The truth (as well as the album) IS OUT THERE....

So... we've gone and done it. It's out there. 230503 is now out in the hands of the people.

The launch gig went very well, and was filmed. I certainly look forward to seeing it.

The reaction to the music has been overwhelmingly positive. I am humbled.

I had a nice moment with the album where I could go back and relive those moments of creation before I let it go. It was a very special moment.

There is but one stop left aboard the train-journey that has been 230503. And thats the full-album rendition.

I have never done a full album rendition of any of my own music before.

Another Path was played live before Not My Fault was written.

Eponymous was never performed in sequence with segues.

The rehearsals of this album have shown that we can not only play the album very competently, we can blow the studio version out of the water.

What a wonderful thing to do.

So thats the final stop before these parallel steel lines terminate, and we change trains for our next journey.

Right now I'm caught in reverie. This has been so much a part of my life.

I hope it becomes part of yours too.

Shine On's Pink Floyd Woe

Every band has one. That one show where something happens that plunges you into the unenviable position of having to swim, or sink.

All the stars had aligned for the Shine On show at Campbelltown CC's to be a musically spectacular evening. The five appearing musos all confirmed their attendance. We all had decent rigs, the stage space although small, allowed us to use the bulk of what we needed to do a good Floyd show, and we were doing a lot of my favourite material.

I had given Lach his copy of 230503. His reaction was so encouraging.

It was going to be a magic night.

Elle and Kat turned up, as did Becky who used to sing with us. All the stars were aligned.

Then Lachie had a bit of a vomit.

And another one
And another one

Then worse.

Oh dear. Our poster-boy percussionist was in serious gastronomic trouble.

Emergency contingency plans began to be mulled over. Some realistic, others not so....

After eliminating "You'll be OK if you don't think about it" as an option, partially due to a mad dash by the poor boy to the can for another technicolour yawn, we decided to pull out the big guns.

A 72 ltr garbage bin next to Lachie for gastric-juice collection.

An almost fool-proof plan. But we forgot to account for the other end.

As Lachie sat almost motionless behind the kit, a panicked look quickly spread, and he made strides off of the stage through the pub and into the can.

Gravity struck!

The poor guy was totally ensconced in the throne room, as we began to change focus from getting Lach into shape to getting a replacement for the show. With a distinct lack of brotherly presence (the bastard), the job fell to one of us. Not the best candidature from which to pick.

Lex: Never seen to play the drums.

Dean: Plays on some sleepers stuff, but needed for guitar (is frontman, after all), plus timing and consistency have never been his strong point. He's always been better at the after gig parties.

Dave: Not a dreadful drummer. But indispensable as the only person who knows what each of the 6 keyboards do. Plus, I can't play like Mason. At all.

Chris: A good drummer. But only has one arm, and without an elastic strap, or at least a roll of duct tape, stick/knub interface is made less practical given the defecit of fist.

The winner is: Dean.

After a panicked session of brainstorming --
Dave : So what are we doing?
Dean: Only stuff I can play...
Lex: What can you play?
Dean: No fucking idea...

We eliminated the ones that Dean felt were beyond his capabilities.

Goodbye Dogs and Goodbye Astronomy Domine.

Thank fuck we dropped Sheep.

To call the first set a triumph, given the situation that we faced is probably an understatement. At the best, we sounded like Pink floyd. At the worst we sounded like a Pub Rock band covering Pink Floyd. Given the fact we were in a pub, no real problem.

Set structure went out the window. All the big set pieces were in the first half as a result of the ad-hoc set list.

Dean played remarkably well and sang his parts from Lachie's thankfully unsoiled stool.

Lachie heard the whole thing from the Can -where at interval he was still reaching into the china bowl.

Lex and I convened to Cubicle three (Lach being in two) for an emergency conference with our drummer.

Lex stood on the toilet seat and adressed Lachie from above. I chose not to survey the scene of destruction.

Lachie said he was totally unable to even contemplate leaving the loo, other than to leave and follow his missus, who had just been sent to Campbelltown Hospital with much the same thing.

And so with a heavy heart we bid our adolescent skins-man farewell.

The thoughts then spead to the next problem. A second set of pieces Dean hadn't really tried.

Again, for the most part it was surprisingly successful. Kudos to the short man.

