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THE MAKING OF:
Although CURES FOR BROKEN
HEARTS was released in 2000, the songs were written and recorded much
earlier. The following is a rather detailed account of all my recording sessions at CUSHY PRODUCTIONS with Suzanne Rhatigan, including the 5 songs that made up CURES FOR BROKEN HEARTS.
Thursday 6th March 1997. I first spoke to Suzanne Rhatigan at
a small, very
early Hefner show, in the Hope and Anchor. She was
leaning against the bar and said, 'Hi Ant, I really like your demo tape'.
I said 'Thanks' and she chatted briefly about the possibility of me
playing at her residency at the 12 Bar Club and also about going over to
her place in the near future to put down some of my tracks onto
her 8 track machine. The demo tape in question was one I had given to
John Morrison (bass player in Suzannes' band Rhatigan and newly
recruited to bass with Hefner) that contained 3 songs I had recorded on my
small four track machine, two of which were The Cure For Broken Hearts
and You've Lost Your Appeal. I jumped at the chance to get my music out
of the bedroom at long last and the following week, Thursday 20th March, I
played my first solo show at Suzannes' night at the 12 Bar Club.(See gig diary page).
Tuesday 25th March 1997. I sat nervously on Suzannes' drum stool in her front
room, while she set up the microphone and fiddled with her homemade pop
shield (made out of a pair of her old stockings). John Morrison sat amused on
the sofa, bass guitar in his lap, cigarette in one hand, glass of wine in the
other. I had just put down the main guitar track for The
Cure For Broken Hearts and was waiting to sing. Somehow I managed to
sing it ok in a few takes, although you can still hear the nervous waver in my
voice on the finished track. I had heard the rumours about how tough Suzanne was
to work with but of course I found her to be one of the nicest, generous and
most easy going people I've ever met. If you get the chance check out the Rhatigan album Late Developer on Org Records. After a few listens to the track John put down a
perfect bass part and Suzanne added some wurlitzer piano. Then I added the lead
guitar part (in one take!) and finally a snare drum played with brushes.
Suzanne did a rough mix to DAT and put one onto a cassette for me
which I must have listened to a hundred times over the next few weeks. For
the first time my music was starting to sound the way I had always imagined it could.
Tuesday 22nd April 1997. I was back at Suzannes for a second session. This time
we put down two new songs. Firstly Spoil which
we let be with just acoustic guitar and voice and then a song called Easy which never made it onto the mini album. On Easy I sang with my acoustic guitar and Suzanne
played wurlitzer piano and sang some wonderfully complex backing vocals.(Easy later appeared on the Papercuts fanzine compilation CD 'C188' and then on the Sad To See It's Morning compilation album).
Tuesday 13th May 1997.
The third session with Suzanne and John. I tried a new
song this time called No One's Looking,
which to be honest wasn't very good and I remember Suzanne suggesting some
changes to the chorus, both lyrically and musically, which I guess was a polite way of telling me the
song sucked! I reluctantly agreed and so we left it as just voice and guitar. Can't
win them all.
Tuesday 17th June 1997.
Suzanne kindly offered me the chance to stay at her
place while she was away in Dublin so I could continue the recordings. I just about remembered how to work
the 8 track (I did buy the wrong size tape at first but still, I got there in the
end) and I put down a new song that I had literally just finished writing
the lyric for, called Fly On Your Wall, with acoustic
guitar and a simple snare drum track. I spent the rest of the evening
working out the wurlitzer part.
Wednesday 18th June 1997. During this session I put down four songs using
just acoustic guitar and vocals, Tongues, a
new song called The Only Girl, You've Lost Your Appeal and The Trick. (The Trick was later re-recorded for the A Long Way To Blow A Kiss album).
Thursday 19th June 1997.
John came over and he put bass parts onto Tongues, The Only Girl
and Fly On Your Wall. I added a second
guitar part to You've Lost Your Appeal and a
backing vocal and a drum track using a snare and a floor tom. Things were
starting to take shape.
Friday 20th June 1997.
This was another important day for me as it was the
first time I had ever heard one of my songs with strings on it. Things would
never be the same! A friend of my sister called Johnny Viola Greswell (now plays inMenlo Park)
came over with his violin and viola and we spent about 3 hours putting two
viola parts and one violin part onto Tongues.
I loved it instantly and it remains one of my favourite moments. Suzanne's cat
Bobby made a clumsy entrance through the cat flap mid way through one of the
violin takes. Purrfect timing as always! You can just hear it midway through Tongues.
Friday 11th July 1997.
We put down a song called Your
Heart Got Bored with me playing Suzanne's squeaky black steel acoustic
guitar. I added a lead guitar part and Suzanne sang a great backing vocal on
the middle eight and played some lovely wurlitzer piano.
Friday 25th July 1997.
We decided to redo You've
Lost Your Appeal as I hadn't recorded it very well! So I replaced the
second acoustic guitar part with an electric guitar, using the tremlo arm and Suzanne
added some Wurlitzer. Much better.
Wednesday 27th and Friday 29th
August 1997. John put bass guitar onto Spoil
and then Johnny Viola came over and began a mammoth two day session, adding
viola and violin to Spoil, guided very carefully by
Suzanne. Suzanne should really take full credit for the string arrangment.
Friday 6th September 1997. Suzanne remixed Spoil
adding some reverb.
Friday 26th September 1997.
We reworked You've Lost
Your Appeal again, this time redoing the vocal, the backing vocal and
getting John to add some bass.
Friday 10th October 1997. We still weren't entirely happy so we tried a
completely new version of You've Lost Your
Appeal. This time I played the drum kit (which sounds a
little awkward) and the rest was pretty much the same but slightly slower and not as good as the original version.
