27th January
Hello, today we began recording the five songs for our forthcoming 7" 'Paralysis'. We pulled into the desolate car park outside The Arch at around 6:30pm with Jim at the door to greet us and help unload the cars.
Upon first entering, Jim explained there was no real heating in the practice room; we soon discovered this for ourselves… but I was so happy to be there I was not bothered by the cold at all! The practice room is shared between The Take and Adequate Seven, with lots of stray gear lining the walls.
After setting up the drums and mics, we spent a while getting a good mix of the kit, and it sounded incredible in stereo- it was like listening to a live drum kit. After this we set up the bass amp, with my SansAmp in line. I got a really nice overdriven tone, and then we ran through some songs to check levels and such. When Jim was happy with everything we started on recording our songs.
I quickly became frustrated when we couldn't nail the songs straight off. I hadn't anticipated this problem at all, having no real studio experience. I think that bands must really grow to hate some songs when it takes 10 + attempts and several arguments over petty nuances just to get an acceptable take recorded. It was tedious, but made bearable by staggered tea breaks. My fingers were cold which made playing the bass guitar difficult, but holding the warm mug of tea helped to alleviate this!
Some songs flowed better than others, and we passed some questionable takes under the notion of it adding to the imprecise, somewhat 'sloppy' nature of our music.
Alun came over at about 11:00pm, and as soon as he walked through the door we managed to nail a song that had been troubling us. He was our lucky charm! By 11:30pm we'd finished all the bass and drums (or 'thuds' and 'bangs' as I called them).
Jim was so helpful for the session, and didn't get angry when we'd continuously mess up. He was full of good suggestions- I'm happy we got the opportunity to record with such a talented guy.
After finishing Decay, Al drove us back to his house in which he lives with Owain and Ceri. We watched some Seinfeld and drank tea, before reflecting on the day's progress.
The house is so cool, and we were instantly made to feel welcome. It must be great living with your friends all the time.
28th January
We woke up around 9.00am today. In the dark I called out to ask whether Nick was awake to a delayed response of a single whistle.
We communicated in whistles for some time before getting up and making bagels in Al's kitchen. We left for The Arch at 10:30am, after a quick stop at Tesco's to load up on juice, crisps and bread for the long day ahead.
When we arrived, we hooked up Nick's amp and began to tweak his sound to perfection. His amp is loud! He proceeded to run through the entire State Run archive of songs for this tweaking process.
After a period of about two hours, all of Nick's parts were complete, and a collective sigh of relief was shared.
The tracks were really beginning to take form, with only Noel's guitar and the vocals to be added. Tom wanted to go and buy food from town, so Nick, Tom and myself left Noel with Jim to get started with his guitar parts.
We ended up getting sidetracked in town and went to Damaged Records. It was Tom's first visit, and we all walked out with brown paper bags full of goodies.
Meanwhile, Noel had recorded all of Recite and the majority of Bureaucrats- only one song left for him! Noel predicted this last song to be a cinch to record, being our shortest and of a simple structure. Unfortunately things did not go so smoothly, when a short palm- muted section took around 20 takes to play in time, without sounding too jerky or harsh. Finally Noel finished his last song and we sat back and listened to our creation thus far, and found it to be flawless (apart from the odd 'dodgy' bit which we've assured ourselves 'adds character'!)
At some point before the end of Noel's guitar recording, I legged it back to Damaged on Noel's request to pick up a record for him. Welly was just closing up the stall, but got out the cash box to give me change for my purchase (a Government Issue 7" for Noel). I handed over a note that Noel had given to me to pay for it.
Anyway: I thought I had handed over a £20 note, but was not certain. Welly shuffled it absent-mindedly into a stack of notes from the till, thinking it was a £10. This left both of us in a bad position, as neither could recall for sure the value of the note exchanged! Welly said he would count the money later, and would be able to tell if in fact it was a 10 or 20, and would drop the extra £10 to Noel at Al's later if it was indeed a 20. It was a totally genuine mix up.
