New live video!

You may remember I played at Enzo Coffee shop recently. Well the lovely folk at Orchard and Warble recorded and videod this respectively. 
It was a particularly hot and sweaty early evening (and to reduce the sounds from people outside, the door had to be shut for the recorded song) so I'm a sweatygonzalez!

Solo album, The final mix!

Final Solo Album Mix - July 8th 2014;

I've been getting emails from Dan recently to give me the chance to have a listen to initial track mixes, feed-back (by email) any initial thoughts and also make note of any fine-tuning for the final mix-down which demanded a further visit to the studio.

Some of the emails from Dan - song-titles scrubbed out.

Dan doing some final tweaks to a mix at Orchard.

One of two (better safe than sorry) master-copies with some recent gig-memorabilia covering the album title.
I'm thinking of having a competition to guess the album-name (with clues and a CD as a prize).

A special night at Enzo.

Pre-doors, Dan's desk.

Now Enzo has a special atmosphere going on all of it's own, they claim on their website not to be experts but that they are instead, enthusiasts striving to learn new things every day. I can't really think of a better philosophy than that in any field - music included of course. Some of the best musicians I know of, heroes of mine, often feel that they themselves are not experts, and always still learning. It's the way forward folks!

So with this philosophy I shouldn't have been surprised at how good my pre-gig espresso was ... anyone who knows me knows I'm a huge fan of the espresso, preferably a double if I feel I deserve it, and this award-winning espresso was as tasty as the best I've ever had anywhere. Huge thanks to Enzo of course, Orchard and Warble Entertainment for organising the night and the sound, headliners The Rinky Dinks who made for lovely musical entertainment, and most of all to the friends who showed up and shared in a lovely night.

An official poster for the event.

Recording Day 3. Solo album. Tracking guitars (and a banjo, and more).

May 28th 2014

The final day of tracking at Orchard... GUITARS!

Sound-wise, guitars are my personal favourite thing as I feel I can truly express myself with a guitar much more fully than I can vocally or in any other way for that matter. This is especially so with electric gutars for me,  through the huge array of sounds which can be bent and squeezed out of them in all kinds of exciting ways and with their power to produce some incredible sounds that make the instrument produce a kind of super-voice or rather voices that can be screamed, squealed, roared, cried, sang, or just whispered out of them. Anyway this felt like a particularly artistically pleasing day which took me and Dan in some exciting unforeseen directions!

Dan and I played my black Strat 'Il Pirata', a studio Les Paul style of guitar, a Tanglewood acoustic and Dan also played banjo on one song.

I say "played"... I played my Strat for lead guitar parts in a more or less conventional manner whereas the 'Les Paul' and Tanglewood were more cajoled into getting lots of feedback out of them by strumming, twanging, waving, shaking and generally moving them in and out of the zone in front of  the Marshal amp. Dan then did some magnificent painting with these feedback sounds through and around a song, it's going to sound amazing. For another track some harmonic sounds I played on my strat found a new meaning and almost bell-like tones which strike the right feel in a couple of places in another song.

Thinking one particularly quirky song needing something... we just weren't sure what, Dan came up with the idea of a mandolin, but couldn't find the one he thought was around so tried a banjo instead. This turned out to be an inspired unintended-choice as it was perfect for this particular song and intertwined nicely with a nylon-string guitar track I'd already put down. Mr Logan really had his producers head on, and made lots of suggestions about my approach and things to try as well as coming up with plenty of sound and thematic ideas. This was great for me as it gave me confidence in what I both was aiming for and how the songs would end up sounding. 

Dan trying something out on the banjo

As you can tell, I'm not giving too much away (you'll have to buy the album!) but another song which has been kept pretty simple (just a live guitar/vocal/percussion sound) has been given a thematic soundscape in the background. Again, it will make perfect sense when you hear it!

Radders, as always lovely company.

All done! Now just the mixing.

For another track (not mentioned before in this post). My lead-guitar
sound was blended through both a Marshal & this tiny thing!
(Note the size of this amp in comparison with the mic).

Previously;

Recording preparation Part 1
Recording preparation Part 2
Recording preparation Part 3

Recording Day 1
Recording Day 2

Recording Day 1. Solo album, working-title "BrrapapaBappapaBap!" with special guest, T.J.Lee.

Lovely surroundings at Orchard

The intended final title of this recording is something which is in my head and will be revealed nearer to the release date. However "BrrapapaBappapaBap!" will do for now, for reasons you will see (or rather hear) when you hear or buy the album!

Tuesday April 8th, 2014

Day 1 at Orchard started off as mainly being about laying down the bare bones of the songs I want to put on this project and this was all going ahead steadily when my first special guest arrived, mid afternoon. This was friend of mine and super-talented singer-songwriter-guitarist T.J. Lee AKA Tim Lee. 

Tim in the live-room, Dan at the desk,
Radley on the deck!

Tim only had a few hours with us so we had to prioritise our time to make the most of him. Now among other things Tim has a lot of experience of recording, as readers of a previous post will know (by the way, the results of that session will eventually be out there in the public domain soon!). Tim was then able to take a lead in making some decisions and suggestions as to what he might try out on different tracks and so on. 

T.J. Lee on the Bass while Radders takes it easy!

I'm really thrilled he was able to come along, he played both acoustic, semi-acoustic and bass guitars on various tracks and not only came in with some sound ideas (excuse the pun), well crafted and professionally executed, but more importantly, he was feeling the music and was adding to the tracks with emotion and vivacity, which ultimately is really what it was all about. In fact he was bouncing around the live-room while playing bass at times! 

