OK, nearly there! In two days my year’s blog will be complete. I’ll keep on going, but not so regularly.

Last chance to enter the competition: winner gets a two-hour mentoring session with me.

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And that’s ’bout all I have to say ’bout that…

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In the weeks and days leading up to the move I was numb… None of that sense of an impending event of great significance, that tightening of the stomach whenever it crossed my mind; just numb.
I did what needed to be done, (usually at the last minute,) wrestled with the bureaucracies with whom I needed to wrestle (though with the dishonourable exception of BT they were helpful and switched everything I needed switching with one phone call) and took the view that I’d rather sit and sort out the rubbish from the useful in my new home when I’d have more time than try and do it before moving when I had no time. My instructions to the removals firm were simple: “Bung it all in boxes; I’ll deal with it at the other end!”

On the day itself, I continued going through the motions until the call came from the solicitors telling me that all was well and we could leave. As I walked down the path I felt a sense of freedom, release, joy… And as I drove up the hill I started yelling with delight. I yelled so hard that I made myself hoarse and have been speaking like Johnny Vegas for two days.

The rest of that day was busy: boxes and more boxes. We ate dinner at the local pub (in itself a minor miracle as the last pub where we used to live closed down a year ago and even when it was open I would sooner have immersed my head in a bucket of someone else’s cold vomit than eat anything cooked there) and fell asleep exhausted.

It was the next morning that I finally felt anything of the intensity that I had been expecting to feel. We went for a walk on the beach and as the sun’s warmth increased and the view of the estuary and bay stretched out before us I heaved a massive sigh of relief and had a little weep. I’ve waited years for this…
On the way back to the house a bluejay flew from tree to tree in front of us: there’s been a bluejay everywhere I’ve lived for the last 20 years. Clumsy symbolism, I know, but it’s true.

This afternoon i went down the road to my boat and winterised the engine. A week ago, this would have taken me half a day, most of which would have been spent driving. Today, it took me an hour. Tonight, I can see the stars properly for the first time in decades. I’m going to have a drink at the Coast Inn and sleep the sleep of the content.

I’m just a country boy…

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Spent the day getting the engine on my boat going. The yell of triumph that rang out over the Strood channel when it fired up was a thing of great beauty…. My portfolio career now includes diesel fitter. I replaced a separator filter and a bleed screw in the line feeding the injectors. It worked!

Then home for barbecue supper with the girls. Lou is home having finished her degree.
I’m listening to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, looking for material for my Sunday Night Hootenanny on June 17th at the Bull and Gate: tickets here: £4 in advance, £5 on the door.
Love Bob Wills, but how annoying must it have been to have that bloody voice keep calling out “Ah-haaa” all over the solos?

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Nothing musical today. Slightly miffed at going to West Mersea for the first sail of the season and finding my boat still on blocks in the yard…

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Best ever cover story by band returning home from tour: A few One Direction band members are concerned about their health after they were urinated on by koalas while visiting an animal sanctuary in Australia.
A likely story, but an impressive amount of organisation by the tour manager. Most bands just get an elephant shot from a private doctor…

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Recently, I found myself in a situation I’ve never before experienced in 37 years of recording: I didn’t want to be in the studio.

I was producing and we had a tight schedule. A combination of attitude and technical problems resulted in the session from hell (although we got it done!) I can’t go into too much detail, but here are the conclusions I’d like to offer to recording engineers to avoid these kind of situations.

All comments and/or additions welcome as ever!

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The madness starts now: “Kate: the 32-page colour booklet, free with tomorrow’s Daily Mirror. What she wears, what she really thinks about Pippa…”

How long will it take the tabloid press to hound this poor woman to her grave?
F%$*&£g idiots; when will they ever learn? And when will the sad fools whose lives are so grey that they consume this gibberish ever learn?

YOU CAN’T BUY IT, FOLKS!!!!! YOU CAN ONLY MAKE IT FOR YOURSELF!!!

Toss and tomfoolery, or Bloedheit und Wichserei as my German freinds would say…

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Today’s missive comes from Eastcote Studios; a treasure trove of musical paraphenalia and positively reeking of rock/pop history (have a look at their website for the details, but for my younger readers, Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” was recorded here.)
It’s the first time I’ve seen a working 24-track tape machine for ages, complete with an open box of cotton buds (such temptation!,) razor blades (even worse temptation!!) and a bottle of isopropynol alcohol. If you need to ask what these are for, approach me privately and with offers of beer and curry, and I will reveal all.
I’ve spent a pleasant hour poking around in dark corners, discovering hidden gems such as an original Marshall JTM45 and 4X12 cab, a Wurlitzer piano, blonde Hammond and Leslie cabinet, Tokai Strat, Fender Rhodes suitcase piano: all the stuff that we all now have as modelled instruments in Logic or ProTools…

Just been shown round by the owner, Phillip. He says it’s the last independent studio in London now that Livingstone’s closed. It should be preserved for the history alone, and I may seek funding for a start-up business selling bottled atmosphere from the interior.

He said something interesting about recording to tape from the producer’s point of view. His view is that it has nothing to do with the sound, but the vibe in the room is different when a band is recording to tape: there’s no “undo” button; the atmosphere builds while the musicians are waiting for the tape to rewind; there’s an underlying awareness among the musicians that a single mistake could ruin an otherwise great take, and all this adds up to performances that have more “vibe” or whatever you want to call it.

I remember this well from the countless sessions I did as a musician working to tape. (My production career started in the early days of digital: I did one job as a producer with tape and frankly didn’t enjoy it! I missed the crispness and clarity of digital on the snare drum and overheads, although I liked the warmth it added to the bass drum and electric guitars, and the trade-off between sound and convenience was not heavily enough weighted on the sound side to persuade me to forego the convenience.)

Phillip also said that in his view most bands/producers now want to leave the studio with a bunch of audio files, rather than a coherent recording. I suppose that fits with the vocabulary of modern music and it’s important to understand and not just criticise, but a part of me misses the atmosphere of those sessions and feels that the results had a certain extra something… it is one of the great mysteries of recording that the spirit and atmosphere of a session can somehow make its way through wires and rusty plastic (or an array of memory addresses) and emerge to touch the listener.

<><><><><><><><>< Intermission<><><><><><><><>

Just had an hour chatting about 70′s German rock legends, 80′s British pop divas, microphones and pre-amps, studios, musicians… suppose I’d better get on with some work, but this has been a good day so far:-)

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Rough mix of a library track written by Jay Stapley and Steve Pearce, the fab Ralph Salmins on drums… this is how I’ve spent my day. What could be better???

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