Andrew Cash Singer/Songwriter

Before we begin, a quick announcement: if you are looking for bio material on me the journalist it’s here; me the soundtrack composer it’s here. If you are from the media and are looking for a quick bio sheet and hi res photos they are here.

This page is about the songs I’ve written and the records I’ve made. There’s a bunch so let’s start with now and work backwards, o.k.?

My new record is called Murder =. Most of these tunes were written around the time the Cash Brothers were touring A Brand New Night. By the end of that tour my brother Peter and I were rather burned out and not really wanting to climb into a van anytime soon. It seemed like we were heading for a bit of a hiatus so I thought I’d record a straight up acoustic record and do a bit of solo touring. Well things always take on a life of their own when you record an album (or whatever we are now calling a collection of songs grouped together and then offered simultaneously to the public) and what you end up with is never what you thought you’d have at the outset. I set up shop in my garage studio and with the help of Chris Marks recorded about 15 tunes, just vocals and acoustic guitar. After listening to these for a while I sent the tracks out to my friend and Cash Brothers collaborator, the legendary Daryl Smith who’s situated in Victoria BC these days and working out of Baker Studios. I wanted Daryl to mix the tunes, though there wasn’t really that much to mix-a vocal and two mics on the acoustic guitar. After working on it for a while he phoned to say it all sounded cool but how would I feel if he added a few things here and there. Sure why not. Daryl has great taste and he’s the best bullshit detector I’ve ever know. Which is to say I trust him. To be honest I also needed to buy some time being elbows deep in diapers since the birth of son #2. (Daughter #1 was to be born as well before this batch of tunes was finally ready to go.)

When I got the first bunch of tunes back from Daryl I had to be peeled from the ceiling. I had no idea what he’d been up to. I thought I’d be hearing the odd tambourine or triangle, small stuff. Nope, a bit more than that. So for example, when I sent Black Type On A White Page to him it was a folksy tune with a bit of a driving rhythm. He returned it with a wall of sound-Daryl himself playing guitar, bass and organ and Joby Baker on the drums-complete with a psycho/psychedelic bridge. He Feels The Earth Shaking Too really changed as well. This song has been around since my 1993 solo album Hi. It didn’t quite fit on that record and it never really worked as a Cash Brothers’ tune either. Daryl recruited a great BC mandolin, accordion and violin player Adrian Dolan and cellist extraordinaire Kevin Fox (also guitarist in Ursula–we’ll get to that band a little later), who just happened to be in Victoria that day. They worked up a wild and rustic arrangement for the tune which I really love. Giving in to the whole process (clearly the record was no longer going to be just me and my guitar) I got Stew Crookes over to my garage where he put down a pedal steel track that snakes in and out of the strings. The title track Murder = is another tune that really blew up when Daryl got a hold of it. I had given it a very dark, sombre feel. Daryl managed to keep that vibe but, especially with his electric guitar treatment, accentuate the bluesy intensity of the tune. It goes on and on. He really became my co-collaborator on this record even though we were a couple thousand miles away from each other most of the time. I did go out to Victoria to record The Naked Man and 20 Miles of Texas Left as well as playing a bit of electric guitar. Working this way is great but it is a bit like finding out after many years that you have a brother you’ve never met before. You get so used to hearing the songs a certain way it can be a bit of a neck breaker to hear them served up any other way. You have to recalibrate your headspace. Having now had the operation I may find it hard to make a record any other way.

OK is that enough on the process for now? What, you want more? Well recording is one of the dark arts. There is a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’ about it. What I can tell you though is that I neglected to use a metronome when I first recorded the tunes-I wasn’t planning to have any other instrumentation. So I don’t know how the Victoria crew was able to follow my rambling meter. But they did.

To be continued…