{"id":281,"date":"2003-02-17T10:17:12","date_gmt":"2003-02-17T17:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peteteo.com\/weblog\/?p=281"},"modified":"2003-02-17T10:17:12","modified_gmt":"2003-02-17T17:17:12","slug":"alcohol-aint-that-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.peteteo.com\/weblog\/alcohol-aint-that-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"ALCOHOL AIN’T THAT BAD"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part 10 of 18 serialised by Nuance<\/u>, New Straits Times<\/a><\/p>\n

24th October 2002<\/strong><\/p>\n

Originally, we weren\u00c3\u00adt supposed to be doing any vocals recording today. But tired of recording guitars, Ronan<\/a> changed the schedule after lunch and decided that I should do some vocals instead. <\/p>\n

Oh dear. <\/p>\n

The truth is, I wasn’t in any condition to do vocals because I only had 3 hours sleep last night. Tireness and studios don’t mix. Most of all, tiredness and singing don’t mix. Still, a man’s got to do etc., so I tried. Frankly, I was crap. My voice sounded as tight and tired as I felt and my control was far below the level required. Result? We abandoned recording vocals after 15 minutes and went back to recording guitars instead. Embarrassing. Ronan tried to sound cheerful about it, but he must have been worried. <\/p>\n

Anyway, we finished the session at about 9pm. While at home winding down on the sofa, I thought about the direction the record was taking and suffered a minor panic attack. I had always envisaged the record as having an intimate and \u00c3\u00absmall ensemble’ sound. But it had become clear that a few of the songs were sounding too ‘big’ for my liking. I was also worried that the intimacy I wanted in my music may have been lost as more instruments were added to the mix. As I chewed over the situation, I slowly worked myself into a nervous jelly. So I called Ronan and arranged to meet at the Green Man immediately, a pub that had become our de facto common room. <\/p>\n

We talked for over an hour about what was worrying me, i.e. a potentially generic pop sound in some songs and the loss of intimacy in others. I re-iterated that I wanted a ‘small’ sounding but intense record rather than a big dumb one. Ronan assured me that there is nothing to worry about. He said the apparent ‘bigness’ in sound at present is due in part to the large monitors that we listened to everything on. Moreover, the drum and bass tracks are presented in a very ‘in your face’ way at present because they need to be loud enough to ensure that the guitar recording is tight on tempo. Ronan suggested doing some guide vocals tomorrow so that the world painted by the instruments can be heard in better context.<\/p>\n

I felt a little easier after that conversation. To be frank though, I remained worried about making a record that sounds too much like generic pop. Not that there is anything wrong with generic pop – but it would not be the record I want to make. Anyway, I hope things get re-orientated to a direction I can have more confidence in. <\/p>\n

May be I’m just dog-tired and there is nothing wrong at all. Dunno.<\/p>\n

25th October 2002<\/strong> <\/p>\n

I made sure I slept early last night and woke up rested. Ronan called to say that he’d like to be left alone in the studio for a few hours, so I went for a haircut in the morning. The haircut wasn’t great but that’s another story altogether – suffice to say I\u00c3\u00adll be getting another haircut soon. I arrived back at the studio in time to have lunch with Ronan down the road. On the way back to the studio, I bought a couple of bottles of beer.<\/p>\n

Beer?<\/p>\n

Remember the awful vocal recording yesterday? Well, I had been wondering why I sounded so tight and horrible ever since. At first, I thought it was fatigue – but I’ve been fatigued before gigs and never sounded so stiff – so I remained baffled all day. Luckily, just as I was dropping off into dream land last night, a gulp of beer fell into my consciousness and I knew the answer at last. <\/p>\n

Many performers need a drink before they perform and I count as one of them. Drinking the right amount before I play makes my timing and articulation better. Granted, too much alcohol and things get a little too funky, but the right amount of pre-singing lubrication relaxes me and improves things. So it was that when I tried singing yesterday, it was not only in the afternoon (I’ve only ever gigged under cover of night), but I was also stone cold sober. This explains the need for beer today.<\/p>\n

I decided on Tiger. <\/p>\n

Now, I wrote that for narrative effect only.<\/p>\n

Chuckle.<\/p>\n

Anyway, once we got back to the studio, I downed a bottle of beer in one go. The world immediately became a friendlier place. The edges blurred and I felt ready to sing. Ronan set me up in the vocal booth. We started with the song that I normally open my gigs with, ‘Alive ‘N Free’. Easy. One take and it was done. Then we recorded another song, and another. Then, a second bottle of beer was gulped. Then I sang some more…<\/p>\n

Two hours later, we had done vocals for 11 songs. They were only intended to be good guide vocal tracks, but some of them were good enough to be keepers. I felt infinitely better as I listened to the results, rough though they were. All the nuances I put into my talk-sing are captured and things sounded really nice and close up. Ronan was also careful to only let me listen to the small monitors. In the end, I could have done better versions of most of the songs but my throat was going and we’d done enough for the day. <\/p>\n

It seems we’re on track after all. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part 10 of 18 serialised by Nuance, New Straits Times 24th October 2002 Originally, we weren\u00c3\u00adt supposed to be doing any vocals recording today. But tired of recording guitars, Ronan changed the schedule after lunch and decided that I should do some vocals instead. Oh dear. The truth is, I wasn’t in any condition to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peteteo.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peteteo.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peteteo.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peteteo.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peteteo.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.peteteo.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peteteo.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peteteo.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peteteo.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}