I think if the gig hadn't been so much FUN I'd have probably been disappointed with it, but the simple fact was it was just that- fun.

All the pressure of the big gigs, and all the ceremony and trimmings I love so much, removed and replaced with an intimacy and a 'who gives a fuck?' attitude reminded me of Department almost. I felt we did a great job under the circumstances and there was much laughing and smiling.

Dean certainly did the whole Spiderbait bit.

The gig ended with a very sore Dean and Chris and I down in the car-park beneath the pub talking about albums, production and sound. It's been a long long time since the three of us have hung out like that without anyone else or without some sort of agenda to work out. Had I not been working the next morning, some vintage sing-along-a-beatles under a tree in a park may have been in order.

That said, Dean could barely move.

Every band has these shows... I've been lucky. If thats my worse, we handles it fairly adeptly i'd wager...

All finished!

IT IS FINISHED!!!

2pm, September 25th 2009, 338 weeks to the day (2366 days) from germinating the idea, the album is finished.

In the immortal words of Adrian Belew; 'I do think it's good....'

Just listened to the thing for the first time on a CD player with Lyrics handy. How best to sum up 6 years of your life? The majority of my twenties?

Now, I have music to write!!!!

One thing to mention is the new, fantastic RMS location. Dean has picked a winner here for sure.

The new studio is rough now but with work will be absolutely amazing. A perfect venue in which to tackle the next album. Dean is already looking forward to it, we are already anticipating it.

I will post pix as I have them. One thing is, it's at the back of a music shop. Could there be anything more awesome than having access to a whole music shop full of cool guitars, basses, mandolins, banjos, dobros, shakers, djembes, strings, drumheads and other bits and bobs to use as part of your sonic palette?

Too busy to be Narcissistic. Rectifying situation...

I have been largely absent of late from the world of blogging. Things have been insane for the most part with shows from both Anubis and Shine On; the final step of 230503 and general creative endeavours that have kept me from talking about it.

Anubis played one final show with the bands we had been playing with; at The Hermann's Bar in Sydney. It was for the most part an angry set, and at the end of 'The Collapse', one of our audience members actually passed out. What are the odds? The gig was stopped and we tried to restart it but suffered from a fatal musical car crash that left us all stunned. Momentum lost and nerves crowd paying no attention, we hit the abort sequence and made, as ever, for Lazikos.

I have to say that listening back the band was really on form too. The actual sound outside in the venue was really really good, and Steve in particualr carried well.

The on stage sound, aided and abetted by a total absence of stage monitors, was absolutely rubbish. The venue itself was very classy. We are braving it again on 18th Oct.

After the high of our mastering day, we finally got 230503 off to the manufacturers. Parting with cash is never easy, but the realisation that the whole project is finally out of our hands is quite strange. The artwork, when Matt delivered it, was tremendously exciting and the whole package feels classy. It will be out sooner rather than later.

The biggest single event of the last couple of months for me personally, not including the album, is the Shine On show we did a couple of weeks back at Nowra. Firstly, it was a step up again, from theatres to Entertainment Centre, and we played at a remarkable (huge) venue in a stunning part of the NSW South Coast. The band, now expanded back to it's full compliment of 9 wondering minstrels, with the addition of vocalist Sarah Schols, had been building through rehearsal to this set which was to include a full rendition of Dark Side Of The moon, a sort of pre-requisite at shows of this scale.

The nicest aspect of all is that all the minutae of running the show, organising the neccesary professionals etc. was taken out of mine and Dean's hands by our thoroughly enthusistic agent, Bob. A lovely offshoot of this, is that for the first time in five years of doing these shows, Dean and I did not have a single fight. A normal show day involves me being hyper-excited and ubiquitous, wanting to know everything that's going on, and what the likely outcome would be, and what we've spent our money on. Dean, on the other hand spends the day uber-tense, trying to avoid questioning and enthusiastic puppies all day long. The resulting mix of the two chemicals is particularly volatile, usually culminating in a blow-up from Dean, and me disappearing to brood behind a ridiculously high stack of keyboards, until he realises he is a twat and apologises... or something like that. Who needs marriage? Anyway, with Bob on hand to deflect the attention and stress, and me resolving to avoid Dean as much as possible after initial load in, and not ask questions AT ALL, the whole day went smoothly and we survive to tackle another project.

