Balls of iron news March 2005
Balls of iron news March 2005
It's close to a year since I updated this webpage.
But fuck it, I run a studio, not a website. If you want to find out about my studio, it's all pretty much here. That's mainly what this website is about.
This page is about news.
Start on a shit note.
Golf split up:
At this time, all I can say is this. We're finished. Our album is finished.
Personally, it's like someone dieing. But it's worse in someways. When something isn't working, it took real balls to say STOP than continuing and damaging each other more. This band ending has been fucking hard.
Bands are not unlike relationships. For golf, the sex was great, but the house was a kip.
Really not into talking about it. Not until we finish up in the divorce court. As for the golf album, it will come out in some form, when we're ready.
So what's been happening at balls of iron? First the sales pitch...
STUDIO IMPROVEMENTS:
NEW PURCHASES: NEW LAPTOP: Santy in association with xmas pressy productions means I'm typing this on a new laptop. I can now offer bands or solo artists a little extra. Most folks recording on laptops get on fine when dealing with loops and 1 or 2 instruments at a time. But recording a drumkit for some real drums is tough to do well with a limited interface.
SOLUTION: TRACK YOUR DRUMS WITH ME, FINISH YOUR TRACK AT HOME! Many folks have taken me up on this offer including Niall Quinn, Waiting Room and Windings. Tis simple. Record your drums with me, and I can back the sessions up and give you a session CD with each individual drum track on seperate sound files which you can bang into your home computer and work away on! I'll also offer to do a mix down of the drums as I'd see them. If you're not used to mixing drums, often with guitars and basses on top, kicks toms and cymbals or even snares can start getting lost.
NEW AKG C1000s Mic: I recently picked up a AKG C1000s, which is a favoured cost effective option for a condenser mic. It's quite bright, and has produced some kinky results on acoustic and electric guitar. Also, I can now run 3 condenser mics while recording drums.
New Beyer headphones, mic stands, leads and other bits and pieces.
Who's been doin what?
Chronological round up of who I've been recording.
Here goes in reverse order:
10 PAST 7/out on a limb set of steak knives: Kerry legends and bog walrus matadors 10 Past 7 are cutting half their album with me round the end of February. 'Tis rare I get to record a band this great that I love, so I'm very excited, honoured, up for it etc. The other half of the album is happening with the fab Ross in his studio in Cork. He's the man who recorded the Waiting Room record. For this project I hooked up with Sound guy and Rock on Studios. I tracked 10:7 live to 12 or so tracks, so Richard (soundguy) and I are hooking up our AW4416s with Seanie's (rock on) BNC coaxial cable. BNC stands for British Naval Cable (I think). Anyway, on completing this, and having recorded their entire roster of artists, I'm expecting a set of Out on a limb steak knives!
My nephew - My nephew is only 2 but he has perfect pitch! We started off "Ireland's Call" and he joined in hitting the right notes. Well sliding up to them perhaps in places, but sliding to the right note! We recorded some of it last saturday. Of course he gets all his talent from his folks who have fab music taste and who's record collection (Scullion, Christy Moore, REM) I was fond of robbing. I'm the youngest in my family, so babies are alien to me, but they're also amazing.
Cluck cluck!?
And on that note...
NIALL QUINN/THE PENNYWHORES NEW SINGLE, GETTING RELEASED MARCH 5TH, HIGH STOOL: Most recently I finished mastering Niall Quinn's new single. The new single is going to be "Fattened calf meet sharpened axe". There will be a few other tracks also, including "Murder He Did" (inspired by Angela Lansbury and murder she wrote etc). A pressing deadline helped concentrate our minds getting this one finished. Niall and Marsella are expecting their 1st baby near paddy's day. Best of luck! Single will be out before that. Let us all go out and snap it up and make it a hit wedding present hit parade stylee!
KADER FIRE: In January I also started working on what will become the mighty Kader Fire's debut album. We cut 4 tunes in 2 days. Awaiting mixing, mastering etc. We'll do more sessions as months pass. Loverly fellas. They are all living in Cork at the moment, doin lots of jamming and gigging in the reoples pepublic. We did finish 1 track "feel whole" which if I'm correct will be appearing on some compilation in Cork soon...
