Recording;
This was written literally the night before it was recorded. I took it to a friend who was working in a recording studio. Ian Firth is a professional recording studio sound engineer who at the time ran this studio in my city as well as working as a sound engineer for television companies in the UK. We recorded and mixed a few tracks that are on this album over a three or four day period that week. My musician mates were invited to rehearse this new material and record. We rehearsed this one just like the others for about an hour before we recorded it. We gave each song an hour only. If it didn’t work in that time as a live band we dropped it and tried the next song that I had recently written. It was a working studio that we were in and each session was short because of the studio costs. I have been nearly always been penniless and this week was no exception so time was tight. The bands parts for three brand new songs were recorded in about four hours. One hour to record all three and three hours rehearsal.
The next day I met Ian at the studio. We recorded my backing vocals which took a little while because I wanted a crowd singing ‘Hey’ before the chorus as well as other idea’s that I had concocted. After the backing vocals were done we recorded me clapping instead of using the usual percussion. We triple tracked that.
Production;
Most people assume that when a band is recorded, that’s it. But in actual fact those individual parts are very raw. They need sound treatment by people who know the tasks of sound engineering and production. Each instrument needs to be polished with different types of effects, which is why a producer and an engineer are employed. They are usually very expensive because they operate in specialised individual roles. They take those raw recordings, clean them up and piece them back together so that it all gels. So the bands performances are only about half of the end product of a finished recording. Ian was trained in sound engineering at university and I was used to organizing live bands in live shows so we met on our bridge in the middle and hit it off.
A little later I bought a pro recording studio software system called Pro-tools and did it all myself. Apart from the tracks mentioning Ian and his studio, the rest is me at home in my little studio.
Song;
I wrote this song for a laugh. It’s not meant to be serious. The lyrics are very sarcastic about being turned down by music industry officials time after time after time. Dedicated original songwriters and great musicians around the world are going through this right now as you read. Rejection is 99.9999999999% of the reality for us creators. So rather than get frustrated, I turned it around and included these thoughts into the creative process and made them into a comedy song.
Meaning;
Don’t give up is the intention behind this one. When I wrote it, it wasn’t hard to imagine that I was a small fish in a worldwide sea of struggling artistes? So this is a kind of tip of the hat to all of them. But in actual fact we are pioneers for the next generation of creative thinkers? This, at least, is my positive point of view?
Players;
Paul; Vocals, Synthesiser
Lee Ireland; Electric guitars
Omar Wilson; Bass guitar
Rob Franks; Drums
Marklew ©
Album; Songs From The Bridge
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