The band was at the most fragmented it had ever been. My longing for time for the 9 of us to spend together before the show was completely obliterated by the scale of the event with liggers and crew milling around. Rob, who roadied for me, realised his redundancy and buggered off up to the video control box to tape the show with Christo. Nobody else followed their lead. Although, that said, it would have been a waste of time as even the two minute warning for stage time wasn't sufficient to pull Lachlan out of his change room, where he was busy straightening his coiffiere. God forbid he ever gets caught out in the rain.

I will admit this is a major disappointment for me. Back in the old days, the whole band would be together before the show and it was wonderful. I guess things were more contained then, but I do feel we miss something nowadays when we can't even have 5 mins together, just us, before the show. It is, in my eyes, a vital part of the bonding experience that allows the musicians (and I include the singers) to switch on to each other's wavelength before attempting to communicate musically. Call me an old hippy, but I think that's a precious experience that some of those bands who aren't particularly close miss out on, and you lose a part of the vibe in performance. I think we managed 23 seconds before we went on, and even then that was at the side of the stage. It may be in my head, but in the days of the Catholic club, and Doyalson, we were a unit, and I think that helped shape those experiences as being so pleasurable. Don't get me wrong, there is no fracture in the personal relationships. In some cases they are healthier than ever. I just like to switch on to my bandmates before having to try and communicate through ESP with them.

Now, the show itself benefitted, on my part, from Dean's clear head (a curry before showtime helps... lucky git. Next time, short one, we're going together.... next time...), and from the fact that the keyboard empire sounded extraordinarily good. The downers were that the light show was, whilst good for what the venue had got, painfully wanting by Floyd standards. It looked little more bright and exciting than the high school musicals we used to do (under the eyes of my exceptionally talented old pal, Ryan Phillips on lights), which for an entertainment centre in front of 600+ people is quite disappointing; and the fact the sound person was palpably out of their depth, resulting in missed cues, absent vocals and a blast of feedback that lasted almost the length of 'The Great Gig in the Sky'. Given the requirements, she did well, but it was a tough gig.

The band was, however, on fire. Precision and spirit abounded in spades, and the sound was extraordinary. Dean played with more enthusiasm and venom than I have seen in ages, Chris' renewed vigour and work ethic saw his stock increase, the creases were ironed out of the rhythm section just in time and they played as one, and I, quite frankly, played a blinder. Very satisfied. The hammond bubbled and roared, and maintained signal integrity throughout. The farfisa was spacy, the moog stayed in tune. The only disappointment was the lack of delay in 'Any Colour...' which was working beautifully in soundcheck. Always one fucking gremlin...

I listened back to Rob's recording. The first two songs suffered from the drum mic having fallen and resting on the cymal, resulting in a very unattractive gong like sound which sounded disgusting. The performance was excellent, however.

By the time we got to the third song, sonic creases had been ironed and the sound mix was good. The first half culminated in a performance of 'Echoes' that ranks amongst some of my best live work recorded, and a performance of 'Dogs' in which I took centre stage. Greatfully recieved by the die-hards and a joy to play for me, we hit a plateau we needed to maintain.

The second half began with easily our best ever rendition of 'Shine On' and into 'Dark Side' which we have swapped roles around in a little and the whole thing sits better. Dean and I harmonise far more and the similarity in our voices makes for some very good harmonies. 'On The Run' was a triumph with my analog tour-de-force succeeding on all levels. Time was let down by an absent mic in the first chorus, rendering me inaudiable. A mistake that proved far more costly than the engineer expected.

In 'Great Gig', my second mic began singing, and drowned out the band. The first half, sang by Kat, was off the map in terms of quality and power, and easily shows why she beats, ahands down, virtually anyone else I have heard do this. What a pair of lungs.

Elle's live debut on the former Becky section was vocally exquisite. Unfortunately, the mic had decided to outsing our diminutive beauty and as a desperate sound engineer tried to rectify the problem, she pulled out Elle's monitor. Ouch....

Dean, being a sound bloke par excellence realised the culprit immediately and strode over whipped the second keyboard mic out the way.

