i tune in to some friendly voices

Sorry about that, apart from tinkering with a couple of pretty tunings over the Christmas break, i haven't really had much band stuff to talk about lately. And now... I'm coming down with a fabulous cold, which will either mean much more music (if i need time off work) or much less (if, as usual, i keep going to work and simply collapse on arriving home).

Meanwhile, Simon has been furiously coding drum patterns, although we both have the looming sense that these electronic percussion/choir endeavours are nothing more than experiments and something to get out of the system. But perhaps that's just short-sightedness?

Kinda beginning to miss the band environment and the input of several people; i could never be a solo artist.

A little gear news: as I'm itching to record, first and foremost, I'm putting the recording devices on the backburner, after all, I already have a decent 4 track which is sufficient for drums. So my attention has turned to recording mixers...



This is the Fostex 450, 8 channels, XLRs, phantom power, direct outs for each channel... and more importantly, mid-80's, looks cool, would look beautiful with a matching reel to reel recorder :D

So, this would do very nicely for the time being, and is a (financially) attainable target, but if i ever do reach the 16 track dream, I'll need to upgrade accordingly!

your life and my life they don't touch at all

Tenacious bugger that he is, Simon has persevered with the plethora of plug-ins bestowed upon his unwitting PC and apparently concocted some tasty beats. The electronic element is back on! x-kettlecore-x I'll report back after I've heard them.

As for me, I'm trying a new tuning, missing my amp, and using Liebezeit for chord sequences rather than clickyness. Also, getting a bit disheartened by the lack of paths away from obvious chord sequences.

Went to see a Senegalese band at the weekend; i'm usually pretty unreceptive to "World Music" but for one thing the main guy was captivating, and secondly he was packing one of these:



A Senegalese lute/harp called a Kora. The strings are stupidly close together and you play with your thumbs and forefingers - it winds up sounding a little like a Sitar but without the overtones and less cliched.

But back to the band though - it was refreshing to see a band like that just doing a proper gig, where people were really into it, rather than as a distant spectacle or something to fill a gap on Jools Holland. It was earthy and loud and rhythmic and carried the kind of charisma that the generic dreary indie dad-pleasers can only dream of.

Heaven knows where this leaves me.

sometimes you underline destinations

If getting these various devices into Cubase proved tricky, getting them into Simon's copy of Sonar was a nightmare. He soon came to understand the pain that Dr Liebezeit causes and the Glitch plug-in was a non-starter.

Rather sadly, the guitar lay motionless on the bed for the majority of my visit; perhaps it's time to put this electronic nonsense on the shelf for the time being.

Reading up on wikipedia, we stumbled across a hilarious genre called lowercase described as (and this is no joke), "an extreme form of ambient minimalism in which very quiet sounds bookend long stretches of silence".

I don't think even *we* are pretentious enough to explore projects such as 'dropping a pine cone onto a piece of paper 100 times'.

can't come with you when you go south

So, this is my new toy:



(click to engorge and add vibrancy)

Apparently, it's designed for applications "sadly lacking in granular facilities" and it has the power to "turn skip textures into smooth things; rearrange rhythms; turn sustained textures into stuttering snippets..."

Really? Really? Cause when I use it I only hear this bit of the blurb: "to render your original audio quite unrecognisable". Ah, now that's more like it. Even the default "everything on zero" patch turns everything into a buzzing, static-y mess - not that that's a bad thing, but whether this device has a place outside of "hey guys, come and listen to THIS!" remains to be seen.

Been flitting back and forth between Liebezeit and guitar during the last week, stuck in an infinite loop of 'what comes first, the beats or the song?'. And do i even need beats? Or guitar? Anyway, net result is another Logh-esque guitar part and a petulant loop made of sampled guitar chords from an ancient home recording, impossible to sing over or develop further!

Simon, meanwhile has been quietly perfecting his 40-strong choir of Simons. I pray that things are going to snap together soon - it's all a far cry from the indie days, writing acoustic ditties, where our only concern was whether the guitars were sufficiently in tune.

walking clouds in the land

So there i am, waiting for my cake to cool, when my buzzer goes... it was Simon, open mic was cancelled and he'd come round to show me some new songs and share some posh coffee.

Having misplaced my capo, i quickly decided that trying to play guitar would be utterly futile and turned to the often-misused Casio MT-65 keyboard.



(a free-range MT-65)

In the past this piece of synth history has served two purposes; demo-ing unrealistic-sounding cello and trumpet parts, and producing "hilarious" chintzy covers of my own songs. Now that we're going all moody, Casiotone certainly has a place and the combination of fingerpicked acoustic guitar and 'Electric Piano' was certainly a winner.

After Simon left i iced my cake and converted my upbeat, guitar-led pop song into a slow, atmospheric dirge. Bardo Pond would be so proud of me.

welcome to your life

A bloody frustrating night by all accounts. First off the broadband in my flat is reminiscent of 56k dial-up, both in terms of speed and reliability, and it was off for most of the night - subsequently I'm still yet to integrate Simon into the blogging process, although he is enthusiastic.

My housemate was out so I took full advantage of the noise-making potential; I'm about a hair's breadth from finishing my first song in months but the bridge is bamboozling me. What normally happens in the "process" is I'll toy with a difficult section for a week or two before dropping it altogether, which explains the haphazard structures of my songs.

Putting that to one side I set about consoling myself by layering kooky harmonies over the top - any kind of layering at this stage is largely futile but it's good practice nonetheless. I was hoping to put some mandolin over it but attempting to tune the E string to an F put a swift end to that.

This whole song started from an 80's-sounding riff and, as is often the case, this has now been removed - a little like stone soup - but I'm determined to use it. The riff itself was a result of repeated listenings of Tears for Fears' 'Everybody wants to Rule the World' - proof that inspiration can come from ANYWHERE.

accept all happiness from me

I've been continuously tweaking this since I signed up and, worse still, i expect a full overhaul when Simon sees it. I've become slightly obsessive over fonts.

I'm back on the old Cubase at home and starting to rattle off rough demos - even though this whole band idea is still vague in some senses, we do have lots of cohesive ideas.

Simon performed in his solo acoustic guise last night; clever turns of phrase, emotive lyrics and well-crafted melodies are wasted on an open-mic audience. Later on, watching a bedwetting singer-songwriter type who seemed incapable of forming consonents, i felt very sad.

Be Bold! Be Strong!

Welcome to the 'band 4' blog.

This is a new project that me and Simon are working on, so called because I wanted a working title so bad that there is absolutely no chance of it sticking. This will be the fourth band we have been involved with - the name, and subsequently the name of this blog, will be changed when a suitable idea springs to mind.

I aim to document our progress *here* for the time being and I may make the updates more edgy as time goes on. I really need a ribbon for my typewriter.

So, the aim for this band is a return to the poppy sensibilities of some of our past work, but darker, subtler and... more Scandinavian-sounding. I think it's the way forward :D

We've had a couple of promising sessions (i don't really know what to call them, it's not really a practice and i can't stand the phrase 'jam session') and Simon has a bagful of ideas; although after last night we may scrap all the half-finished songs we were developing, for a more brooding collection.

Meanwhile I will try and determine the best course of action for home recording - when, where and using what equipment?