The Hair Thieves are a duo from Shropshire UK, creating an eclectic mix of indie pop rock with a smattering of soundtracks, punk, rost rock and any other genre we think of on any given day.
2020 is the 20th anniversary and we still don't take this very serious at all.
2016 is the 10th anniversary of EP 1. Earlier in the year I had some time to reflect upon its release and to actually dig out the recorded files and see what state the projects are in, given the advancments of software in the last 10 years
I tried this at the beginning of the year with, but our recording software
(Cubase) that has been updated many times, in the intervening
years and some of the plugins would no longer run.
I knew the latest Cubase wouldn't open the project file from 2006 directly, since that format in no longer supported. I did have a converted copy, but wanted to go back to the actual last used version that we created the wav files to mastered from.
So I had to go and find the version of Cubase we were using back in 2006. This was a little troublesome and meant I spent several hours in the loft looking for the original disks.
This initally failed to install, due to the copy protection mechanism being updated. Luckily Steinberg (makers of Cubase) provide a new installer that bypasses the old copy protection on installation.
We were also missing some virtual instruments and synths and
some effects, or (and this is the frustrating one), the latest version of the
virtual instrument had changed filename, so would not open nor tell me which
patches it used.
So I have spent quite a few hours over
the last two months (and on and off for the last two years), trying to
track down all the old versions of virtual instruments and effects I
used back in 2006 / 2007 when we recorded the first couple of EPs.
I
think I am pretty much there now. I have managed to open all four tracks from EP1. I am still missing one effect, but think I can get by with out it.
It has been an interesting exercise for me. Looking at the original files and seeing how it was recorded and mixed. It is interesting to see how naive we were putting it together and how far we have come in both our production techniques as well as how we organise songs.
So the idea now is to render out the individual tracks for each song, to preserve them in a non proprietry format, just in case we ever decide to remix them.
Now firstly, apologies for the image above, taken at our first Christmas outing. To me Ian's camera seems to have badly smoothed our skin. His camera needs to dial back the Gaussian blur in future.
Love is Overdrive
So here was are at the end of 2015.
The Hair Thieves started and the band name registered in December 2000 as an outlet for tunes that I had been writing whilst teaching myself Cubase.
It started with the release in 2001 of Baited Breath a song I had written back in 1994 whilst at University, (later re-recorded on EP2) before the first proper Hair Thieves tune "Girl With Two Names".
So happy 15th birthday to The Hair Thieves. I'm not convinced I thought I would still be doing this fifteen years later, but I'm very happy that I am still doing this.
Of course the plan in 2000 was to release an album. Something we have not yet done. I doubt we ever will (unless it is a best of compilation). Seven EPs is obviously more than an albums worth of material.
EP1 was recorded 10 years ago in November 2005, when I took a week off work to write and record it. It was nearing completion, when I asked Ian to join the band.
So happy 10th anniversay to Ian for being in the band.
2015 saw us release EP7 into the world. We are very happy with it.
You can purchase it (including physical copies) from our Bandcamp store, or Amazon, iTunes, or stream it in Spotify, Deezer etc.
2016 will be the 10th Anniversary of EP1 being released.
So what else do we have planned for 2016.
Personally, now we live in the same town, I'd like to start playing live again.. It has been a while.
EP8 is starting to shape up. We have run out of old songs that we want to re-record (one has been on the other seven EPs). So this will be the first EP with 100% new material.
At the moment, we have five or six songs on the go, at various states of completion, including an interesting song where we don't actually play anything on it. More on that gem in an upcoming blog piece.
I'm optimistic EP8 will have five songs on it.
I'm going to be doing FAWM again in February, where I attempt to write fourteen songs in twenty eight days. In 2015, I managed nine songs, including "Love is Overdrive" off EP7 and "The Distance" off EP8, both in collaboration with Ian.
So we shall see if any of those make it as Hair Thieves tunes.
So hopefully, you will all have a great Christmas and a wonderful 2016.
We are getting close to shutting down the recording progress for the summer, due to house moves. Finally after almost ten years together, we will be living in the same town.
Hopefully, this might mean the return of us playing live, even if only at a few local open mics. What this will mean is no more 36 mile round trips to recording sessions. So less time driving, more time writing and recording.
EP7 is almost three quarters there. Two songs ("Love is Overdrive" & "Epic Song") are ready for mixing, (other than possibility of adding additional backing vocals to one if we need it).
The third tune (as seen in the images) is making good progress and in a first for us, uses some royalty free samples. In addition, there isn't a guitar in sight either.
Hopefully this will be ready for mixing in the week.
On every EP there is a difficult track. This appears to be track 2. This is currently called "Drowning in Air".
It started as an electronic track. Which wasn't working, it is currently turning more orchestral, which in turn doesn't work at the tempo of the electronic track, (at which the vocals were recorded).
So a complete re-recording will be in order during the band downtime by me(given he has to sing it).
So there we have it. Close but no cigar. We have possibly one more recording session, before we take a break. Hopefully, we will reconvene in the Autumn and get EP7 out of the door, shortly there after or at least before the end of the year.
