Recording Misguided Souls, part one

18 months of work on this, the first set of music I’ll be sharing under my own name, and I’m nearly finished. It’s been a difficult journey because I am effectively a complete retard when recording, but I’ve struggled on.

So, in the next four weeks, while I get ready to have the album mastered and finish the packaging design, I’m going to make a series of posts about different elements of making it. I don’t know if anyone will read these, but it’s nice to look back on creating something so personal to me.

This week, I’m going to talk about the journey to becoming myself again after five years of bands and collaborators.

Getting started

My old band, Threethirteen, were a straight-forward indie-rock band with some very different interests. From the original three members (as Flux), we liked country-rock, grunge, metal, emo, indie, funk… I look back and feel queasy at the description, but we melded them in a much smarter way than it sounds. it never felt like we had a token reggae-type song, or a funky one – it was all just a part of the sounds.

When we gained a new guitarist, his virtuosity and preference to play unusual parts that weren’t always showy blended perfectly with my aspirations for a more melodic, slightly slower-paced, more musical unit.

We briefly played some incredible gigs. They were full of what became my maxim for the band: swagger, soul and rock n’ roll. Sadly, it didn’t last. With a long hiatus of my own causing, things drifted and one member of the band clearly didn’t like the direction we were going in anymore. His performances in the next months were poor and frequently sloppy. Time came to go our separate ways.

We looked for a new drummer, but after a series of acoustic gigs, I sensed that time was up for Threethirteen and started working on some songs I’d developed for the band. I’d called this project Starlight, and focused on more acoustic sounds with a more folk/country feel.

On reviewing them, they needed more – so i bought a drum machine and a pocket pod, and started working on recording them in a stripped back but traditional style format. I had a lot of affection for these songs, but at the same time, met a new friend who would play a part in my reimagining of what i was doing.

The Hydraulic Five

So, I bought Portishead’s gorgeous album, Third, and promptly fell in love with the atmosphere and beautiful weirdness of the record. I NEEDED to try and make something like that. So I went looking for a collaborator who actually understood electronic music. I advertised on Gumtree and came across Keith.

Keith is an acerbic Irishman, about 33 and works in the same place I do. He’s a good guy, passionate about music and just starting working with people again. He has similar interests to me in making electronica, and it turns out we both loved The Gutter Twins album.

So, we started working together using his name of The Hydraulic Five. We came up with one good song within a couple of week’s of getting started. And then Keith polished it for the next three weeks. And then we started another song. Then Keith started re-polishing the first song again. Needless to say, this was driving me mad.

But, at the same time, he gave me a copy of Nuendo; showed me more about EQ; taught me about how plug-ins can sculpt sounds; about using synthesisers; and most importantly got me looking for new software – in this case the awesome Guitar Rig 3. So, that was a lot to think about.

Then we started butting heads about vocals. Now, I know I’m a pretty good singer – I’ve got a strong voice, a decent range, and I can actually phrase properly. Keith loved to double-track vocals. Which was fine (and something I did use a couple of times of my own volition, but for specific effects), but it was on EVERY song. He then would drown songs in little backing vocal motifs, or harmonies that sounded ridiculous. They ended up overwhelming the song.

We started disagreeing more and more on this until, finally, it came to a head. Keith had written the intro to a song and called it “The Dark Art of guitars and synthesisers”, which was re-titled to A Dark Art when i first heard it. There wasn’t a clear melody in there, but the sounds he’d conjured were incredible. There was something sinister yet really beautiful in it.

So, after much fiddling about I had written a song that felt worthy of such a grand title as A Dark Art. It felt like it was meant to be, it covered everything I had felt about myself. Writing it had cleansed me of an awful lot of bad feeling. After mastering the “virtual drummer” software I had (by master, I mean I got it to make some general sounds that weren’t like a small child hitting the cat), I recorded for eight hours straight, coaxing beautiful guitar noises into a wondrous whole.

Keith liked it, but then promptly destroyed it. He added more guitars, he doubled up a discarded vocal take into the main vocal and made it sound dreadful. Cue massive argument, cue me saying enough was enough.

A misguided soul

There I was: no band, no collaborator and, weirdly, happy. I had started seeing someone new while we were going through this back and forth, and I felt completely different about myself. I bit the bullet and decided I would finish it myself.

