Blog: Stick It Through The Lesley

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I was in Leicester yet again last night, to do some more WORK on the new EP... although "work" doesn't really describe what we did.

It's rare in adult life to have pure unadulterated FUN-style fun, but we had quite a bit of that last night, it was ACE. It was a Totally Tom night, so we did pretty much JUST Violins, with only my vocal on "Billy Jones Is Dead" and Tom's on "The Primal Rhythms Of The Bolivian Nose Flautist" breaking up the STRINGS. "Billy Jones" sounded LOVELY, and we did "Let The Weird Band Win" in two sections (so that the violins overlap each other in the same way as the vocals do - you'll see what I mean when you hear it, honest!), but the MOST BEST thing we did was get the LESLEY out!

For those unaware of such things, a Lesley Speaker is a GIGANTIC thing originally designed for use with Organs. It's basically a valve amp connected to a rotating speaker - it LOOKS like a piece of furniture from 1930 (Kev's is HUGE, HEAVY, and appears to be made of solid OAK), but it SOUNDS like a message from the future. We stuck the violin in and Kev miked it up at two corners, so we got STEREO, and then Tom just WENT for it - it sounds AMAZING. We just did it on "City Centres", which, also having Emma's CODA on it now, is shaping up to sound GRATE. I am quite excited about it.

Apparently, Kev says, there is a rule that says you're only allowed one go with the Lesley per week, and as I trust him implicitly I did not contest the matter... although next week I'm doing the "Fair Play Trophy" organ part through it, and he DID suggest providing an alternate mix of the whole EP... by putting the whole THING through the Lesley! YEAH!

Anyway, we moved on and put a LOAD of strings onto "Fair Play Trophy", the beginning bit of which is sounding ESPECIALLY delightful. It's funny with this EP - we've done it at breakneck speed but also hyper-efficiently, as the six of us have got quite used to working together by now, and do it in a Funky Manner. The last album was put together like a collage, this one is coming together like a GIANT ROBOT - each added section suddenly shows the rest into sharp relief, as all at once the whole thing takes on a new, more DEADLY shape!

OK, maybe not "deadly" exactly, but you know what I mean. Afterwards Tom and I "finished off the packet" of his Whisky selection, and agreed with each other how very GRATE we, The Validators and co, are. I still agree with him this morning!

posted 1/4/2004 by MJ Hibbett

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