Headline and Deadlines

2009 was pretty much a wash out as far as the Hair Thieves was concerned. Bar one solo support gig and a couple of open mic nights, I have hardly played at all.

Sometimes, life and other commitments take priority over having fun (not that we both didn't have fun). So in reality, we achieved very little forward momentum last year.

I feel pretty bad about this. The spirit has been there, but the application has been lacking. (Relocating to Bridgnorth has not been condusive to my creative juices)

So into 2010. New goals, new horizons, new perspectives on life. So what does 2010 have in store for us.

Well, to be honest I don't really know.

What I do know, is the website (not the URL I hasten, which will point at the myspace page) is going to die a quiet death imminently. I took most of the site down last year, it was too much to maintain and very expensive (since purchased in 2000), for the very little benefit it was giving us.

So Myspace is now the main base for all Hair Thieves related information.

EP4 will be released this year and sooner rather than later. (yeah I know).

I have secretly been working on this over the last week.

The track listing will be (not necessarily in this order)

Chemistry
New Opportunist
21st CSM
Reverie Part 2

Two songs (Chemistry and Reverie Part 2) are completed and are ready to have the final mix done on them (I remixed them again at the weekend).

Chemistry, is a strange one. Musically, it is all E. Lyrically it was a joint effort (E originally coming in with some wonderful lines and ideas). Since we have recorded it, it has quickly become one of my favourite Hair Thieves songs of all time.

Reverie Part 2 is the instrumental sequel to another song we haven't started recording yet, called Reverie Part 1. They are two songs using a contraption known as a Varichord, to change the guitar tuning. It's an interesting tune and totally unplayable live. (I've swapped the part numbers around since previous blogs)

New Opportunist has been a thorn in my side, since we wrote it. I have a love hate relationship with it. I love the song, but have struggled with it (It was originally slated to be on EP1). Initially, (if you read the blog back several years), it was called Carcoma, with several iterations of lyrics, before we scrapped the lyrical idea and Guy Lawton came in and supplied some wonderful lyrics. Which I have then struggled to do vocal justice to.

We did play the song live in 2008, during our short tour of Bridgnorth.

New Opportunist had vocals applied to it at the weekend. Which I was (finally 95%) happy with, until yesterday Cubase totally corrupted the files (my mistake bit rate conversion issues) and it will be quicker for me to re-record them then sort the mess out. (Yes, I took a full backup of work in progress a couple of weeks ago, thankfully). I will get those recorded this week, so it will be ready for mixing at the weekend.

21st CSM, our remake of the old Hair Thieves song, I am fairly unhappy with what we have done so far. We've reused the drums from the original, mapped to a new set of drum samples and it doesn't work. Too many cymbals and probably a drummer with 6 limbs needed. I kid you not.

So, I am going to revisit the drums and tweak them. This may mean some re-recording of existing parts.

21st CSM is still, probably, my favourite Hair Thieves song. I do love playing it and it is one of my better lyrics, inspired by a quote from Syd Barret, a quote from Richard bach's illusions and my state of mind at the time.

Then it is just artwork and decide when and how to put it out into the world. (It sounds so easy!).

So at the moment, I am totally committed to finishing the EP ASAP.

So what next after that?

Well, 2010 is the 10th anniversary of the Hair Thieves. The idea of the band was dragged kicking and screaming out the the embers of what would have been called Rubik's Duvet, in December 2000.

The original idea for the band, was simply, to collate some of the ideas I had recorded onto various tapes, since 1990 into a coherent collection and put out an album and have fun learning to record songs.

I had no plans for the Hair Thieves to be anything other than a non gigging solo thing.

So (almost) 4 EPs on, several (sporadic) gigs, many line up changes and a few sessions recording other people it's getting close to 10 years anniversary and still no album.

We have many many songs in various states of writing and recording and I have been writing more material (strangely, I'm kinda liking Open G tuning at the moment?).

So, maybe, just maybe, one will finally see the light before the end of the year. Who knows.... (I've been saying the album will be out by the end of the year, since about 2003 so don't hold your breath. ha ha)

Later,

Rollasoc
PS. Title comes from what I'm listening to.... Gone a bit '80s retro recently.

Very Quick Update

We've done some recording. Yes, you heard that right.

Two songs are ready for mixing for EP4. The other two are not far off either...

Crikey!

