Friends ago.

Here are the first two songs from our soon-to-be-released rekkid, enjoy!

Day Job by briscoeinyourears


Animal by briscoeinyourears

I am your master.

Sealed for freshness.

Monday, May 30 2011... almost.

Briscoe. the album on compact disc, in all its pre-mp3ed glory

1.12am tracklist

The Mixing Process pt 2.

Luke Bertoz (left) of guitar sound on 'Animal':
"Sounds like angels pissing in my ears"

dave & kate listen in disgust to luke's simile

In memory of The Times.

_

The Times, or Be like Bruce.

Floundering/rocking.

On Monday night, I tried to record "The Times", the ninth and final song for the album. With Dave and Kate overseas, and the rest of the songs nearing mixedness, time is running out to get this one recorded. After clearing it with bandmates, I decided to play it all myself with the help of my friend and Ranger Spacey bandmate Karl, who offered his work's warehouse as a venue. This aligned nicely with my ongoing pursuit of ever-higher levels Bruce Springsteenissitude (Born in the USA was recorded in a converted factory called the Powerstation), so after work on Monday, i set up a makeshift studio there to record this last song.

I didn't realise, however, that Karl's unassuming IT warehouse in the back streets of Marrickville adjoins Boeing's Australiasian turbine testing plant on one side and CERN's southern hemisphere large hadron colliding facility on the other. These are assumptions i made based on my analysis of the loud droning sound that persisted all freakin night. This was fail #1.

Editing the turbine solo.

Fail #2 was that i had only demoed this song acoustically and hadn't really given a lot of thought to a drums/bass/guitar arrangement. There was a lot of tense floundering going on as i tried to write parts on the run... I was even considering changing the key of the song to accommodate the droning. It was becoming obvious that a more developed demo was the only thing we were going to get out of this session.

This is probably not how Bruce did it.

Hitsville AUS

The Ray Mann Three circa 2008 L to R: Me, Ray, Byron

Once upon a time i was a member of the Ray Mann Three. It was the brainchild of Ray Wassef, one-time Kid Confucius lead guitarist and soul singer. Ray imposed a sort of vintage suit'n'tie dress code for tRM3 gigs, and we extended this aesthetic beyond the stage and into the studio.

This was a really smart idea, it didn't feel like artifice, on the contrary it helped to legitimise the project without needing to consciously contrive anything- it put us in character, made us feel like we were doing something special and i really think it translated onto the tape.

It connected us to another time and plugged us into that old school Hitsville USA ethic of going into the studio to work, but in the best possible sense of that word. Like: this is my job, this is my office, i am the motherfucking shit!

Ray on a tank, on tour with Kid C

Ray was a very influential figure in my musical life. He is a brilliant guitarist and a really stunning visual artist. More than that though, he has a real eye for the big picture. Everything we did in that band was integrated, nothing was done without some consideration of a greater intention, an ultimate goal.

During his time in Kid C he was an assiduous networker, gathering advice from anyone who would offer it. Once he felt like he had enough of an evidence base, he left Kid Confucius and put his full creative weight behind tRM3. Gigs that seemed like a waste of time would be booked to fill a gap in the resume, and that in turn would impress the right person who would then stick their neck out for the band in some other well-anticipated context. Posters that Ray designed for the band's very first gigs hang now, many years later, in perfect congruity with those from last week's gigs.

I aspire to this sort of shrewdness, but i don't think i have the discipline to pull it off. All you have to do is take a short click-stroll through this blog to see how sidetracked i can get. My creative energy shoots outwards in a diffuse spray- a lack of focus and foresight that leads to catastrophic stuff-ups and personal meltdowns. I'm about due for the next one actually...

ANYHOO, in the spirit of Motown and the Ray Mann Three, Dave and I suited up for the rhythm section sessions for the briscoe album.

And while the stress of knocking out a whole album's worth of drum and bass tracks in a day isn't conducive to the kind of romance i was trying to invoke, it at least made for some nice pictures.

Low Down Pickin' Man

A cut from Jacob's 1964 Texas Ranger L.P.

Low Down Pickin' Man by Jacob Sewell

maths, recording and tales in space

Algebraically speaking if Briscoe is x and Dusker is y and Rosario Ferraro is R then:

x - y = R

In other words, I was playing drums in the very excellent band Dusker when I was trying to start briscoe. I loved everyone in Dusker so I bullied them into joining briscoe. This reconfiguration needed a drummer though, and despite protestations from my stroppy ego, I asked monster Rosario Ferraro to join. This overlapping of Dusker/briscoe personnel will hopefully lead to logistically simple touring and a few WTFs from confused gig-goers.