I will try to make this slightly shorter post than last years list.
I
am going to keep this list to albums I have physically purchased and
not to albums that I have streamed on Spotify. If I don't like it
enough to buy it, then I don't think it should be on the list.
10 I Fight Dragons - The Near Future
The only album here that so far is only released on vinyl or download. I ordered this through kickstarter about 18 months ago. Though they sent me throught the MP3s a couple weeks ago, the vinyl only turned up this week. And the green marble vinyl is stunning.
I've followed this band since before they were signed, they are a shining example of how a band can use the internet to connect with fans.
Please watch this afterwards. 1 Song, 18 versions, 7.5 songwriters.
Version 11 - Chicago is on the album....
The first entry with my name in the album credits.
9 Damien Rice - My favourite faded Fantasy
Not a massive Damien Rice fan to be honest. Mostly I know his songs from other people's cover versions, but I heard he was back after so thought I'd listened to this album on Spotify and promptly ordered it.
Beautifully, stripped back. Stunning.
8 Steven Rothery - The Ghost of Pripyat
Growing up in the '80s in Cornwall, we were kind of lacking decent bands coming down to play. I saw Marillion play at the Cornwall Colesseum several times. I always loved Steve Rothery's playing and guitar tone.
Marillion, were one of my favourite bands of the '80s and '90s. Saying that, the last couple of Marillion albums have left me cold, not enough Steve Rothery being Steve Rothery and not enough blistering, Mark Kelly, synth parts for my liking. Far too safe and middle of the road.
So essentially I have been waiting 30 years for this solo album.
There is some wonderful playing on this. Great on headphones. Everything I wanted from a Steve Rothery solo album.
The second entry with my name in the CD credits.
7 Stiff Little Fingers - No Going Back
Stiff Little Fingers have been one of my favourite bands since my brother David brought home "Suspect Device" back in the late '70s.
I have bought Inflamable Material more times than I care to mention. So I was happy to Pledge towards the new album.
It doesn't disappoint. (other than I liked the acoustic version of "My Dark Places" Jake did as part of the Pledge videos. I was surprised when it was rocked up).
A real return to form. Shame I missed them on the tour.
6 Iamthemorning - Belighted
A school friend sent me a link to one of their songs a couple of years ago. I was blown away by the debut album.
So another kickstarter campaign, to get to record the second album in England with Marcel van Limbeek and featuring Gavin Harrison on drums.
Classical russian prog rock. A truely beautiful album. Hopefully, my physical copy will make it through Russian customs at some point. They have stopped shipping them, until mid January due to how bad the russian postal service is!
All of our EPs so far follow a kind of pattern. This one and EP5 are missing collaborations with others. But all our EPs finish with an instrumental.
Here are a couple of snippets from the instrumental for EP6.
At the moment it is called The Fail Song.
This song has a long history. It started as an arpeggio on acoustic. Many years ago.
This tune was originally scheduled for EP5 and had the intention of having lyrics.
I then showed it to E and taught him how to play it.
He then promptly wrote the first section as a strummy section and the arpeggio was kind of lost as I liked how he started the tune. (see first video)
If I remember, it might have been called "Fear of New York" (not to do with the "Exploits of Elaine" song honest!) originally. But we were never happy with the lyrics, so it was shelved and brought out again for EP6.
I had another go at lyrics but failed. Possibly due to the time signature being slightly odd rhythmically. More likely the lack of inspiration.
So we decided to make it the instrumental.
The original argeggio, in a slighly altered and slower form now makes it way into the middle section of the song as a piano and at the end of the song on acoustic (see the 2nd video).
It thus became The fail song, since we failed to write lyrics for it.
This is currently being mixed. Hopefully, we will put it up on Soundcloud soon!
Quick update on the progress of EP6. Three of the four songs are now, we believe ready for mixing.
The lead track, is the only one left to finish recording. Lyrics are 95% there. Drums / percussion has been done. Guide guitar tracks completed. We still need to add bass and solos.
So we are very happy with the progress.
As the video shows, like all the previous EPs we have re-recorded an old song, from before E joined The Hair Thieves in 2006.
This is a reworking of the 2002 tune "Strange Familiar World". It is a personal look of how I view going back to my hometown and the changes in the people and places I grew up in.
The original idea was just to replace the drum and acoustic guitar sound from the original. Leaving the solo, bass and tremelo guitar from the original.
So essentially, E wasn't planning on playing on this. But the more I dissected the original audio, the more I realised how little I knew about recording at the time, with bad editing, causing pops at edit points, so I decided to re-record everything.
So I made E record a tremelo guitar part (his least favourite effect), as can be seen in the above Vine video.
Right, back to working on the final track left before we meet up tomorrow.
Local duo The Needle Poppets, recently released their debut album. I'm loving it. Top people too, hopefully, I'll get to see them more often in 2014!
The album opens slowly in vintage style, before building into a rocky track. There are hints of punk, cabaret and prog in here. Though the tunes are somewhat upbeat, they hide a dark lyrical content.
