Vessels

The reason this blog covers two days is because the international time difference has merged these two days into one - I’m sat in a cafe in London - it’s 2 in the afternoon, and it feels like I only left Texas five minutes ago…. when actually we set off for the airport at Noon on Thursday Texas time….. The flights were uneventful (unless you count A mammoth kip as an event) - Tom did walk into a pillar though - that was pretty funny….

Once we got back our lift was waiting, we loaded the van and I left the boys to it - they’ll be somewhere on the M1 presumably right now - but I stopped here in London, to catch up with some folk and watch Rage on Sunday night….

I returned to find news of some psychotic killing rampage in Cumbria (we heard about it briefly in the U.S but the details were unclear) and to see this joyous welcome party in Heathrow for one fortunate activist - This story has dominated my thoughts over the past few days, and to see this reunion, and watch as this particular girl was set upon by journalists made it all the more real - I of course left them be, and headed out into the sunshine - to begin the process of readjusting - coffee re-fill are no longer free, my accent is no longer novel, and I don’t need to head to the studio any second now…..

Album no.2 done - in the can - Hang on for six more months or so and you might even get to hear it….

thanks for reading….

P

Album is done….. We spent most of today moving between the studio, to do the last three mixes, and the roof of the South Side building, with Jen, Jason, pool, sauna, baking heat and feast…….. You can’t really tell from the pictures, as we’re over the other side of the roof to get the skyline - but over on the south side (of the South Side building) there was a sweet pool and sauna and sun loungers and etc etc etc…..What a lovely last day - V.I.P guests in some sort of Texan roof short - artists, musicians, and an impossibly small dog called Fiona….

Tomorrow we fly in the a.m - best be sleeping now methinks….

Today we had breakfast over at Jason’s - A full on Tex Mex feast for our last days in Dallas. When I say ‘breakfast’ I refer to it as the first meal of the day, despite the fact that it occured at approximately 1pm. We hung out in his yard, I stared at the skeltons in the tree, we met his friend Jen (who invited us to swim in her rooftop pool tomorrow) and he gave me the Texas cymbal pictured on the blog a few days ago as a gift - which is a sweet deal

Then We met up with John, mixed two more tracks - Boating Team and Triumph - the two with vocals, which are sounding sweet and then we rocked on over to the Libertine to drink heinously expensive ale, chat about Bill Callahan, and eat….

The fact that I’m not gonna write much tonight is perhaps a sign that we do the same thing everyday near abouts and its about the right time to be packing up and heading home - Some bands take years to make a record - imagine two years of this blog - today we hung out, went to the studio, played some sounds and then checked out a bar - yadda yadda yadda ad infinitum - nope home is calling it is time…..

The laptop - was it Congleton, or another of my associates that said that in some ways it had replaced the TV, as we all sat round in his yard, plugged in - online….. Four out of five of us here in the band have brought them with us, there is a constant flux of videos, news, music, email and online video calling, being pumped into this house whilst we’re here. Not to mention the outgoing blogathon, being perused by you right now - it comes like an informants report, at the end of every night - are you reading it on a laptop?

See Jeff there, he’s from Chicago, but he’s in Leeds, and we’re from Leeds, but we’re in Dallas, and this picture was taken in Dallas, of Jeff in Leeds, whilst we chatted online, but then the picture has been posted back online, where very possibly you might be in Leeds right now, looking at the picture of Jeff in Leeds, taken in Dallas and piped back to Leeds, by someone from Leeds - who is photographed also in the screen, in Dallas, captured at the very moment of taking the photo in question, and visible on his screen in Leeds, at that very moment……
During mixing today (another two tracks - Lee idea 6 and Ornafives) Tom realised that one keyboard part (recorded using an old throwback mini yamaha keyboard) was too quiet, but was already submixed with another keyboard loop that couldn’t be any louder so he had to do a quick overdub during mixing. It was one of the most ferocious moments in rock history - as the picture shows. This picture is art in progress - so intensely artistic that Tom had to wear shades indoors…..

Another night back at the Lakewood Lounge, we made some friends, and then we sat up again with the man Garner chilling on the porch. When it came time to sleep we followed the example of Epstein here, who at that point in time was pushing the envelope of comfort…..

