Archive for October, 2008
Live recording, Nizlopi, Miss Neate and more gigs
Oct 30th
Been busy busy as ever with two 3-day weekends working on Andi Neate’s new studio album, an amazing gig supporting Nizlopi with Gecko 3, a gig in a castle (which turned into an acoustic session with wine until 6am) and a lovely wedding (which turned into an acoustic session with whisky until 6am).
The Graffiti Tower
I also did the warm up slot at this month’s Acoustic Edinburgh and unveiled a new song and dabbled a bit more with the looper. Here’s a rough recording of “Quicksand” with the loop pedal – hope you enjoy!
The Gecko 3 gig with Nizlopi was amazing – thanks to all the G3 fans for turning out and a big thanks to Nizlopi for having us. Such an amazing duo, beautiful and jaw dropping music and such lovely down to earth blokes too. Hats off to them blazing a trail and inspiring independent artists in the UK and beyond.
A couple of gigs for me on the near horizon too:
HALLOWEEN with Ten Storeys High.
I’m very chuffed to be asked to be the support act for these guys who are launching the first single “Disfunctional” from their new “The Thrill of the Fall” album.
Lovely venue too:
Where: The Voodoo Rooms
When: Friday 31st Oct 8pm
Tax: £4
Also, I’ve been asked to play a charity gig I did last year though details a bit sketchy – tbc
Where: Teviot Underground (or may be Medina)
When: Tuesday November 11th
Tax: tbc
Details: Also playing will be the incredible Rob Howell and the inimitable Banana Sessions.
Album update: I’ve been so busy that I’ve not even had a chance to listen to what I’ve recorded and start editing for the next stage : ( I have 2 days next week set aside though so hopefully I’ll make some progress.
Other news: I’ve just bought sleigh bells, in case I feel the need to write and record a Christmas song!
Album Recording – Day 10
Oct 7th
Well it’s actually 2 days after and I’m still coming down from the high of a combination of such a great and productive time away in such a beautiful, chilled location and a hectic climax to the whole session.
I make a bit of a habit of setting my sights impossibly high and trying my hardest to reach them. As a result the last two days were a bit of a marathon – no more relaxing mornings to soak up the atmosphere and be inspired before starting work at 11am but straight up and onto my squeaky drum stool to press my aching fingers against the guitar strings while I still had some nerve endings in them!
Day 9 – conscious of the fact that I wanted to get all the acoustic guitar done in the live space with the same mic set-ups I got stuck in early and got 3 songs finished by lunch time. I saved Vapour Trails for after lunch which ended up taking over 3 hours (the song, not lunch). I pushed on and I knew that my newest song (which doesn’t have a definite title yet but I’ll call it “Best Friend” for now) which has a really tender vibe to it would work late at night and so I saved that til last that day to try and capture a special feeling. It ended up being a 2.30am finish but I had guitar for 7 more songs in the bag after about 14 hours of playing.
Day 10 – last day in the studio and I had to be packed and out the door by 5pm. Woke at 8am after not enough sleep and was back behind the guitar by 9, fingers still hurting from the day before with 3 songs to go before Hugh was due to arrive to lay down some more drums. Somehow I managed to finish the last take just as Hugh turned up, though this was more like 2pm and I’d actually got an extra song done out of 4 ‘nice-to-have’ tracks that I wanted to get down if I had time.
Desperately mic’d up the drum kit again while Hugh learned the song he’d never heard before (Louder than Words). I was playing the song myself on drums earlier in the week when I thought “this should be played in Hugh’s style” and no one can do that better than Hugh so after a few run throughs and some discussion we spent an hour getting some good takes down and then covered a couple of things like the intro and ending again. 4pm and we were literally just doing a final re-take of the slow down bit at the end so Hugh could match the timing of the guitar chords when the computer hangs. I’m a bit of a geek so tried all I knew to avoid killing the program but ultimately that’s all I could do and we lost the whole track!
I know the audio files are on the hard drive but it would be such a pain to go through each one and try and put it in the song arrangement in the right location that we had no option but to start again.
Quicker this time as Hugh had got to know the song but we were finally done by 4.40pm 20 mins to pack up, clean the place and say goodbye.
Hugh Martin
As you might imagine, it took over 2 hours but in the rush I left my jacket (and phone) behind and didn’t realise until I’d got back to Edinburgh.
Having had 10 days of no caffeine and no alcohol, a steak and a bottle of wine was in order so that’s how it all ended. What an amazing 10 days of music – I can’t wait to get moving on the rest of it but unfortunately my busy calendar means grabbing half days here and there.
I got so much done, but clearly not all the recording done for 16 songs. The idea was to choose the best 10 from those. From the 10 days away I’ve got all the drums, all the guitar and 75% of the percussion done for 13 songs. Now I’ve got an awful lot of editing to do before I can get moving on the bass, vocals and other bits and pieces.
If you’ve read this far(!) you may be up for Acoustic Edinburgh tonight where I’m playing the warm-up slot at 9pm in Medina. Rags and Feathers are headlining plus sets from Marty Philip, Rob Sproul-Cran and Chris Green so it should be a great night – FREE ENTRY!
Hope to see you there!
Px
Album Recording – Day 8
Oct 3rd
Another update from my wee arty cabin in the country. Making good progress but still slowly. Perfection takes time – or may be I should learn the rule of diminishing returns (or at least the drums).
The reason I feel the drums have taken so long is because none of my songs have ever been played with kit before, so apart from a couple of tracks I’ve done demos of, I’ve had to think about and write drum parts as well as get good takes down. I think it’s been worthwhile though as I want this album to sound much fuller than the way my songs are normally heard and this way I’m leaving plenty of scope for bass and other orchestration.
Day 6 – this was taken up with drum takes for Slow me Down and She Loves Sushi. In between hailstorms where the roof windows were acting like a snare head, I got some more guide tracks done : )
Day 7 – Mat Clements arrived for a day of percussion and we got some great stuff down for 200 Miles, Planet Man and Quicksand. It’s great hearing the layers going on, like a Rolf Harris painting you can hear the magic happening and start to get a clearer vision of the end result. I love recording.
Mat Clements with Hang
Day 8 – Realising that time is running very short now I started work on the actual final guitar parts. Took ages to get some good mic sounds but I’m happy with what I’m getting now and got guitar done for Love Train and Louder than Words. Did much experimenting with and without click track. These ones were tricky as the tempo shifts in Love Train and the feel shifts in LtW. I much prefer recording with other people in real time to capture the feel of interaction as it’s hard to play along with what you’re hearing in your head (that doesn’t exist yet) so this time I’ve found it easier to use click tracks which surprised me.
It’s getting late now so time for me to get out from between these two duvets and get under a different one…
Guitar Booth
