Pack up your troubles

They say a change is as good as a rest. Well, we’ve had a long rest (was it REALLY April when we last posted? Yikes!) and now we’re thinking a change might be nice too. For a while now we’ve been thinking that the music we’ve been making recently has changed in tone from what we considered the ‘original’ Bavarian Country Singers & Comrades ‘sound’ to be. This feeling became more pronounced during our recent revisit to Belgium and so we’ve decided, for this project at least, to rename ourselves. BCSaC is not being retired, I think our next batch of songs will be the older ‘Bavarian’ tracks, and we’ll still be posting our stuff on this blog, but for the moment we’d like to announce our new name: Grande Valise

Yes, we know what it means in French, but pack your ‘big suitcase’ and join us for our soon to be completed album! The album’s still going to be called Minnewater after the so called “Lake of Love” in Bruges and is so close to being finished now we could almost give you all a massive hug!

Anywho, we thought you might enjoy a little ‘taster’ of what we’ve been up to. You may remember, back in the distant mists of time, we started this blog with a song called Slow Burn. Well, that song is going to be on the album (albeit in slightly remixed form) and at one point I had the idea to put it up as a pre-album digital single. After having this idea, I thought a ‘b-side’ might be fun and jokingly suggested writing a song called Burn Slow as a sort of answer song. The joke didn’t stay funny for too long though and I actually did write the song. Starting as a mainly acoustic track, we’ve worked it up to be something much more layered. I’ve added electric guitars and drums, whilst Becks has put down some creepy violin, organ and a beautifully melodic bassline. In fact, we’ve ended up liking the end result so much that the ‘single’ idea has gone out the window and this is now an album track. So, here’s the first official posting of a song by Grande Valise…

 

 

As you can see, we’ve started using SoundCloud so you can stream the track a little more easily, but if you’d still like to download the track and listen offline, simply right click and save as using the link below!!

Burn Slow

Download is free of charge, but please consider giving something to a charity of your choice!

Ta for listening, we’ll be back soon! xo

Chasing Cannock

So the sun’s been making a very welcome appearance this weekend, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. We hope you’ve had time to get out and enjoy it. For our part, we spent part of Saturday having a delightful stroll through part of Cannock Chase. You can check out a few photos we took on our way below.

Finding myself at a loose end today whilst Becks was at work, I decided to make a little instrumental track. It’s called A Walk On The Chase in honour of our lovely day out. Mainly made to try out our new mini MIDI keyboard and awesome Wurlitzer app, it features me messing around on keys, glock, guitar, drums, handclaps and some whistles and ooohs.

Feel free to listen, download and comment, but as always consider giving something to a charity of your choice in return.

Cheers, Andy x

Sun, Schmun, Schmun…

Well, there always has to be a Debbie Downer, doesn’t there? While we’re enjoying some glorious weather and after Pand uploaded his lovely cover of ‘Here Comes the Sun’, I do feel like I’m about to bring y’all down. And I apologise for that. But we appear to have gathered some momentum, albeit for recording other people’s songs rather than our own, and I didn’t want to let that grind to a halt. So last weekend I had a go at recording a version of a Magnetic Fields song, ‘I Don’t Believe in the Sun’, a beautifully morose song that has only one minor chord (unless I’m playing it wrong!).

You can listen for yourself here and if you can, please do try to donate to the NSPCC or to a good cause of your choice, whether you enjoy it or not!

You can probably tell it didn’t take all that long to record this lil cover. I’ve always disliked recording and the soul it can suck from a song, so you shouldn’t be surprised that the track was built up around a master track of both guitar (such as it is) and vocals, a very ‘play-and-record’ kind of approach that I’m most comfy with. Added to that was a second track of vocals, some harmonies here and there and finally some hastily cobbled together squeeze-box. But I hope you like it nonetheless.

Equally, I hope it does some justice to gifted songsmith Stephin Merrit of the Magnetic Fields. I’ve recently been getting into the Magnetic Fields, specifically the masterpiece E.E.E.P. upon which this song appears, 69 Love Songs. All this is by way of saying, look it up and listen if you haven’t already; I’m sure you’ll thank me for it

Anyway, enough proselytising. Normal service will be resumed sooooooon! Enjoy the sun Bx

Sun, Sun, Sun Here It Comes

As Becks commented on in our last post, we’ve been a bit slack around these parts of late. We’ve been hibernating I suppose, but it feels like time to wipe our eyes and shuffle out of our Winter hiding place. To that end, and with Becky sadly at work this afternoon, I’ve recorded a little cover – and what else would do but the Beatles’ Here Comes The Sun?

So here you are, a couple of hours of afternoon solo work. It’s wonky as all hell, the middle section goes awry slightly (yes, before someone points it out, I did too few “Suuuun, Suuuun, Suuuun”s!!) and it features a toy keyboard my Mum brought home from the charity shop she works in. If you’ve read the blog in the past, you’ll know Becky’s the keyboard player in the family, so please excuse how dodgy the playing of that particular ‘instrument’ is!

