6th January 2006

The holidays are over and it’s time to reconvene. Claire and I have discussed one or two things for the future. She’s done some writing over Christmas, so we have a few new ideas on the way. I have a new bass guitar and have done some work trying to get a reasonably decent mix of what’s coming from the Postal Service track so far, so we’ve both been busy. More excitingly, we’re planning on doing regular rehearsals, once a week sort of thing, to run through songs, learn and write new ones (bearing in mind everything so far has been written by one or the other of us, so we decided it would be cool to properly write together), arrange potential live ideas and probably get drunk. So that’s all nice.

Oh, and look out for the word Tangelo.

xxx

11th December 2005

Went to York with Claire today to see Merz. Fantastic guy, fantastic music, fantastic performance. Nice to see the whole guitar/electronics thing pulled off live. Gives us some hope. We also discussed a lot of stuff, largely artwork concepts. Took some photos for press shots, perhaps, and came up with a lot of ideas. We’re planning to have a few drunk guitar playing nights soon to get into the performance aspect of things a bit more, too, which should be good. Arsing around in the studio can have its toll on one’s patience.

“Tail”

xxx

6th December 2005

Tonight’s recording session was cancelled while Claire made progress on writing. This is a good thing, probably, saves us running out of ideas too soon. Busy schedules lead to little free time, so I suppose it has to be shared this way.

That said, I could do with a bit of a break, really, so I’m looking forward to recording again at the weekend. Meantime, the new Sigur Rós album is acting as some pretty nice escapism.

3rd December 2005

Another day of recording with Claire. After some initial setbacks, we got going and, in usual fashion, sat around listening to CDs instead of actually recording. But we worked on a few ideas for songs, she’s happy with how Yorkshire Bank is coming along, so that’s all good. We need to make that more structured and do the final vocals still, so it’s not near-finished, but we’re getting there.

We started another song, which is the Postal Service-sounding one. Drums are sounding jaunty, we got a fucking lovely synth recorded and then the guitars. Claire is looking forward to dancing around stage to it. This makes me happy.

She’s working on some stuff, lyrics and things, tomorrow. Next session is probably Tuesday evening. Maybe get some more recorded then. Weshallsee.

1st December 2005

On Tuesday I picked up my camera and became band photographer for a day. Andy, Dave, Andrew, Alex and Thom asked me to do some shots for them, so we all bundled into two cars and headed over to Kirkstall Abbey. One of my backup career ideas for the future is music journalism, and you don’t know how much I love to get into photography mode. Lying on the floor in the dirt to get a good shot, making sure people are doing just the right thing. Sure, I’m no fucking professional, but boy was it fun. I might upload some shots soon. That’s something to do in the future.

Yesterday Joe and I spent hours producing and mixing Consent To Content. It’s finished. And I’m very happy to say, it’s the most controversial thing I’ve made yet. When I say I, I of course me and my group, but still. The song is so 60s you can smell it, although the lyrics aren’t. Either way, we mixed it as much in that way as possible, becoming minor Phil Spectors for an afternoon. We also listened to a lot of Beatles and Dusty Springfield for comparison points and did a lot of research. Everything was bounced down to four tracks, panned to give separation, with the dry track in one channel and the wet in the other channel. This hard-panning, along with the over-reverbed (not natural, of course. How I’d love to record in a studio with a good natural reverb) slightly cluttered mix and the artificial tape hiss we added to it pretty much shocked the entire group when we played it. Everyone else did fucking dull, plain, clean, 00s sounding mixes with no character or identifying features, sowe played this muddy, hissy thing and everyone looked stunned (Woody even suggested removing the hiss for some reason, even though it’s entirely intentional, which we made clear). Equally,the reaction online has been similar. I hate to sound patronising, but I don’t think everyone “got” it.

Gregg’s reaction was the best. He said the song was great, but particularly enjoyed the hard-panned sound. And Alex asked if we got Spector in to do it. These comments made me happy. These people understood what was going on.

That said, it’s really been far more interesting than if we’d just made a standard production job on it. Everyone would’ve gone “yeah, sounds professional” and that’s it. I think the fact that it’s caused so much controversy is character in its own right. When was the last time you heard someone lay into Starsailor? I’ve made something that’s made people listen and think and react, and that alone makes me very happy.

That, and I know, catagorically, it’s better than anything The Killers will ever make.

You can download the song here. You can look at the artwork I made here. I’ll let you know what mark it gets.

In other news, Saturday is an “all-dayer” with Claire. Fingers crossed we’ll get some stuff finished. That’s pretty darn exciting.

26th November 2005

Some exciting updates here. First up, the band is on hold, if not over. Some stuff happening with Stephen and myself, which need not be discussed here, have put it on the back burner. The lack of drummer and long-term singer (Claire may well be leaving Leeds in June), a year after we started searching, were signalling an all together pessimistic tone for the project anyway, so maybe it’s for the best.

Talking of the amicable Ms. Taylor, our EP is coming along quite well. No exact titles floating around yet, other than a working title of “Yorkshire Bank” for one song. We’ve got a few little tracks, though. One is sounding quite Postal Service-esque, which normally I’d refuse to do, only I wrote it, so heh. Jaunty beats, bubbling synths and a sickeningly jolly guitar part. There’s something vaguely trip-hoppish about another track, which is pretty moody, and the aforementioned Yorkshire Bank is all skittering clicks, folk guitars and organs. The current plan is to get a six track EP together before the year’s out (probably a bit hasty, given our rather full schedules at the moment), and then start gigging. The gigs should be a lark. We’re thinking costumes and instruments and stuff. I’m also fond of the idea of her standing very still and shy – as she is – and me leaping around with a guitar like a moron as I often do.

