Sunday, 25 November 2007
Shopping
Adam and I just went to the store to buy some beers. A man who looked like a shit Thor asked us where we were from. 'England', Adam cordially replied. 'Oh I've been there' said the man. I pressed him - 'Where abouts?' He replied slowly, 'um...Germany'.
Friday, 23 November 2007
'Happy Holidays' (said in high-pitched american accent)
Yesterday was thanksgiving here in the states; a holiday celebrated by religious and non religious alike and a day off for us. Sounds good, but a miscommunication with my ex-girlfriend meant that we happy four found ourselves in the city on 'turkey day' with no place to go and eat the bloody thing. We hit the streets in the car of our producer's wife's, keen to find a slap up meal and some good ol' northwest American fun.... But the place was sad, the streets lined with the homeless and the forgotten (a picture I'll never forget), and no life seemed to live anywhere around.
Luckily, after a long search we found a few scarce openings; a restaurant, a bar and a 7/11, and that’s all we really needed. I feasted myself on the most disgustingly large meal (pork, chicken and lamb all on one plate), had a couple of beers and then ate cookies and played poker back in the place we were staying near 15th avenue. The place was Anne's (the sister of our producer) and was perfect. She was away in China looking for sponsorship for her manga musical and so we had a free run of it as well, just to top things off.
The day before that was also a privilege that I'm keen not to forget. Artis the Spoonman came in to the studio to play spoons on 'Cold Bread' and 'Honk Kong Cemetery'. He's famous not only in Seattle (where be busks regularly) but also worldwide (most notably for his playing on the Soundgarden song 'Spoonman'). He's also perhaps the greatest spoon player in the US at the moment, and is completely and utterly eccentric. Nowadays his playing is rarely on records, not least because he was so hurt that the success of the Soundgarden record didn't bring him incremental return, but thankfully he agreed to do this session with us.
His playing was amazing, never stock or similar and always with a content smile on his face and closed eyes. His instruments were multifarious and odd; spoons of metal and wood, along with forks and other odds and ends. And his performance, fuck, it was just consistently entertaining, wrapping his fingers, hiting his legs and mouth with the spoons and many more moves besides, whenever anyone was watching.
At 60, with old skin, bald head, orange shorts and a toothy smile, Spoonman is completely mad but he's not detached. His manager told us that on the ride over, as with all trips they've made before, Artis told him stories from start to finish, sometimes with tears in his eyes and sometimes shouting with the force of fear and trembling hurtling though his vocal chords.
While we were hanging out in the control room he told us an amazing story too. When he was six his teachers asked him what he wanted to be, and he said a musician. They pushed him further and asked what sort, and he was stuck. He didn’t know what that meant, what it meant to have sorts of music, to have people tell you what was this and what was that, and he was left without words. Very slowly, with his teachers looking down on him, a term apparated into the front of his mind to describe the feeling he had, the feeling that music shouldn’t be the way they wanted it to be, and he said 'Jazz'. His teachers laughed at him..... Looking up at us as if we were they, he shouted, “you can want to be a mercenary or you can want to be a missionary, it don’t matter, if you’re six then there ain’t no offence in none of that stuff…” And he's right you know, he's really right.
Before signing off for today I want to finally say that I’ve decided on the subjects of my Christmas essays for this year. In no particular order they'll be on; 1) ‘the spiritual home‘, 2) ‘mastery and the clogging of freedom‘, 3) ‘honesty vs. truth‘, and 4) ‘on not having seen many films‘.
Till soon.
Luckily, after a long search we found a few scarce openings; a restaurant, a bar and a 7/11, and that’s all we really needed. I feasted myself on the most disgustingly large meal (pork, chicken and lamb all on one plate), had a couple of beers and then ate cookies and played poker back in the place we were staying near 15th avenue. The place was Anne's (the sister of our producer) and was perfect. She was away in China looking for sponsorship for her manga musical and so we had a free run of it as well, just to top things off.
The day before that was also a privilege that I'm keen not to forget. Artis the Spoonman came in to the studio to play spoons on 'Cold Bread' and 'Honk Kong Cemetery'. He's famous not only in Seattle (where be busks regularly) but also worldwide (most notably for his playing on the Soundgarden song 'Spoonman'). He's also perhaps the greatest spoon player in the US at the moment, and is completely and utterly eccentric. Nowadays his playing is rarely on records, not least because he was so hurt that the success of the Soundgarden record didn't bring him incremental return, but thankfully he agreed to do this session with us.
His playing was amazing, never stock or similar and always with a content smile on his face and closed eyes. His instruments were multifarious and odd; spoons of metal and wood, along with forks and other odds and ends. And his performance, fuck, it was just consistently entertaining, wrapping his fingers, hiting his legs and mouth with the spoons and many more moves besides, whenever anyone was watching.
At 60, with old skin, bald head, orange shorts and a toothy smile, Spoonman is completely mad but he's not detached. His manager told us that on the ride over, as with all trips they've made before, Artis told him stories from start to finish, sometimes with tears in his eyes and sometimes shouting with the force of fear and trembling hurtling though his vocal chords.
