Back from the Brink...

So, Dave had headed to the continent for a few weeks, he had a desire to lie low for a while and some knobs to twiddle with some other band or other. Stu had an equal desire to re-write lyrics and re-sing vocals - it's the way things always go, he is the most uneasily satisfied of the whole band. But anyway, with a squeeze of the 3-in-1 can the cogs and wheels have slowly started crunching and turning and stuff has started to take shape.

A steady stream of initial mixes have started to find their way earwards and the results are what I would call more than pleasing. Things are a good way off being finished, but the shape of things to come is becoming more and more apparent. As is always the case with Decoration, things will take time - but with talk of the odd gig here and there and murmurings of artwork and track orderings the future at least looks like it will one day be the present.

A Law Unto Laverne and Shirley...

So, in the wake of the unseasonal heatwave three of our indie balladeers headed back to the big city for another weekend with Dave. The plan is to supposedly do the odd tweak, add the required guitar tracks and chant the obvious lyrical re-writes into the vocal mic. Steve stayed at home in Horwich to re-decorate the back bedroom, while I was cleaning the grout on the bathroom tiles.

At this stage it is pretty much a case of all the parts being done and just waiting to be put together in the right order. The Decoration jigsaw is a 1000 piece puzzle and nobody knows exactly what the picture should look like, it’s still living and breathing, growing and mutating with every listen. The weekend is a catalogue of listening, pondering, revising, re-writing and recording. The first Apple Mac expires late on Friday, a replacement is dug out and the process continues.

Stuart’s notebook is by now bulging, the album has been a long time in the making, and even though some of the tunes are relatively new lyrical ideas, couplets and puns are all in existence if not yet in place. Stick brings in new guitar parts, worked on since the last session and Sam is the authority on what sounds good and what doesn’t.

Saturday afternoon and the replacement Mac packs up - whatever happened to the good old world of analogue recording? Wires are pulled and chased and eventually things get going again, it’s as though the gods aren’t happy, but the ship sails on.

From here on there will doubtless be further tweaks and changes, but Dave has what he needs to start mixing and he’ll be on with that as we speak. Things are taking shape, I can see the end of the pier form here.

Only at Weekends...

So, with all things being equal, last weekend as the moon and stars aligned along The Westway Decoration reconvened at Shambles Studio to fettle and tinker and to see what the digital equivalent of the one inch tape could suck out of them and hurl skyward towards the still forthcoming album.

By the time I got there everyone else was already settled in, Steve was brewing up in the kitchen as usual and Stick was beaming guide tracks over from his laptop to the main console.

First up was ‘Doppelganger’, or ‘Gluhwein’ – ‘whatever way it’ll be something Germanic sounding’ says Stuart as we all sway in the control room. It is, as Max the engineer says ‘…a bit New Order-ish’. To my ears it resonates of Joy Division’s ‘Atmosphere’ and I can already see the band dressed in Matalan bath robes carrying a huge picture of Fred Dibnah across Ainsdale beach.

With all that done we head down to Shepherds Bush where the lads disappear into a club in the old underground toilets on the green, I decline the invitation and go in search of food. I sneak a Big Mac meal into the hostel up my coat and head off to bed with ears full of the Cowboy Junkies and a couple of chapters of Woody Guthrie’s ‘Bound for Glory’

Cometh Saturday cometh the pop injection… The lads are ready and raring to go, and as soon as Dave hits the big red ‘record’ button a suitably rocking number is issued forth. All chiming guitars and driving rhythm ‘This Olive Branch has been Withdrawn’ seems to spring form nowhere, but nobody is complaining – it’s their ‘Jumping Jack Flash’. Later in the day, a band jam in the live room forms the foundations of another new, unscripted song. Provisionally titled ‘Tannery Row’ it is of a more introspective, moody tempo but is tempered with an optimistic feel. We order Thai food that proves to be slightly more spicy than anticipated and crack on into the night.

Sunday morning arrives and so does Dave, he is looking a bit grey around the gills but insists on getting the job done. Stick plays some piano on ‘Tannery Row’ which we record from the corridor outside, the idea is to have it sounding a bit far away-ish. Remember when you were in primary school and you could hear the piano in the hall from your classroom, a bit like that. Periodically Dave sprints out of the back of the control room to throw up from the fire escape, he’s a trooper he really is.

Come early afternoon I am heading back to Wales, the boys stay and work some more on ‘Paulie is Dead Nice’ which is growing into a C-86 epic  and another new song with a working title of ‘Primark Scream’ which would have Spacemen 3 running for the hills.

There is still lots to do, vocals and the odd tweak of guitar parts being the main part, but as of that the vast majority of the nuts and bolts for the album are now in the tool box and Dave can start putting them all together and seeing what we come up with.

It’s amazing what a winter in Horwich can offer up.

From the Bottom of Your 'Ignore List'...

…And well, yeah, where was I?

So, the last few months have been a little more quiet after that initial burst – but there are good reasons. I’m not going to lather you up with excuses but I can assure you that things have been trundling along in a more steady than slow manner. The line up of Dec Club Juniors has been enhanced, weight has been lost and regained and a new shirt has been bought. The Stick has been in and out of the potting shed with his four track, making and melding in the manner that only he does, Stuart has taken these leads and scoured his thesaurus for rhyming couplets and delved into the darkest recesses of his teenage diaries in the never ending search for tales from the back room of the Blue Boar circa 1987 and it’s elusive fairground with which to fill in the gaps.

Whilst all this was going on Sam and Steve have been much more productive, revisiting the studio with Dave to set down the foundations for more songs for the ever distant album. Working titles of ‘Paulie’s Dead Nice’, ‘Menace’. ’Doppleganger’ and ‘Songs in D and G’ (which owes more to Stuarts vocal range than a fashion label) have all been worked around and on. So you can see, even though I have been a little quiet, maybe even tardy, things are progressing and the album is starting to take a distinct shape.

With all this in mind, the band will converge on London again in a couple of weeks to see what they can make of these tracks. It has been haphazard in the way that all things Decoration tend to be, on then off and then on again – not always our fault though, you can blame Paul Weller and his indecision and the thankful vision of the big Decoration jar of coppers for where we find ourselves now – braced for a few days in the city with the hope of a bunch of songs that we all love at the end of it.

I’ll keep you informed, I promise.