MAY NEWS

My assertion in February that I was aiming to finish a CD by Easter almost happened... Around early March I embarked on an entirley new project to try and record some songs before I went on holiday to Florida in mid April. Just a week after Easter I completed the recording of four brand new songs (recorded, wrote lyrics and mixed!) in around a 5 week period which is incredible for me. The last time I managed to record one song in a 5 week period was 'From England With Love' in 2006! Only one of the four songs was a previous idea from November 2010. This was a kind of experiment to see if I could write and record songs in a Country style and do it before my holiday. Some of the songs I have recorded in the past have country-ish elements to them (see Long Lost, Five O'Clock Rise to name just two). By the time I got to the last week I had four distinct and different style ideas on the go. It was a bit of a rush towards the end but I achieved the goal. The songs came out really well. I used quite a lot of new techniques - both playing i.e. slide guitar, harmonica, mandolin and recording techniques - all iMac Apple Logic Pro based sample and editing functions and I really learnt a lot. Three of the four songs have amusing lyrics and I put them on an E.P. called The Only Horse E.P. under the pseudonym "Hank Dumpertruck & The Logical Pros". Why Hank Dumpertruck? Well, a lot of country artists are called Hank, and the Dumpertruck bit came from a play on word on (Engelbert) Humperdink. I may upload the songs to Bandcamp soon so keep a look out for those. The link will be posted here as it will not be on The Shining Hour Bandcamp page. The songs went down really well with friends in the USA. It seems I got the spirit of Country right albeit through an English sensibility and I reckon a few good tunes to boot!

As for Shining Hour songs, still plenty to do there but having done the new songs above I have motivation to finish them.

FEBRUARY NEWS

NO BETTER TIME I'm going to aim to get the next CD around about Easter (2012!) which might a bit too ambitious! I've decided though I need to have a goal and also to work on each song individually rather than try and work on 10 at a time, which ultimately ends up in none getting worked on. The last few days I've been figuring out a bassline for "No Better Time", a song I started recording on my old Korg D-1600 back in January 2003 (which itself was an idea from August 1999!). It was a song I didn't select to complete for "Long Lost". It's a good tune too, I think, and if I can get it right the finished song should be very good. Aside from a couple of extra acoustic guitar rhythm tracks and an electric guitar riff, there's been little work on it over the last 4 years. I have just recorded the bassline and it sounds ok, at least for my limited bass playing skills. The good thing about Logic Pro is that you can record several takes and comp the best bits together very easily into one useable take. So now onto working out a lead guitar part followed by some orchestral style string sounds and that will complete the backing track!

Update: 12th Feb. I've now completed the backing track. I decided not to add orchestral strings at the end of the song as I think it would be too cluttered with all the guitars already present. In the end it has worked out pretty well. I've only got to add vocals and mix the song. Now onto working on another song!