My first time working with the very talented Tim Matthews, who I recorded here in my little studio. The unmistakable Kane Chamberlain (The Juniper Club) there providing the harmonies too. Somewhat of a change of direction from my eighties pop rock songs.
An acoustic rock song with a theme of loss. Sweet natural vocal from Mike here. Having always liked the Danny Wilson song Mary's Prayer I wanted to write a story that followed a passage of time, verse by verse, as theirs Read more
An acoustic rock song with a theme of loss. Sweet natural vocal from Mike here. Having always liked the Danny Wilson song Mary's Prayer I wanted to write a story that followed a passage of time, verse by verse, as theirs does. Of course, unlike my Dee their Mary had the good sense never to have been given a surname (Dee DeVine was a name I invented to fit phonetically where it needed to in the vocal line, and which lends some playful alliteration to the song's title [itself obviously an echo of David McWilliams's 'Days Of Purley Spencer']); Some very late-in-the-day googling tells me that all sorts of Dee DeVines are currently engaged in various wheezes right here in the real world. (Who knew!) Well, this song is about none of them (I picture my Dee as something like Greta Gerwig in the film Frances Ha, if you want to know). Anyway, as usual this one was recorded in my studio, Charlene, with Mike remotely engineering his parts at his place.
One of my explorations in what I call 'Clean Guitar Rock' (my jazzer friends assure me these guitars are far from clean), this song went through many iterations to become what you hear now. This finished demo was made by Read more
One of my explorations in what I call 'Clean Guitar Rock' (my jazzer friends assure me these guitars are far from clean), this song went through many iterations to become what you hear now. This finished demo was made by me in a garden room called Charlene at my house in Oxford using a Tascam Model 12, the vocal parts being subsequently replaced by Dave Mikulskis (of the Chicago area band Hi Infidelity) and mixed and mastered back in my shed.
A kind of 80s radio ballad, beautifully sung by my good friend Mike (www.michaelkentish.com), and other than that put together by me at home on the Tascam. "It's only love, girl!" Is a line I wouldn't write today, but is preserved here in delay-drenched glory.
An 80s pop rock story song. I was always worried the vocal line in the verse was too close to that in You Can't Look Back by Taking Back Sunday (before I realized they were both basically Boys Of Summer). Great vocal from Mike, other than that performed by me in my studio, Charlene.
Another track that took on a lot of different forms before this one (it has been a traditional style drinking song among other things). Slightly bleak lyric, which I think works, and in the third verse you get to hear Dave Mikulskis singing in his boots and out of character. Other than his parts, this one was recorded and mixed by me.
I wanted to write a song with one of those dum-dum-dum-dum-dum type basslines, like Winter Passing by Taking Back Sunday or Why You Wanna Break My Heart from Wayne's World. I was watching a lot of pro wrestling with my Read more
I wanted to write a song with one of those dum-dum-dum-dum-dum type basslines, like Winter Passing by Taking Back Sunday or Why You Wanna Break My Heart from Wayne's World. I was watching a lot of pro wrestling with my son at the time, and the idea of a 'baby face' rolled around my mind until I had this weak-willed little rebuke to an unfaithful lover (who it seems gets away with her betrayals on account of how 'over' she is. Right, wrestle fans?) I can hear I was trying to give the song a retro/classic feel with cliches about 'lying eyes' and such. (And I'd like to think the line 'now I've found your runaround shoes' is a clever play on Dion's Runaround Sue, but I don't remember that being the case. Probably I just thought it sounded like a cool old fashioned blues lyric.) Some parts of the recording, for example the rhythm guitars, survive from an old demo made on a Fostex Mr8 (a machine with no compression or EQ) and the various other elements have been replaced one by one in the years since, giving us - among more minor improvements - the lovely vocal by Mike Kentish. I remember thinking I finally got the demo to feel right when I achieved that John Mayer-esque snare sound (by triggering a sample I found on a Yamaha DD-65 using one of the pedal inputs).
