September Songs...

It's a fitting title, this one. For you see, on the 30th September 2019, myself and my music partner Keith 'Music Man' Melhuish went 'into the Studio' as they say to lay down some tracks (man).

Lisa, for Christmas 2018, had an inspired idea to purchase me 8 hours of studio time in a proper recording studio in Wembley, north London. This place is called 'Rogue Studios' and our engineer was the dashing (and far too young) Michael Kew. 

We had spent a couple of rehearsals going over 8 acoustic songs that we hoped to record in a stripped back session - just guitar and voice. Keith took his 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars (ok the 6 string does have a direct input) and I took my voice and some 'VocalZone' throat lozenges.

We had spent a lot of time going through the canon of our work to find songs that were interesting, different and which would suit this acoustic process and sound. now any song can be stripped back and work to a greater or lesser extent; but we didn't want to squander this opportunity of having someone else record us whilst we concentrated on playing and singing as well as we could.

Well, it was a blast! An absolute joy. It was such a delight to be in a studio with a young guy who knows his 'stuff' and who set up our session in a way that made playing together as easy as possible. I loved the time we spent in there, listening to a voice that was my own and yet better than it was normally. Whether it was the different environment, the soundproof area or the microphones - I assure you no 'Autotune' was used in the making of this music! - it sounded great. I'm always pleased when we have recorded something new and I like it at the time. But in the replaying it days or weeks after all I can hear are my mistakes. The songs we recorded are not, in any way perfect, but the mistakes are less and the overall sound is great.

If you ever visit this blog then you might know of my other sites - the Photography and UnderTow ones - and visiting the UT one might be worthwhile as it will soon have news of the CD that we are going to prepare for a (hopefully) December release. 

My hope is that this release will be something special, something warm and accessible to the many, not the few. It has a great mix of songs, themes and sounds. Even with only either a 6 or 12 string, we have made something that I truly believe has real quality to it.

I know this blog post has had little to do with my poetry or fiction, but I did write a lot of the lyrics for the songs we recorded at Rogue; so there is a link there somewhere, even if it's quite small and a bit tenuous!

Stay safe all, keep reading!