Luke in his natural habitat with dave, kate and me

I have been mixing the briscoe stuff with Luke Bertoz at Zapata Studios in Coogee. I was also in there on the weekend recording with Dusker. It was the first session for an album, and we finished one great song written by Dee and Jacob which will likely be the first single. Luke is also recording and mixing the up-coming Ranger Spacey E.P. which is going to rule.

Luke is a crazy production angel, he makes the best suggestions and tells it like it is. He is very friendly and accommodating and will work his butt off all day as long as you feed him regularly with subway and breath mints out of a flat open palm. He is also in a great band called TALES IN SPACE.

Yesterday he told me about Google Alerts and how that if anyone anywhere writes "TALES IN SPACE" on the internet, Google tells him. So this is a test. Luke, you have 24 hrs to comment on this post or i will prime my musket and hunt you for sport...

i never sleep...

"The Silent Mixer"

Can you call yourselves a band if you have no recording and have never gigged? The case is arguable. It's hard to see here but this is the next photograph in our ongoing exhibition - "Evidence of Music Making in lieu of Music". It's me in a studio allegedly trying to mix the eight alleged songs that allegedly comprise the debut briscoe record. If you look closely you can see my mouse-clicking finger poised to do some excellent editing. Actually, Luke the engineer was just having a wizz and I jumped into his chair for a misleading second.

The mixing is going well though, and will hopefully be finished by the end of the month, but it's been my life for so long now that i really can't imagine it finishing. I'll believe it when i hear it, or when i see the photos of me hearing it.

Up to now i've resisted the urge to post demos to preserve the sanctity of my conventional recording and release aspirations, but having now experienced the odyssey of recording with plenty of bands, i realised that a song i demo today won't see the light of day for at least 2 years, if ever. And at this stage i know the five people who read this blog anyway.

While i was in the studio this week (see photographic evidence inset) I wrote a topical ditty about feverishly working towards an unlikely goal and being battered by expectation, mostly your own. I demoed it yesterday so i'm just gonna post it. By the time we get around to recording it in 2032, North Korea will probably have deleted the internet anyway. Enjoy.    

i never sleep cos i'm trying to get on someone's wall DEMO

~

the long and winding larynx

It's a weird thing to write a whole bunch of songs that you can't really sing. We've pretty much recorded all of the instruments for the album and now i just have to sing it... i'm at the plate, bases loaded and someone spiked my gatorade with polio. No matter how hard my little atrophied arm swings, i ain't clearing no fence.

There's an intense paradigm shift required to make the switch from drummer to singer and this inconvenient lack of skill is being a real pain in my arse. It's so frustrating to know what's meant to be happening, to have written a melody for god's sake, and not be able to sing the bloody thing.

I spent Friday hurling myself into take after take- voice weakening by the minute, space bar being hit with increasing fury as it executed the next in a long queue of condemned waveforms. The last time i tried to lay down these vocals, it wasn't so urgent, so when my voice started to tank i just finished up for the night and tried to pretend the horrifying notion that my house was built on sand had not just reared its ugly head.

That was weeks ago, and enough time had passed so that I could approach Friday with some sunny hard-won ignorance.

Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I would probably include "...and throwing faeces" in that definition, but that'd just be a self-serving addition to disqualify myself from a diagnosis (despite getting very close to displaying that symptom on Friday night).

I guess i have been a bit crazy to think you can become a singer just by saying "i'm a singer now". Singing is hard and unless i invest in an autotune plugin and learn to lip sync, i'm gonna need to do some serious work. To return seamlessly to the analogy: i've been hoping that this guy on the mound will walk me for an easy base hit - a few wayward pitches, maybe a curveball into the ribs - but he's been throwing down strikes all game and he hasn't even broken a sweat. I'm gonna have to hit this damn thing whether i like it or not.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the rules of baseball and hence could not have received the full illustrative benefit of these rich metaphors, please see educational video below. 

i call myself the gun

Yesterday we had a vocals rehearsal at my place. We were using the day to finalise everyone's harmonies as we approach the last stages of tracking for the new record, and I thought it would be a good idea to make seven kilos of gelatinous risotto for pre-rehearsal lunch. We may as well have each had a trowelfull of rohypnolled cement before sitting down in comfy chairs and blow-darting ourselves in the necks.

Draped across a sun bathed lounge room we battled sunday-arvo unconsciousness, and we began (stupidly) with our most narcotic song All I Need's A Holiday. Holiday was apt actually, cos the room reminded me of this scene in National Lampoon's Vacation. Not so much the sexual abuse at the start of the clip, just from about the 1.50 mark.

Anyway, out of the haze came some good progress and i'll give you a snippet of us at our least risottoed. Below is a bit from a song called Bonny...

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