Scott 'emoil' Hastings has produced & participated in multitudes of musical projects. From ska bands, concept albums, film scores, experimental noise, radio plays, to folk, punk, prog rock and more Scott has been a constant explorer of song writing, sound creation and audio production. These 50 tracks sample Scott's audio related work semi-chronologically spanning 20 years. Recent at the top with lower listings marking the beginning of his sonic journey.
An 8-piece Ska band reuniting Scott with Malchiks saxophonist Lawrence Chew and Of Perception & Impossible Machine bassist Darel Simpson along with John Henville, Ian Mainski, Mike Chamzuk, Karina Abe and Trevor Tablotney. Playing all over Vancouver a dozen years after Scott's first ska band the Malchiks reigned. Fun, often silly narratives and the unmistakable off-beat combined with amazing rhythm and horn sections Brehdren have proven there's still some rudeboy in Scott after all.
Check out their music at brehdren.com
Frank Henville, Troy Alden, Davey Berks and Scott Hastings collectively created the world's first blog label. Releasing a new blog post weekly via a blogger account that featured a link to an mp3 and a jpg cover image which they called 'superflat singles'.
Artists from all over the world donated tracks totaling over 70 releases for over a year and a half. The following are a few of the tracks Scott released on the blog label under the pseudonym [(710W3)]. Blips & Ifs created a digital 'audio toy' called gronk, which could be played online and essentially was a slider that mixed various blips and ifs sounds.
The logo was developed by Troy and Davey at the Railway Club. Scott later designed a typeface based on the label's logo. Although the blog still exists the links to the the tracks are no longer functioning. blipsandifs.blogspot.ca
One of Scott's releases 'Jade Green' was later picked to appeared on the 'Ikude' complilation album. Here are a few of the tracks Scott released as [(710W3)].
A 14 track musak X-mas album using Propellerhead's Reason software. Scott originally intended to record vocals as well but due to the ridiculousness of the project and a lack of time decided it was just fine as an experimental instrumental album. Here is one of the tracks.
A heavy progressive rock band featuring Darel Simpson (who teamed up with Scott later in Brehdren and prior in Of Perception), Max Floatation, Ross Arbo, and Mike the Drummer the group carefully crafted complex emotional rawk. Scott always imagined that the singer for The Impossible Machine was the evolution of the Scott E. Moil character he performed as in the Malchiks. In the Malchiks unreleased song 'King of Rawk' the lyrics describe how the frontman may not be as much of a rudeboy as he was a rawk king. Impossible Machine was the embodiment of the king or rawk. They were a dedicated group starting to gain local traction when the drummer and guitarist had to move to other cities. Due to the particularly complex nature of the music and the difficulty in replacing two key missing members they decided to disband.
The film score for Brett Gaylor's final film project for his degree at Concordia University, a strange and uneasy soundtrack inspired by Requiem for a Dream.
A concept album based on a character that evolved from a short film called 'Feed us' created during a 24hour film festival in Vancouver BC. A comic book concept featuring Ghost was in-development titled 'Ghost and the Impossible Machine' which featured the fictional location of Boomcity, home to Golden Calf and the Brothers Grimm and a supposed seeding point for Blips & Ifs and Frank Henville's Cruftworld. The songs on the album were from the perspective of the Ghost character after his transition into the spirit realm but before his adventures in Boomcity began.
An ambitious concept album written and recorder within one month on a home studio digital workstation in 2001 just prior to the birth of Scott's first child. All instruments, vocals, and engineering were performed by Scott. A complete multi-page album cover was also produced. To date, only one complete copy of this album was ever made and mailed to Frank Henville when he lived in China. It is not known if the original print still exists.
Payback provided a chance to play an instrument onstage and backup his friend and vocalist, Brian Williams. Scott picked up a 5 string bass for this scream punk band. Payback managed to record a few tracks and play a few shows and was well received by hard core audiences at the Brickyard and the Cobalt. Brain and guitarist Rob went on to form another band called Harrow. Harrow and Golden Calf played at a warehouse in Vancouver. Many years later in Brian, Scott and Rusty (from Golden Calf) would occasionally reunite to jam out some reggae and ska tunes an extreme departure from the punk project that was Payback.
