New Recordings

id-winter finds us recording again, hunkered down in the old Oak Park Records warehouse. It’s not the most warm environment in winter, despite the womb-coloured exterior. Still, it’s a far better alternative to spending loads of money in someone else’s studio while the clock ticks.

We got an eviction notice yesterday, apparently it’s an earthquake hazard and is going to be demolished in December. This is a sneaky tactic by Transit via their old mates the City Council. You run the area down, don’t fix up the houses properly, leave a few buildings empty, rent the rest to students. Eventually the rest of the city just says ‘oh just put the motorway through’. They’ve been doing this since the 60’s, but of course this just created a community of artists, young people and all those other scuzzy types that keep Wellington interesting …

We’re recording with engineer Craig Monk (Cloudboy). As always we’ve been playing live and then yelling through the glass that separates my bedroom from the rest of the house to see if we got the elusive ‘it’. Remarkably, we discovered that we actually do play better once we start drinking. Craig was the first to pick up on this, even ordering us to the pub for shots of tequila.

Our new guitar player David Hall has been tweaking various sounds and loops out of his Akai Headrush box. After dark we’ve been dragging out typewriters, ancient reel to reels and other junk to throw into the mix. The new material sounds real punchy, we like it a lot.

Miraculously, Geoffrey has purchased a drum kit … prior to this Geoffrey spent two years touring, recording and playing in a band without actually owning an instrument. He once arrived at the airport ready to go on tour with one drumstick. Such calamities are not uncommon for Geoffrey post September 11, witness below ‘the wine knife incident’ and the ‘lost boarding pass affair’.

POSTED BY Mark ON 15 September 2002