Hallelujah

Oh joyous delivery.

One brown box full of newly pressed CD’s. A perfect cure for a head to head with uncountable bottles of red wine.?

We’re pretty happy. The God Willing mantra appears to warrant further employment, even in this god-querying household.

There was no better time to have some communion with the divine than at 1am this morning. Billy and I baring our white dolphin-bums to the surf in some holy midnight cabaret. They don’t happen very often these days; star-burst, alcohol inspired acts of bravery. I’m writing this now, proud as punch we can still be fools.

Apologies Patricia, for sneaking into your beachfront hot tub

and leaving three empties

on the motor.

I’m resisting the low call of bedtime. I need to get some beauty sleep, brain sleep, or just plain eye-lid shuttage to pave the way for a right old knees up tomorrow night; the release of The Homeward Stretch at St Peter’s Hall, Paekakariki. I have dyed my hair, a rather perplexing shade. The carton said Auburn. I’d say more…hmm… burning leaves or electric chestnut. Speaking of which, I’ve just watched the last cut of our video that Ed made.

It’s a wee cracker. The bruise on my back is still healing. Two high doses of arnica later and I have more plum sized bruises on my body than fingers. Self-inflicted. I expected him to catch me. He didn’t. Same old story a thousand times over.

Off to recover and sing in my sleep,

hope to see you

Betty x

Wrinkles

Billy here,

Shudder. It might be the lack of sleep or too much coffee. But I’ve been getting a fierce tingling of nervous excitement. It’s mainly centred in one part of my body. Below the normal ‘butterfly stomach’. Yeah. THERE.

I’m not normally one to get nervous, actually that’s a lie, I used to get so nervous I’d have to spew before going on stage. Literally, a really good puke, throwing up those tickly butterflies and flushing them away. I thought nothing of spitting out the last of the chunks, downing a bourbon and coke and leaping on stage. But back then I had long hair, I used to scream into microphones, not really sing, and it was often fronting an awful covers band, playing in shitty bars in a one horse town. No wonder I was sick. But these days I’m more used to an energising surge of anticipation. Sure, it may be tempered by some pragmatic worries of remembering lyrics and chords and the like, but without the anxiety of the old days. I guess I’m enjoying what I’m doing more now.

However, the impending release of our new album has me experiencing a new sense of churning, one that has it’s tickle in quite a new place. Now, I don’t mean to be rude (not overtly), but the fellas will know what I’m on about. The ole’ bag of marbles has a way of communicating inner tension, maybe it’s a throw back to prehistoric times – ‘run away!’ … ‘kill it!’. A strange (very non-sexual) ache accompanied by a physical tightening of the, ahem, scrotal sack. It’s like the body is trying to suck those baby-making beans back inside itself in some kind of act of self preservation. Goodness.

It’s not so much the thought of the upcoming release gigs – in my mind they’ll be brilliant, just need a couple of rehearsals to oil the rustiness. I’m more worried about the nuts and bolts stuff (pardon the pun). Getting the discs on time, negotiating distribution, talking to media, organising, organising, organising. That’s before I start wondering if people will come to the shows. Will they buy the CD? Will they like it? How long before we pay all this money back? Are we promoting ourselves okay? Will we get reviewed? Will the reviews be favourable? Oh my goodness. This is business stress. Since when did I … oh yes … right.

This new ‘indie’ model of music management is one that Betty and I have taken to somewhat … organically. Betty jumped on it way before me, I was happy to turn the other cheek and, you know, ‘focus on the music’ … maaaaaaaan. But the reality is pretty clear – manage yourself, because no-one else will, not for free anyway. Luckily we’ve got loads of support, advice and willing helpers. But ultimately, Betty and I are leading the charge and it does create a bit of a dichotomy. All this time spent on ‘management’ is time not used sitting around guzzling wine and writing cracker tunes. Perhaps it’s a case of ‘time management’ something I am woefully inconsistent at. However, things are somehow coming along nicely. I even have a diary.

It’s been a case of pulling my head out of the sand, ensuring my testicles swing low and proud, and bloody well getting on with things.

In the meantime, Betty is like that painting of the chick waving the French flag with her tits out.

I need to grow some pretty big balls to keep up with her.

I’m still excited though, and the release date keeps getting closer. It’s clear this is the start of a new phase, one that will see us stepping things up a mark. It’s going to be a crazy ride and lots of fun.

Are you with us?

Recording The Homeward Stretch

Hey, Billy here.

I thought I’d tell the tale of recording our new album The Homeward Stretch, mainly because it was recorded in August 2008 and my memory is not that reliable. So as a matter of record, here goes.

Pre-production involved discussions with the band and Lee Prebble the engineer. Just to note, Lee is responsible for recording the likes of The Black Seeds and The Phoenix Foundation, safe to say, he knows his stuff. Originally we were going to spend two weeks in Lee’s studio ‘The Surgery’. But as it got closer to the time we realised there was no way we’d be able to afford it – not that Lee hadn’t given us a great deal, but we were … financially disadvantaged.

Eventually we settled on five days, commencing Friday August 22, three days to record and two days to mix. Lunacy, but all we could manage. Betty and I arrived bright and breezy at 10am. She with hamper and homemade goodies, I with discreetly hidden bottles of beer, wine and a sneaky scotch. I forget what the scotch was, but it was of high quality and quite delicious.

