Somebody somewhere should have planned this better, and by somebody somewhere I mean me. I have spent the last week in New York celebrating my fine friend Gary’s wedding to the lovely Tanya (where I was very proud to be best man). It was great fun but I now have to face the fact that reckoning on being able to fly overnight and go straight to the studio the next morning was perhaps a touch over ambitious.
Right, time to pull myself together and ingest my bodyweight in Starbucks.
For what will hopefully be the last session of the album we have decided to return to Rak, one of our favourite studios. Over the years we have recorded loads of things here. We first came here almost exactly 9 years ago to mix Good Feeling. We also recorded quite a few of the b-sides for that record there and did some of The Man Who here, notably WTRY, Slideshow, The Last Laugh of the Laughter and The Fear. It’s also where we first demoed Sing. It’s a lucky place for us.
I get my luggage from the carousel, get in a taxi, get home, pick up a couple of basses and make it in for noon. Discovering to my horror that the Starbucks on the way is closed for refurbishment. Bastards. Hahaha.
Everybody is here including our keyboard player, the delightful Adam Wakeman, always a joy to see him. He is here to help out with a song of Franny’s that we have tried a couple of times before. It’s a piano led song and so it seems like a good idea to have a piano player here. Our own inept fumblings have their charm in certain places, but this one really does require a pro'.
Everyone catches up on each others’ news, then listen to a few demos and decide which ones we’re going to pursue over the next couple of weeks. Then it’s time to head in to the live room and start putting down the backing track for the piano song.
As usual we try and get everything down at once, and it starts to come together quite quickly. After a few run-throughs Andy decides to sit out so he can experiment (or as he puts it “fuck around”) with sounds and different parts later on. I reckon he just wants to do his crossword.
We do about 6 takes, take a break then do 4 more, and it’s decided that take 2 of the second lot is the one to work on. With his work all done Adam heads off and Andy now gets his chance to shine. So the, now familiar, process of finding sounds and parts starts. Normally this involves a curiously circuitous route to the right thing but it’s nice to explore all the possibilities.
By about 10 o clock I have hit the jetlag wall and have to be excused. Don’t fear, there will be plenty more over the coming weeks. Hmmm I must get a haircut. And some sleep.
Good to be back.
http://www.rakstudios.co.uk/
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