February 21st, 2010
We’ve been recording some of our catalogue for anyone to sample from our website and for people who are thinking of booking us to sample our wares on cd on request.
rather than going into the studio and trying to achieve a faultless recording created with the usual overdubs and re takes of individual parts, we are simply recording some of our stuff whilst in rehearsal to truly represent what we do live. What you hear on these recordings will be exactly what you hear when you see us live. Many of our peers in this business post tunes on the web which are edited and manipulated in the studio environment to show the artists in their best light. While this should obviously be the case for releasing recordings for sale so the punter gets the best quality recording possible for home consumption, we believe you should hear what you’re going to get if you come to see us live. After all, we only exist as a band to perform live rather than sell cds 
check back on the site to have a listen when these tunes are here for you to click on. The last tunes we had on here (superstition, Unbelievable etc.) were recorded a couple of years ago in rehearsal before we established our current line up you see today. The vocals on those takes were performed by yours truly whilst playing the drums and the quality was, shall we say, not ‘all that’. We decided to remove them at the beginning of this year as they weren’t representative of the quality of our act now. Now Mikel does a much better job of it and let’s me focus on my main task of keeping down the steady beats and fills to our eclectic mix of music. No one of course would be able to tear the mike away from me totally and I love filling in the backing vocals.
Look out for these recordings appearing on here soon and please let us know what you think of them via this blog.
Matt
Posted in From behind Matt's kit., General, Noises from the engine room | 2 Comments »
January 22nd, 2010
we’re pleased to say that we haven’t been idle in our time ‘off’ over the festive season. a large amount of the money we’ve been accruing from hard work and gigging has been reinvested into the band’s arsenal of equipment.
Nerds among you (like me) may have noticed we run pretty high quality PA gear including a 1200watt ppx driven rig driving the famously clear RCF speakers. We found we were busting our guts on Fridays and Saturdays moving this hefty gear around and decided to go for a more compact setup while keeping the good sound quality and sound pressure we’d got accustomed to. So ebay punters have bagged our old amps, mixer, effects, eq and speakers and we’ve gone for an active speaker setup by LEM. we also bagged a great mixer amp with built in eq, foldback amps and lexicon effects and a compact foldback setup.
You might notice that this not only looks nice, uncluttered and tidy framing the band at our next gig but the sound will be nicely controlled and punchy. Our new foldback should enable Matt (centre back screamer) to relax a little more into his vocals as well as he will actually be able to hear what he’s singing. He’s dead excited about this . Drummers have a hard time hearing what’s going on in all but the best live setups and this is a marked improvement. we have always used the very highly acclaimed 845 mics from Sennheiser and Mike enjoys the freedom of a wireless mic of similar quality from the same.
All this lovely gear added to our existing backline amplification from ThD, Cornford, Laney, Hartke and it’s a recipe for aural loveliness. Of course Cam’s ever changing and colourful pedal board (known in the band as the tray of french fancies) adds an ever changing array of grungy, smooth, wierd and wonderful colours to the sound from the right and Al’s rich tones from his Laney Classic Amp take care of the left wing nicely thankyou, although he has been breaking the habit of a lifetime and indulging in digitally created tones by Line6 lately. Jay’s Battleship of a Hartke Bass setup can move a lot of air and make rich tones which explains why his hair is always parted in the middle at the back .
Even Matt’s drumkit has been to the makeover boutique for christmas. It is now a fantastically tasteless sparkly orange and he loves it. Frankly, it’s like something from a 1975 edition of Whistle Test and crosses the boundary of bad taste and straight throught the other side and into the realms of ’so bad, it’s great’. Suits Matt down to the ground then. It’s a rare remo mastertouch circa 1994 and has a great depth to it.
so if you turn up early and see the boys enjoying a pint before they get playing it’s because they’ve had less shit to shovel tonight and they’re taking the opportunity to gaze lovingly at their new toys. before getting on with the business of using it all for doing what it does best – bringing fantastic and prhaps even musical noises to your ears. to witness this, you have to be there of course 
Matt
x
Posted in Noises from the engine room | 1 Comment »
September 15th, 2009
The boys are heading offf to the Goat in St Albans to join Stevie K and the gang.
Will they play, nobody knows – will they drink beer tease Jas for being another year older, I’m sure they will!
Why not come along and join us?
Posted in General, Gig news, Noises from the engine room | No Comments »