There's something in the water

In the late 1990's, I was living in London and doing a fair amount of writing, gigging and recording. A friend of mine, Richard Schiessl, had a recording studio in Greenwich - it was an amazing space that sat right on the edge of the Thames River (about 500 feet from the Cutty Sark). When the studio wasn't booked, I would grab the Tube from Camden, hop on the Docklands Light Railway and then take underground foot tunnel to Greenwich.

Backstory...
I wrote the basic structure of the song a few hours before my girlfriend at the time, Sharon, was going to take me for real Mexican food in London. She loved the whole Mersey Beat sound (she was from Northern England), was a great Thin Lizzy fan and dug live music of all kinds (she once took me to see a brilliant King Sunny Adé show in a London shopping mall). I was also living down the block from Noel Gallagher, who had a townhouse called "Supernova Heights".

I frequently saw him walking around Hamstead Heath and would occasionally chat with him. He would say "They don't make 'em like that anymore, man" a lot when referring to old guitars or records from the 60's & 70's. The song sat for 4 years before I picked it up again - changed some lyrics around and then decided that it was worthy of recording. The vibe of that period is very much alive in the final track and it's a joy that it came together so well.

Nerdspeak...
In 2002, when I finished the song and recorded it, my goal was to use the vintage George Martin production style. This meant that I would incorporate his style of arranging, balance of instruments and of course the overall sound. For this recording, we used the same microphones (U47/U48), microphone pre-amp (Telekunken V76), ADT (artificial double tracking) on the vocals, guitar (Rickenbacker 360V12), piano (Steinway), amps (Vox), compressors (Fairchild) and a Neve mixing desk. John Cutler recorded this one - Mike is on bass, Vince is on drums and I am on guitars & piano. It's cheeky I will admit, but the song does grow on you after a while...

Listen to "The Rocker".

(eyeneer music publishing ©2007)