johnny9fingers | Entries tagged with studio

George Michael has died.

My commiserations go to his family and friends.

He was a nice chap and possessed of charm and wit. That's aside from the talent. I worked for him as a guitarist once, long ago. (I was part of Toby's band when George recorded Toby's song "Waltz Away Dreaming".) He'd just been done for cottaging and was really amusing about it all, telling the tale whilst ensconced in the studio control room in Tin Pan Alley. Quite a brilliant raconteur. Always had excellent weed too.

Sorely missed.

Tomorrow I turn fifty-one. Better than the alternative, as a chum is wont to say.

This year could turn out interestingly.

As a recap of 'where I am' as our psychologically-minded chums might say, I took time to analyse the changes to my aims and ambitions that the past few years have wrought. The big underlying thing is, of course, that my niche in the music business died some years ago (session guitarist of the second rank, though I was, ahem, climbing, as the word is; and was 'First Call' at Tin Pan Alley Studios, if that means anything to anybody).

I thought that I still might have something to say with the instrument. That at what I was especially good, I could carve myself some small space within which to work, and gather a small audience who might just 'get' what I was doing: rhythmically, harmonically, and melodically. Though until Henry came along this ambition seemed modest, post son-and-heir arriving on the scene, I find that even this is fantastically beyond my ability to achieve. There are some apt lines from Eliot (aren't there always)

Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort.
First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
As body and soul begin to fall asunder.

You shed things. Things you thought never to let go. I am shedding technique with every passing day spent away from the guitar. When I reach for difficult but once comfortably achievable things, I approximate rather than nail them. Things fall apart without the constant discipline of practice. Entropy devours the fine honed sense, and eventually when we have sloughed off all of our hard learned abilities we shall resemble amoeba inchoate in response and understanding. I suppose this is why Dylan Thomas urged his father in particular, and the rest of us in general, to rage against the dying of the light.

But for me, I just want to nurture The Boy (and any other potential offspring) and to assist him in attempting to go one better than his old man, in whatever field of Henry's pleasure. But this means I must recognise that I have lost my personal and artistic ambitions. And I wonder is this a function or consequence of older fatherhood?

It's all selfish genes and all that, of course, dammit: almost resembles that there Determinism. Bah.

Last week was, for me, the end of an era.

I took my Marshall Halfstack and my 'Blackface' Twin home from Tin Pan Alley Studios.

Steve has been bought out of his tiny remaining share of TPA Studios and is now looking for a long-term engineering position somewhere in his locale. For more than a decade he was Mr TPA, or at least, Mr TPA Studios. He took his eye off the ball and the business went under as his marriage broke down, but who in such a position wouldn't? Some lesser person than him who didn't care as much about his marriage, probably. Oh well. Still there was a time when he owned a bit of the collective Rock 'n' Roll history of London, and a place where The Stones, The Kinks, Jimi, The Who, and countless others recorded or rehearsed.

Anyway I also brought home my old-fashioned pedalboard, which appears to be malfunctioning. If I go back to playing in any serious way I suppose I shall have to replace it.

Rehearsal tomorrow night. I shall have to reacquaint myself with the instrument.

The new Futureheads video 'Walking Backwards' much of which was recorded at TPA Studios.
If you look hard you'll see Steve K at the mixing desk. The Marshall head with one 'L' missing is mine. Good shots of the AKG C12V mic. Amusing.

"The Futureheads - Walking Backwards" (Watch on YouTube)

Good gig yesterday.
Tina Charles (remember her: 'I love to love, but my baby just wants to dance', but only English, Commonwealth, and European folk will know the tune) got up to sing a number with the band as she was a guest at the party. We played 'Nutbush City Limits' and she sang brilliantly....erk. Fantastic top-end. A blast, m'dears, a total blast. Then the band busked its way through 'I love to love', which was pretty damn amusing actually.
Apparently she has just finished a new album.
38 million sales of 'I love to love'. Pretty good pension, I reckon. Gods, I wish I'd got my act together a bit earlier in life.

