My Son Playing Guitar For The First Time

Studio Diary Day 2

More drums going down. It was at this point I realised:

A - As a band we were pretty well rehearsed
B - Stuart is a great drummer

No it's not our Gold record (it belongs to the Fall)

Steve's pedal board

Early night, cause the next day it was Celebr8.....

Studio Diary Day 1

We're getting there. Recording the second Fierce And The Dead album at a top secret location in the country. Actually it's Farheath Studios in Northants. 

We're set up. First couple of tracks down. It's lovely here. And it sounds amazing, we all feel really positive. 

There are donkeys

Lovely desk

Doing Drums

Actually these photos could all be captioned "Photos of Kev working"

He's doing a great job, he's very much the captain of the ship for these sessions. 

Lovely views

Natural light makes a massive difference in the studio. And a pond. 

Can't wait to try this amp later....

And today's Pedal board is....

My pedal board

Right, back to it....

We have a lucky winner

I just got a new looper pedal. My son got there first.

RIP Jeff Hanneman

I know exactly where I was on the 8th November, 1991. Watching Slayer at the Birmingham NEC. It was amazing. They had the Hell Awaits intro tape and they just walked forward, went into a song and started headbanging then walked back again at the end of the song. There wasn't much of a stage show. But it was incredible, the sheer power of those four men on stage. At the time a lot of metal was about props, blow up dolls, make up and fireworks. Not Slayer, this was for real.

Sheer power and precision and the best thrash metal riffs ever. War Ensemble, The Anitichrist, Raining Blood, South Of Heaven, Dead Skin Mask, Seasons In The Abyss, Chemical Warfare, Mandatory Suicide, Angel Of Death. Lead breaks edging on the avant garde, no sub Diamond Head rehashes here this was closer to Ornette Coleman with a whammy bar. No one came close for straight metal. 

It was a life changing moment for this 16 year old boy in the audience. Slayer, one of the best bands ever. 

Thank you Jeff Hanneman, a wonderful musician. RIP. 

My friend Dom Lawson wrote this excellent obituary in the Guardian today. Read it here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2013/may/03/rip-slayers-jeff-hanneman

Goodbye Future Steely Dan

I think the future for bands is lots of musicians with small online fan bases, a few hundred or thousand. But small audiences do leave bands without the funding to tour or make posh sounding records. Which means no more weeks of recording in quality studios with expert technicians. Who's going to pay for it?  How would a band like Steely Dan who spent months in the studio survive now? 

My friend Sid Smith made a good point in his blog about musicians from the late part of the 20th Century on his excellent blog - they worked:

"Twelve hours a day. Seven days a week. 

And when they weren’t they working full-time in their communal houses, studios or Schloss, they were out touring. 

I interview and talk to lots of modern-day players. Almost none of them work full time as musicians any more. There just aren’t the sales or the corporate support which the likes of Hillage, Baumann or Schmidt enjoyed that enabled them to give up their day jobs. 

This is not to imply that there’s anything deficient or unworthy about the musicians of today. Far from it. 

But as the hip commentators and freeium-toting futurologists cheer on the death of the recording industry, I can’t help but think something has been lost."

I think we are losing something. 

Paul Simon making albums over a long period. Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush. Will we see people making albums like that again, to that quality. Who will pay the collaborators? I know technology has advanced so that one person can make a record but do they have all the skills required to make a GREAT RECORD? 

So much of what I've done is based on good will, helpful mates and very kind contributions from talented friends I've met online. But how far can this go? 

Weird times.  

"It's going round and round, it's a fake, I'm not stupid"

"It's going round and round, it's a fake, I'm not stupid" Mr Very Loud Heckler, Front Of Stage, learning about looping. 

And so I played a gig in Brighton and much noise and heckling occurred. Lesson learned. I followed a dubstep DJ and it was a support slot. I just laughed and shook the bloke's hand. This was followed by "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrggghhhh" over and over again throughout my set. Pretty shite and I felt bad for anyone actually trying to listen (not that many of them cared) but I just got on with it. It wasn't an environment with any chance of actually winning people over, a very noisy pub full of really really pissed people and an underpowered PA. 

In some situations you can't win, although a noisy rock band would have been very useful. From now on no more doing gigs cause i just fancy it, proper shows with proper promoters and a curated line up. Lesson learned! Anyway it was a good warm up for Celebr8. In a funny sort of way I quite enjoyed it and the guys in the other bands were lovely people. I was very glad to get home after that one.

Brighton is a very odd place. 

Earlier in the week Yonks played one song at the Bull & Gate closing down shows as part of my friend Lextrical's set. That was fun and very noisy. 

Photo by our friend Amy. 

Fierce And The Dead practice went well, 7 new songs ready to record. I like it, I'm into it. 

And we saw the very wonderful Guapo and Stars In Battledress. Stunning bands. 

Busy Busy.