Post War Stories

Recording!

aboutthreeam — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 16:59:46 -0500

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.

benjio4 — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:13:20 -0400

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

aboutthreeam — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 06:23:00 -0400

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.

benjio4 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 19:13:45 -0400

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.

benjio4 — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 10:03:00 -0500

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.

Ben

Live bits and bobs.

benjio4 — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 07:27:46 -0500

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

Check out the Post War Stories BandPage on Facebook!

aboutthreeam — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:32:19 -0500

Check out the Post War Stories BandPage on Facebook!:

Here we go!

Return of the dark temptress.

benjio4 — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:38:40 -0500

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.

benjio4 — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 16:52:05 -0400

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.

benjio4 — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:12:23 -0400

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.

Long time no type

aboutthreeam — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 06:28:32 -0400

Apologies to anyone who reads this, I haven’t posted up in a long while. Good news is we’ve got a healthy selection of songs together, which we’re hoping to cobble together into a short set soon.

Paul is back from the states and we’re ready to get back into the rehearsal room. We’re really getting to grips with the TC helicon vocal pedal now and it’s sounding great.

The first gig, be it our gig or a support slot will hopefully be in the next month ish but we have some recording to do in the meantime.

We found another song

aboutthreeam — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:17:08 -0400

Afternoon folks. Ben is back from Austria and has many things to tell me. Firstly they were proper mad for Amy Winehouse over there, secondly a lot of the music is not great but there is an ace music channel on Austrian TV that shows Oceansize, Amplifier and other ace bands, and Thirdly we found another song idea.

Just when we thought we were resting on our laurels and ready to get stuck into some serious arranging, we’ve gone and found another song idea that we forgot about. Tonights rehearsal will therefore consist of two quite dubby tracks with one very heavy end. This recent find has brought our song count to about seven, which means once they’re all in order we’ll be able to book a gig or tag on the start of someone else’s night. If anyone would like us to open for them yell now.

I’ve been quite excited by oil wheels in the past couple of days, so no doubt there might be some of that action when we finally come to play too.

For now here’s a video of phil mitchell smacked off his tits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq8L7ADA7Pk&feature=related

Wheel or hoverboard?

aboutthreeam — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:12:33 -0400

We’ve been getting into sampling up some pianos and lovely noises on logic recently. Anyone who knows the programme can appreciate how nice it is to play with sounds called Fear Noise and Phantom Winds. By the time it comes to play a live show we’ll no doubt have two samplers on stage with us, there’s one thing we’ve learnt in the past couple of years and that is, if you have an idea don’t let the fact there’s only three of you stop what could sound fantastic.

Getting to learn new equipment there’ll always be a struggle with technology and a preference to go back traditional instruments, but I’m glad to say I think we’re finally nailing a balance between the both. Letting the old way of things drive the songs and be the main force, then allowing new technologies to pad out the sound and give the songs new life.

My question to you all would be this, are you a traditional instrument musician or a futuristic programme everything on a computer type?….. OR is the thought of dabbling in both sides something to get you excited?

Holidays in the Sun

aboutthreeam — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 06:05:47 -0400

As Ben is away at the moment myself and Paul have been writing some bits and loading samples up to the drum pads.

There’s not a lot to speak of just yet, songs are coming on nicely, we’re looking at an initial set of 6 ish songs with the idea of building a song per set or two.

Enjoy the picture from Tarkovsky’s Stalker. A brilliant film with tremendous imagery.

Rehearsal #3

aboutthreeam — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 04:04:21 -0400

Back in the barn last night and things are coming along quite nicely. The little riff ideas are slowly but surely forming into structures and Paul has about 6 sets of lyrics that he can put to use. We now also have a Roland digital drum pad (something like this http://www.roland.com/products/en/SPD-S/index.html) This will mean we can expand our drum sounds and set off any samples and atmospheric sounds via the drum kit.

We’re also looking into using iPads live to trigger samples and modulated sounds.

I will post up some video at the weekend as a sneak peak into what the tracks are sounding like.

Photo

aboutthreeam — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 08:01:45 -0400

Rehearsal #2

aboutthreeam — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 08:00:23 -0400

It has felt like an eternity since we last got together. In reality it’s only been 3 days, already I’m aching to get back into our rehearsal space and delve into these tracks again.

All the usual press kit bits are being organised but there’s nothing we can really divulge until we get some good sounding demos ready. I’m currently in the throws of making a website and we’ll get all the usual SM channels fired up when the songs are ready.

Look out soon on facebook, twitter, soundcloud, reverbnation and Youtube.

That went well

aboutthreeam — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 06:42:53 -0400

First rehearsal was last night and it couldn’t have gone better. Two tracks near enough in the bag, which brings us to a total of three so far :D

In terms of promo for the band we have a couple of things in the pipeline which will be great exposure on the island. For now I’m just sat here having enjoyed lecture from Professor Brian Cox (aye THE Brian Cox), listening to a mix from Subloaded. Very nice cross of electronic and dub.

Pictures of the new rehearsal set up to follow.

First Official Rehearsal

aboutthreeam — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 06:45:45 -0400

As Friday shuts the door on Planes Over Paris. Next Tuesday (5th July, or Tynwald Day if you’re Manx) see’s the barn doors slid wide open and the start of Post War Story rehearsing.

We have nine originals and two or three potential covers to be working on. Paul is furiously scribbling through lyric ideas and I’m dying to hear back from a recent job application so I can start building up my new amp rig. I saw some photo’s of the Institute in Laxey last night, that is definitely a place I want to be playing in the future. All being well we should be able to start gigging end of October / start November time.

More New Material & Controlling the Weather

aboutthreeam — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 05:36:20 -0400

We’re ploughing through the ideas at the moment and beginning to create a very defined sound.

I find it no coincidence that the more the material is developing, the more the weather is resembling Autumn. We seem to be polluting the atmosphere with fog and claustrophobic humidity.

Thanks to a recent purchase in the form of a TC Helicon X1 we are now able to create megaphone effect vocals live. This will be a big part of the overall sound for the band and having these tinny, distorted vocals will work great with the low frequency rumbles and grooves the bass will be churning out.