Session in TPA today for a songwriter called Mark Bethune, who in his other life is a movie-maker. 4 songs in 4 hours.

Do good things. Help your fellow man. Stand up and be counted.

Last night's gig rather made up for last week's.
Played well, as did the band. Made it back to my flat and was unpacked and sorted for bed by 4am.

At present in Tin Pan Alley Studios playing guitar....and wondering how to get all my books and kit into Milady's place. Gigging next weekend too, so no trip to IKEA yet, but the move will be on.

Picking up the mother from the ferry (South-West Wales) on Tuesday. I used to really love train journeys. Alas, no longer, but I'll live.

Must try to get home reasonably early if poss, as SWMBO has promised to model rather a cute new frock which she has just bought..... and if she likes it well enough I'm sure she'll be in a very good mood indeed.
Well I can hope.

I've been in TPA Studios putting the first tracks for a voice-over 'showreel' together. This stuff is a lot more difficult than it sounds. Meeting Madame later and then travelling home. Some time with a guitar in my hand. Jamie from the Klaxons bought me coffee, which was nice. Steve has to go home and I'm holding the fort until Madame rings, but if the K's aren't back by then I have to shut up the TPA Studio side of things: the K's will still have their room open, but won't be able to copy stuff onto the main studio machines.
The Klaxons seem a good bunch; clever and well-read too. Will listen more attentively to their stuff. Anyone with a Thom Pynchon title to a song can't be all bad. Will give 'em some Christopher Logue and see how that flies.

In Alan's studio.
A young bassist, an ex-pat Yank called Ryan Michael, is in putting down some tracks on which I've played guitar. He is one fantastic player. His band are called Carmelite. He plays a Warwick 'thumb' six string bass Low B to high C.

Really impressed, actually. Bloody clever and musically very gifted and a nice bloke to boot.

Alas, young ladies, I believe he's taken: else he's the sort of chap I'd introduce to a sister or daughter.

Will try to get out of here for 5-5.30 to meet Milady. I'm rather looking forward to this weekend....well I would say that wouldn't I.

It seems I've been in Alan's studio all week. This is a good thing, but hanging out ain't quite the same as working: even if there is a guitar in my hand for 'x' hours a day. I have to be there at two o'clock today for some actual work.
I haven't spoken to Steve at TPA since Wednesday, when he was also over at Alan's, discussing all sorts of different plug-ins and the respective merits thereof.
Received in the post a copy of a client's album wherein there exists a song of mine. This was good. Checked the credits and it was under my non-stage name. Bliss. Will have to chase up where the songwriting goes.
I have to stop doing this sort of thing. I should not be quite so cavalier about attribution: but having seen the way otherwise good folk have been turned into folk I have come to think less well of, I'm never going to fight my corner for that sort of thing, or even keep clear boundaries. Mind you the client credited the song to me and more... only to me, which was nice really.

I've heard stories in the industry.
According to rumour, Celine Dion requires a certain percentage of the songwriting credits for singing an unknown song on one of her albums. Now I doubt that such is the lady's intent, but if this story is true her management must be pretty rapacious.
Robbie Williams' 'Angels' is another story entirely.

The music business can turn even level-headed folk.
Integrity, honesty, and generosity to colleagues will shield a person from most of the madness therein.

Almost agreeable shower interrupted by 'phone call from Alan @ Motion Studios.
I'll take the 12 string as well, I deem.

Gigging tonight at the Café Royal in Regent's Street. Complete with congestion charge, parking, fuel, etc, and all the added extras we have come to know and love whenever the function band plays in town.
Session at Alan's tomorrow.
Gods, I may just start earning my keep again if this continues.
Fingers crossed.

