Posted by Sudbury Northern Life Reporter Matt Moskal
Sudbury recording artist John Newlands is expanding his repertoire with a three-disc album called v.6.3, being released May 1 at Cambrian College's eDome.
Newlands was born and raised in Sudbury, picking up his first guitar at the age of eight. Since then he refused to stop learning new ways to make music.
"I just decided that I was going to do as much as I can as a musician. What can I learn how to play? How can I have fun? How many songs can I write?" said Newlands.
To date, Newlands has released five albums. For his sixth album, he has written 34 new songs for v.6.3, a three-disc album clocking in at just about three hours.
"I've been making fairly long single CDs from the early 2000s. There was one that was 24 songs. I was joking with a friend of mine while standing outside of the Townehouse one night. I said 'I should make a double album,' and he said 'John, you should make just box sets,' and I said, 'That's a crazy idea, I think I'll do it.'"
The album was recorded in Newlands' home studio with a mesh of new and old recordings.
"It's entirely home recording. Some of the bits and pieces, I kind of raided my own vault. I used to work with an 8-track and a 16-track and I started putting recordings together for this album, I went to digital. I started raiding my own tapes, drum tracks and thought, 'Okay, I like the drum track, but I don't like the song anymore, so I just transferred the drum track to PC and wrote a new song around it.'"
Newlands' has booked eDome, a multimedia centre at Cambrian College, for his CD release show. The eDome is typically a filming location, but it will be transformed into a sound stage for Newlands' performance.
"It's set up for playing DVDs and there's four big screens, they haven't had many performing acts there. It's a different kind of venue. The very fact that it's different might add a bit of excitement to it. There's going to be some video stuff happening."
The eDome doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 and include a copy of v.6.3. Tickets purchased before April 28 are entered into a draw to win a house concert with John. For more information e-mail [email protected] or phone 670-1982.