I sat in on the completion of the Windings mastering job with Mr Fergal Davies (mastered records for Rest, Couse etc) at the bridge. The mastering suite was actually the bass player from Crowded House's place. His bass was sitting there! I played it, for a few seconds! The one what plays that smoove riff comin in to "don't dream it's over"! The one what he cried on at their last ever gig at the Sydney Opera house! etc That aside, the mastering was done on Protools, with lots of real time graphic spectral analysis going on and fixing the odd click here or there, audible to only Fergal himself. Saw some limiting hardware, DC offset fixing, eq adjusting, and finalising time between tracks on finished CD etc. Enjoyable way to spend a Monday in Dublin. The Windings record is due for release in March I understand...
THE SUPERMODEL TWINS: Newcastlewesht's finesht, The Supermodel Twins have been pushing out new envelopes. We recorded drums for some new tracks upstairs in the Globe, with its nice hard wood floor and got some sexy results. Dave, Thom's younger brother, has joined on 2nd guitar and backing vocal duties. Don't think they are gigging yet, but god is walking through the room on the recordings anyway. Expect beautiful things. Currently they are under the Wet Clay records wing (Limerick based lable with Woodstar and La Rocca) but are understandably attracting attention from bigger lables. Also, back in August or September 2004 the Twins got Hot Press demo of the month and forgot to mention it to me. Jesus lads! Well done, and you should tell me these things, tis a big deal. Also, Dave Fanning gave them a whirl, and apparently they are huge in Waterford.
SCORCESE: I heard from these guys a few months back saying they wanted to record during their Christmas holidays. They are mostly around 15 and 16. I had absolutely no clue what to expect. I'm pretty self-disciplined about saying how good or bad this or that band was, but Scorcese really got the year off to a good start. Easily the most original sounding band I've recorded in ages. And insane! Influences I'm hearing include television, sonic youth, the go betweens, kings of leon, velvet underground and the birthday party. I've never seen them live, but I dunno, I'm a big fan already. They are from Adare.
THE WORD MUSH:I'm doing some research on the word 'Mush'. Both Scorcese and The Supermodel Twins use this word. They also say "fean, bior, feaky" what have you. I know folks in Charleville say bior, but I'm not sure about mush. It's presence in county Limerick, lead me to ask 10 past 7 if the word mush is used in Kerry. But they looked at me funny and said they never heard of it. FASCINATING!
GOLF: Also in January 2005, golf died. But golf had spoken for much of my studio related work from now til last July, as that is when we started the recording. We decided to hook up with Sean Harrold at Rock On Studios. Some folks asked why not balls of iron. Simple answer is that pressing record, and engineering and having to then focus on performing tunes seemed like I was spreading myself too thin. We also wanted to try to record live, which suited Sean's place better, although balls of iron has just increased capabilities to 16 track simultaneous recording. The recording process initially started out great. But other commitments, both ours and Seans, started to drag the arse out of it. 1 2 skip a few, it's January, the record is eventually finished, and we're splitting up.
Communication, different committments, and possibly a few artistic directional tangents creeping in all meant it made sense for golf to stop. Communication since has been, well, as good as it was during the band, so I can't say what the story is. Most hopeful way of putting it is maybe 6 months or a year down the road we'll feel differently and do something. But I doubt it.
Mark O'Connor tune on Lazybird compilation: The folks in the great Lazybird club asked if I'd be into putting my tune 'Oscar and Prince' on their 5 year birthday party CD thing. I said yes. 'Tis really great to receive this kind of love. I appreciate them asking me. And I also applaud their work, they do right by the rock in all its forms, keepin it real, vibrant, and underground with all the latest bands appearing at their club upstairs in the International bar Dublin every Sunday night. And the compilation itself is great, 12 tracks featuring God is an Astronaut, Rest, Rollers Sparkers and Ann Scott.