Down but not out

2009 has flown by and suddenly I find myself at the start of May thinking, what the hell happened...

It is quite scary how quick this year has gone.

Little progress to report. I have started recording the vocals for the new EP. Going slowly due to issues with corrupt Cubase files / interaction with 3rd party plugins, left me frustrated by not being able to record, so several aborted attempts later, I have one new set of vocals recorded. When I should have had them all finished.

E and I met up a couple of days ago for tea and biscuits. We hope to start recording for the EP next weekend, if we can both get some free time.

I had a mad ten minutes the other week, disgusted by the lack of updates on the hair thieves website (the source lost in a PC crash last year), I took it down and told the provider to take it down.

I have lost focus as to what the website was meant to be providing us, given the cost of the space (at 2001 prices, not 2009 prices), it was costing a lot of money each year and not providing any real value to the band.

Previously, it was used to show new songs, hold weekly songwriting chats, and host a load of recording tips. We used to get a lot of hits from these. But over the years, I slowly stopped them and the hits dried up.

So I decided to take it down and point the URL at our Myspace page instead. I haven't got the time or the inclination to maintain a dedicated site as well as the Myspace and Soundclick pages.

So this doesn't mean the end of the band, just a bit of realignment of competencies.

So hopefully, things should ramp up a bit on EP4 soon, though, circumstances and other hobbies may hinder it a while longer.....

Have fun

Rollasoc

2 down 10 to go

Well. We have met up for a cup of tea, which is a start..... We have been offered several dates for gigs, none of which we can make. Doh!
Hopefully in the next few days, I'm going to attempt to get through my list of things to record. Starting with the re-recorded track for EP4 and vocals for the other two singing orientated tracks.
I'm starting to learn some new cover versions with the plan to go out and do some solo gigs over the summer. The first is tentatively booked for June.
I demoed the first of these covers at the open mic night at the Bell and Talbot in Bridgnorth this week, namely a Girls Aloud cover. Seemed to go down ok.
More silly covers to be added over the coming months.
Should be fun at least.
later,
Rollasoc

Snow

Quick update.

The last two months have been a bit of a wash out really, what with Christmas and other family matters to attend to.

Hopefully, we are reconvening this evening (snow permitting) for tea, biscuits and formulate a plan to finish EP4 ASAP.

Mostly the emphasis is on Rollasoc to record vocals for the three songs we now have lyrics for and to finish his guitar parts.

So yes, things will happen very very soon..... Honest....

Stayed tuned...

EP4

E and myself have both had a week off work, so we have spent some of it working on EP4.

We've mostly be working on the instrumental for EP4. This will be titled "Reverie Part 1", for no other reason, that I liked the title, when I saw one of Miss Aneila's images on Flickr (http://missaniela.com/gallery/big/2642018288).

I had a specific idea that I didn't want any guitars on the track and just to use dreamy synths and other nice things. Things didn't quite work out that way.

I started prepping for the song a few weeks ago. Setting up likely synths to use, I then proceeded to pick up my guitar and using a capo and a Varichord (tuned to minor 7th shape), wrote a new song, which will eventually have lyrics. At the moment, this is called "Reverie Part 2". The title might change later.

So we had to start another instrumental and even started with a synth. Tempo wise, people have moaned our songs are kinda slow and we need more uptempo songs. Well uptempo doesn't fit the theme of "Reverie", so we made this possibly the slowest, dirge like Hair Thieves song ever. (like 78bpm). I chose a random 100 bar limit on the song as well. (so about 5 minutes max).

Then E decided he wanted a guitar on it.

I didn't want guitar on it. A debate ensued, E won after a compromise was met. We'd use a guitar, but using the same setup as the other song, namely with a capo and Varichord, (so essentially the guitar is tuned to Bmin7 I think). Hence the part 1 and part 2 thing.

So I put the kettle, whilst E came up with a series of finger picking motifs, which we then recorded.

E also put down some seriously effected guitar.

E put a little bit of Ebow on the song too. Not very much (we still might add more later).

I then stole the guitar and came up with another motif, which we then recorded.

So ok, it is now a guitar tune. Bugger.

Then we went a bit mad recording percussion.

I have a box of shakers and wooden things and triangles etc. E then proceeded to play various hits whilst recorded them.

So far things were sounding good, though playing the guitar at that tempo is painfully hard.

