On Pain Cassette Project
Originally posted October 14th 2023 - December 6th 2022. Edited, augmented and re-assembled March 12th 2025.
Two And A Half Years Of Living Dangerously
On March 13th 2020 Neil and I were in Gothenburg, Sweden for a concert. It never happened. Our tour was shut down by COVID.
I went to Copenhagen for a few days. It was very odd. The Danes were actually doing what their government asked them to. It was like a ghost town.
I flew to Glasgow to see my son. We had a drink in bar, and one meal, but when the restaurants stopped selling dinners to take away, I guess that’s when we knew the gig was up. For a little while I stayed in the UK. Would the UK leg of the tour happen? After another week or so it was clear that it wouldn’t. Very luckily I got a flight home via Dublin. I didn’t catch it on that journey.
I got home and dove straight into this. Which seemed to make sense until it didn’t.
Very few artists actually make money from albums any more. I have some royalties, but not enough to live on. Live income, merchandise and placement is where it’s at for the musical middle classes, post Spotify. And there was no indication of when I might have work again. There was a real chance of us losing our house.
I started the Patreon project that Summer, and the album was put on the back burner. The Patreon subscribers and the customers at our shop who bought hundreds of handwritten lyrics kept us afloat, and when, mid 2021, I could see a hint of a light at the end of the tunnel I resumed work on what became ON PAIN.
I caught COVID once during lockdown. It was frightening. My throat was on fire. Too painful to sleep. I was really worried for my voice. Luckily Get Back had just been released. I bought a Disney+ subscription for a month and I watched the whole thing from my sick bed. And luckily COVID didn’t last long for me, and there was no lasting damage to my vocal chords.
Concerts resumed in March 2022. Neil and I completed the cancelled 2020 shows and somehow neither of us got terribly sick.
I went home and put the finishing touches to the record and then I flew to the UK to mix in Wiltshire with Chris Hughes, who had been producing remotely for 2 years, and Mark Frith, his engineer. I caught COVID on the journey and gave it to Chris and his wife. Mark, and Blair, who dropped by the sessions, somehow evaded it. Mixing was consequently less fun than it should have been. Thankfully we were all very excited by the material, motivated, and we got through it. I couldn’t shake my COVID, though. I was stuck in Wiltshire for several days after mixing was concluded getting meals and beer left outside my pub/hotel room door.
Of course there are no cassettes, or DAT tapes these days, so I’m a little lost when it comes to adding images here.
On Pain
8 rough mixes.
I Can't Be Trusted 01/18/21
Oddly, almost all the synth work is done, on this, the first rough mix.
I imagine I must have been working for several days before I thought anything was worth recording and sharing with Chris.
The drum beat and sound is exactly as it is in the final version, maybe an edit here and there different. Note you can hear the whole beat, including the quiet toms at the very end when it's alone. Those toms get eaten up by the track, but they sort of bubble. You don't hear them as much as feel them.
No vocal yet, but I must be working on it, or it wouldn't have this title. I don't think I had the middle verse idea at this stage.
I Can't Be Trusted 01/30/21
First vocal rough mix. Lyric almost finished.
The mid section vocal is rough and will be replaced and then edited again to replace the 'it's ugly to win' line.
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