Commercially Inviable Records

Apologies for the weeklong radio silence, I’ve been poorly.

At the height of my illness I told an American friend that I had been laid low by ‘the lurgy’ and she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. She was, like, clueless. So, we totally checked Wikipedia and it seems that the word Lurgi (correct spelling) was made-up by Spike Milligan in the 1950s for The Goon Show and passed into common parlance (in the UK only, it seems) shortly afterwards. Every day is a school day.

Anyway.

Last Saturday we finally made a proper start to the 2nd Record. We travelled to Shrewsbury to record some drums and a bit of bass and some guitar with our trusty side-kick and long-suffering audio fixer Beth McGowan. Beth asked us to be there at 11am and we only just over an hour late. We had a productive and fun time and some food from Cafe Soya when we got home. I think there was some video footage taken at the studio on the handy and idiotproof Flip, so I’ll see about getting that online shortly. 

We’ll be kicking on with guitars and keys now, or at least very shortly.

Definitely soon, anyway.

Whenever.

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A big thanks to Roots Highway in Italy for their 7.5/10 review of our album, and a big thank you to all the people that have bought the record as a result, we hope you enjoy it.

We can’t read what’s being said in Roots Highway’s review of Lighting and Electrical because unfortunately we cannot read Italian, but it appears to mention that we go about things with “a disarming nonchalance“, and if that is indeed what it says then we’ll take it as a compliment.

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Here’s another demo from the 2nd album, Faith’s Meat Kiosk. This one is called “Bubble of Hate”.

It started life as a slightly faster tune, but after a suggestion from Cam is was slowed down and stripped back to what your can hear now. We’ll probably keep the arrangements reasonably simple when we come to recording it for the album, sticking with the sparse nature of this recording done around one mike in a single take by Anna and Craig.

Listen:

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We head off to Shrewsbury next weekend to begin recording,  starting with some drums and bass and whatever else we have the time and inclination for. We’ll then take these recordings back to Birmingham and Glasgow to continue work, roping in some pals along the way no doubt.

It would be foolish to say that all of the above means there will be a finished album at any point in the near future, but we are aiming at release in 2009.

Roughly 2009. It’s pencilled in.

More news as it happens. Enjoy the tune.

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Here is Podcast Episode 7. It’s a corker, this one, and features Dude the Dog.

Peppering a selection of fantastic tunes, FOTS-POD#7 sees Executive Producer Robson and Craig discuss the relative merits of Golf versus Running, what constitutes a good Toad in the Hole and whether or not Dogs really can say “Sausages”. The podcast also sees the first airing of a new FOTS-POD feature called “Ask Robson”…….

Regular listeners will be used to the brief insights into the mind of Robson that the FOTS-PODs occasionally produce, and now you have a chance to put your questions to him. Email info@friendsofthestars.co.uk with your query and it will be answered by our boy in a later Podcast.

As usual, the podcast is also a competition!! Email the names of the tracks and artists featured and the closest to the actual tracklist will win a prize. Winners of previous podcast comps will be announced next week.

Enjoy….

Listen:

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This is me performing a version of Rio by Duran Duran from the recent Songwriters Cafe event at Birmingham’s Orange Studio. The event was a reunion show for a much-missed former fixture of the Birmingham music landscape….

In 1997, when Buick 6 was but a mere twinkle in my eye, I was a regular performer at Paul Murphy’s “Songwriter’s Cafe” - a bi-weekly Sunday afternoon music event held in Birmingham city centre bar that saw performances from local artists and singers as well as visits from some more well known folks such as PP Arnold, Simon Fowler (Ocean Colour Scene) and Alan Tyler (The Rockingbirds, Come On Down & Meet The Folks).

The often chaotic nature of the events were trundled along nicely by Paul’s back-of-a-fag-packet approach to any sort of performer running order and in particular the (at the time) relatively novel concept of being able to get roaring shitfaced in the pub all afternoon on a Sunday. The Songwriters Cafe that took place on Easter Sunday 1998, following just days after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, was a particularly happy and rawkus affair. Happy days indeed.

