Today, i’m off to Saint Etienne. The place in France, not the band lol. I’m off to see my friends, most of them play in bands actually, Kiss Kiss Martine, Alyson B, Raymonde Howard to name but a few. I’m quite looking forward to seeing them all.

I’m back next week and i will upload a new track on thursday 2nd August so check back then for new music

Yesterday, i filmed some test shots for the video for “manager”. The set-up was 200% DIY, as i’m using the video function of my digital camera, and it’s all happening in my living room. Nonetheless, it looks good

The plan is for more shooting to take place some evenings after work (though it might be tricky as i need to catch the daylight) and on sunday 5th + wednesday 8th August. Then i can edit it all that following week-end and put it online then.

Next week and the first week of August, i will be filming a video for “manager”.

The details are still a bit sketchy but let’s just say it will feature a fluffy monkey toy called Peanuts (which already features on the cover for the track). I’m hoping to get it online for mid-August.

I’ve uploaded a new song, called “Balls of fire”.

It was written after a friend of mine decided not to be my friend anymore, for some very vague reasons. However, the original focus moved from how i felt to why she was doing, and deals with certain aspects of personality disorders.

The song has been added to the playlist so you can listen to it via the music player on the top right side of the page. You can read more about the song at http://www.natjm.co.uk/index.php?page_id=32

I’m feeling rather creative today and i wrote some lyrics on my lunch break. I find this to be a great way to isolate myself from my work environement and it provides me with a real escape from work, even if i don’t leave my desk (i’m lazy and on 7th floor, so i don’t always have the energy to get out lol). This morning has been very dull for me at work and i guess my brain needed to explore other avenues on my lunch break. One thought led to another and i found myself formulating lines, so opened up notepad and wrote them all down. Before i knew it, i had 3 verses and a chorus!

I can’t wait to get home tonight and write the music on my guitar (i’ve got bits of it in my head already)! I think i might record this song next, as i’m so excited about it. It’s called “Geek got the blues”, and i guess it is kind of autobiographical in the past, eg a reflection of how i felt a few years ago. Thankfully, i’m in a better place at this moment in my life but it doesn’t mean i couldn’t get back to that place, you never know what life throws at you.

Today has been an emotional rollercoaster for me - and all due to the recording of one guitar track!

I always like wednesdays, as i’m off work. I got up on time to connect to the internet and book 2 tickets to go and see PJ Harvey live in september at the royal festival hall, so really, by 9.05am, life couldn’t be better.

Fired up Cubase, plugged in my guitar, and there i was, recording away. Except i couldn’t play the damn thing! My fingers were slow and felt chubbier than usual (after close inspection, they do look their normal self), my rhythm was constantly one beat behind, and my hand didn’t want to strum the strings at 180bpm. What could i do? I was playing to a programmed drum track and a recorded bass track, and when i practiced the guitar part last week-end, everything was fine. Desperate, i turned on the metronome click in Cubase - that very annoying click sound - and to my surprise, everything fell into place. I don’t quite understand why, as this sound actually really irritates me, but my right hand was moving faster, my fingers were moving faster and i definitively felt in the groove.

So i recorded the guitar part, content with myself. Then on to the vocals. Then i had some lunch.

Then i listened to what i had recorded. Oh dear. The vocals were good but the guitar, dear, dear, was horrible. I thought i had managed to bluff my way through the 180 bpm rhythm section, and clearly, i hadn’t. It wasn’t tight enough. I tried to edit the audio for a few bars and it tooks ages, without giving a very satisfying result. It seemed like i would have to record the guitar part again - and practice the hell out of it first! Not really what i wanted to do. There must be another way… there must be another way… i kept telling myself. Then i remembered an article i read in Sound on Sound a few months ago, about using MIDI gating for rhythm tracks.

Luckily, i still had that copy of SOS near my desk and i found the article. Easy peasy. I programmed the rhythm track for the intro, played a little bit with the different note lengths then applied it to the guitar track. With very little editing required of the audio track, i got a very satisfying result. I did it for the verse and it worked too!

So the guitar track is back on! I’ve left it there for today, because i don’t want to find out again that it doesn’t work and having to go through the “how am i going to record this” dilemna again. Also, i managed to gain a very big headache in the process

My next recording day is saturday - i’m hoping things will go smoothly then, there’s only so much i can take and sweat in a week.

My girlfriend is ill today so i have to keep quiet in the flat. After wasting half an hour on the internet, it occured to me that i could use the time to go through the scraps of songs i collected last saturday (see previous post) and start recording rough demos of songs and finish writing them while doing so.

Most of my songs are written on the guitar, but it’s impossible to play it quietly so i thought, what the heck, those are only rough demos to finish writing and structuring the song, why not do them using MIDI. I took out my MIDI keybaord controller, pulled out a piano sound and banged the chords and the melody (i couldn’t sing so i just played the melody). I have to say, it sounds pretty horrible (my playing is very sketchy) but it makes it easier to work out whether a tune is strong or not; the good ones somehow manage to shine through and the bad ones show off all their mediocrity.

1 done, 199 to go! Well, not sure exactly how many to go, but 199 isn’t too far off the mark…

At the suggestion of my girlfriend, i decided to tidy up my desk and the shelves with my music stuff - and i have now gathered all my bits of songs into the same folder.

It transpires that i have about 150 songs, in an almost finished form - about 80 have been recorded and released, either as APP (HLMHB), my project back in 2004, or as RachelAPP (my project from 2005 to early 2007) or as Nat JM (well, only a few songs so far, but many more to come ). The other ones are waiting to be recorded - some of them need a bit of extra writing but mostly, they are written.

I also have about 150 bits of songs, which need a lot of extra writing. I constantly add to this, about half of those have been written within the last 6 months, as i now have the habit of always carrying a notebook and a MP3 player with a record function with me.

The quantity of stuff is a bit daunting. On one hand, it’s reassuring that i have so much material to work with, as it seems i don’t really suffer from writer’s block. On the other hand, where do i start?

I’ve uploaded my new track “Manager” - you can listen to it using the music player on the right side of the page.

 As documented before, this song was inspired from an experience of mine - and my frustration with my now ex-manager. Musically, it is based on a rather low vocal melody for me and… well, you’ll just have to go listen!

More info at http://www.natjm.co.uk/index.php?page_id=24