I looked at the songs I’d completed and had about five. I looked at the ones I’d been working on… maybe another three. Two songs from what I’d written or maybe something new.

I set to work.

Who’d be in the BNP?

Before I start, I need to point out the simple process involved in making an informed decision:

• inform yourself with as much background as you need
• listen to what you’re being told
• compare it to what you know is true or what you already believe to be true.

With this simple process, you can watch Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, on Question Time and make up your own mind whether he’s a fascist nutcase whose narrow-minded attitudes are alternately pathetically misguided or palpably dangerous to society, or whether he’s a nationalist visionary interested in restoring Britannia back to its former glory without further watering down of our once great culture.

Or rather, you might not be able to because the Labour Government is quite keen on silencing the old chap because:

“Some have argued putting the BNP up to public scrutiny could have the effect of damaging the party, but others have suggested it could boost interest.” (Associated Press)

Some of you may now be saying: “Rightly so, they are a disgrace with all their racism and stuff! Grrr!”

In truth, I might agree with you except that, well like the majority of people I know, I actually don’t know much about them other than the manner in which they’ve been demonised in the press. And, as I’ve already said, the press position of any commodity is based entirely on what you’re trying to sell and then how you’re going to sell it.

The Labour minister involved, Peter Hain, is probably a decent chap. He opposed apartheid, like his parents did when they lived with him in South Africa; he possibly feeds stray dogs on his way to Parliament in the morning and pinches the cheeks of sad faced street urchins on cold winter mornings. And he failed to declare £100,000 in campaign donations when he stood for Deputy Leader of the Labour party. Easily done.

His complaint is that he feels it’s wrong for the BNP to be a part of the national discourse in top table politics. They don’t allow minorities to join their party, which is illegal under party political conventions, and they jolly well don’t like immigrants.

I see his point, that is an awful thing, but they are a legitimate UK political party – why should they, and their supporters, be frozen out of democracy just because the policies they espouse are only shared by a minority?

The whole point of democracy is rule by the people – everyone has the opportunity to have their voice heard and be represented by the party that most closely aligns with their feelings.

Question Time is one of the channels through which us proles can listen to our political leaders debate the issues that matter most. Face to face, mano-a-mano.

Hain’s letter to the BBC’s Director General, Mark Thompson, was dismissed and Griffin is still due to appear. But Hain wasn’t done, he wrote a sternly worded letter to the BBC’s Trustees stating that:

“(Thompson) shows no willingness or ability to genuinely review his own decision.” So basically, he doesn’t agree and didn’t go along with your point – so he must be wrong?

The major worry for Hain et al, is that “it could boost interest” in joining or voting for the BNP. That’s a sad thought, that they think the people of the UK are so weak minded they can’t tell the difference between those who have genuine concerns for their country’s future and racist maniacs.

I think we don’t give people enough credit. Sure, there are those who are small minded and vicious enough that the BNP’s more extreme policies will appeal to them. But chances are they already had those feeling – it’s just a banner to walk behind.

There are those who may feel let down by their Government and, in the BNP, see a party that reflects those feelings. That see immigration as the reason they’re struggling. That the multi-ethnic society that is springing up around the country is eroding their sense of identity and, quite simply, scaring them. These people may well be interested in the BNP, but that doesn’t mean we should silence the party.

Democracy isn’t about “free choice as long as it’s what we find acceptable.” It’s about the people having some say over the future governance of the country they live in.

Do I agree with the BNP? No. Do I think that they should be silenced because of that? No.

Should the BBC allow Nick Griffin to appear on Question Time and give people the chance to make up their own minds? Without a doubt.

You need to listen to all the facts to know the truth, so it’s only right we hear the facts as the BNP see them too.

Things I have done

Look at the web!

Here are some photos, taken with my beloved new Canon Powershot SX110 IS. It’s a point and shoot but with just the right amount of options for me to play with. The above was more a fluke than anything else – it was so bright I didn’t think the AF would pick up the web and, from the angle I was standing at, I wasn’t able to use the camera’s manual focus mode (which is a bit fiddly without a tripod anyway).

Elvis in the Kelvingrove

Played with the exposure and shutter-speed to get this over/under-exposed effect. I may have used Photoshop as well…

I take you to the best places and I even brought you a chair

I saw this while wandering around Edinburgh. A good place to sit while having a break is essential and a wee, out of the way alley is always a good spot.

