I normally post some lyrics from a famous song at this point, but right now I’m pretty sure that what I was going to use, I’ve used already somewhere else. Much as I might repeat myself thematically for now where my songwriting is concerned, I try not to make a habit of it when citing other songwriter’s works, LOL.

It has been a long while since I posted an update though, so without further ado, I’d better get to it.

The mixdown of the KOAS albums is going very very well and in a couple of cases some of the tracks are at the pre-mastering/test final mix stage which I’m finding quite encouraging. Much as I’ve done this kind of thing before with either a band or as a Producer/Co-Producer for friends and others, doing it with your own material is a new experience for me and one that I’ve learned a lot from and am continuing to learn. Elia and Five Years are both at a very advanced stage now, pretty much at the point where they just need final balancing/eq’ing before mastering which I’m very pleased about. Others are following close behind, like Manhattan Lullaby (although it does need a new lead vocal), The Fear Of Missing Out and No Getting Over You (both likewise) This Time and Talk To Me. Some I’ve re-done the vocals for several times and as a non-singer, finding a point that you can settle on and decide that you’ve finally captured what you’ve set out to express can be quite an elusive thing. FOMO, NGOY and Manhattan all fall into that category. They’re achievable and the guide vocals have been OK, but are some way short in my estimation and still need another big final heave to get them over the finishing line. All should be happening within the next two weeks though. The music for all of them, I’m completely happy with. Its just the vocals that are requiring of a little more work.

The whole project then, these minor jobs notwithstanding, for both London Road and No Expectations is on course for mixdown and mastering to be complete by early April with a prospective release date very shortly after that. As mentioned before, I will do my best to try and produce a very limited run of physical CD copies of both but the main release is going to be electronic.

So, as opposed to my usual thousand word ramblings, this post is quite a short one. After having moved to Warwickshire in Autumn last year, it has been a long process of getting settled in, having to concentrate on the day job and getting the studio space set up and whatever remaining tracking needed to be done for these projects, but pretty much every spare moment since the turn of the year has been spent on inching forward with this project and it is starting to bear real proper fruit, not just the low hanging stuff. The goal of this project in the first place was to put together a personal musical legacy that my late father didnt really get the chance to do, inspired by both him, my late wife and other significant people in my life and that objective is emerging out of the fog to be realised in its own right. Its taken the best part of two years tracking and mixing and learning and many, many takes and heaven knows how much editing and comping.

But, I can actually put up an album cover on social media these days with the words “Coming Soon” as a strapline and actually mean it. And for someone who started all this as a somewhat accidental bass player nearly 30 years ago, to realise a goal of releasing works that he has singularly and collaboratively written, played and produced pretty much completely in house in either a garage in Aylesbury or in a spare bedroom… Its a personal milestone and for the people who follow my efforts and my writing, plus for posterity, it is only right that I show my face above the parapet from time to time and prove that both I and the goal are still alive and breathing – and even though the day job is still the main earner, it is possible to have a personal musical dream, chase it and make it happen.

I’ve already got half an eye on the next project after this one and its hoped that some of the other tracks that are on this site will see the light of day too, maybe in more than their first iterations – Birds & Butterflies, Last Dance may get brought back to life too, plus others. We’ll see how it goes.

Meantime, thank you all for your patience. Not much longer now and all will be revealed. I promise I wont keep you waiting for much longer.

Well, I’ve duly noted that my last post was back in late July after the day job problem had been solved. It has been a long old time since I last put down my thoughts on what was going on.

In that intervening time, I have indeed taken on a new day job, which is going well and allows me the time and resources to be able to devote to my musical passion; I have moved house from Wiltshire, to the county of my birth, Warwickshire. I have downsized massively and decluttered on a scale I never would have got round to had I had not had the impetus brought on by the move. They were all things that needed to be done anyway and my stay in Wiltshire had come to its natural end and it was time to move on.

