It's Alive!

Today sees the official release of my new album 'Arboretum'. It's been a long slog and much has happened since I last mentioned its recording in this blog.

So basically, in order to give you a brief summary; the last session was held on May 14th and this was to lay down the strings on a track called 'Almost Lost At Sea' (see the video in the last blog). We recorded a passable string section, but also captured the MIDI so that when the album was sent for mastering at Adam Crute's studio he had optimum control. In fact Adam was a real star and ended up replacing the string sample I'd recorded with a far more realistic one and the result is amazing. Thank you Mr C!

After mastering, the album was sent up to The Guitar Label HQ in Perthshire and the download site was organised.

At present, it's possible to download high quality WAV files from my website order page at www.davidmead.net/order – some MP3 files are included in the download too so you can pop them straight into the iPod of your choice and begin listening.

I also wrote out three of the tracks in TAB and these are available as a download, too. The tracks are 'Almost Lost At Sea', 'Come Find Me' and 'Waterfalling'. There will also be three short tutorial videos available soon which will show me taking you through the more difficult sections in glorious hi-def video.

So there it is, then: after nearly two years in the making 'Arboretum' is now available. I'm hopeful that I will soon be putting together some live dates so that I can get out on the road and play the material in concert. You can hear four of the tracks now in the player below and download a free track by visiting my website...

Almost Lost At Sea...

I can't remember when it was that I first began to document the development of my new album 'Arboretum'. I think it might even be around two years ago – time flies, dunnit?

In any case, the album is now finished and available as a digital download via my website at www.davidmead.net/orders. You can download a free track and listen to four sample songs, too.

I thought I'd celebrate the launch by posting a video of a piece on the new album called 'Almost Lost At Sea'. Rather than showing me sitting there playing the track, the music acts as a soundtrack for the story that inspired me to write the song – in the manner of many Hollywood teaser-trailers.

In any case, I hope you like it...

Having An 'Off Day'...

Let's face it; we can't expect to be on form 100% of the time when we're involved in something as complex as making music. Especially when it comes down to recording an album – after all, posterity has a long and rather unforgiving memory...

I had a studio session for my new album recently where I was down to record one of the most demanding pieces I've written so far. Why demanding? Well, it involves playing over virtually the whole fretboard so there are a lot of position changes, it's quite fast (138 BPM, if you're interested), it changes key in the middle and loads of other yippy-eye-oh-fol-de-diddle-all-the-day type of fingerstyle skulduggery. I'd deliberately booked a whole day in the studio because I knew I wanted to get it right and if that meant doing 25 takes to get a good one, then fair enough.

As it turned out, I discovered quite early on in the session that I wasn't having a good day. Having practised the track beforehand until my fretboard screamed for mercy, I was sure I was ready to record it... Trouble is, I just wasn't 'in the zone' mentally. My mistake was to plough on with grim determination; by the end of the afternoon I was literally playing takes with gritted teeth and, as I've said in most of my books, if there is any tension in your body, you're like a machine beginning to seize up and you're definitely not going to be capable of putting in a good performance.

If you want the full list of excuses (and if you don't, please skip this paragraph) then I could say that my car had exhibited a worrying tendency not to start earlier in the week; my computer – which I obviously rely on for a great deal of my work – was beginning to behave rather strangely and I was sufficiently distracted to the point where I couldn't get that sublime head-to-heart-to-hands connection necessary for putting in a good reading of the piece concerned.

I could have saved myself a great deal of soul-searching angst if I had remembered some very good advice given to me once by a very well-known musician: 'Everyone has bad days,' he told me. 'The trick is to save yourself a lot of grief by recognising that you're not on form early on in the day, forgetting about it and going down the pub instead.' He was right. There's always another day – it never does you any good to beat yourself up over circumstances that you haven't much control over.

Battle will recommence at the end of this week... and this time, I know I'll nail it!

Nailed It...

Now I'd be the first to admit that I take girlie care of my fingernails, particularly on my right hand (the left hand nails are cut back very short). The reason for this obviously has a lot to do with playing fingerstyle acoustic guitar, but it also has a lot to do with hand position...

Let me explain: my right hand tends to adopt the 'classical position' when I play. This means that my fingers are virtually perpendicular to the strings, whereas a lot of fingerstylists tend to angle their right hands towards the bridge. This means that my fingernails have to be quite long on that hand – I'm not absolutely sure why this is, but you can be sure that I've experimented with all lengths and settled on one. Trouble is, it happens to be the one that leaves the nails most vulnerable to accidental breakage!

Around a week ago, I had another session for my album and spent the day making sure my right hand didn't do anything heavy duty enough to break a nail. About an hour before the session, I noticed that – inexplicably – I'd managed to tear the nail on my middle finger. I still don't know how I managed it because my nails are actually very strong, but whatever... I was in trouble.

Sure, I can play with my fingertips, but if you're in the middle of making an album and want an even consistency of sound over all the tracks, altering your right hand technique temporarily causes more problems than it solves. So I was stuck. In fact, I had to resort to the oldest remedy in the book: glue. A healthy dollop of glue on the nail, hastily dried underneath a lightbulb, got me through the session without further damage (or sonic irregularity) but I have since had to cut the offender down to size.

