Done!! All the discussion, preparation, demoing, flying, driving, not sleeping, Internet harassing of friends and strangers is over just like a flash!! ‘Blossom’, for all intent and purposes is, as they say, in the can. We have some vocal bits to polish up, a Jonny too record and some other minor musicality’s require our attention but that is pretty much that.
Author Archives: suzysfield
Blossom Blog – Planes, Goats and Aoutomobiles!!
Tea the saviour!
There is a great quote in Neil Gaiman’s ‘American Gods’ which goes uncredited and is as follows….
“every day wounds, the last one kills!”
Safe to say that there could be no more perfect quote in context of how I am right now! I am currently sat drinking a tea and listening too Bohemian Like You by The Dandy Warhols in Dublin airport terminal 2 suffering major sleep deprivation and a throat that feels like its being wire brushed every time I swallow. My flight isn’t for another 6 hours and I’ve been here for 5 already. Airport hotels are all booked up due to earlier flights getting cancelled so this isn’t exactly comfy and relaxing.
I have my sleeping pills primed and ready for the flight and am praying to the Deity of your choice for a good sleep and to wake up pretty refreshed for the arrival Stateside and the drive with Paul down too Charlottesville, VA for our overnight. I can’t wait for our little road trip! Surely it is the perfect mood setter for recording?! A nice little sojourn through eastern USA. It is a given that every song to be recorded will be dissected and discussed, lyrics will be mulled over, sounds will be given examples and influences listened too. So for now I will finish my tea (milk..half a sugar and strong) and enjoy Don’t fear the Reaper which has just come on….and suddenly changed too Back in Black for some reason… and fight off sleep for another few hours and prepare myself for the mental cavity search international travel always is!!
Peace!! Ali #tootiredforsconesindublin
The Making of Blossom pt 1
Song of the Day : Big Chief – Professor longhair
I was walking home after meeting a few friends for a drink when Paul rang me with the idea for recording another Suzys album 10 years after ‘MIRRORS’ with all the boys. I loved the idea instantly but wasn’t sure if everyone would as we all have different lives now and live all over the place!! I was very wrong!!
The emails came in…everyone on board and loving the concept. We of course discussed the logistics of where and how we could do this and quickly settled on the U.S as a location but it took a while before we settled on New Orleans. ‘BLOSSOM’ ,at one point in proceedings, could have been recorded in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia but common sense kicked in.
Our next hurdle was how to demo the songs…this actually was pretty painless in the end as modern tech is so available these days and the other boys are all rather proficient with it, I, on the other hand, am not! I did my demoes on GarageBand and emailed the chaps my songs and they added or took things away and basically made it all sound better. It was fun hearing all these new songs coming from everyone in the band as MIRRORS had been written mostly by Adam & Myself, with Matt writing ‘Beautiful Thing’, so it was a joy to get these great songs off everybody and we all agreed too give our songs over to band and make them truly “band written”.
For me, the first song that made me think we may actually have a great album was ‘Stone by Stone’. I loved it the moment I heard it and it’s gotten better the more we’ve all shaped it. Other songs that came in just fell short for selection but were amazing too, songs like…’Death to Hapsbergs’, Train Robbery, Sometimes, Shallow, 9×5 and Cheer up Gary Jules all had there moments but fell at the final hurdle, but I feel we came up with the best songs for the Album in the end.
So, as I write this, we are roughly a week away from the last 6 months work reaching its purpose. I will keep blogging right through recording and giving more insight into the album as I go. Any questions you have please ask and I will try and answer as much as I can but for now…back too work for me!!
Ali (Guitar Monkey for Suzys Field)