I know that at some stage a few weeks ago I went up to Belfast with my friend Shawna to help her pick up a new computer - specifically, an iMac. I was looking forward to the journey, we had booked train tickets rather than slumming it on the bus like I normally do. Dublin looked pretty bleak along the train line, loads of half-finished construction projects and empty apartment blocks along the way. A dirty old man sat next to Shawna and starting swigging straight out of a can of Guinness, even though it wasn't yet ten in the morning. Still, it was a pleasant enough journey, and we arrived at Belfast a little over two hours after setting off. There was time to do a little exploring before getting down to the serious business of computer shopping. We ended up in a trendy restaurant/cafe kinda place for a while, and we went to The Crown for a quick drink. I'd seen the place loads of times when I walked out of the bus station, but I had never been in there. They have a very confusing seating system inside with loads of little booths. I suppose that was how they did things back in Victorian times. After that, it was time to go to the Apple Store to look at some computers. The prices up North were a lot cheaper than in Ireland, so it made sense to buy there. Shawna settled on a very fancy looking iMac, and all that was left was to lug the box back to the station. We took pictures of the box on the way back - waiting at a traffic light, standing at a bus stop, sitting in the pub having a pint with me, making a phone call, getting on the train... Here's my favourite picture - iMac reading a book at the train station.
There have been a few more radio sessions for the Penguins album as well. The one I was most excited about was for RTE. We were given two hours in their studio to record two tunes, which seemed like plenty of time. The studio looked very impressive too, they had an enormous recording room with a Steinway grand piano and a Pro Tools setup.
We set everything up quickly enough, but it was very problematic getting a sound together. With the time constraints we were facing, the engineer was only able to give us a very basic mix to listen to while we played, and there was no time to fix mistakes or do overdubs. With ten minutes of our allotted two hour slot remaining, we still didn't have a take of a tune that we were happy with. With only two minutes to spare, we got our first tune on tape. As we were playing, I could see people gathering behind the glass of the control room, and they seemed to be enjoying what we played. We were very kindly given a few minutes to bang out a quick take of another tune, and luckily that take was fine as well. The bass was very loud though. By contrast, a session we did for Today FM in a cramped little recording room went swimmingly. The engineer was able to give everyone a perfect mix and we managed to record two songs in first takes. I haven't heard the recordings back yet, but I would imagine they came out fine.
I suppose the biggest event of the last month or so is the arrival of the IMF a few days ago, after days of denials from government ministers. You can't escape hearing about it these days. It's amazing how much things have changed here in the last couple of years. In 2008, days before the recession kicked in, a neighbour's daughter bought a one-bedroom apartment in Shankill for around €400,000: talk about a fin de siècle moment. You can now buy what I would imagine to be a similar place for... €159,000. I suppose these are the risks when you base an economy on property development. Anyway, I'm sick of talking about it. There's a march protesting government austerity plans on tomorrow, and I'll be going along. It's been twelve years since my last march, hopefully this one will be worthwhile.
0 comments:
Post a Comment