THE BALLS OF IRON XMAS PARTY: December 2004, we had the balls of iron christmas party, featuring Golf's last gig and We Should Be Dead's 1st gig! Locally we were starting to call them 'we should be gigging', cos it took em so long to play their first gig. But they rocked out on the night. Stage presence in excelsis. They only did about 5 numbers, including Wham!'s last xmas. Also on the night we got a stripped down acoustic set from Elore (unknown Bob's new band) and Bishop's Love Sci-fi. I also helped pals in Charleville by doing sound for a fundraiser gig for the Palestinian Solidarity campaign out there on Dec 28th. It was insane, with local legends Pergatory (and former balls of iron alumni) doin the shit and with the crowd doing the maddest interactive mosh, kneelin down, ring a rosey fucked up hilarious shit I've seen in ages. Pergatory remind me of the Doors being locked up by the Liars in Queen's dungeon. The bass player played a bass solo, as demanded by the crowd. For fuck sake! Deadly craic. Almost Spinal Tap-ish. Also Drunken Leper from somewhere else (Mallow I think) opened up, doin their own metal type stuff and a few covers. "This fucker's called Breed" they introduced, lashing into a metal version of the Nirvana tune which I obviously dug hugely. Also a deadly version of the Led Zepplin tune 'off to the land of ice and snow' with the hi 'aaaaiiiaaaaaaaa' bit. Also on the night were Pat O'Sullivan and Fred. A Corkman's dream of a gig. And a good cause. Raised about 2 grand.
DICK CHEYNEY SECRETLY IN SHANNON: In December Dick Cheney landed in Shannon airport. He and Rumsfeld and Rice and all the other suckers of satans cock land here on a regular basis, in our neutral land, where taxpayers money gets spent on having them here. While he was here, the whole airport was closed, and shitloads of emergency vehicles stood by in case Al or his pal Qaeda showed up, as well he might, being able to 'get a blade past your guards, old man' (obscure braveheart reference) at a civilian airport rather than a fortified military base in the UK which the yanks could just as easily use. Instead they fuck our neutrality in the ass, Bertie readily agrees. Simultaneously Bertie is circulating literature about the referendum on the European Constitution bragging that they successfully negotiated keeping Ireland's neutrality in. If this is neutrality, I want my old job back. I use the term yanks hesitantly. As we all know, what was wonderful about the USA has been scared underground and all we see of USA is those nazis currently running the country and foreign policy on fear, environmental suicide, guns and arrogance. Swell.
22 LIVE: On Dec 3rd I recorded 22 (the greatest band on the planet) live in Dolan's. It was quite funny. They were supporting Vesta Varro. They were not the usual 22 audience (what's that?). The response wasn't very enthusiastic. Martin apologises that "sorry we're not Damien Rice". Benny gave people 2 fingers. Their new tunes are great. They are great. 22 FOR PRES!
On Dec 1st Golf played with Biffy Clyro and Fighting with wire, the new band of Cahir from Jet Plane Landing and formerly of Clearshot, in Dolan's. FWW were great, BC weren't. That's what I thought anyway.
Balls of Iron Vinyl shocker! - Sometime in November the Road Relish split single with Waiting Room and Giveamanakick was released. I recorded the 'Let God touch your children' gamak track, and even squeezed my nuts and put a backing vocal on it. Gamak's 1st album (recorded by me) was their 'arty' album (their words) and that their next one will be all shiny and polished sounding. They're doin it with Tommy from Berkeley in March. Best of luck lads!
And now, here's a news page I wrote back in November (when golf were still goin), and I'm too lazy to re-edit it and make it sound up to date. It's air of expectancy makes golf's end all the more tragic. Happy reading!
News 15 November 2004 - A real time chronicle of the rock in Limerick and environs.
This news 'bulletin' should cover since the last time I updated this site.... which would bring us back to oooh, last valentine's day.
The most important non-balls of iron news first. My new ensemble, called golf, me - bass, vox, Liam Marley - Guitar, vox, Lorcan Bourke - drums. Recording our first album. We're readying it for big pimpin' release tour in February. Dates go like this (note the frequency of the letters, t, b and c):
Dublin - Whelan's, Tuesday February 8th (with giveamanakick + hatch 77 + jetsol + bishops love sci fi)
Belfast - Venue tbc, Wednesday February 9th (with The Killing Spree (tbc))
Galway - Roisin Dubh (tbc), Thursday February 10th (with galway pals tbc)
Cork - Venue tbc, Friday February 11th (with cork/kerry pals tbc)
Limerick - High Stool, Saturday 12th (4 hour improv set! No support bands!)
Now balls of iron news. First up:
"BRING HIM UP OAK"
BALLS OF IRON FINALLY GOES VINYLY!
