Post War Stories

A blog following the progress of the band Post War Stories. Writing, recording, gigging and making their way in the world today.

Recording!

Hello.

Just a quick up date on what we’ve been up to lately!

On the weekend 4th of January we started recording with Simon Campbell and Gypo Buggane. At this time Paul is due to start vocal tracks on Saturday (19th) then hopefully soon after we can get mixing!

Five tracks are being worked on: Battles, Dark Star, 9DeadAirShow, Ghosts and Shame. Currently all the instrument work is complete, and we couldn’t be happier with how it’s sounding. Simon and Gypo are two of the most musically knowledgeable men you could ever meet. They’ve been an utter pleasure to work with over the last 3 weeks or so. This has been a new way of working for us in terms of having a producer and engineer. It has made the whole process of recording so much easier for us in terms of we only had to concentraite on actually playing the songs! Sounds simple right? And it is! They’ve worked us hard, and have some brilliant recording techniques that we’ve never used before. For me, the drum sound has never sounded so good!  

We feel really lucky to working with two guys who share alot of the same musical tastes and sounds that we do. Hopefully we’ll get everything mixed and finished in the next few weeks and we’ll be ready to get out and play some shows!  

Anyway, once all is finished i’ll post up a new blog.

Cheers for reading.

Ben.

New news etc.

Since we last posted, are very own Martyn Cain has made an honest women of his lovely Rachael. I hope this is the first and only time I will have to witness ‘Party Marty’ express himself through the medium of dance! He’s off on honeymoon shortly and Paul is off to Ibiza (dont ask ;-)).

Band time has been alittle sporadic the last few weeks, but our last practise yeilded two new songs, ’Asleep at the Wheel’ & ‘Far From Gone’. Both in our new favourite tuning of C! Were really very happy with them and are looking forward to getting them into the set.

Were just waiting to hear back from a venue regarding a gig in November. When weve got something booked we’ll post it on our Facebook page. Our first gig at the end of July was much fun, and it was great to dust the live cobwebs off! Big massive ’thank you’ to those who came down and who said lovely things to us! Hope you all enjoyed Clown Calls For War, they played a cracking set and also gave out free copies of their debut EP, which is sounding ace! Were also starting to plan for recording some material before the end of the year. The prospect of this is something were really pushing for. 

Congrats to singer/songwriter Chris Gray who is picking up some time on the BBC, and Postcode (one of the best bands ever) who have just returned from smashing up dates in europe and the UK!

Needless to say the three of us are pretty excited about the next few months. Music weve been enjoying recently, Young Legionnaire, The XX and Joy Formidable. Power to the 3 pieces!

Catch up soon.

Ben 

Time to open the doors


My god, a blog post!

The weekend has just passed and with it came our last rehearsal before our
first gig. We had a little guest come down to listen to the set in the form of
Mr Simon Campbell.

The Bad Man, sorry, The Very Very Bad Man has rampaged through the manx music scene in the past few years like someone spiked a bull with MDMA.

Simon has brought his tones to the likes of Truman Falls, Back Door Slam and a
recent collaboration sees him going all things electronica, revealing his love of
Krautrock. He has a studio , record label and radio show with the Music Oracle
Ed Oldham.

So what the fuck is he doing sitting (occasionally pacing) around our rehearsal
room?

Well a new dawn of playing with ourselves has sparked a new interest in recording
methods. Since the very start we have always recorded ourselves but with a new
project we’ve learnt to open our doors and invite strangers in.
Simon will therefore be recording a set of songs that may end up as an album at
some point.

We are venturing into new and unknown territory and damnit we like it.

Between the thought of spending hours turning dials on fuzz pedals and drinking
vodka for lunch, I’ve really missed recording.

As I said at the start of this post our first gig is this weekend.
Ourselves and The Clown Calls For War will be playing The Engine Room in Castletown on Saturday night. This is the firs time we’ve played together in over
a year and that feeling of nerves and excitement is growing.

The Clowns are good friends of ours and we’re mega excited to see them play again.

Come down have a listen and say hello.

New bits and bobs.

Evening all. Thought it was about time to drop you guys an update. About 3 weeks ago we said ‘goodbye’ to our old practise space in Ballasalla to move to a new home.

We’ve been in the new place about 3 weeks now, and were loving it! We’re sharing with a bunch of awesome bands and it’s great to be somewhere that isn’t the coldest place on earth!

The new place is a soundproofed room, which is a new environment for us and it’s been great playing the songs in such a place. We’ve also got a new song on the boil, which were really enjoying. Strangly we wrote the bulk of the idea, and the ‘plan’ of how we wonted it to develop, sat around a table at Martyn’s house. Myself and Paul then progessed it further last week whilst Martyn and his fiancee sorted out some ‘catholic wedding issues’ ;-)

Our friends ‘The Clown Calls For War’ burst their live cherry last weekend with a couple of support gigs. We caught them on saturday supporting the mighty ‘3 Million’. The Clown’s played a storming set, really like how they’ve constructed the songs. Really looking forward to playing with them in the future. We’re really looking forward to getting out playing soon. My wife is actually in labour as i’m writting this, looking like a St Patrick’s day birth!

For the last 9 months its been very difficult for me to plan or see much past this weekend, so it’ll be great to get back to some kind of normality with our new little bundle! And with that comes the ability to book things and not worry about early births!

Massive congrats and good luck has to go to Ami at the Ship Inn. The new live music venue there, ‘The Engine Room’ opens this weekend. It’ll no doubt be a huge success for Ami and south of the Island. In other venue news, all round top bloke, Carl Joughin has annouced that he’ll be the new landlord at the Mitre in Ramsey. Great to see people with a passion for music getting a chance at these places.

