speed garbage
the Album-A-Day experience
Twenty minutes, from scratch to finished album, in twenty-four hours. Sheer folly? Well, yes. James Roberts tries music-making with the brakes off
It all started, predictably, on the internet. One Tom Murphy VII writes a loose manifesto for art creation, Crap Art, which suggests we take the 80:20 principle to heart: if 80% of the result comes from 20% of the effort, why bother with the extra 80%? Why not repeat the 20%? You won't create works of rarified genius, but you'll make a hell of a lot of stuff, some of which might even be palatable. The Album-A-Day Project is its first manifestation, asking participants to churn out half an LP side's worth of music (or thirty songs, whichever comes first) within a single twenty-four-hour period. No covers, no out-takes, no sleep breaks. If it's crap (an 80% probability) you've only wasted a day; Phil Collins wasted years. And the gung-ho attitude it fosters usually produces something, if not actually listenable, at least laughable.
It sounds like fun. And plenty of musicians have agreed, knocking out over a hundred such albums since its inception: acoustic sets, electronica, 'improvisational art-noise'. I've done a few in the past, but always in the comfort of my own home, far from the fens and impending deadlines of Cambridge. So, shoving caution and coursework aside, I send out an open invitation to my musical friends, and set a weekend date. It'll be a laugh, right?
Ho ho.
7:30 am Wake up to the less-than-musical sound of several alarm clocks. Discover in the shower that The Mad Staring Eyes' 'What Am I Supposed To Do?' is lodged unshiftably in my head (see below). Worry briefly (and unnecessarily) about plagiarism.
8 am Lyrics over muesli. 'So I borrowed your bonnet / I returned it all covered in vomit / No, I won't ask again.' Would Morrissey have written like this if he'd had five hours' sleep last night? No. I'll change it later.
9 am I exactingly configure my instrument and microphone setup, by sticking my microphone on a cushion, sticking the cushion on top of a lamp which happens to be the right height, and pointing it away from my loudly-humming computer. The gods of lo-fi approve the ritual, sending the day's first chord sequence.
11:30 am Musical collaborator Matt arrives bearing viola. The music takes a wistful and folksy turn. I sing something vague and metaphorical. 'I want it to be like a disused mining village,' I explain, vaguely.
1 pm I go out to buy a sandwich at Smiley's. Returning ten minutes later, I find that Matt has composed a classically-allusive and intensely mournful symphony for multitracked viola. Blimey.
2 pm The lo-fi gods, frowning upon this orchestral hubris, dry us up. We placate them by recording household objects. The expressive possibilities of a creaky door have been underrated.
3 pm We take large quantities of performance-enhancing substances. Once we've finished drinking our tea, we're back jamming. During the caffiene high, we knock the lamp/microphone stand over. Rock 'n' roll.
4 pm First wave of weariness. Matt departs to do some real work. I start mixing, in five-minute bursts punctuated by software crashes and associated swearing. I try to stop myself distorting everything (remembering a previous album which was two-thirds music and one-third intolerable random noise to pad the running time). Fail to stop myself.
7:15 pm My collaborator returns with an excitingly complicated lyrical idea, which two hours develops into jolly chamber pop. We rue the lack of a MIDI keyboard.
9:30pm Last vocal recordings, mindful of a downstairs neighbour. 'So I borrowed your bonnet / I returned it all covered in vomit / No, I won't ask again.' This twice, having hit the wrong button.
11:15pm Return to room and meet downstairs neighbour, just returning from Formal at Christ's where he's been for the last several hours. Oh. More mixing.
11:45pm Tired.
12:15am So. Very. Tired.
12:45 am The last push. Damage limitation: out-of-time bits are buried, out-of-tune vocals are swathed in foggy reverb, rubbish melodies are mangled by effects processors. Produce several minutes of intolerable random noise to pad the running time. Cobble together a tracklisting. ('Kettle Song'? 'Sterlin' Berlin'?)
1:25 am Twenty minutes and thirty-six seconds.
1:30 am Zzz.