A shorter day in the studio because we went to see Love & Rockets at The Factory in Deep Ellum. Quite a large venue with a lot of people in black T-shirts reminding us about The Cure, Joy Division, Talking Heads, Pink Floyd, and in my case the In Deep Music Archive, so no one under thirty – it shows that generations take their cult bands with them and the new generation doesn’t care how hip or cool they are/were. Apparently, the band hasn’t been to Dallas for twenty years, but then they haven’t been anywhere for fourteen years. What do they sound like, noisy, they make a racket for three people in sunglasses.

Some kind of punky, glam, Sabbath with dance in them, incorporating addictive gothic nursery rhymes in songs like No New Tale To Tell and Kundalini Express. I’m always surprised to see so many people attend an alternative concert with such angular tones, although the Bauhaus legacy obviously helps. The light show was an impressively updated hangover from psychedelia and on the subject of days of yore, Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong’s Ball of Confusion and adding War into the medley was a nice touch. I was glad about the earplugs, though.

The day started with Tess coming into the studio to play cello on a song that was going to make the cello the main instrument, the riff, the feel, all dominated by her. It worked so well that the scratch track guitar was condemned to the land of mute. After this track we had her play on a song that only became a potential cello song a few hours before, so it took some time to work out parts and see what worked, it was tricky, there’s some odd harmony part that takes the song to interesting places that the basic chords don’t reach. Sarah and Olivia overseeing Tess because they love the cello.

After Tess, we had Rich come in for piano on two songs, one which has been changed into another key and the second the same one that Tess experimented with. Salim was back today and contributed a good idea for the chorus and then we were done as we had to get to the venue. We went via the accom where we dropped off computers and violin before heading to the venue where we picked up guest list tickets for four of us, Kevin (engineer) who is a big fan and as it happens lives two blocks from the venue, Sarah and Olivia and me. Thank you to the band and all who made that happen.

Music today has been Vinsantos – A Light Awake Inside (2009), who supported Love & Rockets in Dallas last night. A true artist with Agness Twin on guitar and backing vocals, the evening’s performance.

Music Of The Daze