Catch up soon.

Ben.

Gigs and kids.

Well 2012 has started brightly in the PWS camp. Couple of new ‘toys’ in the ranks, and a couple more on the shopping list! The set is really coming on leaps and bounds. Secret Machines cover is all but finished, and is much fun to play!

Some of you maybe aware that we booked a gig for later next month. Unfortunatly we had cancel due to venue (The Ship, Castletown) having a nice new music room fitted. Looking forward to playing their when it’s all finished, sounds like the place will be a cracking venue for the south of the island. They love live music in the south!

Booking gigs at the moment is alittle difficult due to my impending fatherhood. But once everything settles we’ll be getting out playing hopefully on a regular basis. Big thanks to all those who have visited our Reverbnation page, we’ve been really pleased with amount of listens and views etc. Lee Brooks is due to give his thoughts on the live tracks in his column in this weeks Manx Independent, so keep an eye out for that.

Ta

Ben

Live bits and bobs.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Last Saturday (17/12/11) we finally got round to some live recording. Typically the day saw some of the biggest hail stone showers we’ve ever known, which is an issue when you’re trying to record in a massive tin shed! And don’t get me started as to how cold it was!

But were a determined bunch of fellows and thanks to several pairs of fingerless gloves we got some tracks down. We have Ghosts, NineDeadAirshow & Shame for you to take a listen to. Were planning on getting another batch out for listening sometime next month.

Here’s the link:

http://www.reverbnation.com/#!/postwarstories

We also did a spot of ‘video’ work, now i use the term ‘video’ very lightly! Done on an iphone with a budget of rougly 23p! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UANhmrqHLc&feature=g-upl&context=G21870caAUAAAAAAAAAA

In other news, Martyn is due his new amp in the day or so. He’s like a kid at christmas, so its come at the perfect time of year!

Were having are PWS christmas beers on Friday 30th, which will probably involve Guinness and Paul goofing about on his ipad! But im sure a heated discussion regarding ‘best album of 2011’ will take place. Which is Joy Formidable by the way ;-)

In abit.

Ben

Return of the dark temptress.

Evening all.

Havent typed an update for afew weeks. Things in the PWS camp have been busy as ever. Three new songs since the last post, Landings, DarkStar and Icurus are all in good form. DarkStar is something alittle different for us. So far we’ve written three different versions, but were getting closer to getting a final cut down, hopefully tomorrow!

With these new songs added, were happy with the first collection of songs. At the moment were going back over the material to get it gig ready, which has made for some ’interesting’ rehearsals! Lots of stopping and starting and digging out iphones recordings! All good fun really.

Some new bits and pieces have been added to the back line gear, including Pauls new Bognor amp. A wonderful piece of hand made amplification that Martyn and myself are referring to as Paul’s first ‘mans amp’!

The cold of the Manx winter is now upon us, which is making our rehearsal space (a barn sized shed) quite possibly the coldest place weve ever, ever……..EVER known! I’m sure pretty much every band will claim to have the coldest home, but I honestly believe that crown is ours! But the coldness has brought back an old friend……….Guinness! Lager just can’t be done in such temperatures.

Anyway hoping to get a free download live EP out this side of 2012. As soon as we get it down i’ll get it posted up.

In abit.

Ben     

Doom isn’t always gloom.

How are we peeps? Life in the PWS camp continues to be as fun and productive as ever. Currently we’ve 7 finished (or pretty much finished) tales of the more sinister side of life! Titles include Living Dead, Ghosts, Shame, 9 Dead Airshow, McNulty and My Own Cage. I cannot begin to tell you just how much were loving putting these songs together!

In the last week or so we’ve been revisiting earlier written material and recording tracks live to ponder over. Hopefully we’ll put together a little live ‘snippets’ collection for Soundcloud so you can get a feel for the songs.

Were hoping to do some ‘proper’ recording in the future and have been contacting a couple of people we’d love to involve. At the moment though the mission is to keep on writing! Plotting a cover of Bjork’s Army of Me in the next few weeks, weve all liked the song for years, and the chance to do it in a PWS style is something were quite excited about!  

I’ll blog up when we’ve a link for something to listen to. This week i’ve mainly been listening to The Joy Formidable’s Big Roar album, and lovely it is too!

Ben.

Seasons Change.

Summer feels like it’s done and dusted now, but the sun is shining in the Post War Stories camp. Paul is now back from his holiday armed with a fistful of new lyrics. The work Martyn and myself put in whilst Paul was away has paid off handsomely, first practise back this week yielded a lovely new song. Musicaly complete, just requires some lyrics to finish the job! Back to the barn tomorrow to tackle an idea that’s wanted progressing for awhile. It’s one of those ideas im sure every band/artist gets, you know it could amazing if you could just find the right way to develop it. It’s an idea we keep coming back to, the type thats so close to your musical heart you can’t let go until you’ve exhausted every avenue! Again Martyn and me made some progress with it recently & hopefully tomorrow it can really start to bare fruit. It’s a bit of a space rock/dub juggernaut. I’ll report back after tomorrows session to let you know how it has gone. Looking forward to some post practice beers tomorrow, strangely weve not been able to ’christen’ our new musical project! We need to write something quiet as well, a number of ideas are knocking about on iphones and recorders that we’d forgotten about! It’s really very nice when these little ‘nuggets’ are re-discovered. That, i think, will be the next cab off the rank.

This week ive had Mansun’s ’Six’ album on the ipod. Forgotten little gem of an album!

Ben.