Blogs

Monday 17th October 2005 2.00 am and I’m still in the taxi en route to Exeter. Check into the hotel at 3.00 a.m. The ‘alarm’ goes off (sorry!!!) at 6.15 a.m. and at 6.55 we are on a train bound for London Paddington station. 9.15 a.m. and and a taxi takes us to Abbey Road. The session isn’t due to start until 10.00 a.m. so we grab some breakfast in [read more]

Sunday 16th October 2005 On the road again from Morecombe heading to Newquay to play a show with Dead Men Walking. Actually the trip wasn’t too painstaking. Watched a film on my laptop and had a listen through the Alarm album as tomorrow I am going to Abbey Road studios in London to master the new record which is coming out on EMI next year on February 20th. Arrived at [read more]

Day Sixty Three : Saturday 17th September 2005 Pete Walsh remixes ‘Raindown’ at Ark Studios in Surrey. James Stevenson is the only member of the band in attendance. Publication:: Author::

Day Sixty Two: Saturday 16th September 2005 This weekend, Pete Walsh is going to remix two more tracks for us ‘My Town’ and ‘Raindown’. James is particularly keen for him to have a go at ‘My Town’ as it is his favourite track on the record and he thinks there is possibly a better mix to be had. Pete is keen to help out on the record and has offered [read more]

Day Fifty Sixty One : Saturday 20th August 2005 Capitol Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles. Once again, while I perform Alarmstock in the live area of studio 2, Charlie Paakkari creates an amazing mix of ‘Superchannel’. I got to hear it at the end of the day and it blew me away. Publication:: Author::

Day Fifty Sixty : Saturday 13th August 2005 Electric Lady Studios, New York. While I perform an extremely emotional Alarmstock in the live are of the studio. Ryan Simms works up a masterful remix of ‘It’s Alright / It’s O.K.’ At the end of the evening, we played the track back to the fans in the live room and they all stood up and applauded at the end. I said [read more]

Day Fifty Nine : Sunday 7th August 2005 Pete Walsh mixes ‘Something’s Got To Give’ at Ark studios in Surrey. James Stevenson re-records the guitar solos for the track. On the phone James is very excited about the new re-mixes. I can’t wait to hear them. It’s great that James cares so much about the record to do something about it. Publication:: Author::

Day Fifty Eight : Saturday 6th August 2005 Today is Alarmstock Abbey Road. The idea is that while I am performing the shows in the live room downstairs at Studio 2. The engineer Chris Bolster will work on a new mix of ‘This Is The Way We Are’ upstairs in the control room. I suppose that after James phone call, I decided that we had nothing to lose but to [read more]

Day Fifty Seven : Monday 29th July 2005 I get a call from James Stevenson, he has been listening to the album non-stop all weekend and morning. He is not too happy with some of the mixes. I haven’t been listening since the sessions finished but my instinct is that he may be right. We are only talking about a couple of songs. He has spoken to Pete Walsh who [read more]

Day Fifty Six : Saturday 30th July 2005 We all assembled at the wedding and had a blast, kicking into our favourite glam rock tunes and toasting the health of the album. The dance floor was packed for our ‘set’ and we had a great time. A fantastic way to finish the album. A good time was had by all. Publication:: Author::

Day Fifty Five : Friday 29th July 2005 Midday and a quick check of the mix of ‘Be Still’ and it is sounding fantastic. It’s the final day today and Liam turns up to pick up all the equipment to take it back to Wales. We have agreed to play at my friend Richard’s wedding. I have known Richard ‘mod’ Jones all my adult life and am his ‘best man’. [read more]

Day Fifty Four : Thursday 28th July 2005 George and Martin have run the vocal comp through to the morning. We are all getting tired now and everything is taking longer. George wants to mix the track during the afternoon. His initial thought that it would be an easy mix is not how it turned out. George and Martin got into the mix big time and even had Steve re-record [read more]

Day Fifty Three : Wednesday 27th July 2005 Today followed a similar pattern as yesterday. Vocal comp on ‘Something’s Got To Give’, then some last guitar overdubs and then onto the mix. The main thing to worry about is about having backing vocals or not. ‘B.V.’s’ as they are known, can make a track sound soft and as this is a hard beast we decided to leave it alone. The [read more]

