The difficult fourth album! Part 5 (last part)

So why is the fourth album any more difficult than the other three?

Well, after we played the release party (see Part 4), we did one more gig as a six-piece before we disbanded. The reason was my realisation that this was not a band but a bunch of friends doing me a favour, not really a recipe for longevity. So I went back to my studio hole, started writing the next album, and wondered what kind of new twist it could hold.

In the ensuing months quite extraordinary events took place in my life, and inspired by this, I wrote a huge amount of new material. After the on-stage experience I noticed that I approached writing in a new way. I became more conscious of the arrangements working for live performances, and mostly made sure I could play the parts on the guitar and sing them as well.

The interesting thing was that I basically got closer to the musician in me. This sounds pretty banal, but it was quite a revelation. Looking back on all those albums what had actually happened was a slow reclaiming of the musician, or in other words, an internalisation of the music-making process.

The first album had lots of production features, lush effects and interesting editing, but there were no real drums, no real guitar amps and mostly not even a real bass on it. The emphasis was on studio trickery and programming (albeit on an underpowered computer) instead of musicianship. In addition, none of the instrument parts were played as complete takes, but carefully edited. Interestingly though, my aim was always to make it appear organic.

What made the second album more satisfying was the collaboration with other (better) musicians, because they strengthened the songs, and thus made them come alive. They added another dimension.

The highlight of the third album was the release party. Again, it was setting the tracks free on the stage that made the difference. And of course, playing live is a lot more immediate than playing in the studio.

So there is the challenge of the fourth album. I have since managed to form a three-piece, and I am committed to playing these songs with the band until they are alive and grown up as songs, so I can let them venture out into the world and have a life of their own. I want them to be charged with musicianship, the real thing, not the fake plastic stuff that is software instruments and emulation plug-ins. This means that I will have to practice a lot, play live a lot, take lessons and generally be unafraid.

I bought a four-track cassette recorder in 1985 when I was frustrated with the progress my band was making back then. When I started playing around with it, I had this idea that it could replace my band altogether. And thus my studio career began. I played all the parts myself, dabbled in drum computers, got Ataris to do the playing for me, almost replacing myself in the process.

The alienation from the musician inside me began there. I externalised the music making process. Today I have a Macintosh hundreds of times more powerful than that old four-track, but I never replaced those guys in my band, not in 25 years. So when I look at all the production gear that I have at my fingertips these days, it is slowly dawning on me that the real music has to happen elsewhere first, before it is captured. It starts in my veins. And everything that comes afterwards, the so-called signal path, is there to enhance the message, not replace it.

It feels good to finally have the musician cells back in my blood stream, on the inside where they belong, and where they work best.

Thanks to Caitlin for your inspiration.

The difficult fourth album! Part 4

In early 2009, I had enough material for album number three,‘Too Many Damaged Heroes’. I had bought a new computer, allowing for more tracks and better quality processing. And I invested in new monitors for mixing. The stage was set for another album of incremental improvement.

However, for some reason I could not get a perspective on the songs. I seemed so close to them that I couldn’t get the big picture. I was working away in my little hole of a studio, struggling to turn the external improvements into better quality tracks. Also, my collaborations with other musicians dried up a wee bit. I still had a drummer who contributed some guitar and vocals as well, but it didn’t feel like a step forward, more like more of the same.

In May 2009, I played my tracks to a friend who did not comment much on them, but while doing this I noticed that something didn’t feel right. I dropped the songs and didn’t touch them for three months.

During this time I came up with a plan of how to resurrect the album: I needed to breathe life into the tracks, make them more than just recorded ones and zeroes, give them relevance. I decided to do an album release party and play the tracks live with a band. It seemed like the next logical step. And considering I hadn’t played live for more than 15 years, it certainly got me excited.

So I asked people whether they wanted to be in my band for the release. I was completely surprised by the response, and after only three months I had a six-piece band and a ten-song repertoire. I am still in awe about how it all came together and forever grateful to those musicians that made this possible.

