Part Two.

Between the 18th and the 21st of June, David Langfield and the Let Airplanes Circle Overhead's went back into the studio to patch up what we did the first time around.  This time, we didn't have Luke, but we took DL&TLACO's top photographer and most avid fan, Sean, under our wing to help us out at the studio.

DAY ONE

Day one wasn't great.  We set off to Birmingham at 7:30pm, partially due to me only finishing work at 5 and partially due to the difficultly of packing a Nissan Micra with two people, three guitars, a full drumkit and a Marshall Stack, with two ampheads and lots of random bags full of pedals.  This meant sluggishly crawling out of service stations at 30MPH which garnered screams of terror from both me and James as convoys of juggernauts nearly crushed us and our equipment into little pieces.  On eventually arriving in Birmingham, after spotting Rolf Harris at a service station for the second time in two months (apparently, he loves to travel the M6), we got thoroughly lost in Aston.  This isn't the best place to get lost.  After eventually gathering our bearings by spotting a mosque, a church and a greyhound track that were familiar from the last time around we arrived in Perry Barr.  Alex our producer and expert friend, gave us some Little Penguin Rose wine, then got to sleep by 4am after watching the Wedding Singer and a programme about a bald guy who would wear a wig, talk to people, then rip his toupe off, screaming "WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ME NOW?!"  Life was good.  Sign language for the word "bald" is amazing.

Day Two

Waking up when two of Alex's housemates, Dom and Nevs, returned from Alicante and Rome respectively, we played some Pro Evo (as is tradition) and headed towards Birmingham town centre where Sean was waiting for us.  We got quickly set up but the realisation that we would probably have to record the entrity of Little Sparrows (song code name) afresh, each part seperately (not something we're particularly used to) dawned upon us.  Obviously we kept Lukes old part, but completely rewrote the ending so it didn't sound so shit.  We spent the entire day doing this, so I went for a quick trip to Greggs to make everyone happier.  I got lost in Birmingham, so decided to go to Baguette du Monde instead and saw a man with one leg, so it was worth it.  By the time I got back, everyone was still depressed, we still hadn't got anything done, but eventually we got there. Thinking the enritre song was done we quickly rushed back home to get a beer and burger at the Hare of the Dog, arriving at 8pm.  It was a holiday (usually, food stops at 9), so we were turned back for food, the waitress - who Alex refers to as Fitty Fit Fit - tore the menu out of my hand at such speed it gave me a papercut.  We got fish and chips at Big Johns, returned to the Dog and mistakenly ordered 8 pints of cider at last orders, which had to be drank rather quickly.  James got told to "play some negro music" by a dude who shuffled up next to him on the Jukebox.  We went home, drank some brandy and 1664, played some Pro and got to bed by 4ish.

DAY THREE

With the nightmare of Little Sparrows behind us, we thought we could crack on with redoing some parts of the other songs previously recorded, before remembering we still had to do the bass.  It took James two hours which didn't make me particularly happy. I was about ready to snap so Alex, Sean and I decided to fuck around with James by playing some really creepy things through his headphones.  On a quick break to the toilet for James, I decided to dub some amazing vocals over Little Sparrows to freak him out - sample lyrics:

I am so so sad/I want to cry cry cry/This is my song/A Song of Love/This is my song/This is my song of sadness/Palestine/Hear my whine/Palestine/aaaaaaahahaha

I think it really scared him.  We redid the bass for Peace Through Jesus Christ (codename Dogwaistcoats), making it a bit more gnarly, and cracked on with the bass for 2spentswimmers,also rerecording James' horribly out of tune guitar part (this time, not out of tune, obviously) and I rerecorded the drums in the heavy part, because the last time it was rather appaulingly done.  This time is much better.  That wrapped up our day, a rather tired and dilapidated Alex met us back at home after we made him get the bus.  We went to get some food and some boozebeer, and watched When Sport Goes BAD! on Bravo and spoke of amusing things.  By 5am we were on the whiskey and brandy again.  James and I had a heated discussion over whether or not Shellac play songs the same way live every time (of course they do).

Day Four

We had to wait until 4pm to go home, as James needed to sober up.  We watched some hilarious episodes of Jeremy Kyle and got on our way.   Nothing of great interest happened on the way home, except a hilarious picture of Gordon Ramsey in the Guardian and a weird silver haired guy who stared at us in the Stafford Services. It wasn't Rolf though.

Watch this space for more MP3's and that and hopefully we'll release something soon.  Things may be changing for Let Airplanes, but more about that at a later date, if at all.  Thanks for reading.  And thanks to Alex, Sean, Dom, Christoph Nevinski, Wolfie, Emma, Gemma and Jen for putting us up and putting up with us.

David (team LACO)

It's been a hard week...

Let Airplanes Circle Overhead have been to down the M6 and back over the last four or five days to begin recording some new (and some old) material. Here is how it went...

Tuesday

After some rather welcome black coffee on the back of our arduous journey to Perry Barr in Birmingham and subsequent drinks with producers Alex, Dom and Nevs on the Monday, Let Airplanes set up in Live Room 1 of the Conservatoire. We didn't manage to get a whole lot done on the first day, probably as a consequence of our diet of soup and beer and lack of sleep. We were further handicapped by not actually being able to fit anyone in the cars, so our producers got the bus instead. James embarrassed us all when he decided to hang up the Confederate flag for the duration of our studio time (see pictures) and Nevs' attempts to score the band some hard drugs were thwarted, which didn't help matters. Finally, however, we got our oldest song recorded, which James had decided we would never play again three years ago and subsequently wasn't on our previous album. Strangely enough, it was the most difficult song to record of the week.