Elle handled it like a trooper, although disappointed. The audience were warm and forgiving, and "Play that again" came out of the dark. Opting for the artistic route, we went on with "Money". Money was great, except our friendly sound reinforcer had not put Martyn's mic or foldback back on. Martyn overblew his high F#. One mistake for Martyn, in Martyn's eyes, is nothing less than total failure. His high expectation usually gives us flawless perfomances. He got out of it well, but was unhappy. He did however, doubly-compensate with a sublime 'Us and Them'. The band hit their stride again and held it to the end of the piece, with "Eclipse" reigning supreme as the jewel in the crown and Kat's sensual vocalising bringing goosebumps to my arms.

We obliged the audience for the encore with a repeat of Great Gig, and this one was far better. The first was actually the stronger of the two performance wise, but at least this one was audiable.

The encores of Cigar, sung by a slightly hoarse cold-inflicted Dave sounded pretty good, and the evergreen 'Wish You Were Here' sounded great. "Comfortably Numb" and 'Run Like Hell' were exactly what we expected them to be.

The show, musically, was a high point for the band and hopefully a solid fouindation on which to build and grow. The positivism and unity after the show made up somewhat for the absence beforehand. A great night.

As I have been writing this blog, another event has unfolded. Mad CD has just called to say 230503 is pressed and ready.

The next chapter begins here.

Crossing the finish line

It's nearly 1am, and my head is muzzy. A combination of too little sleep and far too much caffiene. Today was mastering day, and the final day of making the 230503 album.

7.45am came around far too quickly. It always bloody does. It, for me, is way too early to even begin to THINK about functioning past the occasional grunt, mutter, slurp, or far worse. I shall not elaborate further. Coffee number one was consumed in morning bad-tempered haste.

Having previously been designated (no real surprise) designated driver on the duofold reasoning that a) my car is the biggest and b) I drink the least alcohol of all the band members (one suspects the real primary reason).

The previous evening, I had been sent an anonymous SMS message telling me in the morning it's sender would only be contactable on the above number. Unfortunately, the thoughtful sender of this most helpful information had forgotten to tell me who they were. My guess is that Doug was the sender. Made more likely by the fact that when I asked who it was, there was no reply. Lost in Space, no doubt.

The plan was to meet Doug at 8:20am. After arriving to find no Doug (again, no surprise), a phone call to the number SMS'd me the previous night found Jess, the potential Mrs. Skene, who informed me that 5 minutes after our expected departure time, our beloved goldilocks was in the shower. Time management, indeed most types of management, have never been Doug's strongest point! On the arrival of our innocent looking fretmeister, we left for Robert's. Who, as luck wouldn't have it... was also late.

Steve slept through his alarm. Potentially another hold up, however some thoughtful pajero driver had decided to try parking his car in the back of a truck, thus backing up the M7 between rob's and Steve's, and this gave Steve ample time to try and disguise the after effects of the night before!

Steve's to Nick's was a quick painless run, and yes- Nick was late too. For the first time since October 1979, I look vaguely punctual.

The trip to the city was uneventful, and interspersed with Maic conversations about Monkeys and mobile phones. Rob does an alarmingly good monkey impression. And it all beggers the question 'Who needs drugs?'

Breakfast Of Champignons

Negotiating the (as ever) EVIL city traffic, we met Dean at the car park and decended, en masse, toMcDonalds for a spot of breakfast and coffee number two.

A Scary Little Man and some lovely expensive gear

11am dawned and we went up the stairs and into the studio for the first time, and having been initially introduced to Reece, who is charged with the unenviable task of making our magnum opus sound superb. Poor bugger. After the initial explainations and overtures about the concept and the 'dynamic curve' ( a term that saw much ridicule poured my way from the rhythm section - an interesting concept as they are happiest when playing really loud... what are dynamics anyway?)

Captive audience hanging on every note, contemplating coffee number three

We then set to work. The hardest part begins here.

Benchmark ostensibly set up shop in the former EMI studios in Castlereagh St in Sydney. Tastefully contemporary and not even hinting at it's age, I was particularly overawed to be standing in a room that had counted amongst its previous bums on the leather I was perched David Bowie, Crowded House and The Stones. Slightly less auspiciously; Department mastered Eponymous here in 2002.

I guess we're proud of it. And both look quite different to what we did 1978 days earlier

Not being overly familiar with the mastering process every slight change sounded remarkable and beginning with The Deepest Wound, we took the plunge into finishing the album off.

