Blog: My Totem Is A Grebo

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When i WASN'T getting all irate about corporate entertainment, I spent much of the weekend sorting out my DEN (the current preferred name, beating Study, Office, and SHED into a Cocked Hat at the moment). As previously reported, I spent last weekend PAINTING it and since then have taken delivery of FURNITURE in the shape of my Nan's old bureau. When she died a couple of years I hired a Man And A Van to SHIFT it from her bungalow to my parents' garage, where it has been a source of CONTENTION ever since - apparently it was preventing them getting any use out of their MASSIVE outhouse, although the fact it took me five minutes to CLAMBER over old tools, bicycles, crates, and a FOREST's worth of WOOD led me to believe i was not the ONLY culprit...

Anyway, i decided to get it SORTED so consulted The Shady Organisation Known As The Lunch List who pointed me in the direction of Freight Alerts, who were FANTASTIC. I put my REQUIREMENTS online and within 10 minutes it was all SORTED - a very nice chap called Bryan rang my Mum and popped round a couple of days later, AT THE TIME HE'D SAID, to pick it up. The following weekend, AT THE TIME AGREED, another chap arrived in Leytonstone with my Bureau - it was PEASY!

So, with bureau installed i set to SORTING OUT all my various items of paperwork and STUFF. It seemed like a LOT of things at first, until I thought "This is my whole LIFE here in these boxes and drawers, WHITTLED down over various Big Tidy Ups and House Moves into the bare essentials!" I then spent a happy several hours filing things away - one GRATE thing was sorting out my TOOLBOX (yes,i have a toolbox, I AM MAN!) so that now ALL my screwdrivers are in the same place and, by golly, from the amount of Allen Keys i own i must have made a LOT of Self Assembly Furniture!

And I must say, these old fashioned BUREAUS are FANTASTIC, i now have a small drawer JUST for Change Bags, one for Staplers/Scissors/Glue, and a whole drawer for Emotional Items From My Past, like my Grandad's dominos, or my old ZX Spectrum.

It was items such as THESE that started to cause me some problems, as well as the bureau itself. Basically, every time i now go to get a PENCIL i get hit by the smell of BOXING DAY! Emotionalised already, it was perhaps not such a good idea to try and go through all the papers and CATEGORISE them. "Oh look," i thought, "it's my best man's speech for my Brother's wedding... and a letter from my Nan... and " BLUB!

I fought off the MANLY TEARS for a bit by cutting out my Press Clippings from the past few years and sticking them into a scrap book, which was PLEASANT but also a bit GLUE-Y so eventually i had to admit defeat and turn to the affairs of ROCK.

As mentioned previously, we're contributing a track to a Pop Art compilation where people who've played their gigs cover each other's songs, and we're doing "Songs About You" by The Language Of Flowers. I was KEEN to mix it myself, although i nearly SURRENEDED at the first stage when i got the DRUM TRACKS through - i was expecting one simple ready mixed stereo WAV, not about TWENTY seperate ones. Why would you NEED 20 drum tracks? There were microphones for above the kit, next to the kit, round the corner from the kit, in a room next door, and in a field some miles away. Things weren't helped by my doddery old computer which can only play about five tracks at a time but, with patience and BOUNCING DOWN we got it sorted out and through the Magic Of The Interweb Validators were able to pass comment so that, by Sunday evening it was a) done and b) sounding pretty darn GOOD.

So I was slightly upset on Sunday night to log on and find that Mr T "The Tiger" McClure had spotted a problem - a "squeak" in one of the (five) violin tracks that needed fixing. "Oh for heaven's sake!" i thought "That's a RIGHT pain in the arse, i can't be bothered!"

It may have been the emotional atmosphere of the weekend, it may have been the GLUE, but there and then i had a VISION. It was a Scrooge-esque glimpse into Mixing Sessions Past - there before me i saw a younger ME, lying back on the sofa in Mr Kev Reverb's old studio, saying words to the effect "Yeah, can we just make the drums a bit more... ORANGE-Y maybe? ANd the guitar should sound a bit more like CHEESE WIRE. Is that OK?" I suddenly realised that if Kev could have the PATIENCE and understanding to not only PUT UP WITH me saying idiotic things like that, but also to carry them out AND make a really good job of it, then who was I to refuse a clearly worded, simple, and efficient suggestion from Tom. AND LO! I did hear the voice of Kev, saying those words he would so often say at times like this ("For fcuk's sake Hibbett!") and i saw that he was RIGHT.

Forty five minutes, one copy and paste, eight bouncedowns, ten games of Free Cell while my old computer GRINDED through it all, and some re-compression of WAVS, it was done - it may not be a RED INDIAN GUIDE in the bathroom like what J Morrison had had, but it was still a SPIRITUAL REALISATION.

Also that weekend, now i think of it, i found my ELVIS RING that I'd wear for recording sessions with Kev. Coincidence? YOU BE THE JUDGE.

posted 27/11/2007 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

oh right - your spiritual awakening was based around kev's "pain" - what about my pain when I went through the same process you just described for EVERY song on the last album!
posted 27/11/2007 by Francis

Yeah, I wasn't there, nor was it just me causing it when it happened to you, therefore: LESS SPIRITUAL.
posted 27/11/2007 by MJ Hibbett

i fell like i should comment simply because the wor "grebo" is in the title.
posted 27/11/2007 by ray k is foreign

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