It has been a good week in the world of Betika! It began with the cheers and applause from the gig on sunday still ringing in our ears, and continued well as we found ourselves on the recieving end of more positive feedback than I for one really know how to deal with. It was with heads and hearts inflated by this that we reconvened on tuesday to have another crack at recording "Jeremy Bentham" and "Dormitor", and for the first time I think we managed to capture the energy we play with when we're in front of people, but coupled with the precision and accuracy needed in a recording situation. We were playing together like a five-piece musical machine! (Lexi and Martin will overdub their bits later). We did several versions of either song, then the following evening Hubcap, Chris and I got together to listen back to what we'd done, and edited the very best bits of each take together into uber-versions. I know that this is cheating, but it's a method available to us enabling us to make the best end product we possibly can so I've got no qualms about doing it.
We've got all the instrumental bits done now, bar some bits of percussion and all the fiddly keyboard and wind instrument bits, and after that comes the bit that I always find the most difficult and least enjoyable: The Singing. The bit where not only is there absolutely no room for technical error, but where I've also got to do the whole emotional communication thing. It always seems like I can do either one or the other at any one time. Carolyn and I agreed some time ago that we would start slipping in extra vocals-only rehearslas between full-band gatherings to get us up to recording standard, but we've been a bit slack on that front so far, so we decided to play a few acoustic gigs so we'd have no choice but to rehearse or fall flat on our arses. The first of these acoustic gigs will be at Consortium next sunday and we don't even know what we're going to play yet, let alone got together for a practice. Luckily we do most our best work at the last minute. Strict deadlines are an important thing in the Modernday Betika. I've been sitting around singing other people's songs for my own amusement quite a lot, really just for the singing practice, but there's a good chance we might end up throwing a few covers into our acoustic sets. There's a handful of my favourite ever songs that I've always wanted to play (and I expect Carolyn is the same), so I might well take this oppurtunity to do this.
"Shaun of the dead" is on in the lounge at Betika Towers, so I'm going to watch it.
My darts is getting better.
