Recording

Present: Ad, Eg, Fea, Tom

Ben's moved his control room again. This time to a different building. Into some loftspace over an adjoining unit.

Cosy.

Ad brings notes on previous recordings, Fea brings wine, Eg brings Fea [and Ben's tobacco], Tom brings cold and his own peppermint teabags plus universally loved Big Red chewing gum.

The team work on Secrets and Lies [Vocals], Hearts Pumping [ukulele], Love the Way [Vocals], 21 [Vocals, Ben Cymbals] and discuss violin/cello/trumpet usage.

Also discussed was how to release the current batch of recordings. Two 6 track albums?

More discussion/bribing/negotiations required.

Loopy Christmas Do

Present: Ad, Eg, Fea, Gi, Tom

Venue: Bella Napoli, Abingdon

The annual Christmas backslap involving the entire band and some poor unsuspecting small restaurant near one of the band members' houses. This year it was Gi's turn to source, book and disown the subsequent food quality of the eaterie he had chosen.

It receives the thumbs up from all.

Teetotal Tom gets roped in as Taxi driver for Fea but can't quite make it to pick up Eg. Ad scrounges a sofa off Gi for the night.

The Christmas crackers, as supplied by Minty again, fail to top last year's football themed cracker snapping bonanza. This year, each cracker houses a santa sitting on different coloured sleighs that zoom along the table after a short pull-back. When all the other diners finally leave, the restaurant owner and his wife look on bemusedly as the Loopy boys set up the cardboard race track and jostle for the perceived best lane.

One race. Winner claims glory.

All sleighs crash into each other in the middle of the track apart from Eg's whose outside missile zooms past the finish line and into the wall to take the podium.

Great food. Great company. Appalling crackers.

Present: Ad, Fea, Gi, Tom

To warm up, the boys managed a few old favourites including Small Town Boy, Starting Out, Change, Someone, Some Summer's Day and Blue Cortina. Couldn't remember OX4 though.

Tom used a new pedal sound, Ad had to tune for the first time in months and Fea & Ad's voices were shot to pieces by the end of it. Edgar audibly missed, of course.

Secrets & Lies, Corner Of My Mind, Smile and Doing Somersaults were all brought out for a polish and progress was made on the jammed song which is on the way to being titled This Life or Beautiful Day or something equally Loopyish. Sparkle You continues to grow promisingly.

Post-Practice Pint Pub Prattle: Gi needs a Humax; Tom is rescued from airport hell by the latest Smashcast; Ad has bought some new shoes; Gi's daughter's, Polly's, Birthday today; Fea's 'Guess The Name of the Bear' guess was 'Polly', in her honour - she's 22 now!; Being unnecessarily competitive; BBC Licence Fee, is it a subscription?; Tom doing things to married ladies on coaches around Eastern Europe while their husbands' best friends are the driver; Fea's Ofsted inspection; Ad rescuing a scruffy acoustic guitar from a local amenity tip for the price of five pounds - a new set of strings later and it's as good as 'almost new'; Martin Potter worked for Unipart not Unilever; Work Christmas Dos; The Loopy Christmas Meal in Abingdon in two weeks time and Tom defenestrating himself into the snow, followed by his clothes, when a highly protective unexpectedly father returns home. He was fifteen and loved the excitement.

Practice

Present: All

Ad returns from Zambia, Eg returns from China. Apparently both trips had nothing to do with secret international trade negotiations. Fea has the Ofsted Sword of Damocles hanging above him. Tom has a sickly daughter [and has to leave early to tend to her] and Gi gets a high hat clamp cross-threaded onto his cymbal.

'Sparkle You', 'Gallery of You' both successfully worked on.

Post-Practice Pint Topics of Conversation: the Hungarian music festival next year; the Loopy Christmas Do in Abingdon; Eg's accurately pessimistic estimates of band members' ambitious Home Improvement plans; Fea has never been to Tom's home - he hasn't been invited.

Returned to studio to pay the previously absent Ben and to return the high hat clamp still attached to Gi's Cymbal. Cymbal subsequently freed from clamp using Ben's tool. Because....

...he got pliers,
Going in
He got pliers
Coming out of his skin...

Recording: Rescuing last week's session

Present: Ad, Eg, Gi and Tom


Bass fixes completed on 21 and entire bass line re-recorded on Hearts Pumping.

Gi's percussion completed on Wild End. Started off with adding some Cowbell. But it quickly became clear that it wasn't really the sound we were looking for.

Tom's guitar on Secrets & Lies along with a Gary Numan style keyboard sound for the chorus. He's firmly told by Eg to not bounce.

Gi suggests tuba for Wild End bass riff. It's liked.

Beer provided by Eg