Studio update and other tales

•April 14, 2012 • Leave a Comment

Super Gary came to visit this week. He rendered the outside of the studio and plastered the inside …looks flipping ace. I tried to help by keeping out of his way and started paining the outside wood bits (fascias, posh people call them).. wife changed her mind about colour scheme, so I had to get more paint. To be fair, she was right. Going for a light grey for the door and fascias, and the outside will be a seaside bluey torquisey type thing (will look better than it sounds… those who saw our last house in Leicester will know what I mean).

Inside probably off white for the most part, with one wall as a deep vintage greeny, I reckon.

Just ordered the lights and flex from these ace sites (cable and lights) and should be picking the sockets and light switch up tomorrow, all ready for Big G (my amazing father) to power on up.

All that remains to choose is the wooden floor. Had a few samples sent.. just trying to finalise which I’m going for. Although I love dark wood, with it being a smallish space, I’ll end up with a lighter wood.

Musically, been super busy: doing lots of writing for TV both on my own and with others.. as such, getting lots done, with loads more in the pipeline.

Oh, I finished mastering this, too, by One Cure For Man: seemingly workaholics.

The remix of this is coming out soon, too.

Driving Plasterer Gary to and from his house in Boston (Lincs) we listened to lots of music.. he’s an original Soul Boy and did all the Wigan Casino allnighters.. he educated me in lots of amazing obscure tracks.. and left me a list of ones to try to track down, so that’s something I’ll look forwards to doing. I love the way those records sound. Amazing.

Piccies of studio coming soon

 

 

Plasterboarded studio piccies

•April 6, 2012 • Leave a Comment

Ready for Super Gary the Plasterer next week

Spot the cheap labour.

Outside in

•April 2, 2012 • Leave a Comment

Studio update: finally floored the attic space in the studio: small but will swallow some extra bits and bobs…. initially it’ll be the studio bits and bobs themselves before I put them in situ….. moving CDs and vinyl up there too.. I plan on thinning out my CD collection (which I haven’t touched since we moved 5 and a half years ago) an fully getting back into my record collection.. can’t wait to get it all out and get some storage for it.

Next.. Super Gary is plastering it next tues and wed.

Other stuff: after a long time not writing anything intended for TV-dom, I started a whole batch … some on my own, others with people. I tend to get things done quicker when there’s someone at the end of kind of waiting to hear what happens. Allows me perspective and lets me look ‘outside in’. So I wrote a few ideas last week under the guise of ‘ping pong’ing to and fro some quick ideas with others. Got some corking stuff so far. Started going through my old ‘ideas’ folder, too: some good stuff. Some not so good.

All this material’s working up to my next big project. Am yet to blog about it, but need more pieces of the jigsaw to be in place first.

Other than that.. having ace time off the day job!

 

New Miike Snow album

•March 24, 2012 • Leave a Comment

.. listened to it a few times. No, it isn’t better than the first one, but it’s ace all the same: loads of great wobbly synths, nods to early 90s rave and glorious arpeggios. Go buy.

The singles….

Non single but gorgeous

 

All by Mwah

•March 23, 2012 • Leave a Comment

The two tracks I did for Hannah Magenta are now ‘out there’. It seems a nice time to reflect on it as a project.

I’ve known Hannah for a long time: I recorded her as a young teenager (her, not me), and produced a couple of tracks for her around 8 years ago, so it was nice to be asked back on board again for sure. Working with nice people makes things a whole lot nicer all round.

Hannah had been sending me demos for a while.. piano and voice: some good songs there. What Hannah needed (needs still) was someone to produce her and put a band together to take it as a gigging proposition. The chicken and egg thing was, Hannah needed to present what she wanted to potential collaborators. So I agreed to chose a couple of tracks and get on board.

What I’ve liked in particular about this project is:

  • I started programming and arranging them in a tent in Newquay
  • I recorded vocals at Hannah’s dinner table
  • I played and recorded and played bass and guitar with no amp, sat on my sofa

In all, a very DIY job, and I’m really pleased with the results. I always keep a tab on time spent, and despite being spread over several months, the two tracks combined took around 40 hours, so a working week, really.

Hannah’s putting an ad together to look for the future collaborator to take this project forwards…. a replacement and permanent me really..if you know of anyone who’d slot in, let me know and I’ll hook you two up.

mwah

Mwah

•March 21, 2012 • Leave a Comment

Finally done. The pair of tracks I recorded, produced, mixed and mastered…. the whole deal, for Hannah Brine..launching under the ‘Mwah’ banner. She’s looking for muso’s to take this on I understand: basically a replacement me for cowriting, production and to take it live. If you like it, find her and mail her.

Piccies

•March 13, 2012 • Leave a Comment

Am somewhat behind with piccies….but here’s the stud walls filled with the Rockwool slab. Now it’s all pretty much plasterboarded, and like a satellite delay, I’ll post those later.Now the board is up you get a sense of what the space will be like…. very excited.

Today, Paul Tipler came to college to do a guest mix, talking through mix decisions to a small group of students, as well as a more general chat about the biz… very interesting for me. Turns out we have a few connections in common: he’s mixed some of the new Dubstar album, and Steve from Dubstar remixed some of my old bands tracks and produced us too. The wife and I used to meet up with Steve for drinks in Brighton pre-kids. Great days and all that.
In other news, the I Am In Love remix is pretty much there. Fingers crossed it’ll be on the physical release of the new single.

 
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