I want to shoot American landscapes but will settle for Scottish ones instead

Near a little timber yard about ten minutes from my house, is this scene. That’s the Ochils in the background and, really, it was a beautiful day. But there was something in the shape of the clouds that seemed sombre, so I bashed it into black and white and did some work in Photoshop. Instant misery!

A brief thought

I’ve been reading about the NightJack blog that was recently deleted following The Times’ unveiling of the officer’s real identity. I hope I’m not alone in thinking the following:

When the press fails to report the reality of the world we live in (which is all to frequent an occurrence), then we as individuals have a responsibility to hold the Powers that Be to account where possible. NightJack was an insider’s view of the rapidly deteriorating police force that places more emphasis on administrative detections than actual police work.

Some of the tales on it were sobering, some were traumatising but all were honest and, for myself, gave me more respect for the average police officer who tries to make a difference surrounded by politics, rules and statistics that make it near impossible to keep people safe.

Blogs come and go (as, in fact, had his) but this sets a terrifying precedent that newspapers can reveal any blogger publically – is that serving the public interesting? Was finding out his identity of more value to the public than the perspective he gave on a police force under-siege by New Labour’s initiatives?

I’d say no to all of those. We all want the truth sometimes, but sometimes the truth merely cages you in.

Stallone versus Schwarzenegger

The other night, I wanted to watch something brainless and, staring at me as if through a celestial sign (but in a box underneath my bed, so completely unlike a celestial sign) was Nighthawks. Sylvester Stallone, post Rocky and Rocky II but pre First Blood, and Billy Dee Williams (post Empire Strikes Back but pre-Batman) star as maverick NYC cops who seem to have no department or jurisdiction. They believe in JUSTICE!

Rutger Hauer plays Wulfgang, the terrorist who wants to prove he’s still got it after going “too far” in a job for the IRA in London. As ever, he’s creepy and convincing even when dealing with painfully bad dialogue plus his physicality means he actually looks like he could be a hard bastard. Or a serial killer, really.

All you need to know, Wulfgang goes on Stallone’s territory and, along with Billy, they are co-opted into a crack squad of law enforcement officials to mount a crack squad of anti-terror operatives.

The commander, played by an archetypal stuffy Brit, also provided the template for the head of TeamAmerica – even down to his spurious reasoning for doing things. Stallone, quite logically, asks (mumbles) why they’re looking at slides when they could be out “on the street” finding the guy. The commander shouts, tells Stallone that without the essential anti-terror tactics that only a slideshow can impart, they’d be sitting ducks. Then he tells Stallone that his refusal to kill is the reason his wife left him.

People who think Stallone’s mediocrity started post First Blood don’t know his career. He’s the poster child for ambition and talent thwarted by ego and the marketplace. Rocky was followed with some average but interesting failures in FIST and Paradise Alley before Rocky II reignited his career.

Nighthawks flopped spectacularly, despite its relatively low-budget. It also marked the beginning of a phenomenon that would repeat throughout Stallone’s varied career – poor choices made about decent material in an attempt to maximise profit.

Stallone was unlike many actors in genre pictures because he could write well. Where most modern screenwriters mistake character development for plot development, he was great at delivering plot-essential detail through natural dialogue. Little things are nice… you’d need to watch it for the context, but still:

Paulie: [talking about Adrian] You like her?

Rocky: Sure, I like her.

Paulie: What’s the attraction?

Rocky: I dunno… she fills gaps.

Paulie: What’s ‘gaps’?

Rocky: I dunno, she’s got gaps, I got gaps, together we fill gaps.

Paulie: Are you ballin’ her?

Rocky: Hey!

[punches Paulie in the shoulder]

Rocky: You don’t talk dirty about your sister!

Tells you a lot about Paulie’s concerns and his misunderstanding in the face of Rocky’s lack of eloquence.

Escape to Victory followed right after Nighthawks and was as barmy as it was amusing. This did moderately well and Stallone made Rocky III. That made crazy money and cost very little (a feature of Stallone’s films – he’s a very cost-efficient director).

Anyway, from Nighthawks on, he had a run of interesting, varied projects that showed he was interested in being a film maker AND an actor. Ok, they were mostly crap, but Edward Norton hasn’t made a decent film since Fight Club and people defend his useless, overrated ass still.

