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Nov 25 2021

TO WHERE I AM NOW

Today we signed a new contract for our flat so we are here in this location for at least another year. It’s a result, a relief, a place we like in an area we like at the right price without the hell of looking for somewhere else. Plus we are in another country, another language, it’s hard enough finding a place in your own tongue. I really didn’t want to go through moving any more boxes although if we do actually get the archive here, I’ll be faced with it again. After the hands issue, I think I’ll be looking for some strapping young lads to do any necessary moving, just as long as they’re not naked firemen.

It’s been a busy day of listening to sessioneer projects. I was listening to sessioneer Fred in Minneapolis and sessioneer Brian in Indiana’s songs. I went through all the new demos of the second Space Summit album today (fourteen songs) as we consider sending them to Ed, our drummer, to get him up to speed. When would we record a new album? Who knows? When you consider that because of the vinyl queue nightmare (Thanks, Adele) the Space Summit vinyl for Life This Way won’t be available till the middle of next year. Shouldn’t smaller artists get preference as they are likely selling a bigger percentage of vinyl than major artists are? Haha. For me, for Space Summit, for MOAT, it’s not that far off 50/50 for CD and vinyl. I imagine that for Adele and Eddy Sheeran, the vinyl vs digital vs CD is heavily leaning in the direction of digital downloads. Does anybody know those figures I wonder? We’ve heard that Adele’s album has been the biggest selling album of the year in the first three days of its release. Another world.

It seems we got a pretty amazing Arktik Lake review.

Good news, sadly much better than my review of The Banshees’ Hyæna. Please don’t send me messages telling me how wrong I am and they should hang me along with Mike Pence because then I won’t bother writing about music or anything. I like so much by this band and really I don’t blame them so much as I do the ‘circumstances’.

So, music today was, you guessed it, Siouxsie and the Banshees‘ Hyæna (1984) which came after the double live album Noctourne (1983). It’s the album where Robert Smith joined and co-wrote all the songs. The US version featured the stand-alone single Dear Prudence by The Beatles. For me, it misses the innovation of John McGeoch or the raw sound of John McKay and relies a little too much on a reverby atmosphere. Dazzle and We Hunger don’t really allow entry into the songs, notwithstanding the 27 members of the London Symphony Orchestra who for me rather than making it bigger making it vaguer. Budgie, the innovator, can’t have been happy with the drums on this track. Is it even him? Or has the damned producer convinced him that ‘the now’ is a dull drum machine like Waddy Wachtel did with the ex-band on Gold Afternoon Fix? Japan might have influenced Take Me Back or was it Brian Auger? It’s an album where I don’t particularly notice the guitars, more keyboards and that dreaded verb that’s on everything, the bass, the drums, the guitar, the vocals. What happened on Bella Donna? Lacklustre drums again, for all those fantastic beats that Budgie so often came up with, he dropped the stick on this one or wasn’t allowed to pick the sticks up. Muddy bass, half a song. You can hear by how it ends that there’s too much effect on the guitars, losing presence in a wash of soap for no reason – overeffect it and then bury it, genius. Robert Smith was always temporary but gone after one album.

The first single, Swimming Horses, just isn’t up there with the last eleven singles (it sounds like a Jim Kerr/Simple Minds album track, saved by Budgie) and why are they recording the vocals in a bathroom? Is it something to do with Geffen Records? The American market? This is their first new album released on a major US label and it’s the least engaging. It’s as if the A&R department thought this was the sound of now and wanted a producer who sounded like now and that’s the problem, Mike Hedges and the bowing to the alleged underground zeitgeist. It happened to us in the ex-band, the doomed sound of now, in our case it was Nick Launay and the mix of Seance (1983). This was the era when the engineer/producer became more important than the band and their sound was what the record companies thought was the way to go, Steve Lillywhite and horrible drums, most eighties bands with a so-called ‘expensive name producer’ suffered from awful drums. How could the band possibly know better? Technology changed the way bands really sounded and if you had little experience it was difficult to fight against technology – and the Thompson Twins (the clothes, too).