Saturday 11th October 1997.
Suzanne was away so she kindly let me use the studio myself and
I recorded two songs with just voice and acoustic guitar, Cold Feet and Breathe My Name. (The new version of Cold Feet is pencilled in to be used on the Acuarela EP and the new version of Breathe My Name is on
the Imprints Of Emotion 7" and also on the Sad To See It's Morning
compilation CD). I had always planned to get Johnny V to add strings to these two songs but alas we never got around to it. Maybe one day in the future...
Monday 13th October 1997. I did a new song called The
Queue To Your Heart with just voice and acoustic guitars.
Tuesday 2nd December 1997. Suzanne remixed four of the songs we had done. The
first version of You've Lost Your Appeal, Tongues, Fly On Your Wall and The Cure For Broken Hearts. I had already decided
that these four songs would make a great EP.
Friday 27th February 1998.
With stiches on my hand from a nasty cut whilst
daydreaming in the kitchen at my day job, we recorded a new song called Not Sleeping The Same Way. I played Suzannes'
squeaky black steel acoustic, harmonica and snare drum and Suzanne played wurlitzer and John
played bass. I wrote the song after listening to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks for the first time.
Friday 6th March 1998.
We replaced the wurlitzer on Not
Sleeping The Same Way with my old keyboard. It seemed to fill the space a lot better.(Not
Sleeping The Same Way was later used as the double A-side to my first single).
Thursday 12th March 1998.
Recorded a new song called Where Happiness
Begins, with me on acoustic guitar while Suzanne played the
drums.Suzanne then added various keyboard sounds and a nice backing vocal at the end. (This was later used as my second single).
Friday 13th March 1998.
Suzanne was away again so I redid The Queue To Your Heart again plus an instrumental.
Saturday 14th March 1998.
Johnny Viola came over with his viola and put strings
on The Queue To
Your Heart. I had problems recording him, so the strings aren't as high up in the final mix as they should have been. Sorry Johnny.
Monday 20th April 1998. Over at Suzanne's we redid The
Queue Yo Your Heart as I hadn't recorded it
too well. Redid the voice and backing vocal and both guitars and Suzanne
added some wurlitzer piano.
Wednesday 22nd April 1998.
Finished off The Queue To Your Heart. (This later appeared as the second song on my second single).
Saturday 6th June 1998. Worked some more on Where
Happiness Begins, Easy and The Trick.
Friday 31st July 1998. Suzanne and I put together a few copies of a 7
song CDR just to give to friends, consisting of The
Cure For Broken Hearts, Tongues, Not Sleeping The Same Way, Spoil, You've Lost
Your Appeal, Fly On Your Wall and The Queue To Your Heart. I made some black and white
covers and called it Cures For Broken Hearts.
Thursday 24th September 1998.
I took my four track machine around to Suzannes' and
we mixed some new songs I'd demoed on it through Suzannes' mixing desk. The
songs were; Waste The Days Away (with
different words), Waiting For You (I later changed the words and it became Every Drop Of Rain), A Long Way To Blow A Kiss (Instrumental), I Hope You'll Always Be There (with a slightly different melody and words), Wash The Thoughts In My Head (an unreleased rarity!), I Always Hurt The One That I Love (with different
words) and I Long To Quicken The Beat Of your Heart (the new version with new words is going to be released by Unhip Records as a single sometime in the future).
Thursday 17th December 1998.
The recording session for my debut single, the Evil World 7" I Hope You'll Always Be There at Suzannes. I used
my old keyboard with the onboard drum pattern, an egg shaker and an electric
guitar and I double tracked the vocal (Suzanne's idea to help strengthen my voice). John came up with a great repetitive funky bass
line and Suzanne sang a cool backing vocal at the end. (Both Evil Worlders Darren and Jen loved it).
Friday 26th March 1999. We worked on Easy
and Where Happiness Begins.
Thursday 1st and Friday 2nd
April 1999. John put bass on Where
Happiness Begins and I recorded a new song called When The Morning Arrives with acoustic guitar,
keyboards, an arpeggio Wurlitzer line and a drum pattern.
Monday 10th May 1999. John put bass on When The
Morning Arrives but the whole song was far too long and too slow.
Thursday 13th May 1999. We mixed Where Happiness
Begins and we did an acoustic version of
I Hope You'll Aways Be There for a friend called Damien to use in a play he was doing.
Thursday 15th and Friday 16th
July 1999. We got big Johnny Viola with viola and violin and
little Mary Richards on cello,to come over and put strings onto Easy. It took a while but sounded great. It was finished.
Tuesday 21st September 1999. Me and Suzanne made the CDR master for the Fabulous
Friends single and a CDR of the five songs that would make the Cures For Broken Hearts mini album. This turned out to be my last Cushy day, for quite some time, due to the continued success of Hefner and me purchasing my own digital 8 track studio. I can't thank Suzanne enough for all her kindness and enthusiam over those Cushy years. She was and still is a great influence and quite why she isn't a huge star really baffles me.
The release.
I met Hendricks from Fortune and Glory Records sometime later (he used to play drums in a band with John from Hefner and Dean from Big Brother fame) and after seeing me play live at the 12 Bar Club, he asked for a demo. So I sent him a copy of the 5 song CDR and he loved it and agreed to release it as it was, the only change being we swapped The Cure For Broken Hearts for You've Lost Your Appeal as the opening song. A wise move.
So it was mastered at the plush Abbey Road studios on 7th June 2000 by Adam Nunn and was finally released in August 2000.
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