Radio Spiritworld and free Conet Project

Thanks for the h-h-hyperlinks, Uncle Campbell

Hi-ho folks,

I finally remembered my log-in so I can unburden myself of things that my brain tells me all the time… that’s what the Internet’s for, right?

Things are progressing on the album front - most if not all of the recording is done now but we might add a few more sparkles before we start final mixing with the mighty @bethmcgowan

Other musical projects are being cooked up - more on them when it’s safe to break cover, but I can say that, at some point before we die, we might actually have a… gulp…body of work. Yikes but also hoorah! Hoorikes!?

Ok, the main point of this post was to recommend the Podcast Radio Spiritworld by the brilliant Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz .

I first listened to this a few months ago so it isn’t new but if you haven’t heard it, you have to. Even more than their two hilarious series’ of Look Around You…

Ghosts

…Radio Spiritworld somehow manages to spot-on spoof something that never existed.

I won’t spoil the Radio Spiritworld fun by describing this anymore because I’m pretty sure you’ll get a real kick from how original and weirdly familiar it is (maybe it does exist after all). Apparently they are making a series for Radio 4 too - well done the BBC, you big daft twat, you did a thing right.

Having said I won’t spoil it… if you, like me, scared the living crap out of yourself as a youngster by purposely listening to shortwave radio late at night, you will either be pleased or sent wimpering in abject fear to the corner of the room, curled up in a foetal ball, by this - a link to the entire Conet Project files to download.

Indeed, I dunno, you might even be pleased that you have finally found means by which you can send yourself to the corner of the room, wimpering in abject fear, curling up in a foetal ball (different folks etc…).

Good friend of FOTS, the venerable Dubber, has written about these Number Stations before- although that was probably five or six of his different blogs back (I cannae keep up with you Andrew old chap!). They also inspired one of the remixes he did for us a couple of years ago. No one really knows, verifiably, what they were (and, I think, still are) but it seems pretty clear they were a means of transmitting code between Cold War spies?… governments?…aliens?…the dead?

By the way… while i was writing the last bit, iTunes Genius decided to play  - tcp d1 17 4 note rising scale irdial -  you scary Genius!

Anyway, after I discovered Radio Spiritworld I discovered Robert Popper’s blog - a place of daily hilarity. (my new hero) Robin Cooper’s phonecalls and podcasts are a reason enough to explore and there’s lot’s more greatness therein… he even used a recommendation of mine a few days ago and was kind enough to mention our blog, thanks Robert.

OK, see you soon for the gig in November supporting Beth Jeans Houghton (I’ll be the one in a foetal ball!)

Stay great chums and remember, if you have kids yourself, blast The Conet Project into their rooms before they go to sleep every night - it’ll be good for them.

Nighty night …

Kids need shortwave radio to prevent them becoming in anyway involved with or the slightest bit interested in X-Factor

…beep…beep.. (Greensleeves played on a Glockenspiel)…beep…beep ..ACHT… zwei… sieben sieben… ACHT… ACHT… sieben.. ACHT

FOTS-POD#18 - “The No-Robson Club: Part 1″

Episode 18 of the Friends of the Stars Podcast is a PART ONE of TWO PART affair. Recorded just last week in the fine city of Glasgow, these episodes DO NOT feature Executive Producer Robson.

Wait….come back.

Containing tunes by David Bowie, Magnetic Fields, Kevin Ayers and Elvis Costello, “The No-Robson Club” finds Friends of the Stars members Campbell and Craig spending the afternoon idly considering exactly how many copies of their next album the band need to sell in order for all 5 members to live high on the hog. They also discuss the difficulties of having family and friends as your only ‘demographic’ or ‘target market’. As usual, the podcast contains swearing.

Listen:

TRACKLISTING:

Modern Love - David Bowie
Big Bird - Eddie Floyd
Cold Shoulder - Kevin Ayers
Joe Pye and The Weeds - Joe Pye and The Weeds
Veronica - Elvis Costello
Chicken - Geoff Mauldur
Our Love is Heavenly - Heavenly
Jamaica Say You Will - Jackson Browne
(Crazy For You But) Not That Crazy - Magnetic Fields

DOWNLOAD FOTS-POD#18 - “The No Robson Club: Part 1″”

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New Songs For A New Record: Lights Go Out

Here’s another demo from the pile of songs we’re sifting through and recording for the new album, “Faiths Meat Kiosk”. This is one of Cam’s and is called Lights Go Out.

When it appears on the LP it’ll be a little different from this version. For a start we think that Anna will be singing it rather than Cam and also the piano you hear on this version is being played by Cam, but for the recording proper we’ll be bringing in a crack squad of additional musicians. More news on this soon…

Enjoy…

Recording and The Lurgy

Apologies for the weeklong radio silence, I’ve been poorly.

At the height of my illness I told an American friend that I had been laid low by ‘the lurgy’ and she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. She was, like, clueless. So, we totally checked Wikipedia and it seems that the word Lurgi (correct spelling) was made-up by Spike Milligan in the 1950s for The Goon Show and passed into common parlance (in the UK only, it seems) shortly afterwards. Every day is a school day.

Anyway.