The first hour could only be described as as really hard slog. We sat through The Deepest Wound- easily our most simple song with a structure of no more than a verse and a chorus, binary form in it's truest sense, ad nauseum trying to get the EQ's and the compression right. With it's structure, hearing a verse and a chorus 60 times each is, at best, grating. So I eased back in the sofa for the long haul waited for the inevitable 'rhythm section bail-out' where Steve and Nick disappear and make for the nearest pub.

To my immense surprise, it never came.

I look like I know what I'm doing... I lie, I lie....

After the first hour and the EQ's and compression rates and other hoo-hah was in place, including wheeling in a Studer 2 track analog tape machine that effectively sent the whole mix to tape and back again (adding that lovely warm saturating that only analog tape can provide. A sad loss in the digital age), the process became easier. From then on it was a process of knocking the songs off one by one, making minor adjustments to suit each one. The consistency of Dean's mixes helped us immensely at this point as the whole thing seemed to translate pretty well to each subsequent track.

Reece was very amenable to our uninformed suggestions and requests and i truly believe he got what we were doing, however we went about doing it. This, in itself, means an awful lot to me. I can only hope I didn't come accross as too much of a megalomaniac. I prefer to straddle that divide between benevolent dictator and excited puppy that I covet so much. I will however not claim to be entirely innocent from the general misbehaviour that Anubis is capable of that probably didn't make the job any easier on Reece's ears.

After cup of coffee number four or five

With all the tracks finally squashed nice and flat, whipped to life by the wonders of harmonic distortion and analog warming and presented in widescreen, the process of compiling the final record began. Here, the band- with yours baldly as ringleader - took control and allowed ourselves the creativity to segue the component songs into 230503 for the first time proper. The SFX came out sounding wonderful, and the sound quality added a gloss sheen that sounded particularly impressive on The Collapse and Leaving Here Tonight. We added the cross-fades, the segues and the seagulls. It all sounded fantastic.

So then it was, 18:30 EST on Saturday 20th June 2009, 230503 was finished. Nothing left to record, mix, master, etc. Audiably complete (The cover is, however, another story). Five years of my life... a little more than a sixth, wrapped up in a little plastic case. It was a very emotional moment.

The Musical Team (or what normal people call 'The Band')

The production team (Or what normal people call 'idiots'..)

Stepping out of the studio into the chilly night air, I felt we had truly accomplished something, and something that MEANS something at that. It is perhaps my greatest achievement yet. That the whole thing was covered, financially, by the band out of money we earned out of live shows in the last 12 months, and not having to subsidise the mastering at all, is even more of an achievement.

Retiring to the pub afterwards, I allowed myself a pint of bitter in celebration. A remarkable day capped off by a nice meal and time with friends. We really were all in this one together.

Post-mastering celebrations. Under-developed phallus thankfully out of shot.

The only fly in the ointment was a yound English lad who was at the same pub, heavily drunk and obnoxious, threatened Steve and, unwisely as events proved, exposed himself to the band, and in particular Nick; much to the horror of his equally drunk but far nicer English friends who were trying to have a polite and friendly conversation with Doug and I. Either the low temperature or severe genetic misfortune served to render the whole process rather less than flattering for the young man in question; a fact that Anubis, and in particular Rob (being the sarcastic sods we are) was more than happy to quickly point out.

Any scars Nick got from this anatomical show and tell were quickly counterbalanced by winning $130 on the one-armed bandits.

So now... we have a finished album. It's one step closer to it's public. And I have finally achieved closure on a project that has occupied over half of my twenties. 1978 days in all.

If it wasn't the best day of my life, it came very close.

Live EP coming along

Spent another night working on the 'Flesh Water and Bone' Anubis Live LP last night.

My opinions on the tracks as they stand:

The Deepest Wound:

A fast pace and spirited version of the 230503 lead off track. A very powerful vocal and the band is aggressive. Dougie in particular is on bitingly good form. The solo is more of a guitar organ duet on the live recording. And I even got most of the notes right.

Steve is tight and Nick is glued to him throughout.

A great opener played very well.

Waterfall:

Bittersweet version with some sensitive vocals and good harmonies. A couple of wayward notes that need to be corrected. Elsewhere, sublime.

