Blog: Back In The Studio
On Friday last week I headed south once more to distant CRYSTAL PALACE and OneCat studio, where I was due to gather with Mr CJ Thorpe-Tracey and Mr J Clayton to do further work on our ALBUM.
Chris had something of a TRAIN NIGHTMARE so to begin with it was just Jon and I who worked on some new vocals for I'll Fetch Me Book. I have been giving this song a LOT of THORT lately, as I very much wanted it to have the ENERGEY of Kirsty MacColl singing "In These Shoes?" To be honest I don't think I quite managed to achieve this but it was at least a SIGNPOST to myself of how to do it.
Chris arrived just as we were going through the finished tracks - as with most of the songs thus far we did a few takes and then Jon led us through them picking out only the VERY BEST bits to put into a single vocal track. Some people may think this is like when Lee Marvin did "Wandrin' Star" and they had to go through each take syllable by syllable to find whichever bit was closest to in tune, but it is definitely not like that at all. With me, sometimes whole WORDS are in tune.
With that done we turned to the EPIC Timewasters which went pretty well except for the MIDDLE BIT where I was unable to get the NOTES right, largely because I wasn't sure what they actually WERE. Jon rather brilliantly solved this by getting me to sing it in the right PHRASING at least, auto-tuning the results of THAT so it sounded right, and then having me sing along with it! One can't help thinking that all this might have been easier if we'd got someone much better at SINGING in to do it, but I guess it's too late now!
Next we did The Perfect Love Song which was easier because a) it is much shorter and b) I have been singing it for over 30 years so have a better idea of where the notes are!
This led to LUNCH and some CHAT, after which it was Chris's turn to - FINALLY - do some singing, starting off with backing vocals for When Your Hear A Bird which OH MY GOODNESS sounded AMAZING. This also enabled ME to sit in the control and give direction, which was mostly of the "COR OOH GOSH that sounded LOVELY" type but also occasionally "Can you do that some MORE please?"
A similar state of affairs occurred with his vocals on In The North Stand (GOLLY), although this did lead to a discussion about whether it is valid to do backing vocals along with somebody singing the word "I" e.g. can you sing along with "I went to the shops" or is that incorrect because it is clearly one person doing it? I think it very much IS fine, but it was rather excellent to be sat in a room DISCUSSING it.
After that I suggested we have a crack at Wrong About Everything which, in my head, is DRENCHED in LUSCIOUS HARMONIES. Obviously we had to first go through the process of ME singing but, once we'd staged a tactical withdrawal from me trying to do the difficult bits and retreated to the safer ground of MID-BELLOWING, evolved into a WONDERFUL session of Chris sounding like A FLIPPING POP GROUP. Luckily I had brought extra supplies of "COR" also "OOH", "GOSH" and "GOLLY" because CRUMBS it sounded amazing. We all sat around afterwards listening to it being A BIT EXCITED, as we had now crossed over from a day of "recording some piano and singing" into the glorious technicolor land of MAKING AN ALBUM!
With all that done we said our farewells, with Jon staying on for MORE ROCK and me and Chris popping round the corner for a quick drink and some ADMIN DISCUSSION about our forthcoming DATES. It was, all told, a rather WONDERFUL day - we keep saying that the PRODUCT we PRODUCE at the end of this may or not be successful, but it is definitely going to be BEAUTUFUL!
posted 27/8/2026 by MJ Hibbett