Lacking songwriting inspiration? Read a paint chart.

I’m renovating the house at the moment, so the place is littered with all manner of related detritus: brochures, drawings, B&Q receipts. And paint charts.

I also write songs, and inspiration comes from a variety of sources: people, events, people, the news, people, the weather – OK, mostly people!

My songwriting technique often revolves around a guitar or piano riff and a bit of interplay with another guitar, or bass line. I then mumble along a rough melody to the hook and the words start forming from there. Usually this might be mixed with some phrases I’ve read in a book or newspaper; or perhaps something I’ve overheard or remembered from a conversation, meeting or other event.

I’m rarely stuck for ideas (luckily), but the other evening I was looking at paint charts – like you do – and to my surprise they were full of potential lyrics and ideas for songs.

I thought the Crown charts above were quite mainstream but the Farrow & Ball paint charts I also looked at would perhaps be more use for folk songs, with names like: Blackened, Lamp Room Gray, Pigeon, Cinder Rose, Borrowed Light, Litchen, Railings and Arsenic to name a few.

So from now on if I ever need a little inspiration to complete a song, the first place I’ll turn to is a Farrow & Ball or Crown paint chart – depending on the style of music, of course…

Music for ‘Lisa’s Story: On My Sleeve’ documentary

I recently completed some music compositions and a sound mix for Stephanie Palmer’s documentary about asthma sufferer Lisa and the steps she’s taken to cope with the condition. Called ‘Lisa’s Story: On My Sleeve’, the documentary was made as part of a series of films for Asthma UK and Big Up Your Chest TV to highlight the condition and how it affects the lives of those who suffer with asthma.

The guitar pieces for the film were intended to be simple and light-hearted but also to have a thoughtful tone and feel. This was designed to convey the subject matter and Lisa in the best possible way, and to complement Stephanie’s editing style. The edit audio from Final Cut was remixed and treated to reduce the large amounts of location interference from pedestrians and other building-related sounds. Extra ambience was added to add emphasis to the different locations in the film.

The film can be seen here:

Theme Music for Hoverchase 4D

This is the theme I composed in Logic Studio as part of the overall sound design Mark and I did at Dreambase Studios for a theme park ride called Hoverchase 4D. It’s a breakbeat style intended to keep the pace of the ride from beginning to end, and to complement the speed of the visuals and the multilayered sound effects in the ride.

Hoverchase 4D was produced by Lightworx Media and is distributed by The Juice. The trailer can be seen here.

Recording For Actor Voice Reel

I recently had actor Richard Cambridge at Dreambase Studios to record his new commercial voice reel. To compliment Richard’s excellent and wide ranging vocal performances, I also added some sound fx and music loops to complete the commercial content. Also included is an example of Richard’s narrative.

I used a Neumann TLM-103 mic in to a TL Audio 5051 channel strip to record Richard’s voice. Sound fx and music were added as appropriate from the Dreambase Studios library.

The commercial spots were adapted and written by Richard himself and myself, in order to demo a wide range of creativity and delivery from one voice.

If you need a similar service for your voice reel or indeed any other voiceover, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me and see what I can do to promote your talents.

Sleepyhouse Corner: New Songs

We actually had a proper practice on the 19th June (day after the Rolly gig). This gave us a long needed chance to try out some new tunes for the next set we play. We played together for 3-4 hours and then suddenly flagged due to the gig the night before, and the fact we didn’t see our beds until well into the early hours. However we recorded the bare bones of three new songs, one of which had the riff and lyrics (and bass line, I think!) contributed by yours truly. These mark a new direction for the band which sees us being slightly less ‘rock’ and more ‘delicate’, dare I say it. We might even have room for some keys at this rate! We are all taking a break from Sleepyhouse Corner activities until the end of September, which will see us working on individual music projects with the hope of bringing some of the resultant fruit harvest to the Sleepyhouse Corner cauldron. Photo to follow…along with some new tunes, we hope…

Sleepyhouse Corner (again): gig at Rolly + new songs

Once again we (dis)graced the stage at Swindon’s Rolleston Arms on 18th June for a two part set. for those of you into your footie you might recall this was the night England played Algeria. We setup the kit just in time for kick-off and I’d promised to bash my cymbals every time England scored: needless the say the cymbals remained silent… We went on at 9:30pmish to an understandably subdued crowd, their hopes dashed by the England teams woeful performance. We we tried to forget what had gone before and played our hearts out. Eventually the crowd loosened up somewhat and we thoroughly enjoyed both 45min sets. Half way through I ripped off the England flags I’d so lovingly applied to my drums in disgust at our national team. Pic below shows the kit beforehand. Quite possibly the world’s worst quality photo…

Sleepyhouse Corner: live at Riffs Bar

Another Thursday gig at Riffs Bar for us on the 20th May. We had a great time and sounded superb. Unfortunately the guy who was going to take photos of us didn’t turn up, so again no pro photos. However my biz partner Mark was there by way of his bike and he had camera. Onwards and upwards, as they say.

Smiths Indeed: going back to the 80′s!

Saw the Smiths Indeed with my mate Gareth at Swindon’s Furnace on 1st May. I wasn’t lucky enough to see the Smiths the first time round and Morrisey’s gig at the Oasis was cancelled, but this is pretty much how I imagine it was like for those attendees at the original Smiths gigs. Great sounding and punchy guitar riffs, coupled with tight drums and singing that made you think the man himself was up on the Furnace stage. This was the last of the bands Meat Is Murder tour, and they played all the favorites and we all shut our eyes and swayed skywards, all clutching our own imaginary Gladioli….

Sleepyhouse Corner: live at the Victoria

Sleepyhouse Corner played at The Victoria, Swindon on April 16th was part of a promoter showcase featuring two other bands from the locale. My own publicity was bad on this one (I admit) but paled against the promoters own complete lack of publicity drive. And to cap it all, a charge of £3 on the door. Not many are going to pay this to see ‘new’ bands. Still we had a great time playing, even though the sound reflections on the stage made it sound terrible! Next up Riffs Bar…

No pic with this one I’m afraid.

Sleepyhouse Corner EP

Enjoyed and engineered a great recording session last week with my band Sleepyhouse Corner.  We’re looking to do more live sets now and have been wanting to produce an EP for a while now.  The four tracks were recorded at the studios live with vocal tracks added later.  I used one overhead on the kit plus a mic on kick drum, along with hyper-cardioids on the guitar and bass amps respectively.  We got a nice punchy sound with great feel I think.  all four tracks were recorded before lunchtime with the afternoon taken up with vocal recording, mixing and mastering.  We’d performed a gig a couple of days before at the Rolleston in Swindon as a warmup for the recording so there weren’t too many false starts.

The 'homely' live room!