Fun day at the studio. Matt and Syd are rehearsing with us, with their drummer Owen and Sam on keys. They are really developing their sound. I love watching people who still understand the joy of being in a band and are open to new ways of working together. They are aiming to promote a gig, with them headlining, on 30th Jan at the Beacon Centre.The next serious recordings planned are firstly with Mike (AKA Pecker) and then possibly with Ben Woodward, or The Ethnics.
Pecker I have known for a good few years as he occasionally volunteers in the youth club (although he soon twigged it was a good way of getting cheap rehearsals!). I have always been impressed with his willingness to work with new people and try new things. Firstly he rehearsed with vocalists and did free shows at old people's homes (how cool is that?). More recently he has been playing with an African band and playing his own folky/surf/acoustic material with Adam on drums and me on Fender Jazz bass.
He has a voice which a professional vocal coach, Julie, thought reminded her of the talking heads...it's unique with a husky, mature quality. The songs are great, using Spanish and French (from basic phrase books!) along with some well crafted poetic lyrics in English. The guitar is as close as folky acoustic guitar playing ever can get to riff based songs. My favourite songs at the moment is the mellow "Mary Bosk", "Don't Put Your Arms Around Me", "Le Professeur" and "The Girl From Mount Lasser". You can find some of them on myspace, but it's worth waiting a couple of weeks as Mike is going to post the live takes from the pre-production sessions which will be of better quality.
Pecker I am convinced will record well through the new Allen and Heath desk, and particularly utilising the Drawmer 1969 compressor. I am not sure how well I'll adapt to the dual roles of playing bass and engineering the sessions, but it's something I did before when I was first discovering the joys of home recording. It certainly keeps you busy as you need to worry about getting the desk, compressor, mics and computer set up, then as soon as hit record you have to worry about playing the right notes, in the right order! If that's not enough then the next challenge is to try and put some musical expression into what you are doing. That's not as straightforward as it seems for someone like me, who's approach to playing an instrument is roughly equivalent to banging a nail into a piece of wood. Minimum complication, the less moving parts the less can go wrong...get the picture? I'm not someone blessed with finesse when it comes to guitar, the best written review I ever got was in the local paper: "well crafted songs delivered with vim and vigor" that just about sums me up. This time the songs are rather more crafted as they were written by someone else, so that bodes well.
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