Recording and nodding mice.

I have been in so many studios in my life that memories always pop up when you’re recording and releasing CDs. At the moment we are recording our very first Narthen Cd and that is up in Leeds in the home of Jude and Neil from Chumbawamba. Currently the recording involves tidying up bits so we don’t all need to be there at the same time. Yesterday (Monday) it was just little old me. I did a lead vocal and a sax part on another track. I then marked up some parts for guest trumpet. I am totally at home there and when you’re singing it is important to feel completely comfortable. Most singers are paranoid to a certain degree and I’m no different. My preferred way of recording is with Neil and with nobody else around. I don’t just mean nobody else in the actual recording part of the studio I mean nobody else there at all. If I have the feeling someone is waiting their turn I feel a time pressure that doesn’t result in me being relaxed. So the ideal is just Neil and I and no matter which band I am working or have worked with Neil has done my vocals on every CD for the last 10 years or more.

The very first album I was part of was with the Old Swan Band and called ‘No Reels’. I don’t know if we did all of them (except the EP) in the same studio but I don’t think so. However the first abiding memory is of a studio on the outside of London. It was basically a house with the studio being between the two rooms downstairs and the upstairs being some where you could sleep. That place, which I think is where we did ‘Gamesters, pickpockets and harlots’ (our third album) became ingrained in my memory for the wrong reasons although ingrained is probably a good choice of words. It was filthy. Absolutely disgusting. There was a kitchen where you could make tea and coffee or prepare food. The cooker was a Centimetre thick in brown grease with bits in, none of the mugs were stain free and it didn’t look like anyone had cleaned the sides for years. You can imagine the joy of sleeping on the carpet in the room upstairs especially as this was in the days when everyone smoked everywhere. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. Most of those early albums took a weekend to record essentially all musicians in together and off we go. Editing involved experts who could just cut a bit out of a tape without being able to see where the mistake was. Whilst those skills were amazing and I rarely saw anyone make a mistake on the whole we didn’t make mistakes or just went for another take.

My memory of album two ‘The Old Swan Brand’ was in a different studio I think. I remember a lot of wood, panelling etc and an amazing concertina player being the owner or associated with the studio. I can’t quite pull his name out of my head but someone else will be able to. …hmmmm…..Lee Nicholson is the name that is trying to escape but I don’t know if I’m right. There was one particular track of his we used to play over and over again. Multi layered concertinas I seem to remember.

In the Old Swan band I played various instruments. I had started on whistles but I also did a bit of banjo and vamp piano…… Not at the same time. In order to get a particularly jangly pub sound, on the recording, you put drawing pins on the piano hammers. It was also common practice to take the front off the upright piano’s to maximise sound. ‘Old Swan Brand’ was the only Old Swan album with singing on although there were songs on our later EP. I played a little piano accompaniment on some pieces and had worked something out for ‘Fare the Well Dearest Nancy’ that Fi and I sung in harmony. Whilst this studio was much much cleaner than the aforementioned one when we took the front off the piano there was a perfectly preserved skeleton of a mouse hanging in the strings. For some reason no-one removed it and we had to try and sing a serious song where the preserved bones of our no longer furry friend nodded up and down when various keys were pressed.

Suppressed giggles are and have been a feature of the Fraser Sisters together. If one goes the other follows and sometimes for nonsensical reasons. Other times there are explanations.

Some of you will remember the wonderful drill hall that was part of Sidmouth Folk Festivals concert and dance venues. We had many performances in there and Fi and I had been asked to sing an unaccompanied version of the same song for a BBC radio 2 recording. The stage was immediately in front of you at the opposite end of the hall to the entrance but also at that end were the loos. Men to the right, women to the left….I always prefer going left. The one time I went skying I could only turn left….good thing most mountains are round! It meant that the beautifully behaved audience usually waited until there was a lull in proceedings before hopping into the facilities….except someone didn’t unbeknown to us. We launched into our rendition with great passion and pathos and got to the last verse where just before the last line someone pulled the chain……very audibly. Who wasn’t going to giggle in those circumstances and recorded for posterity and broadcast by the BBC. There are other stories related to the drill hall that I can’t possibly share in a public blog as they are too rude. You’ll have to catch me somewhere and ask me about them….or maybe I’ll feel like telling all at another point.

I was invited to London whilst still in my teens to record on a ‘Listen With Mother’ LP…hadn’t long stopped listening to it myself! Penny whistle duty and that was in Maidevale and I have been there for live recordings since. A rather magnificent place. This was an album though with the wonderful Alison MacMorland. She did many live broadcasts for them. If I remember correctly she is one of nine sisters or something like that and she told me that due to the raucous nature of her laugh (which all nine sisters shared) she had been asked not to laugh during the radio programs in case she frightened the children. That may be apocryphal but I rather like to believe it’s true.

Overall my absolute favourite way of recording is to be resident at or near the studio for the duration of the recording. I don’t count the filthy house as being the right kind of example. No…the Blowzabella Cd, ‘Vanilla’ (soon to be re-released) was recording in the middle of the countryside in Northamptonshire in a massive house owned or rented by Robert John Godfrey of ‘The Enid’. We stayed until we finished which enabled fantastic focus and whilst a lot of it was planned there were lovely moments of creative spontaneity too. That was my first experience of how I’d have it all the time if I could. It was a massive house, nicely appointed, I had my own very comfortable bedroom – proper bed and could go and relax and have peace and quiet when not needed. Robert either cooked or someone else did so the catering was good too. Three meals a day. Totally relaxed and when it came to doing my bits it felt like a one take wonder. I was so relaxed that the sax things were easy to lay down and the singing didn’t take long either. Just as an aside that album included the song ‘La Belle c’est Endormie’ first heard by the magical Mcgarrigles who formed a constant part of the playlist in the Fraser household when we were young. Mostly it’s hard to remember positive things if you get negative comments in reviews etc as the negative comments hurt human nature more than the nice comments but I remember one Roger Watson falling in love with my rendition of that song for which I will always love him. He reviewed it for something I think and thought it was totally magical. Anyway we pretty much manage to do it like that whenever we record with Blowzabella now. We hire a large house and create our own recording space staying down the road at Jon Swayne’s, eating well and entertaining ourselves when we’re not needed….the only difference is I do my vocals with Neil now and we do the band stuff in a couple of concentrated bouts rather than one long one.