2001 Part 4

After all the excitement of the anniversary gig, we decided to have a break in July, and scheduled our next rehearsals for early August. We didn't just twiddle our thumbs during July however; on July 13th the rarities CDs came back from the pressers and were shipped out to everyone who had pre-ordered, complete with a lovely 'Shorties family tree' designed by Saul, which charted the various line-ups of the band through the years.

Left: Dan and Liam hand the cheque to the MS society 6/8/01

Our website host also ceased trading without warning on July 15th, which meant a frantic search for a new host. Luckily as we had bought the domain name 'www.shortyblackwells.co.uk', once we had found a new host, fans didn't have to learn a new url as we just redirected the domain name to the new site.

Ravi was keen to try and get us booked at the 12 Bar club and made various enquiries with them throughout July, but sadly without success.

Right: Stuart races to get his keyboards added to Miss Friel 2/9/01

Dan and Liam, meanwhile, used July to put the finishing touches to some new tunes and both of them sent demo tapes round at the end of the month, from which we chose the best tunes to begin working on.

On August 6th we met up with the Multiple Sclerosis society and handed over a cheque for nearly £600 raised at the anniversary gig. Later in the month we received a lovely letter from Davy Jones's sister, who had been asked by Davy to thank us for our efforts for the MS society. Davy had lost a close family member to the disease, and this was one of the reasons we chose the MS charity to raise money for. As we had got so much pleasure from being 'The Monkees', it seemed an appropriate way to give something back.

Left: Ravi relaxes between takes 2/9/03

Throughout August we worked on four of the new songs Dan and Liam had written: Sofa Gofer, Forecourt Loving, Freak Y'All and Funk Odyssey (whose title was quickly changed to Viv Richards). As the new material came together, we booked ourselves in to play an acoustic set at the Hope and Anchor on October 24th. We were conscious, however, that we were not making very quick progress on the recording of new material and so we arranged a recording session for September 2nd.

During an eight hour recording session we laid down the basic tracks for Miss Friel and Chiswick High Rd. Ravi's different approach to recording was becoming increasingly apparent by this stage. He was a perfectionist who took the view that we should carry on recording a song until it was 100% perfect. While admirable in theory this just wasn't practical for a part-time band, as it meant it would take 4 or 5 years to get an album finished. The rest of us had high standards, of course, but we were prepared to accept 95%, if it meant that we could record 8 different songs in a year, as opposed to 1 or 2.

Right: Dan overdubs at the 23/9 session

Chiswick High Rd took a fair while, but eventually everyone was happy with it. Miss Friel was a different matter, however. On Miss Friel at the 10 year anniversary gig, Ravi's amazing drumming had the crowd going wild. It was an absolute triumph. However, he arrived at the recording session saying he hadn't ever really worked out a drum part for the song. While Stuart waited patiently outside to do his keyboard part, Ravi asked Dan to redo endless takes of the song with just the guitar and drums. It wasn't until half an hour before our time ran out that Ravi pronounced himself satisfied with the results. This left Stuart half an hour to do his keyboard part, and to his great credit he pulled it off.
He did say, however, that from then on he would rather attend seperate overdubbing sessions, or only record in four hour slots rather than eight, to limit the amount of time he had to sit about. We readily agreed, as we all felt very bad for Stuart, who must have been bored senseless.

Above: Stuart overdubs 23/9/01.
Right: Liam shows his true colours 23/9/01

We held the first 'overdubbing session' just three weeks later on September 23rd. Ravi was away, so Stuart, Liam, Dan and I reconvened at Moat studios. Stuart had been unable to attend the recording session on April 21st, so he added keyboard parts to Nazi Dog and Longevity. Liam added bass to Miss Friel and Dan added bass to Chiswick High Rd.

Next
Home

---