World of Cos 3

It’s now nearly six months since the excitement of “If Memories Could Talk” when I got to perform with some friends for a recording at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Since then I’ve managed to get to play only a few times with other people. In the Autumn Rude Mechanicals and SPeW went to the excellent Gun Factory rehearsal rooms; there’s a fine studio there too where I recorded a couple of years ago with Jowe Head’s Infernal Contraption. I managed to get some recordings of sort-of proto-new-songs by both bands. These are half finished beings, but I’ve had a go at editing up clips - Kevin’s drums recorded amazingly well on my little Zoom recorder, my baritone guitar came out OK too. I’ve used this as the basis of some rough mixes with Miss Roberts supplying new vocals and some additional parts added by myself and the band. The Rude Podcast 4 on MixCloud includes some examples. Let me know what you think.

The podcast is now in it’s fourth episode. This one features previously unheard tracks from Phil MFU, some spoken word from Miss Roberts, some tracks I’ve mixed and track from Anarchistwood by way of a tribute to our sadly departed friend Candiflip - aka Paul Blackwood - who I wrote about in my last blog. The next should be out in April and will include a contribution from Spew.

Before full lock-down I managed to snatch a couple of socially distanced “stairwell rehearsals'' with myself (on acoustic guitar) and Miss Roberts: see “A Small Palaver On The Stairs” on Youtube.

The rehearsals were recorded and keyboards over-dubbed then sent to Spew, Catherine Gerbrands and Tim Bowen to send recordings of sax, cello and musical saw. Some of the results are in the podcasts. I’ve also been working on songs recorded with the whole band -  the results will be the long awaited tricky third album… Hopefully.

We are planning to start a club to help finish the production of a vinyl release. More news soon. Initial plans for vinyl fell foul of Brexit; stalled by the complexity of VAT, Import Duty and (unspecified) courier charges. I’ve tried some UK companies, but it seams they use EU pressing plants. If you know somewhere please ppm me!

I’ve managed the on-line release of two new albums of my own. They were recorded in late March and April as part of some improvised Zoom rehearsals with LAMP. I spent October and November messing about with them and you can hear them now on Justin Patton’s Beauty and Disgust net-label via Bandcamp. Genotype-Phenotype-Correlation And Adaptive Mirror the lovely artwork is below.

Adaptive Mirror Art by Marina Young

Phenotype Genotype Correlation Art by Jo Fisher Roberts

There’s also 4 albums worth of archive material there, all put up in the past year. Like so many people I’ve been digging through the archive - it’s been a strange journey some things I’d completely forgotten and some were excruciating - especially the teen angst lyrics. The tracks on the first 4 are mostly from the 80s with some from the 70’s and a couple of 90s’ offerings.

For anyone who’s interested I played guitar, bass, keyboard, plus a collection of pots pans knitting-needles, chairs, cardboard boxes, toys and tins got a lot of use. Tape samples were played by a Walkman with a vari-speed (wrapping the headphones around a microphone). In 1978 I got a Wasp Synth, a Boss Dr Rhythm followed in 1980 and finally a Yamaha CX5M Music Computer in 1985. Recording was done first on an old reel to reel then two cassette decks (using the “ping-pong” method. In 1984 I got a Tascam Porta - 1 which made the whole process of recording so much easier.

Many thanks to Justin Patton of Beauty and Disgust for the encouragement and for helping these out into the light of day.

Click on any of the pics below to check out the albums - free.

And I’ve been building stuff – this may get posted on Youtube so not much detail here (it could be a little dull for the non-techy).

Bernhard Schimpelsberger and I prototyped a bass percussion instrument, he’s a very fine percussionist and wanted something that can be easily incorporated into his rig (thanks for the introduction Vivi).

I’ve also created a sort of electric thumb piano with metal tines taken from an old grill and a repaired electric guitar pickup.

Then there’s the Chapman Manifold: a tobacco-tin with bits of an old harmonica, springs and wires  attached with a contact microphone inside - it kind of works as a micro percussion kit. A biscuit tin size version is planned.

The CosTronic SoniLux has finally been finished and works, making annoying noise with flashing lights.

Finally we’ve been working on The McFadden Tapes. I suppose a lot of folks have been going through their archives, and Lee McFadden has at least 100 Rude Mechanicals live recordings - documenting gigs from around 2007 onward. These are being sifted through, glitches, bangs crashes and hiatuses (where the sound cuts out) are removed, sound tweaked as needed and then put on MixCloud without any further alteration. The second one went out in early January and the third should appear mid March.

An abandoned Graphic EQ. Now repaired and Working