Nov 2013 | Amazing Radio, Parlour Tricks, Early Mixing

Posted by unquiet nights on December 2, 2013 · Leave a Comment

November has been busy recording wise, and writing towards the next album. “Don’t Wanna Kill For Religion” is away for mixing this weekend. Anyone who’s seen us live during the summer will know it, and there should be a hail of other songs getting mixed over the next months as we take a break from touring. Also…..

» AMAZING RADIO (01-11-2013)

The month kicked off with some more national radio. Amazing Radio is back on DAB nationally again after a bit if dispute with their provider. Greg Porter gave “Shoulda Said Something” it’s first play on the station, in what was another triumph for #TeamEssentialCredential, as you’ll hear on the video. Amazing Radio have played more than half of the “21st…” album now. Thanks a lot to Greg this time.

» THE ANSWER @ CIRCOLO DEGLI ARTISTI, ROMA (26-11-2013)

The Answer were in Italy last week on their New Horizon tour, so we went to two of the shows, starting with Roma @ Circolo degli Artisti. They performed fantastically as usual, and there’s some great material on the new album that works well live. I thought we might be on as support leading up to these shows, but a “thing” with Live Nation got in the way. Anyway, we’ll make something click eventually. Saw them outside the Circolo and got caught up a bit with Paul & Micky, who had done Milan the night before.

It was freezing so we went round the corner to get multiple shots of espresso – it is Rome after all, everything is made of espresso, even the espresso. Paul later told me if I had been there for their sound check, they would’ve done some “Song for the People” (an older song circa 2003 they used to do before recording an album), ’cause I kept talking about it. There once was a time when commercial stations like Cool FM played 2 or 3 independent bands, and “Song for The People” along with “The Siren” by my first band were going strong with the Avril Lavigne’s & Nickelback’s latest offering…

» THE ANSWER @ THE VIPER, FIRENZE (27-11-2013)

The next night was in Firenze, and my turn to drive the 464km round trip. The gig was in The Viper, another of Italy’s many high level, professional circuit venues – which is something that people here take for granted. The touring circuit in Ireland is mostly pubs which also have live music, but aren’t as well equipped with staging, lights and better sound systems. Anyway, back to this gig and after another great Tracer opening set I got better acquainted with The Answer’s new material, and the always great “Under The Sky”.

After bumping into Cormac earlier in the day where we were going to have lunch, I asked him about a new song “Burn You Down”, which has the phrase “no surrender” beautifully positioned in it. Apparently whilst inspired by living in Northern Ireland, the song itself is about a witch hunt, and has a banging chorus as you’ll hear if you see them live! One of the other songs were were talking about – “Scream a Louder Love”, is one of my favourites from New Horizon, but not being played live sadly. During the gig though, Cormac gave me the “no surrender” part of “Burn You Down” very passionately, which more than made up for it of course.

Had a good chat after the gig, and was surprised to find out that Micky (their bass player) got married and spends time at a house in Casperia which is pretty near me. Small world? And, like me he’s also been startled by the high levels of prostitution on the Via Saleria entering Rome. Once I had to avoid smashing into the back of a red Ferrari when it stopped to pick up a hooker about 10m before a set of traffic lights. Above you can see Paul explaining how he doesn’t consider any new riffs that can’t be played in mid air, “that’s the acid test”. He does do it better than anyone I’ve seen though. The Viper is a great venue too, one day it will belong to UN.

» RECORDING UPDATE | 2nd Album – “Parlour Tricks”

Time for some more specific news about the forthcoming second album…..

It’s going to be called “Parlour Tricks”, as I mentioned in a recent blog. Although I’ve been writing a lot of new songs, the priority is to get the first 3 finished that we’ve been playing live in the last year. Those would be “Destiny Does The Splitstep”, “Don’t Wanna Kill For Religion” and “Jefferson Was Right”, which have all evolved through many stages, BUT – I’m feeling confident enough now to talk in terms of them making great records, after reworking mainly the guitar and bass parts to each. For a while they gave me trouble.

“Don’t Wanna Kill For Religion” has been to Manor Park and back, to have it’s backing vocals looked at. I’ve gotta finish some of the guitars but it’ll be a good single, I think it’ll get a lot of radio play. The Marshall Jackhammer pedal on the left is my current favourite toy, some of the solos on the album will have gone through it. It’s a pretty productive period of writing too, if you heard & liked the first album, I can be pretty sure the second will be worth the wait.

There’s a lot of free music at unquietnights.com/music, but if you download there as opposed to buying the album, atleast join the mailing list, our facebook page, or follow on twitter so we can stay in touch.

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