Having been surrounded by boxes for the first few weeks, it took a while for the Cubase/iMac rig to be unboxed and set up, but this has now been done and the studio is up and running and functional. I would say “working”, but finishing off the last parts of unpacking has meant that I have not yet picked up on the remaining work on the KOAS project yet, but the intention is to do so, starting this weekend, as there is still quite a bit to do and also some re-recording as well of some of the vocal cuts which after a listen back during the August Bank Holiday proved that the first attempts were not up to scratch. Which means that the lead vocals for Manhattan Lullaby, Stay and Stars will be re-done at some point in the near future. And considering that December will be upon us soon and that I was targeting January and February as the months in which the mixing would be done, time is of the essence.

I also have to admit that I’ve not been doing any new writing in the meantime either – I’ve not really exposed myself to the kind of subject matter that has led to the tracks that I’ve written and recorded so far. There are a few ideas floating around generally, in terms of themes, atmospheres and the such like, but nothing that is taking any real form yet. I’m hoping that the new year will bring the opportunity to carry on working with my collaborators and get back to writing again, but in the meantime, London Road and No Expectations remain the bigger fish to fry.

But… I am back and the goal remains the same. To make music from the heart that speaks to someone and tells a story. Hopefully after this weekend has been and gone, there will be more developments.

Oh, before I go, there is one thing. A couple of years ago, in the run up to Christmas, I was invited to contribute a 2 page of A4 piece to a book that was to be published about one of my great songwriting heros, Neil Finn. The work was being put together by three ladies from the MidWest of the USA and even though it was written to a very short deadline, my piece was one that I was very proud of, it told my story very well and I was very happy when they told me that they’d like to use it for the book, which was due to be released in both paperback and electronic versions. Well, the ladies have gone all the way through the publishing process and are on the verge of the first print run starting in early December for worldwide shipping. And, one of the first copies is to go to the man who inspired the book in the first place, Neil Finn.

I dont think I need to say what a wonderful, once in a lifetime opportunity it is for not only people, complete strangers across the world, who love the same music as I do, to be able to read my story and engage with it, but also for one of my greatest songwriting heros to read the story as well and see what an incredible print his work has made on my life. Part of my story is about to be immortalised in print… I’m extremely happy about it, its the best Christmas present I could ever ask for.

Oh and I got my first PRS cheque as well. Its only from the annual distribution, but its still something. Maybe now, that makes me a professional… doesnt it? *grins*

Life has definitely turned a positive corner and the pathway looks very interesting. Its up to me as to what pace I take down this road, but I think I’m finally on one where I can look around, take time to smell the flowers and not wish I was somewhere else, or waste my time wondering whether somewhere else would be better. Thats a place I haven’t been in for the best part of seven years. It has definitely been worth waiting for.

Back with more news soon.

“And the piano it sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say, “Man, what are you doing here?”

© Billy Joel, from the album “Piano Man”, 1973

Almost a month to the day, but not quite from my last update and a lot has happened in the intervening time. Thankfully, my previous worst-case-scenario of having to have a fire sale of everything in order to keep going has been averted as I make yet another comeback into my chosen day job in the next few days, but it will mean relocating away from Wiltshire ultimately… so things are likely to go quiet around here for a while I make that the priority for the next few months.

But, to get back on track; the last update I put up nearly a month ago saw all of the backing vocals done across all of the tracks, with a degree of nervousness about the task ahead which was lead vocals. Well, that has all now also been completed. All 18 tracks now have their lead vocals recorded. Not necessarily comp’d and treated yet, but they’re all in the can.

And only in one case did I need to ask a singer to take my place behind the mic and that was for Elia. Mainly because I got too close to see the wood for the trees and didnt really have the deepness in my voice. So, I asked my dear friend and collaborator David Barnes to join me and he delivered a great interpretation of the melody for the song and it really has done it justice. The background vocals do exactly what they are supposed to, they support, embellish and add to the track but without getting in the way of the lead; I’m very happy with it.

