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Fame and stuff like that is all very cool, but at the end of the day, we’re all human beings. Although what I do is incredibly surreal and fun and amazing and I’m really grateful for it, I don’t believe my own press release, do you know what I mean?

– Tom Hardy


I’m just getting settled as a responsible man – but if you split the elephant into little mouthfuls it will be fine.

– also Tom Hardy

Last night, I watched I’m Tim, a Netflix doc about Tim Bergling, aka Avicii, the unfortunately late EDM superstar. I didn’t know much about him, only that he was globally known and that he’d committed suicide a few years ago. The story is achingly typical: a sensitive, high-anxiety kid who found himself through making music. Fame struck. Tim turned to drugs and booze to maintain. At some point, he’d had enough and stepped away. Also achingly typical is that, while to all around him, he was in a better place, he took his life while on a solo vacation to Oman. A bright-eyed kid, destroyed by fame. In the doc, there are voiceovers by Tim while he was alive. He says “Making music was much better before I was famous…”

With the vapour trails of that floating through my head, I woke this morning and checked out a piece about the bluesman Skip James. In the 1930s, Paramount Records paid him $40 to record a body of his work. The Depression hit and Skip disappeared into obscurity. During the blues resurrection in the 1960s, a young John Fahey (one of my guitar influences) and two pals scoured Mississippi in search of Skip. They found him, with terminal cancer, and brought him back into the limelight. Before the disease finally got him in 1969, he gigged for three years, appreciated, beloved and respected for his talent, songwriting and what he brought to the blues. Who knows what might have happened in the thirty odd years between the recordings and resurrection? Maybe three years was enough to not have the life sucked out of him by fame.

I’m no stranger to craving fame. My younger desires firmly embedded that craving when I first started down the musical road. Along the way, I unconsciously wove the need for fame into the validation that we all seek, on both human and artistic levels. It’s something I’m not as haunted by now. I’m more comfortable in my own skin. I still find myself moaning internally (sometimes externally) about working a day gig and not being able to make music full time. This, too, has become better with time. I’ve engineered my life to maximize my creative time, and time with family, while working a day gig that brings in a suitable income, with people I care about. With all this in mind, a friend a few days ago sent me a clip about Philip Glass, the American minimalist composer. Even after achieving success, he kept his day gig as a plumber and a cabbie. The clip goes on to say that, if you’ve got a day gig, congrats, you can finance your music and stay independent. It was a reminder of what an amazing place I’m in.

The kid was away at camp last week and I missed her a lot. I took advantage of the time and worked in the studio on guitar parts for the new recordings. It took a lot out of me. I started a week ago Sunday and worked every day through to tonight (Monday, Feb 2). I was a bit spent as this past weekend dawned, but found the chutzpah to keep on keepin’ on. Apart from the creative juice expended, my feet went weird. We live in a sub basement. The floors are very cold in the winter and the studio nook, at the front of ours, is the coldest part of the unit. I have to kill the HVAC when I’m recording anything with live mics. It was dreadfully cold. I ended up with chilblains across my left toes. If you haven’t heard of them, they’re a nasty business. Abrasions on the skin due to prolonged exposure to cold. This while wearing thick socks and slides. I felt most of the time like I was recording in a walk in cooler. That is, when I thought about how cold it was. Mostly I was just there, digging the wood and wire and the toasty sounds coming out of my amp.

The recordings are going smashingly well. This time round feels different than all the rest. A close pal, who often gets to hear the dailies of the new tracks, said there’s a levity to these songs that wasn’t there before. I feel that. Life is still not without its struggles. It never will be, but the music is good right now. That means a lot. It’s my meditation and place of stillness while we navigate these barbarically insane times.

I hope, when the new record comes out next year, that it reaches far and wide and, at the same time, that I remain mostly anonymous. It seems like the worst time in history to be a famous person. Here’s to success under the radar. Maybe I’ll start looking into getting my plumber’s certification…

K. xo

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For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream

– Vincent Van Gogh

Let all the children boogie

– David Bowie, Starman

Saturday, October 4/2025. How did that happen? Here we are, rising to meet darker mornings and lighting the candles sooner in the evening. Or, in my case, the candles and the blue Christmas lights that I hung for the season around our mantle at home when we moved in to ours five years ago. They never got packed with the rest of the holiday swag. They were too cozy and amazing to not have all year round.

