Hey everyone

This is a Lemsipped-to-the-max Julie Reverb reporting from her sick bed on our two day recording fest with Bob Earland. It was our best and most enjoyable recording experience yet...Hope that shows in the songs.

When we arrived Saturday morning laden down with gear/vital junk food provisions (and vodka - vital vocal lube innit) we knew straight away that we were gonna have fun, make great sounds, and learn a thing or two. Firstly, Bob’s studio resembles the Starship Enterprise - there’s little blue lights on the ceiling and racks of equipment with lights that would put the best mobile disco to shame. He also has some great vintage bits of gear lying around - synths and keyboards and stuff. The live room is also cool thanks to its pink lighting - it’s a bit disco/Blind Date/Catchphrase in the 1980s. I found this comforting.
Work soon began - Bob and his right-hand man Simon (both are in the band Blanco) unveiled a variety of mikes while drummer David got to work tuning the red sparkly drum kit. The most curious mike was one that Bob had made himself; it stood about 6foot tall and looked a bit like a moon on a stick. I can’t remember what it was recording, but it was sexy,and i think it did a good job.

I was just sitting around for this bit, reading my book, and eating junk. After the drums and mikes had been set up, we laid down the samples. Luckily there were no nasty surprises frequency or general fuckup wise on my part, which was a relief. Then it was David’s turn to drum along. David and I forged an agreement whereby if he got both songs in one take I would buy him a banana phone. I was feeling apprehensive about this - David was in a confident mood and so far on the test runs he hadn’t put a foot wrong. So as the first piano chimes of Groove Masseuse rang out, I was willing him to fuck up a tiny bit. Luckily for me he messed up a roll in the end bit. HAHA gutted! Nothing unfixable though, thankfully. He nailed Please God in one take though; a fucking immense take. Maybe I should buy him a banana phone for that take sometime.

I can’t remember what we did then. Oh yeah I ate more and started on the vodka to warm up my voice. Then it was my turn in the disco Catchphrase room. I wish I was a one take wonder but alas, it took me a few, for both songs. My favourite bit was for the line in Please God, “your telephone voice won’t get you anywhere”. We wanted it to sound like I was on the telephone, so Bob got out this old microphone the shape of a tennis ball that was connected to a baby amp the size of an alarm clock. I felt like an old BBC radio presenter from the 1940s. Pronounced my t’s and everything.

With all the main stuff recorded, we spent the next day feeling exhausted, eating, and asking everything to be auto tuned to fuck/put through a vocoder. Luckily Bob didn’t do this. I used to hate mixing but I found the process really fascinating this time. I even asked for something to be panned right which felt like a techy achievement of sorts ;o) We could have stayed an extra week getting the perfect mixes, but went home to collapse instead. Oh yeah there was this tiny baby mouse running around, the size of two pence piece. It was so cute. I reckon it was dancing to our songs. Or possibly having a heart attack.

Thanks to Bob and Simon for helping us x