The rest of the songs, I’ve had to work through myself, starting with Five Years at the beginning of July and ending with Talk To Me this afternoon. And, as I alluded to in a previous blog, it has been educational. Some of the songs have ended up with a slightly different feel to what was originally conceived; Let It Go is more MacAloon than Skellern, Stay has ended up sounding like it has been done by the bastard offspring of Gareth Gates and Barry Gibb (its not as bad as it sounds, honest it isnt!), Escape From The Shadows comes across as more Jarvis Cocker than Bernard Summer or Mark Hollis; This Time didnt get the Geldorf/Tudorpole sneery tone that I originally envisaged (couldnt quite get it) and The Fear Of Missing Out ended up being more Tom Waits/Bob Seger than Donald Fagen (try as I might, I couldnt really get Fagen’s really languid New York drawl and believe me I tried. Really tried. Just didnt suit the track, although my minds ear can still hear it as clear as day. Oh well…). Manhattan Lullaby ended up being more MacAloon than Munro (not what I had written the track for, but shooting for Matt and ending up with Paddy is fine by me, haha) – but Stars, Talk To Me, No Getting Over You, Castles In The Sky and Doesnt Matter Now ended up being very much how I hoped they would be. As did Five Years: Its not George Michael (and it never will be, in all seriousness, Different Corner was an inspiration, not an aspiration), but it has the right feel for the track.

And in each case, as it always is, the more I did it, the more comfortable I got with the process and started, to use that hackneyed old saying, to find my (singing) voice at long last. It went from taking hours with Let It Go and Five Years (and up to dozens of takes with The Fear Of Missing Out and No Getting Over You… you’ve no idea how many goes I had to have at the opening line of the chorus to pitch it properly, LOL) to doing Talk To Me in less than an hour from start to finish and then hitting the STOP button and thinking “..Bloody hell… it was that easy?”

So… there is still a lot to do. There needs to be a lot of comping done on pretty much all of the tracks and there is going to be quite a bit of minor pitch-fixing and use of some of the plug ins like Zplane Vielklang to have another look at some of the more prominent harmonies, especially in Talk To Me, The Fear Of Missing Out, This Time and Escape From The Shadows. That is likely to be very time consuming and chances are, it is going to have to be line by line, verse by verse, which means that its likely to be quite some time before we get everything to the point where mixing can be completed.

So, as well as learning to be a writer over the last three years and learning to be a singer of sorts this year, its soon time to learn how to be a mixing engineer as well, if this project is to sound as good as I know it can. Listening to some of the roughs like Five Years, Elia, The Fear Of Missing Out, Stars, No Getting Over You has given me some real lump in the throat moments (in a nice “..oh my God… I’m capable of that??” way, just to clarify, LOL) where the vision of the original song has come very close to being realised and sounding just like it had in my minds ear, which is incredibly uplifting and in some cases quite emotional.

As I said before, most of my emotional content up to this point has been in my lyrics as opposed to my musical performances, but I think that is changing now, for the better. This is something I’ve always lauded my heroes and inspirations for and while I’ll never claim to be in their league, if I’ve earned the right to walk on the same dusty roads as them, thats good enough for me.

As of Monday next week, I have to concentrate on the day job until that is stable and then move house. I’m hoping to snatch the odd few hours on weekends over the next few months to do as much of the comping as I can and will probably commence the mixing and mastering when I relocate, although I might change my mind on that over the coming months.

Its been a very educational journey so far and about 70% of it is done. The remainder may well see the tracks evolve and change again between now and the finish line, based on what other new things I learn between now and then. But as an amateur writer with a vision, I’m very heartened to have got as far as I have on this road with the prospect of finishing the project still being fully intact. No doubt there are many others who have set out on journeys like I have and abandoned them part way through for a multitude of reasons. But, doing something as a personal legacy above everything else is quite a spur to get things finished, no matter how long they take.

I’ll keep on posting updates as the project matures. Meantime, it’ll go quiet for a little while, but that doesnt mean that nothing is happening.

I’ve just noticed that it has been the best part of two months since I last posted any new work or an update as to what has been going on and gave any kind of indication as to how the project was going. Well, time to put that right.

The main thing and the big positives are that all of the backing vocals are done – this ended up taking two weeks longer than what I had bargained for as in the beginning especially where The Fear Of Missing Out was concerned. Part of the initial problem was the lack of familiarity with some of the technology concerned, especially the TC Helicon Voicelive Touch which I was dependent on for harmony voicings. But, as most things are, initial notions of “s**t… how am I gonna deal with this?” were addressed pretty quickly by doing some serious RTFM and trying different inversions and part-chords as opposed to using multipart voicings, then splitting them over separate tracks in Cubase.

