Without further adieu, please let me know what you think and post a comment on my website;

THE NEW BIO

There is some debate over when Christien Paul first discovered his love for music. His father would say “He was crawling into my cabinet where I kept my harmonicas and blow melodies at the age of two…” whereas his Mother would say “He was banging on my piano as soon as he could reach the piano keys, just a few months before his fourth birthday.”

Needless to say, Christien was blessed with a home of music enthusiasts and had acquire a room full of band gear by the time he had reached high school. It was during these golden years that Christien grew as a frontman in a band called notwithstanding (nws) sharing the stage with such bands as Alexisonfire, Wheels On The Bus, The Fullblast and many other Canadian rock bands.

CP said: “I remember reading the thank you notes on the liner notes of the first official Alexisonfire release; NWS (RIP). It killed me, I thought my days of writing were over. The band (nws) wasn’t working out and I had never performed without a band. I had already been through two very promising bands with ties to with Sum 41 and Not By Choice… it was happening all over again so I decided to quit being an artist and became a producer.”

Throughout his college years studying Business Management Christien started a recording company called Nautical Progressions producing demos, epk videos, and websites for independent artists. In his final year he was hired as a score composer for a student film entitled “Wooditis” winning “Best Film” at the U of T film awards. The theme song was called “Indigo Children” written as an instrumental on piano with electronic drums and a string section.

Having established himself as a composer, Christien was later hired to compose music for TV Commercials such as the MUCK Film festival hosted by the Royal Alexandre Theater and the Mixed Martial Arts Expo presented by the Fight Network. After Runnymede had still not come to fruition but Christien was still in fact writing music.

After graduation, Christien launched EPKhosting.com, an accredited music blog covering independent artists in a live concert setting with candid interviews as EPK videos. This was where Christien found his inspiration for his return to the stage, while he was filming Canada’s best performers. Christien explains, “As a music journalist I was able to meet just about anyone I wanted and I studied the best of the best. Like Bruce Lee, I adopted elements of the arts/artists that inspired me and began making my own blend. But it wasn’t until I had my heart broken that I really began to write lyrics again.”

In the summer of 2008 Christien lost his first love and coped with the pain of the break-up by writing love letters in the form of songs. Within the next 6 months he was booked to perform at Canadian Music Week, Canada’s biggest music festival. After performing at Canadian Music Week Christien managed to book himself a tour across France and Holland for a total of 22 performances in 32 days.

Christien explains, “A friend of mine recommended I go back-packing through Europe as a member of CouchSurfing.com which is a community of travellers that put each other up for the night. The expectation is that you’ll return the favour when they come to your town. To find gigs I surfed through MySpace to find artists I could open for in the cities I wanted to play. If I landed a gig I would then search CouchSurfing.com for a place to stay in that area. Everything was going as planned which scared me all the more… I ended up tattooing the kangi character for “courage” on the inside of my leg to commit myself to going through with it.”

Only 100 copies of a 5 song EP were made for the tour featuring two songs which were later dropped “The Veil” and “Forgive”. During the tour Christien wrote 3 more songs, the first of which was Remember Me in Caen, Normandie France. Minou was written while alone in Paris and Maybe was written in Amsterdam the night before Christien’s interview on the morning show at Amsterdam FM. “I never fell asleep that night… I was on a cot in a dorm hallway right in front of the washroom. It’s no wonder I feel like falling asleep every time I hear that song.” says Christien.

Upon his return to Canada, Christien was ready to record his debut album entitled Standing Still but knew that this time he’d need some help. So with the relationship he had established through Canadian Music Week, Christien found Metalworks Studios and met Lake Curry. Together, the album was produced over the course of a year and released in the fall of 2011.

“This album is a chapter of my life, a chapter that was 6 years long with my first love. They say it takes half the length of time of the relationship to get over it, so I spent 3 years producing this record. Throughout the relationship I felt stuck, like I was standing still watching my peers pass me by in flying colours. In the first 6 months of our breakup I’d say I’ve accomplished more with my music than the previous 6 years. I remember watching an interview with Marylin Manson and he said this “the world’s greatest music comes from a dark place”. These songs are composed what I would like to think of as letters to this girl… a girl for which I was standing still.”

