Recording Diary - Day Four
THURSDAY 18th MAY 2006
I tried to tell him that driving with his right arm in plaster was an extremely bad idea but he would'nt listen. Purcell was back today and looked in a right old state. He seemed really happy though. Even after the 50 minutes that the two policemen questioned him for before taking him away in the back of the police car for wreckless driving he was smiling and in generally good spirits. The same could'nt be said for JTL, GTL, PTL and myself who were left to walk the rest of the journey. It would'nt have been that bad if it was'nt for the drum kit, congas, gongs, harp, wind chimes, kettle drum, cello and miniature classical guitar that we had to carry. We were late.
PTL finished up his acoustic parts first thing and GTL did some more drum tinkering. I also got to do a bit of recording today which was good. Still not the dreaded keyboard tracks but nice to have a dabble anyways. As one Loung was hard at work the others would congregate in the 'recreation area' where we were treated to some top notch rock documentaries to get us in the mood. First up was The Flaming Lips - The Fearless Freaks which seemed to go down well with everybody warming to the Lips boys. The same could'nt be said for the next documentary DiG! especially when it emerged that it's main protagonists, The Brian Jonestown Massacre were playing down the road in Liverpool. It looked for a moment that we may have to physically stop NTL and GTL driving there with the intent of telling their lead singer exactly what they thought of him.
Part way through the morning the fire alarm went off and the whole building was evacuated. Luckily enough the weather was nice and JTL had the foresight to grab his acoustic guitar on the way out. By 2.30pm we had gathered quite a crowd and raised over £70 which payed for today's chippy dinner quite nicely.
Once back inside the building we were greeted by a photographer and journalist from the mighty St.Helens Star. Bizarrely they both arrived at exactly the same time, one at the front door of the studio and one at the back door. After some photos which involved three Loungs scrambling across the floor to get to the other side of the huge mixing desk, DTL and I did a short interview with a nice young chap who wrote everything down in shorthand which fascinated me for a moment because I had forgot that it existed. We bid our farewells. Stay tuned to next week's local papers for the full story.
It had been an odd day so far with all the interruptions and just as we were about to make a start on the vocals we were stopped again by the dvd lady. She only had two copies of 'Harlem Nights' left which I thought was quite impressive but she also had a home video of DTL as a child which we found a bit weird and politely asked her to leave. She smiled, bid us farewell and said she would see us tomorrow. I'm not answering the door this time.
It seems NTL has formed a strange addiction to daytime tv phone-in quiz shows. Yesterday he sat shouting "COOKIE DOUGH!!!" at the tv for over two hours whilst frantically dialling his phone. Today it was "SLUGS OR SNAILS!!!". I'm worried about him.
And so to the vocals. Andy had erected a kind of tent in the vocal booth in which we were to stand to record. A nice seductive lighting was also chosen to set the mood and JTL was first in.....and back out again. PTL began to throw a wobbly (much to GTL's annoyance) jumping up and down and shouting "ME FIRST!!! ME FIRST!!!". We've seen him get like this before and it can take an age to shut him up so we let him in to go through the songs in his own inimitable style. GTL took some calming down as his mutterings on the other side of the glass grew louder but all in all it went well. I was up next and was so good I did'nt have to even sing. I just exuded vocals so that was that sorted. NTL went after me and ran through a few songs and all in all Macca's microphone held up pretty darn well. Unlike his wife. Around this time we started to realise that we had almost done a 12 hour day and had all began to tire. Big Brother had appeared on the studio tv and one by one we began to drift in and out of the room in order to see what cheeky monkeys were on offer this year. After a quick tidy up we called it a day and all left together in the Loungbus apart from PTL who had stormed out of the studio the moment he finished his final vocal earlier on whilst shouting something about 'the chinese' and '90%'. I did notice he only had one spam fritter for lunch today so it was probably right that he would be a little tetchy.
Nobody made the Zoo Bar tonight due to excessive skintness and a long session in the studio today but as we drove home I found myself feeling a bit sad that tomorrow would be the last time we would all be in the studio together for a while as we are working around awkward hours next week. I hope it's a good un.
