Heeeeeeeeey!!!
You know what time it is? It’s music time!
Tell someone. Anyone. Even if it’s that lady at the bus stop!
Buhbye.
Ant Martin
Once upon a time we recorded But That’s Just Me…
Did I ever tell you about the time we went and recorded the eighth song in the whole of 2016? Sit tight, I’m gonna.
You might have noticed over the last few months there’s been more ‘featuring’ type songs going on. Well. Two. Anyway, Paul was asking if I’d ever consider letting someone else sing the whole of a Pedestrian zero song. Then I saw a video of Paul busting out some banging vocals on the internet and I rather thought he might have a point.
This song seemed like a great fit. It also seemed like a great time to get in my other strangeday bandmate, AJ, to play some guitar. And oh he did.
The final two players in this great drama are Ant Martin, who is fast becoming a pø stalwart, and Cec Harding, returning for the first pedze track since January.
In terms of a recording day it panned out much as they do these days. Not obscenely early start; drum set up; drum recording; drum pack down; quick drum comp; Ant turns up with snacks (although El had also bought us bacon rolls from Dolly’s Diner); bass recording; overlap with next musician turning up; debate about whether to sneak in acoustic or have lunch; lunch; vocals; hastily improvised backing vocals.
It’s a great time, honestly.
All I ended up doing in the end was acoustic guitar and some ooh/ahh backing vocals in the chorus. Which was very nice. Seeing everyone else make their mark on the track was very gratifying.
And that’s about that really. Great times. Track should be out soonish. In the meantime enjoy a couple of images and a couple of videos in lieu of the photos I didn’t manage to take.
The dog Tired studio times
I think the easiest thing is going to be to keep everything in the correct chronological order. Otherwise I’m going to have trouble working out what on earth is going on. Should you be curious though, Flotsam & Jetsam is still very much on the way, and we’ve actually been in to record next month’s release as well. All progressing well.
So this post harks back 2 months ish now. I never posted a studio report for dog Tired. So here it is.
Personnel for this one were: Paul West – drummist and backing singist, Ant Martin – basser, Jack Lewis – electric guitarer and lead singist, Toby Hawkins – acoustic guitarer and lead singist.
This is the first time I’ve deigned (haha) to share the actual lead vocals on a pØ track. I enjoyed it. I’ll be doing it more often.
This was a very reasonable day’s work. Relying a bit on memory now, but I believe the drums were in already, so we laid down some tight grooves quick smart. Bit spoilt having Paul really. He’s very quickly able to get into the spirit of whatever’s on offer from month to month.
Mr Martin was up next, bringing a bag of treats as is his wont. He also brought a big bag of bass. It’s such a delight watching people turn up and bring their own flavour to all of these dumb songs I write. I particularly enjoyed the big slappy bits. Oh yes.
Jack turned up just in time to overlap with Ant, which was nice, and I was next up, recording the acoustic. I can’t remember if I’ve said this before, but I’m feeling pretty confident with recording in general, but especially playing acoustic rhythm guitar.
Then it was Jack’s turn to do some electric. I had to run off to do some errand, I forget what, but came back to find Paul and Jack writing/working out the chorus riff. But where Jack really shone was the improvisation stuff. In particular, his improvised solo after the middle eight was a first take wonder. We tried for another take, but it wasn’t worth it as the first was just so good.
Then the vocals. I went first, then Jack. There was a little bit of fun working out one of my more obscure timings but other than that everything was very smooth and sounded wonderful.
And this time you don’t have to take my word for it. You can listen and judge for yourself! Class.
I am also able to report that the non-standard capitalisation of the song title aggravated at least 50% of the musicians involved. So there’s that.
You want new music? We got new music.
That’s right folks. It’s a new music Tuesday.
Today we have a bluesy type thing called dog Tired.
Have a great week y’all.
Dissection
What a week. I think I’d like to talk further about some these things, but being as how I’m also pretty busy this week, it will need to wait a little bit longer. Seemed right to do a brief summary though.
- First off, on Saturday 21st we were recording dog Tired, which I believe I mentioned. Hoping for release early next week.
- Next, Wednesday evening was a strangeday practice. The previous practice saw all of us feeling a little tired and kind of lack lustre, but this one was way better. The practice was in preparation for NAGfest. More of which later.
- Thursday was the last NAG Open Mic. I’ve been running this open mic with Jack for 10 years. It was a really nice evening to end on, and I’m hoping to talk a bit more about that in a post dedicated to the subject.
- Friday was a Roo’s Radio practice, again for NAGfest. It went on pretty late as we were trying to get the set ready and it had been a long time since we’d played together.
- Saturday was the first day of NAGfest, a local music festival in its second year. Roo’s Radio were on at 6pm. Our set went really well. Paul, who had also done a lot of the organisation for NAGfest, joined us on drums, and it all felt very comfortable. Despite having not played for a while I think the songs are with us now.
- Sunday was the second day of the festival, and strangeday were playing at 8pm. This set also went well, although I was struggling a little voice-wise due to a lot of late nights and lots of singing. We played a new song, Long defeat, which possibly went down better than all the other songs.
It was also great to catch a lot of great bands and friends at NAGfest. Jack, Ant, Steve, 3dBs Down, Ab and the Underclass, No Limit Street Band, Sam, Aaron, Hog Roast, One Day Elliott and Beer Pressure were all very cool.
Onwards
Lyrics – dog Tired
So we’re in the studio. I totes forgot to prelude it by telling you about the song and posting the lyrics.
So sorry.
Today we’re recording the first blues song I ever did write. I doubt I have the right. I’m not exactly a blues aficionado. I always think of the bit in Lord of the Rings where Aragorn tells Bilbo it’s his look out if he has the cheek to write songs about Gil-galad in the house of Elrond. </nerd>
Anyway.
I think this one revolves around the line “what if there are fights you’re born to lose”. We get so much in films and so on about destiny and everything working out right. And sometimes things don’t work out. Not a sparkling piece of insightful observation, I’ll grant you.
What if no matter how you went about a situation you were going to fail? Probably you should still go for it. Depends on your perspective I guess. The point being, if you fail, you shouldn’t berate yourself too hard or entertain endless what ifs.
I actually came up with the title of the song by mishearing Radiohead‘s Myxomatosis. It’s not as if Thom’s diction is the clearest in rock. Turns out the lyric is “I don’t know why I feel so tongue tied”, not “dog tired”. Hell I’ll take it. At least I didn’t write a song called Twitch and salivate. Although…
As well as Paul and myself (standard), we’ve also got Ant Martin back in and the one and only Jack Lewis (Mister Jack Lewis if you please!) for the first time. Very exciting stuff.
I’ll chuck a few pics out at some point no doubt.
And here are the lyrics:
dog Tired
Hung my head found a way
To double down on yesterday
If I keep throwing words around
If I could just hold out and run to ground
That most elusive of all men
The king of black eyed fools again
I’ve been indecisive, I’ve been unkind
Mercy me I think I’ve been so blind
Tell me just exactly what’s a man to do
What if there are fights you’re born to lose?
What if I could have done it different from the start…
But what’s the point of “ifs” they’ll only tear you apart
Holding forth as if by this
Strength of belief I could dismiss
All opposition, all antipathy
But it begs the question, who are we?
And honestly I still don’t know
Whether to stay or up and go
Apprehensive of all that is required
And all of my days feeling so dog tired
Every now and then I’ll catch a glimpse
Of the life that I could lead and I’m convinced
That here to there and there to here and back again
Would take more out of me than I have to spend