Gold Digger

Was back in the studio yesterday and today laying down the music (guitar, bass, drums & synths) for 10 more  Gold Digger tracks. Great to be back in the studio with sound engineer Steve Ellis. Funny to think that me and Steve used to come raving at this place back in 2000-01, before it got a refit. You wouldn’t believe it now, but the old part of The Premises used to host proper underground raves once a month, called (oddly) Cous Cous. Since it was a rehearsal studio, you had (relatively) sound-proofed rooms and each one with its own P.A. The party organizers would hook up some decks, put up some lights, sell drinks from reception - it was a club. With a banging soundtrack of Trance and Hard House. Some seriously euphoric times and music. I’ve even still got some (bizarre) flyers. And the room that studio is in now is what used to be the chill out room at Cous Cous. Funny how things turn out…

Anyway, we arrived at The Premises on Saturday morning about 10am and got everything set up ready to record. Typically, all did not go quite to plan. Having got all the instruments & mics set up and the input levels set on the mixer, we discovered that there was a problem with the synths and the damn things just would not play. Enormously frustrating as we were all set to go.

God know what was going on as everything had worked perfectly down at the Moon Hut on Thursday. Anyway, after several hours of tinkering around and banging our heads against every available wall we decided to cut our losses and go back home – with not a note recorded - and bring in pre-recorded backing tracks instead (thankfully we had everything stored on the computer back at the Moon Hut).

So, it was back up to The Premises early Sunday morning to start all over again. And everything was going just fine until after the 2nd track had gone down when Anton’s guitar started emitting a high-pitched squealing noise. Turned out a wire had come loose inside and we ended up having to hunt around for a soldering iron, knocking on various people’s doors and hoping for the best. Fortunately, a very nice man in one of the studio’s upstairs had one plus a tiny, tiny amount of solder. Just enough to get the wire reconnected and Anton’s guitar back in action.

After that, it was plain sailing all the way. We rolled through all 10 tracks in under 2 hours. Like a well-oiled machine, I tell you. Well, that’s months of solid rehearsal for you. We recorded all the instruments (except the synths) live in just 2 Takes a piece. Everything just flowed out and we got some solid recordings in the bag. Had spent quite a bit of time getting both mine and Anton’s guitar/amp sounds right and Simon’s drums had been kitted out with new heads, so everything was sounding peachy. Very pleased with the way things turned out. I was even home early, much to my girlfriend’s amazement…

For this album, I’m gonna be mixing and producing it myself at home on Cubase, now that I’ve got me own studio set up all sorted and in tip-top condition. Really excited by this. Can’t wait to get my hands ‘dirty’ and make these tunes shine. Personally, I feel we’ve got some even stronger material on this album than ‘Get It Together’. Think it really shows how much we’ve matured as band over the last couple of years.  Steve and Steffi are gonna be laying down the vocals down at the Moon Hut over the next few weeks and I can’t wait to hear the results. If our recent gigs are anything to go by the vocals are gonna be seriously good! Aiming to have this baby pressed and out released early 2009. Looks my Christmas holiday is already booked up…