The Life

Hey guys,

We just started tracking our new EP at Toyland in Northcote with Adam and the first 16 hours were perpetrated over the 23rd and 24th of August. Here's how they went.

Day 1

Naturally we, like most other bands in the known universe came across the completely original notion to begin with drums. In case this decision seems completely arbitrary to you, it's generally the way things are done and the method has been tried and tested to perfection over the last century. So we did it too. However we spent a bit of time scatching our heads as to why Luke's Amped SVT wasn't making any sound.... The hint is in the sub heading.

All of the drums for the 6 tracks were recorded within the first session along with bass for two tracks. But not without a couple of snags. Who would have thought.

After the bass situation was rectified we started to notice that Lee's snare drum was starting to sound "loose". That's right, the belt on the famous black beauty snare was slipping and wasn't sounding too good in the process. I should mention Adam (the engineer) is a drummer and he owns a bazillion snares which were made available to us. This came in handy when creating a certain marching rhythm. Problem solved.

We were making good time and we were surprising ourselves with combined efficiency of 4 musicians all in room at the same. If this seems like a lost joke, it's because we expected to be going a lot slower due to the level of bamboozlement and prankery involved.

Day 2

The sunday started with the remaining bass tracks being recorded. That and maturely administered upward pelvic thrusts from the sitting position on the very comfortable control room couch. This activity somewhat hampered the bass recording by about 10 to 15 minutes but we didn't care we were still making good time.

The bass track got finished around 1:30 and we decided to eat chicken for lunch and as Luke being identified as the nice guy of the band, he had to buy get Adam's luch for the second day running. We ate like pigs while Adam quantised some of the hits in the drum tracks.

Guitar tracking started at around 2:30 and went blisteringly well. It's true. Everyone got blisters. Guitar lines were changed and innovations were made by everyone involved as well as the inclusion on "scrape tracks" with gargantuate ammounts delay and gain. Harmonies melted ear drums and created a stir in the control room. The experiments were a sucess. After all Mick admitted to "Shitting his pants" at one certain guitar line.

Day 2 ended with the completion of all the guitar tracks for the new EP and some lessons learned by us while we were doing the recording.

• Volume knobs must be up in order to record
• Valves need time to warm up for ages on an Ampeg SVT
• They are rediculously heavy when in road cases
• Marin's guitar amp makes people "Shit their pants"
• Pink Lamborghinis are not cool

Cheers,
The Life.

We'll have more updates when the next 16 hours are completed at Toyland. Pictures will be coming soon.