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| The CD
that nearly never got made |
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Jeza and the Peacemakers - 1997 |
When
the idea of recording an album came up in 1997, 'Jeza
and the Peacemakers' were a happening 5 piece band, out
on the road and gigging around London playing original
songs. |
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| The Peacemakers
band included at its core - myself Jeza,
on rythm guitar and lead vocals, astounding bass guitar playing
from my Brazilian buddy Luciano Albo,
full drum kit and percussion by Tony Greenwood,
regular collaborations with John &
Caroline Hoare of The Haunting
AD. |
We were
the hottest little band in town for a while, but nobody on the
streets knew
Who the Heck JEZA was... |
I had recently
recorded a solo demo-tape using 8-track analogue tape in collaboration
with Steve Thandoy of the Karmakanix as sound engineer, with
the idea of 'selling the songs' for another artist to sing.
Just myself playing guitar, vocal and percussion, with Luciano
on bass. The demos were masterfully recorded and represented
the 3 songs well, but not the 'live act'
... I for one, wanted to make a full length, full-on rock n
roll band CD. |
| One day
whilst at my 'day job' in the city, I was approached by a straight-laced
elderly gentleman, who caught wind that I was a musician. He
asked if I had a 'demo-tape', as his son was 'in the music business'
and might be interested ... of course I've heard it all before,
but his son did then call me up a week later saying how much
he liked the demo tape and "would I be interested in recording
some songs in a state-of-the-art 24 track recording studio 'free
of charge'". Turns out he was a 'student sound engineer'
and needed a 'pet project' to work with. I had to think long
and hard for a micro-second but not surprisingly I said yes
to the silver platter being offered. Two weeks later, on 23rd
November 1997, I hired a beautiful wooden shell jazz drum kit
from the local music store, and the core 3-piece PEACEMAKERS
rhythm section, trouped into the ALCHEMEA studios project at
Angel in London, ready for some musical action |
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| Jamie Robinson
(hereafter known only as JR) and his businesslike ex-Colonel,
father could not have been less alike, with his torn jeans and
dreadlocks, and 'I need to go to bed' look in his eyes,
but he was fascinated by this new and different sound we were
making. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but made sure I
bought the 2" master tapes outright before commencing.
We expected a little hanging around whilst the drums and microphones
were set up, but there were many other technical problems including
the ageing and over-used 16 track consul. Eventually, seven
hours, clicks, buzzes and short circuits later, we finally bashed
out 5 songs much as we would live on stage during the few remaining
hours ! |
Jeza at Alchamea studios |
| My guitar
and vocal needed re-recording later on, but would do for a guide
track, so we concentrated on getting the best drum sound we
could and DI-ing the bass guitar. The recording was 'in progress'.
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Backing
tracks laid down with bass guitar and full drum kit on the very
first day of recording - in the order they were recorded, were
:
'Circumstances',
'Deep
Water', 'Writer's
Block', 'End
of the Line' and 'How
Can I Help You?' |
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| Sadly,
it was also around the same time that Luciano announced his
intentions to return home to Brazil in January 1998. He genuinely
loved being a Peacemaker, but as a 'foriegner' in Britain it
was hard indeed to make ends meet on a day-to-day level. Believe
me it's tough enough as a Londoner |
| We tried
many, many times after that to get back into the studio with
young JR, (booo) but each time there was some technical reason,
16 track desk being repaired reason .. or just plain double-booked
studio reason why we couldn't get back in to do any more work.
