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Studio day – Pint of gold

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paul-working-the-console-pint-of-gold

9am
Paul recording drums - Pint of GoldLuckily Paul had all of the drums set up, so we just needed to cable them, line check them and set all the gains and we were off. A combination of a slightly late arrival and a bit of chatting meant that recording started around 10am. But within half an hour the drums were finished and now we’ve moved on to packing down ready for the bass.

11am
Si recording bass - Pint of goldWe had a bit of a special treat because Si from 3dBs Down had agreed to come and play bass on the track. He’d written some beautiful parts and they’ve taken the track to a whole new and splendid place. All done and dusted in around an hour. Marvellous.

1pm
Toby recording acoustic guitar - Pint of goldBit of editing and setting up and we’re off with the acoustic. Hoping to do the drums and bass some justice with my playing. We’ll see…

2pm
Acoustic all done. Feeling very pleased, and everything’s going pretty well so far. Off to pick up some lunch while Paul sets up for the electric guitar.

3:15pm
Toby recording electric guitar - Pint of goldManaged to borrow a beautiful telecaster for the electric guitar from an open mic regular, Dave. For some reason as a teenager I couldn’t stand telecasters, but I absolutely love them now. Tone is sounding huge and the part is adding loads of energy.

4:30pm
All done. That was better than I expected. Partly because the tele was such a joy to play. Vocals next. Paul made me warm up using this video. I know it’s good to do but warming up really bores me. But I went for it anyway. Not sure I did the last exercise very well, but hey ho.

5:10pm
Toby recording vocals - Pint of goldMy vocals are done. That’s all of my parts. Just backing vocals from Cec and Paul to do now and we’re all done. Time for a beer I think. To the south!

7:00pm
Cec recording vocals - Pint of goldAll done bar the shouting. And by shouting I mean Paul’s vocals. He’s doin’ em tomorrow. That was a fun day.

Pint of gold

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Remember how I mentioned in the previous post about recording and releasing one song a month? Well tomorrow I go into the studio with Paul to record the first of those offerings.

The song is Pint of gold. I wrote it a few years ago for a friend, Matt. He helped out with loads of strangeday stuff when we had little or no money (for instance with this promo), and the promise was that we’d buy him a pint of gold (actually 4 I believe) when we were rich and famous.

This is of course never happened, so I took it upon myself to write a song inspired in part by our friendship and late night chats. Matt (and subsequently everyone at our poker games) drinks to the south. So in the song we drink to the south, but other compass points are valid.

Looking forward to getting it down and sharing it with you. In the meantime, here are the lyrics:

Pint of gold
Times we’ve had
Remember that
Sometimes you’ve been the only thing that got me through
I think that I’d
almost forgotten
But there it is
There it always is

Times move on
And here we are
We’ll sing our song
And raise a glass
To the south, to the south
Singing la la la la la la la

Staring through
People who
Make me think of somewhere else and something new
Shake it off
Back to the present
Here we are
Here we always are

Times move on
And here we are
We’ll sing our song
And raise a glass
To the south, to the south
Singing la la la la la la la

There’s always a time for regrets
Always a space for turning inside out
But life is who we are
And time will tell our story
We’re still here
Yeah, we’re always here

Times move on
And here we are
We’ll sing our song
And raise a glass
To the south, to the south
Singing one more time la la
Moving on
And here we are
We’ll sing our song
And raise a glass
To the south, to the south
Singing la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la etc..