Day Fifty Two : Tuesday 23rd July 2005 In the morning, George and I sorted out the best vocal take for ‘This Is Life [Get Used To It]. We added some sparse percussion and close harmonies which took a bit of working out. George and James are both good at understanding the physics of the harmonies whereas I tend to be more instinctive. By the middle of the afternoon we [read more]

Day Fifty One : Monday 22nd July 2005 Run off the mix of ‘Zero’ and then Craig records bass on ‘Few And Far Between’. We then move onto ‘This Is Life [Get Used To It]. I recorded an acoustic track with the microphone at one end of the room which sounded great. I then added another acoustic track with a capo on the second fret so that I could play [read more]

Day Fifty : Sunday 21st July 2005 George is mixing ‘Zero’ this morning. The track has most of it’s information recorded. It only needs a guitar part from James which gets recorded by lunch time. I am going into London to visit Bobby Troman who first started working for The Alarm back in 1983 on the Stand tour. Bobby is only 42 but recently suffered a huge stroke whilst on [read more]

Day Forty Nine : Saturday 20th July 2005 We head off to the Leckie wedding at 9 o’clock in the morning to soundcheck before the wedding guests arrive. It has been a nice distraction for us doing the Rev it has given us a break from the intensity of recording. We do go back tot he studio for the afternoon and record some backing vocals for ‘This Is The Way’. [read more]

Day Forty Eight : Friday 19th July 2005 Somehow we have been coerced into playing a Children Of The Revolution gig for John Leckie. John Leckie is the famous producer of the Stone Roses / Radiohead etc. etc.Barry has been playing him the Rev CD and he loves it. John really wants us to play at his daughters wedding. We decided to do it a while ago as we have [read more]

Day Forty Seven : Thursday 18th July 2005 It’s a busy early morning as Jules and Dylan are going back to Wales. Jules has got Alarmstock in London, New York and Los Angeles to organise and I am going to be extremely tied up with finishing the album. Jules friend Belinda has been staying with us for the last few days and has offered to drive them back to Wales. [read more]

Day Forty Six : Wednesday 17th July 2005 Tough day finishing ‘Without A Fight’ mix. George finished a mix with Martin that everyone seemed to like. While we were making a cup of tea, James said he didn’t think it was sounding as good as we had it in The Chapel. I told him to say something to George, but he wouldn’t. In the end I ran back into the [read more]

Day Forty Five : Tuesday 16th July 2005 Began the day with a walk along the river into Henley. By ten we were working on comipling the best vocal take from the four that I had sung last night. By the afternoon we were still looking for that counter melody on the bridge, I came up with an idea that James and I worked on together for a while before [read more]

Day Forty Four : Monday 16th July 2005 We finish the mix of ‘Cease And Desist’ by midday and then move onto ‘Without A Fight’. Steve and Craig arrive in the afternoon and we play them the mixes of the three finished tracks. Everyone is pleased with the work so far, although Steve feels that his drum kit could sound a bit better on ‘Superchannel’. Both Craig and Steve are [read more]

Day Forty Three : Sunday 15th July 2005 It’s time for me to me to deliver the lead vocal on Cease And Desist. As it is such a fast song there is no holding back on the vocal, It brings out a very ‘Declaration’ quality in my vocals. Once the vocal are on we begin to realize that our initial idea of starting the track straight in at the lead [read more]

Day Forty Two : Friday 14th July 2005 George finishes the mix in the morning, while Jules, Dylan and myself take a walk along the banks of the Thames. It’s another beautiful day. We come back just in time to hear the final mix. We decide to tackle ‘Cease And Desist’. As most of this track has been recorded in The Chapel, the first job is to get the backing [read more]

Day Forty One : Thursday 13th July 2005 The morning is spent getting the best out of the four vocal takes I recorded yesterday. At 1200 we observed the two minute silence honoring the memory of the victims of last weeks bomb attacks. Since the beginning of the session in Henley, I have been constantly pouring over the lyrics on my lap top. I have the lyric to each song [read more]

Day Forty: Wednesday 12th July 2005 ‘Superchannel’ sounds as good today as it did last night. The mix is run off together with an instrumental backing track mix without vocals and a mix of all the vocals only. We do this just in case we need to have a louder / quieter vocal when we come to master the album. There is always someone out there in the radio promotion [read more]

