Author: mfoerster

We’re close to finishing the CD, hoping for an early May release but starting to see it may become a late May, early June release.

I’ve decided to take my production / engineering skills to local bands for free and help them get a decent recording without having to pay for studio time.

If you know of any bands, tell them about this post, I’ve included a contact form below:

[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Band Name’ type=’text’/][contact-field label=’A short description of your band, # of players, type of music’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form]

 

No, this isn’t a business take over.  It is me trying to slim down how many things I need to take care of all the time.

If you haven’t checked in a while, which is okay, I understand, I’ve merge the “For My Dear Friend” site into “The MPF Project” site.

This way, it is all under one umbrella-ella-ella…

Sorry, had to do that, even though I dislike that song.

— Mike Foerster

I’ve been thinking about doing a lot of things lately, one was to have a history of music for the Grimsby, Beamsville and Smithville area in the 90’s.  There were a lot of bands around and I thought it would be fun to have that documented.  The problem is, I have very little material from all these bands.  So I decided to make a timeline of my own history of music:

1992

• Started learning the bass.
• Started working with Dean W and Paul “Sch” (guitarist) in my parent’s garage.  Learned some covers: Surrender – Cheap Trick, Come As You Are – Nirvana, Nothing Else Matters – Metallica
• Wrote my first song, Picture Window.

1993

• A Paul “St” joined the band as the drummer
• Chris N joined the band as singer
• Formed Hollow Spirit
• Did our first show, 14 songs in total; 7 originals; 7 covers

1994

• Paul “Sch” (guitarist) left
• Started working with a producer / engineer Brent C
• Recorded the drum tracks for our first CD
• Chris N left the band, I took over as singer
• Bought my TASCAM 464 cassette 4-track, wanted to try my hand at recording.
• Started recording a friend’s band, Killer Instinct using the 4-track.  Paul S, from Hollow Spirit, did the drums for them.
• Recorded the Christmas show at Place Polanaise.

1995

• Continued to record with Brent, had some difficulties because I was not Brent’s choice for a singer.
• Chris W joined the band as a second guitarist
• Did an environmental festival in St. Catharines
• Played at the battle of the bands in St. Catharines
• Played at “Starvathon” at Dennis Morris High School, St. Catharines, Ontario.
• Chris W left the band
• Finished the 2 song cassette EP (I Don’t Care / How Much I Love You)

1996

• Band relationships started getting strained, we ended up breaking up and going our separate ways.
• Started working with Don D (guitarist)
• Was the opening act at a show at the new defunct Lincoln County Fairgrounds in Beamsville, Ontario.
• Started work on a new CD project for us using a TR-707 drum machine, we named Bob, for the drum tracks.
• Worked with a drummer, for about 2 months, until it fell through.  Can’t recall her name.
• Recorded / Produced Dane’s band.

1997

• Dane started working with Don and I in ArmsLength.
• Recorded Dane’s drum tracks for 10 songs and worked with Don on completing the recordings.
• Released a 4 song EP called Class Picture Day featuring Premonition, I Don’t Care, Just for a Kiss and Zumba Freedom Fighters
• Continued record Killer Instinct.

1998

• Continued to work on the ArmsLength recordings, anywhere possible.  Recorded in apartments, my parents house, my apartment.
• Continued to record Killer Instinct as well.
• Got married
• Killer Instinct broke up; those recording stopped.

1999

• Recordings for ArmsLength started to come to a halt.
• Played Mohawk College
• Started to be an opener for Animate!
• Moved into a house; this was a large part of why the recordings stopped; there was really no place to record anymore.
• Quit music for a while.

2000

• Returned back to playing because I was miserable at not doing it.
• Hollow Spirit broke up at some point here.

2001

• My son was born.
• Became the bass player for PnchMnky.
• Changed jobs.

2003

• My daughter was born.
• I was dropped from PnchMnky.

2005

• Moved to where I live now.
• Became the bass player for a cover band called Impact.

2006

• Impact broke up.
• Sold a lot of my music equipment, kept my 4-track, two rack effects, my first bass and my amp, and my acoustic guitar.

2008

• Changed jobs
• Played bass for the children’s choir at church.

2009

• Played bass with the senior choir at church and anyone else who wanted me to play at church.

2010

• Continued to play bass at church

2011

• Became the bass player for a country band
• Stopped playing bass at church, personal reasons
• Dropped from the country band.
• Don passed away suddenly.
• Retired the ArmsLength webpage, but didn’t remove.
• Separated from my, now ex-wife.
• Did a tribute show for Don
• Met Tammy

2012

• Asked to write lyrics, play bass and sing for an unfinished song that Don wrote; I got out my old 4-track that was hidden up in the attic since before we moved here and set it up.
• Finished the second installment of the Don Dorey tribute CD.
• It was at this point that I wanted to finish the recordings that Don, Dane & I started so many years ago.

2013

• Started purchasing equipment for the recording studio.
• Started to re-learn the songs and also re-learn the bass.  I was extremely rusty.
• My father passed away.
• Started the For My Dear Friend blog
• Re-opened the ArmsLength facebook page.
• Changed the name of the band from ArmsLength to For My Dear Friend.
• Started working on my rack system that I had wanted since 1995, bought an actual rack frame and started purchasing items for the rack.
• Started to finish any areas of the music that I could; bass, keyboard and vocals.