It was clear as day that young JR was not getting out of bed
early enough to book real studio time |
| Luciano
was due to leave the country imminently. The clock was ticking
and time was running out. After a series of increasingly heated
conversations with JR, he pretty much gave up on the whole idea,
jacked in the sound engineering course as so little had been
achieved, and was last seen heading off to party on a beach
in South America to watch the solar eclipse. |
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| By December
1997, the situation was at a crisis point. With the irreplaceable,
Luciano Albo about to leave the country for Brazil, we were
keen to record a few more of the many songs we had been working
so hard with on the road, but only had 5 backing tracks partly
recorded and no more 'free studio time'. The ship appeared to
be sinking !! ... Making a CD was a hair's breath away from
never happening at all |
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| Time was
being wasted at Alchamea studio. I decided to call up a very
old friend, Basil Brooks to explain my frustrations and
see if he had any good ideas. I've known Basil Brooks since
the early '70s, playing acoustic sets as 'A
Phantasy Circus' supportng early 'ZORCH' gigs along with
my brother DJ Lazer on percussion, although we had been out
of touch for many years ... |
Luciano Albo, Basil Brooks &
Marc Dando
4 am. Marc Dando (right) on RTFM -
(reading the f%$@ing manual) had no further direct involvement
in the process, until buying the very first on-line CD
at BURBs in October 1999. Bless you Marc |
We actually re-connected a
few months earlier quite by accident, via a joke e-mail
from a mutual friend to a long list of recipients. I spotted
a most familiar name and decided to get in touch. My hunch
was right and so was the timing, Basil and his good wife
Tracy were preparing to celebrate their 20th anniversary,
having married on Glastonbury Tor in 1977. A major gathering
of 'the tribe' was about to take place. |
| Basil is one of the very few
people who have been a fan of my music for the past 25
years!! - But I digress. |
| Basil got back to me soon
after my phone call, saying that a family friend had 'Cool-Edit
Pro' recording software on his PC and was building a home
studio, though none of us were very experienced in its
use at the time, but there was a possibility of recording
just the bass guitar lines for the remaining 7 songs,
along with an electronic metronome click to keep the beat,
(with myself playing unrecorded), usable as stereo tracks
direct to CD. Which we could then in theory, take back
into the studio. |
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| Luciano
Albo laid down all bass tracks before anything else was
recorded, exactly one week before leaving the country. We set
off in great excitement 50 miles down the road to rural Surrey,
risking life and limb as it transpired as the car also broke
down as we turned off the motorway and we had to train back
to London !! Finally we all got together and recorded 8 hrs
through the night till around 4am, laying down a further 7 songs
- or at least Luciano's bass lines ... |
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| Call the
music Laid back? By 4am we were half asleep. But Luci still
delivered a faultless performance and his storming bass lines
formed the solid backbone of the entire CD project - WE LOVE
LUCI !! |
| After his
departure the live band inevitably dissolved, but I was still
able to work closely with him in spirit. Sadly also, due to
extended illness, my brother DJ Lazer, was unable to make the
early wined up sessions as preferred percussionist, so I took
on the role myself |
Jeza in Sgt P tee-shirt
checks out the ambience
in the family bathroom |
Basil Brooks (and family)
eventually agreed to take on the rest of the recording
process as engineer, working at the family home on his
PC, recording digitally and using the same impressive
CoolEditPro software, cutting rough mixes direct to CD
free from unwanted studio costs. A slow and at times painful
process, working in rural seclusion to overdub guitar,
vocal and percussion, track by track on top of Luciano's
bass lines, whenever we had weekends free. |
| It took a further six months
to get back into the Alchemea studio in London to transfer
the original 5 live analogue recordings via ADAT, into
a digital format so that Basil and I could continue working
with those songs on the PC, but eventually we compiled
all the 12 recordings together into the same format. Many
thanks to John Lundsden at Alchemea studios, Graham Hinton
and Gwyo for that. |
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| One
weekend early in June 1998, Howard Scarr aka: Gwyo Zepix
of ZORCH,
was visiting the UK from his home in Germany and Basil Brooks
had arranged to work with him on ZORCH's recent CD release 'Ourobouros',
hosted by Graham Hinton, EMS synthi developer and AppleMac Guru
way down in Somerset. I jumped at the opportunity of joining
them after they had worked together for a few days, to enlist
Gwyo's help playing keyboards on three of the tracks. Gwyo is
an accomplished keyboard player and was the real maestro of
the ZORCH band and has since joined GONG
on keyboards and guitar for the Y2K world tour.. |
Gwyo Zepix at
Gong's 2002 Infintea Party |
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.. and so, as Glastonbury Festival
1998 was just kicking off a few miles away, the clouds
burst and it began to rain heavily. Jeza, Basil, Gwyo,
Twink and Graham chatted about the 'good old days', chuckled
at the inevitable mud-bath happening down the road, and
set to work ... recording
'How
can I help you?' |
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| Throughout
1998 further remarkable collaborative sessions took place with
John & Caroline Hoare of The
Haunting AD, adding lead guitar tracks and female backing
vocals throughout 10 tracks on the album. Robin Gillan, a locally
well known multi-instrumental session player added country fiddle,
banjo and blues harp on 'Place
by the river', 'You're
the one' and 'End
of the line'. A young Edwin Brooks aged 13 and 3/4 played
kit drums on 'Queen
Mum' and having the final word on the track, 'End
of the Line'. A deal struck for letting us use his bedroom
as a recording studio ... |
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| My grateful
thanks goes out to the many musicians and friends who contributed
to the final recordings. The now, 'widely-acclaimed' 1999 debut
CD 'jeza
wined up' is still available to buy at CDBaby
or Artistlaunch.
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