Recording Experiences – Part 3

In September 2006 I sent some old demos I had recorded (with my great friend and collaborator Jon B of CWNN fame) to a vocal agency who I discovered were willing to present unknown singers for vocal session to give them a shot, and thankfully they took me onto their books with a view to putting me up for any session work they may deem me suitable for. It was a ray of hope at a time when I probably felt as low as I thought it was possible to feel without doing something stupid.

So 2006 became 2007 and I hadn’t heard anything. On Friday 23th March 2007 I was sitting at my desk at my then place of work bored out of my mind. My manager was away, the weather outside was crap, the office was quite and the phones were dead, just me on our floor facing the back of my only other colleague, there was no love lost between us.

Then my mobile rang, it was 11:30am:

Me: “Good morning, Charlie speaking”

Them: “Hi, is that Charlie? Great glad I caught you, this is (owner of the vocal agency) from (the vocal agency)”

Me: “Hi, how are you? Really good to hear from you”

Them: “I put you up for this vocal brief, it’s for an advert for road safety awareness in Ireland, the studio MD / composer of the track really liked your voice and thinks it may work for what they have in mind, there’s a couple of other people in the running but they’d like to try you out”.

Me: “That’s great news! Thanks for suggesting me, when’s the audition?”

Them: “In half an hour in Camden”

Me: (quickly in my head) Oh that’s fucking great! The first call I get from you in the six months since registering and you give me half an hours notice and I’m stuck at work. (then I thought) yeah but this is the most major exciting thing that’s happened in ages (aside from my wedding day and the birth of my two children of course) I’ve just got to do it and bugger the consequences. So I make my excuses and finish off the call in the office gents.

Me: “Urrr ok, as it happens I’m in North London anyway so that’s convenient, give me address and I’ll be there”.

Them: “That’s great Charlie, regardless of whether they hire you after the audition the studio will cover your taxi, best of luck and let me know how you get on”

As fate would have it I only worked ten minutes away from Camden and was due to go on my one hour lunch break anyway so actually it worked out rather well. I booked a cab on the company’s account and made it to the audition for 12 midday.

The audition was at HUM studios in London with Joe Glasman, award winning composer and HUM’s MD. At the end of the hours’ audition Joe said I’d got the job and I returned two days later to finish the track ‘I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ for the advert ‘The Faster The Speed The Bigger The Mess’.

The advert proved a big success in Ireland and generated notable interest on u-tube and in 2008 lead to a radio edit song version being commissioned.

With a concentrated PR campaign in place for October and November 2010, the track is currently enjoying a hugely positive response in Ireland, receiving regular airplay on local radio stations like Cool FM and the original road safety advert is being shown again on TV.

On October 1st 2010 HUM issued ‘I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ on itunes under the artists name of Avrutin & Charlie James, ahead of its official release on 15th November 2010.

I feel very fortunate and privileged to have been chosen to sing on such an emotionally powerful and poetic track for such an important cause.

Recording Experiences – Part 2

After I left music college I took a crappy local job in my home town so I could concentrate most of my time on my band back then. We worked hard rehearsing up to four evenings a week at the drummer’s house, a most desirable abode, conveniently detached with no neighbours to annoy, where one of the front rooms had become the local unofficial best free rehearsal room.

After a while we decided we were ready to record our first demo of three tracks and to save money did it in the living room of the drummer’s house. We had all our gear there, a sufficient desk and DAT recorder and a friend of the band who was suitably gifted to be our engineer so we were sorted.

When it came to recording the vocals I recall an inspired feat of ingenuity. As in most studios we wanted to capture the vocals in a sound proofed booth with as dead a sound as possible. So we upended the two large 7 foot leather sofas in the living room and sandwiched them together resembling a sort of upholstered Tardis. I was then ordered into the contraption, which was quite cosy at first but soon became extremely stifling, Once inside the remaining gaps were cemented with duvets and cushions. A small gap was left to squeeze through a microphone and then Bob’s your uncle and Fanny’s your aunt.

So in my quickly assembled upended leather coffin, in almost pitch blackness, buffeted by the fumes of ancient take-aways, stale dried sweat, cigarette ash, spilt alcohol and sweating like a porn star, I recorded my three vocal tracks.

Oh the hidden glamour of the penniless musician.

Recording Experiences – Part 1

In my time to date as a singer I’ve recorded my vocal takes in a variety of weird and wonderful venues with as many strange, talented, interesting and crazy people present to boot. From the state of the art plush recording studio with a 64 track ‘NASA flight desk’, to various friends’ cramped bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, corridors, school drum rehearsal rooms and make shift home studios aplenty...all with varying results as one might expect.

Whilst with my first band at school aged only 16, I was lucky to record my first ever vocal takes in a professional studio in North London, courtesy of an old boy of the school who became an engineer and producer who knew one of our cooler teachers. It was a fantastic experience and I learnt a great deal, we did 3 tracks in a day for a very generous school boy’s discount of £50!

We all got on well with the producer who said we sounded quite tight for such a young band and had potential but also added his immortal words of advice that we sounded like we all needed a good F***! – I hate to admit it but he was so right.

I recall after we’d finished the recording the producer invited us into his studio lounge for a quick cupper before we left. He said he’d enjoyed the day and had a little parting gift for us.....he produced a bag of fresh Thai weed for each of us and further obliged us by rolling each of us one in turn. The etiquette of the moment was to smoke it there in the studio together so we did. Now I’m no drug expert, addict or advocator but this stuff was powerful. We left the studio in North London and some of the band went off somewhere else so it was just me and my good old friend ‘the drummer’. To this day, and I swear this is the God’s honest truth, the only thing I recall was waking up the next morning in a strange bed, in a strange house in Romford, Essex...how I got there is anyone’s guess.

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