Listen. Listen. Listen some more.

Things are going quite smoothly at the moment and this is a good thing. We have a couple of weeks break from recording and production which is a chance to ponder on what we’re doing next. Probably a couple of older tracks. Probably writing some new tracks. Definitely working on some mastering of the EP and also looking to play some gigs. Need a drummer for that bit. Which is always a sticking point. We’ve had difficulty with the job of keeping drummers in the past. Maybe we need some one who can play a gig or two and record every few months rather than a permanent fixture. On the subject of gigging we might have a crack at streaming a performance or two. See how that goes. See if there are any tracks we can do anything with acoustically. 

Day 2 status report:

Here we are at the mixing stage. All recording done. Little bits and overdubs added. Started the day with me adding other guitar tracks. Rob then added some guitar and percussion parts with Pete. Pete has been mostly ears today helping steer the good ship HMD. By the end of today we should have a product. Something for us to promote some how.

Day 1: Good times had by all!

Well, day one is over and done with and it was brilliant! I couldn’t have imagined how easy and enjoyable today could have been! Rob the engineer is an amazingly approachable chap with so much in common with ourselves we couldn’t have chosen a better guy to record our little songs! We managed to get the five tracks down, a run of overdubs done and the vocal tracks down. All the vocals are first time takes. We listened through to the tracks and I think they are sounding very good indeed. (all the practice certainly paid off). Tomorrow will be adding good anything else we need to the tracks and final mix. Can’t wait to hear the final results!

Living Room Gig…

…to an audience of none!  It’s a practice not a gig.  Tomorrow we play through this tiny reconstruction of a Marshall stack so we can get good at our songs.  Next month we go in the studio proper and record them.  After that comes the release of whatever HMD4 becomes

A day of music and chatting

We had a practice day, and it was good. (I also drank tea in Rob’s garden)

We played through the 5 tracks. Altered some drums and rejigged the start of Half-Life. We have everything in place now. Just the matter of practice, practice, practice till we take on the recording sometime in September (hopefully). Loving my guitar sound today. Used the Epiphone Dot with the Boss Digital Metalizer. For added sustain I used a vintage overdrive to keep the levels up. Interesting feed back and noises.

Kill, Kill, Beer, Whisky

“Kill, Kill, Beer, Whisky” may be the name or our next EP.  It could easily be “Your Face Is A Compromise” too.  Or something else, it’s just too soon to tell.

Kill, Kill, Beer, Whisky is my summation of Motorhead lyrics.  Pete was saying he’d been listening to them recently and the lyrics were actually deeper than you’d expect.  ( And any opportunity for facetiousness will be taken, but I won’t detail the Record Breakers theme tune that followed here ). Your Face Is A Compromise is one of Simon’s lyrics that will actually be on the EP, giving it a little more chance of making it.  It’ll be a little time before it’s done yet and I’m sure another name will come along.  We know we have five songs for the EP now: How To Breathe, So Far From Me, Half-Life, Lover Best Forgotten, and Knock Me Down.  And we intend to go professional for the recording.  Step up a level from this DIY malarky.  For now, watch this space.

Influences

We’re writing the fourth album.  Writing, learning, recording this time – slower, different results.  Each album is a chance to do something different (well, the same but different).  Originally this was going to be ‘the synthpop album’, so we’ve ended up a bit heavier this time instead – because we wrote the first song (How To Breathe) on synths and had to tune the guitars to drop D to play it.  Since then Simon has managed to stay in drop D for all five new songs.  I’ve slipped back in to standard tuning for Half-Life.  The influences have changed a little too.  I know that I’ve been thinking of Stone Temple Pilots, Rage Against The Machine, Low, Chris Isaak, New Model Army, Nine Inch Nails (can you tell how old I am?), an some of the little Sunn O))) that I’m familiar with.  Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Rush, Yes, and Hawkwind have all been mentioned in the room too.

It’s going well.  We have the two songs already mentioned, then So Far From Me, Lover Best Forgotten, and as of today Knock Me Down.  We’ll let you know when you can hear them.

Fishy fishy lets get busy!

Well, here we are. A few tracks down and only a couple more needed before we mix and cut our way to the next album offering. Up to now things are feeling quite diverse. A little funk, a little American rock, a little cowboy music and some odd time signatures. All fit/been made to fit into a fishy/ocean theme. Stay tuned for more news, sometimes.

The bass(ics) of bass.

Today was a good day for bass playing. We started a track with all three of us playing bass. Not as crazy as it sounds. It’s turned out rather well! Lots of experimenting, lots of scratch pad stuff to play around with and at the end of the day we had Electric Eels. Not sure where the title came from. The lyrics aren’t particularly weird. Pretty impressive work today all around.

Here’s a chip butty in kit form.