A strange and unique phenomenon. Rusty Beach, Dmitry Kazak and Scott would spend hours improvising music and lyrics in this strange hip-hop centric collective. Often guest starring other musicians often Frank Henville. The band was devised as a way to get the trio on stage in order to gather footage for the initial idea of filming a rap-umentary about a Jewish rapper trying to make it big with his two mutant barnyard guardians, Goatlegs and Bighorn Grimm. The project branched out to become a comic book, interactive games, a costumed live show with make-up costume horns and stilts, in the end over 60 hours of improvised jams were recorded along with a few pre-written endeavors though it is still unknown if the bulk of the recordings still exist or are archived. A truly sensational project that was to later inspire and shape the creation of another improvisation project called Flippin' Channels.
An very experimental recording session featuring Darel Simpson, Troy Alden and Brett Gaylor. Using a 4-track tape recorder, a guitar, general midi and a microphone a strange half backwards half forwards all insane album of 14 eerie soundscapes were generated.
Under various names Frank Henville, Mark Braude, Troy Alden and Scott would create a variety of music and styles. One origin story starts with two tracks recorded over the course of a Summer by Scott & Braude they realized after booking a show they were going to need a band and called upon old friends.
Another origin claims Scott had booked a show at DV8 in Vancouver for a group from Galiano that included Rusty from Golden Calf, Stacy and Wreford who Scott worked with at the Gulf Island Film School, but the band fell through and Scott called on Troy and Braude to cover the gig playing over some ambient tracks Frank had produced. Scott packed his entire desk up and re-created his work space from home at the restaurant.
Tthe quartet comprised of vairous member configurations under various names and styles. Once substituting for a gig the Malchiks fell through for on Galiano Island. In the Malhciks defence the group had already started disbanding by this time. Space Rock 2000 opened with a variation on Pink Floyd's 'In th flesh' to present to the audience that they were not the band the audience expected to see. Scott and the group assumed the roles of Space Travellers delivering their sonic knowledge to the universe.
Space Rock 2000 also competed in two rounds of CiTR's Shindig band competition, but due to it's zany costumes, space alien themes, and puppet show it was deemed more of a novelty act and not taken very seriously by the judges. They also played in the Music Waste Music Festival under the moniker Air Conditioners during the early 2000's.
Home studio recorded single Scott produced just after the Malchiks disbanded. It was delivered to Spawner Records as a demo for a new solo album from Scott to be released on a sub-label of Spawner to be run by Scott and Frank Henville. The new label eventually developed into the 'worlds first blog label' Blips & Ifs.
A ska band spanning 1996-2000 who toured Canada from Vancouver to Montreal in 1998 and released a full-length album on Spawner Records and recorded an unreleased EP just before the end in 2000. This was one of Scott's most well known projects and was played on radio stations and on Much Mucis TV via the video for 'Get over me' directed by Malchiks Keyboardist Jason Dasilva. Some of their first shows were for CiTR's Shindig band competition in which they placed second and won studio time which helped produce their debut album 'Skavant-Garde'. malchiks.com
Groundhogsday is an listening party where participants bring music they felt was worth sharing. Sometimes chosen because it was amazing, or it was funny, and sometimes it was because they wanted to disturb. The following is a small sampling of some of the tracks Scott created specifically for the audio festival.
Prior to the 2000 Scott had recorded 4 albums on a Tascam cassette tape 4-track entitled: Unwrapped, Begin, Again and Start. Staying up late in his parents house he unwrapped the gift of music composition and lyric construction and Scott continued this exploration of music and self for many years after. Over the years Scott continued to write random and various songs with no designated project or plan but catagorized the various tracks by periods of time and naming each collection with a reference to the start of something. Long time collaborator Frank Henville dubbed it Audio Sketchbooks and the collection was named.
Scott's first band. Frank Henville, Darel Simpson and Art Factora gather together above Frank's parents garage to write songs and become a band. The group decided to form at the end of an Air Cadet meeting in which they were all members of the marching band. Scott only knowing clarinet and piano offered to sing in the band, even though he'd never really sung before.