The Next Chapter Begins

It was a strange mixture of fear and excitement breaking free from the constraints I found in the latter days of Foam/Roque Junior. I could now set about my art in my own (considerable) sweet time. I was also free from the shackles of working 12 hour night shifts, having moved jobs to daytime employment. I had nothing to stop me now and my newly acquired guitar meant I could make the sounds I wanted to without filtering them through a slightly wayward guitarist. The sampler I had was bought out of my own pocket, so it stayed with me along with the Kaoss pad and other gadgets I would use to turn a shite musician into something approximating a not so bad musician. My skill set was arrangements and knowing how to strip away the best bits of other people’s music to add my own to.

I had been doing all of the admin stuff for Foam so that wasn’t going to be a problem, the main issue was always going to be the live situation. At least before I had a wingman to lean on. I wasn’t really the most confident getting onto a stage, how was I going to manage it on my own? I’d also now have to drive myself to gigs, so that pre-gig loosener was no longer an option. This was actually the best thing as playing under the influence added more trouble than getting up there sober. I’d never do that again. It became a regimental no-no.

As far as what I would do next, the modus operandi remained the same. Record as much music as you possibly could, release it, maybe get some shows to “promote” it. Go again. I didn’t sit down and write songs, never have. So I’d hunch over my sampler, start with a beat, add in some loops, mix until satisfied then construct the backing track in real-time on the 8-track. After that I’d add in bass, keyboards and guitar. Then record the vocals. The number of songs I recorded over the years with ONE vocal take is quite alarming. A lot of my songs have at least one mistake in them, because I knew I’d never do the singing the same way again. And I had zero patience. I used the excuse of being “lo-fi” to cover up any glitches. I would have to sit with a pen and paper and try and interpret my warblings into coherent lyrics, so that I could learn the songs to play them live. That was fun. And embarrassing. I would be using the same principal I had used in my band, of mixing down the backing tracks direct from the 8-track onto minidisc, minus the bits I would be playing. This was my backing band. I had it all worked out…


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