Slide Pheromone

Time to fly.....

Here is my last entry from England. Off to catch a flight to Oz via a roast lunch to prepare myself for all the plastic plane food.

So...what will I miss most about England? Not the weather and not the useless London transport system. Obviously it's friends I will miss most and of course the band - though I may try my hand at singing in OZ! I don't think much will change in 6 months - however, can everyone make sure that they don't get married or pregnant, as I don't want to be away for big events like that!

Be good.

Posted by Sarah
11:23 26 Oct 2003

Taking a break

After our gig at the Catapult Club way back in July, I took a lengthy break from drumming. I'd got to the stage where I just wasn't feeling comfortable with my playing, and when that happens the only thing to do is get away.

I've come to accept that there's little place for Mike Portnoy-esque drum heroics in the music we write, though some does creep in from time to time (the end of the Deja Vu drum break springs to mind), and I'm trying to redefine my approach to writing drum parts for songs. I don't want to play drums like Charlie Watts from the Stones, just utterly straight ahead basics, but on the other hand I don't think that going mad with technique and fills will endear me to my band.

Since coming back to the kit, I've discovered that finding my style and identity as a drummer is proving far more difficult than I imagined.

Posted by Martin
10:01 25 Sep 2003

1/3 of my life

It barely even crosses my mind, but this band will have been together for ten years in October. Scary - there are few other things which have occupied such timespans in my life: family and a slack handful friends. Its good though that we are finally wrapping up. What follows won't have any of the history we have now - the current line up has been together longer any achieved more than any other so it's kind of fitting that we are giving this unit a new identity. Not to mention how much the music has changed. I guess what remains is to say thanks to all those people who have been part of Slide Pheromone for the last ten years: Ed, Lisa, Milly, Rhoda and, of course, Oli who is still with us on the side lines. I hope you have all taken something good from your time.

Posted by Tristan
18:59 24 Sep 2003

The Hidden Dangers Of Rock, Pt. II

Nice little heatwave we have going on at the moment. Positively tropical. Anyway, rather than retype this (my fingers hurt) I've just copied and pasted it from the forum:

"I'm melting.

And thanks to the warm weather I now have sweat blisters under the callouses on my fingertips from where I was playing my guitar over the weekend.

Nice. Another Hidden Danger of Rock."

You've been warned. (Again)

Posted by Neil
15:06 14 Jul 2003

wreck or ding?

Well I think it's going quite well. I never used to be anal about the sound of my bass (it's all about what you play man) but since buying that POD last year it's taken over my thinking. Good news is that we have some nice bass noise down. Yummy. Even if it did take me 3 takes to remember the chorus in [what is codenamed] Peices. Ahem ;)

Posted by Tristan
11:36 7 Jul 2003

Being a Pro Tools drummer

Just finished recording drum & bass tracks for the EP. It all went pretty well, though it can be hard trying to engineer a recording whilst also thinking about my playing. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I'm glad to say it worked on this occasion, but it's still a stressful situation. The downside is that I never seem to get my 'ideal' take down to disk - I tend to 'play down' in the studio to make sure every take is a good one and some of the more complicated fills and rhythms get left on the shelf for this reason. The upside is I get complete control of how the drums will sound on the final recording, rather than allowing some gimpy engineer to make £5k worth of drumkit sound like a collection of cardboard boxes and dustbin lids...

Posted by Martin
12:04 4 Jul 2003

So damn hot

I'm not a summer person. If I lived somewhere really hot like Spain (how appropriate) I'd collapse from heat exhaustion in five seconds flat. I like the cold, I'm an autumn/winter person. This strange hot weather in June is killing me, particularly since I'm moving house this week and lugging huge, heavy boxes around in the stifling heat.

What's this got to do with music and SP? Not a great deal, though during the move I found a ton of manuscript paper with song ideas and chord progressions on it. I also found out just how damn heavy my synth is. Ouch.

Posted by Martin
11:16 27 Jun 2003