Mister Fusty

Remember that track I told you about in the last part? “Make a Stand”? I tried to record a brand new chorus and changed the instrumentation around but I’m still not happy with it. So I think the chorus needs another go, but I’m going to leave it for a bit. Sometimes it’s best to put something aside and come back to it later with fresher (cloth) ears.

Last night. A revelation!

I have a song, the backing is done – it was the one I mentioned before with the four layers of guitars on (are you keeping up?) and I have some lyrics. I even have worked out the tune. I had a go at a lead vocal and it went ok but was missing something.

Here comes the revelation. I got my lovely wife involved!

I asked her opinion because I was having trouble working out a harmony. She listened and had an idea, “You need some ba-ba-bas”.

Of course I do.

“Do you want to have a go?, ” I told her. To my surprise she stepped forth in front of the mic. The reason I was surprised is that I’ve been cajoling her for a while to have a go at some backing vocals for me, she’s convinced she can’t sing – but I will have none of it. If I can yell at a mic and claim that it is singing then I’m sure she can.

She did. The ba-ba-bas were added and it sounds pretty good. The resulting track is called “Wake me up when the future’s rosy” and you can listen below. It’s only a rough mix but it gives you an idea.

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I think, though,  she may end up regretting it as immediately afterwards I started playing her all my other unfinished songs, “What do you think of this?…what about that one?” etc…

It does highlight one of the problems of being a one-man band. Sometimes it’s very useful to have another opinion other than your own.

I have learnt an important lesson today. I really must play the guitar more often for two reasons.

1) So when I play for the first time in ages my fingers don’t really hurt.

2) So when I record myself I don’t sound really bad due to my lack of abilities as a guitar player.

After a few weeks of non-existent Fusty recording activity I have actually got down to business and started recording again. I had a chord sequence idea and wanted to have a track based around layers of guitar, I think I had Wilco in mind. (Not that it’ll end up sounding anything like Wilco, probably)

So I recorded 2 electric guitar tracks and 2 acoustic stacked on top of each other. The acoustic I have has a high action, so it’s akin to wrestling with overhead electric cable wire, playing barre chords is hard work and painful! But this method works and the guitars sound fuller than I had previously managed before.

Anyway,  I’ve been lazy and I have weak hands, this much we have learned…a corner needs to be turned. This week I’m going to get back on track and crank up Monkseaton Studios and see what happens.

I have a song provisionally titled, “Make a Stand“. I pretty much finished the backing track to it a while ago and I recorded a vocal. I’m still not happy with it though. I’ve decided that I hate the chorus, so I have abandoned both lyrics and melody and I have something new. It just needs to be recorded, and while I’m at it, I might as well re-record the verses, because I think I can do them better (think positive, come on Rob you can do it!). It’s Mister Fusty’s attempt at an eco warrior anthem….kinda. Actually, it’s the usual made-up-on-the-spur-of-the-moment Fusty lyric, a bit cheesy perhaps but here it is…

You can’t stop, shouting out
Don’t drop, have no doubt
It won’t, go away
make a stand, make it today

(chorus)
You got to tear it all down
before you start again
Don’t stare at the sun
until you’ve drowned in the rain
your facebook group won’t change a thing
Stand up tall at the town hall.

Ice caps, they will go
they’ll make, a reality show
About folk, that live in boats
the poor sink, opportunity floats

The business man, his only concern
is his pocket, the rest can burn
They want, to swim in oil
Put the planet in the oven
cover it in foil

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Canada – Toronto & Vancouver to be precise. A wonderful country and I had a very good time indeed.
One of the great things about Canada, in my experience anyway, that people are so polite and friendly to a level that even bus drivers are jolly.
Here’s a couple of examples from my particular jaunt.
In Toronto on the street car (not technically a bus I know, but I’m lumping all public transport together with this theory) we were around the Chinatown/Kensington Market area and needed to get back to downtown. We had run out of tokens required and there was no subway station near to buy them from. We figured that surely we’d be able to buy some on the street car to get downtown. A tram approached and I asked the driver whether we could buy tickets/tokens on the tram. He politely informed us that you used to be able to, but you couldn’t anymore, then told us that if we stayed on board he’d drop us off near a subway where we could buy one – essentially giving us a free ride.

