Music

Gin Blossoms – No Chocolate Cake

Jesse Valenzuela and I wrote this one for the Gin Blossoms “No Chocolate Cake” album. It was adopted by LA traffic reporters during the temporary shut down of highway 405 – “Carmageddon” I’m really proud that I actually helped with…

Odds – Neopolitan

First Odds album but really our third. The first two “cassette albums” were sold from the stage during the three years prior. Who taped over theirs? We were Canadians “discovered” in LA and when we finally got around to a…

Odds – Bedbugs

Followup album. I think it’s sounds have held up the best over time. I don’t know why. Our foray into ridiculous semi-immortality began with “Heterosexual Man”. The photo on the back is us having an argument about what that song…

Rosanne Cash – Rules of Travel

Proud to have written the opening song on this great album. Played congas on the back of a guitar in NYC. THE Rosanne cash sang my words. Well…her voice was thrashed from pregnancy induced laryngitis but she gave it go…

Tom Wilson – Dog Years

Tom and I met when his band Junkhouse first came to Vancouver and he “cold called” the Odds business line to ask us to come down and check out his band. Friends for life. We’ve since written many tunes together…

Wide Mouth Mason – Stew

I first met Wide Mouth Mason by jumping into their road hockey game outside the studio we were both recording in. Years later I crashed for a wintery week in Saf’s parent’s Saskatoon basement and we played as a band…

Odds – Good Weird Feeling

It was fun to be on a compilation that featured Henry Rollins, Hoodoo Gurus, Young Fresh Fellows and the Primitives. Our version of “We Three Kings (Kings of Orient)” was a good exercise in figuring out what we sounded like….

Northey Valenzuela

Jess Valenzuela and I met when our bands slept on the floor of the same mutual friend’s apartment in LA. It was like “A Hard Days Night” only a lot smellier. Gin Blossoms and Odds would go on to tour…

Giddy Up

I was demoing songs for my 1st solo album. I’d started on it with David Gamson (Scritti Politti, Meshell Ndegeocello) and was going back and forth to LA to work on it when 911 happened. The border got tight and…

Colin James – Traveler

Colin and I went to LA to live in a giant mansion on the top of a hill in Silver Lake. It was called “the Paramour” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramour_Mansion). Mark Howard was producing and that’s where he was set up. It…

Colin James – Limelight

This was the 1st gold record anybody ever gave me that wasn’t an Odds record. Thanks Colin for having me along. I just wrote on a few songs. A couple of them Colin, Tom Wilson and I wrote two of…

Colin James – Fuse

This is the first record I made with Colin James. It was the start of a great musical partnership. I co-produced with genius recordist Joe Hardy. Colin and I wrote most of this album together. He also covered “Something Good”…

Hockeyville

In 2006 I was hired as musical director and composer for CBC’s “Hockeyville”. At that time it was a live variety show and we performed under the name “Craig Northey and the Hounds of the Hockeyvilles”. Here are a few…

Adam Levy

Adam and I share serious mutual friends so it was natural that we would become actual friends. He flew up and spent a few days in my shack writing songs. We wrote two and one is on this beautiful and…

Warren Zevon

The best mentorship a youngish songwriter could receive just fell in my lap. We were asked by Warren Zevon to be his band and open the show on his Mr.Bad Example tour in 91-92. One of life’s unexpected blessings. He…

Strippers Union – the Deuce

Enter Craig. Originally the idea was that he would help me write lyrics but after about 20 minutes I said to myself ‘he’s got that base covered so I’ll focus on this over here’. Actually Craig entered many years ago. I /we had the great opportunity to share a stage with Craig and the Odds many times over the years. I was and remain a huge fan of their music (from the moment I first heard it).