We had a practise yesterday for the first time in donkeys. Jon couldn’t make it so it was as a two piece. Just myself and Derek.   Mike is playing with another band so Derek has been playing with us once again. Derek was the original drummer in the band and you can hear his playing on ‘little window’, ‘from anyone’ and ‘me versus you’ on the album. We’ve been rehearshing for a gig in Nice n sleazys in Glasgow in May but more info on that to come.

The following video is a new song in progress that we came up with yesterday.

Went to see Mark Kozelek (Red house painters & Sun kil moon) last night in Oran Mor and he was fabulous. I’ve got a red house painters retrospective album which I bought after hearing it being played in Brunswick cellars (pub in Glasgow) on a friday afternoon waiting for my girlfriend.

It was something that I loved instantly, so much so that I even braved talking to the “too cool for school” barmaid to find out what it was. So anyway, i’ve got this album but I’ve never got around to getting any of his other stuff but I figured i’d hear at least one of the songs I knew. I didn’t, and it was still one of the best concerts i’ve been to. He came in wearing one of those scream masks as it was Halloween. I Assumed he’d take it off after a while but he kept it on for most of the show. It was surreal seeing and hearing this guy in fancy dress playing these beautiful songs.

A couple of the crowd were not impressed and kept shouting for him to “lose the mask” to which he replied, “i’ll lose the mask when you lose the fucking accent” , so not a fan of the Glasgow twang and obviously pissed off about being told what to do on stage. It was good to see someone for a change who didn’t give a shit about pandering to the crowd. A great show, i’ve got to get around to getting more of his stuff and i recommend you do too.

sun kil moon

Heres another few glorious acts of artists embarassing themselves. Surely these guys aren’t short of a bob or two so you’ve got to ask yourself why?

Brandon Boyd from Incubus wants you to buy GAP jumpers. I used to love Incubus so as a fan this one really embarrassed me.

Bob Dylan wants to sell you victorias secret lingerie. Maybe he just loves ladies pants.

Jack White is concerned that you should only drink Coca Cola. Rock and Roll.

Which musician do you think has embarassed themselves the most? John lydons butter advert doesn’t count because that one’s off the scale.

Just as I was thinking that myspace was empty of music fans I got a message from one of the bands friends on there saying how much he loved some of the songs on our album.  Awesome. So although I’ve signed us up to Facebook and Twitter our myspace page will still get some love now and then.

I’ve tinkered for years in making my own demos, using everything from 4 track tape recorders to mini discs and now ive gone all digital.  A couple of years ago I got my hands on a palm top 3 track studio. 

Pretty handy in that you can lay down three different tracks and mix them down. Its got an input for guitars and mics but whats really handy is the inbuilt microphone which I use for drums. I can basically record it all on the three track but its got limited memory so I just use it now as an input for getting instruments recorded onto my laptop. Theres quite a few studio programs that you can download trials for and that are reasonably simple to use. I’ve been using Cakewalk and Reaper.

Once you’v e got your recording equipment sorted its just a case of recording the different parts of the song. This is quite tricky as it all has to be seamless to sound any good. I recommend getting the drums down first, that is if the song has drums in it. Its a lot less hassle if it doesn’t. When laying the drums down the important thing to remember is to add guidelines for the parts without drums such as intros,  and practise until you can play the thing in your sleep.  The most important aspect of recording is the engineers ear. Having good equipment is also beneficial but the most expensive studio can return crappy results without the right ear for the song. Thats what I find so much fun about the process of recording my own tracks, as I’m doing it with limited audio knowledge its always hit and miss. But the funs in the doing.  Heres a couple of my previous doings.

Your Scarecrow demos