Last Saturday we finally made a proper start to the 2nd Record. We travelled to Shrewsbury to record some drums and a bit of bass and some guitar with our trusty side-kick and long-suffering audio fixer Beth McGowan. Beth asked us to be there at 11am and we only just over an hour late. We had a productive and fun time and some food from Cafe Soya when we got home. I think there was some video footage taken at the studio on the handy and idiotproof Flip, so I’ll see about getting that online shortly. 

We’ll be kicking on with guitars and keys now, or at least very shortly.

Definitely soon, anyway.

Whenever.

News Songs for a New Album: Bubble of Hate

Here’s another demo from the 2nd album, Faith’s Meat Kiosk. This one is called “Bubble of Hate”.

It started life as a slightly faster tune, but after a suggestion from Cam is was slowed down and stripped back to what your can hear now. We’ll probably keep the arrangements reasonably simple when we come to recording it for the album, sticking with the sparse nature of this recording done around one mike in a single take by Anna and Craig.

Listen:

DOWNLOAD

We head off to Shrewsbury next weekend to begin recording,  starting with some drums and bass and whatever else we have the time and inclination for. We’ll then take these recordings back to Birmingham and Glasgow to continue work, roping in some pals along the way no doubt.

It would be foolish to say that all of the above means there will be a finished album at any point in the near future, but we are aiming at release in 2009.

Roughly 2009. It’s pencilled in.

More news as it happens. Enjoy the tune.

9 Mistakes To Avoid When Recording Your Own Album

Today was a good day. I finally began to work on our next record.

It’s been almost 18 months since we were last recording anything intended for release. That’s a long time. One of the reasons for this was that I figured we needed to place an embargo on any new recordings until “Lighting and Electrical” was finished and available to anyone in the world who might want to hear it. I knew from experience that if we had started recording new material before that point then the songs would have joined that pile of other songs that we never got finished, and I didn’t want that to happen.

So, with the album now out and the embargo duly lifted I have to say that the thought of working on a new set of songs is making me very happy, very excited and a little nervous - and all at the same time. I am happy because making music with the others makes me very happy. I’m excited because it’s been a while since we were recording and it’s a chance to show what we’re made of, a challenge. Lastly, I’m nervous because I know there is a long journey and some hard work ahead of us. Still, it feels liberating to finally be out of the traps and it’s made me give some thought to the process ahead…something we could have benefited from the first time around.

Without going into too much detail, the whole process for recording and releasing “Lighting and Electrical” was absolutely torturous and I say that without the slightest exaggeration. The experience was perhaps the first and only time in my life when my over-developed stubborn streak actually came in handy. I learned a lot during the whole process, and mainly that a lot of the delays I moaned about were ultimately down to our own stupidity. A little patience would have been useful at times, too.

So, for the benefit of anyone about to embark on recording their own album, on their own and also to serve as a behavioural mantra for our own second album, here are some things I’ve learned from all the mistakes we made last time. I’ll add a complimentary post listing all the mistakes we made after we finished recording in the next day or so.

Off we go, then….

9 Mistakes To Avoid When Recording Your Own Album

by the band that made them all.

1: That Odd Buzzing Noise Will Come Out In The Mix

..and one day there will be free jetpacks for us all. No matter how good you think that last take was, if your singer kicked the mike stand halfway through or the small change was rubbing against the keys in your pockets then you need to think about starting that take again.

2: If You Are Having Drums, You Might Want To Record Them First

You may think you’ve nailed that guitar part to that click track but there are two people who won’t share your confidence. The first person is the drummer and he will till you all about this when he comes to play along to the song. The second is the person who will spend weeks going through the all the component drum audio files, making miniscule adjustments to the placement of a kick beat here and a high hat there. When I say weeks, I mean WEEKS…easily enough weeks to fill a month or two.

3: “Hey, Shall We Tune-up?”

This one sounds teeth-grindingly obvious, doesn’t it. Oh yes, so obvious in fact that you’d laugh at anyone who made such a stupid error.

*cough*

Moving on, then…

4: Effects Breed Like Rabbits

It might not sound the way you hear it in your head but if you cave in now and add that tiny bit of distortion - just to make yourself feel better about everything - then imagine how great you’ll be feeling when you come to the mix and you can’t get rid of it. Record EVERYTHING dry.

5: “You Sound Like You’ve Got A Cold…”

If you didn’t have a cold when you recorded the vocals for the other 9 tracks, why do you want to do record the vocal for this one now?

6: Clean Out Yer Ears

If you’ve listened back to that rough mix more than 10 times today then it’s probably time to go out, meet your pals and get drunk. Additionally, when you all come back from the your night out your friends will probably be in the mood for some ELO or possibly some Fu Manchu. That track without vocals and that piano part littered with cack-handed mistakes will be waiting patiently for you tomorrow - it ain’t going nowhere.

7: Less Is More

These days home studios can be augmented with a dazzling array of plugins that enable you to have thousands and thousands of sounds and instruments at your fingertips. You are limited only by your imagination, but remember that this cuts both ways.

8: Organise, Label & File

At some stage, when you’ve recorded your last vocal or overdub, you’ll want to think about mixing your album. When this point comes it is waaay too late and entirely pointless to have the bright idea of giving audio files sensible names and putting them into folders that, say, represent the names of the different songs they come from.

9: Back-Up

Death, Taxes and At-That-Crucial-Point computer malfunction. They come to us all in the end. Do it daily, weekly or monthly….but make sure you do it.

Now….go and make a great record!