There is nothing finer

image via Suicide Girls

Head on over to our Myspace page to hear our latest record of one of our oldest tracks, 'Gothic Dive-Bar Rag', which we recorded a few weeks back with Laura. Hopefully you will like it. We do.

Also, if you are out in Birmingham this evening we will be playing at the Actress & Bishop in the Jewellery Quater with Joyous and Fever Fever - two lovely bands - for a pricely sum of NOTHING. That's right, it's a free gig, put on by Catapult Club. Nice, eh?

Come party like it's 1999.

Sleep deprivation

As I write this I have just passed the 24 hour mark. That's right, a whole day without sleep. And in the last 12 of those hours Decadence in Berlin made the trip down south to Guildford for a recording session, then came all the way home. It was a journey of lengthy proportions to say the least, but it was worth it as we have sown the musical seeds that will become a nicely recorded 'Gothic Dive-Bar Rag'. It's a bit odd recording this one, as it is an oldie and I don't think we ever thought it would make it to the studio. However, we often pull it out as an encore, and I still like playing it so I'm glad we found an opportunity to record it. The more I head it, the more it turned into the Velvet Underground - not sure why, but I kept thinking of 'Sister Ray' when we were playing it. We also popped our click-track cherry. Well done gang. So after 5 hours in the studio with the calm and patient Laura we had achieved some pleasing sounds which we've left in her capable hands to polish up. We also saw Nick who had just been to see Pavement (lucky git, he tells me they were "rad," obviously) and he played us the latest rough mix of 'Work > Play' which is sounding really great. Very excited to hear the final mix on that one.

Leaving the Guildford campus we got stuck and had to contact the security people a couple of times as we clearly did not understand their barriers. However, some minutes later we did work out a way to escape, and we went off to find food. We failed at this too. So we drove forth to Telford, via Cheltenham to drop off Robert, and ended up driving into daylight. It was a weird experience, watching it get lighter and the street lights turn themselves off. When we left Guildford people were still drinking in the clubs, getting back to Telford people were going to work.

One McDonalds breakfast stop later I'm back at home. I'm in two minds as if to try sleeping or not. May just watch Catterick on DVD as I haven't seen it in ages and I've got the day off work.

In other news we have two very exciting gigs coming up. The first is with Fever Fever who we played with last month, and that will be at The Actress & Bishop in Birmingham. The second is even more mental, as we are going to be playing with Hot Club de Paris. Oh yes!! It's for the Out of Step 1st Birthday party, and there are loads of other ace bands too including Men, Lady Fortune and Fever Fever. More info on that soon!

Now for some downtime.

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

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!