Recording and Domesticity at Olivers

We’re recording for our second album this week and today we’ve been dumping guide tracks down in preparation for actual recording of the final takes.

So… let me tell you about sharing a house with a load of musicians.

They are extremely untidy… they leave lights on wherever they go and they eat you out of house and home. On the plus side, you don’t need to switch the heating on because they all generate so much heat.
We’ve got Philippa Hanna here as well who adds ‘cute’ to all the other musicianly traits; she has taken to wellies this week, borrowing my ten year old son’s wellies rather than those belonging to an adult, as an indication of just how ‘cute’ she is.
Last night Philippa, Jamie Parker the pianist extraordinaire and I were outside picking pears at eight o’clock for supper; we had an exciting plan of poached pears, ice cream and chocolate sauce for pudding. Philippa held the torch and the basket, Jamie held the ladder and I climbed up for the pears as we figured I was the cheapest of us to replace if anything went wrong. This is as close to domesticity as Jamie the pianist has got, although he has redeemed himself by teaching my Jamie (confusing, I know) to play a montuno on the piano. For those of you who, like me, didn’t know what a montuno is, go to Google (other search engines are available).

Mark Wilson, the sound engineer who won’t eat mushrooms, a man of vision and clear thinking – apart from his view on mushrooms that is, doesn’t seem to be of much domestic value at all. Although we have found he can mash quite well, having demonstrated his expertise on both swede and potato in the last twenty-four hours. I suppose it all goes with knowing how to use a mixer. Sorry, musical joke of very low quality.

We’ve also had Aaron Bicskey, fabulous drummer who played on the album ’The Garden’. He has brought his lovely wife, Kriszta with him, spot the exotic Hungarian ’z’; it’s their wedding anniversary today, so he went off at some absurd hour to find flowers for her. Love’s young dream etc. etc..

Scott the bass player – who keeps Pygmy goats, by the way – is what a good bass player should be, solid, reliable, amenable, leaves coffee mugs everywhere. He discovered the pinball machine last night, along with several other members of the band, and I believe it got fairly competitive.

And finally, Andy Baker, who brings it all together and makes it happen… as long as ‘it’ is not anything to do with cooking or cleaning. Unfortunately, Andy is allergic to Marcus the cat, who does actually own the house, so this has caused some embarrassment and feline disapproval. Andy went off to sleep in the Winnebago last night as we’d run out of beds in the house.

Marcus, with an eye for cute women, has decided that the partner of choice for night time, is Philippa, so he has emerged each morning in time for a late breakfast, looking rumpled, disheveled and vaguely guilty like a lover after a one night stand. He spends the rest of the day sleeping it off on the kitchen chair.

Hard to believe, I know, but among all this we’ve been working really hard!

Amazing, amazing, amazing… God loves us all… even musicians.