Mister Fusty

This is the last of the “Making Album Number Three” blogs. I’ve bored you enough with my tedious accounts of fumbling my way through making an album!
So I shall keep it brief.
If you want a percentage I would say I’m about 75-80% done. I have 8 tracks pretty much finished. I need to come up with vocals to 2 or 3 more then there’s the tricky task of mastering to complete.

Mastering is a fine art, which I have yet to ‘master’ (pardon the pun). Some people spend weeks over it but I am far too lazy. There are a couple of plug-ins though, like Izotope’s Ozone and TRacks that makes things easier, especially for baffoons like me. If only I was friends with Bob Ludwig ….

There’s a new song on the Myspace page called, “Make a Stand“, which will be on the album. This song has been a bit problematic, it’s had several rewrites and re-recordings of the chorus and various other bits of fiddling about (that’s a technical term BTW). Finally I’ve found a version I like. I think. It’s Fusty’s “Eco Warrior” song  and I hope you like it.

I’ve also decided on a title for the album, which is, “Over the Rocky Mountains“. Watch this space for more news on when it’ll appear – wide eyed and blinking into the world.

Thanks for reading.

It was my birthday recently (hooray) and I turned 37 (oh…). You can see in this picture I’m wearing a rather nifty t-shirt bought for me by my wife, it’s not that clear in the pic but it says “I Need To Score” and features pics of several movie soundtrack heroes of mine, like Morricone, Barry, Mancini, Williams etc. A perfect gift for music nerds like me! I also got a microphone stand, so this is manna from heaven for idiots like me who try and record vocals holding their mic and the pop screen at the same time.

So I thought I’d have a go at recording stuff with the new gear. I basically finished the backing track on my birthday and did the vocals the day after. That’s fast even by my standards! It was one of those moments where everything falls into place and it just works. A series of happy accidents and inspiration has made  (hopefully) a great song. This is a rare moment of self belief, folks. Maybe I’ve turned over a new leaf .

It started from a guitar doodle, recorded for the first time using a mic (and the new mic stand of course) instead of directly plugging it into the computer. I think it sounds better this way so I shall be recording acoustic guitar like this more often in the future.

The song is called Thirty Seven for obvious reasons. The lyrics are the usual made up on the spur of the moment bollocks. I’m so pleased with it I just have to share it with you, listen below.

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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

Hooray! I have another track finished! I’ve got a few songs floating about now but I either hate the vocals on them and will have to try them again or I’m just not sure if they are good enough. However, I was fiddling around with a drum loop and bass line I created last weekend and it’s turned into a song. Quite quickly for me as well. Once I did the backing I decided to try some vocal lines on it, thinking they’d just be like ‘demo’ vocals but I ended up keeping them. The vocal style is low key, sort of low and hushed and the reason it’s like this is a silly one. I was recording when my wife was in the house and I’m a bit embarrassed when someone else is in the house when I’m singing. I’m not very confident with my voice and I go all shy if I know someone else is around that might hear! It’s daft really, this is why I could never be a live act. So the vocals are a bit low and almost whispered but I decided I liked the style of it so I kept them. The lyrics were pretty much made up on the spot also, as you can probably tell.

The song is called “Talk”, and here it is (this may not be the final version)

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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…