Well knock me down with a feather! It looks like we are on the home straight.
Over the past 2 weeks we’ve got down 5 new tracks. Today we add the last little bits and pieces to the beatle-y one. Some percussion, a couple of better sounding guitars a little keyboard flourish here and there. The tune is cool but needs some judicious editing. There are a lot of guitars in there and if they’re all in at once it goes a bit Mary Chain.
We add a cheeky organ part that nicks the riff in “like a rolling stone”, who knows if that will make the final cut? I kind of hope it does. As far as these new tunes go, the music is all done bar the mixing. Now it’s time for Fran to let loose his ludicrously liquid yet loudly lovely larynx.
The songs from this session are really strong and make me feel that, once the last couple of vocals are done we will be in a great position to sit down and work out a running order for the record.
I’m really excited about this because it’ll be the first time that we actually get to listen through to everything we’ve done over the past year. When you’re in the midst of recording you tend to just keep moving forward.
Once a rough of the last song is put down Steve changes things round for Franny to start singing. We will no longer be listening to the tracks through the little monitor board on the left hand side of the desk but everything will be going through the channels on the main desk.
This doesn’t sound very interesting but as soon as he gets the first song that F. is going to sing up and running the difference is amazing. It sounds great. Really dynamic.
Me and Franny head out to pick up some sushi from nambu tei. A great restaurant that he discovered. The food is fantastic.
After dinner with F in the vocal booth there is not much for the rest of us to do. So I will take the opportunity for a last bout of Q and A.
The great masquerade we would love to come back to New Zealand, the last time we were there it was really brief so we’d like to come for a while and do a bit of exploring. Fingers crossed on that one.
And ok Parky seeing as it’s the last one, here we go
1a The girl in the cafÈ
b after filming Nanny Mcphee, Tristram Shandy, Lassie and girl in the cafÈ in quite
quick succession she is taking it easy for a bit.
2a. no pets just now but quite keen on getting a dog
b probably otters
3 don’t think we’re gong to do the hidden track thing this time. But then it wouldn’t be hidden if I told you would it?
4. a Glastonbury, Wembley Arena, M.E.N, V festival, Ally Pally
b. The cavern, the 100 club, the Astoria, Hull Adelphi,
5. the sitar.
6a. orange
b my hofner club bass or my stripey scarf.
c. Happiness
d. Happiness
e. Happiness
7.Can’t see a common thread through the songs yet. Maybe it will become apparent later on.
8. Neil H. finished his vocals for the Divine Comedy record last month so hopefully it’ll see the light of day soon. It was a great thing to be involved in .Lovely people, great songs,really exciting and just a completely enjoyable experience.
9. That’s not really for me to say. I do have soft spot for “enemy” though.
Since sessions started have written loads, demoed about twenty and probably two of them are contenders.
10a. Kell got me the stripey scarf in New York.
b. Definitley. I think I’d make a great timelord.
Phew!
Well my lovelies that is about it from me. Franny will be doing vocals for the next couple of days and then we will reconvene around Sunday or Monday and get listening. Hope you’ve enjoyed the diaries. There may be an update from the mixing sessions but that’s it for now. The webcam is staying on while Franny sings so you can keep an eye on him for me. We will see you very soon.
Get Travis Blogs via RSS (RSS?)
