2 February 2005

Trevor Jones:

We have booked BJ Cole to come in and play some Pedal Steel, always an occasion I look forward to. BJ has quite a track record: he played on a lot of the early Elton John recordings, and has more recently played with The Verve, Richard Ashcroft, The Finn Brothers, Pet Shop Boys,

Sting etc. Last time Marcus and I saw him was at his gig at 'Spitz' in London's Spittlefields Market, where he was launching his fine new album 'Trouble in Paradise'. He's here to play on 5 tracks:

"Glow". Marcus has done a lot on this in my absence, adding a Hammond, a 12 string, and strat' part. BJ does two passes, focussing on the chorus and M8.

"Beads Without a Chain" BJ 's first pass on pedal steel is gorgeous, a keeper. He adds another part on which he uses an ebow for affect.

"Average Sadness" All we need on this is for BJ to double the intro melody that has been established on banjo and tracked vocals. It gives the sections a unique sound. Love it!

"Paper Planes and Ponytails". No requests of BJ other than to play along and see what we get. He's obviously on form!

"Baby's in the House" We have a middle section and solo that we try on BJ's lap steel. I mention David Lindley (who played on the early Jackson Browne stuff 'Late for the Sky' 'The Pretender' etc)and he comes up with a great sound straight away.

Five songs in a six hour session is pushing it, but BJ copes manfully. Top dog!!

Another curry, and hope for a Blackburn victory over Chelsea to keep he title race open.

No such luck!

Marcus Cliffe: I’d spent the last week working on Paper chains and pony tails to which I’d added the danelectro 12 string ,and a single strat part all done through the line 6 Pod XT pro, I’d used the vox AC30 top boost setting for both guitars. I’d redone the drum parts too using a different kit from BFD and playing around with the ambient room and PZM mics levels to just get the

amount of ‘roominess’.A hammond B3 was added to and now with the steel its sounding great.

3 February 2005

Trevor Jones:

We spend today editing what BJ did yesterday. Like the vocals, we try to find the best take and fix any bits that need it. It's difficult letting some of the stuff go, as there's gold dust in every take, but one thing Marcus has taught me is to ruthlessly trust your instincts. I'd be mithering over phrases forever...

As we place the pedal steel we do some tinkering with the tracks:

"Glow". Marcus adds some cymbal swells and ...ahem...tubular bells to accent certain vocal hooks. We talk about adding a string section.

"Beads Without a Chain" This sounds lovely. The basic steel, doubled with ebow at the end is other-worldly. Marcus adds double bass.

"Average Sadness" The tracked intro sounds great. We work on a percussive track, using a sample of a Doc Martin (size 14) stomp as a bass drum, with handclaps and saucepan lids on a string. If I could only growl like Tom Waits! Marcus adds a concertina...it's shaping up nicely.

Marcus Cliffe; As we’d made decisions when tracking there wasn’t much editing to do which is how it should be when you’re working with good players.One of the down sides to unlimited tracks and computer editing now is that its possible to change anything at anytime and also record 20 tracks of something and comp together the ‘perfect’ take.I don’t actually believe that this makes music ‘better’ so we try to make decisions early and create something musical rather than perfectly sterile.

4 February 2005

Trevor Jones:

"Light of Day" Marcus adds double Bass, and tries to fix the timing on my 10 thumb guitar part. You can polish a turd!

"Off the Wall" Still not sure if that is the title. Double bass and break for the weekend.

Marcus Cliffe: what was I saying in the last paragraph!!!! Trev’s guitar part did need a bit of editing but only because we’d changed our original tempo track of the song.Trev took over as Engineer while I was doing the Double bass parts which although it only involves pressing a few buttons does help incredibly, as usually I’m pressing record and then running in the booth, quickly putting on headphones,picking up the bass and then playing only to find the level was too hot after checking back ,and then having to do it all again.

5 February 2005

Marcus Cliffe; I spent Saturday working on a string quartet arrangement for ‘off the wall’ I ended up actually doing it the old fashioned way with manuscript paper and a pencil. It sounds nice and intimate which suits the nature of the song which is now just voice,acoustic guitar,double bass and string quartet.

6 February 2005

Marcus Cliffe; yet another string day,I did some final tweaks to yesterdays arrangement then started work on ‘Glow’. After the sparseness of ‘off the wall’, It was a nice change too use the full orchestral sections on ‘glow’. The song now builds from a quiet intro through to a climactic end complete with timpani,tubular bells,orchestral cymbals,glockenspiel,grand piano and full symphonic strings.If we go with Glow as the album title then this will be a fitting title track!

Trevor Jones: You forgot to mention the gong Marcus!

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