The Doctor

It's been mastered and is now on the MySpace player. I'm really happy with it. I hope you are too! Release date-wise I think we're probably looking at April now as a more sensible time to get it out there. I'd be rushing it if I put it out at the end of March. Plus, I went to the Luminaire last night and got copies of Stool Pigeon, The Fly, Loud & Quiet etc and I really want to try and reach out to some of the awesome free magazines/papers/fanzines out there and I've missed a lot of deadlines for March/next issues of stuff. We'll see. Fingers crossed. Also, I'm doing a video for the single with my friend Emma who did this awesome piece of work for our mutual friend Alan MX:



The new songs are coming slowly but they're coming none the less. 'Crystal Missile' WON'T be the b-side for the single by the way. I decided I really like it quite a great deal. It's also the blueprint for the way in which I'm recording the album: all via the 4-track and all takes recorded instantly after writing them. There is so much music out there that has been recorded, re-recorded, mixed, tuned, tweaked, deliberated over 1000 times that it's lost where it came from in the first place. I'm as guilty as anyone for this, 'One Day...' I scrutinised over for months and the songs were all very old. I think that 'Crystal Missile' and the like capture what I love about music and making music: the period when you've written something and the joy that brings before the inevitable pondering begins. Will it be played on radio? Is there anything else out there like it? Will people like it? I think these feelings are redundant in creating the best art you can but unavoidable when everything that you create is placed under a microscope by the press, your fans and more importantly yourself. It may be a flawed system and may not produce the best results. However, the opposite may also occur. We'll see. Either way, I think it's the best thing to do at this stage and I have to go with that.

Furthermore, I can't record on the 1680 anymore, it's developed the digital multi track equivalent of Alzheimer's. It's sad to listen to her cackle every time you try and record a guitar. The day of transferring the single over at Uncle Dave's we spent an hour waiting for her to stop grimacing and shouting at us through the monitors. I think 'The Doctor' is the last piece of music I'll record on her and put into the public domain. The end of a happy relationship is drawing near :-(

Making my ears happy recently are: 'A Lily for the Spectre' by Stephanie Dosen, 'Antenna' by Cave In, 'Plans' by Death Cab For Cutie, 'Limbo, Panto' by Wild Beasts and 'Eden' by Duke Raoul. Lesson ends.

Mixing related funs

I've just got back from uncle Dave's house and the mixing for 'The Doctor' single is pretty much done. I'm really very pleased with what we've done. It sounds to me (very tired, incredibly excited and having listened to it all nonstop for ten hours) like a real step up in quality from 'One Day...'. I'm very happy with the arrangements and I'd say that the performances and also the recording techniques used are showing signs of development for me, which is encouraging to feel. The b-side, 'Crystal Missile', I wrote on Friday, recorded over the weekend and we mixed today so there's something really new on there which I felt was important as there's been much promise off new songs with little reward recently. This marks the end of the block hopefully! Dave & Kirsty MKII is the most wonderful invention in the world, although she (at around 9 months old) managed to give me a nose bleed. Hmmm...outfoxed by a child that can't even crawl properly...that's a little worrying.

I listened to Gallows for a few hours today on my travels and at home, specifically 'Six Years' which is awesome. If I was cool I'd know them from their days when they did stuff with Holy Roar but I'm not cool, so I don't. Either way, Gallows, The Blood Brothers and 'A Song To Ruin' era Million Dead are probably my favourite bands to listen to at the moment. I spent some time being worried about whether I should keep Loyal Trooper in it's little acoustic cocoon and whether I should start another band to exercise some of my heavier influences. But I don't think that's realistic bearing in mind I'm a control freak and someone else's opinion about what I create brings alarm bells. Therefore, the idea of a 'band' in the true sense, with a democracy and equal creative input isn't applicable at present. I've listened to a lot of punk rock recently but I've ended up with two lo-fi acoustic stories. I guess that's just where my head is at the moment but what I create is evolving all the time.

Next time: new single! Whoop!