With much gliondair ar mo chroí I held in my hands the new 7" from Belfast's The Killing Spree. We did record last March 2004 near paddy's day. Twas ace, a live recording in Bernard's folks house, delicious hard wood floor big front room where we put the drums. We put the guitar amp in the hall and bass amp in the TV room. The lads wore headphones and rocked out. Day 1 we tracked all 7 tunes. Day 2 we did vocals, and in the long tradition of Northern Ireland bands using samples from flicks, on the start of 'No Traces' we put a sample from the flick 'The Wickerman' which goes "They'll come looking for me.... there will be no traces bring him up Oak .... God No Think, just think what you're doing think what you're doing THIIIINK. IN THE NAME OF GOD THINK WHAT YOU'RE DOING!!!!" click click click THRASH.
I had a beautiful time as always in Belfast. Saw 2 gigs as well, both crackers. First was Yakuza and Throat and Red Cyrus. Night after was The Dangerfields' Hellride CD launch. I'm addicted to the way Andy says "you fucker" at the end of the first song. Rockin. Gig was great too. Squall, my now pals from Prague played, along with 3 bands, some rap outfit thing well dodge, a good craic metal band and Bernard's other band, the names of all 3 escaping me what with old age and soft drug abuse over the years. Ah well, I've had a good life. I'll always have April 2004...
APRIL 2004 - Officially the most productive month of my life.
The jury is out on whether my girlfriend being away had anything to do with this. But in April I recorded/performed more rock and roll than any month in my puff. Check the list
The Supermodel Twins - More rock from Limerick pop princes.
Niall Quinn + the Pennywhores - more work on the tunes that would be released that November (see below)
Waiting Room - Nigel, Dave and Wayne plus the Out on a limb inner circle descended on the place for 1 day. We put down drum tracks for 11 tunes (I think), which they later extracted into separate audio files to bring back to the Waiting Room lab. Not sure what is to become of them. But fun was had and a nice bunch they are too.
Rest - Tricky one this. Rest needed to rerecord 1 song. But the song had to be constructed around a 6 part vocal harmony thing. Long story short, it involved laying guide tracks down over the to-be-used vocal track. A challenge which the Rest drummer man easily met. Time against us, I only had time to mix the tune with the band only. Richard Bourke edited on the 6 part vocals later. Track 6 on the Rest album, "Burning in water, drowning in flame".
Bishops love Sci-fi - BLSF (aka Eric Kelliher, amc guy, solo guy, pal) cut 5 tunes in 1 day. A more sort of pre-production session. I did some backing vocals, and played brush drums on my lap (a la buddy Holly's "everyday, it'sa gettin closer" etc.) Eric's a good skin. I send him strange text messages from time to time. He replies. I like Eric. Eric. Aaaah.
Knapweed - Punk pop brats from county Limerick. Qualified from some competition to be on a Blast AIB sponsored compilation CD for school bands. Recorded them this month and later in October. The drummer, Stu, in this time I'll swear grew a foot. Ah the teen years. Remember em well. They are talented kids.
FUCK AIB - Here we go. While on the one hand I took this money, some of which came from the AIB sponsoring, I must declare some truths about them. When you lodge your money with AIB or any other such big bank, your money becomes capital for them to invest wherever and however they want. In AIB's case, this has seen funding of ......(insert AIB dodgyness here....)
The alternatives to banking with these corporate scum sucking dildo swallowers is of course Credit Unions who will at least do stuff with your money which will fund things in your locality rather than spending it overseas fucking over 'developing nations'. Or better yet the Triodos bank, a Dutch based crowd who are opening an office in Dublin soon. They are an ethical bank who invest money in ethical endeavours. Check their site...
Just thought ye should all know that. Happy banking consumers!
Pergatory - Charleville gods of rock. Denis + pals came along and we recorded 1 tune for the same compilation as Knapweed. They are finishing their first CD, self recorded (applause) and it will be ready to roll soon.
THE ALVIN PURPLE EXPERIENCE - I recorded 5 tunes with the love gods and made a cameo appearance on their DVD. They put it together for their end of existence farewell show. They packed Dolan's warehouse with 350 adoring fans, and were joined onstage by the now famous Hector and Niall Quinn. It was pretty remarkable. I've never been in a room with such energy. Kind of fucked up 30somethings who don't let their hair down enough sort of energy, but energy none the less. Massive release. And Alvin at the wheel setting controls for the heart of the lovegod sun. Also on the DVD besides me and Hector are Stuart Hotpress Clarke, Pat Shortt, Sambo the love dog and various others of the purple possee.
