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Whitty’s Blog, Episode 1

29/03/2011
Whitty
· Blog

Right then me old Chumley Warner’s, this is my first and most probably my last blog on here as I don’t really seem to do incredibly well with computermibobs! You will find that this blog will mainly be how a conversation with me would go, ie; I will quite often be talking about one thing and thinking of 3 others, so I WILL drift in and out of things as confusingly as I normally do and will have no real structure, so please bear with me.

First and foremost, all of what these ass hole so’ bitchiz said derogatory about my good person is bullshit! Now that’s cleared up I can persist in doing what I do best……………. That’s correct, everything ha-ha..

Well, what’s it like being the front-man of the best inventive, ballsy and most kickass band of our generation yet to be noticed then? It’s quite cool actually! It’s a rollercoaster at times, I’m always worried about my delivery though to be honest, be it in the recording studio or live at gigs, and I hate being off key, especially in the studio.

As it is I don’t really worry too much about live performances, for some reason I always seem to get a boost from somewhere, even if I’m flu’d up to the arsehole I manage to pull through un noticed. In recording on the other hand I find it very hard to get the same pulse, I don’t know why really, cuz when we’re writing the song I get to the point where the song is all I want to hear and all I want to play (there is also a point where I end up hating it too). Also, I feed off people at gigs you see, be there 1 person or 100 people, I feel its my personal mission to make them feel like they’ve seen a great show, and rightly so, they’ve just paid to come and see a night of music and they fucking deserve it, I cant stand seeing a band who stand there looking at their shoes with their dicks in their hand looking like a bunch of spare pricks at a wedding, I AM BORED NOW!!! I get that sort of thing while recording, I try my damn hardest to get into gig mode, I’ll try anything to get that Zen, like I’ll do some push-ups, jog round the block, drink hot water with lemon and sugar with countless energy drinks, wind people up, slap my own face and shout at myself to name just a few, because, I hear every little snag and glick so it really knocks me confidence when I’m hearing that absolute bullshit that comes out of my mouth cuz at that point I’m thinking I’m one of those dick-in-hand geezers, but fuck that, time to man up (see told ya I’d ramble a bit).

During the recording of our first EP it was in an old Tudorian house and I spent the night there, woke up, had breakfast, drank hot lemon and honey, and feel I really pulled the proverbial shit-storm out of the proverbial global-shit-bag because we were on a schedule and there was someone new to perform to I guess, but with Radiostasis I was alone with Watson and I felt nude. I was aware of all my mistakes, but together I think he brought out the best in me by reassuring me I was doing well. But after singing El Nibre for the 367^th time I was getting restless so we downed tools and it was left for another day. I was dreading it for fear of ruining what was already sounding like a great album-to-be and there I was fucking up everybody’s hard work, but that little siesta was all I needed after having worked stupid hours over Christmas and generally feeling run down I came back like a new man after a welcomed rest, to finish off a song that never made it to the EP, hahahaha, ironic really.

Different subject while I’m thinking about it, during practice, I have a terrible case of the giggles which is usually due to someone flinging the odd BUM note in the mix be it vocally or musically, usually its Thomson, all I have to do is look at him and I fucking crack up, I really don’t know why but he proper slays me, maybe it’s the fact (to me anyway, and he’ll hate me for saying this so sorry dude) that he has a wonderful voice, I mean very well spoken, so when he curses, (to me anyway) it sounds hilarious it proper tickles me, so for a while I find myself laughing out loud, “lol” as it is most commonly known nowadays “lol”. Each one of us is a completely different person to the other, which is most probably the reason we all work so well together. I also know that I can be a reet pain in the arse most of the time but that’s just the way I am, so there.

If I’m honest with you all, there is one person who hardly ever gets mentioned as part of Captain Horizon but our Pete is an absolute hero he is the 5^th member of CH as far as I’m concerned, I owe a lot to him. Like Mez (obviously) I’ve known Pete for a good 10 years and Mez is my brother, we’ve played together in all our main bands from thence.

Pete, has been a huge part of my progression as a front-man, in-fact he’s been like a guardian to me, I mean if I fall 50 feet away from Pete he’ll be there to stop me from hitting the ground hard, and shit like climbing onto the bar, I’ve got Pete to thank for that and pretty much all of my stage antics. For instance way back in Final Redemption we entered the “Ultimate Live Battle Of The Bands” competition at the “Robin 2” venue in Bilston and cuz Mez is a lefty drummer, sound guys shit themselves like their life has just folded into the depths of Satan’s gusset, so we either had to open or play first, basically if you had a lefty you had to open the show, so me being young and fiery it pissed me off, I mean its no fucking hardship to switch the kit the other way its just fucking lazyness if you ask me but that’s a different story (as I do have a lot of respect for sound guys, as long as they take pride in what they do and not just going through the motions). So Pete, to calm me down and in all competitive form said “go out there and make them follow that!” what I heard was “go out there and shit in their faces and tell them to follow that” that’s what I heard, so good as gold I went up there all full of youthful spunk and smashed it then at the end of our set I proceeded with the line “FOLLOW THAT” at the top of my lungs and I immediately saw all the other bands completely shit down their legs, the Robin 2 stunk lol. I look back now and think ‘what an arrogant little shit I was’ but I feel like if you’ve got it, flaunt it lol. Basically, Pete is mostly to thank for what I do on and off stage, he’s the one who’s always at the front giving me a bollocking for not making a show of it.