Amidst the rehearsals I remixed the album trying to get it ready for the release date, which I had set to 8 December, the 25th anniversary of my brother’s death. While in the end, the songs could have been improved upon, and the album remixes probably were rushed a bit, playing some of the songs live to a capacity crowd at the release party was the ultimate experience. Seriously, I couldn’t think of anything at the time that could have topped it.

The difficult fourth album! Part 3

Once the first album was done I felt a great sense of liberation. And even in the finishing stages I already earmarked several tracks for the second album. I promised myself that I would enjoy making the second album without any added pressure.

The feeling of liberation also came from the fact that I had decided to admit that I am a very average musician, songwriter, singer, producer, graphic designer and entrepeneur. In doing so I allowed myself to slowly get better at all of these things. With my day job being based at radio for a while and then in education this was not an easy thing to do, because I was in an environment that expected me to have all the answers, and to guide others, just like the blind leading the blind. This blogpost describes this particular phenomenon really well.

So in 2008 I released ‘A Little Less Gravity’, a fitting album title.

In sticking with the theme, I subscribed to 'a little less gravity', and a little more of everything else; in other words, incremental improvement. The album had two more tracks on it, had more consistent artwork, the disc cover was printed digitally and wouldn’t start smudging after a year or so, there were two more pages in the booklet, a few more contributions from other musicians including co-written songs, real drums throughout instead of samples, and some of the songs were written more recently than on the first album, so they reflected more who I was now. Altogether, I tackled a few of the more difficult songs I had written in order to challenge myself. So it consolidated the journey and proved that there was growth as a musician, producer, songwriter and so forth.

A particularly memorable event was recording drums for 11 of the tracks in one single day at York Street Studio. Very thrifty, but the poor drummer got hammered!!

The difficult fourth album! Part 2

Part 2 The Ground Below

The first album, 2005’s ‘The Ground Below’, was necessary because at the time I thought my music was dead. I hadn’t recorded anything releasable since 1992. Getting back into it was a lengthy process of waking up and retoning those musician muscles. The album proved that my music wasn’t dead, but had been in a deep coma, just like Sleeping Beauty.

The other important purpose of the album was to defeat the mental barriers. I recall a conversation with an artist while I was working at radio. I had listened to her album and was making clever, industry-type comments about it ("this song takes too long to get to the hook blah blah blah"), when she asked me whether I make music myself. Yes, I replied. What kind of music, she asked. Quirky pop, I said. After she had left I had this empty feeling inside me, because I wasn’t making quirky pop. In fact, I wasn’t making any music at all. Not that I hadn’t tried!

This laid open the disconnect between my aspirations and my reality. It wasn’t so much the fact that I hadn’t recorded anything. It was the fact that I was working at radio where songs are benchmarked every day, their commercial validity scrutinised. The world around me appeared so far ahead musically that it seemed impossible for me to catch up.

So the first album really was the first step on a hopefuly long journey. I overcame the fear of not being good enough. I ended the journey of the failed-musician-becomes-music-critic-or-whatever-else and went back to the drawing board of humble new beginnings.

The other aspect of this album was the gun to my head. I connected the making of the album to a recording arts degree, so if I failed to make the album I would also fail to get the degree. It might have been necessary, and did help get me off my ass, but it sure was painful.

The difficult fourth album! Part 1

The difficult fourth album!

I know, it’s usually the second one, the one they call the sophomore album, but I got that one out of the way without too many problems. Looking back, that one was probably even the easiest. And now, sitting in my studio and listening to the material I’ve written in the last couple of years the fourth one could be my best one yet, so what’s holding me back?

When I look back at the first three albums I can see that every one of them had a specific purpose. I don’t consider them perfect. In fact, I hardly ever listen to them and only play one out of those 35 songs live, but they were all important in their own right. They are all my little children, but the question is: Have I always been a good parent to them? Over the next few days I want to look back to those old albums so I can look forward to the new one.