2014

• Asked Dean to help finish the guitar work on two of the songs, Cold Black Sky and Standing in the Rain. These also happened to be either written or co-written by Dean.
• Released, Full Circle…
• Dean wanted to finish the original Hollow Spirit recordings which we had on an 8-track real to real.  Luckily, I had the original 4-track cassettes of the drums and possible guitar work.  I agreed that we should finish these recordings, but I wanted to purchase a newer recorder.

2015

• Tammy bought my Rocksmith 2014 for the PS3 so that I could work on my bass playing.  I ended up also getting better at guitar with it.
• Bought a TASCAM portastudio 32sd; a 32 track digital studio system and transferred the 4-track mixes over to the 32 track.
• Got divorced.
• Purchased more rack equipment in the process
• Started working again with Dean W on the original Hollow Spirit versions of the songs.  Asked Paul S if he wanted to join, but he declined.
• Recorded Remembering the Past and Smiling
• Started The MPF Project website to talk about what I’ve been doing since finishing the FMDF recordings.
• Asked Tammy to marry me
• Bought a drum set
• Changed my job to where I work now
• Released Christmas (at our House) under my name.

2016

• Started taking drum lessons.
• Started working my Adam V on drums with Dean W.
• Continuing to record the Hollow Spirit music, not taking on any other recordings.
• Did my first live performance since 2000 and my first solo performance ever at an open mic night.
• I got married

2017

• Finishing off the recordings for the newly name band, The MPF Project.
• Still jamming with Adam and Dean and hopefully will do something live with them.
• Still playing at open mic nights, whenever I can.

At the end of last year, Dean and I decided that we needed to release the songs that we’ve worked on soon.  I would like to see them out by May.  We looked at what needed to be completed, and agree that this can be done.

I’m excited to announce that we will be releasing a CD under the band name “The MPF Project” in May!  Currently we are finishing up some tracks, mainly some guitar and vocals, I’m going to re-do some vocal tracks with the original “Hollow Spirit” lyrics.  I’m also re-mastering the tracks.  Dean is going to be handling the CD layout and song arrangements.  We’re also looking forward to Adam, the new guy, to re-do some drum tracks that we originally did with a drum machine.

Making of videos

I also broke down, bought a good video editing program recommended by my friend Larry The Butcher and I’m going to start making some videos for the songs, both “For My Dear Friend” and “The MPF Project”.

Transfer of the “For My Dear Friend” site

During the final week of January or the beginning week of February, I’m going to be removing the “For My Dear Friend” Facebook page and the domain will be re-directed to here.  Part of my goals this year is to consolidate a lot of things in my life, I’ve been spending a lot of money the organize my house as well.

More posts to come!

One big thing that I’m trying to do is get better at being consistent with posting.  I was a little lacking last year, so I’m pushing myself to post more often.

Thanks for reading!

— Mike

 

 

I loaded up my post from the end of last year and decided to see how I did with my goals, not resolutions, I hate that word.  For me, this year, Christmas felt short, mainly because I got married and went on my honeymoon at the beginning of December.

So here was my list from last year:

• Getting Married
  • Check, did that.
• Take drum lessons
  • Still doing that one, after8 months of hard work, I was able to have all my limbs do different things.  Still hard, but I’m not giving up
• Performing in a Nirvana tribute band
  • Never came to be
• Performing in some cover / original bands
  • I am part of a band now, doing the singing and bass.
  • No cover bands in my future
  • I have performed live, as a solo act
• Working to complete more songs
  • This is an on going process

What goals have I set for myself in 2017?

• Perform more either with a band or solo.
• Get better at drums to the point that I can record myself
• Have another CD released by May (Only a couple of finishing touches left to do for this one)
• Continue to work on guitar / bass and drums
• Record a new Christmas song, already have one in mind.

Hope your 2016 was good for you, best wishes in the new year!

 

Hello everyone,

I had a chance to mix down another song last night, this isn’t a full mix down as much as it is a merge between two songs.  I released Cold Black Sky a while back, but I forgot to add “The Sound of the Ocean” to it.  Here is the new release of CBS and TSOTO together again.

Click here to listen

Thanks again for reading & listening.

Hello everyone,

Just letting you know that “The World Through My Eyes” was released yesterday on SoundCloud.

Please click here to listen!

 

 

I’ve just released “Premonition” for everyone to hear!  It’s on SoundCloud.  Just click on the word and it’ll take you there!

Enjoy!  If all goes well, we should be doing this one live shortly!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful new year, I know that I am.  I’ve been pushing myself to get out there again and do things that I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

I’m taking drum lessons.  I’ve wanted to play drums since I was a kid, but as it is with a lot of parents, drums were too noisy and expensive at the time.  I’m going to try and practice at least 30 minutes per day.

I’m currently playing bass in two bands, one is an all original band and the other is a mix of covers and originals.  Looking forward to starting to actually play in clubs or bars again.

I’m looking forward to getting married near the end of this year.

I’m working with my friend Dean to finish up our recordings as well.  Dean and I are also working with a drummer to form a Nirvana tribute band.  We’ll have to see how this goes as well.

I’m also going to try and finish another video for the For My Dear Friend stuff.  I have a great idea for a video for “I Don’t Care” but I just don’t have the time to work on it.

Wishing you all the best!

— Mike