Every great band has to do a Contractual Obligation album. Usually it happens when they leave one record company for another, and company A digs out a clause in their contract requiring them to produce yet another record for them, even though the band hates their guts. So the band produces something horrible - witness that one by Van Morrisson which lasts 45 minutes, took 45 minutes to record and is essentially the same chord and dirge strummed and chanted over and over until the Contractual Obligation is fulfilled.
Tonight I get to witness something a bit like that, only better. And more interesting. With film at 11. Much better in fact, just like proper music and tunes and everything.
You may not have heard of the 1520s before unless you've been paying close attention here or know one of the two persons currently involved in the group. Or were one of the founding members way back in the day (and now, for example, work for Dobly designing clever things for cinemas to make them sound better). Your loss is definitely not down to their lack of productivity, though - since they formed getting on for 25 years ago the 1520s have recorded thousands and thousands of tracks and dozens, if not hundreds of albums.
Wonder what they sound like? Pick up a copy of 'One Hot Minute' by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and play track 6, 'Pea'. This is a direct rip-off from the 1520s, and I'm prepared to stand up in any court* and say so.
So this evening it's off with Bubba to Orpington and the 1520s's lavish recording studio complex, fitting neatly as it does into the former garage of the home of, well, let's call him Bubba II.
The plot is this: every few weeks, Bubba II uses the studio's state-of-the-art widgets to lay down some tracks, as we music-business types call them; he crafts and polishes them and then Bubba comes along and writes the words to go with them. Off the top of his head. As he hears the tune played for the first time in his life. In real time.
It's an impressive performance, really impressive. Bubba's ability to spout psycho-babble at the rustle of an approaching tabloid journalist's cheque book is legendary already, but to do so to music and with rhymes and everything is nothing short of astonishing. Very impressive. I mean that.
The boys do four tracks which, me being me, I've forgotten the names of right now. I did have in my possession a cassette of the session but, clumsily and predictably, I forgot to make a copy of it first.
However, I did spend an hour making a video of the session for Bubba and Bubba II; Bubba promises that a CD of that movie is even now on its way to me, and when it arrives I shall stick it up here - well, portions of it anyway. The bits I filmed after I realised I could actually stand up and walk around, for example.
It was a thoroughly pleasant evening, even more impressive than I had anticipated - particularly once Bubba II's drunken wife rolled home to take care of the children (this is a joke, albeit a true one). And I got to sleep in the conservatory too, always a bonus when one likes sleeping beneath the stars.
* At your expense and with full indemnification of me by you against any harm, harm to be defined by me at your expense, to me.
Posted by chriswj at March 8, 2004 01:59 PM | TrackBackHi
The Rolling Stones found themselves in this position.