And so we come to the final instalment. Can it really only be a fortnight since we started this session? Seems like an awful lot has happened in these past fourteen days. I think these two weeks have been the most important session so far for the record. Really feels like we’ve turned a corner and, to overstretch a metaphor, are on the home straight.
The final couple of days of a session are always peculiar for one reason or another. Either they are a frenzy of unparalleled activity as people panic and struggle to get everything finished to their satisfaction ( tends to be the case when there are shadowy record company executives waiting at the door ready to seize the tapes as soon as they come off the reels).
Or the session gradually winds down and everybody becomes inexorably less active as they prepare to go back into normal society. This tends to be the case when you know you are going to be back in the studio in about a month. It was of course the latter for us.
This weekend involved lots of work Steve. He had to back up all the sessions on pro tools and label all the analogue tapes and basically make sure that everything was in it’s right place for Nigel to start mixing.
In the meantime we tinkered with Franny’s piano song adding bass and drums and a little guitar. It sounds quite lovely. All it needs is a finished lyric.
We also recorded a rather spectacular version of happy birthday for Ben Stiller, I can’t say too much about it as his b’day isn’t for a few days yet, but I will say that Andy in particular was delighted with it. Cryptic huh?
While Steve was backing up and making cds for everyone I nicked out to take Sandy, my brother in law who is down from Glasgow, to see the thing at the Astoria. The show had been organised by Brian Eno and the stop the war coalition. Was glad it didn’t turn in to a shouting rally, but Brian came on and made a very dignified speech, which included one shocking statistic :
The war in Iraq has at the very least cost 200 billion dollars, an amount which according to the world health organisation could provide clean and safe drinking water for everyone on the planet.
Make of that what you will.
As for the music the main act was called the Rachid Taha Band who I had never heard of. But they were great. Sandy turned to me at one point and said “it’s just like a ceilidh” and it was true. The common ground between all kinds of traditional music, whether it be Celtic,Indian, Arabic, Japanese or whatever is quite astonishing sometimes. It all comes from the same place! All those drones and all that rhythm.
Eno played with them, doing mysterious things at the back with his hands. Then Mick Jones came on! There had been rumours that he was going to appear but when he did, it was incredible. It’s not every day you get to hear a member of the Clash playing Rock the Casbah.
Went back to the studio to pick up my many scattered belongings and a C.D of all the stuff. And that was that. We will be back in the studio in January.
December is going to be baby time for Andy and Jo. How exciting! Neil is going to play drums for Cat Stevens, or rather Yusuf Islam, and I’m going into another studio to play a bit of bass for Neil Hannon and his Divine Comedy.
We will be writing too, so we are good and ready when January comes.
Nige' is going to be mixing 5 tracks or so from the 1st of December so I will try and give you an update at some point and let you know how the tracks are sounding.
Have really enjoyed writing this little diary and may well continue it when we get back in ,if you’re not too bored with my rambling?
In case I don’t speak to you beforehand, have a safe, peaceful and Happy Christmas. Thanks for reading.
XD
Back |
Get Travis Blogs via RSS (RSS?)