It was a damn shame when SWC closed down at some point in 2000, although I’m glad to say that Paul and I have remained in touch - he played at our album launch party last year, in fact. When he called some months back asking me to play a set at his reunion show I jumped at the chance. As with the old shows on Bennetts Hill, I had a 15 minute slot and got to play some songs to a lovely, appreciative audience and the slightly daft version of Rio seemed entirely in keeping with the SWC spirit.

It was just like old times.

x

Read more about the recent Songwriters Cafe event here in the Spaghetti Gazetti Review.

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The Friends of the Stars Podcasts are now going to be coming attcha much more regularly. The heady mix of drunken swearing, questionable opinions and often great music that is peculiar to this band and brand is now on it’s 7th episode, with more in the pipeline.

Eagle-eyed readers may notice that over there >>>>> on on the right-hand sidebar we now have a seperate feed doohickey for Podcasts. This means you can subscribe to the Podcasts only and have them sent directly to iTunes, or whatever it is you use, without having to read any of the other boring bollocks we post here about, oh i dunno, gigs or records we may or may not be about to release.

If you are a bit scared about RSS Feeds and other highly geeky cobblers then fear not: Despite the clunky terminology, it’s actually a piece of piss.

You click on the Feed Icon and another page will appear asking you where and how you want the newly minted podcasts delivered. If you have iTunes you simply click the “Add To iTunes” link and the rest is done for you. Honestly, it is.

Several other systems are also available, including Google Reader.

Try it now….go on.

Click the orange box there and see what happens..

If, for some strange reason, you wish to publicise our podcasts on your own site or myspace page then you can use the following code:

<a href=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/FriendsOfTheStarsPodcasts” title=”Subscribe to my feed” rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml”><img src=”http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32×32.png” alt=”” style=”border:0″/></a><a href=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/FriendsOfTheStarsPodcasts” title=”Subscribe to my feed” rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml”>Subscribe to The Friends of the Stars Podcasts</a>

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Now, here’s a strange thing….

Campbell was recently rummaging around at home and managed to unearth some long lost Podcast source material. It was recorded on the afternoon of Saturday 25th August 2007, which was the day before the launch party for our debut album “Lighting & Electrical” and therefore should have been a day for much joy and japes.

However, on the evening of the 25th and just a few short hours after these recordings were made, we all went out to the pub and this awful thing happened to Campbell. It was a stupid, dumb, horrible and violent attack and it shook us all up at the time, the boy Campbell especially. It involved iron bars, knives, violence against ladies, police, ambulances, hospital and ultimately led - though this pales into insignificance - to a somewhat sombre launch party the following day.  It was bad ju-ju all round and even made the big lad’s news on the interweb.

Now, here’s an even stranger thing.

Ordinarily we are careful to ensure good audio quality when we record anything - podcasts, music or otherwise. Sometimes this is difficult as often before a podcast session there has usually been a fair amount of booze put away. However, we ALWAYS record a test first and listen back to check for background noise, hiss and the like, as well as to check levels, and we did this on Saturday 25th August 2007.  It’s weird and oddly portentous that the entire recording of Campbell and Robson from that day is blighted by a strange metallic, distorted noise throughout that wasn’t there on the day. Spooky, or what?

Anyroad.

Cam found the audio files and decided to be a big, brave cathartic boy and use them for the basis of FOTS-POD6. It was a long time ago but now you can finally hear the boys discussing Robson’s Mental Strength, The Thomas Crown Affair and Closing The Door When One Takes A Leak. It is, as ever, strange and sweary stuff.

Here it is in all it’s somewhat distorted and macabre glory:

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As usual the podcast is also a competition. Name all the songs and artists featured and win a special prize. In the (highly unlikely) event of more than one person entering a tie between two entrants, the person with the best Late Nite Knife Fight story will win. The decision of the judges is final etc etc.

Episode 7 - coming soon, kids.

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