At some stage we got down to business, Al Fraser on bass, Ben Fulton on guitars and effects pedals and Janet Holborow on cello. Ben’s electric guitar amplifier was off in another room and Janet was locked away in an isolation booth, this was to get some form of separation sonically as we were recording ‘live’ – everyone playing together at the same time. Al’s bass was plugged straight into the desk and Betty and I settled in our assigned positions surrounded by microphones and cups of tea.

The first tune recorded was Memento Mori, we did two takes and had a listen back. I was doubtful of my harmonies but everyone else was happy, it was suggested that I be less self-critical, after all we had loads of songs to get through and quality control was going to have to be realistic. I still thought I’d flubbed my vocals … it turned out I had, in fact we were both singing flat! We fixed this in the mix by overdubbing just our vocals and blending them in. You can still hear it a little, like it’s been, well, double tracked, in the choruses. However it was a viable fix and sounds like an intentional effect now. Phew. But at the time I got a touch angsty. I seem to recall the phrase ‘prima donna’ being used. Hrumph! Not the best of starts. Whoops.

We hit our stride after that, we recorded about four or five tunes in the first day. Often we’d do three takes and pick the best one. On a couple of occasions a take would be going REALLY well and then someone would fall off and train wreck the whole thing. Twice I think, we elected to back up and let Lee drop us in on the take. Technically making those songs not purely live. But a whole lot more live than multi-tracking! We went through to 7.00pm or there abouts, ate a big lunch in there somewhere and would have had at least a couple of beers. The whiskey probably got a look in too.

On day two we cranked through some more tunes, I think we stopped on a couple of them to let Ben do some guitar overdubs while still in the moment, rather than leaving it to the very end and then going back. This really paid off on songs like Pickle Pot, Deliverance and Mercy where Ben’s guitar parts meld together beautifully. Actually Ben’s guitar work throughout is absolutely splendid, he’s a tasteful player who also designs and makes his own range of guitar effects pedals.

Janet was kept busy sculpting cello parts, often overdubbing extra parts to compensate for the lack of our violinist, Shona (Janet’s sister), who was unfortunately away on holiday. Incidentally Janet and Shona have a mad gypsy trio called The Crimson Club.

Al, soul brother, foul-mouthed mother and the bringer of the bass kept things light and crazy. He’s a straight talking type of chap, helpful for a procrastinating fool like myself, and when he’s not laying down the smooth groove with us he’s making traditional Maori musical instruments and playing them in his contemporary ensemble Tahu.

Saturday was a bit of a blur, I think Kirsten from Aunt Daisy’s Boathouse Cafe delivered us some food at some stage. Maybe Lee had a gig and had to go early, or perhaps we had a couple of beers to finish the day. Something. No, Lee’s gig was Friday, Saturday was when Janet pulled in a buddy of hers to come and play piano accordion on our epic song Braille. Brilliant! Sunday was an odd day, it kicked off with finger snaps to Pickle Pot and some rather loose egg shaker on Chestnut. That song, folky and funky as it is, gets faster and faster towards the end. Playing shaker to that first thing in the morning was a giggle. We did quite a few overdubs, Lee graced three of the tunes with his tripped out lap steel guitar drones and I managed to convince Rhian Sheehan to come and play glockenspiel on the end of Chestnut. Raashi Sheehan blitzed the vocal harmonies for Bangers and Mash and did a cameo spot in Mercy where the verse is “Mother …” (Raashi was pretty pregnant with her first baby at the time). At some stage a rather bleary eyed Kirsten Johnstone wandered in, drank coffee, cranked out some flute lines and then went home to bed. That’s how she rolls. Ben was rescued from the pouring rain after having ‘lost his way’ the night before. But was in fine form for a touch of cunning over-dubbery.

I think we might have even finished early on the Sunday. Crazy.

Monday and Tuesday were spent in the mix room. Mainly Lee and myself, with some very welcome and well timed food and opinion deliveries from Betty. It all gets very hard to pinpoint here. Up a bit, down a bit, sideways a bit. Lee, bless him, what a patient guy. Mixing is boring/fascinating, if you nod off you miss something truly cool. I witnessed some classic Lee Prebble production styles and we did a very nice pass dubbing out the tune Blackbird Revisited through his space echo. Well, he dubbed it out while I whooped enthusiastically.

All in all, productive, fruitful, fantastic.

We eventually did a last minute mix fix session the following week. Or the next day. Something.

A three-way of sorts, Lee, Betty and me. Sorting out the finer details.

Two weeks after that it was mastered.

And soon, gentle reader, we shall unleash it upon you.

Billy.

Video! Video! Video!

Hi, Billy here.

Betty and I just had the funniest day filming a video with our buddy Ed at Underbelly.

Fun! Frivolity!

We’ll keep you posted when it’s ready to be seen, but I can say there was a picnic, plenty of laughter and wee bit of a fight. Don’t panic, neither of us were injured in the making of the vid … although Betty took a nasty fall, luckily she didn’t have an axe in her hand at the time.

Stay tuned.

Billy.