take it change it rearrange it

• Following on from some recent comments here on this blog, I feel it is apt to present at this point, the second track from the session with The Idiots in Lansdowne Studios around the end of 1991.

  As you will hear, they were way ahead of their time – The more I listen, the more I think that the lyrics must have been written after some wild premonitions!

  The 3 tracks that were recorded apart from “Father” are live takes, if I remember right. I’ve beefed this a lot, squashing the dynamics, please consider it a “laptop speakers master”

• The Idiots – Track Two from the “Father” Session

Brown Rabbit

• It’s December again, and that reminds me of the Swinging Swine. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s the coming up to Christmas time vibe, evoking memories of Dublin when it was a fun place to live.
  Anyway, a while back, Padraig posted a link to some swine live recordings on the first Swinging Swine post on this blog, (thanks Padraig!) and I’ve been meaning to try to revive as much as possible the audio.
  Here’s one.
  Lots of hiss and noise – You can never get it all back, but I think this one captures the energy of their gigs.

  The swine post has been the most popular on this blog so far, and it’s great to see so many people with such fond memories of the band, plus we’ve been honoured by John’s presence here on the comments and also by Seamus over on Fanning Sessions.
  Hope you enjoy.

• The Swinging Swine – Brown Rabbit

“Nobody knows what beauty is”

• This was a huge hit back in the late 80’s, recognized as the definitive work on the subjective nature of ugliness. As the 90’s progressed, the true profundity of the lyric came to be popularly understood and assimilated, culminating in mass acceptance of the fact that we are all, at the end of the day, ugly swine.

  On a fateful Friday in June of 1997, after legislation was unanimously passed in Dáil and Seanad Éireann, a referendum changed Bunreacht Na hÉireann and banned the judging of by appearances forever.

  While initially this may have seemed like a marvellous advance for society, unfortunately it backfired by giving rise to an immense and unforeseen arrogance that swept unforbearing across the country. Many ugly swine began to appear in the national media, they obtained work as important public figures such as doctors, dentists and bank managers. Being an ugly swine came to be considered healthy as they obtained positions in important state departments and ultimately as leader of the aforementioned Dáil Éireann.

  As the stricken country slowly awakens from this nightmare, some may look to the past and blame this song. However, it should be noted that the simultaneous introduction of mobile telephony meant that by the year 2000 there was no longer any need anyway for the ugly swine to sit at home by the phone.
  In the authors opinion this was also a major contributing factor to social change as it became acceptable to sit in transited places, bars, cafés, or indeed outside in parks, with a telephone in full public view, – as if to say. “He’s about to call… he’s about to call….”

  The Song that started it all
  Bull – Ugly Swine

  Disclaimer: Certain happenings mentioned in this review article may or may not have taken place in your own personal version of reality.

You could have been the best..

• Here are three demo tracks from The Joys that were on a cassette and let me say, in this moment, I am really fucking enjoying listening to them.

  The Joys were a hard working band tipped for the big time, in the days when one used to crash out on the studio sofa for a couple of hours at 6am, before the day living would turn up and violate the tranquillity of the dawn.

  Or sometimes we’d say fuck it and go and drink pints in the Globe until they would put on that 1Khz tone at ten to eleven to make us all go round the other side to Rí-Rá, and we would bitch and swear, but we’d go anyway and we’d go back the next night too. We’d rant and share what was in our hearts and in our pockets. I was all confused, disillusioned with honesty, wrapped up twisted, implosively in love with so many things and surrounded by beautiful souls, many of them manifest as extremely intriguing women.

  Cormac got the pints in and said he wouldn’t worry about it.

  And then didn’t The Joys fade away too, and Junkster came into view, and with a deal and a ticket to soon be the next U2, it was off to a studio in upstate New York or some place with them, never to quite make it back. If we can give thanks for anything in this new century, let it be the demise of the record companies, and mouldy auld cassettes in attics of course.

• Darling Disaster:
  “You could have been the best, but now you couldn’t get much worse”

• Mr. Space
  “First you won her crazy heart, then you showed her how to fall apart.”

• Title?
  “It’s as simple as can be… You broke my heart..”
  

This is for you, crazy little man in a leather jacket. Regretful, sad bytimes that you had to bale so early for the last bus, yet happy in hoping that you found all is well there on the other side, and hey, get some sleep this time, eh? we’ll catch ya later. abrazo. K

Father

• This session was the 21st-24th of December 1991, or thereabouts.

  I was intensely depressed, on and off, for a number of days after this recording. It was Emily’s first Christmas and we lived in a house in Dalkey with an amazing view of the island and the sea.

  Christmas morning I think, It was typically chilly, the house was ancient and precious, and I went to get some clothes.

  The door of the above section of the old hotpress had a habit of swinging open and as I stood up and whacked my head off of it, in a rage I slammed it shut. This resulted in a rain of broken glass down on top of me and Emily’s clothes. In that moment I realised that something more was wrong than the typical exhaustion of numerous days and nights in the studio.