In Vancouver we got on a bus, which was virtually empty, the driver asked us where we were from (obviously my blending-in-with-the-locals skills are lacking and the bumbling Englishman in me shines through) he then gave us a tour of the city, telling us about all the landmarks on his route. He even mentioned the rougher parts of town we drove through, not just the nice bits.
These two examples of bus driver geniality would never happen back in Britain. You are lucky if you get a grunt of acknowledgment. Bus driver drivers back at home are generally grumpy bastards. There are exceptions but these are few and far between and you often get the impression that those British transport conductors that are jolly have some kind of mental issue as their cheeriness is so rare.
I came away with the feeling, not just with bus drivers but other Canadians we encountered – waiters, bar workers, hotel staff etc, that they were proud of their country and proud to show it off to tourists, which possibly explains why they come across so happy to help and impart with information. This civic pride is something that you find is rapidly disappearing, if already gone, here in the UK and possibly explains why we shuffle around on our public transport with miserable down-turned expressions as the driver grunts his displeasure at having to actually ferry people around.
One way token to Canada please…

So I’ve decided to write a blog on the making of Mister Fusty’s third album. That difficult third album, even more difficult as I’ve decided to add vocals this time and as I’m discovering it makes things a lot more time consuming!
This blog is not going to be a ‘this is how I did this & did that’ kind of technical discussion. I won’t be going into great detail of how I achieved that ‘wowee wowee’ effect or how made that guitar sound like a tractor. There are other blogs and websites that do that kind of thing far better than I ever could. No, this will be a look into the creative, possibly deranged mind of Mister Fusty and hopefully a few humourous tangents will be found along the way.
First a little background. I’ve made two albums, Honest Blundering and Sparkle Darkly, which were both instrumental. For the third album the reasoning behind adding vocals was that I really wanted to write pop songs. A lot of the music on the previous two albums were pop songs albeit without singing. I could have added vocals then but I had a terrible microphone, which probably cost about £10, and I had no confidence in my voice. Of course I’ve now bought a new microphone (a Samson one, I forget the model, I could go and find out for you but I suspect you don’t really care) and my thinking was that if I spend some money on a mic, than surely I’d have to give singing a go. I was secretly hoping that really it was the cheapo mic that was making my voice sound terrible to my ears and that with a ‘proper’ microphone I’d suddenly be able to sing. It hasn’t really worked out like that. Although a better quality microphone has made me a bit more confident. So vocals are go go go!

The way I’ve always recorded is in small chunks. I’m not like a real musician that books studio time and then goes in for a month or two (or years in some cases). I record at home, (yes, I’m one of those ghastly home recording musicians you read about) which means I can work whenever I have time or dash into the studio (ok, it’s actually a spare bedroom) whenever I have an idea for a cowbell sound. It’s usually a couple of hours here and there, usually at weekends. I guess you could say that the work on this album started around the summer, the (misguided) hope was that I’d have it finished by the end of the year. Although getting married certainly holds things up, as I have done recently, not that I’m complaining – it was a wonderful day. So it’s looking like it will be a spring release, but who knows? The good thing about being an independent musician, free of the constraints (and money) of record companies is that you have no deadline. So you can work at your own place, which is good when you have to work for a living in a full-time job.
It also means you can throw out EPs and such whenever you want. Which is something I may do prior to this album, as a free taster of what’s to come. Who knows, there maybe an EP in time for Christmas!
So far I’ve got one finished track called, “Closing Time”, which is the very first track I’ve done with vocals, you can hear a rough mix on the myspace page. I also have several half-finished, nearly-finished and sketchy ideas. More about them in the next part as I’ve realised I’ve probably taken far too much of your time already…

Ok, so I’ve set up the new site. I have a shiny new blog. Let’s go…

..it’s tough this. What do I write? What do I say? How the hell do I make this remotely interesting? This is the bloggers dilemma, something which I am discovering. I find that I must put something up, otherwise I find myself panicking and breaking out into a cold sweat. Is anyone reading? Does anyone care?

I wonder if all the people who started blogs had these same feelings as mine? If any of you bloggers out there wish to share your thoughts let me know. Tell me I’m not going mad!

I need to sooth my furrowed brow with a picture of a couple of Llamas..

Ahhh..that’s better.
I promise I will come up with something interesting to say at some point.