Tim's guitar intertwining with my initial guitar take, combined with Dan's drumming on a track which I think will be the first track on the recording had now developed much more "rolling" feel to it than it initially had, and I like it a lot!

He did an incredible job, he came in having never heard the songs he played on before, worked out the basic chords and structures and just went for it. Top man! Thank you Tim!

Yet more special guests appeared on day 2, more about that in the next post :)

Check out T.J. Lee's supperb album Blossom at http://tjlee.bigcartel.com/product/blossom-t-j-lee-and-the-special-guests

The local area are keeping all this excitement to themselves!

Recording preparation 1. Meet the producer.

I already know the producer for my soon-to-be-started solo record, one Mr Dan Logan, illustrious sound engineer, musician and producer of the great and the good at Orchard Studios. It is Dan who mixed and co-produced All these things right now by The Blue Yellows and also once made a fairly tipsy appearance with us on stage, tambourine in hand, at a Christmas show we did. 
Dan is a multi-instrumentalist but perhaps best known as a talented and really interesting, distinctive percussionist. I'm hoping he'll be playing at some of my solo gigs this summer too (at which point I'll have to stop calling them "solo" gigs I guess).

So, I know Dan well anyway but a meeting was required to go over the plan, so much as there was one, Dan's suggestions as to what are realistic ways to use our time and resources in the studio in the most optimal way, artistically. 

This of course involved real ale, and Radley.

Dan, the-man-with-the-plan's Pooch Radley joined us.

Orchard Jam

An unusual one as gigs go; A guest-set along with Dayve Dean and a public jam night. Orchard studios is a busy professional studio and perhaps Oakhanger's, nee Alsager's,  nee Cheshire's best kept secret. They work with the great and the good but a lot of musicians local to the area have never heard of them. They're currently working on some event ideas that may well change that.
Just to help spread the word, here's a great little promo;

A bloody nice jam.

My Robert's Firebird - a bloody good guitar all in all.

Not had a jam for a long time... I was invited by Mr Dan Logan of Orchard Studios along with Chris, a guitarist who had worked with him before and Wal, bassist from Skeletal Damage for a jam. As you can see I ended up with blood all over my Firebird. I realised later that this was due to the style of playing i had been using for hours earlier in the day and the day before in which I use lots of upstrokes with the back of my thumb - a bit of funkyesque popping in the jam must have finaly broken the skin.
Looks quite aesthetically pleasing don't you think?

Dan said beer was compulory so who am I to argue?

The Road to Orchard

We have done some great gigs lately including festivals in Crewe and the inimitable Middlewich Boat and Folk Festival. Maybe I'll catch up on posting some photos at some point (you can always check the oft'-updated band facebook page). Producer Dan sent us the awesome1st mixes for the EP on the summer solstice which seems very appropriate, more news on that, plus a chance to listen and download... very soon :) xxx

The road to Orchard Studios

Launch show party

Recording Day 4. Done! (but not dusted).

The main desk at Orchard.

Well on the 4th day (strictly the 4th session which was also the 2nd Thursday evening) session. I sang my lead vocal on 2 songs, Hayley and Emma worked on their last few backing vocal sections and I put on one extra dinky little guitar line behind the backing vocal sub-melody. Simon, though he had finished all his parts, made an appearance with Dorota (our "biscuit manager") to catch up with what was going on and add some opinions... And suddenly it's all over so soon. Next, the magical black art of mixing, leaving it to Dan Logan for the initial listen, then I'll join him next week for my input.

As this was the last session, I want to take this opportunity to really thank everyone at Orchard Studios, and especially Dan Logan for being not only being fantastically talented but also immensely patient and making the whole process a really friendly, enjoyable experience. Also to Mr Dayve Dean who has done so much for me and the band since "part 2" of  my career began, here doing us the honour of a guest backing vocal on one of the tracks.  The good really good photos from these recording posts are by Jamie Waddington, another fabulous, friendly & talented chap. I always try to put relevant links within the texts of this blog but lately this isn't obvious as they don't appear as highlighted as an obvious link (anyone know how to correct this??), so in the absence of this, please check out the links below;

Orchard Studios - http://www.orchard-studios.co.uk/

Dan J. Logan - http://www.facebook.com/danieljloganmusician

Dayve Dean - http://www.dayve.co.uk/

Jamie Waddington Photography - http://www.jamiewaddington.co.uk/

Also big thanks to the lovely Radley, who as far as I know doesn't have a website.

A couple of lyric sheets printed out in advance of the evening session

A complicated-looking part of Orchard

Recording Diary Day 3: "Widget Poobid Fapside"

"Widget Poobid Fapside" is a possible working title for the EP which Hayley came up with based on something her laptop “said” to her. Perhaps it makes sense to someone out there, perhaps it’s some sort of computerspeak/code. It won’t get past the status of working title though so don’t go looking for an album of this name!

So day 3 was really a Thursday evening session, I got lead vocals down for 2 songs and quite a lot a backing vocal work went on. In fact one song could just about work A Cappella when we heard all the vocal parts played back at once. Emma also put some extra keyboard parts down on a couple of tracks. Dayve Dean, who has done so much for us before, continued the tradition by adding his emotive vocal sound onto a backing track too. Dayve had been working in another room at Orchard, while we worked with Dan, preparing his new radio show The Cat Sessions (& you can "listen again" of course)which featured us “live” from a gig the weekend before – weirdness squared.

A relaxed atmosphere while Dan, our sound wizz beavers away at the desk.

So another evening session beckons with more lead and backing vocals to do this week, stay tuned.

Dayve Dean, putting a show for "The Cat Sessions" together.

Nice things to look at and play :)



Dayve giving it some backing vox