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

Recording: Phoebe joins her Dad

Present: Ad, Eg, Fea, Gi, Tom and special guest, Phoebe, Eg's daughter.

Recording can be really boring when you're a 13 year old Loopy groupie as the beautiful Phoebe Rayner was to discover this evening. It was either that or an evening being babysat by the grandfather. And we can all see the appeal of choosing the recording studio with Dad over that. So thank the lord for Nintendo DS, the teen pacifier.

And who could blame poor Phoebe as the only other entertainment on offer was watching Uncle Ad and Uncle Fea go into one recording booth while Uncle Gi was in his own with the drums. Eg was providing the guide vocals via microphone from within the control room where Phoebe and Uncle Tom twiddled fingers.

The priority was to come away from this session with the drums recorded, but Ad and Fea weren't exactly making the job easy for Gi. Neither of them seemed to be at the top of their game with Ad forgetting how the songs were structured and Fea playing, well, really badly.

Fea had to be forcibly removed from the studio and Tom had to be asked to not try out his backing vocals during the recording. His presence eventually being employed to silently conduct Ad through 'Secrets & Lies'.

Eventually managed to come away with drum and dodgy bass for 'Wild End', '21', 'Secrets & Lies' and 'Hearts Pumping'.

Eg tried to use his learned Management Tools to diffuse the potential stress of the situation by requesting we record a simple, and inevitably slick, version of the old Loopy classic, 'Someone'.

Which we did.

But it didn't.

Interesting to see how a bored teenager and a tired and frustrated drummer show remarkably parallel behavioural deterioration patterns.

Open track surgery had to be performed by Dr Ben in a few places. [Cheap] beer provided by Ad.

Job done.

"I want to go home"

Practice: Pre-Recording

Present: Ad, Fea, Tom

Gi not present due to an interview the next day, Eg not present due to him needing to wear a tie in another foreign country.

Songs were practised with a view to recording them next week. 2 new songs jammed into a better shape. Work done on Secrets and Lies, Gallery of You, 21, Wild End, Sparkle, Take On Me, Hearts Pumping.

Post-Practice Pint Topics of Conversation: Job Interviews, Fea's new word that he almost doesn't know how to pronounce - it means being a headmaster when you're not a headmaster. The releasing of small mini-albums being better than traditional ones. Tom on Jonathan Ross's Radio Show on Saturday. Lots of website hits. He urges the others to do the same.