Determined to kick start the New year, 14th January saw us shake off the last festive cobwebs, and hit the studio to record the 6th and 7th tracks for our next album, 'Centrafugel Bugle'. They were my 'Don't Mock The Moog' and Liam's 'Square Mile'. They were great fun to record, and as per our remit on this album, we worked them both up from scratch, and then recorded them, all in just 6 hours. The songs, to my ears, do reflect the fun and joy of making them, more so than those that have been carefully constructed over months of sessions and layering on previous albums. Of course the trade off is they are less polished with the odd pop, or bum note thrown in. Basically it's like some friends with guitars having a sing-song at a party.
Around this time we also finalised plans for our first gig of the year, to take place on March 30th, once again at our favourite haunt: 'The Comedy Pub'The gig was to prove a case of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Despite clashing with several competing key dates in the social calendar, according to the pub we had 32 people who had paid to see us, and there were about 30 more in the crowd to see the other bands. Not quite the 80-90 we have been playing to lately, but a good crowd nonetheless and what they may have lacked in numbers, they more than made up for in volume and enthusiasm.
We had had to overcome an initial 'crisis', as Marc, the promotor, had forgotten to let the door person know about the BPP vouchers we use, and a large group of our fans were initially refused entry. Thankfully Marc himself arrived in the nick of time, gave the okay to the doorwoman, and I was able to rescue our fans from the upstairs bar where they had taken refuge.
We opened with Chuck's Party (from our Mountain Therapy album). The set had to be chosen quite carefully as Dave, our trumpet player, was not able to make the gig and while Chuck starts slowly, it builds to a rocking climax that gave the Shorties-virgins in the crowd an indication of what our bag was all about.
A word here for the sound engineer. Usually we arrive at the venue at the alloted soundcheck time, to find we have to wait around for a couple of hours until the sound engineer arrives. Not this time, the enginneer was on time, organised and the pay-off to this was he was able to give every band a great sound. Only on our November 05 gig have we come close to sounding this good from a sound balance point of view.
We followed with 'Sofa Bunny Love Fest' a 'Buff My Lizard' era song, which was never formally recorded. It's been getting a great reception on it's revival, and we may yet finally 'lay it down' for the next album. Next up was the brand new 'Don't Mock The Moog'. Having had one stab at recording it earlier this year, the song really came to life in the rehearsals for this gig. It got a great reception, and I would hope to re-record it in it's improved format.
Perennial gig favourite 'Chiswick High Road' was next. This 'BML' cut always gets a good response, and really benefited from the clear sound mix the engineer was facilitating.
Between songs we could hear the chants of 'Shorties! Shorties!' which really encouraged and inspired us. Next up was another brand new tune 'The Richard Brautigan Memorial Barbeque'. Despite me forgetting the words to one of the verses, and having to spout nonsense words to get through, this came over really well.
'George W Bush' was next,..well he's out of office next year, so we have to milk it while we can. Then we were into the home straight...
Next up was the song that is certainly a contender for our most popular live song ever, 'He Plays The Lottery'. Given a rousing reception, the song is almost musician proof. Despite it's simple chord structure, for the second successive outing we performed it quite sloppily, certainly the shabbiest performance of the night, but the crowd drowned out our mistakes and saw us home. 'Forty Years' had been a huge hit on it's debut at our last gig, and proved that was no fluke when, once again, we got the audience to join in on 'I'm too old to work and too poor to quit' and sing along with us.
We closed the set with a brand new tune, 'Green Lanes'. Theoretically this should be a very risky move, but we were all convinced that the barnstoring chorus of Liam's latest, would be the perfect way to wind things up, and thankfully we were proved right. There is a nice, mercifully short, freak-out at the end, which enabled me to dive into the crowd and dance like a madman, without killing myself!
Digressing slightly, for years we have struggled with the problem of how to categorise ourselves, but lately I am coming more and more to the conclusion that we are a 21st century folk band. Folk not in the po-faced, ultra-serious, beard and jumper mold, but rather in the 'come all ye' sense, with the emphasis on simple catchy tunes, and lyrics that are usually quirky or humourous and often making some political (in the broadest sense) point. Songs like 'Forty Years' capture that entirely. We are thinking, therefore, of doing some more acoustic gigs, as we used to in the Ravi era, as that audience may be one where we can more naturally draw new fans The gig, then, was a triumph. As in the best gigs, the audience were integrated into the show, and were the vital extra instrument, the equivalent of the twelfth man in football, roaring their approval and inspiring us to greater creative heights.
On Thursday May 24th, we got together and recorded 2 more tracks for our next CD. The songs were 'The Richard Brautigan Memorial BBQ' which made it's debut at the last gig, and 'Drown, Hope and Float', which we've been performing for a good couple of years, and have really had time to woodshed into great shape. As Liam and Dave couldn't make the session, they will overdub their parts later on.
Once again, recording live as a group, helped us capture the energy and pace we have when playing live. I really think this album will be the closest distillation of The Shorties live experience that it is possible to get. Looking back, I can't believe it took us 16 years to wake up to the fact that our strength is our vibe and energy and ramshackledness, and that trying to disguise that and make a CD which sounded more professional, only succeeded in losing much of what made us great, and didn't even make us sound any better tchnically, either.
It was only when we realised we didn't have time for the old style of recording that we stumbled into this style, but it's been a revelation.Around this time we also finalised planes for a special unplugged/acoustic concert on August 1st. We hadn't done an acoustic gig for 3 and a half years so we scheduled it for mid-week, didn't ask BPP to sponsor it, and went back to The Hope and Anchor, in order to try and make it clear that this was not going to be our usual type of gig.
Then, on June 9th, Saul, Dan and I hooked up at Dan's house to record 2 more radio shows, and also to work on 4 songs, 1 of Sauls', 1 of Dan's ('Only Hicks..'), 1 of mine ('Love Abides..') and the fourth...
Well the fourth was a bit of a mongrel. Dan had taken the basic track for a song called 'Coffee 9am' (which we performed at my wedding and which was intended to be on Buff, but didn't make the grade) and gone mad with it, sampling, overdubbing, chopping and changing etc. Saul and I then added our overdubs and that was one more tune in the bag.
We then jammed up a couple of covers, The Beach Boys 'It's About Time', which we have wanted to play for years and years and years. It was very rough and ready and probably won't make it to an album, but was great fun to do, and a Warren Zevon classic, Carmelita, which may well make it to Centrafugel Bugle. As Saul is based on Norwich and doesn't get to work with us as much these days, I then took the opportunity to do a filmed interview with him about the events of the last 6 years. It was my very first baby step towards a follow-up documentary, which will probably be released in 2017!