Today saw me mark my 31st birthday; It got an A+.  Ho ho ho………….

I write this particular entry having spent my day revisiting an age old tradition of mine; spending it with Alex scoffing profuse amounts of food and writing/recording music.

I was very graciously received by my hosts (big shout out to Alex’s bird, Josie for the rum induced Guitar Hero entertainment) who quickly bestowed upon me the very finest homemade pizza and chips I have had the fortune of consuming; I am still rather full now (photos of said pizza to follow courtesy of the bird shortly!).

After Josie nodded off, Alex and I retired to the lounge with the acoustics and sat working out the ‘Marvin’ riff with the original chords from ‘Carry on’.  My post on the 7th October centers around a quick recording I did of the original chords coupled with the riff; click on the sound sample below to get a rough idea of what we’re moving way from.  Apologies for the dodgy guitar FX sound; I used one built into my Tascam and it’s a bit pants but I was in a rush!

The older version of the marvin/carry on

Both Alex and I became bored of the slow tempo and also how rigid the arrangement was, Al then proposed a new direction and fortunately we found it pretty quickly, a change of rhythm and a slight change to the riff produced a Latin version of ‘Carry on’.

I have uploaded several videos (my favourite is Alex and the bassline due to the banter) onto youpube (please see below) which were taken at various points in our little session, I was really glad I had my camera because we worked out several guitar ideas, the bass, and also a new vocal line.  All in all I’m really excited about this track; hopefully we can get something recorded down properly onto the desk in the coming weeks.

Thanks again Baldie and Bird for a funky day. Areeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeba!

I should add that I am the main guitar player on video here (it’s a little dark) and Alex is generally out of shot but playing as well or providing percussion etc.

How the Marvin riff has changed

The first take using the new riff and arrangement

Alex’s new idea for the rhythmn, caught on camera!

Baldie comes up with the bass line

A reasonably good idea of how the song sounds at this point in time