Thursday, September 14, 2006

We're On A Roll

Yeh baby! Now we're on a roll. On Tuesday 12 September 2006 we recorded the guitar parts for 'I Table A Motion' and to 'Wrong Place in Cyberspace'. Once again, my guitar virtuosity triumphed! The Funky Guitar Jedi returns.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

One Chord Pony

What Nige' fails to understand, of course, is that where it takes lesser guitarist several chords to capture the emotive essence of a song, I can do it in one. Forget Scotty Moores jazz-tinged rock 'n' roll strummings or Jimi Hendrix's wild-ass noodlings and Steve Jones three-chord thrashes. If you are as good as me, one chord is all you need. And my playing ain't 'out of time'; it's called 'swing'. I got 'swing' by the sackful. I'm the original swinger.

Friday, September 08, 2006

I will admit one thing...

...Peter is an extraordinary guitarist. I know that sounds weird coming from me, I'm usually putting him down, slagging him off or otherwise trying to pump up my ego whilst deflating his. But when it comes to mastery of his chosen instrument, Peter is second to none. In all honesty, it's a true delight to watch him play. The way he carefully but sensually lifts his strat up onto his lap, like a delicate lover. The way he tunes it's strings, gently plucking and twisting as if beginning the musical foreplay. The way he grips the maple neck, firmly but sensually, as if to show his baby that he is in charge, but that he wants nothing more than for her to sing with delight. And then he slowly turns the volume and tone controls, engages the acoustic simulator, flicks the pick-up selector whilst positioning his fingers and then down, down comes the plectrum, it hits the first string perfectly and continues on, a chord begins to swell and by the end of the stroke the sweetest most beautiful symbiotic combination of tones rings out. The hair on the back of my neck rises, my eyes sting with the emotion, the shear beauty of the moment is breath taking. And then it is over. I stop the recording and that single perfect chord is captured forever in millions of ones and zeroes.

And there's the problem right there, one chord, one f#'king chord, that's all he can bloody play and guess who has to w#nking-well cut, paste and pitch shift that chord into a whole bloody song, yep, you've guest it, muggins here. He can't even play the damn thing in time, I have to manually correct that too! Sheesh, what a tosser.

Having said that, after I had worked my digital wizardry on Peter's chord Big Naturals History Museum is actually starting to sound pretty good. If I can be arsed I might upload a little snippit for you to listen to. No vox yet I'm afraid.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

I Am The Funky Guitar Jedi

Yo, Nonkster! Finally we got down to the best part of the Nonkey recording process; recording my guitar parts. The song ain't worth a sh*t until I've sprinkled my magic funk dust over it. Then, it comes to life. I just plug my funky Fender Stratocaster into my funky Boss Acoustic Simulator, take the output to the PC and when Nige' says 'Funk it baby!' Funkmagic comes from my fingers. Listen out for the funky riff on the opening of 'Big Naturals History Museum'. I am the Funky Guitar Jedi. Freak out.

Friday, September 01, 2006

After the Hiatus

Hey...yeh...we're still alive. Sorry about that little break in communications. The creative juices dried up and when you're constipated the worse thing you can do it force it; just ask Nige' (his constant creative constipation has resulted in many-a stiff-shit song remember 'Willy Poppin' anyone?)

After the classic 'Special Glue' song we've taken a bit of time to gather our thoughts, review our work in progress and have a holiday. The good new is that we start recording the guitars and vocal parts for the songs next week. Tuesday, 5 Sept. 2006. My birthday! I'll be forty-bleedin'-two. Yeysuz. I started the Nonkeys when I was a young whippy-snappy twenty-one year old!

How times change. I guess that's why we find it increasingly difficult to write funny lyrics; we just can't write songs about the things we used to write songs about. 'I Want To Caress Your Creamy White Breasts' makes you titter when you're 21, but if we sang it now we'd just be accused of being dirty-old men. Which actually, we are, so maybe it doesn't matter. I like young firm white breasts. Nothing under-age, you understand. Just plump, flubbery, jiggly juggles. Yummy. Oooo.