Friday, October 24, 2008
 | Current mood:  evil I wanted to do a blog talking about exactly how our first album was recorded. Covering the 'why's', the 'how's' and the 'when's'. The album is really a collection of EP's. The entire thing was recorded over four sessions between November 2006 and September 2008. In the first session [aka the penguin sessions], the objective was to spend four days recording four songs, and they were: Will You Come Away With Me Mississippi is Burning Love Lies Bleeding Whiskey Train  At that point, Steve Dunn was still with us playing lead acoustic and banjo, and at that point we were a band without a name. The plan was to get these tracks onto a launch EP and have a Xmas bash somewhere for all our friends and supporters. Which we did, and things were looking good for a while. The Clay Faces were established. Then Steve decided he didn't want to be involved anymore and we were suddenly down to four members. In a crisis meeting we decided that really we had two choices, either carry on or stop completely. The possible third option of cancelling the bookings we had, and hanging fire for a few weeks until we could properly take stock of the situation didn't seem particularly appealing, and was quickly dismissed. Sometimes you've gotta let your momentum carry you through. We had several rehearsals in which the entire set was adapted and re-arranged. I personally spent a long time practising new banjo and guitar parts in order to fill the void left by Steve. I even attempted playing harmonica and banjo simultaneously, but found I was compromising my harmonica skills with the harp in a brace – plus I looked like a complete twat, so... In May of '07 we returned to Prism studios in Hanley, S-o-T, to record another four tracks, these were: Marianne Monyash Road Mission Bell Kiss Football on the TV We had another four days booked for the coming September, so it was decided that we'd wait until then to choose the best four songs from the two sessions combined for the next EP release. So we continued to gig. We had a pretty steady summer playing some really good gigs and supporting the likes of Dave Pegg & PJ Wright, the Battlefield Band, King Creosote and the Oysterband. Oh, and an unfortunate near miss with the mighty Blood or Whiskey, in which I got pissed off with the sound man and decided to do one of my patented prima donna "I'm outta here" acts – resulting in no gig. September came around, and leading up to the days in the studio, somebody had the brainwave of recording a video to go on the new EP. We met with a production company and settled on what to do. It was decided that the video would be for the title track of the EP, and that track was to be 'Football on the TV'. The rest of the songs would be decided after we had finished Septembers' recording. On the first day in the studio, we shot the video and over the remaining two days we recorded: Prelude Where the Waters Meet A World Away And the Word was Love  Once these were mixed and done, and the video in the bag, we had the disc mastered and sent off for production. It was during that period that we hit upon a slightly maverick plan. With the first EP, we had a few thousand produced in standard jewel cases with greyscale artwork and knocked 'em out for a fiver. This time, we decided to do the 'music 2.0' thing, releasing 10,000 'enhanced' audio/video discs in basic [but full colour] cardboard sleeves, and then giving them away for free. At the time of writing, almost 12 months later, we have managed to shift around 7,000. That's right; we can't even give stuff away. In all seriousness, the EP was generally very well received and gained some favourable reviews. Although there were some people who couldn't get their head around the concept of an independent label releasing a free CD. I remember one friend of mine [who in fairness has learnt the hard way about the value of a song] was baffled as to why we would want to go down this route. And sure, he had a point – even if we'd done them for a quid each we would have at least made back what we paid for them. But, it was never intended to be a money maker - the idea was to get ten thousand discs circulating around in areas where we may not have otherwise been heard. Also, at the time, there was a local music rag with a circulation of a couple thousand and, part of the idea was that we'd have the EP mounted to the cover of the Xmas 07 issue. Unfortunately, the rag never saw it's Xmas 07 issue published. So anyway, if you've been paying attention, you'll remember that I said that the album was recorded over 4 x sessions, and so far I've listed all the songs, yet only mentioned 3 x sessions. Our last visit to the studio was just a couple months ago [by which time Prism had relocated to a very posh ex-nuclear bunker at the other side of town] and only about 5 weeks prior to the target release date. This time around was just Davey and myself and producer Shaun Lowe, going through the album track by track, laying down some pretty major overdubs, re-records, edits and finally remixing. As I've said elsewhere, it's testament to Shaun's production that the album in no way sounds like a collection of three separate EP's; the continuity, regardless of our track placement, is bang-on and all in all we're very pleased with how the project has ended up. But, I guess like most bands, by the time the album was released, we are already concentrating on the embryonic stages of the next one, so it's difficult to adjust to the fact that (despite the release of the two EP's) this material is brand new to the outside world; when to us it's old hat. But nevertheless, we are really happy and proud of our little baby of a first album. So to the future, and as I mentioned above, thoughts within the band have long since turned to our next recorded output. At least half of the material is written already and we feel very excited and confident about this one. And the Word Was... in terms of production, is a very polished and clean sounding record; as is most of Prism's digital work, which is great for a first album in terms of getting it actually listened to by radio stations and the like, but not always the best production value when it comes to acoustic/roots music. The next album, which has a working title of 'Poor Man's Beat', will be a self recorded affair, featuring as much live work as possible. We're hoping overall for a far more ramshackle approach, something with a bit more character. Another project that we've briefly discussed, but one which Dave and myself in particular are very keen to sort out, is an invitation only show featuring songs old and new, which we would like to record for a DVD release. Again, this wouldn't be until the end of 09, but you gots to plan ahead, right? Back to the present and the reality is that this first album is only 2 weeks old and there's a lot of work to be done. There is a hint of a whisper of a possibility that we may be able to get it onboard with a UK distributor, but as anyone who knows about these things will tell you, sometimes it's more trouble than it's worth. We sincerely hope that, if you have a copy of the album, you are enjoying listening to it as much as we have enjoyed making it. And if you don't have a copy – drop me a line and we'll sort you one out. In closing, I should just mention that we are currently rehearsing with a new member playing bass and lap-steel, and it is sounding very promising indeed. The identity of this individual will hopefully be officially revealed very soon! And I'll just leave you with the following suggestions: Support live music and small live music venues, grow your own vegetables, avoid the consumption of sodium benzoate, try to discourage people from voting BNP, eat 7 x Goji berries a day. peace |
bouncy 