Today’s pic was created by my dear kid. She had a pal over a few weeks ago. I was pickin’ and singing’ while they were drawing and making slime. I guess she caught the music vibe and this was the result. I love how I look like a young goth boy and that I have no feet, floating along like a ghost. The goatee is on point and the Bowie tee is the coup de grace. Funny thing is this was how I looked in my twenties. The kid nailed it. I guess, apart from the black hair and eyeliner, not much has changed.

The new recordings are well underway. Vocals and acoustic guitar. The bare bones of five new tracks prepped and ready for an as yet unbooked drum session in the wilds of Belfountain, Ontario. I have some string and organ parts fleshed out for these ones. There are five more songs in the queue for acoustic guitar and vox bits. Ten songs feels like a bit much, but I can’t decide who won’t make the final cut. Well, there are about twenty-five hanging about. These ten feel like the strongest, culled from songs old and new. Some of the older numbers don’t feel lyrically congruent with the immediate current. The first four tunes came easily in the studio. Number five flipped me the bird. It’s one of the simplest guitar bits, but the one with the most grace and black space between the notes. These almost always require a different touch. For the audio nerds, I also went down a preamp rabbit hole, working on the vox and acoustic guitar chain, all the while working on getting the part recorded. It’s all moving forward nicely, with no shortage of madness and that feeling of absolute connection that keeps me returning to the music well.

Stereophile continues its journey. I’m working on getting the book into a local bookstore on consignment. An old friend of my brother’s contacted me through my YouTube channel, after listening to the record. He described it as dystopian. That concerned me and made me feel like I got it right. The lyrics are full of our potential for great love in a landscape that’s not thriving. I’m learning to live with these and all the pairs of opposites. The conflicting internal elements that are part of my everyday experience. Of feeling okay with not feeling okay, in a world where it so often makes sense to not feel okay.

I recently saw an FB post about Laurens van der Post, a South African educator, writer, philosopher and conservationist. He’d spent time in the desert with the Kalahari people. One night they asked him if he could hear the stars. When he said he couldn’t, they thought he was joking or having them on. Upon realizing he was serious, they were sad. They knew that someone who couldn’t hear nature must have the greatest sickness. This really hit me. We gaze at the stars, but have any of us caught up in this western living ever heard them? I remember sitting on the steps of our old place on summer nights. It was on a hill in a quiet neighbourhood. I could hear the garden growing. It made sounds. It was one of the most beautiful and stilling things I’ve ever experienced. We now live on a main street in Leslieville. There’s no more of that. In fact, last night while trying to track the acoustic guitar parts mentioned above, the traffic bustling by only a few from the front door made recording a terrible pain in the ass. I’m aware it was late rush hour on a Friday, but there it is. When she calls we have to answer.

Anyhoo, back to the stars. Imagine that. Imagine hearing them. I don’t often enough extol to good stuff modern life offers. There’s a lot to wonder at. I do riff quite a bit on how much we’re losing to modernity. Not hearing the stars is another reminder. It also reminds me that we’re connected to these brilliant lights in the sky. We’re made of the same love. While we reach and listen for the starsong on high, may we hear the same murmurations inside.

Let all the children boogie…

K. xo

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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

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“The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.”

– Glenn Gould

Hi All,

I spent last Saturday night, with the neighbours gloriously away, ripping into my guitar, creating some far out sounds for the live set. I’d peeled away everything on my rig early in the summer and got back to basics. A few months and a million stompboxes later, I found a configuration that really worked. Last night was a psychedelic coup de grace. The guitar is the band, really. As it’s just me performing, I’m asking my parlour guitars to perform well beyond the laws of physics that accompany their design and construction. For them to incorporate all the dynamics and colours of the recorded arrangements, while supporting my voice and the story in each song.