While we were hanging out in the control room he told us an amazing story too. When he was six his teachers asked him what he wanted to be, and he said a musician. They pushed him further and asked what sort, and he was stuck. He didn’t know what that meant, what it meant to have sorts of music, to have people tell you what was this and what was that, and he was left without words. Very slowly, with his teachers looking down on him, a term apparated into the front of his mind to describe the feeling he had, the feeling that music shouldn’t be the way they wanted it to be, and he said 'Jazz'. His teachers laughed at him..... Looking up at us as if we were they, he shouted, “you can want to be a mercenary or you can want to be a missionary, it don’t matter, if you’re six then there ain’t no offence in none of that stuff…” And he's right you know, he's really right.
Before signing off for today I want to finally say that I’ve decided on the subjects of my Christmas essays for this year. In no particular order they'll be on; 1) ‘the spiritual home‘, 2) ‘mastery and the clogging of freedom‘, 3) ‘honesty vs. truth‘, and 4) ‘on not having seen many films‘.
Till soon.
Monday, 19 November 2007
Twin Peaks (….cos I couldn’t think of a pun).
With tracking for the album nearly finished we used our day off yesterday to visit the place where twin peaks was filmed (about a fifteen minute drive from the studio). Our A and R guy Jay is a huge fan and it was very much his idea to go there. Still, the site itself, even for a twin peaks virgin like me, is completely beautiful. An intense waterfall arises from a huge cavern of green and grey and sprays Spanish tourists with fine, fiddly rain. It was a great place to see, and a real help to get out of our little bubble, even if my legs were stinging in the American cold.
Today all are relaxed and ready for the final push before mixing. I have a few background vocals to punch in and a few little percussive fiddly bits to do as well, but on the whole stuff is really taking shape. I’m at a stage with the record where I think that the things that Im not so sure about at the moment will become things that I accept and warm to in the future, rather than constant niggles. That‘s a good stage to be it, I reckon.
As soon as this record‘s done and dusted, incidentally, I think I’m going to use this little corner of the internet as a space for my essays as well as an online journal. I’ve set myself the task of writing 5 essays before Christmas, one of which will be an edited version of the piece I wrote on approaching moral situations a while back. I’ll post the topics as soon I‘ve decided them.
My chess idea, by the way, is for two teams of two. Let us call them team A and B. First, team A and team B decide if they are white or black. It is important to note here that in this variant of the game each team can be white or black, that is can fight for the victory of the white or black pieces respectively, but do not have to have both players controlling the pieces of the team that they are playing for, that is team A, even if white, do not have to have both players controlling white pieces. So, let us say then that in this game team A are indeed white and team B are black. Then, and here it gets interesting, each team sends one player to play with the white pieces and one player to play with the black pieces. So, on a standard chess board, the white pieces are controlled by player one from team A and player one from team B (who take alternate goes to move a piece), and the black pieces are controlled by player two from team A and player two from team B (who also take alternate goes to move a piece).
As team A are white in this game, player one from team A, who is playing with the white pieces and is white, is trying to win with each go he takes, but player one from team B, who is also playing with the white pieces, but is black, is trying to lose with each go he takes. The same applies, but vice-versa, for player two of team A and B, who are both playing with the black pieces but are on different sides (white and black). Player one and two from each team must work together and frustrate their opponents, even though they are playing with different sets of pieces.
White and black pieces still move in succession, rather than white following white etc. So the play would move, in this game as the example, with player one from team A, moving a white piece, then player two from team B, moving a black piece, then player one from Team B, moving a white piece and then player two from team A, moving a black piece.
AND THERE YOU HAVE IT….!!!
That’s a days work done already….
Today all are relaxed and ready for the final push before mixing. I have a few background vocals to punch in and a few little percussive fiddly bits to do as well, but on the whole stuff is really taking shape. I’m at a stage with the record where I think that the things that Im not so sure about at the moment will become things that I accept and warm to in the future, rather than constant niggles. That‘s a good stage to be it, I reckon.
As soon as this record‘s done and dusted, incidentally, I think I’m going to use this little corner of the internet as a space for my essays as well as an online journal. I’ve set myself the task of writing 5 essays before Christmas, one of which will be an edited version of the piece I wrote on approaching moral situations a while back. I’ll post the topics as soon I‘ve decided them.
My chess idea, by the way, is for two teams of two. Let us call them team A and B. First, team A and team B decide if they are white or black. It is important to note here that in this variant of the game each team can be white or black, that is can fight for the victory of the white or black pieces respectively, but do not have to have both players controlling the pieces of the team that they are playing for, that is team A, even if white, do not have to have both players controlling white pieces. So, let us say then that in this game team A are indeed white and team B are black. Then, and here it gets interesting, each team sends one player to play with the white pieces and one player to play with the black pieces. So, on a standard chess board, the white pieces are controlled by player one from team A and player one from team B (who take alternate goes to move a piece), and the black pieces are controlled by player two from team A and player two from team B (who also take alternate goes to move a piece).
