With a second full national lockdown upon us in a few day’s time, we had a very small window to finish the bulk of the tracking for Last One Get The Lights, the in-progress LP from the Nick Gladdish Band. John Timney (drums, engineering and production on this record) and I met at The Space rehearsal studios in Carlisle with some guitars, a laptop, and a sense of urgency which wasn’t entirely helpful…

• 

• 

We managed to get several small bits done in just two hours. These included the few remaining rhythm/textural guitar parts, lead parts and full-on guitar solos over five different tracks. As well as borrowing John’s beautiful 12-string acoustic for a small part in one of the songs, I also used my Artisan lapsteel, Squier Strat and the new custom made Elderwood semi-hollow (read about that one here), all going through my Fender Mustang III amplifier. We might find there’s a few bits which need fixing, but if there is, we’ll have to wait until after lockdown!

Tomorrow, John will record the vocals (and a few other bits) with Nick back at Traxx Studios in North Tyneside (where the main chunk of the LP has been recorded, as documented in part one). Nick has lived with these songs for a most of this year, and in some cases even longer, so should be able to get the vast majority of them down tomorrow.

After that, it’s a case of adding Shannon’s backing vocals remotely, then mixing…

Still, at least we have all of lockdown to do that part!

More updates to follow, as and when they occur. Until then,take care of yourselves out there…