We recorded Slade's - Come on feel the noise (acoustic and full rock out versions), Blockbuster, David Bowie 'Ziggy Stardust', and Carly Simon's 'You're so vain', all in about 6 hours. Didn't get to master it. But fun.
Also in April we had the AMC 1 day seminar + Vibe for Kurt gig.
AMC SEMINAR
The AMC seminar broke down like this:
1: Opening - Me, Jane and Con from the AMC basically saying hi and how AMC started, how it works, what we're trying to achieve, highlights, lowlights and camel lights. About 20 or 30 folks showed, including Colin Finnerty from Galway!
2: Viewing of "DIY or Die" - A flick about alternative media and art based in the US. This shares a lot of the same territory of all things AMC. Perhaps differs in that this is Ireland and that's usa.
3: Mark's recording demo - I brought my desk in for people to have a look. Initially thought of recording a tune in front of everyone, but time against us, I just took a look at some stuff I'd recorded. We looked at The Killing Spree recording. Here's the kick, here's the snare, here's the guitar. Here's a MIX. Then did a brief history of recording type thing i.e. the Beatles only had 4 tracks starting out, so if they can YOU CAN! Looked at everything from Ink Spots, to Bothy Band, to My Bloody Valentine. Claps, then lunch.
Lunch time music, 3 pals of Steve Purcell played their first ever gig. Cool 3 girls with guitars and great voices. Perfect.
The day tried to follow the life cycle of a band i.e. from creation, rehearsing, getting gigs (AMC CHAT), to promoting one's self (DIY or DIE), to recording (me), to having a break (lunch), to putting records out on small or not so small lables (next panel), to tales from the road (last panel).
4: Chat about lables - This panel featured Tom Prendergast of Bar None records and Ciaran Ryan of Out on a Limb records. Tom told us about his experience with running his label in Hoboken New Jersey, getting lucky early with the signing of 'They might be Giants', and subsequent ups and downs. Ciaran gave us a run down of the workings of Out on a limb records and its aims. We recorded the whole seminar on video and audio. I'm gonna have to look back over them to remember more details, but this panel gave a good idea of the kind of hard work that is involved in putting out a record, taking on the competition of the big record companies.
5: Tales from the road - Ronan and Fin from Woodstar and Niall Quinn from The Hitchers (and now in the pennywhores) spoke on their vast experience of rock and roll matters. The floor opened up and more questions and comments fired and through up lots of interesting things. Following on from the previous panel, this discussion went farther by saying it's not enough to just put an album out. If you want to really 'be big stars' the 3 elements required are:
· Making a great recording and having it on the shelves for people to buy
· Touring to promote this great recording
· Having this great recording played on radio stations before during and after the tour
It was argued that if 1 of these 3 elements is not in place, then it will most not likely happen. At this point the 2 schools of approach sort of became clear. Putting it bluntly, the DIY way or the Giant shiny Corporate way. I'm sure many would object to the latter title, but hey, I'm writing this, so fuck ye.
I think the DIY way is part of the force that said fuck big lables and them shoving dross bands down our throat. We know there are alternatives. We know how to make records too.
Niall Quinn spoke of how, during the Hitcher's biggest days they got offered a buy onto a tour with Supergrass. The price of being on a tour with Supergrass back in '95 was £20,000. Niall said that Hitchers management were seriously considering everyone getting bank loans and going for it. But the Hitchers decided not to. Niall saying a better way to spend that kind of money would be getting David Gedge over to produce the next Hitchers record. He's glad with that decision.
Similar tales of woe came from the Woodstar side. While on one hand they held out on selling their publishing rights for 1 or 2 of their tunes, turning a final fee paid from £300 (initial offer) into "a 5 figure sum", on the other hand they recalled playing to a crowd of 4 people in some venue in England. Niall piping up to say "the Hitchers beat you by 2 people in Basingstoke" (i.e. the hitchers once played to a crowd of 2).
Fin spoke of the strain of going out playing the same set at 90 different gigs. Finding it hard to sing songs that are not part of your life anymore. But such is the commitment in pushing a record.
Needing an agent to get gigs is a problem for many bands trying to tour, especially in England.
