Part 4 of 18 serialised by Nuance, New Straits Times
First Week Of October 2002
I drove to the airport to get Ronan the producer on the afternoon of October 1st. I have not seen him since we met in LA in February. He looks just the same as I remembered – big American with a amicable personality and a sharp brain. He’s worked with some of the best in the world like King Crimson, Terry Bozio, Steve Morse, Tony Levin etc, and now finds himself working with little old me. He says he is doing it for the adventure. Whatever. Given what I am paying him, he sure isnít doing it for the money.
I settled the money stuff with management once we had arrived at the hotel as Ronan went to his room, lugging over 30kg worth of equipment. We then went for a spot of hawker food after things were settled. Ronan seemed to like what was placed in front of him though he was almost fainting with fatigue. Afterwards, I left him to rest before picking him up for dinner a few hours later. I didn’t want a sick producer even before we started work, so we had pasta for dinner.
Sherry, Kum Loong, Ronan and I met in my flat the next day. We played everything we had rehearsed for the past few weeks. In spite of the understandable nerves that everyone felt, Ronan seemed pleased. Although still not optimised, we sounded okay. The songs had grown from those days when I played them accompanied with only an acoustic guitar. They are now fuller and more effective. Still, Sherry has caught some virus and is looking very sick. Sigh. The foreign producer is fine but the local guitarist is sick. Great. We decided not to rehearse the next few days so that Sherry can rest and recover.
With Sherry out of action, Ronan I and spent the next few days checking out various facilities we were going to be working in. This included Digit Studio, the studio Iíd booked for the recording sessions. It turned out that their mixer has some problems they didnít tell me about when I did the booking. Although it wouldnít stop us from recording there, it did mean that weíd have to mix the record elsewhere. So, we visited the most expensive and well-equipped studio in Malaysia, Synchrosound Studio, and quickly settled for mixing there instead. Itíll cost us more money, but the superior equipment will make a big difference.
We also visited the nice man who was going to rent us a vintage Fender Rhodes keyboard. The man was as nice as he sounded on the phone, but his aged mother insisted that we couldnít take the keyboard out of the house though we were welcome to come to the house and play it. Oh well, that quickly put paid to the idea of renting it for the sessions. Luckily, Andy Peterson called me back and gave me a number to a guy named Peter, who has a mint condition Rhodes sitting in his living room and is willing to rent it for a very fair price. Wonderful. Peterson gives Pete the number to Peter. Odd
We also checked out Lewis Pragasam’s studio, which we will use for full band rehearsals. I got Lewis to play a little for Ronan while we were there. The American who produced super drummer Terry Bozio was very impressed by our local drumming legend and said that Lewis is right up there with the best. The only thing now is to get him to play economically for my record. Ronan was sure that it would not be a problem.
Ronan and I also sat down one afternoon and we worked through all the songs that we intend to go into the studio with. Everything was okay except we made a few changes to two songs and decided to drop one of the twelve songs I had prepared. When Sherry recovered sufficiently, we all sat down again and worked through the second guitar part in detail. The changes to the second guitar part was minimal, which was a relief.
Hayakawa the Japanese bassist for the project arrived from Tokyo a few days later. Sherry is also an admirer of his work and we both went to the airport to fetch him. The bassist is a quiet man and at the age of 48, looks more like 35. He is a competition cyclist and a cancer survivor. He is also one of the loudest bassist I have ever heard. Although not an obvious choice for a singer songwriter record (rather, he best known as a free jazz, rock and punk bassist in Japan), he is very talented and musical, and all of us are extremely excited to work with him. He is playing on the record for a fraction of his normal fees. One of the reasons for this is he loves coming to Malaysia. He loves the food here.
Anyway, Hayakawa arrived safe and sound. Once we got back into town, we introduced him to Ronan, had dinner, drinks and chatted. The bassistís English is very hesitant, but it should not be a problem in the sessions. Music is the language from here on. And you don’t need English for that.
The team has landed. We are now ready for full band rehearsals. Cool.