Yesterday we unplugged the studio at TPA. The remodelling is going ahead as planned, and the builders start tomorrow. We finished so late I missed the last train, and had to find a more circuitous route home.
We unplugged and stored everything: desk; patch-bays; racks of kit; monitors; speakers; computers....everything.
Steve's new business partner is an amusing young woman in her twenties. She has lots of chaps fluttering around her, trying to help her out. One of these is quite a personable young man who has just left the Royal Engineers. I gently pointed out to him that he should be a little more assertively individual when madame asks him to jump through flaming hoops.
Oh well, I shall look on with benign amusement: the young lady is evidently an incorrigible flirt, as is her wont; and which is, I suppose, proper in the young. But she really shouldn't try to vamp her elders....cynical old buggers like me see through that sort of stuff, in the same way that Old Ladies always get my number exactly: not to be trusted, but a damn good laugh.

So I turned forty-six yesterday.
As far as ordinary days go, yesterday was unremarkable.
Firstly, after the ablutions of the day, and breakfast: I drove to Alan's studio where we had coffee; wonderful sandwiches; and a few spliffs. I played on the James Trussart metal-bodied telecaster that lives in his studio (and I quite covet, actually), and we wittered about Pro-Tools, and whether I can get the right sort of guitar based midi interface to work with Sibelius. 'I gots to get me' a midi guitar or something similar. Perhaps a Roland GK3 pick-up? Any advice gladly accepted. Also, on Ebay, I got beaten out at the last minute for an old Casio midi guitar. Damme: a pox on my impecuniousness.
I left Alan's to time my arrival in town after the congestion charge expired and drove into TPA, finding a place to park outside the studio: the omens appeared very good.
The omens were good for a reason. Steve has plans to expand the business and will be bringing in new investment and a new company structure. He will share the responsibility of the whole enterprise with a new business partner, possibly two, as many folk are clamouring to get on board. At long last he's realising the asset he's been sitting on these past twelve years. I met the (definite) new business partner and her sister. Strewth, hard-headed business folk, but...they understood the 'vibe', the word of mouth recommendations, the position, the whole nine yards. They also seemed to tread softly: far too skilled with people to ever inadvertently ruffle feathers.
This is all good, but it means certain aspects of TPA will change. The musicians that have been in and out of that studio are a kind of community, along with all the other folk on Denmark Street. (It's still the coolest music street in Europe.) The 'Regent Sound Studios' sign remains over the door across the street, but there is no studio there behind the sign: TPA is the last independent studio left in Soho.
I took my old fashioned pedalboard and Blackface Twin home for a bit. While the decorating and remodelling of the interior is happening TPA won't be needing 'em. I also realised I've hardly played through my Marshall all year: this is so wrong. (But even so, I didn't take it home with me.)
Gigging Friday.
Slowly getting on top of my playing and practice. Learning simple bits of Bach is helping no end. A line a day...a line a day.

Today I hope you all have the pleasure of doing something difficult well.

The last two days there have been TV crew in TPA Studios.
G P Taylor (who wrote 'Shadowmancer') has been in interviewing authors for an upcoming Television series.
Really nice bloke. He's about the same age as me (born '61) and amongst other things has been in his time a PR person, a Policeman, and a Vicar. When He was a PR person (late 70's) he used to pop into TPA Studios and he may have been the reason that the TV company decided to do their interviewing therein.
When Mr Taylor was a Vicar his parish was in North Yorkshire. In fact he lived in the next Village to Hackness, where my bridge partner's parents live. Small World. We got on like a house on fire.
Now Steve, God bless his soul, then happened to mention that I'd written a novel a few years ago. So Graham (as I've been instructed to call him) told me the story of how he got started.
He wrote his novel, and then self-published it.
After that small (2500) first edition from Mount Publishing, the book was taken up by Faber whereupon it became a best seller.
So I immediately went on to ABE books to try to find a first (so I could get him to sign it etc) only to find the prices were ridiculous. In fact, the most expensive copy (hand corrected) was some $40,000. I showed this to him and he said: 'Oh, I gave that away.' He then promised each of us a copy as he still had a few left. Which was nice.
Yesterday, when I got in to TPA, during a break in recording, I thanked him for the previous day's advice, and told him I was investigating self-publishing costs. He asked me to hang fire for a bit as he is a director of another publishing house, and there may be no need to self-publish.
Picked chin up off floor etc.
It may come to nothing, but....you never know. Here's hoping.

