Studio Clip - Guide Vocals
Did you have a nice summer? I did. I went to Chicago and Edinburgh and Belfast, but now you can't take your lipstick on a plane.
We came back to the studio on the 14th, but I was a very infrequent visitor because sometimes I do other things, and there seemed to be a lot of those to do all of a sudden, so I can't really tell you what everyone else did.
However, the two hours I put in on Monday 14th proved to have an amazing effect. I presumed that Matt would be eager to begin the long-awaited singing. After all, therein lies the very SOUL of the song. But no, like homework and exercise, he just wanted to keep putting it off.
The summer break had revealed that our disappointing piano was actually very good, once you got used to it. That was heartening. Matt had also been listening to things and had actually made a List Of Things To Do.
The first thing he wanted to do was record some more drums-down-the-stairs for Outside, because the drums-down-the-stairs was so great on Rolls So Deep and Something to Believe in, and Outside was still being an irritating thorn in the arsethis is a mixed metaphor, but eloquent.. Dave was expected in the afternoon, but first Matt wondered if there wasn't just one more guitar part we could find.
Sometimes I'm sceptical when Matt turns to the guitar for solutions. Guitar solutions come early on in the process. Usually when you put on just one more guitar part it ends up being tasteless bludgeoning.
Matt's suggestion was a chorus part that was one long tremmy-mandoline-y noteHe said it was my trademark. Obviously he is not aware that I am 'The Weakest Bladder In ShowbusinessTM'. with liberal use of the Memory Man. It was OK, but out of interest I started adding some other notes to ring alongside, which was even better. Outside is in B, which allows you to ring-a-ding the open B string, which is always nice (I love to ring-a-ding an open string. It's my trademark). Initially I was playing just a load of different Bs, but it was a bit ordinary. Then I tried playing high F#s in octaves on the E and G strings but leaving the B string open. That was fucking brilliant. Get a guitar right away and try it out.
See?
We rushed to record it. While we were putting it down, something about the guitar sound and the talking about Sloop John B led me to another ringy arpeggio part for the verse.
Next day we spent the morning tinkering with a new arrangement idea. Matt and Dave had recorded the stairwell snare and toms, and then Matt had recorded a big Beach Boys backing choir. What we were trying to do was get rid of the drum kit in the first chorus, because that was always an uncomfortable moment; the bit where everything goes ordinary. The problem had been how to keep the drum kit out of the first verse, because it was weird for it to come in and then stop again. The solution was to use the stairwell drums in the original marching band pattern throughout verse one, then drop out for the start of the first chorus, fade back in for the second half and then at long last the kit comes in for the second verse and the song takes off. The good thing was, when the drums stop in the first chorus, the fluttery new guitar and vocals come in, all high up and shimmery. It's like the sports car drives off the cliff and is weightless in the air for a few magical seconds before it hits the road again.
It saved the song. Even Kim said it was the first time she'd listened to it without feeling sick.
Much of the rest of the week was spent recording things through the Memory Man. Another purchase Matt had made when he bought that pedal was the Green Bullet, a mic normally used by harmonica players. It's probably the least hi-fi mic there is, but that's what makes it great. You can turn it up loud and for velvety distortion, you can hold it in your hand (which is good because it won't go on a stand) and, best of all, it has a 1/4" jack outputnormally when your mic has a built in lead that ends in a jack it means you bought it for £10 from Tandy, and it's probably blue.. And that means you can plug it directly into your little boxes.
We find that the green bullet, the memory man and the piano is a very agreeable combination, especially when you swoosh it around. This goes on practically everything. It reaches its acme on Black Hole when we also run it through the pitch shift pedal we used for Cinderella. It works so well we also put it on Vapour Trail.
It's easy to get carried away with these things, especially as random delay sounds have been thoroughly explored by Beck and Radiohead and millions of others. And yet... it's something about the randomness of the sounds that emerge. You can recognise what they are, but they've been strangeified. It's another retro-futuristic sci-fi sound; lost radio transmissions bouncing between planets and primitive electronics pushed beyond their capabilities.
Matt uses the bullet-and-Man combination to record an eerie backing group on Glimmer, which helps to relocate it nearer the context of the rest of the album. Perhaps that's why we like it so much - instant context. It also provides serendipitous moments so frequently you wonder how accidental the happiness is. I begin to conjecture upon what the exact nature of the memories inside the little silver box might beluckily for me the box was snatched by the Nazis, and because they intended to use its powers for evil, they met with a terrifying metaphysical end..
Then I played some bass on the Lake, but I don't think it will stay.