Which leaves Second Thought a bit redundant at the moment. The Second Thought stuff is always an idea which I’m compelled to create, something which needs doing, and at times it can be a bit of a slog. And with all the shit that’s happened this year, the whole thing was getting me down a bit. The concepts I’m working on in that department are pretty morbid, so I’m giving it a break. The stuff I’m doing with Claire is so joyous and celebratory and music for the love of it that I don’t need much else at the moment. So that’s darn happy.

I’m playing bass for my mate Liam at an open mic night. Hopefully be getting a bass for Christmas, as it’s a darn sight more fun to mess around with than a normal guitar (unless I have a hundred FX pedals).

p.s. An Ending (Ascent) by Brian Eno is probably the greatest piece of pure electronic music ever recorded.

5th November 2005

Updates, updates. What’s going on with me?

Well, I’m still looking for a record label to release Vacuum Road Songs. May take a long time. I have lots of other little things in the works too, though. First off is the band, which is still going mostly nowhere, but Stephen and I have written a number of songs, largely 60s inspired things. Somewhere between The Coral,(early) Pink Floyd, Mansun and Oasis, I suppose. It’s all rather interesting, but we haven’t even played anything with Liam and Claire yet, so anything even remotely approaching completion is along way off. I have been doing some music with them both, though. I’m going to be playing bass for a few acoustic songs Liam’s written to do at some open mic stuff at some point in the near or far future, as long as I can convince him to get it all on the road. Claire and I have been working on some “poppy electro folk”, as she calls it. Acoustic guitars, glitchy beats, a few synths and so on. You know the score. Pitchfork’ll love it. For my course we’re doing Consent To Content (see a couple of entries below) in a very 60s style… hard panned drums, tons of reverb, not enough microphones, tambourines and hand claps. We’ve even convinced Joe to stop noodling and play some Hank Marvin guitar for a while. Hopefully we’ll have some clips of that rather soon.

I’ve also been working in Reaktor as part of the course, and to be frank, I fucking hate it. Too much control, way too sciency and all together thoroughly annoying. I’ve never been that much of a techie, but this just takes the piss. As soon as one of the tutorials started talking about algorithms I realised I was wasting my time.

Emotions have been all over the place lately, been rather insane. Highs and lows and all sorts. I’ve taken to carrying a little pen and book around with me and writing lyrics, poems, stories, thoughts, whatever down in it. Most of it’s pointless ranting, but I’ve come up with a few nice ideas.

It’s November 5th, and everyone’s celebrating the death of my great great great great (x a lot) uncle’s death. Being related to Guy Fawkes adds a rather odd shine to the day. I don’t think I’ll be doing much tonight.

Anyway, with all this going on, I’m sure we’ll have some audio clips for you all very soon.

1st October 2005

Last night marked my first ever live performance as Second Thought, and needless to say I was extremely nervous. During setting up, numerous errors occured (as should have been expected, really), but all was resolved for the show itself.

Before I was on, Nick Robinson – a loop guitarist – played a thoroughly interesting set, creating all manner of sounds with his guitar. It didn’t transfer so well into the live situation as I can imagine a studio disc was, but I definitely enjoyed his short set. This meant, however, that I was on soon after. I sat down behind the computer screen and began. Immediately after I started came another error: my MIDI controller was not configured to work in the software. I quickly stopped, and went to set this right, to find my mind had gone blank. So the rest of the set was suddenly very different to how it was intended, and was all now improvised using the laptop only. Considering this, and the fact I had to cut a short section out, I’m very happy with how the show went, and have decided that if I can do well enough under those circumstances, I can do well any time. The set began with the opener to my next album, Vacuum Road Songs, and then went through a number of tracks from that and Purlieu, as well as a couple of rarer old tracks recently reworked for the show. I ended with a short guitar section which was unfortunately ruined due to the electronic buzz on the whole sound; I ended up cutting it short as the sound was very tedious. After the 40 minute was up, I stepped down a far more confident man than I was when I stepped up and had the best pint I’ve ever drank. Fingers crossed the next gig will go far smoother, although on the whole I was very happy with how I played. I’d like to thank all my friends for coming along to support me, and special thanks to Andy for sorting out the technical problems and driving back and forth with leads and adapters – the gig would’ve been impossible without you.

Setlist:
Borderline
Vehicle
December
Rooftops Part 2
First Understanding
Em
Rooftops Part 4
Fences

27th August 2005

“Consent to Content”

It’s just another night on the town
Too many people just hanging around
I can’t
See why
We’re here at all

It’s just another day in the park
Getting stoned and drunk and laughing ’til dark
I can’t
See why
We’re not here more

It’s another afternoon in your house
But can you still really put up with their frowns?
I can’t
See why
We’re here at all

People may say
Some things should be said
But you and I know best

It’s another life gone to our heads
Times like these will never come again
But I can’t
See why
We don’t make more

It’s another song sung in metaphor
The real story is too much of a bore
I can’t
Tell you
Anything at all

People may say
Some things should be said
But you and I know best

25th August 2005

I spent this afternoon finishing up Gregg’s latest record. Most of it was written and recorded at his own house over the last year or so, and we put the final touches to a couple of tracks, recorded a new one and mastered the final thing this afternoon. The full CD is really great, mostly lo-fi acoustic songs, with an Elliott Smith feel (only much better, in my view), with some pretty cool rock’n’roll/doo-wop bits. I really admire Gregg as a producer, some of the ideas on the album are excellent – Iron Sulphide is surprisingly effective at half the volume of the rest of the record. It’s fantastic to bounce ideas off other musicians, especially if they’re your friends. I really enjoyed the work today. I’m going to add something in my discography soon.