As ever, this is a free download, but if you haven’t already, why not go and give a bit of cash to the Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal? Ta

Making Radiowaves

Sitting in bed enjoying ’50 Miles of Elbow Room’ on Rhubarb Radio, we’re reminded of the hospitality we were given by the Brave Sons of Elijah Perry on that same show in November. And we realise we still haven’t shared news of what happened during our appearance even though audio evidence of it exists (and in lieu of any actual new recordings, this functions as a nice ‘we’re still alive’ post).

Twas on a cold day in November, the 14th I believe, that we were kindly invited by our pals the Brave Sons to appear on their americana/blues show. Well, obviously, we were the perfect band to appear and really untroubled that we’re neither americana nor blues…

Anyhoo… we joined the Brave Sons and ended up politely hijacking the second half of the show, playing 3 live tracks, one pre-recorded track and a track by one of our influences (after much deliberation, we went for Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s ‘Just to See My Holly Home’). We had some lovely banter and shared one of our favourite soup recipes.

Gotta say, I think we all enjoyed the experience (in spite of overloading the mic during our first song), and this is where I’d link to you to the audio of the show, but sadly, past shows currently aren’t available on the website. However, you can listen to one of the songs we played right here. This is McCarthy, one of my favourite of our songs. Hope you like it

Update on new stuff: we’re currently trying to overcome a state of inertia – lots of things to finish off, so something should be up here soon.

Take care til then!

Bx

Cold Blooded Old Times

Well hello there New Year! Alright alright, we know we’re already heading for February and the smell of fireworks (and your hangover) is long gone, but we got back here eventually. Right? Guys?

I feel bad that yet again we’re offering apologies for not keeping the blog up to date. We didn’t do much over the holiday period, I admit, but there’s plenty on the way I promise. We’re working on the finishing touches for a few songs, and have started work on some new ones. The aim (as ever) is to have enough tracks that we’re pleased with to form an album. This may, or may not, be titled “Minnewater”, after the so called “Lake of Love” in Bruges, which we enjoyed wandering around late last year. More of that another time though…

So, to make up for the lack of activity, I thought I’d post something I found today whilst tidying up my CDs. Before there was a Bavarian Country Singers & Comrades, there was just an Andy, armed with a hulking desktop computer, one of those strange stalk-like computer mics people used to have, and my acoustic guitar. I wrote and recorded quite a few songs, some of which we still play and have recorded, but many we haven’t. Today I found an old CDR of some of these songs that differed from the copy I have on my computer. There are songs on it that I hadn’t heard since the time they were recorded (2002ish perhaps?). They’re very much a curio I suppose. Heavily indebted to, though very far from the standard of, Elliott Smith’s Roman Candle and Self-Titled albums, they’re a pretty mixed bag (the title track even features a rudimentary drum loop and electric guitar!). However, I thought they may be of some interest, so I’ve whacked together a zip file of them and made a quick “cover” for it. Feel free to download and comment, but, as always, maybe go and give a few quid to your chosen charity in return? Ta!

P.S. The download is a mixed bag of .mp3s and .m4as and should include track names and album art. I know iTunes sometimes messes this up, so I’ve included both below

Either Way – Early Demos zip file (51.2mb)

1 …

2 12′oooft High

3 Either Way

4  Cloud

5 The Old House Song

6 Tell Me a Lie

7 Another Song in G

8 Untitled

9 Your Everything

10 Laughter On a Lie

11 Can You Breathe?

12 Gone

 

Elbowing some room

Well, here’s something very nice. The wonderful Brave Sons of Elijah Perry have very kindly invited us to appear on their most delightful Sunday internet radio show 50 Miles of Elbow Room. On Rhubarb Radio, live from the Custard Factory in Digbeth, the Sons play a lovely mix of various kinds of Americana, Blues and Country, old and new.

We’re on tomorrow (14th November), 12-2pm, playing some live tracks (eek!), a ‘studio’ (arf!) track and chatting about this and, indeed, that. The Sons have said some lovely words here.

So… Sunday. 12-2pm. Rhubarb Radio. Yes?

*excited*

 

A crazy situation

Merchant seamen memorial, Cardiff Bay

We get nervous before gigs. Ultra nervous. In June 2007, we played a gig with two friends in which we each played a song in rotation. Unlike other gigs, where a couple of songs in, you finally settle (unless things are going disastrously), we found ourselves getting more and more nervous between our songs. It was bizarre though pretty interesting and as we were hosting a special Australian friend it was lovely that she got to see us suffer!

