I saw something this morning that I thought was just appalling. As I was walking in to the studio, this arsehole in a white van leaned out of the passenger window and screamed at the top of his voice at these two older chaps who were just walking along minding their own business.
It was one of those noises that was so sudden, unexpected and loud it kind of shuts your brain down for a split second. I got a fright and I was a good bit down the road from the two chaps so I don’t know what it must have done to them. What is wrong with people when they think that doing something like that is a good idea? Sorry about that just had to get it off my chest and I felt, being a sensitive lot, you would understand. Anyway on to more pleasant matters.
I bumped into my friend Julian at Tottenham Court road. He is a comedian who does a brilliant t.v. show here called “The Mighty Boosh”. I strongly recommend it. One of the funniest things on telly. Before the t.v. show they did a radio show (also called the Mighty Boosh),which is fantastically funny. I think you can get it on c.d.
He is a massive music fan and always has really interesting recommendations. He said he’d been to see this guy called Thomas Truax. A singer songwriter from New York who invents and builds his own instruments! These include the backbeater, the Cadillac beatspinner wheel, which is a decidedly Heath Robinson analogue drum machine and something called the hornicator! Had to google him when I got it. And I must say it’s well worth investigating - http://www.thomastruax.com
With Franny’s new vocal on the new song (I will call this the rocky one as it is probably the rockiest thing we’ve done this session, rocky meaning good by the way not “ooh that’s a bit dodgy”) we realised that it’s a good ‘un and warranted some more attention. By the way, when the album comes out I am thinking of doing a competition to see if you can match the song to the diary entry. Hahaha.
Andy thought the guitar solo (yes guitar solo) should be backwards so rather than just turning the tape round he decided to learn the whole fecking thing backwards. He is committed, I’ll give him that, but possibly should be committed.
He spent a good part of the afternoon listening to the same 16 bars backwards over and over and picking out what he’d done note by note. How he didn’t go mad I do not know. But he actually did it! The whole, pretty intricate, solo backwards! He is some kind of genius.
Unfortunately, especially for Andy, it didn’t seem to work as a solo when we put it forward. Oh well that’s the way it goes sometimes. The studio can be cruel mistress.
Our manager Ian came in to listen to the stuff. He had just got back from America with the Arctic Monkeys, who he also looks after, and was feeling a trifle jet lagged, but seemed really happy with what we’ve been doing. It’s always a good sign when they’re asking for C.Ds.
We went back to work and thought it might be interesting to try and put a down section in the middle of the song. It is one of those that songs starts off loud and stays that way, and we started to feel it needed a little breathing space. So ,last thing, we popped in a section of andy’s backwards bits and it sounded great. Funny how things work out.Will start working on the section tomorrow. Perhaps a hornicator would do the trick? Hmmm. Good stuff.
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