Day 12

Monday December 13

Mark:

I wake with thoughts of some kind of song running round my head, but really vaguely formed. There are no melodies or lyrics really, just a kind of style of something I really feel like getting on with. Once we’re both up and somewhat into the morning, I ask Maja to find me a set of lyrics from the notebooks we have; there are ten such books going right back to our earliest days in London, two of them A4 and quite a few of them full, including one of the A4s. Maja has a flick through and one set catches both of us as soon as the page flies open. Beanie Love. An idea from our first few weeks together which soon became a full on set of lyrics. We’ve always had a soft spot for this and constantly reference it in conversation. It seems it’s time has now come. I still don’t have any solid song ideas beyond a vague style, and I now ask Maja to give me a chord progression. She does so and I play around with that while reading the lyrics. Looking at this together, very quickly a chorus and approximation of three verses all pop out. Beanie Love is finally on its way.

Maja:

I am ridiculously excited about the song Beanie Love. We have used that title as a working title for the concept and lyrics that we started all that time ago. Lying in bed in the house in London. Staring up at the ceiling. Laughing. Writing. Dreaming. Crying and talking. I remember looking at the spikily painted ceiling, wondering why it was so textured. But it was a nice thing to focus my eyes on, and it has a funny name. Popcorn ceiling. 

And that was how Beanie Love started, with us both joking around and writing the fun things down. Now it has started to turn into a very happy and fun song, which is still as close to heart of the concept as it was when we wrote the very first words. 

Mark:

Once we’re ready to be out and about, thoughts turn to the new equipment shopping we’ve planned to do. All our gear is still packed up from Friday and we walk it down to Just Music where a seriously knowledgeable guy in the sound department gives us his full time and attention to see how we can be helped. We unpack all our gear, set it up, and get to work looking at how it can be improved. And it proves to be a little more than we were thinking, never more so than when we compare microphones.

Maja:

Testing the equipment at Just Music with the sound guy there is, at the same time, an amazing and dispiriting experience. It’s made me realise just how bad our equipment is. For a start, we discover that three of the microphones we have, which are all from the same set, are seriously substandard. When the guy sets the sound desk and I use our industry standard microphone after using one of the three others, I can suddenly hear myself so much better. It sounds just amazing. Clearer and crisper. A lot of that muddled feeling that I have such a hard time handling has disappeared. I can’t believe I used to go for the cheaper set because of the convenience of an on/off button. That was a really bad decision. Then we try the new mixing desk he’s recommended for us, as well as what he now says are the correct cables. For every little adjustment he makes, the sound quality just increases. By noticeable amounts, especially for me. Then he adds a little bit of reverb to my voice and a whole new layer of warmth appears making it even nicer to hear. I’m very impressed. 

I think I’ve concluded that if the sound going out to the audience is good, if the sound coming back to me isn’t right, I can’t sing properly so the sound going out won’t be so good. But if I can hear things properly, like it seems I will with this new setup, I’ll be able to sing so much better and impactfully which will mean a good performance and a good sound for both the audience and myself.

I also take the opportunity to learn a little more and ask any questions I have about the mixing desk, which increases my confidence in handling the system even more. Mark has some knowledge and experience of sound but he’ll be the first to admit he’s no expert and it’s great for both of us to get such a masterclass from this guy today. 

Mark:

The guy also brings out an alternative mixing desk, complete with effects which ours is lacking. We were thinking of maybe just buying a little effects unit to add a little more reverb or body to our sound, but this new desk is so much better than what we have and, added to the new microphone, is a revelation. So in it goes. As for monitor, we go through a few options and end up buying exactly the same speaker that we bought here last week so now we have two of them and we have a look now at how this should all be put together. To the collection we also add a bag in which to carry microphone stands, something which can be quite tricky on a trolley, not least when trying to carry it up and down stairs. And finally, we get advice on alternative speaker connector cables which again prove to be far superior to what we’ve been using. I think it’s fair to say we’ve completely overhauled our sound capability in here today in what has been a hugely beneficial exercise. But with all that, there’s one more thing to buy. Another trolley because all this new stuff can’t possibly be carried on one. So now the two of us will have a trolley to pull to gigs. But it also means a little weight has come off the one that we had, so overall the effect is to make the process much easier. And once we’ve started to use this equipment a little more, not least the monitor, we feel we’ll have a far better sound and much more control over it which will also translate to confidence and consistency of performance. To be fair, we may have been struggling with this a little more than we realised with equipment that wasn’t quite up to what we thought it was, and without our own dedicated monitor. As we happily leave the store, we feel ready to start working to hit the next level.

But, beyond Berlin, where is this next level going to take place? We have no idea. We kinda have plans to go to Prague next but surely there’ll be no point being there until at least the second or third week of January. Nothing happens in any immediate new year. We could go and chill for a while and rehearse and get our bearings but we’re not convinced. We consider going back to Ireland for a few weeks but that would involve a drive across Europe for a ferry, and then a drive all the way back out here when the time was right again. Seems a bit much. Stay in Berlin until we’re ready to move somewhere else? But stay where? Especially considering our current place closes in a few days. Katia’s apartment is still on the cards but far from a solid proposition. And of course we were supposed to be in England over Christmas until that got pulled away a few days ago.

But Maja has another possibility. Friends in Sweden are going away for Christmas and they’d be up for having us stay at their place from the 21st until the new year. This has been quietly bubbling away for a few days and today gets confirmed. Brilliant. So that’s that sorted. We already have Artliners booked for the 19th and were never considering leaving immediately the day after. So the 21st suits us perfectly. We can already see that Berlin is starting to wind down for Christmas and there’s no open mic anywhere tonight that we’re aware of. Fine. Given that we need to make the most of what we learnt at the Fargo experience, especially considering how tired we were for that show, we decide to concentrate on Artliners. We really want to be at our energetic best for that one, especially as it’s livestreamed. We’re very happy with how much we’ve been able to play and put ourselves about, so we decide to use this week for relaxing, sightseeing and rehearsing. And Diary writing and podcast recording. But we will do Zum Krokodil tomorrow, returning to that particular venue for the fourth time.