Friday 21 October 2005

Slippery Slope to Monday

Well its Friday afternoon and I'm in danger of failing the task of 4 songs in a week. I'm happy with what I've done on the three so far, I even finished the first draft of lyrics for one of them.

They all still need a bit of work and in one case re-recording from scratch. Well I've got a month to finish it so i can start sending them out the first week in December, plus I need to get the others to play on some of them.

Right I'm off to start track 4 and see how far I can get in the next two hours. I can't see me getting a lot of time this weekend to do much music what with other commitments.

More possibly over the weekend, or possibly Monday.

Rollasoc

Thursday 20 October 2005

A Nice Cup of Tea

Having a quick cup of tea so thought I'd do Thursday update quickly.

Things are plodding along. Song number three has been started. I've got a long intro and the verses and pre chorus sorted, just need to sort out a chorus type section and possibly a bridge or extended instrumental section or something.

I have a provisional title for it and I've started writing some lyrics and have been busy researching the topic, since the title was jotted down whilst watching late night telly a long time ago and I can't remember much about it. Very interesting if somewhat dark subject matter. Not festive in the least. The he he.

Unsure about what to do for song four at the moment. I might just finish one of the ideas I've been kicking about for a while.

Oh well back to it...

Rollasoc

Wednesday 19 October 2005

Middle of the week

Rumour control, here are the facts...

I'm way behind schedule at the moment. I think I've finished the instrumental for now. It may need tweaking a bit later. Currently it is called Boeotia, for no real apparent reason bar I like the name. (now go and read some ancient greek history).

GW2N is going slower than expected. The vocals have been put down finally, including an attempt at harmonies. Not convinced it works. Also added a bit of piano in the chorus. I've started orchestrating it now, which is the bit that'll take a few weeks to finish. I've got some of it sketched out. It is sounding rather fine.

Was going to start trying to write a new song this morning but cleaned the kitchen instead. Not that cleaning the kitchen threw up any new song ideas.

New Model Army were excellent last night, one of the best gigs I've seen for a long time.

Right I'm off to plug the guitar in and find a spark of inspiration from somewhere....

Until Tomorrow..

Rollasoc

Tuesday 18 October 2005

Aahhhhhhhhhh

Ok, I didn't forget to post yesterday, just never got around to it.

Here is Monday's summary then.... After taking the car for a service (how much????), I quickly laid down the acoustic for Girl with two names. So far it was all going well, then I decided to do the vocals. Not good, after doing a few quick run throughs with my Superlux mic, I decided it didn't sound very good, so auditioned my other mics. By this time, my voice was a bit hoarse and I was bored of singing, so I scrapped all the vocals for it.

I did come up with a silly concept for the intro (think Fireworks by Siouxie and the Banshees)

A quick trip off to Newport to pick up drum stool broke the day up a bit.

So far not so good. I then swapped tracks to the instrumental, listening to it, I decided it really needed a Hammond organ on it. So a part was duely played and listening back to it, I think 5 and a half minutes is probably way too long for an ambient dirge with no concept of time within it as such. A bit of harsh editing was required and then bits moved around and overlapped and the like and a short three and a half minutes ambient tune was starting to take place. All it needs now is bells and whistles (possible literally possibly not) added and I think we are done.

One good thing though is the disks I'd ordered have turned up.

Emma came in during the evening to lay some bass down for another track (not for this CD). Wasn't totally successful, her bass was starting to give an annoying static nosie when she touched the strings. I even tried earthing her unsuccessfully and ended up having to gate it out at the expense of some bass tone. We'll try again at a later date we decided.

So to today, the plan is to start a new track and possibly have another attempt at the vocals for GW2N.

Oh and I'm off to see New Model Army tonight, which should be rather good.

Rollasoc

Sunday 16 October 2005

He bangs the drum

Right I said, I'd try and update this each day of the recording of the Christmas giveaway CD.

Today (Sunday) is day one. The aim to at least get my bits written and recorded over the next 8 days. Possibly also to get Emma to record her parts and possibly any\everyone else over the next few weeks or so.

The day didn't start out too good, as a late night beer session led to an ever so slight hangover this morning.

To be honest, it does seem to be a bit of a daunting task to write and record 4 new songs in 8 days, given that I normally do less than 4 a year.

So I'm going to cheat a bit. Firstly, I'm going to record an acoustic version of The Girl With Two Names. I've started a rough demo of it today, putting down rough 12 string, piano and vocals and throwing a few other things on top. Actually, I'm quite pleased with it so far.

Secondly, I've started an instrumental track, this will be more ambient \ soundtrack like, at the moment it is running in at about 5 minutes, which maybe too long and possibly too boring. This will be probably entirely synths with no guitar. Of course that may change over the course of the next few days.

I haven't got a clue about what I'm doing for the other two tracks. I was thinking I might do a cover version of one of the local Telford bands, if I can get the permission over the next few days. I'll see what I can write tomorrow though regarding the two songs though.

I've also acquired an electronic drumkit. I am rubbish at playing the drums but I'm keen to learn, I don't think I'll quite be good enough this week to record any of my playing.

I've also ordered the media required for the Christmas CDs. They should be turning up in the next few days. Its all jolly exciting.

Right I'm off to cook tea and get back to writing and recording.

Later

Rollasoc

Sunday 2 October 2005

October rain it sings your praise

Well, ok it might not, but it is October and it looks like rain.

The predicted flurry of new tunes and bits semi happened. At last count I have 19 bits of songs on the go, not including the four other songs I'm currently collaborating on. (Actually that should be 20 since I started a new piano piece yesterday).

Looking at the plan, I'm way behind schedule, oh well. I should have actually been properly recording songs now, with everything written, but I'm still in the writing stages. Ooops

I did borrow a chap at work's Guitar Synth during the week, which was a lot of fun to play with. He is selling it, shame I can't afford it.

I've booked a week off in the middle of October to record the Christmas EP I aim to send to people on the Hair Thieves mailing list, if you want a copy, you'd better sign up on the main Hair Thieves site. Not sure if I'll make 50 or 100 copies of the disk yet. I have a plan for the packaging of the disks. Should be nice.

At the moment, it'll probably be 3 or 4 tracks. An acoustic old track (or possibly an orchestral version?), an instrumental and one or two new songs with vocals. Of these three or four tracks I haven't started any of them, so the pressure will be on to get it all done in basically 9 days.

I'll try and write a blog entry each day about how progress is going.

What else... Humm... Went to see Hayseed Dixie a couple of weeks ago, which was a great gig. Went to see Lee Evans last night also, which was very very funny. Then got New Model Army and The League of Gentleman coming up over the next few weeks. All good fun.

Bar that, I thought it was finally time to back up all the music I've done so far over the last 6 years. So far I'm up to burning DVD 6 of stuff. Crikey, a bit of a waste of a day so far though. (well a waste until my PC goes tits up).

Later

Rollasoc