Description

About a year ago, after almost a decade in self-imposed exile as a would-be folksinger, I developed an itch I wasnt expecting. It seemed that there were aspects to my old life in rock and roll that I missed. Tour buses and product managers, certainly not. But the interacting with musicians, the camaraderie and the joy of hearing ones music enhanced and elevated by the aesthetic of others, absolutely. Damn.

I never wanted to make records alone, but somehow I ended up spending much of the 2000s in a studio with just a bunch of equipment and a computer, or touring with a suitcase and two guitars. Two things made me realise that I needed to rejoin the fray, at least for a little while I had written some songs which demanded a beat, and I was having great fun with my new acoustic trio The Small Ensemble. Why not make a rock(ing) record, or whatever it is that 49-year-olds make when they try to do that?

Money, for one. I couldnt afford to just not tour for six months and spend. And I certainly wasnt about to go looking for a major record deal Fortunately, Id been working the last few years with Tapete Records in Hamburg on a couple of projects and I felt that our relationship was good. I like them and trust them. Im not interested in doing business with folk I dont like any more. My friends at XIII Bis in France were also interested. Tapete said they could front some of the budget. For the rest I followed the example of my old Negative pal Jill Sobule and I asked my fans for money. 1000 very forward thinking, not to mention trusting folk paid for a deluxe edition of an album which wasnt even recorded.

I emailed my ideal band I was making a record, in a studio, old school with tape. Interested? NB. The money is not much, and not negotiable. All said yes. I had a studio band:

Drums, Percussion Fred Maher (Scritti Politti, Lou Reed, Matthew Sweet, my first two solo records)
Bass, Vocals Rainy Orteca (Joan as Policewoman, Anthony and the Johnsons, Brilliantine)
Guitars, Mandolin, Vocals Mark Schwaber (The Small Ensemble, Spouse, Hospital)
Guitars, Banjo Matt Cullen (The Small Ensemble, The Sighs, Ware River Club)
Keyboards Blair Cowan (The Commotions, Paul Quinn, Alisdair Robertson)
Pedal Steel Bob Hoffnar (Hem, Crash Test Dummies, my Bad Vibes album)
Piano, Violin, Guitar, Vocals Joan Wasser (Joan as Police Woman, Anthony and the Johnsons, Dambuilders)
Vocals Kendall Meade (Mascott, Grammercy Arms)
Production and Vocals Dave Derby (Dambuilders, The Negatives, Grammercy Arms, Brilliantine)
Mixing Mick Glossop
Dave Bates, my man at Fontana way back when, kindly agreed to A&R the record.

I played acoustic guitar, banjo and sang.

Down to business: Fred, Rainy, Mark, Dave and I began rehearsals in Williamsburg, NY on March 1st. The next week basic tracks were recorded in Manhattans The Magic Shop, engineered by Geoff Sanoff. Overdubs were done mostly close to my home in W. Massachusetts at Slaughterhouse Studios, engineered by Mark Alan Miller. The final recording session (excepting the one vocal recorded during mixing) was April 3rd.

About a month before rehearsals commenced I had about 15 song ideas for the record of which only seven or eight were actually finished or close enough not to worry about. We narrowed it down to twelve to record. I then entered a state of song writing frenzy which, frankly, undermined my enjoyment of the sessions. We had a deadline. The songs must be completed or Im screwed. Not to mention Tapete, and the 1000 investors.

Well, we made it. The final lyric was written and then recorded at Mick Glossops Magazine Studio in West London on April 22nd, leaving us two days to mix the song and fine tune the rest. Amazingly, there was time for a beer (only one) at the end of the final day.

You will need to ask me for details of the recordings, or go to my Studio Journal .weblog/?cat=30, there is far more than you need there.

The whole experience was, for me, rewarding, perplexing, fabulously enjoyable and heinously stressful. Singing with a rock and roll band in the studio I felt exactly as I did in 1987 or 1995, and then I would see my reflection in the glass of the gobo and wonder who this old guy was Im happy we got these songs finished, because Im not sure Ill make another record like this again. Having said that, Im never going back to that room with the computer

The album is eleven songs all of which I wrote, one to a tune of Blairs. Tapete will release it in September and there will even be a vinyl 33 and 45RPMs. What kind of record is it? I dont know. Im going to ask two friends who know the record well to add a short paragraph each. I will be in Europe in July to talk to many of you who are reading this, and then again in September for the release of the album. There will be solo shows on both trips. For all shows see .weblog/?cat=11

The Small Ensemble will tour in October and November and beyond that, I cant say. Hopefully, the album will be a huge success and well be on the road for several years.

Lloyd Cole, June 2010, Massachusetts, USA