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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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“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  

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“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.”

“Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert.”

– Khalil Gibran

I’m sitting in the window at the local, in my usual spot. It was an adventure to get here. I live a block away. I’ve been staying at an Air BnB, courtesy of my own voice and advocacy with our local Metrolinx community rep, referred to herein, for the sake of anonymity, as “M”.

After five sleepless nights over a seven day period, due to overnight Ontario Line work on the Queen Street bridge, my continual, kind and firm communications with M resulted in Metrolinx footing the bill for the Air BnB stay. I’ve been dividing my time between sleeps there and working from home during the day. What a pain in the ass. It’s proven to be a trade off of which flow is more tiring. I’ve let our rep know that I’m grateful for her going to bat for Ava and I, but that there’s much left to be done to ensure peace for all of us living here and elsewhere, affected by the ongoing work, especially after learning that the project’s end date has been extended from 2027 to 2031 (Eglinton Crosstown, anyone?).

A friend of mine recently appeared in a Toronto Life piece, entitled Train Wreck. She’s a local dog-mum and lovely person. She, along with a few others, tell their stories. These all involve how the company has repeatedly shat on us. Lies, deceit, deflection, all underscored by greed and ego. So-called Captains Of Industry sneaking and bullying their way to impotent grandeur. A CEO in our current premiere’s (lower case intended) pocket. A CEO to whom the same premiere has given a $750,000 raise between 2017 and 2022. That’s our tax dollars at work. Padding the bank account of a wretch, who’s led a campaign of dirty pool and cut corners.

Inevitably, this is where one usually gets called out, claiming the necessity of better transit and NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) leanings. I’m all for better transit. That’s not what this is about. It’s about transparency and spending the right amount of money on ensuring the peace of mind and wellbeing of the locals in the communities in which this project is happening. Metrolinx has not done this. The Train Wreck article outlines all of this: damage done to people’s properties, foundations, possessions, the sleepless nights, the constant runaround from the company, the lack of transparency.

To me personally, it’s about much more than the above. I look at the bridge, only a few feet from our front door, and it’s a representation of what’s so wrong in our current climate. We were long ago drugged by TV. Add social media, dopamine and smartphone addictions to that list. We are idle and distracted while this elected official robs us blind, giving our money away to cronyism and for his own personal gain. It’s Corruption 101. There’s the attitude that we live in a democracy. That this provincial leader was appointed by the vote. The only problem with this is that there are a lot of gullible people out there. There are two types of people who voted for this person: Those too stunned to understand the damage he’s doing, and those who know exactly what he’s doing and stand to gain financially from it.

I understand very clearly now why Che Guevara took up arms against dictatorship and stood up for socialism. If you’re gobsmacked by me comparing the attempted violent overthrow of past dictators to our relatively docile Canadian landscape, I’ll say this: I’m very grateful to live in Canada and enjoy the benefits of safety and help from the Guv’nor in the form of things like the Canadian Childcare benefit. As a single Dad and Musician, this alone has helped me make ends meet. I’ll add that, while the premiere and CEO made mention here have not sent out men in black to murder their naysayers, their modus operandi is more insipid. These are people who will gladhand us and smile sweetly in our faces, while dipping an unseen hand into the national coffer. These actions and lack of care paint an ugly picture of suffering. I see Southern Ontario floods if the greenbelt is sold off to questionable developers. Yes, we need more housing, in particular, more affordable housing. Do we need it on the greenbelt. No. Any developer considering building here is part of the problem and is only looking out for themselves. I see the billions of taxpayer’s bucks being lost to the private sale of alcohol. Funds that could be spent on healthcare and education, instead of the decimation of these. I see the suffering of people in hospital emergency wards across the province, sitting on floors for lack of space, at the hands of a politician working hard to privatize health care, no doubt in alliance with those willing to practice private care and rake in the dough. For anyone with a lick of sense and curiosity, all of this is so obvious.

I was happy to come across both of the Khalil Gibran quotes above. The former means more to me than the latter. There were many times over the course of writing this where I felt sick in my heart. I needed to express all of this, but it’s energy I’d rather be spending on connecting us, rather than expounding on the ills of our society. Ills which, if we all had the capacity to care for each other first, and temper our lust for money, would not exist. It gets harder and harder to maintain a peaceful reconciliation of this stuff, especially as we’re seeing the cost of living skyrocketing, while the wealth divide increases and the middle class becomes obsolete. While I continue to advocate for my family and community, I’ll look for the the strength to kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love. To cultivate my Muppetite For Destruction. It’s a tall order in the face of modern life and all our challenges from without and within. May we all find the strength to continue to tear down all of that which doesn’t serve us, and to continue to love one another.

