resources
Suicide Prevention Canada – Call 988
Distress Centres of Greater Toronto – 416.408.4357 (GTA) / 905.459.7777 (Peel)
Canadian Association For Suicide Prevention (contact resources at link) – https://suicideprevention.ca/im-having-thoughts-of-suicide/

Whew…

by kelvin wetherell on April 4, 2024April 4, 2024

“Have we been so brainwashed by capitalism that you have to be busy to be worth something?”

The above quote is from an article I read in the Guardian this morning about millennial women pursuing the “soft life”, so named for a generational movement towards not working your ass off for so little in return. Millennials get shit on all the time for being lazy and of no account. In this case, the lifestyle pursuit is one I can get behind.

My music has made little money over the years. I’ve always had a day gig to make ends meet. The forty hour work week is something I only did for a short time. I found a way, while employed in food service, to survive on a four hour work day, to keep the creative and utilitarian plates spinning. I spent all my free time developing my craft, while learning to carry out all the other aspects the modern singer/songwriter is required to be good at.

I was never one to pursue a career in any area other than the arts or to have “something to fall back on”. I knew what I was getting into. The risk. The odds. The potential to be crushed under the weight of one’s dream not coming true. Still, I went for it. Over the years my music got better, I learned more about everything, my writing deepened, as should any writing, with the experience of life and years gained.

Seven years ago, my marriage ended. We lived together for three years after that, due to the cost of living in Toronto being so high. I became a single Dad and solo householder in the midst of the pandemic. All of the above, coupled with an empathy and sensitivity to the forces at work in this world started to take their toll. I then underwent a botched surgery for a labral tear in my hip that resulted in graver pain than the issue itself caused. This has become a chronic condition where each day is met with serious pain. All this said, I still wake each morning with art in my heart, mustering the energy to put forth sound. To, hopefully, bring a bit more light into our often dark and disconnected world.

I tell you the above, not to fish for sympathy, but to illustrate the reasons by which I came to feel supportive of these women saying fuck that to being on the endless, thankless wheel of shit that is the current societal system. The nose-to-the-grindstone approach of the generations of old no longer works. It’s not news that our politicians and corporations don’t give a fuck about us. The divide grows. The middle class is disappearing. Hard work is good for us, but there are no guarantees or securities as a result of it.

I’ve done the sixty hour work weeks, with the day gig and music hours combined. It hasn’t resulted in the success I’d planned on. I’m not the only would be rock star who’s reframed the original dream for humbler aspirations. I know there are many out there who didn’t put forth the effort, mostly due to fear of failure, but I also know many who, like me, have done their time in the arena, taking the hits and savouring the shining victories. We’ve put our 10,000 hours in. We’ve faced the anxious quiver of soul-become-art, released into the world with bated breath.

It’s all exhausting. It is for me, anyway, and clearly some others. How many of us are just knuckling down, unhappy every day, telling the people we meet along the way that we’re fine, when we’re so far from it? Our real time connections wane. Bullshit AI is on the rise, with cowards and fools using it to create fake plastic “art” that sullies the genuine, beautiful things that take time, soul, love and struggle to bring into being.

We could all use a softer life. I’m not sure how to get there. We’re most of us working at maximum capacity and still feel the waterline rising, as though any grace or space we might offer ourselves means compromising cash flow or conditioned definitions of self-worth. We need to keep working hard, though in areas that will result in greater peace and fulfillment of that which we are called to.

I write all this down today to stave off the extended gaze over the edge. To find solace in the process and getting it out of my head and onto the page. And to communicate it to you, to hopefully find common ground between us. We’re missing so much, while we run so fast and hard to stay ahead and above the undertow.

Damn, I’m tired. Here’s to more Love, Light and Ease in our lives.

K. xo