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EXTRAS

NAT'S STUDIO DIARY

Sunday 9 November 2003
Location: Nat's house
Recording: Piano, Keyboard, Tambourine, and Handclaps on Folded in Half and The Greatest Game

While all the recording time so far has been spent at the Ranch de la Steve Bond, this session is conducted at my place. The simple reason for this is that my house has a piano in it!

Today was supposed to be the day in the studio where we would go all madcap and pull out amazing triangle and sitar overdubs that would absolutely make the song feel complete. To my great disappointment it didn't get that stupid... we just recorded some piano instead. I got volunteered for the job of piano player.

Piano overdub number 1 (on The Greatest Game) consisted of the following virtuosic elements...
a) hit big low A-chord on the piano
b) hold for 7 beats
c) pause for 1 beat
d) repeat step a)

We should be rocket scientists.

These big dramatic piano bits were followed by some overdubs from the mighty-Acetone on 'Folded In Half' [as pictured, taken from Combo Organ Heaven]. Basically I was looking for something that sounded like it was used on Elvis Costello's album "This Year's Model", and this thing vaguely hit the mark.

And then Chatesy got to play tambourine. After his first take, Steve was heard to remark something, "Chatesy is the best tambourine player I've ever recorded". Damn straight, there was some pretty impressive tambourine going around there. Watch out for a snazzy little bit in the outro to The Greatest Game - if it doesn't make the cut you know it's been taken out the mix purely as a result of jealousy from the rest of the band.

Final order of the day was for all Banks present today (the boys, minus Bekk) to put down some handclaps. Steve is a harsh handclap judge, hence we took a verbal pummelling for out alleged out-of-time handclapping. We recorded handclaps close to the mic, away from the mic, on the far side of my bedroom (being used as a recording room at this stage) as Steve searched for the best possible sound for our claps. I'm still a little confused about how this went, and I'm not exactly sure what we put down here.

So, that's almost it for recording on these songs, except for some flutes on The Greatest Game. But as I write this, the assumption is that by Saturday we should have a mixed product, almost ready for your listening pleasure. Woah baby.

NOTE: we did an extra session of recording with a bloke called Fletch. That's him you hear on The Greatest Game. Unfortunately, I wasn't there for most of it, and I only really remember someone making a crack about a flute sounding like Thomas The Tank Engine.

Here ends the diary of the first sessions for 'Good Looks To Camera', but if you're still not satisified, a (briefer) account of the second sessions for that EP can be found by clicking the link below.

NEXT >> Nat's studio diary - Feb/Mar 2004