28.7.07
So, we finally started work at The Practice Pad / Craigmont Studios on my Mr N original material on Saturday 28th July!
What an eye opener! It's much harder working with unfamiliar material than it is going into the studio with an extremely tight, professional and highly rehearsed band like The Shine! All of the material for this session existed in various notes in my lyric book and in my head...
Anyway, Iain and I convened to make a start on things with a sense of high hope and excitement - I have to say, Iain played a blinder and was a star throughout! For my part, I didn't realise what a strange experience it is trying to change disciplines between being a singer, a guitarist or a bass guitarist! My bass playing to begin with stunk more than a dockside hooker's gusset on a hot summer day when the Navy came into port...
It was also really weird, as I said to Iain at the time, having Colin listen to my stuff in production. I lost concentration a few times thinking "I wonder if Colin thinks this is really wanky?".
What an eye opener! It's much harder working with unfamiliar material than it is going into the studio with an extremely tight, professional and highly rehearsed band like The Shine! All of the material for this session existed in various notes in my lyric book and in my head...
Anyway, Iain and I convened to make a start on things with a sense of high hope and excitement - I have to say, Iain played a blinder and was a star throughout! For my part, I didn't realise what a strange experience it is trying to change disciplines between being a singer, a guitarist or a bass guitarist! My bass playing to begin with stunk more than a dockside hooker's gusset on a hot summer day when the Navy came into port...
It was also really weird, as I said to Iain at the time, having Colin listen to my stuff in production. I lost concentration a few times thinking "I wonder if Colin thinks this is really wanky?".
The end result was that 11 tracks originally intended became 10 in practice. There's a fair old mixed bag in this batch - a couple of tracks that didn't make it to The Shine, a few from my aborted "concept" album concept and the rest are real favourites of mine. The standouts at the moment are "Follow The Piper" - a completely new idea which is sounding AWESOME and "Enigma" - one of the "Shine wannabe's" which is again going to be mega powerful.
So, after stage 1 of the recording process, the drums are down and perfect in my opinion, the bass is down but will need RADICAL overdubs or complete reworking and the 12 string acoustic guitar is down on the 3 that were to receive that treatment (including one track which includes a "beep" from my watch as we were recording)...
So, next stage takes place on 18th August - this time it's clean guitar, dirty guitar, lead guitar, Moog Taurus, keyboards, lead and backing vocals and various other overlays... Tall order? Probably!!
Anyway, the tracks... (in order of recording as far as I can remember)
Enigma
Anyway, the tracks... (in order of recording as far as I can remember)
Enigma
Follow The Piper
Raven
Angel (Of The City)
With You
Starlight
Children Of War
Ghosts
Close So Close
Gypsy Dancer
With You
Starlight
Children Of War
Ghosts
Close So Close
Gypsy Dancer
