The past six months have been fairly uneventful - after retiring from solo touring last November (68 shows last year!) I have been keeping a very low profile.  For the first time in almost 11 years I was able to stay home for an entire month without having to pack my gear and fly to a gig.  It felt great!

THE GLORIOUS DECLINE

My last record came out just about a year ago and had a pretty successful run.  I sold what I expected, got lots of press and as usual learned a lot about the constantly evolving music business.  Internationaly I was quite pleased - the record sold well in Holland, Belgium, Italy and Japan.  Maybe i will have to start touring again.........

Thanks to all the folks at Maple Music, Fontana North Distribution, Carrot Top Records, CDBaby.com and Club de Musique.  Special thanks to Quail's  Gate  Winery (West Bank, BC).  And as always, thanks to you for giving The Glorious Decline a  listen.

THE HOUSE

Retiring from solo touring has allowed me to stay home and work on my new house.  It  has been months of pure joy stripping  layers of paint from doors, frames, floors, baseboard and windows.  I have spent over forty hours on the staircase alone and I have to say - it looks great. 

The neighborhood old-timers taught me their method of sanding the wood with 3 different grades of sandpaper followed by 2 different grades of steel wool to bring out all the definition and grain.  That is followed by hand-rubbing in a coat of linseed oil, re-sanding and re-steel wooling before the final application of oil.

For me, a hundred year-old house with all the natural wood makes a home that is hard to leave.

THE RECORDING

Over the months I have continued to record on a number of people's records both in person and over the internet.  It blows my mind that I can get up in the morning and record steel for a Danish band's record while still in my pajamas.  You just gotta love technology.

I have also been totally immersed in recording my instrumental pedal steel records, a long-time passion of mine.  Even though I haven't found the time to paint the walls in my new house I have turned one whole floor into a recording studio and another room into a mixing suite.  I am hard at work recording day and night on this project.  So far 22 songs are at least 50% finished.  That leaves 18 more to compose and record to finish the record.  I will start posting tracks on myspace/bobegan later this summer.

THE SECRET PROJECT

This one is big, but unfortunately I can't tell you about it yet.

I've recently been in the studio with :

- Kat Goldman - She's an old friend making a long-overdue record with Maury Lafoy producing.  A cross between Shawn Colvin and Aimee Mann.

- Shannon Briggs - She is a young country-ish singer that I met backstage after a show.  We recorded in her own warehouse/recording studio in Toronto with Moe Berg from the Pursuit of Happiness producing.

- Melissa Boraski - She's played with the Real Pricillas but is now putting the finishing touches on her first solo record.  Her voice and her songs are real strong so we're just mapping out some auxillary instrumental parts to flesh out the arrangements.

- Romney Getty - She's a world-touring troubadour from Ontario.  I recorded  national steel, some Cuban tres and pedal steel for her new EP at Dan Aiken's incredible converted church studio in Hamilton.  She is on tour in Australia at the moment and won't return until the spring.

- Mike Manville - He's a Vancouver guy who's been playing around for years and has been recording a solo record in Chicago.  I got the songs in the mail recently and am working on them at home on my pro-tools rig.

- Shannon Briggs - She's a county-ish singer from Toronto recording her debut with Moe Berg from The Pursuit of Happiness producing.

- The Great Lake Swimmers - I recently traveled to  the  legendary Gas  Station studio on Toronto Island to record on their 3rd record with Dale Morningstar at the board.  Serena Ryder was there too, singing like an angel and making her debut on autoharp.

- Dave Dycus - He is an old college buddy of mine who moved into my home/studio for a week to record the beds for his new record of intricate fingerpicking guitar.

I am taking the plunge into MySpace (myspace.com/bobegan) and need all the help I can get.  I am currently posting different songs and some tour photos.  If you have any ideas of what you would like to see there just drop me an e-mail.