The only track that this hasn’t worked for is Elia. And, there are times I have wondered over the last few weeks whether there wasn’t a good reason for my uncle Angel left it as an instrumental for forty years, LOL. I think it was more a case of not having the arrangement for the backing vocals as clear in my mind as they should have been before I started it. But, with every other track that had backing vocals – Stay, Fear Of Missing Out, Let It Go, et al – they all worked pretty much as planned.

So with that milestone passed, albeit slightly later than originally planned and a lot of lessons learned, the latest task revolves around the lead vocals, a process that is currently underway now. And, just like the backing vocals, it is proving to be highly educational on a number of levels.

Not being a singer of any note, much less a trained one, or even a natural one, learning how to get the best out of your voice and making the lyrics and the melody fit in exactly the way they did in your minds ear when you wrote them is indeed a series of lessons. As a result with each track that is being done, there are subtle but noticeable changes to some of the lyrics in each of the tracks that have been done so far. I’m now also starting to understand terms that are more singer-related such as a “strong core”, “diaphragmatic support” and so on more than I ever did before. There are, as I somewhat casually referred to yesterday, a large number of technological “buckets of glitter” that Cubase 9 has which I was unfamiliar with before this work began, particularly their Melodyne-like tools, where small amounts of pitch correction, indeed pitch shifting up/down by upto 12 cents, which have proved to be very useful. And, a lot of the plugins that I bought years ago such as Waves Kramer Tape, SSL’s Duende Channel strip (very very handy for de-honking and de-nasal-ing my voice) are finally coming into their own. Somewhat surprisingly, I’m finding that the Neumann TLM102 which I bought a couple of years ago is not really suiting my voice, so I’ve been using an elderly AKG C9 hand held condenser mic instead, through a DBX286S pre-amp. While I thought that the use of the Voicelive processor was over when the backing vocals were completed, that may not be the case; my lack of bottom end range in my voice may prove to be problematic for some tracks like No Getting Over You, Castles, Doesnt Matter Now and Manhattan Lullaby. Its highly likely that the rest of this weekend will be spent exploring these options.

But as it stands at the moment, the lead vocals that are on these tracks at the moment – Elia excepted (as this may end up being re-done with a different singer, a more seasoned one than I) – are ones that I’m certainly happy with as guides, if nothing else and my production style tends to be to record the vocals, monitoring them directly with no reverb, no processing, to reduce the effects of latency, and then once down, eq’ing, compressing and processing to a rough mix stage as I go along and then coming back to them a few days later to make sure I’m happy with the results.  In the can so far are Five Years and Let It Go and bits of Elia. So theres a long long way to go yet and it could be that this may take another full month to complete the vocals.

Which given my change in personal circumstances is a double edged sword. I left the day job at the beginning of the June and have to devote a lot of energy towards finding another one as I dont have the savings that I used to have. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that all of the instruments used in the recording of these albums will have to be sold in order to preserve the more fundamental task of keeping a roof over my head. Time will tell though. I hope it doesnt come to that and it also gives the recording of the vocals, the last real set of tasks before mixing and mastering of these albums, to be completed.

We shall see though. Lots of work still to be done and it is proving to be highly educational. As I thought I would, I’m learning a lot about not just about my singing but also about myself. Recording your own songs isnt just about the therapy and catharsis in the writing process; its also about trying to capture the emotion of the performance and thats not something I’m used to doing as a performer, especially as a singer. All of my emotional content has previously been as a lyricist more than anything else. And, unlike 12-18 months ago, I can now listen back to my singing voice and be objective about it instead of cringing and reaching for the stop button on the transport panel, which used to be the case.

So, all progress, no matter how small is good. And, as my uncle Angel reminded me, a lot of artistic masterpieces took years to complete. Not that I’m saying that this project is my masterpiece, but I can see what he was driving at, LOL.