Day Thirty Nine: Tuesday 12th July 2005 The idea is that we start around 10/11 in the morning and then work to around the same time in the evening, allowing time for last orders at the pub. As always when you are recording an album, the best laid plans go out the window almost immediately. We end up working until about three in the morning as we get so into [read more]

Day Thirty Eight: Monday 11th July 2005 Finally get to the Doghouse Studios and it feels like home straight away. George and Barrie are there to meet me, Jules and Dylan. Barriemore Barlow is the owner and he once played drums for Jethro Tull back in the seventies. He is a great guy always full of jokes. The weather is beautiful, there is a swimming pool and a small football [read more]

Day Thirty Seven: Friday 8th July 2005 After the events of yesterday, everything seems subdued and you can’t help feeling that this is what it must be like all over the country. Martin and I gather in the studio to begin the process of breaking everything down to get ready for the trip down to Henley on Monday. It is an arduous job. During the afternoon, I take a break [read more]

Day Thirty Six: Thursday 7th July 2005 We will all remember where we were when we heard about the bombings on the London Underground. I was with Jules traveling across the M62 on my way to Yorkshire to take part in a Cancer Charity event. It was a horrible journey. Jules spent ages trying to get through to all our friends / acquaintances in London to make sure everyone was [read more]

Day Thirty Five: Wednesday 6th July 2005 Martin was first in this morning and spent an hour or two tweaking the computer system. We are using a Mac based system with Digital Performer 4.5 as the main recording software and MOTU hardware as the audio interfaces between the instruments and the hard drive. We have also been recording at 96khz which gives the recordings a lot of depth. Martin has [read more]

Day Thirty Four: Tuesday 5th July 2005 Craig recorded his bass guitar on all the remaining tracks including ‘Zero’, which we have got a feeling might make it all the way to the final album. Publication:: Author::

Day Thirty Three: Monday 4th July 2005 I get into the studio early today as I want to try and work up a song for ‘Zero’. J.J. has been good to us and I want to do my best to honor his request. At home I had remembered a riff that I had come up with on stage while we were recording the St. David’s Day concert for Radio Cymru. [read more]

Day Thirty Two: Sunday 3rd July 2005 Martin is back in today and so he and Steve concentrate on recording the drums on the weekends songs. James heads back to London as he has got to go to Portugal / The Azores for some Gene Loves Jezebel gigs and Craig is sticking around to finish his bass parts on Monday / Tuesday. Publication:: Author::

Day Thirty One: Saturday 2nd July 2005 Martin isn’t going to be with us today so we have set up just to rehearse / demo two new songs. While Steve’s been away for the last few days, he has been listening to a CD of all the backing tracks so far. I asked Steve how it was all sounding and what kind of song did he think we needed to [read more]

Day Thirty: Friday 1st July 2005 George leaves quite early and Martin, James and I work up a final mix for of ‘Radio Two’. We miss the final post and end up emailing the track to the producer of the show. Craig and Steve arrive in the evening. Publication:: Author::

Day Twenty Nine: Thursday 30th June 2005 Today we get a visit from George Williams, the engineer in situ at The Doghouse Studios in Henley. George is the man we want to mix the album. We actually worked with him when we made the Children Of The Revolution album and we loved the sounds and mixes he produces. We had reached a bit of an impasse with Steve Brown over [read more]

Day Twenty Eight: Wednesday 29th June 2005 Martin Wilding records more of my guitar parts (Fender Telecaster plugged into a Vox A.C.10), on ‘Few And Far Between’ and ‘Raindown’. Just in case anyone is interested, the CD’s we have lying around in the studio are: Kaiser Chiefs – Employment Editors – Munich {Single] Bright Eyes – Digital Ash In A Digital Urn Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning [read more]

Day Twenty Seven: Tuesday 28th June 2005 During the morning, Martin recorded my guitar parts on ‘Cease And Desist’ and ‘It’s Alright It’s O.K.’. During the afternoon we had a visit from J.J. Haggar. J.J. has been an invaluable friend to me and the band over the last four / five years. He was probably the first person to hear ’45 R.P.M.’ and it was J.J. who sent out the [read more]