It’s currently raining and my dog is freaking out. She’s usually a loud obnoxious little !@#$^ but when the thunder hits she’s silent as a lamb and hides under the kitchen table. I had never figured out how to calm her until today. Nothing worked, I’d pet her, sing to her, massage her, but nothing… she would still shake like an epileptic in the middle of a seizure. I knew that if she didn’t chill out soon, she’d be in major pain from all of the muscle spasms.

Today, I whistled at her… she looked up and I said “come on, come here” but she wouldn’t budge… she wouldn’t even budge if someone came in the door and she always sprints for the visitor… unless of course there is a rain storm which scares her stiff. So thinking back to the times where she’d come lay her head on the piano legs when i sit down and write my songs… I said “Dixie… Piano?” and looked up at me with those puppy eyes but couldn’t move.

I walked over to the piano leaving her behind and within the first 2 bars of my playing of “Goodbye” (a sonata written for my next record) she got up and layed down under the piano keys right by my feet… sure enough, she stopped shaking, her breathing slowed down and she was relaxed. So to those of you who have a dog, to those of you who can play piano… I’d advise you try playing a sonata that is 80 BPM for your dog the next time you get stuck calming him/her down.

Best of luck,
CP

I’ve recently met someone… it started off brilliantly, sparks everywhere. The timing seemed right but sadly was not. The things she said which I forgot, the things I should not have thought, they make me so fucking distraught. She fueled my fire and satisfied my every desire but because of timing the fire faded, the wind came and blew it away. Work got hectic, my mind got reckless, verbals diarrhea became noise and the sweet sound of music was gone. So without haste, I reached for my guitar and vented my affliction. Her response was null, seeking no repetition. I feel her heart and its contradiction.

To you my friends, I think you’ll agree, this performance is the real me.

I don’t know where to begin. Many of my songs have strings which I arrange using a keyboard (synthetic strings) but Lake managed to convince me that the songs deserved better. So here we are, at Metalworks Studios with Meghan Ballantyne recording cello on Maybe. She will also be performing on Remember Me and Cuba. You can download the premaster to Cuba with Meghan on Cello from the official fan page; http://facebook.com/afterrunnymede

Stay tuned for more sneak peaks of this work in progress

Buy on iTunes

VERSE
I’m trying not to call you
But it’s so hard
To be there without you
Was not in the cards

We fight that’s what we do
Everyone else does it too
Don’t cry because it’s true

or because..

CHORUS
I’ll always, always
Love you, love you

MELODY
I know that you’ve moved on
But the feeling is much too strong
And I know it’s in you too

ENDING (STRUMMING)
We’ll try it once again.
Maybe just be friends?
I just wanted you to know
Before I let you go

CHORUS
I’ll always, always
Love you, love you

Buy on iTunes

CHORUS
My love is what I give To love is to forgive.
To breathe is to live. Will ya find tha will tha
Let it be, maybe, maybe

VERSE
Cause it’s been so long
Since I’ve felt this strong
Before I found you
These times were hard on us both
But I swear to you, i beg you

BRIDGE
mmmm……..

VERSE
As I look for those words
You know what they are
But I dare not say them
Yes I know you want them
But I know you’d doubt them
Wouldn’t you?

CHORUS
My love is what I give To love is to forgive
To breathe is to live Will ya find tha will tha
Let it be, maybe, maybe

When I got to the wedding reception I noticed that every table had a “double feature”. The bride and groom selected some of their favorite bands and used them to mark the tables for their guests (two bands per table).

The concept was to have guests sing a line from one of the bands that were labeled on their table to get the bride and groom to kiss. I thought it was far better than hearing everyone hit their wine glass with a fork like most traditional weddings. Then again, there were some pretty bad singers that sounded more painful than forks and wine glasses :p

I was assigned to a table labeled “AC/DC and After Runnymede”. So obviously she wanted to hear “Cuba”. In the middle of this day, my family and I skipped out to visit my grand-father who was just recently moved to a nursing home. Sadly, after the loss of his wife (my grand-mother) his health rolled down hill as he was unable to care for himself. Feeling that his days are numbered I felt obliged to perform some songs for him at the nursing home. After all, he did help pay for my very first guitar.