Pete has taught me a lot in this game so, Pete this part of my blog writing future I dedicate to you thank you me old mucka I love you man x

I’ve enjoyed this blog shit to be honest so I think I’ll be back soon,

Thanks for reading hope it’s not been too confusing

Peace, Love & Bananas!!!

Whitty x

A Typical CH Gig, Pt. 1

21/03/2011
Alex Thomson
· Blog

A Typical Gig, Pt. 1

Welcome to this, my first entry in what after some debate I’ve decided to give the rather clumsy title “My Blog About Gigging”. Or “My BAG”. I decided, since our very own Josh Watson has been good enough to lavish upon the world a blow-by-torrid-blow account of the recording process, to give people a bit of background into what Captain Horizon gigs are like from our point of view. By which I mean, my point of view.

Yes, this is the largest crowd we've played to.

Let’s start, then, with a simple question: What’s a typical gig like for us? What happens?

(I imagine a lot of this will be the same for every unsigned band. I’m not claiming we’re special or anything…)

17.00: Load Up

Band arrives at lockup at 5pm, with the exception of Whitty (singer). After a brief consultation regarding tickets for the evening’s gig (“… Why haven’t we sold any fucking tickets for this evening’s gig?!”), gear is dismantled. Mez repairs his drums using sticky tape, nondescript pocket lint, some roadkill and a credit card. Josh (guitarist) rewires his rig to pick up two or three of the better pay-per-view porn channels. Alex (bassist) trips on an errant wire, one end of which he’s holding, stumbles into his speaker cab face-first and angrily blames Mez for getting in his way.

After twenty minutes of extremely heavy lifting, gnashing of teeth and cursing, the cars are loaded up. (We can’t afford a van. Even if we could, nobody’s got anywhere safe enough to keep it and we all live miles apart.)

Whitty arrives, drinks an energy drink, smokes a rollup and calls Alex a dick.

18.00: Arrive at Venue

Upon arrival at the venue, it becomes clear we’ve been told someone’s ideal load-in time, not the time they actually expected us to get there. As such, the sound guy hasn’t turned up yet and the venue appears to be shut for the foreseeable future.

Some time later, we get in. We carry our gear up the stairs. We set up. We soundcheck, usually first.

Why do we usually soundcheck first? Well, we seem to play more than our fair share of headlining gigs, for a variety of reasons – I think chief among them is that Mez is a left-handed drummer and very few venues (sound guys) can be bothered to switch a set of drumkit mics around more than twice in an evening. Other possible reasons for our continual headlining slots include: stupidity, since headlining as an unsigned act is essentially a very bad thing and we for some reason keep agreeing to do it; or, if I was feeling supremely arrogant (not to mention inaccurate), I’d say people just don’t want to go on after us. Ha! … No, it’s definitely stupidity.

It’s taken us a long time to work out that headlining’s not a good deal, but basically, you can usually assume that at an unsigned show the band before the headliner (the main support act) will have the biggest crowd of people to play to. Around 60% of these will then leave. The only gutting thing about this is that whether a band is any good or not has no bearing on the number of people who hang around to see the beginning of their set. On who stays for the duration of the set, perhaps, but the vast majority of punters who are there to see a mates’ band won’t bother sticking around for anything else. A fact of life for unsigned shows, I think.

Anyway, during soundcheck, we try to be nice to the sound guy. For some reason these people often have a bee in their bonnet. We try not to give them any reason to purposefully make us sound any more shit than we’d sound left to our own devices.

19.00: Start Waiting

Having soundchecked and removed our gear from the stage, we settle down for the part of the process I find hardest: the interminable wait which precedes playing our set. This often involves watching other bands soundcheck, and has led to one of my favourite pre-gig occupations: passing judgement on other bands. Often for unfair, spurious and outrageously stereotypical reasons.

What is this? Has Tony Iommi had a lovechild with a spaniel? RUBBISH!

We have played with some absolutely blinding bands. We’ve also played with a good few bands which were no better than livestock, mooing nervously and shitting on the monitors. You can more or less tell before a band’s done anything at all which way it’s going to go. Do they get themselves set up quickly? Are they polite to the sound guy? Once set up, do band members noodle at full volume until someone physically restrains them? If a band’s good, almost every time the answers will be yes, yes and no.

20.00: Continue Waiting

I think everyone handles the wait to go onstage slightly differently, and it’s the same for our band. Mez and Josh concern themselves mostly with quietly getting geared up for the set by having a light dinner and a beer. That’s fair enough. Personally, I find myself physically unable to remain in the same place for more than two minutes before I am compelled by an unseen force to wander off elsewhere and commence another conversation. I hope it doesn’t offend people that on a gig night I have this bizarre pattern of asking how they are, nodding blankly at their answer and then striding off towards someone else to repeat the exercise. In reality, I’m pretty sure it must do – who does this guy think he is? Has he forgotten how to understand English? Does he even recognise me? Oh, he’s gone.

