D A Y N I N E of T E N : The 3rd track (i don’t know what the title is) by The Season (at least i think that’s what they’re called…)
Now there’s something really special about this track which you can’t hear in the music but rather in the way that all the different parts of this song came together and why.
I think it may have been around the end of last year, we were all hanging around drinking at James’ house where Lloyd (who used to play bass in Sir Man, Indx3 and who now plays for Hill Valley and Ellington [check all these guys out]) had spent most of the day recording some songs he’d written on his acoustic guitar in the vein an alt-country kind of feel. I can’t be certain, but i think these songs were the outcome of a side project started by Lloyd and Andy from Hill Valley called ‘The Season’. I came in that night towards the end of the session and was lucky enough to contribute in some group vocals on one of the tracks. It was a fun night drinking, playing music, and generally goofind around but beyond that i thought nothing more of it.
Here is an embarrassing photo from James’ 22nd birthday which just happens to capture most of the dudes involved in the Season. From Left to Right: Me (floor) Andy (Couch) Matt (Jiving), James (gyrating) and Lloyd (lap dance).
Maybe a few months later, now early 2009, James approached me about taking part in the Season recordings, however all the while unbeknown to Lloyd. The idea was that we flesh out the songs with some extra guitar parts, bass, drums and backing vocals and surprise him with it.
Recording the drums for this song was goddamn great fun, probably my favourite recording experience so far. All the guitar and vocal parts were there, and we didn’t use a click because they were pretty solid on their own with the exception of a few minor bits. I had only heard all the songs maybe a couple of weeks earlier, so despite listening to them many many times to learn, they were still very fresh to me. I hadn’t written the parts either, i was purely inventing everything on the spot. All these factors made recording these songs very organic - It was more like jamming, going more on the feel of what i was hearing than just simply trying to stay in time. The result was a session which is one of the most solid sounding recordings i’ve done which i’m really proud of. More than that i was honoured to be part of a collaborative process with pals as a gift to a good friend.
After tracking the drums for 4 songs we did a couple of bass takes, played by Matt of 3rd Time Lucky and Red Deceptive. James eventually managed to covertly record some extra bass parts, and even got some guest backing vocals on there by Danielle, formerly of Escaping Vaudeville to round the song out. I really love this song, and have listened to it too many times to count.
At the time of me posting this track, as far as i know Lloyd is still none the wiser and this may be the catalyst for it’s unveiling. So if you’re reading this Lloyd, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DUDE, even though it’s in february…