The drums are steady and tight throughtout. Nick shines on this one as the bass part tends to extemplorise on the slightly more staid album version: no bad thing.

The guitar solo is very faithful to the album- perhaps a little extra drama wrang out of it. But beautifully played. Doug hit the tuner at the end of the solo, hence it takes 16 bars for the rhythm guitar to come back in. Rather than go into overdubbing, and seeing as how it's not really that noticable, best left alone. After all, it's a live album!

Keyboards are fairly standard fayre. Some faster hammond wanking at the end. Sounds OK.

Waterfall Jam:

This is the live coda to waterfall, and as such is not heard on 230503 in the studio.

Some very moving guitar work and some nice bluesy hammond.

Nick and Steve are absolutely as one on this piece.

The Bond Of Mutual Distrust:

One word. Savage.

Our live highlight at this stage sounds (dare I say it) more cohesive and natural on stage, and the grinding riff is absolutely on the money.

Robert is in stunning voice on this one and I even do a pretty good job backing him with some notes that dogs can only hear. Doug aids and abets from underneath.

The keyboards are arranged differently from the album. A benefit of playing the songs so much after recording them. In truth there's a part of me that probably prefers it this way.

Middle section is utter chaos and the drums and bass are relentless.

Disinfected and Abused:

A tight and venomous version of the epic track, played much more quickly and aggressively.

Guitar and Moog duets are good. A couple of bum notes from me again, but I'm not about to go re-recording them. I can't guarentee I wouldn't stuff them again anyway.

Mellotrons sound positively huge as I think I put more reverb on them... perhaps accidentally. Either way, it is good. now I have to work out what I did and do it all the time.

Steve is extemplorising all over the shop and gets decidedly syncopated at times. Thankfully he untied the knots as well as he tied them on this occasion.

Nick, again is particularly effective down in the bottom end and is stuck to Steve with araldite.

Harmonies are great.

5/8 section comes on like Heart Of The Sunrise on methamphetamine. All tricky riffery and a mellotron feeding frenzy. If only I could have played this to 24 year old David Eaton when he started writing this.

A bit of a sticky moment in the denoument... Steve is a beat early and we all had to follow suit. Some may not notice it. I don't think Steve did...

Either way, I'd have liked to have corrected it but it was not feasable. So it is what it is. It would be criminal to not include such a great version of a song for the inclusion of one fuck up most would not even notice. Hell.... it's live!

Too much to summarise

Right now I am thrilled to bits.

I get a call from the small but perfectly formed Bennison this morning to bring me the joyous news of a Shine On booking for the utterly glorious 1000 seat Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre, in Nowra.

It's big. Firstly. Bloody massive.

And secondly it is an absolutely marvellous venue. It, like the cube, is ultra-modern and acoustic savvy, but with tiered seating and all those marvellous Entertainment thingies that look so fantastic. Our show is going to look absolutely unreal in it.

There are at least two other venues that are being looked at as we speak.

The end of this year will be utterly Floyd-tastic.

Tonight, Dean, Robbo and I are going back to mix the Anubis live album, 'Flesh, Water and Bone'. The one from the Lansdowne tapes. Having hear them back, I can safely say they are among the best sounding things I've heard with me on, and in some cases, the fire behind the songs is even hotter than the album versions. Obviously, the dichotomy between an art work and a live music performance remains in play, and both are meritorious for entirely different reasons, but there is some positively scorching playing, and some remarkable vocals.

Finally, I have pottering around in my new studio space which had once previously been my studio space. It's homely and warm but at the same time is well organised and some well placed reminders of my life everywhere does help to make it less sterile than a normal recording environment. All I need now is my beloved mac back in it's rightful spot and I'm good to go.

Warm and Inviting. A nice space for recording with pictures and soft light.

My Dad made me a wooden Rack unit that now comes out on an angle. Easy access to patch bay and the cable jungle behind.

Picture #1: Shine On at Campbelltown. I like this shot very much.

Picture #2: Anubis at Sydney University, July 2008. Another great shot from a great looking show.

Two brilliant pictures of Shine On from the last show.

Analogue Friends. ARP ProSoloist, CZ-5000 and the Roland JX-8P

String City: The guitars in situ. Obviously not including the ones Doug has currently got.