Released Friday July 2nd, it's the second album by The False Poets. Strange Season was largely written, wholly recorded and partially mixed under various stages and tiers of the lockdown of 2020-21. Here be the blog on it giving away all its secrets on how this fairly surprisingly release was put together without being able to get out and about, no gigs, recording studios closed and with a bass player on the other side of the Atlantic. I'll try to keep the blog interesting. There are absolutely no tales of rock n roll excess or gig mishaps cos they were strictly verboten!
The Tascam Model 12 & getting the drums down
Bought with label funds in August 2020, largely funded by a few Dicey Rileys gigs and some much appreciated online label sales in the summer of 2020, the desk was first utilised for my solo single In the Haze. So, how it works, how we're using it, can you see those 8 columns of brightly coloured knobs? When you insert a microphone or guitar lead at the top of the column, each one makes a separate high audio quality WAV track when recording something. Once recorded the Model 12 is connected to my laptop and I upload those separate WAV files to a shared folder for the label to get its hands on and mix accordingly. I was really pleased with how In the Haze turned out and was keen to see if the same results could be achieved with The False Poets as we had a few unrecorded songs and there wasn't much else going on at the time. Dinny is currently overseas, so I got in touch with Ian for me and him to book a rehearsal room and give it a go ourselves, taking the desk with me. Getting the drums down would be the first step with all the rest being added on top later on.The first of three drum recording sessions occurred early September 2020. I took an acoustic bass to the rooms in Newcastle to quietly play as backing to Ian's drums. Here's the selection of mics used for the album, 4 of the 5 being used on the kit:
The fat one at the top, the Electro PL 33 goes on the kick drum, the two Shure SM57s below go over the snare and toms respectively with either of the other two mics hanging above the kit for a sort of atmospheric drum track. I was quite a novice with the desk and it was the first time I've ever tried to record some drums. I must have done something not quite right as the four microphones all condensed onto one track on the desk for the label to mix whereas in the following two sessions recording the drums each microphone had its own separate track which would have made the mixing a lot easier.
The first session spawned four songs. Three previously unrecorded Poets songs, In the Air, Tillie's Blues, Moonstruck and an idea I had on the bass which became Drama Queen.
Ian later told me that he didn't hold out much hope for how it would turn out, but I embellished Moonstruck and Tillie's Blues at home and WhatsApped a couple of short video clips of early mixes of those songs to him and Dinny. Ian pushed the idea of Dinny recording his parts whilst overseas, which I didn't really consider. He had to buy some gear to do that; a DI box, an interface (Focusrite Scarlett Solo, not too sure what that does, exactly) and most importantly a bass guitar as his Rickenbacker is in storage. He got himself a Sterling Sting Ray Music Man in anticipation of getting his parts down.
After that first session, I was really pleased with how Tillie's and Moonstruck turned out in particular and played the mixes I'd done to label compadre Simon on my birthday. He didn't think an EP would be good enough and asked for an album, saying EPs are neither here no there, so I got writing.
Ian and me had a further two sessions. I'll try and remember which songs came out of session 2. Most of them were just the flesh and bones. I'd yet to come up with a lot of words, but went to the following two sessions with the shape of them in mind at least. Read the Sky, Glissando, How Many Days, Stupid Thing and From the Past, I think were from Session 2. Stupid Thing and How Many Days were the only ones to have a name, I think.
Session 3 spawned Sunburst, A Winter Rose, Bo Diddley Is A Poet and Dead Man's Shoes. Session 3 featured some lost recordings where I didn't set the desk up properly. There were attempts at a song called Show Me The Way, a krautrock version of Don't Cry and another song now lost in the ether. There were a couple of other ideas, too. One ended up on the Nice Minds Christmas album as Rudolph Where's Your Santa Gone? and there's the bare bones of another garagey song somewhere from there, too.
So, that's kind of how it happened. It did feel like there was a race against time to get the drums down as here in North East England in Autumn of 2020 we were climbing up the tiers where before too long the rehearsal rooms would be closed and any momentum lost. I've never written so many songs in such a short space of time. The 13 songs were all written and put together in about a 3 month window. Probably the pressure of it all. I think it helps give the album as a whole a cohesiveness it may not otherwise have had.
