Blog: Indietracks Tour: DAY TWO

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Friday found myself and The Bed In My Hotel Room up bright and early and off to Leicester station, there to journey to distant DERBY for a recording session. The Indietracks Bumping Into People CONTINUED as we bumped into RAY at the station. HOORAH! A swift hug and chat later and we were striding across Derby, arriving to find Rich was in the studio waiting for us.

The Microphones In My PA had been a bit nervous about this, her first recording session, but she was soon in the BOOTH, ROCKING OUT. Man alive, she is a pretty bloody amazing woman at the LEAST of times, but I was positively BOOMING with pride as she - as we say in the recording industry - KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK. We got her vocal for Here Come The Dinosaurs done in TWO takes, and then moved on to DIALOGUE. This took a few more runs through, largely because I had slipped into DIRECTOOOOOR mode. "Yes, one more time, more emphasis on syllable twelve, with a hint of fear and a SOUPCON more angst, if you will." That sort of thing.

It sounded FANTASTIC, especially when mixed with Mr Bob Fischer's lines recorded a couple of months ago. Her session COMPLETE, The Items In My Exhibit set off to view The Pickford Museum ("GRATE!", apparently) making way for Tom, who'd just arrived. My DIRECTORIAL BENT was now at full extension as we worked through his scenes (as Professor Peter Probersite), trying out different voices and casting around for The Right Inflexion. Tom took direction EXCEPTIONALLY well and we were done with time to spare. Seizing the moment, Rich asked what mixes we wanted in our Individual Monitors for Indietracks, as he was doing our SOUND for us. "Mixes in individual monitors?" I thought, "Is he mad? It'll just be one broken monitor on the back of a lorry this year, surely?"

Next we were joined by The Family Machine, with Frankie ROARING through his lines as The Corporal. To be fair, almost all of his lines are "Ma'am!", "Ma'am?" or "Yes Ma'am!" but he did them BRILLIANTLY and MY GOODNESS ME when his work in For The Fate Of The Earth is made public i reckon WAR as we know it will be OVER.

During this bit Mr Steve Morricone arrived hot foot from Huddersfield to record his parts as The Giant Robots. I'd always thought of them as being a bit BLUFF and NORTHERN, but Steve took it to WHOLE NEW PLACES with the most positively EVIL vocals I have EVER heard - we did his bits four lines at a time, partly because he wasn't sure of the tune, MOSTLY so he could recover from the EVIL CACKLING that was going on. It was AMAAAAAZING!

We finished at 4pm prompt, giving me and Tom to dash back to Leicester and our respective abodes before he, I and The Lanes On My Motorway were BACK in the car and heading for Kirby Muxloe, where we were due to play our SECOND warm-up gig, at Tim's Work's DO.

It was LOVELY to be together again, although a) Frankie was DISGUSTED by the rest of us mocking his Astoundingly Almost Punctual Arrival and b) Tom was surprised by EVERYONE saying, individually, "Are you not wearing your Black Sheep T-Shirt tonight?" We got the PA set up (with some gentle "help" by a very worried looking man from the club who kept changing things - Frankie used his Stern Calm Voice a bit, which sorted it out), and then fell into CHAT. Tim had to keep going off and CHATTING but it gave the rest of us a delightful chance for a CHINWAG.

We had, in fact, a lovely time all round. Everyone there was dead nice and relaxed, the beer was GRATE (Burton Bitter on tap! ZANG!), the BUFFET was plentiful, the other people playing music were good (my especial favourite was the acoustic version of FREAKSCENE!), there was a QUIZ which I'm sure we would have won if we'd remembered to hand in our quiz sheet, and there was even time to do The AAS Football Trophy Presentation. Pictures to follow!

Inevitably it was time to ROCK, so we gathered together "Tim Pattison & The Validators" (or "EMMA AND THE VALIDATORS!" as Emma put it) and did THIS:

Billy Jones Is Dead

Hey Hey 16K

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

The Merchant Ivory Punks

Leave My Brother Alone

We Are The Giant Robots

Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid

Do The Indie Kid

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Easily Impressed

It was a LOT more together than last time - despite, or possibly BECAUSE of some members of the team being slightly tiddlier than usual. I mention no names - because we all spent much of Sunday "HILARIOUSLY" doing so - as it wouldn't be fair to single anyone out, and anyway it's not like she does it very often...

I JEST OF COURSE - we had a lovely time even though I think we might have been a bit too loud and played for a bit too long, but people seemed to like it. It was BRILLIANT to be able to do it, and come Sunday we would very much appreciate the chance we'd had to work ourselves up a bit. For now though we finished our drinks, packed up, said bye bye and headed off back into the night.

The warming up was complete - tomorrow it was time to head for Indietracks!

posted 27/7/2010 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

The missing question - "Are they non-believers?" Got it on the way home - Faithless
posted 28/7/2010 by Frankie

Of COURSE - well done sir! The meal for two in Weatherspoons is surely YOURS!
posted 28/7/2010 by MJ Hibbett

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