The last part of the album leaves me cold (except Blow The House Down), what happened with Pointing The Bone that sounds like it was mastered quieter? (Or has Spotify or the label messed it up?) This would have been a much better album in the hands of Nigel Gray who produced The Banshees’ Juju and Kaleidoscope. A Kiss In The Dreamhouse was Hedges’ entry into the project as he engineered it but wasn’t able to push too hard for the sound yet until he got his hands on Hyæna. The first disappointing Siouxsie and the Banshees album where the songs are weaker than the previous albums and the production makes it worse.

Music Of The Daze

Written by Marty Willson-Piper · Categorized: Blog

Missing

This is my stolen 1965 Rickenbacker 12-string, serial number EB157. If there's any chance of this guitar coming back to me before I go to meet my maker, then that would be wonderful. Please contact me if you have any information.

11209512_1669022976719710_7288437867089763325_n

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You usually don’t spend the day in the studio an You usually don’t spend the day in the studio and the night at a gig but if you put the studio next to the gig then there’s a greater chance. So @salimnourallah did just that, he put the gig and the studio next to each other and made it possible for me to spend the day recording and the evening playing live 🎵

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TO WHERE I AM NOW A visit in the studio today fro TO WHERE I AM NOW

A visit in the studio today from old mate Mark Burgess from The Chameleons who has been hanging in Texas recently. I was thinking about the two of us growing up in the northwest of England and all these years later finding ourselves in such an unlikely spot together. We fixed a few issues in the universe and I carried on recording some guitars until Mark had to leave. Mark had played at the Galactic Headquarters next to the studio this year as Olivia and I had four years ago and this reminded me to remind myself to remind everyone to remind their friends that we will be playing there with Salim on Saturday, New Year’s Eve, for the ultimate in intimate performance. You can get tickets here (follow link below).

CONTINUE READING: https://martywillson-piper.com/2022/12/to-where-i-am-now-1045

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TO WHERE I AM NOW Sadness manifested in a buildin TO WHERE I AM NOW

Sadness manifested in a building, today we went to visit Paisley Park. Prince built Paisley Park in Chanhassen, about twenty minutes southwest of Minneapolis. It opened in 1987 and he recorded his later albums there. Apart from Prince, REM also recorded and mixed Out Of Time there, recording Kate Pearson’s vocal on Shiny Happy People vocal. Madonna had Prince play guitar on three songs from Like A Prayer and the two co-wrote Love Song, finishing it remotely due to Madonna not being able to stand the cold weather and the rather desolate location of the studio. Of course, there are things around but it’s not in the city and it’s not in the countryside, it’s in a suburb, no distractions, just what Prince wanted.

CONTINUE READING: https://martywillson-piper.com/2022/12/to-where-i-am-now-1032

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In Deep Music Archive

Songwriting & Guitar Guidance with Marty Willson-Piper
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"These are awesome sessions that I highly recommend for guitar players of all levels. Very informative, frank discussions on everything related to guitar and music in general. Definitely a must for anyone pursuing songwriting."
(Stephen G., VA, USA)

"Marty knows how to bypass scales and get to the heart of feel and timing. His musical knowledge spans multiple cultures and genres. Perhaps most importantly, Marty is a cool dude. I highly recommend his guitar guidance." (Jed B., MN, USA)

"Ok, so you’re sitting in your home and Marty is across the world but is actually right here teaching you how to play guitar and write songs. He is a delight to talk to and he is your teacher, meaning he wants to see you get something out of his lessons. You know he’s paying attention and wants to steer you in the right direction. I am so grateful and humbled that he offers his time in this manner. This is an amazing opportunity for anyone who admires anything from his enormous body of work. How often do you get to learn from somebody that inspired you in the first place? Amazing." (Ann S., CA, USA)

Missing

This is my stolen 1965 Rickenbacker 12-string, serial number EB157. If there’s any chance of this guitar coming back to me before I go to meet my maker, then that would be wonderful. Please contact me if you have any information.

11209512_1669022976719710_7288437867089763325_n

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