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)