Guitar Nerds Anonymous

Interesting day aboard Studio Lightship 95 doing that Channel 5 thing yesterday. What’s that rule about a task expanding to fill the available time? Well, the recording of a 17 second track (14 of which are a drum intro) managed to take us 10 hours. Conversely I managed to squeeze the consumption of 4 big cans of Stella into about an hour before we left meaning I’m feeling rather queasy today.

We’d been given a remit to produce this track to the above time constraints and to reference various contemporary rock blandness (Kings of Leon etc). We came up with three versions, two of which were pretty convincing and one was actually pretty cool. The third “idea” was just last minute “play any old thing” two-chord thrash to make up the numbers. Predictably they chose that one.

Tried to find some interesting guitar bits to squeeze into my three seconds of glory but with the balls to the wall, thrashed barre chord feel and the brutally short amount of time available all I could come up with was dad-rock pentatonic doublestops. I felt dirty playing it and winced every time I heard it on the playback. Lobbied all afternoon for it to be dumped which, thankfully, it finally was. Finished thing is basic as anything but I was happy with the overall sound. Played my Tele and as usual split the signal one side going straight into my cranked Champ for filthy gritty silverface skronk. The other side went though a Bad Monkey overdrive into a Selmer Treble and Bass and an Orange 4x12 cab. Very Loud and very fun. Should have some video clips (shot for the “making of” documentary this will feature in) soon.

The ident itself will be on Channel 5 from 14th Feb.

Just saw the "drummer" ident which went out today. Keep chuckling at how short it is. I note that they've mixed my lame-o double stops back into it too. Nnnng. Just spoke my mate and he tells me that he binned the drums that took all day to record on Studio Lightship and the final version is in fact our rehearsal room recording of a SM58 in the bassdrum and a cheap (Rode NT1A) condensor overhead. *facepalm.

YouTube - Channel 5 ident 2011 - Drums