Blog
This Week in the Studio: 11.04.16
Written by Jimmy
Ed returns to the Studio after a long absence with Trumpet. Boys day, so we do a chick song that none of us can sing. Maybe an instrumnental?
The studio has been closed a long time due to Singing Wells project, so we decided to open it up for a short session. Not a full house, just Mike, Rob, Martyn, Jimmy and Ed. Mike entertained us with stories of his gigs in Austin and New York, Jimmy talked about all the recordings in Kenya (and the late discovery of the real purpose of the Paradise Hotel) and Ed told us of the night life in Oslo! Then we got down to business and ordered pizza. And finally, we decided to play music – after all it is all about the music.
The Music
Jimmy introduced a new song, Lie Here. As is typical, he had the lyrics and pieces of music – in this case the chorus. But no clue for verses. We knew we wanted to challenge Mike, who keeps getting better and better at drums, so we worked hard to get Mike and Rob to come up with a little ‘Come Together’ like riff.
I think the timing was 6/8 and we were demanding a lot from Mike, but he delivered and admitted to being a bit challenged. Which is a good thing. Ed, being Ed, came up with great chords and put great acoustic and piano parts on top of the riff. We then added trumpets until his lips bled and reminded ourselves on how much we missed E’ds sign language in the studio. Basically has hand signals that look like stop but mean start and onces that definitely look like start but mean stop. He’s used these since Uni and we found out from his other band that this had been a decade long source of amusement. We had gotten used to this after about three years, but needed a bit of retraining after his absence in Oslo. All sorted though. Martyn then added a gorgeous guitar solo over the slow bits, leaving our gutiar solo fast bit looking for an instrument. And that was it. Now we need to add a lovely female vocal if any of us can remember the tune.
Everything Else
It was the beginning of the beautiful London weather so pizza was enjoyed outdoors and it gave us a chance to talk about recent adventures.
- Singing Wells: Jimmy talked thru all the adventures and shared music and video. He keeps posting the latest news up on the Singing Wells website and if you haven’t read up on what we’ve bee doing it is all there for you: click here.
- Austin/New York: Mike is the drummer for Kyla La Grange and just got back from touring the States. We all notice he is getting shockingly good at drumming. So we told him he was rubbish to try to keep his ego down.
- Glasses: Martyn left his reading glasses that the house again. We’ve collected 217 pairs.
- Oslo: Ed confessed of his love for Oslo. “Exactly like London, but no traffic and you can ski in 20 minutes.” Hmmm. I don’t know much about Norway, but I think you get a feel for a place comparing Opera Houses. I’ll say no more:
That’s it.
Jimmy (from London)