An interesting debut!
Here is a photo of the lovely duo from this years Farmer Phil's Festival.
Andy from Atlum Schema has been a major influence on my musical tastes over the last twelve months, since he presents two podcasts, that I listen to. Sheep Dressed Like Wolves and the Right Chord Music Lost on Radio podcast. The latter, gets sent to my Ipod weekly, one of the only reasons I still keep my Ipod, is for the podcasts.
Another artist I discovered by accident on Bandcamp, then discovered the podcast. Initially, I didn't like this album as much as the previous self titled album, but has grown on me over the months.
My only real gripe on the album, is the length at 80 minutes, the 16 tracks rarely fall below four minutes. It isn't that the album is full of filler, it is more, finding 80 minutes of uninterrupted listening time rarely happens, so I rarely get to listen to it in it's entirely.
Luckily the album is kind of split into four seasons, so I do tend to listen to it in two halves.
'Moon City' though, is adorable!
He has a new album out in March 2014, so looking forward to that!
An album with Nick Beggs on is instantly cool, especially when he is playing a Chapman stick!.
This should probably be higher on the list. I was thinking the other week, I rarely listen to the previous album Grace for Drowning.
The raven that refused to sing, to me is a more coherent album than Grace for Drowning. (it is probably the 23 minute Raider II that puts me off Grace for Drowning. I much prefer the 15 minute version they did on the last tour).
The six songs are more constrained in length, 'Luminol' being the longest at just over twelve minutes. Each song tells a ghost story!.
This is my current album of choice, when no one else is in the house. Put the bluray version on and listen loud in surround sound. Truly stunning. Not sure the neighbours would agree!
I like the fact Steve Wilson releases nice versions of his albums. This album came with a book, CD, bluray and disk of demos. The book gives you something to look at whilst listening to the album.
Something I miss from my days of buying vinyl, when we used to sit down and listen to music, not just have it on in the background.
There isn't enough flute in modern music either, in my opinion.
Ok more prog rock. I'm a huge Pineapple Thief fan, having discovered them in 2012. Slowing buying their back catalog.
"All the Wars" is probably my favourite album of 2012, (though it might be The Haunted man by Bat for Lashes).
I can't say I've ever heard Katatonia so, I wasn't that excited by the collaboration. I would have preferred a new Pineapple Thief album, to be honest.
How wrong I was.
From the rumbling bottom end of 'Pleasure', through the commercial edge of 'Wisdom of crowds' to the near industrial closer "Flows through you" there is a wide spectrum of musical lovliness on offer here. This is a fairly eclectic album fusing rock, electronic, ambient and dare I say it pop?
Frozen North is possibly my least favourite track on the album.
BONUS
Since I didn't do a list in 2012. My two favourite albums of 2012.
I used to publish end of year lists many years ago on the old Telford Rocks site.
Thought I might start them again.
So here is part one of my countdown to my favourite albums this year. I'm trying to limit this to albums I have actually paid hard cash for and not ones, I've streamed and liked.
Honourable mentions: (i.e. on another day, they may have made the top ten). In no particular order. And not much blurb. Just go and listen and make your own mind up.
I was apprehensive about them coming back and this album has its moments. Not really classic NIN, more NIN by the numbers. It is growing on me though with each listen.
I will admit, I bought this purely since British Theatre are on it, but was surprised by how much, as an album I really enjoyed it. Only slightly let down by one track I really don't like, but can't skip else it would break the fold.
Visit the link above all will be explained. Very interesting concept.
It was pleasantly painless experience. The plan was to do a rough mix of "Beijing Morning".
This was archived and mixing started on the instrumental "Bathmophobia". So for once we appear to be getting ahead of ourselves.
So the plan is to live with this mix for a few days and then tweak again later.
More mixing sessions are scheduled for later in the week.
Below is a brief video E made, using his Android Tablet to control Cubase. Even though we normally use a hardware controller, it is interesting to see how modern technology can be used in the music process.
It also contains a sneak peak at the new song "Beijing Morning".
We believe we have finished the last recording session for EP5.
As it turned out, after comping an existing part, we decided not to rerecord the bass for the instumental, "Bathmophobia".
I had been struggling at home alone with re-recording the acoustic for "Invisible Wall", Not being happy with the current version nor the freebie acoustic version we did for the Bridgnorth music festival.
So we spent some time testing different mic setups, but especially distances between the mic and the guitar.
I then went home and re-recorded the acoustic part, which I a lot happier with. So that is it, EP5 recorded.
Now comes the task of mixing. This will begin next week in earnest.
My plan this week is to get all the project files into some kind of order, sorting out the grouping, topping /tailing the audio files, setting up some basic send effects and general organisation of the project. All necessary but tedious jobs.
So next week mixing begins.
The track listing for EP5 remains:-
1. Invisible Wall
2. Beijing Morning
3. Assimilation
4. Bathmophobia
We will be making a simple video for Beijing Morning.
This will also be the first EP where we have not collaborated with other muicians.
