So, it’s been a while since I wrote a blog and I thought I’d give it another go.  I’ve been inspired by the fact that I read over a few of my last blogs and they were actually ok. So, the focus of this blog is what happened before Christmas.  I warn you now though, I have a very bad memory so this might be short….but sweeeet!

Date: Saturday 5^th December 2010,

Venue: The Audio Lounge Studio,

Aim: To record 3 tunes, one of them for a Christmas advert

Time Limit: approximately 6 hours.

Now, anyone that knows us will read the lines above and go ‘aye right, no chance’ – with the sheer amount of fucking about that we as a band are capable of, we were very aware of the challenge we had set ourselves.

It was hard going, but we managed it all.

Myself and Bob arrived at the studio round about 12pm. JohnBoy was working so he arrived a little later which actually worked out well because we had a guitar track to record for the Christmas tune before we laid down the drums.  So me and Bob brushed off the cold from outside, got set up and got going.  John soon arrived and even had the genius to turn up with sleigh bells, proper hand-crafted-by-his-own-dad sleigh bells, which added that extra bit of Christmas to our tune.

Personally, I thought ‘O holy night’ had never sounded so good. We started off really gently, leading in with the sleigh bells and a simple guitar and bass line……then we rip the song to shreds, making it fast and punky in a far more Pablo-esque stylee….which personally I think is a far better way to go.

On hearing the whole thing back I had visions of church choirs ripping of their white robes to reveal black leather apparel and steel toe-capped boots - and the occasional inverted cross, of God-fearing men and women getting thrown out the way to make way for the younger, mis-understood delinquent generation that spraypaint the lecturn and really don’t give a fuck….it was music to my ears! The video for the advert hadn’t been shot yet, so we were given free reign to do what we wanted.  We did just that and thankfully, it worked.

To see our Christmas advert, simply click on the link below.  You won’t be disappointed! I hasten to add that there are indeed no church choirs or undercover satanic worshippers in it…it does however have kids, Christmas trees and general mayhem in it though…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyY5a3V-vGo

The second recording on the list was our straight to the point tune of all tunes, Kool.  The drums and bass got recorded in one go (yey!), leaving Bob to do what he does best…..which is second guess himself and get into a muddle about how the song sounds, but we got there eventually.

Next up was our dub-inspired 6 minute epic, Down On All Fours….yes, that’s right folks, you read correctly, 6 minutes.  Pablo Eskimo have come up with a 6 minute song, 6 minutes and 10 seconds if I’m being pedantic about it, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that between us we have the attention span to pull off a longer-than-average-tune … but only just.  Again, the drums and bass got laid down in one go, I think possibly due to the fact that we were both nearly brain-dead by this time and really didn’t want to concentrate any more.

This is what challenges me the most about being the vocalist and bass player.  When recording, you have to see the entire day of recording out from start to finish. I’m there from the very beginning to lay down the bass in the guide track - if we’re lucky the bass is spot on and can be used in the recording, if not I need to record the bass again.  That’s fine and I wouldn’t mind usually but recording tunes can be quite stressful. I know at the very least I get slightly apprehensive before laying down the vocals, which naturally always comes at the end of the recording day.  So, I’ve done the guide track and then I sit for hours while everything else gets added in before I literally ‘step up to the mic’ – that’s a lot of nervous time I tell you!

Anyway, the good thing was we didn’t have to dwell on the vocals, I recorded each song twice, each time all of us deciding on the original first version. Then that was it!  All that was needed was some fine tuning to the mix, which would be done at a later date.

Wanna hear our tunes?  Click on the link below:

http://pabloeskimo.bandcamp.com/

Then it was party time.  Our crew of delinquents arrived at my flat for a party that very same Saturday evening.  And they stayed….till Monday lunch time, which is our usual party time frame. No one-nighters for us, we like to rip the arse right out of a weekend, plain and simple!

So, Pablo finished off 2010 in good spirits.  Next comes a break of 5 weeks while I go off gallivanting in Indonesia . This gives us all just enough time to forget how to play the majority of our songs correctly, but we soon get back on track.

What happens after is another story entirely!

PabloAlaine