Its hard to write a blog about how this tune sounds or how that tune sounds or where we had dinner or how hot it is in Texas when such incredible and disturbing things are unfolding in the waters of Palestine…. Just now I’ve been reading varying reports about how many international activists may or may not have been slaughtered by the Israeli government for the heinous crime of trying to get supplies to a starving people…… But at the same time I can’t pretend that we’re not here, with a task in hand, or that there weren’t monumental attrocities going on somewhere every day that I have written about my relatively mundane experiences: and so if you’re reading this page chances are you want to read about the aforementioned, so indulge me a glimpse at this website about the Gaza flotilla, and then I’ll continue on with the vegan burgers and the adventures of Vessels and the Conglebunce….

The above snap is fairly representative of the process. We stay away from the studio until Congleton calls or texts and then we all pile in and listen to what he’s done and make our various comments. As of the end of today we have four mixes, Feb 15th (Meat man), Artichoke, Swooping and now Lee idea 1. They all sound fairly rinsing to my ears…..

One of the main differences between this time and last, is that we’re mixing to tape. This is Congletons 1/4″ Ampex megaplex ( I added the last word for effect) and once we’re agreed we’re agreed and the mixes get ‘printed’ to tape and then Congleton zeroes the board, we leave him be and he mixes the next track, alone until he summons us….

This is Spiral, the vegan joint where we all went for lunch - My food was immense, and I stood outside in the rinsing heat chatted on my phone whilst I waited for it to be served. Had I stayed out there for any more than say an hour I’m certain I would have died of heatstroke…..

After dinner, instead of leaving the studio to get out of John’s hair we went into the live room and taped a one mic take of ‘boating jam’ for possible inclusion on the recording. Guitar, banjo, theramin, vibes and waterphone - all live, all nonsense - I hope it makes the grade. The picture above was taken seconds after Martin complained of their being too few photos of him on the blog. Problem solved..

With only four days left to bunce we have entered the ‘mixing stage’ - which on the face of it appears to be where Congleton keeps on working really hard and we all take it fairly easy. He left for the studio without us this morning, to begin mixing, with the plan being that he would text us when he had something to listen to. Once the call came a few hours later we revved over to Elmwood in the monolith to check out his mix of Feb 15th, now tentatively titled Meat man, Piano tuner, Prostitute…. The mix was of course steller, and thirty minutes of discussion and tweaking turned it into ideal….. maybe some point down the line we’ll wish it had been done differently, but there’s a certain charm to doing it against the clock - “right, everybody happy - lets print to tape….” The above snap is Norma’s where we had our ‘lunch’ - well we all make mistakes…..

After a heavy day’s mixing Martin and I bezzed over with Congleton to Trees, an awesome Dallas rock club - remember that scene in Nirvana ‘Live Tonight Sold out’ where Cobain gets lamped by the bouncer during Love Buzz, well that was in Trees. A fifteen year old Congleton watched the carnage unfold frdeom the balcony, and he says that tomorrow that he’s going to tell us the bouncer’s (who is a chum of his) side of the story. the headline act were Brutal Juice, at times punk, at times black metal, at times psychedelic, always frantic, and slightly twisted. It was a privelige to go with John Congleton of the Paper Chase and watch the reunion show of a band that he cites as a big influence. I thought they were never going to end, and after an hour and a half of pure inventive carnage, Congleton made an executive decision and we headed for the exit….. I have come to many a philosphical conclusion about myself and the nature of rebellion and music during his evening, that I will neither attempt to share now, nor remember by morning…..

I awoke this morning on one of the many couches of Jason Garner. David Bowie singing ‘We could be heroes’ began to emanate from the record player as coffee was served, and the day ploughed into gear. I had the feeling that I hadn’t been asleep for that long - but since I had no frame of reference for what time we finally crashed or even what time in the morning it was I neglected to speculate….

We walked out back and surveyed the magic of the creek in the daylight - the closest comparison I could draw was Cubendoo’s Meanwood yard on the stream, but here in Dallas it seems like everyone has so much land and space - a boon of the great colonial escapade I suppose - As we were hanging out last night i took Al MacSween’s field recorder and left it taping down by the creek, hopefully some of the sounds I captured will be of use on the record…..

Before heading out though we had to check out Jason’s pad in the daytime. He showed me his beautiful bass guitars, an old 90s P bass and a vintage seventies epiphone with flat wounds and an f-hole - the kind of stuff that to the none musical amongst you will sound like classic nerd jargon, was to me another classic moment of axe envy and appreciation…..

And this was just begging to be photographed. I failed to even ask if Jason had himself sliced this cymbal into the shape of the state of Texas, but my presumption is that he did and that there doesn’t need to be a reason why….

Then onto Shlotzky’s for breakfast - significant because I could have posted twenty or so snaps over the last ten days of us in one sandwich outlet or another. Until Sean’s last night we hadn’t eaten a home cooked meal, but we’ve been well served by the various tacorias and sandwich shops of Dallas….

