Present: Ad, Tom

Venue: Smash Towers

In spite of a mysterious and misinformed text message from Valley Studio Manager Ben that claimed the band had a particular room already set up with four microphones etc. Practice this week occurred in Emsworth.

Eg's had familial birthday duties to attend to and Fea was off presenting The Rayner Cup to some poor low-achieving, unsuspecting, uncooperative pupil who still doesn't know what they must have done wrong to have deserved such a playground taunt-earning gong.

Little Ash was there when Tom turned up and, after fixing a string to Ad's seemingly unplayed acoustic, played on the first ditty. And then left. Rightly so.

The rehearsal focussed on the School's tour coming up in July with Depeche Mode's 'Just Can't Get Enough' covered. The presumtpion being that the very young pupils at these schools will be too young to even remember 'It's All About You' by McFly.

The evening's music playing was curtailed by the two non-Rayners talking about old times [image below: debut gig], previous bands, the lovely Aimee Rose, the Angry Maisie Moo and how good it would be to have the loopy mail coming through Gmail's interface. Ahem.

Oh and Manchester United beat Arsenal in the Champions League Semi-Final - Ad n Tom raised a sympathetic toast to gooner, Eg: Ad with a can of lager, Tom with a cup of Lapsang Souchong. Or was it peppermint tea?

Present: Ad, Eg, Fea, Tom

New stuff, old stuff. The boys ran through the 8 track album, a neatly packaged pop effusion, with Fea picking up the bass rather well on 'Love the Way'.

Someone; Starting Out; Sparkle & Shine; Fiat 500; Sky Above My House; TV All Day; Extraordinary Day [a rather wordy number which Fea attempted after Ad's failed effort in a previous rehearsal]; Lie Detectives; Where Do You Go.

The boys tried to remember Skydiving, Rollercoaster and some other numbers they never got round to recording in the early days.

Post Practice Pint Prattle: the Sziget festival to which Ad, Eg and Tom are going thanks to Tom's parents' flat in Budapest; the album cover; Tom's band task list; Ad's podcasting possibilities; Fea's losing his deputy; Eg's got Shell's birthday coming up; Tom's Birthday will be a BBQ and rounders - and none of us can attend.

Mixing and Finalising tracks

Present: Ad, Eg, Fea, Tom

The new album is nearly complete. Decisions made on track listing, cover art, sleeve design, names to be thanked. One trumpet needs to be added to the opening track and one song ending needs to be finally chosen. Eg adds a new vocal to Hearts Pumping.

Ad brought in a load of song books he saved from being thrown out for everyone, Fea brought in his Ofsted inspection report - one of them is in tune with the context of the evening; Ben brings up the, as yet unwritten, Loopy Musical, Eg suggests commissioning Ad to write it; Eg's support act story of the gig in Portsmouth he went to - Goth guy wailing at a keyboard while a chased [as opposed to chaste one can only assume] semi-clad girl rubbed baby oil over herself; Ben's car fetish and the time he sold his convertible BMW to a dodgy bloke who needed to withdraw money from multiple cash machines before midnight and how Ben didn't want to turn the engine off cos it wouldn't start again; Ashes to Ashes, Red Riding, Humax Changed My Life, not receiving BBC channels and selling songs to Girls Aloud, Take That and anyone who might take them.

Tracklisting:
Corner Of Your Mind
Somersaults
Found By You
The Smile
Twenty-One
Secrets And Lies
Love The Way
Hearts Pumping

Practice

Present: Ad, Eg, Tom

First room on the right. One lamp, two acoustic guitars, a bass and a ukulele. A few covers and six new songs introduced. Come On Eileen [cover: murdered], Hold Me Now [cover: GBH'd], Extraordinary Life, Where Do I Go, Totally Completely, Sky Above My House, Fiat 500, TV All Day. Signs of age; the typeset is too small for Eg.

Post Practice Pint Topics of Conversation: should budget airlines charge extra for heavier passengers? Personal experiences of sitting next to 'heavier passengers'; Tom's 'compulsory atendance' at Driving School, Ad gets all the questions right; Eg's discovered he can play mp3s on his car stereo, and that he has draws under his drivers' seat.

Mixing

Present: Ad, Eg, Fea, Tom

Ben's excellent mix of Hearts Pumping only needed a few tweaks before being accepted by the boys as complete. Love the Way took a bit longer to slim down the over-enthusiastic additions that had been made over time leaving the lads with two possible final mixes with slightly different endings. Twenty-one was more straight forward.

While Ben knob-twiddled the basic mixes, everyone else used a back room to jam and practice new songs.

Tonight's work seemed to decide for us that the new album was indeed to have eight tracks and that album art ideas were needed soon.

A very productive evening. Eg gets Ben to give us just the ending of Secrets & Lies for ring tone purposes.

We love Ben.