Wednesday 13th August 2008

During rehearsals at the end of 1998, Ed O'Brien had had a brainwave about the new Radiohead album. He felt it should be full of concise, three-minute guitar songs, each one skillfully arranged and packed with wonderfully melodies.

"That explains a lot," Yorke laughs. "Fucking hell, there was no chance of the album sounding like that. I'd completely had it with melody. I just wanted rhythm. All melodies to me were pure embarrassment."

Q Magazine, October 2000.

Tuesday 12th August 2008

Shin Jin Rui delivered a punishing, glorious rendition of their entire unrecorded catalogue this evening. It was tracked live at their new rehearsal space, in a prison complex underneath Byker Bridge that reminded me of a level out of Descent.

We were there five hours straight, and captured over thirty songs. On the whole, they can be divided into three distinct groups: fantastic ones bursting with ideas, some that will live or die based on their arrangement and production, and the last ten that were played which all blurred into one song. Alex looked suitably exhausted by the end of it.

The Colerabbey mobile studio is a little battle damaged. I'll need to purchase one cradle clip, two snare clips, four more XLR - XLR cables and a couple more mic stands to ensure it stays fully operational.

Monday 11th August 2008

Fellow college classmates show you how it's done.

Wednesday 6th August 2008

A beat clip from the archaic drum machine on the Cumberland organ (pictured), as played by Andy during the drum sessions for MCR. I'm going to deploy it into something (I know not what), and make it a monster.

Spent the night working with Luke on the poster design for the RJJ launch gig. Agonising about whether to nudge some text 4 pixels to the left or not.

Stevie Wonder's Innervisions is a damn good album.

Tuesday 5th August 2008

Missed Connection Room continues to take shape. Andy's happy with the guitar parts, so it's now just down to me to do the vocal. In terms of structure and arrangement, I think there's still a few tricks that need to be slotted in there. The danger, as always, is not to swamp the whole thing and keep it sounding fresh.

The last couple of weeks have included gigs by Momus, Lacrosse, and Jose Vanders.

Plans are afoot to purchase a PA system for the Libris war effort.

My Attorney have also been put to work, helping to renovate the Star & Shadow Cinema. Andy did some very tidy work on the skirting boards, and Debbora from the Cuckoo's Nest taught us how to tile things. I managed to paint a wall (and a floor, by accident) "atrociously".

Saturday 25th July 2008

Envelopes did a sampler prior to their album release, with fragged bits of unreleased material on it that sounded almost as good as the finished product. So I thought I'd flay a bit of a song Andy and I were writing the other day.

A week of emailing people to do with the Bec launch, as well as seeing the untimely demise of xlrgig005, due to circumstances beyond our control.

The industry is who you know, and I for one don't want to know.

Although Chronicity and The Colt 45s have popped up on the production radar, the eye of Mordor is going to have to swing its way towards My Attorney. Enough is enough is enough.

Received encouraging letter from RHF regarding new Nes stuff. Which reminds me, I must email him a MIDI version of Fade In/Out with that Moog emulator that takes up 4GB of hard disk space doing the notes.