It’s been an intense few weeks, with the record and book so close to completion, my day gig at peak requirement, Dadding, householding, all the things. I’ve also been releasing a ton of old stuff stored up in my body. I started seeing an osteopath recently, as the next step in managing the chronic pain issues I’ve been beset with. After each treatment, I’ve had the most feverish dreams. We’ve a ways to go, but it’s nice to feel a bit better. I’ve also been reading some great stuff about trauma and the nervous system. I find myself in the throes of the abovementioned old stuff shaking the foundations. Revisiting that which infects and informs our way of being is never easy. I’m grateful, but, damn, it hurts.

On Sunday morning I woke a bit groggy and fuzzy and poured myself into the studio to finish up the final tweaks on the premasters for the record. I sent the last three tracks off to my pal Howard, who is mastering. He leaves tomorrow for a week abroad. We’re trying to put the squeeze on these last few, so I can listen down while he’s away and, hopefully, tag the masters and wrap up the recordings.

The book needs one minor tweak and then it goes to print. Working on finalizing that in the next two weeks and having the first run printed.

It took Howard and I far longer than I expected to nail down the mastering chain. To find the right alchemy of sonic toys to best represent the mixes. There’s been, for me, a huge learning curve at each step of the record. This is the first full length I’ve recorded and mixed on my own. It’s the first time I’ve taken such an active role in the mastering of one of my records.

The first track on which the mastering chain came together is actually the last track in the running order of the record. The closer. It’s called The Beautiful Season. It’s about a lot of things. As always, I’ll leave the painting of the pictures to your own imagination when it meets the song.

Here it is. It’s best listened to through a good set of headphones or phat speakers. Also best served loud:

The Beautiful Season

(If you’re reading this via the email drop, the hyperlink won’t work. Please visit the website page to access the link)

Thanks for coming along…

K. xo

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“Fak, these blankets smell nasty.”

– Me

I bunked off work early yesterday with much excitement. Last week I’d tracked vocals for Tattoo, the last song I need to add anything to. It was a bust. The intro is the most sensitive as far as needing quiet to record. The recording of vox and acoustic guitar for this record have been anything but quiet. We live only feet away from the streetcar and main street traffic ripping by, to say nothing of the orange men on the DeGrassi Street train bridge, whacking away at the the Ontario Line all hours of the day. I was able to make the rest of the vocal tracks happen, along with traffic noise and life sometimes audible on the vocal tracks, but Tattoo needed some real quiet.

I moved my vocal mic into the anteroom outside of our bathroom and reran the studio leads accordingly. I then headed off to Canadian Tire and picked up some moving blankets, at a friend’s recommendation, to help buffer the noise. I got home and excitedly hung the blankets and got my MacGyver vocal booth cooking. I noticed that the blankets were a bit stinky. I thought it was because they were just out of the package. After a special afternoon visit from a friend, I had some dins, went for my usual night walk around the east end and arrived back home, not sure if I’d record then, or spend the night kicking back and wait until today, when I was fresh with Saturday’s promise, to lay this final track down. The latter won. With the lights down low, I went slack and took in all the proper British crime drama that my inert, self-flagellating self could handle.

I woke this morning with my lungs and sinuses on fire. Our place is not that big and is open concept. The whole place bore the funky smell of yesterday’s newly opened blankets. I checked the material label for contents. Turns out some sod thought it was a good idea to put propylene in the blankets. I’d heard of this chemical before, but didn’t know much about it. Turns out it’s shite and should not be huffed in. Small wonder, on the heels of lifelong asthma and two recent, back to back respiratory infections, that I felt like crap after sleeping with these olfactorily strange bedfellows.

A quick shower and some brekkie, then off to return the offenders. I’m at the local now, having a coffee and feeling good about getting the Tattoo vox done. I’ll go old school and hang up some blankets and go for it. When the recording is done, I’m planning some studio upgrades. I’ll add the acoustic treatment to the list and get something dope cooking for future vox and acoustic geetar recordings. It’ll be crucial, as I’m planning for the next round of recordings to be live, off the floor solo voice and acoustic.

In the meantime, I’d like to share the premaster of The Pass, which is the first track on the record. Some of you have already heard it and have been in touch with your praise, which makes it all worth it for me. Thanks so much for that.

Hope ya dig.

The Pass

K. xo

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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