  I had been deeply affected by listening to this song repeatedly during 3 days.

  At that time I cared very very much about the lining up of the 24 track and the lifting of the guitars while not masking the vocals and the getting the bass to sit well and the noise reduction and the levels to tape and the umf off of the kick and the gating of the hats out of the snare and the automating the mutes on the channels for the keeping of the noise floor as low as possible and all that, and then, really, you know..

  There were times when it all became “audio material” or some such and it was no longer music.

  What had happened to me was that I had spent a considerable amount of time listening to a song about child abuse without reacting emotionally to what I was hearing:

  No wonder you suffer
  I’m not surprised
  under the covers
  you’ve been denied.
  Everything you thought was real
  becomes a lie.

  The consequences were, exponentially monumental.

• This is probably the best music I ever recorded

  The Idiots – Father

What we see is all around.

• The auld lagunas mentales were making their way into the project, and it was starting to bother me; I knew I remembered 3 things.

  1) I did a few sessions in Lansdowne studios with the AMEK Mozart, going for a really clean polished sound.
  2) Hugh O’Byrne played drums on one of those sessions.
  3) I used a Chili Peppers CD for aural comparison on that mix.

  I just couldn’t remember which session it was! I just got off the phone with Hugh, and he confirms that it was this track. Maybe a Mexican Pet ate my memory.

  So now that those questions are answered, What year was it? What happened with this track? What was the full line up on the session? Why did we record it?

  It doesn’t figure anywhere in other material available on the net and does sound a little different to most of the Pet’s recordings out there. If you’re a fan, what do you make of it?

• The Mexican Pets – What we see is all around:
  

Debra Demos

• Ok, it’s Conamara comes to Dublin and back to the distant past again with a couple of tracks from the 3am demo sessions with Debra Wallace. I won’t clutter up these powerful vocals with any more bla.bla..blog.. Jaysus!, mind those levels there when she lets rip.

• Heroes
  

• Sliding Down

Sanas

• Now for something a little different, This is a track that reminds me of a well in the Co. Kildare, and the layer of lime that it would leave inside the kettle on those evenings of many cups of tea by the fire.

  There was this AGA that got hauled up onto the first floor and at some point it got connected to the radiators via a pump and a thermostat. It would get hotter and hotter and then the pump would kick in. It used to make the heating pipes go off with a hell of rattle and clatter in the mornings. I’d open my eyes as the first hot morning rush was mixing with the cold of the night before, then the sound of water in the pipes would fade away leaving the calming sound of the river outside the window. That river would by times be rushing by the wall about 2 feet away from me, and sometimes above me. By times there would be a musician or more warming up in the room above.

  I really haven’t the words or the writing skills to describe what I feel when I think of those times. Sunrises, sunsets, solstices and nights of hopes and dreams, walks in the snow, rants and chats, loves and fights, the success contained within failure. And still, it all moves on, new people, new things, a new life every day as I wake up from the nostalgic dream.

  Yet, I miss you all.

• Not such an auld tape, or even an old tape, this is from a fella called Barry Moore, part of an album called Sanas, (that only you, me and a few other privileged folks know about) a track called Forgiveness:

  (the album was finished later in England and released as Salty Heaven by Luka Bloom. This is the only thing I’ve posted so far that I didn’t have a lot to do with, not directly anyway. Still, I happen to prefer it to the final version and I think it should be out there. It’s pure.)

Let the Good Time Rock

• Another summer solstice comes and goes, the days are getting shorter again, or so they say. Whatever, ya have to love these oscillations….

  Hey I just noticed it’s Sunday. let’s see, the sermon for today, courtesy of Dave Lavelle.

  This track and lyrics are testimony to the fact that the experience of Good Time and good music can and will be inversely proportional to the amount of cash (invented or otherwise) in circulation, the price of yer house and extension and the # of ryanair’s to costa del rave/year etc… but sure we all know that now, don’t we? ok ok… </rant>

• I’m sure I saw the Honey Thieves many times, but one particular gig repeatedly appears in the auld memory. Some 2×4 stage in a small room upstairs in Capel Street, was it called the Capel something? The Capel Inn maybes? I don’t know why, but I have this memory of standing there with pint in hand as you do, somehow managing not to spill it as the mob pushes and bumps past and around you, watching the Honey Thieves giving it their all.

  Many years later, at a wedding in the county Kildare, I commandeered the iTunes in the wee hours and put this on. A certain, most excellent best man was possibly a little too “well” to take too much notice.

  Thanks for the best hospitality Dave, and for everything, for you and all the Honey Thieves, this is goin’ ouuuuuaout to youz!

  The Honey Thieves – Good Time

Happy Birthday Emily!

Salty Tissue, Carpet Drifter

• Lost for words a lot mostly of late, as in the past 6 months 11 years.
  All of a sudden in a painfully long drawn out process, I have completely lost interest in everything that was sustaining my ego. I guess it’s an age thing.

  But this still stands the stubble on the back of my past.

  The Stubble Minnows – Golden Syrup Sun