We were woken up early by deep dark rumbling thunder, it shook us from our dreams and lingered for some time before slowly retreating into the distance like a hungry giant. It was a frightening sound, a supernatural nature that seemed beyond the science of atmospherics, an unpredictable force, dangerous and malicious. In fact, this harmless roar was the sound of our amazing world, if only we could be content with the wonders that surround us. There’s condensation on the windows, it rains, it storms, it’s wet, it stops, it’s quickly dry, the sky is blue, then grey, then black, but we live inside with our consistently set air conditioning which we run towards as soon as we find ourselves outside. The mosquitos find us on either side of the wall, silent female assassins collecting blood for their eggs’ security, flying invisible from arm to leg of their unsuspecting victims.

Today was the last day in the studio with Rajan as we completed vocals and guitars to have three finished tracks. We won’t be quite done as that three hours we lost when the storm hit is just about what we needed to sort out the various takes of violin, cello, and piano that we have had Olivia, Tess, and Rich play. I’m not sure if everybody understands how we do this, so I’ll try and explain; we have fundamental parts, chords, and notes, so strings come in, they play a supporting line, the piano comes in and plays chords, but there are additional riffs, parts, and melodies to bring into a track for all the instruments. On top of that, we ask the musicians to go in and jam over the track to see if they come up with a happy accident, generally taking some chances. So there are still a lot of ideas to sort through before we consider the songs finished, pre-mix.

Rajan is a great singer and that means a high standard of performance is necessary – if Nick Cave sings flat you don’t care, but if Thom Yorke does you screw your face up. I recently saw Renaissance at the Night of the Prog and poor old Annie Haslam sang out of tune a lot, great voice, but she didn’t nail it. I saw Black Sabbath on their last tour and Ozzy sang so flat on Iron Man (1970) that he made The Netherlands look hilly. I saw Jónsi sing with Sigur Rós, his voice was so amazing and in tune, it’s possibly the best band I’ve seen in years. My point is a Jónsi had a great voice and a great performance, a characterful voice might not need to reach such lofty technical heights, although singing in tune is generally a good idea. I read somewhere that Roy Orbison who was greatly admired by all the other Wilburys for his unique and brilliant voice once referred to the other lads as not real singers like him but ‘stylists’, haha.

Music today has been The Hollies‘ Greatest Hits (1968) because we were talking about Graham Gouldman who wrote Bus Stop (1966) and co-wrote Look Through Any Window (1965) as well as No Milk Today (1966) for Herman’s Hermits and For Your Love and Heart Full Of Soul (1both965) for The Yardbirds before joining 10cc in 1972.

Music Of The Daze