Endurance sport...

after weeks and months of deliberating, negotiating, writing, rehearsing and anticipation, we, Hatcham Social, are finally in the studio recording our debut album. we spent the best part of 2 months in our rehearsal space in Shoreditch readying demo tracks for our album, and we've now spent just over 3 weeks in the studio in Middlewich, about 30 miles south of Manchester. Tim Burgess and Jim Spencer have been producing and engineering, the same pair we worked with for Til The Dawn & Penelope (Under My Hat). we've been keeping a video blog of our time here, the first of which can be seen below:


the thing is, quite aptly, i've found myself engrossed in the Beijing Olympics, and in a strange way, recording an album is a bit like an endurance sport. most of my parts were done in the first week, and technically i could have gone home, but this is our debut record, and i wanted to stick around so i could hear how things were coming along. and somehow, i am still standing, through the aid of Sky Television, lots of Two and a half Men, Malcolm in the Middle, South Park, A Bit of Fry And Laurie, The League of Gentleman, 15 Storeys High, a few DVD's, some books, my Nintendo DS and Fifa 08, the Adam and Joe podcast, the Now Show podcast, a wobbly pool table, a couple of trips to Manchester and the Beijing Olympics. and now, with just about 10 days to go, i can see the finish line. the end of the album is near. we'll go back to London with about 14 tracks under our belt, thanks to our performances alongside our trainers, Tim and Jim. and that's the true endurance. how both Jim and Tim have the ears to listen through and mix the album, i don't know. i couldn't do it. but that's why i play the bass and let other people engineer and produce.

this morning, i watched the 10K Womens Swimming Marathon, and that really is endurance. and after 10 kilometres of swimming, a Russian won it by just 1 tenth of a second over a British swimmer. i don't know whats crazier, the fact that someone wants to swim 10K, or the fact i stayed up til just past 4am watching it...