Firstly, commiserations to the Wallabies. Staying up until 4am's to see your home side get whupped by New Zealand continues to irk. You hear me Kiwis? IRKED!
Bugger.
I am consoling myself with listening to the desk mixes of Bloomington and ROTK and of course, still listening to Helplessly Hoping.
Bill described Bloomington as 'a warm bath for your ears'
I was saying only moments ago, stuff that is better blogged here: Getting a studio version of Bloomington has been tough.
I've wheedled, cajoled, argued, begged, overruled, lobbied, diagrammed and other things I am not willing to write, but willing to do, in order to get this thing recorded.
I am listening to it right now, a desk mix, with a little reverb courtesy of my copy of Audacity. Gettign bloomington out has been a challenge. Yay.
Also, we had enough time to crank out a version of Return Of The King.
Mixing next.
With Bloomington now done, we're closer to releasing Everywhere Feels Like Home.
Thanks to Ben for engineering and a gentle mix and Lynchy for rubbing magic Pixie Dust on it.
I can't share the whole thing, we didn't write it and must abide by the 30 second rule, and if you can only pick one version, pick the original :-) However if you're gonna buy two, then definitely make one of them our version. Jo sounds glorious.
BOWY: Better off without you. working titled 'pretty petty'
KCUG: Working title for SC9, Kansas City Underground
CSNY or CSN: Crosby Still Nash and Young, or Crosby Stills & Nash.
Right, got it? With that you should have no problem following the rest of this post? Hmm?
My headline was going to be: 'Alan in Indy mixing BOWY, Ben in Five Dock mixing SC's version of CSNY and Holmesy in Blue Springs mixing the KC Underground in MO'
Then I realised that we're in mixing in 3 different studio's, in three different part of the world. That's a better headline.
As I write, I am listening to the CSN cover we attempted. It's Jo, Rosie and Me. It's a respectable version and it's good to keep the work of the great masters circulating.
But I have no idea what to do with it.
I love the sound of Jo's harmony. She does all the heavy lifting. Rosie's almost invisibly flawless in it. Ok great. Where exactly does this song fit?
Meanwhile (part 1)
Alan's adding the vocalisations to BOWY, over in Indy. That should be out soon.
That'll be the first track for the next album...after the unreleased 'EFLH' and the equally unreleased 'KCUG'.
Great.
Meanwhile (part 2)
Holmesy is still at work on the KC Underground sessions.
ETA?
TBA.
ARGH!!!! Another TLA.
Meanwhile (part 3)
The last track for EFLH is due for recording at the end of Oct, which should finally prompt its the release.
Meanwhile (part 4)
We're trying to organise a recording date for ROTK
I had a heck of a day, in a strange kind of good way. Sort of.
I dinged my car on the way to the show last night. My bad. Low speed, but still. Apols to Tony.
Luckily, the car was driveable and the only thing injured was my pride and I had to scoot up to the central coast, as the now wounded car was filled with bits of PA gear.
I was a bit more shook up than I realised, so I needed a little bit of help getting stuff together.
Luckily Alan was there to give me a hand.
As we finished the last part of the setup the fold back PA made a 'flerrrrrpppfff' nosie and all bottom end dropped out.
Yay.
Very helpfully, at least three off duty muso's in the crowd cheerfully reported that they had backup gear.
At home.
Far away.
Some days.
During the setup, at least three people came over to ask me various song requests, questions about the equipment, random things. No I wont sing a Meatloaf Song. yes we have a lot of gear. Yes those are a lot of harmonicas. yes I use them all. Yes I think those new desks with the USB output are really good, no we don't have one, yes I wish we did, no our soundo wasn't available tonight so that's why I'm setting up the PA with this old style desk, yes we've played here before, yes we'll go hard mate.
All this whilst I turn dials, flick switches and keep trying to work out which bit of the foldback has gone kerfplooie and find a work around.
The fourth guy to come up asked if he could use the microphone.
Now all you fellow road warriors know that this can be:
A: Happy Birthday (INSERT NAME)
B: I sing a song too
C:
Nonetheless, it's an Australian custom for the band to provide Public Address for community purposes. Fairly asked, fairly answered. "Ok mate, no worries'
Casey went on to explain he wanted to ask his partner to marry him.
AWWWWWWWWWW
It took me a while to get the PA happening, thanks to Alan for all his help.
Casey was on tenterhooks, waiting, waiting.
He followed me outside where I had to go for a mental health break as it was all getting too much and he patiently waited whilst the Lunatic Sound Engineer (me) got his sh-t together and got the PA sorted. As I practised breathing exercises and wallowed in my own inner turmoil I was reminded this guy was waiting to do something really important.
Note to self
DO NOT F--- THIS UP.
So.
Summon your inner reserves, breathe, and get your mission accomplished.
Now Casey, I'd like to point out that this is not the first hookup/relationship resulting from a Stormcellar encounter. Theo's Niece married the pub manager at one of the venues we played at.
I am also in possession of reliable anecdotes and witness statements about certain other hookups from our shows and even the occasional birth.
That makes me happy and should appear prominently in
Reasons To Hire Stormcellar/Reasons to Go To A Stormcellar Show
1. People hook up
2. People get laid
3. A new generation of Humanity may be spawned, that will save us from our eventual doom (true)
4. You will feel good
but now, a new first for the 'cellar.
5. You might even get married
I was hanging on the result there. Brave dude, in public, OMG. She didn't know what was going on.
Congratulations to Donna and Casey. A moment of happiness and a new beginning, and a bit of love. Sure does help to refocus on the stuff that's important.
That was a big night for a variety of reasons. Theo worked his butt off despite needing a rest with a gammy arm, working through the pain. Luckily we have some downtime so he can rest up. Bravo sir.
Also our thanks to Will and Ken from Air Clectik and Alan on mixing. Mentioned in despatches, gentlemen.
We were very pleased to see so many friends of the band last night. Steve and Bernie, Steve and Karen, Harvs' and his mum! (who was offended when I apologised for playing Louder Stuff later in the night, bring it on was more or less the command) and our South African contingent who drove all the way up from Sydney to see us, and all the other folks who came out to support live music.
Keep going out to your local, keep going out to see live bands.
A night at a local show could be one of the most important of your life :-)
I hadn't considered how hard Rosies part was in this acoustic song until i relooked at this pic.
Whilst we were doing a short vocal idea for Better Off Without You, I had the bright idea of having a shot at a Crosby Stills Nash tune.
Jo and I have been singing 'helplessly hoping' at gigs and it's one of the great singing joys of my life.Ok. that read a bit awkward. So be it.
But it is.
I've heard Vika and Linda Bull 'live', ditto the Staple singers, and maybe even back in the day The Spinners, so I've heard good harmony. I'm lucky Jo's good at it. I gotta work harder.
We decided to record the three of us in the same room at the same time. Multitracking is far safer, but this song has a tempo kept only by the singers and the guitar. We tried versions with Theo keeping time and, well, no.
I'm not sure that we got 'the' take. We might have to try a few times.
It's hard. There's nowhere to hide. We just have to get it alltogether right, all together.
I'm not sure I liked the vocals, shall we do another take Rosie?
