Liam was home on holiday from Japan, so he took Mal's place on this session. It all ended up superbly, but there was a slightly inauspicious start. Journalist Dan had been in the pub with his colleagues since 1pm, and thus when he arrived at the station, slightly inebriated, bought a ticket to the wrong town. By the time he got it altered we'd missed our train and had to wait an hour for another one!! But late on the friday we finally arrived at Mark's house. The next morning we had an early start, and got our last 3 tunes recorded: My 'The Great Leveller', Liam's 'Teenage Crisis In McDonalds' and Dan's 'Woodward and Bernstein'.
We left early on Sunday, so that Liam, Dan and I could mix the 6 tracks recorded in the last 2 sessions. Mike couldn't do it this time, he was away with his wife, so we had to give it our best shot.
Left: Liam rocks out!
Right: Liam explains to Mark, how he'd like the Keyboards to sound in 'Teenage Crisis'.
Personnel:
Vocals, guitar, rainstick: Aiden
Keyboards: Mark
Bass: Dan
Drums: Saul
Wah-Wah guitar: Liam
Notes: I have always worried, ever since I wrote it, that this song would be mis-interpreted. I mean it very seriously. It came to me when I was thinking about all the good people who have been brought down by sex 'scandals' when basically it's something we all do, and are just being hugely hypocritical. The 'President of the USA' verse is about Gary Hart, and the 'reigning king of showbiz' verse is about Micky Dolenz. The quote at the beginning is what Mike said before the finished take of 'Papa Gene's Blues'.
Saul saved his best drumming for the recordings.
Teenage Crisis In McDonalds: (Liam Simington)
Personnel:
Aiden: Vocals
Liam: Guitar
Mark: Keyboards
Dan: Bass
Saul: Drums
Notes: We'd performed this very well at Liam's leaving do in May 97, but after he left we really couldn't get it together, and really wondered what would happen. When Liam came back for his summer holiday, he really got everyone back into the groove with it at a rehearsal, and so we came to the recording much more confident. I remember him explaining to Mark the kind of funky sound he wanted on the keyboards which he only thought of that morning, and I remember Saul just really got into a drumming groove. He had NEVER played the drumming part anywhere near that well even in the rehearsal one week previously, but for some reason it all came together that day. The other thing I recall is Liam wanted a really mellow sounding vocal, and I just couldn't get it. He's my bro, but that didn't get me off the hook, and the two of us worked for ages and ages to get the feel he wanted, and finally did, but found the soft tone of it meant the lyrics were inaudible, so after all that time I had to redo it the way I had originally sung it. Oh, and we wanted a police siren at the end, but Mark didn't have that effect, so we settled for tongue-in-cheek gunshots instead. In the scat vocals I got in a streeb ( Saul and I's nickname for each other , also used in 'Fish'), and I loudly mimicked Saul's 'hooh-ha' from 'Suitcase' (recorded earlier) to cover a small guitar error by Liam.
Role reversal: Liam bangs it out on bass, Dan enjoys Liam's beautiful new guitar.
Woodward and Bernstein: (Dan Auty)
Personnel:
Guitars: Dan
Bass: Liam
Vocals: Aiden
Drums/spoken interlude: Saul
Notes: This great tune of Dan's had been kicking around for a while. Indeed we played it at Liam's farewell do in May '97. Dan wanted a very gnarly vocal, so he came up with the idea of putting the vocals through the guitar distortion pedal. It worked really well. The song is, of course, about the 2 journalists who exposed Nixon's Watergate scandal, and Saul 's monologue is meant to be the editor of the Washington Post. Dan recently watched 'All the President's Men', and said he wished he'd seen it sooner, as it had given him ideas for more verses. This was great fun to play. I'm a jangly pop kind of guy, but it's great to cut lose, once in a while.
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