12 September 2012
Had planned to go into Edinburgh to see the Marillos last night as after meeting Steve, H and Pete at the Prog Awards we’d arranged to catch up proper when they got into town.
Frank was in for a one on one with Steve in order to throw in guitar ideas on some of the tracks. It was the first chance Steve and I had to work with him and there are a lot of holes needing filled that we deliberately kept free for Frankie’s expertise.”The Weirding” had jumped forward in the yards after Foss had added some magnificent keys. It has become a very powerful number but we needed some other sections to break the powerful groove up a bit. Frankie played about with some Spanish flamenco riffs which seemed to work but the entire afternoon was interrupted by power cuts that shut us down intermittently and disturbed our flow.We didn’t achieve what we wanted to and losing recordings when the power fell out didn’t help. I’d been told at around 4 that Scottish Power were “switching” in the area and that they had finished. At 6 the supply went down again and another call told me that the power wouldn’t be stable until 9.
We decided to call it quits for the day with Frank as it was so frustrating. I had determined that Wednesday was going to be a decision day on album recording schedules dependent on where we were with the writing and this wasn’t helping.
With no electricity Steve and I elected to go to the pub for food and refreshments and have another go later that night when we were on line again. No shenanigans in Edinburgh tonight despite the promise of a fun time.
I’d already sent a message to Mark Kelly earlier as I had figured we wouldn’t make it in. He more than understood as they had been up against the same album demands recently, Mark missing the Prog awards as he was programming for the tour.
It was disappointing for us all but the pressures are on and undoubtedly my participation in the socialising after the gig would have been debilitating later on in the evening and probably this morning as well :-0
A depressing football match later we came home and the acoustic guitar was brought into the kitchen.
Maybe it was the post footy come down mixed with a few choice beers but we hit a rich seam and the front end of “The Weirding” just oozed out and was captured on the iPhone. Very bluesy and Zep like it matched what we already have perfectly and lines up another potentially epic song with oodles of restrained power that offers us a lot of possible routes.
We managed to capture another much needed section on “About time/Feast of Consequences” which gave us yet another hook in an already hooky song that in days gone by would have had me jumping about at the prospect of a hit single. Now I look on songs like that as great album tracks having given up on single promotions a while ago!
With Foss and Frank having pulled of some great stuff on “Crucifix Corner” and Frank contributing some lovely stuff to “All Loved up” (quite a Who-ish wee number) and “Can’t See the Beautiful” in recent days I was starting to feel slightly more relaxed about the November 19th start of recording.
Last night Steve and I definitely added some important pieces to the jigsaw. It’s starting to come together as an album and I can see far more of the overall picture.
A hell of a lot of work for me lyrically but once I have recorded demos of shapes it becomes a lot easier for me to paint.
I heard this morning that the Marillo gig was really good and that H had been extremely gracious towards me on stage. I would have liked to have heard the band play “Heart of Lothian” as I’m sure it would have got a great reception.
But at the end of the day what we managed to carve out last night far outweighed the pleasures of a Lords of the Backstage moment with good mates. That can happen another time.
Today we’re sifting through last nights efforts and taking notes on where it all should be going.
I have Dave Barras’s first studio filming to go through for inclusion on the fishheadsclub.com website as well as the 2 dvd’s to check and sign off on if I am to have them available for the convention.
There’s the Polish film doc to go through as well and all not helped by the fact that I gave away my tv to my daughter when she moved into her flat last week. I’ve been meaning to get a new one for a while so decided to put a smile on her face and arrange to get another one later, making a deal with myself that it would be when I finally get product out from the Fishheads Club tour. So later I will be stuck watching dvd’s on the PC! 🙂
New T shirts have just come in and these will be up on the web site in the next couple of days. Think you will like them 🙂
Domestically it’s thankfully quiet with only an electrical problem in the septic filtration tank demanding attention. Blown house fuses attributed to the pond were identified as being down in the unit at the bottom of the garden. Sigh of relief and “man” on his way up to sort it before it gets more serious.
Onions drying in an Autumn sun, scores of swifts playing around the studio and camping out on the TV aerial, the other birdlife accumulating nicely as they respond to the new feeders I’ve put up.
Cats are back after being evicted by Foss’s dog Max over the weekend.They’re still wary of the spaces.
Now waiting on the arrival of Dave “Squeaky” Stewart to discuss recording time on the album.
Another working day in East Lothian and I am a bit more smiley than I was last week now knowing that the album schedules are achievable with focus and discipline. The heartbeats slightly slower.