TO WHERE I AM NOW

So Liverpool have won the Premier League for the first time. A monumental achievement in a world that is so incredibly competitive. Growing up on Merseyside, football is big and I was blessed to be able to appreciate it as well as music. It was a wonderful experience in the first three months of the season whilst working on the Wild Swans album in Liverpool to be sitting at Anfield watching this amazing team play in the flesh. So thank you to the amazing Liverpool team and my second favourite German, Jürgen Klopp, and thanks to Tim for the loan of the season ticket.

We were in the studio again today working on sessioneer Ahad’s album and we got five drum tracks down, that’s nine so far. We will be planning on another four tomorrow. I was mainly playing my Ricky bass, although on one song I played my Bill Nash Telecaster. It’s been a good way to work and different to the Space Summit album that we made with sessioneer Jed. On Space Summit, the vocals were done in Minneapolis, the drums in Bristol, guitars and bass in Penzance and backing vocals in, wait for it, Borneo. It was mixed and mastered here. On this album, Ed our drummer, has come to Penzance to record and Ahad will come here at some point in the future, so we will actually be recording, mixing and mastering the album in one place, novel.

Yesterday’s sun abandoned Penzance today as it often does. At one point we left the studio to go and pick up some lunch and it was simply Sci Fi out there. There was an ominous stillness as if some great event was about to unfold like an alien invasion (Oh, that’s right, they think we’re too mad to conquer). The sky was low, as if it was slowly sinking down, encasing us in some cosmic receptacle for reasons unknown, perhaps to be studied from a safe distance. The birds seemed to know something was going on, they looked down on us perched atop lamp posts and hanging in the air like a pre strike reconnaissance force.

Today, I finally got my computer back. After tripping over the lead and causing £300 worth of damage in one second, I was happy to see it repaired with a new screen. I’ve paid half the bill already so it seems less painful. I’m hoping that this is the kind of thing you only do once. Many years ago I knocked a bottle of Becks over my laptop, that was a hard lesson. Then there was the time I bought a brand new computer and one week later dropped it and cracked the motherboard. These amazing machines are actually quite fragile, they don’t take well to accidents. The reason I broke my computer in the first case was because I was unnecessarily rushing around like a mad man. I have to learn that the trip from the archive room to the kitchen does not have to be conducted at 100MPH.

I had a session later tonight with Jeff in Ohio and just managed to sneak in my Duolingo French before midnight, phew, I didn’t want to lose my 22 day streak! Last day in the studio with Ed and the drums tomorrow which means an early start, so I’ll be trying to get a decent night’s sleep. Bonne Nuit.

Music today has been all Liverpool and all The Beatles. I played Mono copies of their first four albums, Please Please Me (1963), With The Beatles (1963), A Hard Day’s Night (1964), and Beatles For Sale (1964). These were the days of recording an album in an afternoon and releasing two albums a year.

Song Of The Day is You’ll Never Walk Alone by Liverpool legends Gerry and the Pacemakers, for some reason.

 

You’ll Never Walk Alone

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark

At the end of a storm
There’s a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone

You’ll never walk alone

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone

You’ll never walk alone