I’m in Northern Ireland at my mum’s house. Maurice is coming down tonight for a quick review of everything so far, and we’ll get all the lyrics printed out for final tweaks and changes. Always feels better to do with on pen and paper.
The wonderful Dali and Pippo from Chaplin came down to my house in London last night. I let them hear a few bits and pieces, and was treated to an early listen to their new album – very inspiring stuff. It always feels strange letting people hear your music for the first time… my heart does beat a little faster when I press play on something – especially when its something I like. You have to accept that not everybody will think the same (to say the least). Over the years I’ve come to accept it, relish it even, but it’s still a moment of nervous excitment, releasing the music to new ears like some caged bird to the sky.
I’m over here visiting my grandfather and grandmother, both in their 90s. They’ve always been really supportive of any musical exploits I undertook in the past, and it was fun playing them a few bits and pieces. I let my grandfather hear the demo of Riversong and he was delighted, waxing lyrical about the arrangement and sound. Granny preferred Jumping Ship, laughing aloud at some of the lyrics… they are quite Steely Dan-inspired, with a dry sense of dark humour.
So we’ll see what happens next. I’m hoping to do some tracking early next week, getting some backing vocals down and more synth bass lines. I put a crunched up SH-101 bassline in the chorus of Champagne Dividend – its sounding gritty and pretty damn opinionated. No shrinking violet of a bassline, that’s for sure.
Later
Maurice has just left. We are all done on the lyrics. They were printed, signed, dated, sealed and off for the classic “sending to self” sketch. It feels really good to have got this far in what is a pretty short space of time – less than three months since that afternoon sitting in the Crawfordsburn Inn agreeing to start this thing off. So I’m going to celebrate with a nice little glass of VSOP.