Drowning is our oldest surviving song.  It was on a CD of ideas I mailed to the guys before we were a band and it was the second of our songs that Hugh learned on bass.  I remember he and I played it at a coffee house and I broke a string.  I was probably playing inappropriately hard for the setting (although I think that it impressed Steve who was in the audience).  The song has changed a bit – we’ve stripped it right down and substituted lyrics here and there – but it’s mostly the same as when we played it at our very first show.
 
The version on this album actually uses a couple tracks from our independent recordings.  Both guitars were recorded in Hugh’s parent’s house and the cello we recorded guerilla style at Queen’s University in Kingston.  We basically put together a portable recording studio and snuck into the Sutherland Room, a large, old, wood-lined room in the University Center.  We did eventually get kicked out – just as we finished recording for this song!
 
Oh, and that thing you can hear in the background that sounds like a super-gigantic metallic sonar or something, it’s actually a pen being tapped on a plate.  But that’s a different story altogether.

[Listen to Drowning]

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I had heard about it, talked to people and theorized about it.  But I never really got it until I talked to my brother the other day.  Listening to music has changed.

There are six years between Dave and I – not a very big age difference – but we are worlds apart when it comes to how we experience recorded music.  He hasn’t bought CD in his life; I’m staring at a rack full of them.  He listens to songs one at a time; I listen to albums.   We discussed this while he sifted through songs (I should say singles) on his iPod touch.  He said the reason I buy music is because I’m a musician.  Is that the only reason?

Somewhere between Dave and I there is a watershed age.  It may not be a hard line.  Everyone at every age rips off music.  But for those under the divide the cognition has changed.  Instead of getting music for free, for them, music is free.  That’s the way it has always been.

How old are you?  What are your music habits?