Gear
For some reason I used this guitar the most on Strange Season. On the debut I only used it on Set It Free and When the Morning Comes, although Oli used it plenty on many of the other songs on that album. I bought this second hand from a work colleague. I can't remember how much I paid for it, but it is a very good guitar. A lot of the ideas for Strange Season were borne on the Sheraton. As a semi acoustic, there's no need to plug in when looking for ideas.
Fender Deluxe. The same amp I used on the debut. As it was recorded at home aka White Gables Recording Studios, the volume was kept low, but it still performed well and the guitar tones are a lot more satisfying on Strange Season than on the debut. I think I got it for £150 from a Gumtree seller from Consett when I was living in Gateshead in 2014.
My Japanese Squier Strat. I love this guitar. It plays second fiddle to the Sheraton on this album, but steps up when needed.
The Fender DG21s features a few times on the debut to flesh out a few songs; A Girl I Know, Set It Free, Stomper, but plays a greater role in Strange Season as I was looking to fill out the sound further. Someone was selling one of these for £100 on Gumtree recently. Bargain!
The Pulsar played more of a role than whatever type of Flanger that is. I was mostly switching from the clean and drive channels on the Fender amp. I've never been much of a one for pedals, but the Pulsar did us well here.
Ok, so if you're still reading, I'll talk us through the songs!
If I remember right, there was an attempt in recording this in the first of the three sessions with Ian, but it didn't quite work, so we gave it another go in session 2 by which time it's structure was more certain. That's the Pulsar you can hear in effect on the opening chord. Two other guitar parts, one capoed 5th fret, which I do often, playing the same chord. It fills the sound out. It might be something the godfather of folk and indie rock The Byrds did. Playing in The Dicey Rileys helped develop my ability to do that. The lyrics were written in The Avenue at High Shincliffe when we were in Tier 2 in Durham. Not the strongest song on the album and maybe the key doesn't fit my voice so well, but I think it makes for a good, positive album opener.
The album's opening single. I came up with the chords after session 1, thrashing them out at home on the Sheraton. Musically there are a couple of influences in there. The slide guitar from Happy Mondays' Bummed and the chord changes remind me of early L7. The song title is a wordplay on sliding. I think I was finishing the lyrics as I put the vocal down, tho the let it slide idea was there from the off. When playing a blues harmonica part I'd read that you should use a mouth organ one string higher than the key the song is in. Stomper is in the key of A, so on that song I used a D mouth organ. I presumed the same would apply to guitars so, as Glissando is in B, I tuned the slide guitar into an open E chord and it seems to work. A slightly different mix to the single version.
This was the b-side to Glissando and wasn't intended for the album, but after a consultation with the band prior to the release of Strange Season it was agreed to include it. A nod back to our garage roots, the bass riff which defines the song is pretty much lifted from the Stones' take on Everybody Needs Somebody to Love. Cracking work from Dinny going into the final chorus. The acoustic makes its first appearance. The Rocking Magpie picked this as his favourite from the album. This is a different mix to the one that backs Glissando on that single release.
From the third session with Ian, Sunburst was originally intended as a b side for Glissando, however the label mixed it so well it was held back as an album track. It's an old song. I think I wrote it in 2002. It's the only song from Strange season to have been played live, by myself and with previous band Justroy although it never had a lead guitar part as I couldn't think of how one would fit onto it. Some tasteful organ added by WVP. I imagine it sounds fine when blasting out of an open topped convertible, for some reason.
This was one of the older, unrecorded Poets songs written towards the end of Tristan's tenure, possibly. It's our ode to psychotic killer whale Tillikum as documented on the film Blackfish which I saw on BBC4 around that time. I think it's on Netflix now. Only took 8 years to record it. When Oli played it, he played the opening riff high up, so I stole that. It is probably the first vocal take on the album, so perhaps not the strongest, but I do like the lyrics. Some nice, tasteful mixing from the label, on the solo and fade-out in particular. I was meant to spell the title in the same way as Tilleys in Newcastle, but forgot about that, so it's Tillie's forever more now.
