Paul Gilbody

2009, you say?  Happy New Year to all of you who follow me in my wee online world and to celebrate I’ve re-themed the site with a new look and added a Media Page where you can see my debut video on You Tube.  Please spread the word!

Hear my train a comin' - photo by Jem Garthwaite (www.jebaloo.com)

I always get really optimistic at New Year and I’ve got big plans for 2009 that have been brewing for a while (hopefully to be revealed soon).  I have a great feeling about this year, not least about the launch of my debut album which I’ve been talking about for far too long.  Last year I finally did something about it and have 10 days of recording in the bag.  A lot of work still to be done and unfortunately my time seems to be always over-committed but steady progress is being made and I hope to update you soon!

Here are some of my highlights from 2008!

Memorable gigs in Glasgow’s Classic Grand, The Jazz Bar (Edinburgh), Hollow Heart Parlour, Peebles Eastgate Centre and Te Pooka

I was a featured artist at The Listening Room, voted best act of Fondoo and invited to play at the August and December best-of Fondoo events.

Opening the Acoustic Edinburgh festival, featured artist St Andrews Uni freshers week acoustic night, finalist for “Face Off” battle of the bands (acoustic genre).

I also had the pleasure of supporting Ten Stories High at their Voodoo Rooms single launch.

With Gecko 3…

Gigs all over Scotland and in Newcastle, Brussels and Paris including the Brussels Jazz Festival, supporting Nizlopi, The Five Corners Quintet, Cibelle and Nell Bryden, launching 2009 at Departure Lounge Hogmanay Party.

I’ve been on TV twice with The Gospel Truth choir including performing the Scotland Children in Need single (We Have a Dream) which reached No.1 in the Scottish Singles Chart.

Along with Simon Kirby, I’ve organised and promoted another year of amazing music at Acoustic Edinburgh including a sell-out series of events at the Edinburgh Fringe.

I’ve also done session work on forthcoming studio albums for Andi Neate, The Douglas Kay Band, Vicky Gray and The Graeme Mearns Band.

I also cook.

I’m very honoured to have been invited to be featured artist at Edinburgh’s finest and longest-running Open-Mic night (Out of the Bedroom) on Jan 15th at the Canon’s Gait!

See you there & have an amazing 2009!

So I’ll be on the telly tonight for the Scottish Children in Need fundraiser on BBC, singing with The Gospel Truth - a choir started by my hugely talented pal Tracey Braithwaite.  From unknowns to on the box in less than a year! Not bad eh?

Rumour has it were on around 8.20pm so tune in and buy the single - it’s for charity (and I can say I’m in the charts!).

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!

Quicksand

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!

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

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

Happily beavering away in my artist’s recluse - can’t believe 5 days are almost up already.  Seems like I’m only just getting going but loving every minute.

So here was the plan:  go and record 16 songs in their entirety including allowing plenty of time to get my guest musician’s parts down.  This plan was hatched a few months back, thinking I’d have plenty of time to get prepared, get all the guide tracks sorted and have lots of practices so it would just be a case of going in and doing it.  Unfortunately the world had other plans for me in the last few months and my time away was on me before I realised.  There’s a lot to be said for blanking out some days in your diary for yourself - I’ve never actually done this since I started working 9 to 5 and it feels amazing - definitely going to be a regular thing.

So apart from loving the stress-free solitude, here’s what’s been happening:

Day 1 - packed all my gear and did last minute shopping, set off for recluse.  Arrived (about 6pm), unpacked, set up the drums, cooked some scran, ate scran, set up the computer.

Day 2 - set about learning how to use my new audio software (possibly should have done that earlier…), mic’d up the kit, did a test recording (all good), imported some old guide tracks and had a bit of a drum practice.

Day 3 - realised there’s some work involved as I haven’t played drums in over a year.  Did a lot of practice and eventually got a good take of Ricochet.  Planned out what I’m actually trying to do in terms of songs, orchestration and how I’m going to record each song e.g. click or no-click, guide track or no-guide track.

Day 4 - Conceded drumming isn’t quite as easy as Hugh makes it look.  That said, got a nice take of the Sushi song done and recorded a few more guide tracks.

Day 5 - Spent a long time on the guide for 200 Miles - I’ve got a plan for this one and can’t wait to hear the final result.  Got drum takes down for Glad to See You and Vapour Trails (after a lot of pain) and that brings me to now.  Mat Clements is coming on thursday to do some percussion so I’ve got a few more guides to sort out before I sleep…

Drums - how hard can it be?

It’s so tranquil here… wind chimes, bird song, the wind whispering through the autumn leaves, me drumming : )

Public thanks to Hugh for the loan of his kit and red magic carpet.

So.  I’m finally putting my money where my mouth is and recording a solo album!  I’ve only had rough demos before so a while ago I set aside 10 days in my crazy calendar to work on recording some of my own songs.

As under-prepared as ever, that day has now arrived and I have no choice but to head off to my secret artist’s recluse and get busy!

Some of you know me as ‘moose’ which for some reason has stuck as my stage name in Gecko 3.  So for my first solo album ‘Eponymoose’ is the working title.

I have a few production ideas and will be working with Mat, Tracey, Vicky & Udit to capture some of the live stuff we’ve done this year but beyond acoustic guitar and vocals, I’ve no solid idea how this record is going to end up sounding.  I want it to sound much bigger than just one guitar and one voice but right now, I’m off to have 10 days of fun and immersion!

Px