On hearing this I added my 37 cents. Speaking about the then plans (and now accomplished memories) of golf to go touring in Germany, not by the use of an agent, but by touring with Brood, a band I helped sort gigs for when they first toured Ireland. I advised local bands to use the AMC as a resource. Over the last few years, many touring bands have come and gone from Limerick, remembering the help the AMC gave, and often with the Limerick show being the best gig on the tour.
I strongly advocate bands networking with other bands and trying to build up links. As it turned out, the golf tour with brood worked out great. I got the idea from Daemien Frost hooking up with Zu in Italy. 1 band flies to the other band's country, uses their gear rather than having to bring gear the whole way. Each band organises gigs in their home country for both bands to play.
The panelists agreed that the best resource for bands is each other. The harmful part of band competitions with lures of prizemoney etc, is that it robs the bands of resource that they can be for each other. As Fin said, "it's us against the business, and we should stick together." A sentiment that everyone would echo.
Mark's final seminar thought
It really became clear to me during this day of discussion, that there are 100 hoops that bands must jump through. It's quite a bit of work, but not impossible. It is sadly the case that if a band (or a band's people) is not prepared to do this work, that it should then get happy about the reality of an eternity of nothingness. Artistically valid nothingness, but alas, nothingness nonetheless ... nghthgnnnghtnghnnnnn.
The sad part for me is that, some of those 100 hoops may involve sucking satans pecker. And I know I just wouldn't be able to look Bill Hicks in the ear again if I jumped through the hoop.
Digression...
If I may digress for a moment; I recently read books on Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison. Both gods/legends etc according to the rock press. But, sadly, when signing to the major lable machine, became suckers of satan's cock. The only justification for this is that both bands' art survived, they made great music without changing their art for the benefit of the lable (soft parade brass+strings and unplugged being possible exceptions). Justification in that they put great music on the radio.
But as human beings, Morrison was a fucking alcoholic, and my beloved Kurt was in the end a dead man walking junkie. Drugs can do good things as Bill Hicks said, Kurt and Jim being good examples. But as Rob Roy said "honour is a gift a man gives himself, and which no man can take away." Heroin takes honour and daddies away.
And on that happy note...
VIBE FOR KURT
That's right, April 8th was the 10 year anniversary of finding of Kurt's remains. So lots of Limerick bands were summoned to lay rock wreaths at the muddy banks of the Shannon. Each band gets 25 minutes, and rule was everyone HAS to play Smells like Teen Spirit!
The bands, and the kids turned out in force. And, well, I'm both proud and a little ashamed of this, but of the 8 bands that played, I was in 6 of them ...er...
Happened like this and in this order
Funbobby - They did a better than close version of 'You know you're right' among others
The AMC showband - Richard Bourke guitar, Eric Kelliher bass, me drums. Did All apologies during which I whacked and nearly broke my right hand with a drum stick. Not a good start. But fun gig.
Niall Quinn - Only act to do Smells like teen spirit, but did it solo and acoustic and it really worked.
Dark Rainbow - Me axe n vox, Hughie G on bass and giveamanaKieth Lawlor on drums. Did Negative Creep, Them Bones (well, only right that Layne gets a look in), Dive, Something in the way.
Jetsol - Fine job on Aneurysm.
Golf - Scentless Apprentice, On a Plain and
22 - I drummed with them for 2 tunes, Serve the Servants and Aero Zeppelin. Gas craic. They also did Lounge act with drum machine and the oscar winning version of Scoff, 'gimme back my alcohol' and a perfectly executed keep the scream going after the music ends. Deserving headliners.
But the crowd shouted for more, so Martin Keary (22), Ray Murphy (ex-moonboot, jeckyll bros) and me picked a tune with 5 chords (how wrong can it go), pennyroyal tea. Pulled it off. Now lets gat Pashed!
Then we put Nevermind on repeat play and collectively drank more than Kurt drank in his lifetime put together. RIPping fun.
Parque
Guell Barcelona May 2004
Gotta mention the Primavera festival - pixies ruled. I dunno if anyone understands this, but Joey's 2 notes before the chorus in Gouge Away are the greatest 2 rock notes of all time. And that's that.
Otherwise, the Divine Comedy made me cry, hearing shit from Liberation which I hadn't heard in ages, especially 'Your daddy's car'.