Back at the Arch we set up two microphones for recording vocals. We decided it would be most effective to record my backing vocals at the same time as Noel's. It allowed us to feed off each other's immediate energy. We found ourselves to make quite elaborate physical movement while recording. I think this was partially a means of becoming more connected with the music in our headphones, and partially to combat the embarrassment of shouting loudly in front of the others. It was definitely weird sound checking the mics by shouting lyrics by oneself with no backing music. That said, when it came to it I think we did ok. We were able to fly through the songs with an average of two or three takes on each. I couldn't believe it; all of the recording was finished! I had been having a nightmare of sort the previous day, where no matter how many times we attempt we can never play/finish our songs. I imagined the time running out on Sunday and going home failures who could not record five songs.
We listened back to all the songs, now complete with vocals. After it finished I just had this overwhelming urge to want to 'show' other people (even though it wasn't mixed yet!) I was proud of these songs.
Jim drove us back to Alun's house at 8:00pm, where Ceri, Sami, Owain and Dewi were stationed. About ten minutes later, Welly came over to deliver Noel's £10, along with a gratis Artcore zine. It was quite a trip flicking through the zine when we stumbled across Welly's review of our first demo- recorded over 2 years earlier. I speculated whether this choice of issue could have been deliberated over this detail. Either way, it was a generous offering, and made good reading material that night.
After several accusations of Sam being a racist, we put on Wayne's World, which was hilarious. I had seen it before, but it was even funnier watching with a room full of people. At the end of the film, people filtered out, and at the time of writing Noel, Nick, Alun and myself are watching a documentary on Mohammed Ali in the lounge. Tomorrow we mix the record and then go back home. It has been such a great weekend so far, and I wish we could live as a band all the time. Recording has been really exciting, but can become almost frightening: the fear that a take will never be perfect. Maybe I need to relax a bit more.
I wrote some of a new song today, which is sounding OK. I hope I don't forget it by tomorrow.
29th January
Today is our final day. I woke up at 11:00am- the latest I have for as long as I can remember. I was pretty tired from all the singing and stuff from the previous day. If I was that beat, Noel must have felt pretty terrible. We quickly ate breakfast and made for The Arch.
Today was a lazy day (for us) while Jim worked relentlessly with the final mixing of our songs. Two of our songs only have one guitar playing in them. If a less intuitive/ talented engineer was to encounter this, the result could have come off sounding bare and thin- instead, Jim had recorded one track of the guitar cab close-miked and one track of an ambient mic some meters from the amplifier. This sounds fantastic and full, panned to different speakers.
Nick, Tom and Noel went into town to buy lunch while I stayed to make decisions on a mix with Jim. It's incredible how sensitive he is to certain things in the mix, and will subtly tweak it until it is sounding perfect.
The rest of the day was dominated by hacky-sack, working on a new song, and listening to our songs being mixed.
Finally, by around 6:00pm all the songs were mixed and mastered. All we had left to do was overdub a sample on the song Drags. This proved to be more difficult than initially expected. We couldn't make a final decision on whether to use it or not. It was an idea born only a couple of days before recording, so I was afraid that it was just a stupid idea I'd soon regret. Some work had to be done on the sample, plus our parents were waiting to take us back, so we loaded the cars ready to leave. Jim explained that before completely considering the songs 'complete', it was necessary to rest and return to the songs a few days later with fresh ears. Final adjustments were needed, and a last check over before committing the songs to two hundred 7"s.
We bid farewell to Jim and Alun and thanked them both for their constant help and generosity over the past few days and then walked to the car.
(I write this final entry in my own bed, listening to my new Gray Matter LP. It feels odd being alone again. The weekend has been a constant flow of intimacy, interaction and communication. I know, personally that I've taken away a lot from these past few days.)
State Jon
