Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Extraordinary Machine


The album has started! Myself and James spent our first session with Robin (our producer) recording the album on Sunday, and all I can say is wow! This guy is fantastic, really knows what he's doing, and is a cool dude to boot! We layed down some guitars, nothing was mixed or EQ'd, and I can honestly say it's already the best sounding stuff we've ever done! Wait til we get the banjo and euphonium on there!

So, the Alphino site is offline at the moment while the new one is being built, therefore until it's live in its brand spanking new form this is where you need to come for any updates. And the updates, apart from the album news which I've already told you, are as such;

Alphino will be playing an acoustic show supporting the mighty Geko at O'Neil's in Winchester on Jan 26th. I'm guessing we'll be on at about 9-ish and will be playing for 45 mins. If you can come down it'd be cool as it's our first show for a while, and we'll be playing loads of new songs as well as a couple of surprises.

Hope to see you there!!!! xxxx

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Motion Sickness


Well kids, 2005 is over and quite frankly thank god for that! If you're anything like me then you'll spend the couple days after new year's eve pondering your last 12 months and how it held it. Well I did. And do you know what conclusion I came to?... 2005 was a dirty bitch! Here's my review.

This is starting to come off like a negative post, but stick with it, I promise it gets better. Seriously, 2005 handed me some of the worst times I've known: My mother's battle with breast cancer (thankfully now gone, hopefully), my father being made redundant after many loyal years with his workplace, the sudden illness and consequent passing of my aunt, and the falling apart of the band I had invested 3 years of my life into (which is actually quite lame compared to the other reasons, but you get the drift).

After a while I just thought to myself - I remember I was eating marmite toast at the time - 'last year can go screw itself, this year i'm not making any plans, so that way the year can't roast them'. I know it's ridiculous to blame something as McGuffin-like as "a year" for bad things happening, and I accept that. But sod it, it felt right at the time.

Ironically (and not in the Alanis Morissette way) it has since turned around. My mother is doing well and feeling great, my father is still unemployed but doesn't seem fazed anymore and has been more family-active, the passing of my aunt has made the 2 sides of the family closer than ever. And myself and James, having given up on trying to 'make it' as a band have been jamming as an acoustic duo (how we started out), and without the burden of wanting to be famous have found our love of music again, and are writing the best stuff we ever have. We're recording an album right now (for us, no record deals) which will be finished in May. Oh yes and we're going abroad for a month to play our way around - either Canada or Greece, haven't decided yet. And when I get back I'm opening a record shop with a close friend.

Good with the bad. Yin and Yang. Etc. I fully expect that 2006 will throw up some shit to deal with at some point, but so be it. Bring it on. I'm ready and actually looking forward to the next 12 months.

My albums of the year (in no order):

Editors - 'The Back Room'
Sufjan Stevens - 'Come On Feel The Illinoise'
Sigur Ros - 'Takk'

What were yours? Much love and peace for the new year, look after each other,

Ian xxx