It was an eventful day in the studio today… we’ve just limped out.  Our head’s are sore from being squeezed by headphones and our ears are knackered from listening to the same verse and chorus for 3 hours…

But spirits in the camp are high!  Recording has been done, progress has been made, tea has been swigged (and a special ‘thank you’ to Ben and Jill Weaver for supplying the AMAZING Betty’s biscuits for sustenance)

The first thing we realised when we listened to the tune was that it was too slow.  Not great news,  but I think we were relatively brave about it.  I manned the controls while J laid down new acoustic guitar, bass and electric guitar parts.

J strumming

The aforementioned broken-tuning peg on the Les Paul finally gave up the ghost good-and-proper.  J tuned the offending string with some pliers – rock n’ roll…

Broken tuning peg of dooooooom...

Then I did re-did a wheezy rough vocal (I have a sore throat) so J could get down to some serious production-action.

The tune has changed a lot since the last session, but I’m having trouble putting the differences into words.  It’s probably because we’ve been listening to it so intensely – it’s a big fuzz in my head.

J mentioned the other night that we wanted to make a track that sounded really ‘Bristol-y’.  I think that’s probably the best way to describe it…

I think we’re both feeling the ‘holy madness, it’s February 13th’ pinch in terms of launching this track.  But I say ‘meh’ to any of that stress shenanigans – I’m flippin’ LOVING it…

We’ve got a fair bit done today and all is well.  J is in the studio listening back to my vocal takes even as I’m sitting in the living room typing this (I laid ‘em down while he went out for a stroll to catch some daylight…)

AHA!  He’s just come in to say he likes the outtro harmonies – WOOP!

All celebrations aside for a minute and let’s get down to business.  What did we do today?  Here’s a tidy list:

1. Wrote the bridge (C-section, break-down, middle 8, or whatever you want to call it).  After working on it for awhile, it turned into the outro (magic!).  We decided it should be a little weird compared to the rest of the song.  We were discussing adding a loud creaking noise, or the sound a tin-building makes in a storm, or jerky-guitar parts – but we settled on making it 5/4 instead of 4/4 as a start…
2. Hunted for a heinous digital buzz for a couple of minutes (it was because we were recording with a large-diaphragm condenser mic and I hadn’t turned on phantom power – SCHOOLGIRL ERROR!)
3. Recorded 3 different acoustic guitar parts
4. Recorded 3 different electric guitar bits, one of which we scrapped
5. Snapped one of the tuning pegs on J’s Les Paul (see below…sadness)
6. Changed the lyrics of the chorus – it used to be ‘You make it seem easy’ four times in a row, but it seemed like a lyric cop-out, so (after struggling with this simplest of tasks) I managed to mix it up a little.
7. Re-recorded all of the vocals with harmonies and whisper-y whisper tracks
8. J’s working on a new drum part for the verses right now…

Also included were drinking coffee, drinking tea, eating biscuits and eating lunch – CRUCIAL in any session.  Especially the coffee… and tea… and food…

I’m in a freakin’ good mood because this song is about my brother is his lady-wife and working on this tune reminds me of how awesome they are…

I’m luuuurving the bridge… I’ve got a big crush on it.  I’m gonna pass it a note in study hall.