Not long after that, Pand wrote Examining the Tiles about that nervous paralysis he gets before a gig. It’s been one of my favourites since and we play it at nearly all our gigs. Pand also did a recording of it when we were still using his laptop and audacity, so it’s extra hissy, but when we came to put my accordion on it, someone had lost the master! Not that it matters now we’ve started (re)recording everything from scratch.

So this is the new, improved version and we hope you like it. We’re both really happy with it; we like the pace and how everything seems to mesh, but we’re not sure if this is the final version just yet.

As usual, Pand started with a guitar track and drums, before he added some banjo and vocals. You’ll also hear a loop of him whistling and some sleigh bells. On Saturday, I added the accordion, whose G-sharp key did its best to derail me. Would have done that in one take had it recorded properly (for some reason the track had no volume whatsoever, but we got that sorted for the next track). When I came to add bass, Pand (who usually thinks I play bass much too far up the neck) told me I could play as far up the neck as I wished. Ironically, what I’d already come up with did the opposite. A couple of takes needed. There was much huffing. Finally, I added my backing vocals tracks, amid fits of giggles. Many takes were needed. There was much shouting.

Anyway, hope you like it and let us know what you think. And if you can, pls 2be donate-ing to a charidee!

Currently working on: I Don’t Mind, A Stormy Day at Sea, The Lighthouse. I guess that explains why it takes us so long to finish a song.

Bx

I’ve only just got to know you well

I guess we need to start with an apology. We’ve been away for quite a while and we are very sorry. I’d try to make up some glamorous excuse for us, but the truth is we’ve just been too knackered to do any serious recording for a while. However, feeling sort of re-energised, we’ve started doing stuff again lately and so here we are. Viva Bavaria! Or something.

Please Don’t is a song we’ve been trailing the reappearance of on this blog for a long time. I dread to think how long ago I wrote the song (hint: years ago), and in fact, the first thing we ever recorded as Bavarian Country Singers and Comrades was a (beloved by Becks) version of it. This then, has I suppose been a long time coming.

There’s a core set of songs that we’ve been playing together for a long time, and coming to an agreement as to how to arrange the recordings of those songs is especially difficult. The original BCSaC version of Please Don’t was a simple representation of how we’d play it live with two guitars. Though it was a nice enough recording, I was itching to make it swing a little bit more. I had in my head a take on 50′s rock & roll – skipping drums & slap-echo guitar solos. An initial run through of it sounded ropey but had enough ‘charm’ to just about convince Becks to let me try it seriously. The second attempt is the version you hear.

There’s a few things we’re not entirely happy with (the handclaps sound ridiculous), and it’s taken an age for us to commit to putting bass on the track, but ultimately I’m very happy with it. It’s the most layered recording we’ve ever done in terms of multi-tracking, maybe I should award points if you can spot them all?

As always, this is a free download, but please consider going and giving something to charity. Thanks

Take ten paces and draw your gun

She loves me

A colour photo symbolic of a (much needed) change of pace with the next track we’ve recently finished! Seperate Homes is a relatively new song that has much in common with some of our older stuff like Please Don’t and Stormy Day at Sea, in that it’s fast and hopefully just on the right side of messy, but has the kind of production our recent uploads to this blog share.

This song was so much fun to record, a small miracle given how much I dislike recording, although I can’t speak for Pand, who probably sweated blood laying down the drums! Speaking of, there are at least 3 separate percussion tracks on this song and that’s not counting the ‘handclap’ track – the main element of the song that we’re not pleased with. I think handclaps are notoriously hard to record and to me, these sound really limp compared to the tone of the handclaps on Slow Burn, for instance. I guess that’s a sign that when we accidentally stumble across a nice recording technique, we should try to remember it for next time!

Particularly enjoyable were my backing vox tracks. There are two of them. Recorded standing halfway up the stairs at Pand’s house screaming into a microphone at the foot of them. I like the result and will angle to do it that way again because it gets me away from that disconnected vocal tone I seem to have.

Anyway, we’d been practising this song for some months for any gig we’d be doing (our gigs are always last minute affairs), though I don’t think we’ve got to play it live yet. In that much simpler time, the song consisted of Pand on acoustic and me on accordion – a set up that became the norm (and I’m quite happy to play guitar less and less!). Now it’s completely morphed into a multi-instrumental orgy that we wondered how we’d replicate it live; though that might be addressed by the exciting news that our lovely friends, the erstwhile Sleuths, have suggested that they’d like to play on some live stuff with us – hurrah!

So, feel free to download Seperate Homes and let us know what you think of it and whether I’m completely off-piste about it. And, if you can, do make a little donation to one of our chosen charities… or one of yours!

As it seems to bridge our older and newer songs, I’ve got high hopes for Please Don’t and A Stormy Day at Sea, though I’m terrified to begin the latter! Please Don’t is pretty much done apart from the bass, so that should be up next time – keep ‘em peeled.

Bx