I'm investigating acrylics as a solution to nail damage as players I know who use them tell me that the nails retain and almost Wolverine level of strength with only a bi- or tri-weekly application. It looks like things are about to get even girlier!

The Worst Gig Ever...

It's completely true that whenever musicians get together, conversations often begin, 'I did this gig once...' followed by a tale excerpted from the many mishaps that have occurred whilst on the road. I have to say that it's all delivered with relish – somehow, it's generally acknowledged that these personal disasters just increase your general ability to cope. A kind of 'If it doesn't kill you, it's making you stronger' philosophy.

Well, I've had some experiences on the road that I wouldn't care to repeat in any great hurry. The worst were definitely way back in the mists of time when I was still working in a semi-pro dance band. I won't mention the name of the group just in case you were in the audience one night and are still bearing a grudge...

Anyway, we arrived at a venue one night and asked if there was somewhere we could change. We were trying hard, you see, and actually took different clothes to change in to for our time on stage. In my case – and remember please that this was the 1970s – my stage apparel consisted of white Levi jeans (which might have even been flared) and some sort of groovy T-shirt with, ahem, cowboy boots. Yes, I know: I have since sought help.

In any case, the manager of the 'joint' directed us to the gents' toilet as a place we could use as a dressing room. I think a couple of us went to get ready while I went to set up my gear. When my bandmates came out they warned me to be careful when I went in to change because the floor was 'very wet'. Now I won't go into detail about what the exact composition of the liquid on the floor was, but I'm thinking that your imagination can probably do a fine job.

So I had to change into these tight jeans (look, I was going through my Jeff Beck period, ok?) and boots whilst standing on a toilet so I didn't accidentally transfer any of the floor's 'wetness' to my clothes. I believe I drove home still wearing the white Levi's that night, not wishing to repeat the experience of the high wire balancing act I'd had to endure earlier.

So what exactly did I learn from this experience? Well, the next time we played that venue, I left the cowboy boots at home and took a pair of wellies instead...

Number One Or Number Two?

I should think that just about everyone who gives a damn knows about the controversy surrounding this year's Crizmuz number one: will it be Joe McElderry or Rage Against The Machine? The pro-RATM campaigners on Facebook want to make a stand against the predictability of another of 'Simon Cowell's X Factor karaoke puppets' taking the slot, but is it a point that's actually worth making?

Before the dreaded X Factor came along Crizmuz number ones were always a mix of saccharine-laden sentimental hogwash or ludicrous kiddie songs and I don't think anyone took them at all seriously apart from the record companies who were, as usual, thankful just to see their profits soar. Then, when Cowell took over, the whole thing became organised like a military operation – the X Factor final is always positioned just before Crizmuz and, after three months of intense TV exposure, the winner is generally a dead cert to take the top slot. It's sheer marketing genius; let's face it, with that kind of exposure, just about anything could be number one – and Simon Cowell says that the Facebook crowd are being 'cynical'? I would have said that it's more 'mischievous' than anything else and if the Facebook anarchists are successful then it might prove that not everyone likes being manipulated. But it will be a short-lived victory – the whole thing is set to be even larger next time around; for 2010 I hear that Cowell has his eyes on an internet campaign with an X Factor final in a stadium somewhere...

So even if this year's battle is successful, I don't think it's a winnable war, in the long term, to be honest...

The Boyle Effect

I have to say that I greeted the news that Susan Boyle's CD has set records for mega-sales on both sides of the Atlantic with a broad smile. Why? Well, people who know me well would fight each other to be the first to tell you that I'm not at all optimistic, generally speaking; but I think that this phenomenon might just send a very important message out to record companies and music moguls alike...

The message would read something like this... You can create boy bands, girl bands and airbrushed teen divas (of both sexes) all you like, but every so often the public is going to come face-to-face with raw talent and find that it's actually superior to your short-term media sensations in almost every respect.

If it is indeed true that the public gets the music industry that it deserves then surely Susan's success – not only as a performer but as a fully saleable entity – has got to represent some kind of turning point? I've said before how I miss the innocence of the 1960s and early 1970s where anybody could get into a band as long as they had the required talent to play their instrument to an acceptable level. It didn't matter what you looked like or even how many years you had on the clock – if you were good, you were in!

When I interviewed Eric Clapton for Guitarist magazine back in 1994 I asked him what it was like to be a musician in rock's formative years and he told me: "Well, anybody that had any idea of how to play any instrument could just about hold their own because there was no competition - there was no one around. There were only a handful of bands, and anyone that could play Sam and Dave was OK. When I started out, Stax and Motown were in the clubs and anyone who could play those songs, any drummer who could play that feel, or anyone who could approach that, was a master."

Doesn't that sound like a healthier music scene to you? The only filters were talent and dedication rather than the whims of music industry tzars with their eyes set on another get rich quick gambit.

Realistically, I don't expect the industry to change overmuch – but if Ms Boyle's success makes them think a bit it will be enough for me.