Your Lighthouse

Lighthouse was again recorded in that magical little studio in Brick Lane. I long to be in places like that every day. With this track Simon suggested undoing the snare to create a kind of timbale sound. When I first heard it I was a bit thrown, I think he said it was a bit more authentically folk-sounding. But there was something about the way he said it that made me feel that he’d been really thinking about it so I went with it and it paid off. This track has a real life to it. People generally love it and it was never a song I thought was particularly special but I’m really proud of the reaction it gets and of its sound and its lyrics. Don’t remember who or what I wrote it about but the sentiments are pretty easy to get hold of. I think it’s safe to say Simon was a big fan of this song and spent the time to get it sounding sweet. I remember spending an absolute age on the cymbals at the end and finding a suitable foghorn sound for the end and then another age moulding that foghorn to the right sound. I think the time spent was worth it. Everyone is playing brilliantly on this. The guitar part really reminds me of House Of The Rising Sun. I don’t know if that’s where Ben got inspiration from but it sounds great. Right from the first little shuffle of the drums at the start, it’s a really special track.

http://coosticks.bandcamp.com/track/your-lighthouse

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Bookshops, WD-40 and more ‘problems’

I was chatting to Ben today at work. He’s a work colleague who knows everyone and brings the room together with his nonchalantly gregarious nature. He told me why WD-40 is called WD-40 and I’m ashamed to say I didn’t believe him until I looked it up on Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD-40

Thanks, Ben, I found that genuinely fascinating.

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I love the smell of bookshops.

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Thanks also to Pad for another of the 99 problems, it’s one I had in mind but you put it better than I ever would have!!

Here’s another three to take the total up to 7:

if you having light problems I feel bad for you son, i got 99 problems but the switch ain’t one

if you having running problems I feel bad for you son, i got 99 problems but the stitch ain’t one

if you having Will Smith problems I feel bad for you son, i got 99 problems but Hitch ain’t one

And here’s a cool and related video:

http://toeleven.net/2010/01/18/jay-z-vs-nena-99-luft-problems/

Recording 2010 #01

We did some recording on Saturday as well as the gig. Here’s a photo a day for the next four days of us in the studio with an old friend of ours at the helm.

First off, a self portrait from Ben, which looks a bit to me like they’re in a spaceship and filming for the inhabitants of Earth to see.

No? Maybe that’s just me then!!

Ben in Apollo 39

I will always be a man who’s open to persuasion

Been working on songs and instead of working on 4 at once which I was doing at one point, mistakenly thinking I could multitask like a Terminator, I’ve gone back to my original quirky idea of working on them in the order they appear on the album. Lo and behold, once I did this, I finished 2 of them and have almost done with the E song, that’s if I can turn myself into a convincing choir today! Its wonderful to listen to them together. They are working well together and Ben’s guitar on Sometimes is just SO sweet.

The hills are alive with the sound of Coosticks

Or this room is anyway. Thought I’d lost an evening’s work tonight but luckily I’d lost just a bit of editing when my ‘puter crashed on me. Still got the guitar though, which I thought I’d lost. My clever software had already saved the audio files though. PHEW! Still got HOURS of sifting through Ben’s cool bluesy noodling on this track but we really are on our way now. Its the second track on this collection, in case you want to refer back to this to see which (as yet publicly unnamed) track this is!

Recording

Ben and I spent the bank holiday recording guitar for new song ideas and Ben also put down guitar tracks for two new songs, Sometimes and Your Love Is Fragile. Here’s a pic of him in action (watch those fingers go):

 

 

Ben recording Sometimes 4-5-2009