To all you people who I’ve done this to, I’m sorry. I console myself by repeating the mantra: You’re not as bad as Whitty.

The first time I ever played a gig with Whitty, I was staggered at how annoying he became before we started playing. If gregariousness were an Olympic event, Whitty would have been disqualified for setting off fireworks in the judging panel’s hotel rooms the night before the competition was due to be held. Before gigs, more than at other times (and that’s saying something) he rediscovers those schoolboy jokes which amount to gross invasion of personal space and in some cases Actual Bodily Harm. He’s a frontman. Getting hyped up before a show comes naturally to him – in fact, he really needs it.

Look into these eyes for a few seconds and tell me you're not scared by what you see.

You wouldn’t expect a runner to sprint a hundred metres without warming up. As far as I can tell, tweaked nipples, slapped faces, pinched elbows and that thing where you hit someone in the crook of their supporting knee so they fall down like a sabotaged puppet are his way of stretching off. And he does these things to everyone – strangers, friends, promoters, loved ones, bar staff and would-be muggers included.

I realise so far this has been a catalogue of things which on the face of it don’t sound like they’re much fun – or perhaps they do sound fun, and I’m painting them in the most miserably bleak light possible. Luckily, in part 2 the good bit happens!

The 3 Pillars of Mixing: Water, Cement, Human Souls.

06/03/2011
Josh Watson
· Blog

Whisky is becoming the theme linking these blog entries. It’s nearly 1am and though I’m planning on going to bed soon, I’ve got a little remaining of the wee dram I poured myself earlier, so I might as well start this. Last week I said I was going to talk through a specific mix, I’ve changed my mind; that’d be boring.

Most of the terrible mixes I’ve ever heard in my life have been my own. Nobody can just sit down and mix something that sounds great, it takes a long time to develop your ears, brain and heart to be able to plunge yourself through a wall of sound and start tinkering in a way that, when you drag yourself back out of the ocean of noise, looks pretty good from a distance. The hardest thing is being able to zone your perspective in and out, to deal with the tiniest facet of the mix while also listening to the whole sound as it lurches from verse to chorus etc.

Ears, Brain and Heart.

There are no such things as “golden ears”. Unless you’re deaf, you can hear everything I can hear when I’m mixing. That little rattle of the snare that shouldn’t be there, that weird ringing sound on the backing vocals, the way the guitars are too loud in the verse and too quiet in the chorus, you can hear it too. But you might not know what you’re hearing. You’ll just know something doesn’t sound right, that the mix sounds weak. But you can train your ears to take sounds apart, to identify the components that make them – that the murky rattle is from the snare, that the ringing sound is a room resonance at a certain frequency that you can cut out.

Mixing is the hardest my brain has ever worked. It’s totally draining. A mixing session is never finished, only abandoned, and some of my sessions go on for 7 hours or more without a break. It’s like a full day’s work except I’m concentrating! They say you’re better off taking 5 minutes to get a drink and refresh yourself, but when I’m in the room, in the sounds, I don’t want to stop. It’s all in my head; I’ll lose it if I don’t keep it there. There’s so much to remember, the mix becomes like a taxi driver’s mental road map – the bits of takes you want to bring forward, the bits you want to bury, the fact you want the backing vocals to lean towards the left of the mix to counter the tambourine that comes in halfway through the second bridge, the reverb that’s adding ambience EXCEPT for 15 seconds in the solo because you want it to stand out stark naked in that section… once you forget the details, the mix becomes cloudy, you don’t know where things are happening, why something sounds the way it does, and the whole thing runs away from you.

The Heart. It keeps my blood flowing, but we’re talking heart in the old school artsy sense – emotions, feeling. Mixing can too easily become a technical endeavour, a soulless process of making sure everything can be heard. But mixing is fucking art, man. As much art as songwriting, as performing, as painting, and much much more than interpretive dance. The mix has to move you. If you’re not jiggling in your seat, occasionally realising something awesome is happening right in front of you in the air between the speakers, give up; you’re juggling shit. What you’re doing is totally magical. You’re manipulating vibrations in the air, making the atoms around you dance with some higher purpose. You are to the music as God is to the universe. Whether or not you think God exists as some entity is totally irrelevant here, you’re him and your creation is noise.

It’s your ears that tell you where you are, your heart that tells you where you need to go, and your brain that figures out how to get there. I have some very clever friends who have tried to work out why music evolved when it doesn’t help us at all in the game of survival and reproduction. I don’t know, but empathy plays a big part in it – communication, understanding, society. It’s almost telepathy. Music is a cry. Maybe a cry for help, for understanding, for action, but if you write from your heart, then people will hear who you are. It’s no accident that we empathise with musicians we enjoy, that we use phrases like “sings with soul” or “wears his heart on his sleeve”. We understand them because they’ve taken who they are, and written it right into your brain, made your synapses fire just the way they want them to, to get you to understand. Sometimes, when music hits you totally, the hairs on your neck stand up and the shiver goes down your spine, I think you become the person who wrote it.

This is the power of music.