The Past pt.1

I just did my twice yearly Myspace check which becomes more & more depressing & pointless every time I do it. Remember how fun & busy that site used to be? Our profile now feels kind of like a birthday card from your parents you feel guilty about throwing away. I should just fucking bin it.

But, while I was there I took at look at some of the blogs for old times sake & came across one I'd wrote detailing the recording of 'Songs We Used To Dance To'. We made that album in two bits; the first in Cumbria, the second in Liverpool. This one is all about the Cumbrian session. 

It starts....

NOW.

Anyway, Paul from 28 Costumes had kindly driven us to Birmingham in their big-ass bus to play Johnny Foreigner's single launch with Do Idea & Sunset Cinema Club. After the show Paul drove the bus, which was loaded with all of our amps & guitars, miles & miles to get us to Cumbria where we would be spending four days recording six songs. 

It was a fairly uneventful journey up until around 5.45am when we were nearly driven off the road by a dog which attacked the bus with a fury the likes of which I haven't seen in a dog since fucking 'Cujo'. It followed us for some time too. Having negotiated the dark country roads we arrived at the studio some time after six Friday morning. Maddigan, the owner, was there to greet & while doing so fell down the cattle grid outside his house. In the darkness we could just make out the shape of many sheep. 

We began playing at around nine o'clock Friday evening having spent the day setting up amps & tuning up drum kits and doing all the things that make being in the studio sometimes as boring as reading that last sentence. But, as I remember it, getting that first song recorded wasn't too bad & we even managed to get a game of poker in which I handed John, Paul & Rob's their asses to them.

We recorded three songs comparatively quickly the next day; that is compared to every other experience I've had in a studio. I reckon the view we had outside the live room, one of hills, trees, yet more sheep even a lil' ole lake where we were playing...all of this scenery contributed to a relaxed atmosphere which certainly helps when there's the pressure of having to make music which has to blow everyone's goddamn mind all over the place when they hear it.

That was the problem though see; we got too relaxed. We got lazy. We listened back to the the songs we'd recorded and realised of the four only one kicked the appropriate amount of ass. The remaining three were the work of lazy men who were too concerned with beating each other in after-hours poker games. I'm being honest with you all here...it's hard to write & i'm sure it's hard to read but I'd become so concerned with beating Paul & John at poker that I'd forgotten what I was there to do. Which was lay down tracks so awesome that they would blow people's minds.

So that's what we did.

CLIFFHANGER!!!!