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

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

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

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

Its a long way home

A strange week really. Lots of stuff going on and stuff, plus the added bonus of seeing my brother Paul who is currently cycling the length of the UK from John O' Groats to Lands End (something like 900 miles).

He started his journey last weekend and aims to get into Cornwall today and to Lands End tomorrow morning.

You can check his online diary on (or donate money to Shelterbox)

(Link now dead)John O' Groats to Lands End Journal

Music wise, not done too much during the week, but have been busy this weekend. Firstly I reordered and rewired my pedalboard. (Now that Rob at work kindly fixed my Line 6 DL4 for me.. Still waiting for Line 6 to give me details of how to send back and track my pedal... Not happy with them)..

I've mostly written a new song this weekend. At the moment it is called "Assimilation" but that may change to something else, I don't know yet. Very much a work in progress, it needs a bit more work on the verses and some extra instrumentation, but I'm pretty happy with it so far. Lyrically I've had most of it for about 2 years, musically I wrote it yesterday. Pretty simple and I think an interesting concept. I did re-record a version of it today, slightly more sped up, since a) now I can play it faster (ha ha) and b) else it was sounding like a slight dirge.

I'm going to leave this for a week or so now before revisiting it. More details to follow as I flesh it out.

I'm hoping this will kick start a writing flurry over the next week, as I attempt to get back on track with where I hoped to be with writing stuff.

Later

Rollasoc

Momentary Clarity of Reason

Yesterday I had a mad 5 minutes where I thought sod it I need to tidy up the website.

So today the hack occurred. Gone is the chat room. I haven't done an online chat for many months now and can't see me doing one in the near future.

Gone is the guestbook. Fed up with third party guestbooks with pops ups, so I may write one instead.

Gone is the forum for the same reason above. I may re-instate this since I have the code for one.

Gone are all the recording and effect tips. I may but these on another site, I'm currently designing. But they are in desperate need of updating and I haven't got time to do it at the moment. Plus I have some good ideas for them if I ever get around to it.

Musically, things are progressing, after a weekend near re-build of my PC in an attempt to get a stable recording platform. I think I'm there now.

Emma is working on another (more tuneful) song.

I've been recording with a couple of people recently. The first we wrote and recorded a rough song in 3 hours. Now comes the process re-recording it properly, which should be fun, since we are 300 miles apart using totally different recording systems.

The 2nd is a bit more secret..... More details to follow soon. The first tune is almost ready for mixing.... Maybe a week or two.

te he he...

Rollasoc

Umm

Not much to report so far this month, I went on holiday to Cornwall during the first week and basically read several books on recording mixing and writing which was very pleasant.
I did manage to finally wrestle a copy of a demo of my friend Tim's proposed album. More about this over the next few months hopefully as he properly records it.

Since I've been back, I've been busy playing with a new soundcard and waiting for new software to arrive. Basically been teaching myself new stuff.

The plan is to spend the next 6 weeks trying to write lots and not do too much recording.

Emma has written her first tune. Totally improvised.

(Link now dead)Umm.mp3

Enjoy...

Rollasoc