Day Twenty Six: Monday 27th June 2005 Today, James gets stuck into guitars on ‘Cease and Desist’. It’s sounding great but we are having a few problems with the tuning. A lot of James Stevenson’s guitars are of the vintage variety and come from a variety of eras. Some from the 1950’s (The ‘Golden Age Of Guitars’) but mostly sixties and seventies. They all sound amazing but sometimes are hard [read more]

Day Twenty Five: Friday 24th June 2005 Today we set about making ‘This Is Life [Get Used To It]’ work. James and I spent an hour just working over the chords and seeing if we could accommodate a song of his within the framework. It took a few hours but finally we have the ‘ballad’ for the album. It’s not really a ballad but it is the ‘slowest’ song on [read more]

Day Twenty Four: Thursday 23rd June 2005 Craig came in early today to catch up on the bass guitar recording. He played bass on three tracks, ‘Be Still’, ‘It’s Alright It’s O.K.’ and ‘I Never Left I Only Went Away’. During the afternoon we tried to work in two more brand new songs. The first song was a new kind of ‘Drunk And Disorderly’ but it didn’t seem to work [read more]

Day Twenty Three: Wednesday 22nd June 2005 Today is taken up with recording drums and bass on yesterdays tracks. While all of this is going on I decide to go out into the garden and have a listen through my tapes and see if I can find some interesting songs. It is a beautiful sunny day. I rewound one of my tapes to the beginning and pressed play, I could [read more]

Day Twenty Two: Tuesday 21st June 2005 Back into the serious business of the album. We decide to have a run through ‘Few And far Between’. Steve and I had come up with the idea of merging the song with the end of ‘My Defenses’ from the Poppy Fields Bond. At first we play it like it has been done live in recent times. Then the ideas start to flow, [read more]

Day Twenty One: Monday 20th June 2005 Today everyone is heading back to the studio from the four corners of the U.K. Steve and Craig have been home, I’ve been to see U2 at Twickenham on both Saturday and Sunday and James stayed up here in Wales to record some backing tracks for his latest Chelsea album. Not much gets done today just a bass guitar idea by Craig on [read more]

Day Twenty: Friday 17 June 2005 Steve has another go at the drums on the song (Working title – It’s Alright, It’s O.K.), he is not happy with the groove and wants to try and better the feel of yesterday. Always striving for perfection is Steve. Once Steve is happy, we have a go at ‘Mercenary Skank’ (again included on the EMI demos). Something feels wrong, we try and turn [read more]

Day Nineteen: Thursday 16 June 2005 The rehearsal room is crackling with energy, we are running through the new song (Working title – It’s Alright, It’s O.K.), it’s working out really well. No dramas, beginning to develop some vocal lines as I want to write the lyrics for this album as the music develops. James finds something in the bridge that I did not realize was there, a have a [read more]

Day Eighteen: Wednesday 15 June 2005 James wants to have another go at ‘Cease And Desist’. Overnight he has come up with an idea for a ‘sound’ for the intro. This involves using an MXR Phase 90 pedal with a Gibson Les Paul. It sounds really good and now we have the dilemma of two really good introductions for the song. Most of the day is spent going over the [read more]

Day Seventeen: Tuesday 14 June 2005 James Stevenson arrives back with his son Oscar in tow. We decide to tackle the guitars on ‘Cease And Desist’. Out comes the cherry red 12 string Gibson 335. This is the guitar that gave such a distinctive sound to ’45 R.P.M.’. The intro riff sounds great even though it takes an age for James to get used to the correct way of playing [read more]

Day Sixteen: Monday 13 June 2005 Today I decide to tackle the acoustics on ‘Menai Bridge’. I had been doing some thinking over the weekend and deiced to return to my Takamine 12 String. I always seem to have trouble playing six string acoustics. I suppose it goes back to my first years learning the guitar which were spent with a 12 string that only had the six main strings [read more]

Day Fifteen: Friday 10 June 2005 James Stevenson comes in to record his guitars on ‘Without A Fight’. We are starting to notice that we have a few tuning issues. This is only to be expected with so many guitars and especially with a lot of vintage instruments. This is the most time consuming part of recording. James has to constantly tune his guitars before every take / drop in. [read more]

Day Fourteen: Thursday 9 June 2005 Steve and Martin do some work on editing / tidying up the drums on ‘Without A Fight’ before Steve leaves us for a weekend of gigs with ‘Stiff Little Fingers’. Myself, James and Craig are going to concentrate our energies on recording the guitar parts to the tracks we have already done. James Stevenson has just acquired a 1970’s Gibson Les Paul bass guitar [read more]