Then onto the Congleyard for our last day of recording - some more vocals, some of my guitar, some keys, some bass - just generally finishing off all the little bits - I wasn’t short of photos for this particular entry, and probably could have omitted the above snap of the Conglebunce without harming my narrative - but since it was taken from the couch where I’ve spent most of my time over the last five days I thought I’d throw it in as a sort of Pete’s eye view of the man at work….

And this snap is Lee on vibes. Things-that-we’ve-forgotten not withstanding, this shot represents the very last overdub of our album (We’ll clearly end up doing more) and tomorrow we move onto mixing and putting this baby to bed….

And so onto our evening out at Lee Harvey’s (Yup there is a bar in Texas named after the man to whom the assasination of Kennedy is popularly attributed - whilst we were at lunch in Oak Cliff today Congleton pointed out the theatre where he was dragged out and arrested in front of the public and media) - We were on our way by taxi, to meet an old friend of Tom’s who happens to live near here, when we saw this grizzly sight on the road, surrounded by firetrucks and police laying down lit flares to close the road. To me its unsurprising to see the aftermath of an accident considering how many cars and roads there are round here, and how confusing some of the junctions are…..

And Lee Harvey’s was ace - we watched the Graceland Ninjaz - an Elvis tribute act with a twist, in that they are fronted by an Elvis impersonator but they play contemporary covers, such as ‘the Distance’ by Cake, or a tune by the Low Riders…

We stayed out till they shut the bar at 2, chatting to, amongst others, Crazy Dennis the gun-totoing democrat, until it was clearly time to abandon ship and make a break for home. I left the field recorder on again for most of the night, except this time it wasn’t on pause, so a nugget or two of Texan wisdom may yet work its way onto our record…. We’ll see….

The wiley amongst you will notice the late appearance of this blog, which didn’t appear at the end of the night as usual - circumstances left us without wi-fi for 36 hours - in part awakening me to my crutch-like dependence upon it; I felt like a child lost in the aisles - then I got over it and moved on…..

The day was spent largely recording vocals and various bits of other stuff. The vocals went well - Lee and Tom rinsing their vocal chords to the max in the name of rock etc etc etc….. The picture above is yet another composite that I’ve put together to facilitate my 60% listening mode. I tried to do this one with the camera in the same position for each shot, to make it slightly less Picassoesque, and in doing so I think it looks far cooler than some of the others…..we’re almost there - I think……

We rounded off our evening with a quest over to see Sean and Jason of the Paper Chase. Sean cooked us dinner and we hung out in his yard listening to tunes and enjoying the warmth…. then Martin, Tim and I bunced over to Jason’s to sit out on his lawn and chat till the early hours - soundtracked by the steady sound of the creek that runs behind his house and all of the animals that congregate around it. Pictured is the man Garner himself, sat on the rug of the unicorn, regaling us with tales of visiting all but one or two of the 52 states…….

Wednesday 26th May 2010

It would seem that it’s best not to listen too hard during this process, or otherwise you start to obsess about the kinds of tiny details that no-one’s ever gonna hear anyway - It has been suggested more than once during these sessions to divert at least 40% of your attention elsewhere, hence the hours I have spent, semi concentrating on the overdubs whilst putting together composite shots of recording studios on Photoshop. The above Conglesplice is a little messier than I would have hoped, mostly due to me taking all the shots from different positions, and the severance of his left hand was not intentional - He looks a tiny bit like Bruce Lee in Game of Death, except with only one hand and without Chuck Norris crudely edited into the mix….

Here I am overdubbing some fingerpicked acoustic guitar onto ‘Boating Team’ - I’ve been worried about this part, as its tricky to make it smooth, but by practicing it a lot over the past couple of days and by doing a good hefty warm up immediately before sitting down to record it I was able to nail it in a couple of takes - or at least I think I did - 60% listening would seem to suggest I did anyway……

We didn’t do such a long day today - a bit more guitar, loads of Tom’s vocals, and some more silliness, but we did take some time out of our day to make one very special boy’s dreams come true - This next picture shows Vessels, taking a well earned break from their hectic recording schedule to help Jonathan Leslie Conglecup achieve his lifetime’s ambition and visit a real working recording studio. This magic moment was brought to you by Vessels in association with the ‘Make a Wish Foundation’ - We asked Jonathan how his special day felt, his reply  - ‘It was just super, a super, super treat - can I have an ice lolly now please….’