Recording with Fred's House

Spent most of yesterday recording with the wonderful Fred's House at Half Ton Studios. We had a rehearsal on Tuesday evening which was nothing short of amazing (I've always enjoyed this band but this was my first time helping them out with a spot of drumming), the session yesterday was perhaps a bit slower, as is always the way when recording, but equally as enjoyable. Working with producer Bugs (who produced the British IBM album so splendidly last year), the thing I enjoyed about this session was the willingness to experiment and work at things until everything sounded perfect. A lot of this came down to the rhythmic patterns between the drums and bass - it's so easy to just turn up and bash out a straight 4/4 beat (if that was the case I would have been and gone within half an hour) and perhaps, when rehearsing the other night, that's pretty much what we did. Things sound so different when all five of you are in a room rehearsing with smiles on your faces, in the studio everything is under the microscope and you realise that perhaps it's good to try and mix the grooves - which we did do, and eventually we settled on and recorded some great stuff. I was asked to record one song and ended up doing two, so it wasn't that slow a day, but one where (in the words of the band's singer, Vicki) I "worked my ass off". I did, and it was all thoroughly worthwhile.