Blog: Knackered

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You find me this Monday morning pretty much DONE IN, for LO! it was a weekend of High Activity and also some PANIC.

It all started shortly after I sent out this month's Newsletter, which prompted a few EMAILS to fly... and it turned out we might NOT now be doing Hey Hey 64K, or at least not tied into the advert. Not sure which way it'll go yet, but I thought "Hey! We could still do it though, couldn't we?" As we shall see, I have changed my mind about this about 10,000,000 times, and shortly after THAT I thought "Or what if we did a DIFFERENT song instead?"

I posted a copy of the nearly-finished album to Mr Rob Manuel of B3ta... who said he'd still like to do "Hey Hey 64K". I decided I might as well have a go at writing it, and spent a LOT of Saturday TOILING over it. I felt a bit dubious about the COMMERCIALITY of it, and DIDN'T want to just swap words over from a Spectrum to a C64, so tried to move it on and do something a bit different... in the end I was VERY PLEASED INDEED with what I'd come up with, so recorded a demo and headed to my computer...

Where I found that Rob had GOT the CD, really liked it, and had loads of ideas for what we could do instead!! Obviously this was LOVELY and also something of a RELIEF (especially after last week when the PR Lady we'd sent it to didn't really like it - OH MY but my tender artistic ego is susceptible to such things) and he DID have some exciting ideas, but it threw me into CONFUSION and PANIC. What should we do?

And of course the best way to DEAL with confusion and panic is to spread it around a bit, and THUS began a whole SERIES of increasingly DERANGED emails sent to The Validators. We're booked into the studio next weekend to do SOMETHING, and I oscillated wildly between wanting to record "Hey Hey 64K", have it on the new single and album, and GO for the Commercial Angle, or alternatively having something ELSE on the single and video.

It was only at a quarter to midnight last night, after a LENGTHY discussion with The North In My Compass (who is VERY good at this sort of thing) and half an hour of lying wide awake in bed thinking about it that actually i didn't need to do ANY of those things. We could release "Better Things To Do" ALONE as the single, and let whatever Rob wants to do as a VIDOE do it's OWN work. After all, it'll still be on the album. Alongside that we can LEAVE "Hey Hey 64K" for now and come back to it if we ever need it - we don't NEED an extra song on the album as it's sounding pretty bloody GRATE as it is, and in some ways sticking something else on the end could be a bit of a SELL OUT. Far better really, as far as INDIE CRED is concerned, to stick with what we've already got. After all, it IS really DEAD GOOD!

So far The Vlads seem to be DOWN with that opinion, especially as it means that we can now use our studio time next Sunday to MASTER the album and single! That means we've got to get the mixes and tracklisting sorted this week, but rather astoundingly it means that SUDDENLY we'll have FINISHED it, several weeks ahead of when we thought we would! We'll have LOADS of extra time to get the manufacturing sorted out, AND we can get started on thinking about EXCITING things like THE TOUR!!

Also, while all THAT was going on, my fingers were flying across the keyboard working on the Multimedia bits for both the single and the album, both of which are now BURNT onto CDs to go to The Vlads for final checking. I've been working hard on both of these for MONTHS now, and it was a very strange sensation at about five o'clock yesterday to think "Hang on, I've pretty much FINISHED this!" There's bits and bobs to correct and some changes to make here and there, but we're really at the FINAL DRAFT now - how did THAT happen?

I REALLY hope people read the Multimedia when the CDs come out, there is a TON of stuff on them. The album's got a lyrics, LENGTHY sleeve notes, recording credits AND at least one demo version for EVERY song, plus loads of photographs, several BIG articles, mini-interviews with all of the band and... well, all sorts of things. I am PROUD of it.

So, today I'm sending out CDs of the Multimedia to The Vlads for checking, tonight I'm off to meet The Ginger Fuhrer to discuss IDEAS, and then the rest of the week will be spent going over MIXES and - if there's time - having a practice ready for my GIG on Friday. Yes, a GIG! You know, that thing that people in BANDS do!

posted 3/4/2006 by MJ Hibbett

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