Don't panic!

More recording news

Today we went to a studio at the University of Guildford and recorded some songs with an old friend (his name is Nick) and it was good. After an early start and an evening spent sleeping on Rob's sofa in Cheltenham we hit the road and made good time, arriving at the studio around 10. After setting up in the studio things went a bit wrong (the desk died) and we went to Starbucks and pretended to be students.

When things were fixed we recorded some songs and it was fun. Here's a bit of low-down on the tracks we laid down:

Work > Play:
Been knocking around for awhile this one. We stopped playing it for ages then resurrected it with a new bridge section. Sounds quite nice when it all comes together and after numerous attempts I even managed to play the solo right (which I normally don't). Vocals nearly killed me (there was about a hundred takes of me shouting, I could taste iron in the back of my throat), but when we added the backing vocals from Rob and Luce it sounded pretty mint. I wish we had got some girl vocal action going on in the session we did with Ben now!

The Recession Kids:
Instant classic. Recording this was a nightmare, multiple takes and what-not trying to nail it. In the end I think we just about got it. Rob's vocal was hilariously good. This is going to make people weep.

Residents of Trench:
With about 20 minutes of studio time to go we roughly demoed this bad boy. Not sure how it will turn out but it was quite fun and I did some ridiculous Hulk Hogan voices... by this time my voice was gone.

Looking forward to hearing the fruits of our labour. Bet you are too. x

The dreams of Smith are over now

New song, 'The Recession Kids', at Free Rock & Roll at the Caledonia in Liverpool, 9th July 2009.

We laugh in the face of infectious diseases

We recently played a gig at the Public, a big massive pink building in the middle of West Brom. It was a good night, nice sound system and the staff all helpful. Seemed a shame more people didn't turn up but still. Anyway, the guys at Major Key studios recorded one of our tracks and made a video. It's quite cool really, and in typical Graham fashion I play the solo wrong. Whoops. Enjoy my mistakes!

You can check out more of Major Key's upcoming shows and videos over at their myspace: www.myspace.com/mks_captured

Second best band in Shropshire

Thankyou to everyone who voted for us in the competition, your hard work got us through to the final, where we got to play in front to 150+ people in the Severn Theatre. We had a fantastic evening, which was topped off by us coming second in the competition overall. Not an easy feat, when you consider nearly 50 acts entered.

You can see a little clip of us playing in this video from the Shropshire Stars website:

We also got several mentions in the paper, and you can read a little review of the event over on Shropshirestar.com

Thanks again everyone who voted. Listen to BBC Radio Shropshire on Friday 26th June for a Friday Night Gerbil special on the event which includes a little interview with us as well as some of our tunes hopefully!

Regards, as always,
Graham x

Purveyors of quality and distinction

Hello cyberpals,

We here at Decadence in Berlin have finally took the plunge and had three of our songs recorded at the Smash Rooms studio in Ketley by Mr Ben Millington of Ever the Joker (nee NewBreed) fame. You can hear them on our myspace right now, and we would love to hear what you think.

The recordings form part of our first EP, tentively titled 'Setbacks' which will see light of day sometime in the future. The three tracks up for your aural pleasure are:

Atlantic Radio Fire
- One of our oldest songs finally polished up into a delectable gem, with shiny harmonies and given a kick up the proverbial with the added guitars.

Man-Moth
- Fan favourite, now with extra guitar courtesey of Robert and chorus harmony inspired by Gang of Four. Jazz ending!

I Am A Camera
- Never before have we recorded this track, live or otherwise. Some killer rhythmic work from Luce, this track differs slightly than what you hear live. We hope you like.

Yours,
Decadence in Berlin x

The feeling in the pit of yr belly when the bass kicks in...

Day one of the Decadence in Berlin recording programme. Today we hit the Smash Rooms in Ketley to lay down some tracks which will compose our first demo to entice the lovely promoters out there to give us a gig. And so far so good!

We are fortunate to have Ben Millington of NewBreed fame in the producer's chair, and so far everything has gone smoothly - much due to his help and advice. After an early start we began recording at around 9.30am and by 6pm we had lain down the instrument tracks for 'Atlantic Radio Fire', 'Man-Moth' and 'I Am a Camera'. The most lengthy part of this process was the recording of the guitars, multi-tracking them, and finding the bestest ever sound that made the tracks sound tops. It's weird hearing yr song played through the stereo how you imagined it in yr head, and at the same time sounding totally unlike what it sounded like before. It's almost as if we got someone else in to record our sounds and present them to us. Really pleased with the days progress, fingers crossed by end of Saturday we will have a shiny CD with our tracks on, mixed with vocals, ready for yr aural consumption. I can't wait.

Pictures to follow of some of the studio funsies we had.


PS// We came second in our heat of the Battle of the Bands. Remind me to post the link where you can vote us into the final. Don't let the dream die yet!

A beginning...

Hello, and welcome to the Decadence in Berlin blog. We probably won't write here much because we don't really know what to say. However there is a chance we may.

I've got a new toy, namely a MicroKorg synthesiser which I'm going to start writing new material with. It makes sounds like space and dying robots and is pretty much the most fun you can have with two hands apart from many other things which I won't mention here out of common decency. This will probably replace the ancient Casiotone keyboard that I've been using, although for the recording of 'I Am a Camera' I shall probably stick to the Casio, just because I wrote it on that poor old thing. Anyway, here's a little photo of the glorious noise machine.

Ah yes, recording. It looks like we may be doing that very soon, maybe next week. We hope to record a halfdozen tracks for an EP which we've tentively titled 'Setbacks'. But I'll write more about that in the future. Before then we've got a couple of gigs: tomorrow night (Monday 9th Feb) we are playing at Rasputin's in Wellington as part of the ScallyWags clubnight. We shall be playing with Inertia, the recently reformed PennyFamous, and the reworked Nylon Shark. On Wednesday night (11th) we will be down the road at The Haygate, Wellington, this time with Ricochet, Someone Else and Nylon Shark.

Last weeks Battle of the Bands at Wolverhampton went relitively well, with us coming second in our heat, and whilst this means we didn't get through into the second round we can still get into the final at the Civic Hall if we get enough people to get over to http://botb1.wolvescivic.co.uk/ and vote for us (HINT! HINT! HINT!). It doesn't take long and we will love you lots if you do spend a couple of minutes helping us out!

That's all I can think of at the moment, so I shall leave you with a nice photo of us looking rather spiffing after hearing we came second last Wednesday.

Warm emotions,
Graham x