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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Father, why are all the children weeping?
They are merely crying son
Oh, are they merely crying, father?
Yes, true weeping is yet to come

                         – Nick Cave, The Weeping Song

I bunked off work early, the strains of the week pulling at my spirit, headlong into Friday’s reprieve; the wages of love, parenthood and finishing Stereophile jostling for the top spot on the neverending to do list. The plan: To kick back for a few, then head down the hall and finish mixing the last of the premasters for the record. The reality: With chronic pain at the redline, a few hours flat out in a haze of medically approved cannabis oil, searching the interwebs for musical redemption.

After a YouTube trip into Live At KEXP and NPR Tiny Desk Concert land, I came across Kingdom In The Sky: Nick Cave and Warren Ellis Live At Hanging Rock. It’s a forty-two minute doc and live performance from their show there last year. I was curious, but reserved. The setting at Hanging Rock is beautiful and these two chaps are both amazing musicians, but I’ve been a bit put off Nick after reading about his late-found Christian zeal.

I’ve loved Nick Cave for many, many years. I was turned on to him when he was well into his career with the Bad Seeds. I feel blessed to have grown with him over the years. In the time I’ve been listening to his music I’ve watched us both evolve. He’s become a kinder, more compassionate human being, with a wonderful perspective on humanity.

Not too long ago, I saw a clip of Cave at his Q&A tour and someone asked him about religion. His answer had to do with all of us reaching for something. It was eloquently profound and applied to all. Shortly thereafter, I read an interview where he talked about his Christian acceptance. I happened to be listening to one of his records at the time and it hit differently. All the aspects that felt like questions about Christianity now felt like devout proclamations. I said earlier that I’ve been put off, but I think, more accurately, I’m struggling to find a place for it, for the obvious reason that many of us find aspects of Christianity and the church questionable, and I am one of those.

I’ve often looked to Christ for guidance myself, though without the dogmatic trappings and hypocrisy of the institution that bears His name. I’ve often wanted to find comfort in the church, or something like it, for a foundation in which to live my life when the storm feels so relentless. Who that seeks understanding wouldn’t want a harbour so safe as this?

It occurs to me that Nick’s Jesus thing might be the prime mover in his evolution and greater kindness as he ages. I know others to which this happens without religion, but I don’t know many of us who have gone through the great tragedies of losing a teenaged son and then losing a grown son only a few years later. Nick Cave lived these sorrows publicly, with rare grace and courage. The former tragedy spawned the record, Ghosteen, which is a work of unspeakable beauty. Cave and Ellis close the Hanging Rock show with the song Ghosteen Speaks, where Nick sings, in the spectral voice of his late son “I am beside you, I am beside you…”

All this said, I hit play last night, not sure I’d make it through much of the show, but wanted to give it a go. I was almost immediately enraptured and riveted, without even realizing it. The delivery, the feeling, Warren and Nick’s love for each other, Nick smiling at the band and the backup singers, Colin Greenwood from Radiohead on bass. Throughout the concert there are cutaway interviews with folks at the show, most of whom echo my own feelings of being there all along for Nick’s growth, as an artist and human being. It was beautiful.

Years ago, on the eve of going to have my first record mastered, I had a dream where Nick and I were sitting in a pub somewhere, in a horseshoe shaped booth of the deepest red velvet and black wood. He looked at me and said “So, you’re going Hollywood?” I didn’t know what he meant, but thought it was cool to have a dream where we were hanging out. Turns out the studio I’d booked was abruptly commercial and managed by someone full of himself, who was blathering on about some Hollywood starlet who had just been in to try her hand at being a singer. Nick had given me the heads up.

Since then, he’s visited me overnight a few times. It happened again last night. He and I were wandering through field, farmland, and country roads, talking quietly together. He was leading the way the entire time, as though showing me the way. We parted at a petrol station, where he jumped on a Vespa and sped off down the road, muttering something about having to get back to work.

I’m so thankful for the gift of writing. As I write this, I feel a greater understanding. There’s so much in our dreams. And so much in our judgement of others. There’s so much we know inherently, but it’s not physical or cognitive, so it goes unrecognized while we try so hard to fit the mould of a world that’s been set up so fucking backwards. Our magic is beaten out of us from the time we are born. We are taught to forget: We are Divine.

I chose today’s quote, from the Bad Seeds The Weeping Song, for two reasons. The band did a bang up version of the song at the concert, with a newly minted groove, but also because of this particular verse. I think it’s only as more experienced beings that we feel true, deep sadness, in the face of all that we’ve lost and all that we long to return to.

Love,

K. xo

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Crystal Comes The Night

Crystal comes the night
In these disposable days
Where our 3 second spans
Open + close like a shutter
A fish out of water, gasping for air

Everyone the shiny salesman
Hawking unknown wares
Snake oil slicks
On the sea of authenticity

Sit here for a moment
With me
Let us gather close
Our hearts + minds
+ draw not lines, but circles
In the sand

Listen to the touch
Feel the sound

The sky exhales
We ride the magnet waves
+ weep for what we’ve lost
When crystal comes the night