Blog
2013 Winter Jam: A quick report….
Written by Jimmy
The bad news first. On our arrival to our 7th Spanish Jam there was a cloud in the sky. Actually two. They crossed the sun and blocked its heat for a good 45 seconds. We stared up from our lounge chairs with some concern as it was chilly in the shadows. We wondered whether we would have to get our jumpers, or worse, have to go inside. Luckily, the cloud passed, the sun returned to warm our London souls And we didn’t see another cloud for five days.
Now the good news. We didn’t see a cloud in the sky for five straight days. We read in the sunshine and we rehearsed songs in the sunshine. We played ping pong in the sunshine. And very sadly, every once in a while, we retreated from the sunshine to record a song or two. There’s never been a more relaxed, sunny, chilled Spanish Jam. And the fact that it was February in London, with our friends and family huddled against the short days and cold, made it, well, … all the sweeter.
The Music
We have a song library of about 70 songs now. We have lived with them for as many as three years. We love some. We hate some. Our goal now is to stare hard at that little body of work and pick some of our favorite songs for re-work. This was always the grand plan for Album 5.
At our new studios in London, this is mostly about reworking songs with live drums and bass. Rob and Mike are shut into their little isolation booth for hours at a time rethinking rhythms and beats. Our goal for Spain was very different – and we’re not going to lie, much of this was driven by the sunshine. We would rework a set of songs with a four person band – Mike on Cajun and other percussion, Rob on bass, Lou and Andy on vocals and Andy on Spanish Guitar. Oh, and Mike and Andy would also do backing vocals for Louise. We’d pick a few of our favorite songs and create a little acoustic version.
We mostly played outside:
Sometimes we playeed in the living room…
And sadly, every once in a while we were forced to go into the studio…
We walked away with 6 songs we’re pretty happy with. Here’s the CD we listened to on our last night:
- Invading London: A very chilled out alternative to the in your face rock song of our first album. We hope it feels a bit sadder, a bit more reflective as our heroine tries to survive in London, making it in music (but spending a lot of time busking in the underground). We had a lot of fun with Mike and Andy’s backing vocals – there were moments of magic and a few stunning moments of ear piercing vocal assault.
- Tuesday in May: Rob, Mike and Ed had already started a rework of this song in London – at its centre was a new little bass riff that was a little unsettling. We started from here, keeping the bass line on acoustic guitar but stripping everything else back. We hope silence is the most used instrument on this track. We are pleased to say Mike registered his first guitar credit.
- Back on It: This is still an unpublished song, born in Spain last July. It now has the percussive clicks and signs of Mike and Andy to kick the song off with a very chilled feel. It starts with the line: “Vodka, not my best friend. Brings a giggle here and there but in the morning hits me square between the shoulders.” Sadly, this was a pretty accurate description of Jimmy’s Saturday morning after a very late night of ‘Tension’ (see Games at the Villa below). Andy does a nice little harmonica solo over a nice little Spanish Guitar solo. There was a little discussion about whether folks will get that we are not singing positively about drug and alcohol abuse. We think you’ll get it.
- The Knife Will Come: We went very chilled on this one – not quite Cowboy Junkies but close. Andy and Rob had a good time creating a nice bass and Spanish Guitar jam. Mike and Andy do a great job as ‘The Pips’ on this one and Andy adds another Harmonic solo.
- Chamberlain in Munich: This is really just recording what the foursome already captured at a Half Moon Performance (See below). As Louise and Mike said – this is a nice little song all wrapped up in a bow. Didn’t change anything from the Half Moon, just recorded it.
- TWIRL: Probably the stupidest lyrics in Jimmy’s library of really stupid lyrics. But a fun song that allowed for Lou’s first percussion credit. We threw a lot of nick names around on this one but best to leave that for the studio and the hundreds of hours of recorded studio chat. We had a rather long argument about how Andy was going to count us out of the song. He started with a 4,3,2,1 count out that the band shouted down in favor of the world love. There’s a song in that. We still are trying to understand what Andy means by ‘sexting his foes.’ We assume it’s a northern thing. Rob got his first bass solo which is always a good thing.
- 500 Letters from New York: We’ve now been doing this live a lot and so we wanted to capture some of those performances. We chilled it a lot as this is part of our ‘electric set.’ Lots of good backing vocals from the Pips.
We’ll give you one example of what all this is sounding like – here’s the same rough line up doing Chamberlain in Munich at the Half Moon:
Everything Else
- Sunshine at the Villa: It got toasty warm outside at about 11:20 AM and stayed toasty warm until about 15:47. Coincidently, we found ourselves rehearsing songs outside usually from about 11:21 until 15:48.
- Cooking at the Villa: We had a lot of folks that loved to cook. We had a lot of folks that loved to eat. We had Bugles. We had a vegetarian. We had someone on ‘no carbs.’ We had someone on no gluten. We used a lot of different bowls and made salads more of a ‘make your own’ thing. We cooked well and ate well. We decided that the ‘cook your own’ thing was a good part of the Spanish Jam and will continue it.
Andy with Spinach:
Mike claiming you can open Cheese packets with a can opener (you can’t)
- Games at the Villa: Games have always been at the heart of the Jams. In fact, the name the ‘Saturday Morning Canasta Club is entirely from nights of Canasta at our First Spanish Jam. Ping Pong was at the heart of the Gus and Mike Space Monkeys. This time we became hooked on Telestations and Tension. Our favourite Telestrations were watching Saugage turn into the World-Wide-Web and a beach turn into ‘watching time fly by.’ Tension was simply an un-ending game that lasted until two o’clock and robbed us of most of our scotch and vodka.
- Movies at the Villa: The team watched Loopers and liked it. We avoided overly long conversations about Time Travel.
- A Scotch and Cigar Tradition: Our last night included a little bonding with cigars and scotch outside and ended with a ‘listening session’ of the week’s output. Seems a nice way to close.
Not sure we should end the Winter Jam with this awful image. So here is what greets us each morning, shouting at us to go outside and avoid the studio…
We head back in July.
Jimmy
(February 10, watching the snow fall back in London)