I tried to tell him that driving with his right arm in plaster was an extremely bad idea but he would'nt listen. Purcell was back today and looked in a right old state. He seemed really happy though. Even after the 50 minutes that the two policemen questioned him for before taking him away in the back of the police car for wreckless driving he was smiling and in generally good spirits. The same could'nt be said for JTL, GTL, PTL and myself who were left to walk the rest of the journey. It would'nt have been that bad if it was'nt for the drum kit, congas, gongs, harp, wind chimes, kettle drum, cello and miniature classical guitar that we had to carry. We were late.
PTL finished up his acoustic parts first thing and GTL did some more drum tinkering. I also got to do a bit of recording today which was good. Still not the dreaded keyboard tracks but nice to have a dabble anyways. As one Loung was hard at work the others would congregate in the 'recreation area' where we were treated to some top notch rock documentaries to get us in the mood. First up was The Flaming Lips - The Fearless Freaks which seemed to go down well with everybody warming to the Lips boys. The same could'nt be said for the next documentary DiG! especially when it emerged that it's main protagonists, The Brian Jonestown Massacre were playing down the road in Liverpool. It looked for a moment that we may have to physically stop NTL and GTL driving there with the intent of telling their lead singer exactly what they thought of him.
Part way through the morning the fire alarm went off and the whole building was evacuated. Luckily enough the weather was nice and JTL had the foresight to grab his acoustic guitar on the way out. By 2.30pm we had gathered quite a crowd and raised over £70 which payed for today's chippy dinner quite nicely.
Once back inside the building we were greeted by a photographer and journalist from the mighty St.Helens Star. Bizarrely they both arrived at exactly the same time, one at the front door of the studio and one at the back door. After some photos which involved three Loungs scrambling across the floor to get to the other side of the huge mixing desk, DTL and I did a short interview with a nice young chap who wrote everything down in shorthand which fascinated me for a moment because I had forgot that it existed. We bid our farewells. Stay tuned to next week's local papers for the full story.
It had been an odd day so far with all the interruptions and just as we were about to make a start on the vocals we were stopped again by the dvd lady. She only had two copies of 'Harlem Nights' left which I thought was quite impressive but she also had a home video of DTL as a child which we found a bit weird and politely asked her to leave. She smiled, bid us farewell and said she would see us tomorrow. I'm not answering the door this time.
It seems NTL has formed a strange addiction to daytime tv phone-in quiz shows. Yesterday he sat shouting "COOKIE DOUGH!!!" at the tv for over two hours whilst frantically dialling his phone. Today it was "SLUGS OR SNAILS!!!". I'm worried about him.And so to the vocals. Andy had erected a kind of tent in the vocal booth in which we were to stand to record. A nice seductive lighting was also chosen to set the mood and JTL was first in.....and back out again. PTL began to throw a wobbly (much to GTL's annoyance) jumping up and down and shouting "ME FIRST!!! ME FIRST!!!". We've seen him get like this before and it can take an age to shut him up so we let him in to go through the songs in his own inimitable style. GTL took some calming down as his mutterings on the other side of the glass grew louder but all in all it went well. I was up next and was so good I did'nt have to even sing. I just exuded vocals so that was that sorted. NTL went after me and ran through a few songs and all in all Macca's microphone held up pretty darn well. Unlike his wife. Around this time we started to realise that we had almost done a 12 hour day and had all began to tire. Big Brother had appeared on the studio tv and one by one we began to drift in and out of the room in order to see what cheeky monkeys were on offer this year. After a quick tidy up we called it a day and all left together in the Loungbus apart from PTL who had stormed out of the studio the moment he finished his final vocal earlier on whilst shouting something about 'the chinese' and '90%'. I did notice he only had one spam fritter for lunch today so it was probably right that he would be a little tetchy.
Nobody made the Zoo Bar tonight due to excessive skintness and a long session in the studio today but as we drove home I found myself feeling a bit sad that tomorrow would be the last time we would all be in the studio together for a while as we are working around awkward hours next week. I hope it's a good un.
posted by the loungs at 3:22 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home