And five months later

Nothing has stopped apart from the blog: we're back in real time on here too now... things we've been too busy to add in here:
The gig at 'Summer of Lev Festival': a great night with sweaty alternative rock in the summer heat,
set list:

Love
I'm Real
opium Eyes
Tomorrow's World
Charlotte
Shadow Factory
Impossible Past
No Kicks
Last Orders
I Don't Want Your Attentions

Thanks to everyone that turned out for Levy Fest and to the other bands and of course to Jo and Les for organisational skills

 Recording: Loads of it. We're still at it and there is still a lot to do but we're getting there and are slightly ahead of schedule which is always nice and also not very rock-and-roll so quite on-brand.

30th Anniversary: Big news coming, the first EP was recorded on 17th September 1989 and we've got something interesting lined up for 30 years on.

Art work: A very exciting art collaboration starting with the30th Anniversary Thing mentioned above.

The Kite Collectors: AnnMarie and John are both providing guest vocals to different songs of the new The Kite Collectors album which is due for release in September, more on that still to come. We've gigged with them before and they are buddies so it is very nice to be on there. Look for it on Paisley Records.

Upcoming Gigs: Wigan, The Boulevard 20th September might also be linked to the 30th Anniversary Thing in some way, and
Manchester at The Peer Hat 16th November with Stephen's Ruin of Dusseldorf bringing their own brand of 60's infused power-pop to Manchester for the first time.

Recording: More of it. Lots more of it. Will update more when we can! mega busy!
Have fun out there!

Studio shots

Three days out of five in the recording studio, with the other two involving a gig and a radio show... thats a pretty good weekend... Black Italia wearing black, Red Italia wearing red & Paul's turn in the fish tank.

Loads more to do, but we're getting there; the third album is happening.

"We're going to take you through the looking glass"

The Speed Of Sound playing Checkered Land - Live

"We're, going to take you through the looking glass..." the Rickenbacker 12-string chimes and sparks the notes from A-minor as the trip begins, hurtling through the mirror, into Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel's superbly imagined Looking Glass World. 

Aside from the absence of The Cheshire Cat; Alice Through The Looking Glass and What She Found There beats its more famous sister Wonderland. It's far darker and creepier. Written on a Hofner Senator six string (the same type of guitar that Jeff Beck trashes when the amp buzzes too much in Antonioni's 60's classic Blow Up), the chess board fields gave the title to this homage to Looking Glass World. Checkered Land was first released on the 1989 EP and has always been in the live set. This version was recorded in 2013. 
Click here to listen.

Checkered Land:

Step through the mirror in your living room

And enter the gardens that you can not leave

those rooted voices are calling your name

Will you ever see your little Dinah again

Will you ever come to understand

You've cried those tears before but they're made of sand

Now you see in red and white

You shall be queen before the fall of night

As you pass from square to square and as you move from here to there 

You hear of a man who is in the cells

You will find out you have met him before

He's guilty now but he has done no wrong

You could join him there before too long

You could be the one who is judging him 

What is this place that you are in

And where's the queen has she changed to you?

Don't you think you'll be changing too?

As you pass from square to square and as you move from here to there

From the narrow wall things are explained

Now its your move so its off to war

The feuding mascots drum you away

:Like the leaders of the day

You were taken prisoner on your way

The white night came and rode away

You take the queen, you shake and shake

She purrs so loud until you awake

As you pass from square to square and as you move from here to there

As you pass from square to square and as you move from here to there

Armstrong/Foster April 1987

The lyric on this one was co-written with Steve Foster, lead singer in The Droogs (1987-1988)

Hi Steve; wherever you are, not seen you since early 1989...

Love - Live. (The Speed Of Sound)

A live recording of Love - The Speed Of Sound : here

Songs evolve and change over time and this one changes pretty often. There are only three chords and they have remained constant throughout; but they are unusual chords and there is plenty of space to play with in there between them, so Love transforms naturally and frequently, sometimes the mutation is subtle and sometimes it is drastic. The current live incarnation of Love has a very different sound and a much darker feel to the drumless (but not percussionless) album version, which was recorded in 2010.
There is a Japanese poster for Love, produced to mark the world-wide album release of The Speed Of Sound At Tree Level (which includes Amazon Japan among other places to buy).

A film poster is wasted without a film, so there is also a video for the album version of Love. The video is in the YouTube panel on this website, but for ease the direct link is here.

The Lyric doesn't need any complex explanation because pleasure and pain are always bedfellows.


Love

Make me breathe
Make me sigh
Make me close my eyes

Make me fly
Make me glide
Make me feel alive

Make me lie
Make me cry
Make me die inside                

John Armstrong (August 1988)

Love has been in the live set since it was written; so is one of only four songs currently to have been performed live by all three band incarnations The Droogs, The Blood Oranges and The Speed Of Sound (the other three are Checkered Land, There's No One There and Uhrwerk). The personnel line up for The Speed Of Sound's live recording in this post is John Armstrong on guitar and vocal, Kevin Roache with 'Rosso' his beloived Italia Mondial Classic bass and from Spain, the remarkable Raoul Carrino on drums.

The Wargame - Live. (The Speed Of Sound)

A live recording of The Wargame, 17 November 2013 : here

We went into the studio, set up and played. So the recording was live; without headphones, without being in separate rooms, without layering multiple tracks and without adding anything else later. This is three people in a room making music together at the same time, which is how it used to be done and a return to the traditional method of recording. So, if this sounds like a live recording, that will be because it is, because that’s what we were after.

The amps and drums were mic-ed up separately and we put the vocals through the PA using one speaker as a monitor so we could hear and another one mic-ed, but in different room to give a bit of sound separation and so we were able to mix the track levels later.

Guitar (Rickenbacker 620-12) and vocal – John Armstrong

Bass (Italia Mondial Classic) – Kevin Roache

Drums – Raoul Carrino 

The studio is a multi-use community building so there are other people using the space, we’d booked it for the whole day, but Audrey was still there so we let her watch.

The video of the album version from The Speed of Sound At Tree Level is here and there is an unplugged recording here

The Wargame:

Silently searching cruising fifty feet down

Sealed orders are opened as the sweep-hand reaches high

In the darkness of ocean a wargame has begun

Submariner crouches over green glowing screen

Watching listening

In the darkness of ocean a wargame has begun

Far from alone the headphones are alive

Echoing with herring shoals as the order to dive is re;ayed and obeyed

In the darkness of ocean a wargame has begun

A trawler catches an oversize prize and is gone

A trawler catches an oversize prize and is gone

Copyright 03 October 1989 John Armstrong