Day 819

Friday October 10

One of the most momentous things The Diaries can do is finish a song in the studio and have it totally ready for release. One day we might dive in and really tell some tales of the studio, but not just yet. A lot of the time, what happens in the studio stays in the studio and we might also do that, but I think the time will come when we’re ready to go into that a bit more. But for now, I’ll just say that it is taking us a long long time to get each song done. Far longer than we could possibly have imagined when we first got on with all this. But today we celebrate. Freefall is done. And each time we work in the studio we learn a bit more and have the feeling that the next time will be quicker and we can start to be more productive, at least to the outside eye. 

With that we’re out to Ant’s new venue in Harringay, which is called Jam In A Jar. This is a fantastic gig venue in two rooms. A large and long bar area, and then a perfectly sized and proportioned gig venue through an open door just to the right a little along the way as you enter the bar area. Facing the stage is the sound desk area and that’s on a raised separate part of the venue that can be used for chill out at times, or at other times as a kind of private area for bands and with a backstage room behind all that. This is all a huge addition to his other venue, Ten To One, and we think, generally an exciting addition to London’s grassroots music scene in general.

Day 820

Saturday October 11

We’re straight back on it in the studio today as we start to get the vocals down on the next upcoming track – Make Me Shine. And yes. Already we can start to feel that we are speeding up the process.

Day 821

Monday October 13

The prospect of Mexico is starting to feel very real. So real in fact that we’re actually starting to work on it with Richard sending a message today to ask if we could do a video promo for our first show there at a place called Museo Yancuic. Yep. We’re on it. So we head out into Camden Town, set ourselves up in front of one of the iconic bridges with Camden Town painted on it and do the promo, with me doing some parts in Spanish. When we send it to Richard, he sends it back to us complete with a musical backdrop of I Like You (Better When You’re Naked) and subtitles. He’s elevated it to a whole new level, and with that we have our first Mexico promo.

Then, to make it all even more real, later on he sends us an updated itinerary with ten shows on it with a few more to be confirmed. And yes, some of these could also drop off as we go, but seriously, what a start.

Day 822

Tuesday October 14

With something of an itinerary on the go, I suggested to Richard a little while back that as this got going maybe I could help with a few bits of PR and organisation. He came back saying that wouldn’t be massively necessary but he did give me a radio station I might like to contact, for which I could use his name. I got on that and today they come back and say they’d love to have us in. Real just made another click forwards and it’s great to know that we made that happen from our end.

Now there’s just over two weeks to go before Mexico with our flights booked for Thursday October 30. The first one to Miami, then a three hour jaunt from there to Mexico City. So this next period doesn’t see a whole lot of other Diary activity. We have to get ourselves in performance shape for Mexico because it looks like it could be very physical. We’re already learning that a lot of our shows, maybe even all of them, will be at around 40 to 45 minutes, and maybe two in a day at times.

Apart from anything else, most of what follows in these two weeks is recording. We have Freefall, then we chalk off Make Me Shine. Then we do something we’ve not done before. We get on to record a song that’s not on the debut album. This is called Where Do We Go. It’s a brand new song, but Maja was so taken with it she insisted we get it in our set as soon as possible and maybe even try to have it recorded before leaving for Mexico. The recording thing doesn’t quite happen. Mostly because, as can often be the case with the early progress of songs, we don’t get the key right first time; rehearsal and song development is one thing, getting up and really putting it out either in the studio or live is something else. With this being such a new song and being recorded so early, it’s recorded in the wrong key, which we only discover when trying to lay down the vocals. We realise this too close to departure time to start the thing all over again, so we settle for the fact that we will at least have it in our repertoire in time for Mexico. And a lot of the hard yards of studio are now done on this which will greatly help for when we get to it again.

A little on the song itself. It’s about Guns ‘N Roses and was inspired by the story of Sweet Child o’ Mine, hence our title, Where Do We Go.

Now we’ve dipped our songwriting toes in the recent history of the USA, it’s on to our own next stop: Miami. Then…Mexico City.