Now ironically, in the middle of this private performance for my grand-father… guessed who walked in… Ashley, the bride. She came to snap a photo with him in her wedding gown but in turn saw and heard me perform “Cuba”… her favorite song. So now the cards were out on the table and she knew what I had with me, i.e. my guitar and ukelele. So now I really felt obligated to not only perform for my grand-father but at her wedding reception.

After catching up with a few other cousins at the reception where I was seated, they all pushed me to represent the table with a line or two from one of my own songs. I told them that I was a little disinclined feeling that I’d be “showing off” if I represented the table because I am a singer unlike everyone else there that was just having fun. They argued that no one who think that of me… but then I showed them something I wrote on a napkin after seeing my stage name on the table’s “Featured Bands” card… a re-write of the lyrics to “Cuba”;

Ashley we’re here, at the alter my dear
Our future seems so clear
to our marriage we will cheer

Together in Paris, France
We’ll sing, we’ll laugh and we’ll dance
Just a little more romance

My brother made a valid point of saying that I’m not the one marrying her and that’s what it sounds like. More importantly, if it is her favorite song, she’ll probably want to sing along to it, so it’s probably best that you stick to the original version. At that point I spoke to the house DJ to see if it would even be possible to hook up my Ukelele (which I kept hidden in the car). He had more than I needed and luckily I even had my laptop with me. So while he played “Paul McCartney” for their “first dance”, I sneaked my things into the hall, hooked everything up as I would for any live show and started to play “Cuba” while the dance floor was still theirs for their second “first dance”.

[SinglePic not found]When the song was over, a number of people came up to me to say how impressed they were… but when the bride and groom came up to thank me… it was the greatest feeling the world. The both of them were just blown away and forever grateful… Ashley said and I quote “Oh my God! I can’t believe you perform, do you know how awesome your voice is live? I sang along to the entire song.” The groom was also very very grateful and they both said it was something they will never forget.

Thankfully I took my brother’s advice and stuck to the original version, or she’d have been lost with the lyrics and probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much. So there you have it TRASH (Ashley’s nick name)… here’s all the proof you would ever need to say “Yeah, he performed at my wedding”

Buy on iTunes

VERSE
Minou where are you? I await you, on skype.
Can I see you, tonight? Will you ever find the time.

CHORUS
Every day, I’m face to face. With a face I, don’t recognize.
But at night, yours is, on my mind.

VERSE
Minou to see you. Won’t you come online?
Cause the last time, I fell behind. Do I ever cross your mind?

CHORUS
Every day, I’m face to face. With a face I, don’t recognize.
But at night, yours is, on my mind.

BRIDGE
Minou, minou, minou, minou
Where, where are you?

CHORUS
Every day, I’m face to face. With a face I, don’t recognize.
But at night, yours is, on my mind.

OUTRO
Minou, I do, need you, want you
Only you, minou, minou, I knew
I’d lose you, minou

I finally made it home but to my surprise, there was a forensic investigation taking place just across the street. On Saturday night, there was a house party taking place at 530 The West Mall and at 3 am, multiple gunman attacked 6 individuals in their 20s, 2 of which are in critical condition.

Here’s a clip of what I came home to Sunday night; http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1632714912?bctid=22712307001

Other than that, the tour is officially over, I had a great time… hundreds of challenges (finding couches to crash, earning money to eat, etc.) but made it through with grace! I was interviewed on Amsterdam FM, featured on the MySpace Canada home page, generated loads of traffic and contacts, popped my ear drum, had an allergic reaction to penicillin… man oh man, this is was an adventure of a lifetime.

I want to send a big thanks out to Lawrence Collins, Mr. Fly and A MysterE. I’m now going to switch gears and get back to “The Ongoing Music Documentary” at EPKhosting.com where I’ll be vlogging tutorials on how I put all this together via MySpace.

In the near future I’ll also be posting a few more clips of the tour including the Amsterdam FM interview so stay tuned and don’t forget to sign up for the mailing list if you haven’t already (found in the left sidebar of the official website).