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NeilClasper

Category Archives: Music

A half-finished recording, and a half-decent excuse

03 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by Neil Clasper in A recording a week for a year, Music

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Glenn Tilbrook, guitar, Pelton Arms, recording

Started this on Wednesday, with a view to adding bass and lead guitar on Sunday; then got an invite to sit in with The Los Dawsons at the Pelton Arms in East Greenwich. And this happened:

20130303-220004.jpg

Me and Jerry from Ronnie Ripple & The Ripchords, with Glenn Tilbrook from Squeeze on lead guitar (and Gus Glenn and Dana Myzer from the Dawsons out of shot). So that’s a good enough excuse for me.

Photo copyright Rob Aldridge

Some guitar nerdery

02 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by Neil Clasper in Music

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Gretsch, P90s, rockabilly

20130302-171724.jpg

Been meaning to take the scratchplate off my Gretsch 5120 for a while; partly in the hope it would reduce the general buzzing you get with this style of guitar, and partly in anticipation of taking it to see a man about fitting new pickups on Monday. If my plan works, the bridge pickup will be replaced with a dogear P90 and the bridge with a standard humbucker-sized P90, something a bit like Eddie Cochrane’s Gretsch. The TV Jones pickups currently fitted are a bit too middley and muddy for my tastes.

A recording a week for a year – week 8

24 Sunday Feb 2013

Posted by Neil Clasper in A recording a week for a year, Music

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garageband, Home recording, instrumental guitar, iPad

Reasonably pleased with this one. An exercise in playing over changes I don’t usually play over, as much as anything.

Sounds like Spring

17 Sunday Feb 2013

Posted by Neil Clasper in A recording a week for a year, London, Music

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birdsong, East Greenwich Pleasaunce, Field recording

East Greenwich Pleasaunce, February 2013

East Greenwich Pleasaunce, February 2013

A different kind of recording for this week’s A Recording A Week For A Year:

Just past the midpoint of February and suddenly: a break in the interminable cold. Over to East Greenwich Pleasaunce on Sunday morning; kids and dogs playing, the birds singing. More of this kind of weather, please.

PS, for this kind of thing done properly, I can’t recommend London Sound Survey highly enough.

A recording a week for a year – Week 6

10 Sunday Feb 2013

Posted by Neil Clasper in A recording a week for a year, Music

≈ 3 Comments

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garageband, guitar, Home recording, instrumental, songwriting

20130211-130049.jpg

At the start of the year I set myself the challenge of making a new recording every week; so far I’ve managed it, though I’ve rarely had more than a couple of hours on a Sunday to produce something. I can’t say I’m wildly enthused by any of the things I’ve recorded but it has had some benefits: a general sense of achievement (or at least productivity, which may be a different thing); a getting to grips with Garageband for iPad; and – I think – some improvement in my guitar playing. The hardest part (apart from writing melodies…) is balancing the desire to just get something rough and ready recorded so as not to get bogged down, but not to bake in sloppiness which can’t be removed at a later point without starting from scratch (spot the ropey timing in some of this week’s effort). At some point I’m going to have to raise the stakes in the challenge, and tackle some actual songwriting, with words and a tune and all that.

In the meantime, here’s this week’s effort – a result of too much listening to mid-period Teenage Fanclub, I suspect:

Here’s the set so far:

 

A recording a week for a year – week 5

04 Monday Feb 2013

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Danelector 59, guitar, recording, surf

More surf…

A recording a week for a year: week 4

27 Sunday Jan 2013

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A busy week resulted didn’t leave much time for anything more than this: a primitive, iPhone-propped-on-table-in-front-of-guitar, straight-to-Soundcloud recording.

A recording a week for a year – Week 3

20 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by Neil Clasper in A recording a week for a year, Music

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garageband, Home recording, instrumental, iPad

Space rock, anyone?

Weekly recordings so far:

A recording a week for a year: week 2

13 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by Neil Clasper in A recording a week for a year

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garageband, Home recording, instrumental, iPad

A work in progress; something to come back to later in the week (or year).

Video

From the sea to the land beyond

10 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by Neil Clasper in Music

≈ 1 Comment

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British Sea Power, film, Music, soundtrack, video

I don’t know much about this (has it actually been released properly yet, even?) and I’m not a massive fan of British Sea Power, but I found this incredibly hypnotic, and surprisingly moving.

UPDATE: It does seem to have been released, or at least you can watch it here, on the (seriously under-promoted) The Space. And Caught by the River have posted a review this morning. A weekend treat, then.

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