Up in time to be tired. I watched some second half football over mid-afternoon breakfast. Maya from the dance troupe came over to see The Archive and Olivia went out with her to hang in Porto and have dinner. I stayed in because I had an interview with Eric in California, who has a show called Vinyl Rewind where he talks to nutters like me about collecting records. Interviews like this always go on for ages, and we had a nice chat about it all. I gave Craig and Holly a key to The Archive and instructions on how to use the big screen in the front so they could watch an American football game whilst I was talking to Eric. It’s all happening all the time.
Next, continuing with the sequencing and mix tweaking for the mystery project as mastering looms. I’m finding it hard to fit everything in and massively important things like this have to be finished, the deadline can’t be moved because then it wouldn’t be a deadline, that’s why it’s got ‘dead’ and ‘line’ in the name.
One of the tracks had a missing vocal harmony, I’m not sure why, but it wasn’t there. We fixed it with aplomb and carried on listening and emailing, and plotting and tweaking and judging, and making decisions and committing, because at some point you have to commit. Todd Rundgren said that working with Andy Partridge was ‘interesting’ because as XTC didn’t play live, he would want to tweak the mix for eternity.
Sequencing a record is an art all of its own. Bad sequencing can really ruin a record, it’s not just how good the songs are, it’s the journey and calling in at the wrong rest stop at the wrong time can break the flow. It’s an interesting idea to play live shows with a random set list, requests or just how you feel at the time, but it might go south if the flow is awkward. Elvis Costello had the ‘spin the wheel’ concept to determine which songs to play, didn’t anybody see that?
I got a text from Earl Harvin who is in town tomorrow playing drums with Tindersticks. You have heard him on the new The The album, Ensoulment (2024), you may have heard him with Jeff Beck or Seal or Richard Thompson or in his own Earl Harvin trio. He was texting me to figure out a time to come and visit The Archive tomorrow and we will be going to see him play at Casa da Música tomorrow night. It’s a great venue, perfect for Tindersticks, it’s the place we saw Anoushka Shankar.
Music today has been 3rd Secret, the grunge supergroup who have released two albums but only for streaming. The first was released in 2022 and the second called 2nd 3rd Secret was released in 2023. The band: Krist Novoselic from Nirvana, Matt Cameron from Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, Kim Thayil from Soundgarden and Bubba Dupree from hardcore punk band Void. The singers are Jillian Raye and Jennifer Johnson. Novoselic, Johnson and Raye played together in Giants in the Trees. Check this odd non-physical collaboration out.