The Luckies NY Trip

'When Tommy and me felt so lucky
We plotted a course for overseas
The pieces of eight lay open in our palms'

So begins the song 'Liberty Bell' which was written by my band The Luckies about our impending trip to New York to record our first album, 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen'.

As I have explained in a previous posting (Corbieres - New Wave Revivalist Mod Pop), The Luckies are a side project to my main band Corbieres who are taking an extended break for a variety of reasons. The Luckies consists of myself and Tommy who both share guitar and vocal duties, albeit Tom, unlike myself, can sing in tune and I can play a proper F Chord so we compliment each other well. We perform live as an acoustic two piece but for the purposes of recording our album we programmed the drum tracks on my laptop and I took on bass guitar duties.



The idea for this adventure came about from some inheritance I received at the start of 2007 and the long held dream I have always had to record in New York. We decided that it would be nice to bring out the WAGS as well although we decided to fly them out half way through the process so we could get a chunk of the recording done prior to being forced to go sightseeing and shopping. We also invited our good friend and Corbieres manager Vix who has supported and helped us for years.



We managed to book a recording studio in the East Village which turned out to be great. Off the beaten track and just run down enough to make the experience memorable without being dangerous. The studios themselves were small and cosy, with a hint of bohemia and the perfect size for a duo masquerading as a five piece band. They also more importantly, allowed smoking within the studio building which was a godsend. If you can imagine being without a cigarette in a creative and stressful environment with the temperature outside at minus 8, then you'll understand the impact this provision made on proceedings.

Hayley (my half of the WAG's unit) found us all an apartment in Hell's Kitchen to use as a basecamp, complete with exposed brick walls and original wooden floorboards and Tom and I flew out on the Sunday with a view to starting recording on the Monday. The girls were due to fly in on the Wednesday in time for the final mix down and a three day party to celebrate our achievements.

When we arrived at the studios on the Monday morning, we were slightly apprehensive on first meeting our sound engineer for the project, Hernan, as he was a very large and imposing, softly spoken native of the Bronx who vocalised very little and mostly under his breath. An awkward first hour soon turned into a fantastically creative environment as we realised that it was only a bout of shyness which had kept him so quiet. We soon found that Hernan had no qualms about telling us what he thought of our musicianship and he began to earn his cash in spades by directing us, educating us and generally helping us achieve the sound and feel we wanted. He became such an integral part of the process that by the end of the week we had christened him 'The Third Lucky' and given him honorary status in the band. We have worked with many sound engineers through the years at various studios and nearly all have fallen into the dual traps of either being too quiet or too opinionated. Hernan struck the perfect balance and the final result was more than we could of hoped for. In return, we taught him sarcasm (no mean feat when dealing with a New Yorker who has never left the State, let alone the USA), a variety of English swear words from the vulgar to the downright offensive and educated him on the best and worst of modern British music (apologies to Robbie Williams for not making the 'best of' list).



We later found out that Hernan was a producer of some note and was actually working with signed Hip Hop groups on a daily basis. His love though is indie music and in particular New Order and Joy Division. When he heard on the grapevine that two musicians from Manchester were coming over to record an album he asked if he could run the sessions. He also asked his good friends The Strokes if he could borrow a bass for me to use (see my profile picture) and promptly turned up with the bass that The Strokes had used on their last two albums!

The recording started with the guitars and bass being laid down over the pre-programmed drum tracks and this took the best part of a day and a half. I played on most tracks but Tom weighed in with a stellar acoustic performance (no mean feat in a studio environment) which was so good we decided to drop the drums altogether and just leave in Tom's singing and guitar playing augmented by some quiet and simple bass work from myself.

Day three consisted of the recording the vocals. We had planned to share the vocal duties equally but I had a combination of a minor throat infection coupled with a very bad day at office which conspired to make me so nervous that I started to embellish my mistakes rather than correct them. We decided in the end that I would only sing on a couple of songs but provide backing as and when necessary and with Tom taking the helm, we recorded all of our vocals in a day and a half. This was a herculean effort from Tom who rose to the occasion like a seasoned studio pro and saved the day with a string of faultless performances - I say this but if you listen to the demo in his presence he still gives away all of his perceived mistakes by giggling every time he hears one!

As with all sessions in a recording studio, you lose time at an alarming rate and true to form, we found ourselves behind time. Ordinarily this would not be a huge issue but we had managed to get a slot at a local music venue to play our set list and this had to be jettisoned due to our increased recording commitments - it was a real shame as being able to say you played live in New York would have been great but the album had to take priority.

The WAGS and Vix arrived mid week as expected and they were able to come into the studio and meet Hernan during the final mix down. We spent about a day and half on the final mix (anyone who has been in a studio will tell you that this is the most important part and cannot be rushed) and had our final demo ready on the Friday night.

We left the studio and rushed out to the 24 hour Apple store on 5th Avenue to get some speakers for my laptop and then hopped in a cab back to the apartment to give the girls the first ever listen to our new opus. When we arrived back we realised that there was actually a CD player already in the apartment and our midnight dash for speakers was unnecessary. Stupidity aside, we put our CD on and the rest is history. The girls loved it, we loved and more than the music, we will always have the memory of the time we flew out to the Big Apple to cut an album.

To listen to some of the tracks, click through to our Myspace page at: www.myspace.com/theluckiesuk