Wednesday

In the studio from 9 'till 5. Dom couldn't make it due to his sudden and rather bizarre addiction to Cannon Fodder but everything seemed to run smoother on the Wednesday. A new song got recorded after some quite odd mishaps such as James' inability to get past the third chord and a horrible rattling snare which Alex fixed. We were embarrassed when 20 people suddenly came into the studio, being shown around with the assistant director of the Conservatoire, who asked to listen to our recordings. Alex, bizarrely, played him thirty seconds of drone from this song, to which he replied, "Does the chord ever change?" The chance to win over 20 fans was lost. At this point, all seemed well in the camp and we recorded Peace Through Jesus Christ in pretty much one take. However, this also resulted in something falling off Luke's brand new Fender amplifier, the cause of which seemed to catapult the 'Planes into our first major spat. After a while, and a few cigarettes, Luke could stand being in the same room as James again. Alex, Nevs and myself found the whole thing pretty funny. The overdubs took longer to record than the song by about two hours. That night, we had an incredibly small burger each (to Alex's clear disdain in front of the pub staff) and some pitchers of strong cider. All was good.

Thursday

Our last day in the studio was marred by a considerably slow start and we only really got going at around one o'clock. We only had one more tune to record, but we were delayed somewhat after we realised we also had to write it first. We nailed the structure and ending and we were ready to roll. James added a silly feedback part over the top. We sat down and made some notes on the mixing and so on (to be done at a later date) and Alex assures us he can make the drums sound "bombastic".

That night we thanked our producers and temporary housemates with a mountain of beer and wine. Luke and myself got punched by a prepubescent child who was looking for a fight on the dark streets of Birmingham, which was pretty odd at the time, but the fucker had a punch on him, and I awoke with a very sore jaw. The next day, we had fun at a service station, at which James ruined my £4 sandwich that I subsequently fed to the ducks. Many people took exception to our lurid behaviour.

So look out for our new material on myspace and hopefully more recordings soon will bring around our second album. Stay tuned.

Thanks to Alex Dom and Nevs for their hospitality and Drew for the kit. Unfortunately, Luke wouldn't let me use the double kick, because a) he's a pussy who doesn't know what is good for him and b) it would sound fucking stupid.

David (team LACO)

If you're a shopaholic, you should probably buy our CD. 

Its reduced in price, and apparently theres only a dozen left or so, so unless you want it to slip through your fingers forever and have to make do with left over promo copies on ebay for years to come, you'll have to buy it quicksharp. 

And guess what. its now available from this very site.  Wonderful, whats stopping you? Not me, thats for sure.

Gig

As you can see from our bulging gig schedule, we're returning home from University to play a one off gig with Magnetophone and Sonic Boom, which we're obviously excited about.  Pete Kember has not graced Carlisle since his 5th last ever gig with Spacemen 3 (or something similar, I'm sure James will correct me) so its going to be something special.  Get down to the Brickyard. 3D Tanx are playing too.

Progress

Its been a while since we released a record, 2004, give or take.  Hopefully, 2007 will be the year we will get some songs down on tape.  One day, maybe we'll as prolific as Shellac, who knows?  Also, we'll hopefully try and play a few more gigs in Easter, and hopefully even more in Summer.

Album

Our first release is nearly sold out, so if you want it, go buy it at  www.motivesounds.com.  7/10 in Rocksound. KKK in Kerrang.

Its also been released on some download sites, for 79p a song.  Go geddit.  We dont have any t-shirts.

Been a while...

Not a whole lot happenning for Let Airplanes Circle Overhead, but thought we could let you know our album is now available for download from a whole host of music download sites, including iTunes, HMV, Virgin etc.  Either that, or find the Greek guy on soulseek who borrowed the album "from a friend", and get it from him. This means you can carry us around with you at all times, and listen to our untitled interlude whenever the urge becomes you.  We'd much prefer you all to buy the hard copy though, because our artwork delayed its release for a year, and you wouldn't want a years work to go to waste, would you?

Also, a few people have asked to use our music for a few short films and the like, which could be interesting.  If such projects should come to fruition, we'll let you know.

We've got some pretty exciting gigs coming up, but more about that at the time.

Merry Christmas.

Howdy.

We just got back from the Wickerman Festival (which I'm led, probably incorrectly, to believe is Scotlands 2nd biggest) and we're a bit tired and a bit hungover but it all went amazingly well.  Well, almost...

Apparently a small fragment of our set was played on Radio One.  I'm off on the internet later to find out if this is true, but hopefully it is, so that millions of listeners would have heard our bands name in passing, and forgotten about it soon afterwards.  Every little helps I guess. 

We played a very short set, with two new (or, unrecorded) songs which are pretty much done and dusted now and we got a woop or two at the end which is always lovely.  James's amp got stolen.  Where is it?  James's phone got lost. Where is it?

It went a little better than our last two "festivals", one of which had us play on a bus, making children cry as hippies tried to drum along, and the other had football hooligans looking at us with utter contempt as they waited for some Lancashire rap group called MC Inertia. 

The main thing is though, we had a whole lot of fun and by the second day we had forgotten that'd we'd played and had a whale on scottish lager, pear cider and a bladder of wine and did the whole festival shibang.  Scatalogical conversations, comedy falls of all kinds and a host of comical bands made our free festival experience complete, despite free beer, bbq and 5-a-side not actually rearing their heads as promised.

A wizard should know better.