When E left for the day, I added a Cello part and got some orchestral samples of Gongs to add to the percussion track. I also added some drums, just to the section I recorded. To emphasise the difference in the sections. Plus my section is happier than E's.

When we reconvened, we then cut up the percussion tracks and spread them randomly throughout the track. Adding a few more percussion samples for good measure

We then decided to add a bit of acoustic. Due to the guitar essentially being tuned to Bm7. I had to come up with something, which would be inversions of the chords I was playing over. Which was G something and a D7 something.

I didn't want to play the chords in the same octaves as I had previously, so settled for lower, this required a change of tuning for the guitar. Finally settling for a tuning of DACGBD (I think... I might be wrong).

This made the D7 chord very easy to play. But made the G something chord stupidly hard to play. But I managed it.

Listening through. Over 5 minutes long, was a bit much so we cut about a minute out of the middle, making the song just over 4 minutes long now.

We then mp3'd it up and stopped.

So that was essentially what we achieved on Monday to Wednesday.

On Friday, we decided to have a lyric writing session. Having had the instrumental to listen to, it was decided that E's weird guitar part come in later, so we edited that first.

E wasn't liking the Acoustic I put in. Chord wise ok. But he thought it sounds a bit flappy on the G chord, so wants it re-recorded at a later date.

I think the only way, we can achieve what he wants, given the G chord is only the three lower strings and the D7 chord is all six strings, so one chord is very frequency limited, the other fuller, is to have separate tunings for each chord.

Being an instrumental, we will never play this live, so it makes no odds what we do with it. So we will have a play with it at a later date.

Back to lyrics. We wrote a song a while ago called Chemistry. When I came to record the vocals for it earlier in the year, I couldn't get the lyrics to fiit the melody. Which was really annoying.

So we spent an afternoon of coffee and custard creams, rewriting the lyrics and recording a guide vocal, so I will know what to sing, when I try it for real.

So that was our week of working on EP4.

E did a lot of playing this week, more so than me. To get EP4 finished, the emphasis now shifts to me. I have to finish my guitar tracks and vocals on the old song we are re-recording. Then I need to get the vocals down for the lead track too.

Chemistry might make it on EP4, though I'd like to write another collaboration track instead and save Chemistry for the album. Not sure which way that will go.

So a good weeks work. Progress has been made.

More soon!

Rollasoc

ITunes and Stuff

The Hair Thieves EP3 is now on ITunes. If you search for "The Hair Thieves", it should be on there. Not having ITunes installed on any PC near me, I can't check out any of it, but it does come up in the search listings.

Recording of EP4 has started. We've started re-recording an old Hair Thieves tune, that had a bit of a run out at the gigs in August. It's probably half recorded, before I got struck down with the (man) flu, so stopped working on it.

The lead track, just needs the vocals re-recording and mixed.

We are both taking a week off work next month to (amongst other things) do some recording for this and the album. We aim to write and record the instrumental for the EP in a day (much like I did with Boeotia on EP1).

So we are just left with our traditional collaboration. I need to sort this out ASAP. (Actually the lead track is a collaboration with someone we have worked with before, but given that this is the third song we have done with him, he is actually more of a silent partner honoury Hair Thief than an external collaborator).

So at the moment, we might squeeze EP4 out before the end of the year.

Gig wise, we have nothing planned for the rest of the year. I have now bought a new pedal (yes I know... don't go there), which will help me do some solo gigs that I want to undertake next year. Not sure we'll use it much for Hair Thieves gigs, but it does mean, I'll be able to play things like "The Beguiled" when E isn't there to back me up.

Album wise, we have sorted a list of songs we think will make the album. Plus I've written a new song since, which may or may not be included on it.

The biggest stumbling block at the moment is lyrics.

I haven't been inspired to write any since March 2007. I really have nothing to say, or at least nothing that I want anyone to hear.

The two years since I've moved to Bridgnorth have been hard but interesting and a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. Almost every aspect of my life has changed. I know there are some songs in there, I just need to find some time to get acquainted to them.

So this is something I really need to work on in the coming months. I need to get my muse back or delegate the lyrics to outside people. This is going to start next month, when (just to make myself even more stupidly busy), I'm going to do Nanowrimo and write another novel in a month. (nothing like broadcasting a hard task to the world to motivate you not to look stupid by failing!!)

So things are generally looking good and forward looking.

I'll keep you posted.

Rollasoc