We need to talk

Hey there.

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room.

I’m not keeping to a predictable routine with this. At all. Oh dear. I think we can at least all agree that the important thing is that I’m getting the music out every month. On that note I recorded the 15th song since this started last week. Which is pretty pleasing.

I’ve also started spreading my love around some of those lesser sites that are not this blog. And I’m also spreading the musical love around lesser stores that are not my bandcamp store.

With the non-music store things I try to make sure that everyone gets something a little bit different. And I also try to make sure that this place is the best place for all the info. Similarly, my bandcamp store offers free downloads and full information about the songs including the lyrics.

I think that’s about all I’ve got.

Make sure you check out my latest two releases:

Colours to the mast (download)
Doubleplusungood (download)

Lyrics – Colours to the mast

New music is coming this week! For once I’m waiting to release a track. It’ll be out on Saturday. I wrote it for a friend’s wedding, and that’s the day of the wedding.

Colours to the mast is the most acoustic thing we’ve done so far. No drums, just acoustic, vocals and keys.

This is also probably the most soppy thing I’ve done, but I kinda like it. Hopefully you will too. Here are the lyrics. See you Saturday!

Colours to the mast
Oh yesterday’s ghost
Was smarter than me
Or so he would think (think this through)
But he didn’t know you

And now it’s plain to see
And this really isn’t like me…

But I’ll nail my colours to the mast
I’ve found someone I can sing to
And you make me better than myself
So I’ll be drinking only to you

So let’s go my love
And find a new way
I could wish I’d met you sooner (sooner than soon)
But then maybe I wouldn’t have met you at all

Cause it all led to this
When you take my hand and we kiss

Well I’ll nail my colours to the mast
I’ve found someone I can sing to
Cause you make me better than myself
So I’ll be drinking only to you

And now when I go, I’ll be going with you
And I’ll carry your heart in my heart

Happy new year! And happy new music!

Happy new year! We made it!

This week I released the 12th track that we recorded in 2016.

Here it is!

I’m just going to carry right on in 2017 and see where this all takes me. My apologies for not maintaining as constant a presence on here as possibly I could have. Lots to do and posting blogs slid down the list of priorities. I’ll do my best to keep going though.

See you soon.

Lyrics – Jump cut

Oh hi guys!

I ‘member this site. I’ve got two good newses. There’s a new song coming pretty soon – more of which just now. Also I’m actually playing a gig tomorrow. Bit weird not being in the studio but having to do this stuff on my own. I’m equal parts looking forward to it and dreading it. Been a while since I’ve done a gig gig without some help from more talented people.

Anyways. The song which should be with you soonish is called Jump cut. I’m jumping back into mildly political waters. It was strange to have been recording it the week everything went down in America, let me tell you. Not planned, but it felt relevant. Despite being written around 4 years ago.

The key line here is about everyone being so sure. I’ve spent a lot of time being very unsure about most things. I find it hard to get on board with people who think they’ve got it all sewn up. Probably mostly because I feel like they’re bluffing. They might not be, but most of us are.

So anyway. Have a little read and whet your whistle for the coming music. Oh and beware. Swearsies.

Jump cut
Caught on film, so I guess there’s no room for doubt
Words you said are all there and we all know the score
Take another look are you sure that that’s what was there
Can you even trust your own memory?

Not sure if I know any more who to trust, what to listen for
Don’t know who’s advice I can take, ‘cos everyone is so fucking sure
There are cracks in the pavement; there’s a light in the window that’s been on for days
In all honesty I’m just tired and all I want is to find a way out of this maze

Are they only telling you everything you ever wanted to hear?
Can you even tell if the things we see are dissimilar?
Feels like something is missing, I’m not even sure what it was
Can you please tell me what just happened

Find a way

Find a little reason to get over yourself
Find the missing moment find a brighter new day
I don’t think they’re telling you the truth at least not all of it
We’ve got to tear the wall down and escape and find a better way

Lyrics – All the stars I have given

Good afternoon to you. Or evening/morning/mid-morning/dead-of-night, depending on when you manage to read this. But it’s afternoon in the here and now for me.

Before telling you about the next song coming up, I will, as is customary, give you a bit of a heads up as to where I am with everything. This song, All the stars I have given is mastered and ready to go. Just waiting on artwork and also leaving a little gap after Holding Out Hope. Recording is also finished for the next song, Jump Cut, which is currently being mixed. Once again, you can see, I’m a bit behind with studio journals and so on. Ah well. We’ll get there eventually no doubt.

Anyway, to business. This was quite a fun little exercise in pressure. I didn’t really have anything I fancied doing when it came to recording number 10. I also wanted some saxophone on the track, and none of the tracks I had quite fit. So I wrote one. All told, it was 13 days from the song being written to receiving the final master. Fun. I’ll talk more about it when I release it.

This is a little love song basically. Here’s the lyrics:

All the stars I have given
Well lately I have taken to throwing caution to the wind
And if they had not told me I wouldn’t know where to begin
See over and over again I’ve had my moments
And I’m trying not to let me get the better of myself

And if it’s all the same to you then I’ll just keep right on
And if it’s all the same to you I’m not too far gone

It’s when I realise I don’t care if you say anything
I know I’m further on than I possibly ever have been
And if it takes everything and if it takes all day
Then honestly it’s still a pleasure doing business with you

And if I cannot be the person I imagined I would be
Can I at least be a little more than me

Hold up. Wait a minute…

Didja spot the omission? Probably not, you’re busy with your lives and everything. It’s my job to keep on top of this, not yours.

Turns out I forgot to post photos and a studio report for Flotsam & Jetsam, which has, at this point, been out for exactly 2 months, and was recorded in June. I’ve gone into the dangers of trying to recall details after the event before, but we’ll give this a go for posterity.

The first thing to note is that this song is nearly double the length of previous offerings. Practically, it did make things tricky. You can do half as many takes, and there’s twice as much work to be done in editing and mixing.

A few years ago strangeday did some work on this song. I’ve been keen to do something with it for a while now, as I’m quite pleased with the feel and lyrics. It transpired that Ally was available for this studio date, and I decided that we could go for Flotsam & Jetsam as he’d written the bassline. Aaron had written some splendid guitar parts for the strangeday version, so I asked him to come and reprise those as well as adding a fair bit to them.

The day progressed reasonably well. We tracked the drums in the live room, rather than in the studio room, to get a bigger feel. This did mean a slightly more involved set up process. We then got Ally’s bass parts down, followed by acoustic and electric from me. At this point, it was clear that the timeframes were slipping from what we’d hoped. By the time we moved on to vocals it was clear we weren’t going to fit Aaron’s guitar parts. He’d turned up, but was pretty sanguine about coming back another day.

We set aside another morning, which also turned out to be village day, and sporadically raining. I wasn’t able to be there the whole time, so I got to hear the final parts subsequently as Paul provided mixes. And I was well pleased!

I think that’s about all I have to say about that for now.

We’ll talk soon.

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