Day Thirteen: Wednesday 8 June 2005 The day begins with a playback of last night’s drum takes. Upon reflection Steve decides to give it another go. Steve feels like he has missed something that will help the guitars to flow and be more dynamic. It is only something simple and involves adding another kick to the bass drum part, but it means Steve recording the drums all over again. This [read more]

Day Twelve: Tuesday 7 June 2005 There is still something missing from the guitar part on ‘Raindown’ so we get back to working it all out once more. We get something close by mid afternoon and again decide to leave it for another day and have another rethink. The best thing to do once an impasse has been reached is to move on to something fresh. We decide to get [read more]

Day Eleven: Monday 6 June 2005 First job of the day is to record my acoustic guitars on ‘Menai Bridge’. The question is where do we record acoustic guitars? The first place that Martin and I try is inside the drum booth. I decide to try the part on the Gibson J200. Once Martin has a sound up and has hit record, I realize that the picking part of the [read more]

Day Ten: Saturday 4th June 2005 As it is a Saturday and we are all going places for the weekend. We decide to have a go at recording ‘I Never Left I Only Went Away’. We performed the song live for the first time at Gathering 13 with Billy Duffy playing guitar with us. The song had worked out really well in the concert environment and had been included on [read more]

Day Nine: Friday 3 June 2005 To record a master drum track, Steve plays the drums in the ‘live’ room. He is playing along to the rehearsal recording and is listening (via headphones) to all the vocals and guitars from the guide version. Steve usually cuts three or four full takes and then listens back to them and decides which one is the best. This usually means taking the bast [read more]

Day Eight: Thursday 2 June 2005 The first thing I suggest we work on is a song I have worked up for the Mark Radcliffe show on Radio Two. I have been given a set of lyrics called ‘Menai Bridge’ by the winner of a national poetry competition and have been challenged by Mark Radcliffe to put the poem to music. I was given the lyrics during the interactive acoustic [read more]

Day Seven: Wednesday 1 June 2005 James picks Craig up from the railway station. Finally we are all together and ready to rock. Craig look great considering he has travelled from Tokyo via Los Angeles, Denver, Baltimore, Washington and then to Manchester all within about 36 hours…. We decide to get playing straight away and we have a run through some of the classics from the tour. ‘Coming Home’, ’45 [read more]

Day Six: Tuesday 31 May 2005 There is still a lot to be done to make the studio work as a recording facility. We are still setting everything up when James arrives with his vast array of guitars, amps and effects. Steve descends on the studio in the late afternoon and all we need now is Craig Adams (Craig has been in Japan on a session with some Japanese superstar [read more]

Day Five: Friday 26 May 2005 We are trying to work sensible hours during this recording period. The days begin at 1100 and run through until 2000 give or take, depending on what is happening. The first half an hour is always taken up with a cup of ‘right nice’ tea and a chance to evaluate what we have done / are going to do. Martin wants to spend most [read more]

Day Four: Thursday 25 May 2005 Another situation which has prompted the recording of this album is the fact that we have signed to EMI! While we were touring the ‘Poppy Fields’ album, representatives from EMI came to us to see and asked if we would be interested in making a new record for them and asked us if we had any new songs they could hear etc. We didn’t [read more]

Day Three: Wednesday 25 May 2005 There is still a lot of work to be done creating the recording side things. In this situation we are building the recording studio around the band rather than fitting the band into the studio if you get my drift. Martin Wilding has been acquiring microphones and pre-amps that will suit what we are trying to achieve. It is a process of elimination really [read more]

Day Two: Tuesday 24 May 2005 The main ‘idea’ behind this album is to not only get the best out of the songs, but to get the best out of the band aswell. No mean feat I can tell you because there is always a compromise between ‘live’ and ‘the studio’. The loose concept that we are working on is that we should have the band playing the songs live [read more]

Day One: Monday 23 May 2005 A new album, a new place, a new situation, a new label. As always when starting a new album, all the hopes and fears are there in the pit of your stomach. I have acquired a Chapel in North Wales and have decided to record the new ‘Alarm’ album within it’s walls. Day one is not really day one but this is where it [read more]