Most weeks I have a regular-ish LUNCH appointment with Mr J Dredge where we meet to discuss THORTS, come up with JOKES, and envisage BOLD NEW SCHEMES. The newest of these schemes is an idea John proposed a while ago to CO-WRITE a couple of SONGS. He suggested doing something like Morrissey and Marr, with me sending him some TUNES and then him coming up with some words. This sounded like fun, so we gave it a go.
I have several spare tunes lying around, MOST of which were recorded on my phone on the way to work and go "La la diddly pom la something something-" and then it cuts out. HOWEVER there were a few bits and bobs that had ACTUAL GUITAR on them, so I worked a few up and sent them to John. He then worked out the vocal melody and words for one and used FRIGHTENING levels of futuristic technology to record it i.e. he played it Quite Loud on his computer and sang along with it into a recorder, which he then gave to me to listen to.
It sounded DEAD GOOD - unlike anything I'd ever do myself, which was pretty much the POINT! We decided to do another and so he asked me to send him "the full song" for one of the other ideas I'd sent him. This was slightly tricky as there WASN'T a full song, it was just a RIFF basically, so I went home and tried to work out how a full arrangement might go. This is NOT how I usually write songs - the arrangement of verses, choruses and Middle Bits usually arise as a way of fitting in all the EARTH SHATTERING STATEMENTS I wish to make, so it was a bit of a BRANE STRETCH to do it JUST with the tunes, but also FUN, and the song we got out of it in the end was ALSO dead good.
The next stage will be to record them, and so we have recruited Mr A Harland (aka Andy from the Dredgeland Podcats etc etc) to do DRUMS and we're planning to go to an Actual Studio to LAY THEM DOWN. After THAT the general idea is to do VIDOES and John has various PLANS of ways to promote it. I think it's going to be under the name of DREDGE, possibly with a backing band called The Plinths, but that is all to be worked out. We DID have a PHOTO SESSION the other day with me taking pictures of John in ROCK STAR POSES on my phone though, which was rather jolly. I am investigating options to become a ROCK PHOTOGRAPHER on tour with Thin Lizzy even as we speak!
We're currently trying to work out DATES for the above mentioned recording session, and then it will be HO! for the Studio. I will report back on PROGRESS!
