The Reggulites pile into The Lampworks, Birmingham, with dB Acoustics and MrVideo Jacob to shoot some music...
Guys! We did a thing! And it was super cool! And some of us haven't ever done it before so it was an awesome new experience, and some of us had done something like it before but it was obviously the best they've ever had (nudge nudge, wink wink).
First off, it was an early Sunday morning, and you might know that musicians don't do Sunday AM too often, so there was a lot of coffee involved. It wasn't as early for the musicians as the sound engineers and Mr Video; Will, Grandad and Jacob were up at the crack of dawn and heading over the Brummagem to set everything up. The band began rolling in around 10am. We had a little bit of time to collect ourselves, drink more coffee and agree on what we were going to play. You might think we'd have done this in advance. We didn't, and I'm not sure why, really! But anyway, there were super comfy sofas for discussions to take place while we felt bad for Will and Grandad mauling equipment up flights of stairs, but not enough to help!
The Lampworks is a repurposed warehouse in Birmingham and is very factory-esque chique; lots of brick walls and old windows. Super cool looking. The owner, Chris, was so lovely, he made sure we had everything we needed and stayed and took photos as well. Those I will share later, because they are really good!
One big thing that was interesting was playing to click. So, we all had a little BIP BOP BOP BOP BIP in our in-ear monitors so that we could ensure the tempo was kept the same. This apparently makes it much easier to master afterwards. We took about 4 takes of three different songs. One of them is extremely long, approximately 9 minutes, actually. I'm not going to tell you which songs we did, because I want it to be a surprise when you get the end product.
Anywho, the video aspect of it was really exciting. There was lots of moving around and doing close-ups of Clive, which is always necessary. The band were absolutely wonderful and patient as heck with all the retakes and from what I've heard so far, they played a blinder.
It's not often that we get a bit of time outside of rehearsals and gigs to hang out together, so part of the day descended into absolute hilarity with everyone trying to remember where a theme tune was from, and people yelling little bits of said theme song at each other in the hopes that someone would know. Do you know who knew? Grandad. That's who knew. But, of course!
Our beautiful drummer Wayne went on a snack run, and we have now nicknamed him 'SnackMaster General', which we think he's cool with, but it's sticking regardless!
Anyway, it was really interesting to see how everything came together. We even got a little poshed up! There were blazers. Sugar looked like he'd made millions in Egypt. So cool.
We can't wait to share what we did with you and see what you think of it! I know at least one person is going to be extremely happy with the song choices, at least! Not only will the three songs be produced in their own right, they will also be mixed into a Show Reel, so that we can giv promoters and venues an idea of who Reggulites are, and we can give new audiences a sneaky peak at what they can expect if they come and see us.
We obviously need to take the opportunity to say how much we adore Will, Grandad and Jacob for making this thing happen. The professionalism was through the roof and we had so much fun at the same time. Absolute legends, the lot of them.
So stay tuned, Reggufam, and we'll be giving you some professional quality recording real soon!
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