!!! were fab despite a shit PA sound. Singer popped a pill (showed it to crowd on his tongue) then proceeded to throw up everywhere 2 minutes later. High rock and roll and embarrassing at the same time.
Primal Scream, Julie Delpy, Pretty girls make graves, Mudhoney, Franz Ferdinand, Liars, Wilco, Too many DJs, Smog. Missed The Fall, Nina Nastasia and Dizzee Rascal. Oh well.
Since then, in June/July, Roper collected their free day of recording time, which they won at the LIT band competition which I sponsored last year. We went to the High Stool and did 6 tracks live in 5 hours. Separation was good with minimal spill etc. Then back at the lab finished vocals. These tracks are being used for some live video thing they did (?) not exactly sure. But we're aiming for the spring to do a new recording.
The Golf album started in Seanie Sean's studio during the summer. We put 9 tracks down in 1 day. Came back another day deciding 2 tracks needed to be redone. Now, happy with them all sitting pretty.
If there's any Tooth fans out there that give a shit, Liam recently said we sound better recorded than Tooth, but Tooth were better live. So there. But ye can decide when ye see us.
Otherwise, I finished the Atrophy album during the summer. They played recently with Feverdream and fucking ruled. The album is slated for release any day now...
The Supermodel Twins got demo of the month in Hot press during August and they never feckin told me. Of course I don't buy Hot press. But I'm supposed to shout about it when a recording I made gets its praises sung about. Sure I could have told ye it was fab!
The Pennywhores released their first single in November, "Legalise Murder." It contains that tune and "Haemorrhage" both recorded with me, and "Frankie goes to Hollywood" recorded by Niall himself. Before Hot press say either way, this shit is great, go buy it. 2FM agree. The single got on some playlist or other.
Recorded 3 piece Subject to Change. Did 5 rock tunes and 1 piece on Kiernan's baby grand piano. However the other lads have their leaving cert on and had to quit, so Kiernan is looking for anyone into playing bass and drums. The CD is coming out soon, so check it out.
Recorded 1 tune with Windings i.e. Stephen gave me a pre-pro CD and said "you're drummin to that." A month later we jam it. Next day we record it. Me being shit, it takes a few takes. But we nail it. We mixdown the drums, but Stephen takes away the whole session and is hard at work fashioning a classic that will most likely appear on the 1st full length album on out on a limb soon.
Recorded Elfin. Carina texted me and said she needed to record a demo sooner rather than later. I text back "how's tomorrow?" We put 4 tunes down in 110 minutes. As a taster of things to come, get ready. Carina (not sure what name she's putting on her recorded stuff) ROCKS. You'll know when you hear her voice.
I don't go to town normally praising clients, but she's exceptional. And so few girls record at Balls of Iron. I mean is it the name? I've considered changing the name, or starting a sister studio called Clitori of tungsten, but don't have the balls to do it. Once again, girls, strap on yer guitars and fuck us macho men assholes making all the music. The lack of women making music is old. Sisters, mothers, daughters. Do it!
Recorded Gawdnose. Did 6 tracks. 5 of them will be jumping on a CD real soon. Experienced real happiness watching Ken and Ger jumpin around the stool with real joy, like 2 parents seeing their baby for the first time, only they're both lads and neither of them have wombs, and they were more like hearing it than seeing it.
On October 3rd I turned 30. Fuck that. As I said to Christina Carter, says I to her says I "I just turned 30 but it doesn't matter cos inside I'm still 12."
Sad note; Funbobby Dan headed off to Philippines, so the Limerick popunk community is a lesser place in their absence. Although rumour has it we can expect a giveamanabobby side project from Morgan and Shane...
Larging it in Limerick at the moment: 22, Hatch 77, Elore, Roper, Kader Fire, Giveamanakick, Windings, Mr Creosote, Gawdnose
Recording stuff on the way: 10 Past 7 (and official presentation of my out on a limb steak knives), Kader Fire, Roper, Giveamanakick, Scorcese, Limerick Gospel Choir.
Otherwise: The golf tour - Check the golf page (tb-updated)for full golf brood tour shenanigans. But I will say this. For 10 days, we drove, tuned, ate, shat, rocked out, smoked, drank, screamed, broke strings, played table soccer, texted home, learned languages, met beautiful people, did encores, sold CDs, and robbed posters.
moc, march 2005.