As team A are white in this game, player one from team A, who is playing with the white pieces and is white, is trying to win with each go he takes, but player one from team B, who is also playing with the white pieces, but is black, is trying to lose with each go he takes. The same applies, but vice-versa, for player two of team A and B, who are both playing with the black pieces but are on different sides (white and black). Player one and two from each team must work together and frustrate their opponents, even though they are playing with different sets of pieces.
White and black pieces still move in succession, rather than white following white etc. So the play would move, in this game as the example, with player one from team A, moving a white piece, then player two from team B, moving a black piece, then player one from Team B, moving a white piece and then player two from team A, moving a black piece.
AND THERE YOU HAVE IT….!!!
That’s a days work done already….
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
Back to Bizzness.
I am sitting in the TV room in Seattle contemplating a whiskey and root-beer. Johnny is laying down the trumpet track for Brown Trout Blues and Joe is playing an old recording of Jimmy Rogers on his computer. Work is well out here and the album taking shape. Its a tight schedule for the next couple of weeks because we've got a lot of overdubs to do and not a whole lot of time to do them, but I think we'll get it done in time. Vertigo will sack us if we don't so that's a pretty good incentive....
The talk in the studio today, amongst other things, has focused on what our policy should be regarding corporate gigs. We turned one down recently because of the associations and practices of the companies involved. Its not a matter of being holier than thou, it just strikes us that if we do have a choice in how our music is used then we would all prefer not to support unethical business and industry.
We also collectively realised that when you score a goal in football its basically a licence to do anything in the ensuing ten seconds, as long as people think it a legitimate celebration of your efforts. You can even do stuff that the state frowns upon as long as you don't go into the crowd. I reckon you could even black-up, as unpalatable as that is, without raising too many eyebrows. Perhaps I should email Michael Moor about this and he can make a hard hitting but popular film about it.
Oh and I've invented a new version of chess.... More on that later.
The talk in the studio today, amongst other things, has focused on what our policy should be regarding corporate gigs. We turned one down recently because of the associations and practices of the companies involved. Its not a matter of being holier than thou, it just strikes us that if we do have a choice in how our music is used then we would all prefer not to support unethical business and industry.
We also collectively realised that when you score a goal in football its basically a licence to do anything in the ensuing ten seconds, as long as people think it a legitimate celebration of your efforts. You can even do stuff that the state frowns upon as long as you don't go into the crowd. I reckon you could even black-up, as unpalatable as that is, without raising too many eyebrows. Perhaps I should email Michael Moor about this and he can make a hard hitting but popular film about it.
Oh and I've invented a new version of chess.... More on that later.
Thursday, 8 November 2007
When the shit goes down....
A lot has happened between this and the last post. JFATSW completed a tour supporting Iron and Wine with great gigs in Belfast (a city that I found amazingly interesting bruised and battered as it is), Dublin, London, Cardiff (the best of the lot), Brighton, Nottingham and finally Reading. The tour was a good one, the cities interesting and the other band lovely, but it was still hard... I find the whole process of touring really hard, truth be told. Though the 40 minutes on stage is always incredible, I get little sleep on foreign soil and I feel consistently far away and disconnected. Hopefully this will all get easier.... I did take a photo of some nuns eating a burger king, so it wasn't all tough.
Back on terra firma things are great. I've finally moved in to my house in K town and am unpacking when and where I can. There are a few teething problems with the place but its nothing I can't get my head around. In other news The Box is getting a whole world of airplay, Jo Whiley the latest to give it the thumbs up, and we played the most amazing gig at Madam Jojo's a couple of nights back - a real homecoming. My favourite thing about the night was that a girl in the front row attempted to mouth the words of every song we played but actually knew very few. Her attempt at outdoing her mates must have seemed to the casual observer as a rather polite but still distressing case of Tourette's. Beware you young fans.... I'm watching you closely!
So, its off to Paris for a gig on Saturday and then Seattle straight after that to finish the album... It should be fun work, although not as fun as was going to Primrose Hill on a rare night off with my girlfriend to watch London's multifarious fireworks displays on the 5th of November. That was a pretty glorious evening, and its that sort of stuff that I get excited about. I think in primary school that would qualify me as being 'Gay'. What can you do...?
Best be off then,
hope anyone reading this is good and well,
Matty
Back on terra firma things are great. I've finally moved in to my house in K town and am unpacking when and where I can. There are a few teething problems with the place but its nothing I can't get my head around. In other news The Box is getting a whole world of airplay, Jo Whiley the latest to give it the thumbs up, and we played the most amazing gig at Madam Jojo's a couple of nights back - a real homecoming. My favourite thing about the night was that a girl in the front row attempted to mouth the words of every song we played but actually knew very few. Her attempt at outdoing her mates must have seemed to the casual observer as a rather polite but still distressing case of Tourette's. Beware you young fans.... I'm watching you closely!
So, its off to Paris for a gig on Saturday and then Seattle straight after that to finish the album... It should be fun work, although not as fun as was going to Primrose Hill on a rare night off with my girlfriend to watch London's multifarious fireworks displays on the 5th of November. That was a pretty glorious evening, and its that sort of stuff that I get excited about. I think in primary school that would qualify me as being 'Gay'. What can you do...?
Best be off then,
hope anyone reading this is good and well,
Matty
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