Bass Face Biy!

So, another week(just), another blog... getting good at this carry on now.

So, Stevie's house was the location for todays work. We kicked his mum out and set out to record some bass. We used his computer room and set his bass amp up in there. I setup the "control room" in his bedroom. Was grand. While we waited for Darren to arrive with some longer leads, Stevenage fixed me up with some lunch. A tasty ham baguette, a bag of crisps and a finely chilled Coca Cola. Thank you Mr Bruce ;)

Darren finally arrived and it was down to some hardcore recording... only after I nearly brained myself on a trip wire that Stevie had setup in the hallway. We got the four songs done within three hours. That's pretty good for Stevie. Much more relaxed when you're just at home... no clock watching, no man counting pennies as the seconds, minutes and hours tick by. It's just us three taking the piss out of each other.

I've yet to fiddle with the bass, but in the rough mix I've created, it's good. We'll get something workable.

Lyrics and melodies are next, to be followed by vocal recording. I thought I'd take a video of the Brucemeister recording bass so you could get a cheeky peak at one of the new songs.

Stevie is recording "Isaac" in this video.

Contrary to rumours, no... the songs are not named after certain Caithness music celebrities. Isaac is named after Darren's favourite tink and Johnny is named after the mythical "John" that we call everyone.

I'll keep you posted on the progress of recording and how the melodies are panning out over the next week or so. Hopefully get down to work in the next week or so and get the melodies started on.

Cheers for having a look...

Jamie

Guitars... Ouch!

I reckon I've been sitting in the chair for close to eight hours now, the occasional venture to the toilet for a piss and the odd cup of tea has been had, but otherwise, I've been stuck in this seat in the same position. It hurts now!

Today has been a busy day. I had a driving lesson this morning, it was awesome! Then I came home and tried to record guitars. The first problem I encountered was the microphone I was gonna use. I had borrowed a "Shure SM57" from someone, but it turns out to be a fake one, oh dear. I managed to get another mic though and off I went.

Now, home recording is a little different than your usual recording experience. It's not just plugging in your guitar and hitting record, no, no. It's a fuckin adventure! Anything can be turned into a recording room/booth. So... when I returned home with the mic for recording, I got stuck in about the cupboard... and ripped everything out of it. What a mess the place was in... towels everywhere, old bits of computer, tools, boxes(lol, my bad), erm... just general shite that I've aquired over the years. I threw it all in the hallway and started making my "guitar booth."

As you can see from the picture, it looks like a bag of shite, but actually... the guitar sounded pretty good. I had cables going from the spare room all the way through to my room. There were cables everywhere. XLR cables, jack cables, power cables... gah! I should've taken a picture of the mess, it was glorious.

It took a long time though, I wasn't really in the mood to record guitars earlier, but once I'd plannedonline as the "John I EP"... or something like that.

Anyway, once bass is done, I'll post some more of my really amateur pictures.

Adios!

Jamie

Recording...

Hey hey... another day, another update! Sweet!

We played in Invergordon at the weekend. What a silly, silly day! Some highlights include, calling everyone John, even the dog, rocking out with the kids... ok, I was taking the piss out of them a bit, Stevie making a new friend "have you got a girlfriend? I've got four!" Other highlights include Phil from Lad Lazarus sitting on the floor blazing drunk saying into the mic, "I think it's hilarious that you paid £4 for this shit"

We played fine. It wasn't exceptional and in all honesty, it was a poor night. We did have a good laugh on the way down and home though.

On Sunday, we headed for "the studio" aka, Skinandi's to record some drums for a couple of new tracks we've written. The plan is, to release these songs online for free download and distribution etc. We're lazy as fuck, and spending hundreds of pounds getting CD's duplicated isn't very cost effective. Fuck that, we make pittance at gigs... just have the songs!

Darren managed to record four songs in the space of a couple of hours. We've not got real names for three of them yet, so just now they're called, Big Kev, Johnny and Isaac. The other track we recorded is Those Feelings. I'm sure some people will be happy to see that we've recorded that song. I know a few of you who always harass me about playing it.

Big Kev joined us for our recording session. He was a useful chap yet again. He went and picked things up for us and he got a grand slagging for... well, we don't need an excuse really. He was just there and we slagged him off for it. Megan was also there and took a couple of pictures. We're not very interesting when we record. We gurn at each other a lot, Darren says "what do you think" and even when I say fine, he says "Hrm, there's one bit... but otherwise ok" What a dick!

Guitars are next I think, I'm not really sure when though. Next week sometime I'm guessing. Should be great crack... no really.

For now, cya John!

Jamie

I'm Getting Good At This Heh?

Check me, two updates within a short space of time. I'd check exactly how long ago, but that takes effort and means pressing that little back button in the top left hand side of my screen. I shall just guess that it's been under two weeks since I updated last.

Astronot have been not so busy to be honest. Which is a damn shame. We played a gig the other week. It wasn't the best, I'll admit that. We were rusty, the crowd was ceased and the headline band... well, I won't get into that. It just wasn't a great occasion for us. Nothing to celebrate. No matter. I swear, after the 12th of July in Invergordon, unless Dave Grohl calls me up on my own mobile phone, says "Jamie, I'll be your best friend forever if you support the Foo Fighters for the next leg of our tour," Then Astronot won't be playing gigs for a while. (Part of me hopes I get that phone call tbh.)

Moving along swiftly...

The final pieces of our equipment are slowly making it through the postal system. I tell you, I'm an impatient son of a bitch. As soon as they invent hardware delivery via some sort of system that's as quick as e-mail, I'm getting it! As our vocal mic wings its way from the good old US of A, our recording interface arrived, as did my studio monitors. My bedroom is now a makeshift mixing room. I don't think my housemates are going to approve of loud music all night.

Hopefully next weekend, Darren will feel like laying down some drum tracks and we can battle on. I feel like we've wasted a bit of time lately, so I'm gonna try and get another version of one of our songs recorded in the meantime. Gonna have to plan that one out though.

I've been working on something new, it's a million miles away from our usual stuff, very chilled out and relaxed... I'm trying to work on it though. Perhaps when I've got nothing to do tomorrow night I can turn it into a song.

When we actually do record, I'll take some pictures and put them in this blog. Simple people like looking at pictures, all this text gets boring after a while.

I'll report back soon.

Jamie