Another garagey throwback. It sounds like it's about to fall apart at the seams at times, but manages to just about keep itself together. One thing I learnt from Tristan when writing was just to pick up the guitar and play something rather than just fanny around, so this song makes me think of him. The main chord progression is the same as When the Morning Comes, only in a different key, so try singing those lyrics over it and see how that works. I think the slow breakdown that repeats before the fast part and at the end of the song sounds a bit like the Pixies, which is fitting cos Tristan once fell asleep at Frank Black's feet. He roused him and made sure he was ok, so he told me once, back in the day.
Closing out the virtual side 1 is Moonstruck, Dinny's favourite track from the album. From session 1 with Ian, that it turned out so well, really spurred the album on. The bass riff is lifted from garage classic I'm A Living Sickness by Calico Wall. Look it up! Strong song, this. We sound quite mature. Great mix. The Pulsar pedal really helps here. There is another guitar part adding atmospherics whose trick I repeat in A Winter Rose.
VH Monks, label scribe, picked this out as his album highlight. I had the title in my head for a while and wrote the words around that after the music had been recorded. The background, distorted guitar is fed through the flanger and tremolo, the only time the flanger was deployed. It was an after thought which I advised the label against using, but I was over ruled, rightly so. Thankfully the label listened to me when I said not to include the keyboard part I recorded for it.
This is a different version of the same song I backed my solo single In the Haze with. The alternative title was suggested by Monks. I changed the key to C, which is the same as Gazing from Love's debut album. That song seemed to make an impression on me. Nice and jangly with Dinny picking up the melody in the instrumental very well. A lot of these songs have a live feel despite the method of recording.
The closest thing the album has to a title track. We were stuck for an album title, so I did a search for a poem called A Winter Rose, cos I figured there must have been one with that title, and there was one by a former poet laureate called Alfred Austin who I had never heard of. One of the lines is What a strange, strange season to choose to come & it seemed to fit where we all were as winter approached and we weren't able to do so many things. When I was a child my parents had recorded Lord of the Rings off of the radio and there was an episode when Galadriel was speaking that must have made an impression. This floaty ethereal character appeared to poor beleagured Frodo. He was having a really hard time of it and she appeared as a vision and presented him with a vial of something magical. She said "It will shine brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you when all other lights go out."
Bit of a rip off, but great fun to play and a nod to one of the absolute masters. I possibly had been listening to the Pretty Things debut and they had a Bo Diddley rip off on side 2. At this point of recording the album, the Model 12 had a really old memory card in it. It was nearly full. It was the same memory card that was in the hand held Zoom recorder that Tristan bought in 2012 to record rehearsals. So, I was doing hot takes on the solos and the desk kept crashing. I must have done twenty odd takes of the solo until finally it saved properly. It was quite stressful. Look up some Bo Diddley stuff on the internet. He gives a cracking interview to some Christian cable station in the early 80s when he said about how he managed to get signed to Chess Records. I should put the link in here, really. Might come back to that at some point.
This song was from 2014 with the Poets about to disband. I think I was feeling a bit disheartened when I wrote it. The title was taken from Blake's Book of Thel when it mentions music bring in the air. Blake makes another appearance in Strange Season on the inner cover of the CD, but you'll have to obtain one of those to see what it is.
A bluesy jam to see out the album, based round a simple bass chorus riff and verse progression. Kudos to Ian's playing here. Very expressive and made it so easy to play along with afterwards. The lead part is on the Squier, done in one take as I just reacted to Ian's momentum, really. There's an acoustic rhythm part which knacked my wrist by the end of the take and the Sheraton doing some more subtle rhythm thing. Again, quite impressive that it gets a jam vibe from the way in which it was recorded.
Reviews
So, it's out there for you. Give it a play, if you like. We've taken some tentative steps in getting something else together for you with a few new songs being demoed already for a potential album number three. It's difficult when we aren't regularly meeting and gigging, but we'll get there, hopefully.
