Woah! We've reached our 3rd goal! Thank you EVERYONE! plus Bug Store, Picnics, The Renaissance

Wow! I can't believe it! Thank You everyone! We've reached our 3rd goal! Which means we can resume work on the debut Kid Koala storybook record!

I wrote this book when my first daughter was 4 years old. At the time, our days were filled with trips to library, (her favorite place to go) and also trips to the flea market (my favorite place to go). This story kind of fuses the two worlds. It is about a child who finds several lost, broken and forgotten machines in a flea market and the adventure/friendships that are made. 

My daughter is now 11 years old. This book is still not finished. What can I say? Life got busy, we moved, her baby sister was born, Nufonia became a live production, Deltron Event II toured, albums and video games made... But always in the back of my mind, I thought, "Someday we'll be able to finish that book!"

So here we are... sometimes it takes a pandemic. But mostly it's finally possible because of your support. So from a heart filled with much gratitude, thank you. I'm very excited to finally get this project on the front burner again!

Wait, Flea Markets?

Yes, fun fact. I always try to visit a flea market in every town I travel to. It started when I was touring with Keyboard Money Mark and the Beasties. They would always hit random flea markets, second hand music/record shops, thrift stores etc. They'd be looking for everything from music equipment, records, to weird clothes and shoes. Mark was especially versed in this flea market world. I would follow him around and he would talk and tell me about what all these different audio gadgets would/could do. "This is a frequency generator. From the 50s. It was used to test stereo speakers and microphones, but you can actually play it like a synth. It's frequencies go all the way down, lower than an 808 drum machine kick!"  

So it was a little bit of audio archaeology on tour. It fostered in me an admiration for the design of different eras and the sounds that these machines make. I remember he picked up an old tube reel to reel recorder once. We brought it back to the tour bus and played the reels. It was audio from a wild psych-rock band rehearsal and it must have been from the 1960s. It was so rad! The Ghosts of Music's Past hidden under all the dust!

When I'm on tour, if there's time, I'll make a trip to the local flea market. I think you can tell a lot about the people in a town when you begin to study the things they throw away. And there's always a lot of wonderful things to discover.

Here's a YT video of the time I went to my favorite flea market in Montreal. Just a fun field trip/story for the local news channel.  I like how they wrote "Renaissance Man" under my name. LOOOOOL.  

You can watch the whole piece here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXDRmuzWg4M 

But what about Bug Stores?

It's a term my daughter came up with.

"Hey dad remember when we went to the whatcha call it? Bug Store?"

"You mean the pet store?"

"No the Bug Store! I forget the name."

"You mean the Insectarium? The museum with all the butterflies and things?"

"No, No, that place that's very messy and has all the old stuff?"

"Oh you mean, your room?"

"Noooooo! The place that has the 7 foot King Kong gorilla model"

"Oh yeah you mean the flea market?"

"Yeah! The flea market, that's it!"

So as a joke, we've made "Bug Store" the current working title of this book.** It's definitely not going to be called Bug Store. 

Okay but what was the goal here?

Well, basically this....to finish illustrating, assembling, recording, and producing the first Kid Koala Storybook 7" record. And as you've probably gathered from this previous post, I have a very nostalgic connection to them.  

Above are some work in progress images of a few illustrations from the forthcoming book. I mainly used pencil and ink for the drawings. Then my wife, Corinne Merrell did the watercoloring. The story in this book uses several onomatopoeic words to describe the sounds that the broken machines make. We are trying to spell those particular words through cut out letters to see how it all looks on the page. 

After that I will produce the recording for the vinyl read-a-long part of the package. This will include, music, sound effects, bonus beats, narration etc. I'm excited to get it completed!

Stay tuned!  And thank you again for your support! 

Eric