Stupidest Voice in My Head Ever

Here’s a clip from one of the songs we recorded in Halden, a montage put together by our friend Henrik.

The Manhattan Project - Act 2: Curse of Merlin

The avid reader will probably remember my previous entry, regarding Merlin and our fantastic weekend in our new home; the recording studio. Well, this post is not only the follow-up to that, but also a plot twist in the tale. Because whereas the first weekend was a fantastically productive and magical experience, the 2nd weekend was pretty much anything but. Let me elaborate on the events that brought us only a few handclaps closer to a final result.

So on Friday the September 28th, we were due back in the studio. At 2pm, a message ticks in on my phone, reading “OK, bad news. Espen the sound engineer’s wife is sick and he’s not coming today. He might be able to come tomorrow. What do we do?”. Indeed. We tried to call him, but couldn’t reach him, so we decided to go anyway, just in case. We figured we’d at least be able to reach him at some point in the afternoon to clear things up. We never did.

Time for plan B: inventing a plan B. Just in case Espen wouldn’t be able to show up on Saturday, we phoned around to other people who might be able to fill in for him. After like the 6th person, we reached someone who Magnus in the past had referred to as “extremely blonde”. I don’t know what he meant by that, but we were willing to give it a shot. It was a backup plan after all. Well, no, it wasn’t, because Saturday rolled round and still no word from Espen. We went on his Myspace and saw that he had logged in Friday, i.e. the day before, so we even sent him a message on there, and then went to the studio to meet our engineer for the day: Markus.

“This song is out of tune”. That was the first thing Markus said. Turns out, it wasn’t out of tune at all. That pretty much sums up the experience with him. It took us about 3 hours to get started because all the wires in the studio were pissing him off. Plus, the previous weekend we had created a lot of audio tracks in the recording software and that really pissed him off too. Once we did get started on recording guitars, every time someone played something wrong and wanted to do another take, he would say “No no no, music is meant to be played wrong”. I don’t know what kind of music he had been snorting, but that lack of quality sure as hell wasn’t the attitude that represented the previous weekend.

After a while we realized we weren’t getting anywhere and just started recording crazy noises on the more complete songs. We also decided to just leave the studio and get drunk. Henrik joined us in the studio that night and we all went out to drink together. That was a great time, the absolute highlight of the day. Both in the studio and on the town, it all ended up being fun after all. We arranged another (!!) engineer to help us on Sunday, hopefully someone that was better suited than blondie.

Sunday rolls around and at 2pm we drive to the studio. At 2:30 still no word from our engineer for the day (one of the general managers of the studio). Finally, he calls us and says “Something happened”, then his phone dies. Ten minute later he calls back and tells us his grandmother is in the hospital. He’s not lying either. Un-fucking-belivable. We ended up getting Laurits to help us, a guy that plays bass guitar in half the bands in Halden, and the first thing he says is: “Seriously guys, there’s got to be someone better than me”. That day we had planned on finishing the vocals but ended up recording only some handclaps and keyboards instead. That’s all we got done. The insanity of it all.

And Espen? Well, we checked his Myspace on Sunday and it showed he had been logged on that day, read our message and not replied. We also called his cellphone and his wife, who sounded like she was in perfect condition, picked up and said he was out. Magnus is currently stalking him and we hope to reach him for a comment soon. Our impressions of this guy (who Magnus has worked with numerous times) just does not add up with the events. In the meanwhile, we have no idea how or when we’re going to finish the songs. So you’re just going to have to make due with these pictures, all of which is taken with a slow shutterspeed because that’s the way I like ‘em.

3 songs, 6 days, 3 producers. Fucking priceless.

The Manhattan Project - Act 1

In the beginning of September, we decided that we weren’t going to waste any more time on endless planning and made a simple executive decision to enter the studio as soon as possible to record a few new songs. So we settled on 3 songs, and if those would go well, we’d come back to record the remainder of a full-length (codename: The Manhattan Project). Magnus, our drummer, knew of a place in Halden (2-hour drive from Oslo) and an engineer that could help us record. Plans were very quickly put to motion and two weekends were reserved for us.

So on the weekend of September 21st, we filled up the trusted Merlin-mobile again (the Ford Escort that has served us well for nearly 10 years) with equipment and head out for the studio. No strings attached, just a weekend of playing around with the songs. It’s been 5 years since last time. Knowing practically nothing about the studio, we had no idea what were going to; pretty much the typical Merlin way. It turned out it was to be, at least for me, one of the most rewarding weekends with Merlin yet. The place was awesome (built into a mountain, taken straight out of Goldeneye on the N64) and our studio engineer Espen was a great guy who really understood and loved our music and knew how to make things work. Everything just sounded so much better than it ever had before. Magnus was unbelievable, insanely good beyond anything, and finished his songs in one afternoon. The next day or so we recorded all the bass and even nearly finished all the guitars on one song. Everything was just tight. That weekend was beyond our expectation and in every way magical. Henrik even stopped by to say hi and film a little, more about that later.

We left Halden on Sunday feeling really motivated and happy with the result and already looking forward to our next session in the studio.