Blog: Back To Tin Pan Alley

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I went off to lunch a bit early today to nip down to Studio Sonic on London's Famous Denmark Street (or, at least, the alley behind it) for another of my Lunchtime Demo Sessions.

It turned out REALLY WELL - for some reason i got THE FEAR just before I arrived, and felt a bit nervy all through the recording of my elected songs, but when I listened back to them they sounded GRATE. I started off with A Million Ukeleles which ROUSED my INNER RABBLE, then moved swiftly on to Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid. It sounds EVEN MORE Smithsy on TAPE than it does in my HEAD and i was TEMPTED to go back and overdub the Exciting Guitar LICK i'd thought of, but realised that a) that would probably LOWER the MARR levels and b) there wasn't really enough time, so after a quick bit of tuning I did One Of The Walls Of My House Fell In which came out sounding FAR better than I'd expected. I've been thinking of it as a BIG BAND number and i could just HEAR the BRASS section - nobody tell Frankie tho, he gets AFEARED at the prospect of a return to BRASS. I shall just have to SPRING it on him...

Those three were all I'd really hoped to do, but as we were WHIPPING along I decided to have a go at Never Been Superstitious. As STATED in its NOTES I only really intended this to be a one off for the Gallery Gig a few weeks ago, but thought I might as well record it for POSTERITY purposes if I got the chance. Last night I had a run through of all the songs (PROFESSIONALISM!) and worked out a NEW and DIFFERENT way of playing it which suddenly made it a LOT better... At least, it was when i could PLAY it that way, which wasn't very often. HENCE I left it until the end of the SESSION, but in the end I got all the way through on the second attempt, although i PANICKED halfway through and cut our some sections so did a THIRD attempt which, I must say, sounds rather NICE. It's quite similar to I Come From The Fens, in both structure and PICKING STYLE, but I was surprised at quite how NICE it sounded once finished. I think it may get USED for something after all!

That all done we sat and did SUPER SPEEDY MIXING and before the hour was out i was AWAY and back to work, and as usual I STRODE through London's Fashionable Bloomsbury feeling like i was the Young Singer Songwriter in a 60's film, just going back to his STUDIO FLAT after a morning RECORDING SESSION. It was a GOOD feeling!

posted 17/5/2007 by MJ Hibbett

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