Stallone was still featuring in good, profitable movies with a fair amount of regularity. In the next fifteen years he would make (I asterisk the films I consider to be good, but respect if you don’t agree with me – they’re very much personal tastes)

• First Blood (1982) *
• Staying Alive (1983)
• Rhinestone (1984)
• Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)
• Rocky IV (1985) *
• Cobra (1986)
• Over the Top (1987)
• Rambo III (1988)
• Lock Up (1989) *
• Tango & Cash (1989) *
• Rocky V (1990)
• Oscar (1991)
• Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992)
• Cliffhanger (1993) *
• Demolition Man (1993) *
• The Specialist (1994)
• Judge Dredd (1995)
• Assassins (1995)
• Daylight (1996)
• The Good Life (1997)
• Cop Land (1997) *

This coincided with him being labelled a box office has-been by that point because, from 1990 to 1992, he starred in the abysmally bad trio listed above – Rocky V, Oscar and Stop!… He followed it with the stunning (though silly) Cliffhanger and the vibrant, daft and thoroughly entertaining Demolition Man – huge successes and decent movies.

He never went more than a few movies before pulling it back and it was always the “Hollywood” movies that tried to exploit his misguided self-image that caused problems.

What’s interesting is that the sort of high-concept vehicles that worked for Schwarzenegger did not work for Stallone, yet both he and the studios kept trying to make them. The films I’ve marked are straight-up genre movies. Uncomplicated, well-written and with a heart (well, not Tango & Cash, but that has Kurt Russell’s hair and is based on a Jackie Chan movie from his Hong Kong days – no, really!).

What the list tells us is: he’s not a cliché action man stereotype and is unconvincing as such, he’s not a good comedy actor despite having decent comic timing and he only flourishes when not allowed to pander to his desired self-image.

Compare the list to Schwarzenegger’s same period output and, ignoring box office receipts, let’s compare quality.

• Conan the Barbarian (1982)
• Conan the Destroyer (1984)
• The Terminator (1984) *
• Red Sonja (1985)
• Commando (1985)
• Raw Deal (1986)
• The Running Man (1987)
• Predator (1987) *
• Red Heat (1988)
• Twins (1988/I)
• Total Recall (1990) *
• Kindergarten Cop (1990)
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) *
• Last Action Hero (1993)
• True Lies (1994) *
• Junior (1994)
• Eraser (1996)
• Jingle All the Way (1996)
• Batman & Robin (1997)

Arnie is undoubtedly the more iconic of the two, but his films aren’t much better on average (though he does have the best of the films, by a slim margin, in The Terminator). Where he did better was in using his image as a generator for a film’s concept.

Twins was a movie the studio didn’t want to make, but the concept of Arnie and DeVito as twin brothers was a one-note joke that was cheap to make and gave its leading men the power to underwrite their own futures.

Until 1993, Arnie never forgot it. He cannily picked movies that either reinforced his muscleman schtick (T2 and the superior Total Recall) or subverted his very presence while subtly using it (Kindergarten Cop). Then came The Last Action Hero – a film so idiotic and misguided that, not only did it flop, it exposed just how idiotic Arnie’s films were. He followed it up with James Cameron’s daft, devilish True Lies but the wheels had come off.

Junior played on audience memories of the big Austrian, but the story didn’t support the concept and Arnie’s such a terrible actor that any laughs the film may have delivered were based simply on “ARNIE’S PREGNANT LOLZ!” as the source of humour.

His return to the action genre came in the execrable Eraser. Unsurprisingly, he then tried to reverse the trend by returning to light hearted fare which also failed to understand that the subversion of his image in Twins and Kindergarten Cop was what appealed to people, not seeing Arnie as a talentless muscleman trying comedy. Let’s never discuss Batman & Robin and, really, it’s not Arnie’s fault – he does fine with the woeful material he’s given.

Is there a point to this 1,500 word blab? This, I think: Stallone and Arnie produced films of largely similar quality throughout their careers. Their best films were great examples of genre cinema and their worst were painful experiences in self-satisfaction. The common wisdom that Arnie made better films is, like most common wisdom, completely unfounded when you look at the actual material.

Yes, Arnie’s resume includes two of the best SF films ever made in Predator and The Terminator, but it also includes the woeful Conan the Destroyer and Junior. Stallone may have dreck like Rhinestone and Cobra, but he has the majestic Cop Land and First Blood in reply (with the sort of performances that Arnie has never and will never be capable of).