It seems my chum Stephen has set up an LJ account

shoarthing .
He writes well and normally has an opinion or two (or more), but we are not of quite the same political leaning, so some of you chaps might actually like him. (But do be careful - you enrage the old lion at your own peril.)
Lyndon from Songdog is also putting an LJ page together. He's been reading my posts and looking at various of the forums, and is setting it up as I write.
Will have to wait until the Songdog tracks are mastered before I can post one here.
But that's alright, I suppose, as it goes.

Still on the mixes and tweaks for Songdog.
Though yesterday afternoon we had a booking which I wasn't able to post for security reasons.
From 2pm until 7pm we had a booking from someone representing Pete Doherty who begged the time and swore us all to silence.
Of course, Pete didn't manage to rise from his bed of pain or pleasure, and was the perfect Rock 'n' Roll no show. No response from his management, either.
Sometimes this business is like waiting for an encore from Ritchie Blackmore (or according to rumour, for Jimmy Page to buy his round) - you just know it ain't gonna happen.
Poor Pete.
Hope he's alright.

As the mixes have been getting to a more complete stage (awful construction that - complete shouldn't take a modifier) I've been thinking about the music I'm listening to.
Some of the songs are just beautiful fragments of melody and harmony wrapped about an extraordinarily articulate artist baring his soul. Some are the songwriting equivalent of Haiku. Some are Sonnets, and Some...
The arrangements are sparse, and in general acoustic. Even in Jacques Brel or Scott Walker I've never heard so melancholy a sound as Dave's Accordian. (As an aside, when a drummer plays keyboards and accordian, you just know this ain't an ordinary band.)
I'm going to ask Pod (Karl) to show me around the mandolin - next on my buying list, or if not next, pretty high up the order.
Some of these are the slowest songs I've ever heard.
It is a melancholy (that word again) album that's strangely uplifting.
Much of it is lyrically quixotic: balancing squalor and humanity; lust, love, and morality.
Steve's doing a damn fine job on these mixes.
There are no explosions, no distortion pedals, no special effects (some nice reverbs). It was just recorded with good mics and pre-amps in a good space with a good vibe (in general - though there was some production friction earlier, but when isn't there?)

This music bleeds humanity, my dears, and I am smit.

Lyndon has promised a track from the album to for preview, if that's the word. He'll allow me to put it on LJ. When it comes through I'll post it and you can all give me your comments if you want.
I worry that I'm too close to the whole process to judge accurately, but I'm an old cynical studio dog: it really takes something for me to get this enthused.
I have a feeling I'll dine out on this for years to come - It's unreal in its brilliance, passion, and restraint.

I am listening to the rough mixes of one of the best albums I've heard.
Of the 24 songs Songdog have recorded they'll only have space for 14. This might be a crime against the art of songwriting.
Of course, no-one else will ever listen to it: but this album (when it comes out) should propel these guys into the stratosphere. Comparisons are often odious...nevertheless if you think of the best and most humane albums from songwriters of whom you know, this album (as and when) should be in your top twenty.
Aside of shouting it from the rooftops, I don't know what else to do.
When one stumbles upon great art one has certain duties.
The first is dissemination, and this I must do.

Ah. There have been some developments.
Steve has agreed to mix the tracks and pass them to Nick (the producer) for approval, in the old fashioned way. Steve's a very good mixing engineer, but now the pressure's on him, poor bunny. A position exposed to a huge amount of scrutiny, and one he didn't expect. I remain confident that he'll get the best from the tracks.
In the middle of all this kerfuffle I had a 'phone call from a New York based company asking if we had any time today for one of their artists. I had to explain that we were booked out for the next week, and couldn't help. I didn't even find out who the artist was. Bright man, Ninefingers.
Oh well.

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Page generated May. 24th, 2025 01:01 am

Oh damn, still in this dream.

Entries tagged with studio

And 2016 brings us another unwelcome present....

Something tomorrow something something blah

TPA

TPA on video

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More about the Songdog album: as yet untitled.

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