recordingstudio – Kelvin Wetherell

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

For well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool / By making his world a little colder

– Paul McCartney, Hey Jude

Contempt. In the past few years, I’ve a few times come across something Nick Cave said in response to inquiries about his growth and perspective as an older chap who’s navigated deep grief in the last decade, having lost two sons. He talks about how he, for the better part of his early adult years, held the world and the people in it in contempt. This really stayed with me, as someone who, from an adolescent age, started to observe, with a questioning eye, the many stupidities of humankind.

Over the years, this awareness developed into a contempt of my own. One need only take a short look around to find deep lack in the way stuff gets done; our considerations toward one another, our blindness to our interconnection and shared suffering, summer road work in Toronto. We often live in disregard, usually, I think, unconsciously, while we race about making life happen.

This unconsciousness, for many of us, stems from trauma. For some us, the trauma is complex, wont to rear up without warning, reducing us, whispering self-hateful slogans into the raw spaces. The more I learn and experience, the more I see that this is most of us. We are generations of humans learning to express our vulnerabilities and what’s there in the dark corners of our internal experience.

My own inner world has lately been an amplified, fitful landscape, with my friend Contempt shouting righteous indignation from the rooftops. This isn’t new. Anytime the black dogs rear their heads, I stop seeing the beautiful bits. Things get fucking ugly. The world, the method, the person in the mirror. Standard self-hateful fare. And how on earth did that become standard fare? Through years of damaged practice. Through experiencing in my formative years things no one should experience.

The grace in the current crisis appeared through radical acceptance. I’m apprehensive using the term. It’s been overused in new age lingo, when at the root it’s accessible to everyone. Accessible but difficult. It’s hard to take the things that hurt us most and let them in. They’re strange friends to sit next to. I’m aware that this thing that’s followed me around forever needs a hug. I’ve known for years that we don’t necessarily get rid of the fragmented parts. It’s only through this current wave of struggle that I’ve felt a dawning surrender. That I’m broken and that’s okay. There are good bits, too. Love and Hate springs eternal.

I came across today’s quote a few days ago. It hit hard and clear. I’ve been listening to the confessions of my own character and not digging the sound. My lens is dirty. Yes, there are so many aspects of the world that are completely messed, but the vehement distaste I’ve felt, that’s informed so much for so long, has been a major player in stamping out trust and good things. It’s a fear-based exercise. Creating false safety by tearing down externals.

I’ve spent years trying, like all the King’s men, to put myself back together again. To mend the scattered parts. It hasn’t worked all that well. Sounds like it’s time to let the satellites wander…

As always, thanks for reading.

K. xo

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