#thirdsmoke

I’d arranged over Facebook some weeks prior to accompany Dundalk’s Third Smoke into the Transmission Rooms Recording Studio as they worked on their EP. I came across them at last year’s Vantastival festival and they absolutely blew me away. We’d chatted a few times back and forth on messenger, but it wasn’t until the Tuesday before the session that I actually spoke with Hugh (lead singer) on the phone and got the full rundown on the plan for the weekend. Rocking in Saturday morning, working until late that night and another 8 hours on Sunday doing overdubs.  Two days’ work for one track. The plan was to catch the atmosphere of them all playing together, to get the interaction and buzz in the room down on the takes.

Previously I’d been with El Hígado No Existé in a dingy disused factory in Waterford using manky mildewed mattresses for baffles, and then the pristine subterranean cavern of Temple Lane Studios with Susan O’Neill and the Low Standards. This was something different, and it’s incredible for these guys to allow me access during the recording process. They don’t know me, we’ve spoken only a handful of times and they’ve seen my images. And on the strength of that here we are in Longford’s Transmission Studios at the most sensitive and expensive time for a band.

Amy and I decided to make a weekend of it. Friday travelling, Saturday me in the studio with the band while she watched the rugby. The rest of the time to be spent sightseeing. We gave the car some love with fresh oil and €35 of fuel and we got on the road around 2pm Friday. 

The light shifted, the day dimmed and we neared our destination. Heading west now towards Mullingar, fields and trees stretched away to meet a soft yellow pastel sunset which suddenly gained intensity as the sun dropped low below the edge of the cloud blanket above. Trees and grass hued amber on the bank to the right, everything else sepia and shade. This golden hour of travel gave way to high contrast dusk driving, headlight and lamplight. Eight counties later we arrived in Leitrim to a warm welcome and a warmer cottage, a spread of homemade bread, scones, cream and jam left on the table for us by the owners.

Sunset over Lough Owel

The following morning we set off on the 35 minute drive to the studios. One very grumpy dog and an hour later we were still driving up and down the roads between Drumlish and Ballinamuck trying to locate where exactly the studios were. We pulled in to a wider part of the road outside a house to consult the map, moments later a lady appeared out of nowhere, a much friendlier dog in tow. We were literally 50 yards from the studios, two unassuming bungalows tucked in behind a high ditch and a bent stop sign. Self-catering cottage on the left, studio on the right.

We parked up and I approached the one that looked less like a residence, and could hear faint piano music. Niall the pianist saw me first and came to meet me at the door, Hugh appearing moments later to show me the lay of the place and introduce me to the band & engineer sat inside the control room.

The studio was like a thrift store of rock ephemera. Amps stacked by the door, 3 high and 2 deep, a rack of guitars tucked In between the piano and the wall, behind that a rack of keyboards . Framed posters, Signed set lists and albums, Shane McGowan and Geldof staring out at us from the cover of mid 90’s editions of NME and Hotpress, Some framed with inserted scraps of autographed paper, the blu-tack holding it in place staining the page with old oil. Song books and Osbournes bobbleheads, the smell of incense.  Down the right hand side glass windows and a sliding door isolated the control room where the band was sat. From the rear of the studio the sound of bags being unzipped, rustles and hard clink as Karl Odlum moved around setting up mics. From the control room the searing roar of a soccer match on a laptop could be heard, over this were snippets of a piano refrain, discussions about tempo changes and the thock of a digital metronome. 

The day drifts. The room is patient. The stones in the wall older than the shape they’re cut to and vibrating with their own low frequency. Nothing is expected, this is a place to do your best with the time you have. The slow preparation & discussions on how to shape the sound, Hugh and Karl teasing out various issues with the different members. In and out, back and forth, adjust, tweak. Looking around now the floor is full of cables and the energy is slowly winding up. The wait hungers the appetite.

Chris and Hugh talking it out

This is a RAW space, where musicians are naked and their work is in pieces, an engine disassembled and each part scrutinised then tested for optimum performance.

It is fascinating to see how the parts of the song fit and run in this machine that idles in the minds of the band. I catch elements of what I loved from their live performance in the snippets they play through while setting up, a building power that is reigned in at the last, the energy of the track circling back into itself rather than exploding  out.

Joe, Tim and Hugh

A jag pulls up and all I can see from my position through the vignette of the studio door is a leopard print glove reaching from the interior. This as it turns out, is Mary, the Ban an Tí who I met when I went in to the cottage to make a cuppa for myself. She had swapped her print gloves for marigolds, to take out the bin and sort the recycling. Chatting with her briefly she told me how her family is 300 years on the land, and that her 2 sons set up the studio. Karl had joked upon my arrival that we’d be the talk of the area, driving up and down like that. I mentioned to Mary the trouble we’d had finding the place and she said she responded “Oh yes, I’d had a text alert that someone was looking for me”.

It is nearly 4pm now. The studio has bodies, everyone at their station with headphones and a dynamic of eye contact.

A segment had been removed from the song to make it less dark, but it also facilitated a tempo change. The band are reworking the song in the fresh, exploring ways to bridge the two ends while capturing the energy in the room. I silently watch the group pull towards this collective vision with patience and care.

The last snap of the drums leaves a dull squeal in my ears audible in the pregnant silence that follows, which is peppered with a few words then a chat and another run. Boop Boop Boop Beep. I can hear the digital metronome through their headphones so I know we’re recording.

The bright day cools to a blue hue. The air is light and the mood good during the listen-backs, the lads singing quietly along to the take with feet crossed on knees tapping the air. The playback stops occasionally to talk about the dynamics and segments of the song, momentum and chords. Over dubs.  Additions to lift the track without losing it. All these really intense discussions as they work through the language. Clarifications and definitions. Which bit? How so? In what way?  Teasing out all the sticky bits, in the words of Karl “Getting away from the root for a moment to pull this thread”.

Hugh and Karl  

We broke for dinner around 9pm, spinning into Drumlish for chips with a round of cupcakes for desert that Amy had left for us when she dropped me off.  Everyone ate quickly in the house and went straight back across to the studio, the mood jovial and rearing to go. The last few takes of the night were full of fun, catching each other’s eyes at the end of the take, riffing and skitting in the knowledge that they’d done good work. The interpersonal dynamic of the band comes through in the music, sounding tight and bright through the monitors.  

 L-R: Hugh, Joe, Tim, Niall, Chris and Karl in the control room 

After a few good takes, Chris, Tim an Niall retire, leaving Joe to end the day with some guitar overdubs, Hugh and Karl listening intently in the control room. I sat with them, the silvery shimmering sound searing and ear-splitting, the uncomfortable intersection of hertz and volume and beautiful in the mix of the days’ work. With these takes locked down, Amy arrived outside to collect me and I stepped out into the frigid night, a bright half-moon on its back and every star brilliant in the pristine depths of the Midlands.

I awoke the following morning to find the earworm riff of ‘Maya’ had burrowed in deep while I processed the day’s events. A slice of the process, a few hours spent amidst the unseen process of recording, a private moment for a public execution that is the forthcoming EP ‘Maybe in Time’ which launches in Whelan’s on the 18th March.