The main thing to learn: Arnie’s careful cultivation of his image, along with sensible subversion of it, enhanced his market value and led to his success – the films were largely by-products of that business savvy.

A wonky lip and poor diction is no substitute for being a big, funny Austrian with a catchphrase.

American Flagg

I got the beautiful hardcover edition of Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg last week in advance of meeting him at the Birmingham Comics Show on my birthday.

I have the original issues from the 80s (when I was about four years old) and have read and re-read them. I have a signed, graded copy of issue one and even have the post-Chaykin run. That’s a bit balls, really.

Anyway, I’ve really enjoyed re-reading it. His work is stunning even 25 yeards on – there are things that Frank Miller tried before that Chaykin shows up as mere sketches. The story is funny and quite sad at the same time – it definitely goes outside the normal strictures of US hero power fantasy comics.

So, I bought the book to get him to sign it to me. What’s more impressive is that my girlfriend is not only amused by my geekiness, but wants to come along with me. Hurrah – a night in Birmingham! I really can’t wait. Lots of other good people there too – Charles Adlard (The Walking Dead), John McRae (Hitman), Duncan Fegredo (Hellboy: Darkness Calls), David Lloyd (V for Vendetta), Garry Leach (Miracleman – which means I better find my originals of those at my mum’s house), Steve Pugh (Saint of Killers – the best thing to come out of Ennis’ terrifically smug Preacher series and already I have a piece of the original art on my mantlepiece)… basically it’s a geekgasm and I’m the one who’s going to be spraying my sticky manhood across the hall!

Fighting

Something has obviously been brewing in Hollywood when two films featuring Channing Tatum as a future star appear in the space of three months. 

Soon, it’ll be Michael Mann’s Public Enemies but, right now, Fighting presents him in the sort of NYC drama that Paul Newman would have been a natural for.

The story is of no real importance to the film and, in fact, the fighting isn’t really too essential either. Instead they make the much braver choice of focusing on character development and acting. What’s remarkable is that even with Tatum being presented as a heart throb, he does a really good job.

 

Channing asks: what's my motivation?

 

 

Terence Howard is the standout, much as he was in Crash and Hustle & Flow. He conveys deep insecurities despite his character pretending he’s super-confident – there are hidden stories he tells you by inference. It’s nice to be treated as an adult with a brain in the cinema.

Back to that issue of the fighting not being awfully essential: it carries over to the fact that when he faces his final opponent, it’s rushed over for “motivation” rather than developing the character a little more. But that’s the only disappointment in the movie’s running time.

It’s good, if not great, but the dialogue and relationships shown in the story are fantastic enough to warrant a watch.

Crank 2

I forgot this in my 50 word sum ups…

Crank: High Voltage (with the same regard for cohesive structure as the film has)

Inessential, stupid, hyperactive, retarded, violent, excessive, godzilla, amy, smart’s, breasts, headless, electricity, enema, shotgun, swearing, statham, sequel, amazing, fun.

Films: Wolverine, Star Trek and tv to movie adaptations

Ok…  50 words each:

Wolverine:

I don’t care whether it’s faithful to the comics, I just care that it’s a complete disaster of an advert posing as an action film.  Gavin Hood (Tsotsi) is a dreadful choice, the film never picks up a gear and seems to be four different stories combined into one ill-fitting mess. Jackman and Schreiber are great but are given short shrift in a desperate attempt to set up new franchises.

Star Trek:

I went in with low expectations and, not only were they blown apart, this could be in the running for my favourite film of the year. Everything is beautifully put together with just enough respect for the source to make everyone happy. The action scenes are great, the actors all do a great job (Urban as Bones is amazing) and JJ Abrams finally makes a film that doesn’t make me want to knee cap him.

TV to movie adaptations:

I’m currently watching the original BBC version of State of Play.  I’ll go and see the Russel Crowe remake once I’m done but I really fail to see how he was the right choice for the John Simm role.  Either way, I’ve really enjoyed seeing David Morrissey, Simm, Kelly McDonald, James McAvoy and Bill Nighy giving the sort of performances that put “Oscar” winners to shame.

Today, I am suffering with a cold and trying to decide whether Fight Night Round 4 is going to be a disaster without button controls.