Recently the Slowly Slowly songs have taken a back seat. In it's place have been the Cassette Tapes from 1999-2002. It has, and continues to be a bit of a journey. A very good journey. An insightful journey.
I have been recording more and more of the old tapes since the last blog post, and still have about 3 or 4 more tapes left to do. It has been fantastic to hear the songs, some of them a complete surprise. Some I don't remember recording; some I am surprised at how well written they are. To have these songs that are very important to me in wav format, makes me incredibly happy.
The recording of these tapes has also allowed me to let Stuart Carroll, my friend who recorded them with me, to hear them. We fell away from one another for many years, and after contacting one another over the last year again, things have been great. It has been great sharing the memories of these tapes and recordings with Stuart and take me back to those early teenage days. The laughs, the songs, the improvising. All great.
Both Stuart and I began playing the guitar at roughly the same time. We were influenced by the same musicians, and had very similar styles of songwriting. We influenced one another and were on such a fantastic wavelength when recording. It would have been rare if we couldn't get a song completed together. We would sit for hours on end, in my tiny room, decorated in yellow paint, a drawn on carpet (by me and Stuart), radiohead and manic and phonics posters all over the place, scotland flags up, dusty tv and ceiling fan, sitting on the bunkbed - where the bottom bunk was improvised into a chair. It didn't even matter if we had strings missing on our guitars, we would always try and write something. We'd record the songs on a wee tape player, and we'd think it was magic. We had the name, 'the Heads of State' as a band name, and wanted to gig, but just never got the chance.
When hearing the songs back, now, about 10 years later, I had an idea. I wanted to start rerecording these old songs. Keeping them true to the originals. Not drums, bass, or fancy effects. Just exactly the same as the originals, but better quality. I had recently told my brother in law, Michael that I wanted to record a collection of simple acoustic songs at some point. This was perfect for that collection. All the songs mean so much, and it would be great to hear them how I intended them to be.
So a few days ago I worked out and recorded 'Living on the Edge', 'AWOL', 'Roadtrippin'' and a couple of others (guitar parts only). I left them as I had to work. Last night I worked out and recorded even more songs, including 'U.F.O', 'Superhero' and 'Jinx' (again just guitar parts). I thought about doing some vocals and getting some of these songs finished. I recorded the vocals to 'Living on the Edge' as they are quite quiet and wouldn't piss off the neighbours. Complete and sounding lovely. And then something great happened! I was overwhelmed with unimagineable delight! The neighbours went out! I have numerous songs that require very loud singing, and this was my opportunity. I tend to be very respectful to other people with my singing, but I went for it. I recorded the vocals to 'Superhero' and 'Roadtrippin'', and it felt great. It is the first time in months that I have been able to sing at full pelt. The recordings worked out well. It is very hard to record loud vocals because it can be too great for the mic and recording, and becomes a big horrid blurry mess. This didn't happen though thankfully. I also recorded 'Any Minute Now', a keyboard song. Kept it simple, and recorded the vocals too. Done. And that's it up to this point.
I intend to record the rest of the songs, and work out the rest of the original 'Cassette Tapes from 1999-2002'. I would like Stuart to work on them with me too, if he is able to.
Watch this space,
Wullae
www.soundcloud.com/cassette-tapes-from-1999
www.soundcloud.com/wullaewright
www.soundcloud.com/stuartcarrollmusic1
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