October « 2010 « THE ANSWERING MACHINE The Answering Machine

// ANIMALS (THE ANSWERING MACHINE REMIX)

October 23rd, 2010

Hello.

I always seem to have a remix project on the go. After reworking songs by the likes of The Crookes, Pomegranates and (more recently) The Wombats, I came up with the idea of operating on one of our own songs. Our first single from our second album seemed the perfect place to begin. So, without further ado, may I introduce to you ‘ANIMALS (THE ANSWERING MACHINE REMIX)’.

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We took a long weekend off from rehearsals a couple of weeks back. Me and Ben ended up in our practice room on the Monday morning by accident (it’s very hard for us to ever meet on time and in the right place) and decided to play around with some ideas for my remix concept. After a day of tearing our hair out (and playing every instrument known to God), I eventually ended up on a classical guitar, looping the initial guitar line that you hear in this track (which is looped throughout the song). Ben began playing the chords on a Farfisa organ (the one from the blog below), I recorded these into Pro Tools and we began looping about 20 seconds of the mix, whilst we rushed around trying out instruments to place on top. Eventually we ended up on a glock and our trusty Roland Juno keyboard, and began building up some hooks for the remix.

Although we had a rough idea of how it would sound, we just couldn’t pull it together and make it gel as a remix. We wrote the song off and called it a day. We left the room that night feeling like the idea had failed.

I went back the following day and reloaded the song. Everything sounds so much better in the cold light of day! I loved it, it sounded really fresh. I ended up re-recording my vocals for the song, as it’s in a completely different key to the original. I’m really proud of the beat on this remix too. I’ve picked up some cool drum samples from various people over the past year, and decided to throw everything I had into this one. There’s actually 18 tracks of drum samples alone on this remix. The messy beat fits really nicely with the simple patterned guitar over it.

Anyway, have a listen and we hope you enjoy it. As always, leave us some comments below and we’ll reply to each and every one of you.

Thanks,

Martin X

// BANQUET RECORDS

October 22nd, 2010

Yesterday we had the privilege of playing a short acoustic set in Banquet Records, Kingston. It’s a really cool little indie record shop that seem to act as a hub for a thriving Kingston music scene. Thanks to everyone who queued outside in the cold to see us and bought vinyls or cd’s, it made our day. It was a great time to try out some interesting instruments we have acquired over the last few months. We have a make shift drum machine that set up that uses Mustafa Beat connected to a cool wood effect mp3 speaker from we found in a bric a brac shop in Manchester that you charge up with a phone charger.

Luke was playing an awesome 50′s Farfissa organ that I found at a car boot sale a few months back, its looks like a piece of kitsch furniture and sounds like a cross between a pump organ and an Accordion.

After the instore we headed over to play the ‘New Slang’ club night at the Kingston Hippodrome which was really good, more about that to follow in a tour diary coming soon…

Ben x

// INTRODUCING

October 20th, 2010

So its the night before our first date of the Animals tour and we’ve just got back from putting finishing touches to our set and packing everything away ready to hit the road. This is the perfect time to introduce the newest live member of The Answering Machine, our good friend Luke Bellis. Luke will be playing guitar and keyboards for us at upcoming gigs (he has played a few with us before but this is his first proper tour with us).

We met him a while ago and through various times hanging out at gigs in London we eventually became best of mates. Not only is he an awesome multi instrumentalist but he is also an extremely talented music video director. He has recenty directed videos for the likes of the Cribs and Fenech Soler. You can see some of his video work here, or check out his keyboard /organ /guitar / partying skills with us over the next week.

The Answering Machine x

// PROJECTIONISTS

October 19th, 2010

Hello everyone,

Im going to use my first post on the new website to tell you about new band Projectionists, who will be playing alongside us and Rapids! at the upcoming London and Manchester gigs. I was there when the two founding members, my good friend Pete (Liam Frost and The Slowdown Family) and Becki (The Pipettes) met randomly whilst waiting to go on stage in some tent at an unbelievably rainy V festival some years ago. Since then they met up reguarly, writing and recording for a project that has evolved into the Projectionists. Joined by Sam (Alfie), Christian (The Earlies) and Paul (Star-Crossed Lovers) they peform the kind of timeless, angst drenched pop songs that I am a sucker for. For anyone who has heard of them they remind me a bit of ‘In Reverie’ era  ‘Saves the Day’, such a great album! The upcoming gig at Hoxton will be their first performance outside Manchester so I urge you to come down early and check them out for yourselves. They have an EP due out early next year but for now you can listen to some of their stuff over here on myspace, (my favourite is ‘Falling in to You’).

Meanwhile we have been busy in rehersals at Answering Machine headquarters working on some old and new songs that I literally can’t wait to play live.

Look forward to seeing you at the upcoming gigs round the country,

Ben x

26/10/10 // The Deaf Institute, Manchester

27/10/10 // Hoxton Bar and Kitchen, London

// RAPIDS!

October 10th, 2010

As the clock ticks ever closer to our impending October tour to celebrate our latest FREE download // ANIMALS // I wanted to share a few words with you about the amazing band that will open proceedings each night. That band is RAPIDS!

Rapids! first hit our radar about 8 or 9 months ago, when our good friend Mick at Heist Or Hit Records showered us in emails, phone calls and text messages about a new band that had ‘knocked him for 6’! He quickly sat us down with their EP and played us some songs. We knew he’d be right. He’s always right. (Well, we did find Alanis Morissette on his iTunes once but we’ll let that fly, we all need our guilty pleasures after all!)

8 months on, and the Rapids! EP has been on constant rotation in The Answering Machine’s tour van / iPods, DJ Sets…. just about anywhere we can sneak them in really. I’m reluctant to try and describe their sound, mainly because a) I’m quite rubbish at doing such things, and b) you should probably head to one of the shows and describe it yourself. ;-) But it’s fair to say, Rapids! channel a vibrant energy, an angsty and buzzy ball of awesomeness that explodes with every show they play. We very much welcome them onto our tour, and look forward to a good ol’ piss up!

Go listen to RAPIDS! here

Their new single ‘Fuses’ is out on Heist Or Hit Records on 25th October!

Tour dates: THE ANSWERING MACHINE (support: RAPIDS!):

21st October – New Slang, Kingston

22nd October – The Sound House, Leicester

26th October – The Deaf Institute, Manchester

27th October – Hoxton Bar And Kitchen, London

28th October – King Tuts, Glasgow

29th October – Drummonds, Aberdeen

Thank you for reading,


Martin x

// ANIMALS

October 4th, 2010

// A COURTYARD

October 1st, 2010

Listen to the ANIMALS b-side here

A year or two back, in the depths of writing for our debut album ‘Another City, Another Sorry’ we shifted our gear across town to a brand new rehearsal space in the centre of Manchester. With bare walls and fresh paint smells, we huddled together to write 2 new ideas. One idea very quickly became the song ‘Cliffer’, which made it onto our first record. It was easy to write, I already had the rough workings of the song and just needed some great lyrical input from Pat and the dynamics playing with from Ben and Gemma.

The other idea from the rehearsal frustrated us for what has now been 18 months. We played around with a verse, I’d mumble some words down a microphone, Pat would be writing some guitar lines, we’d all be trying to piece together what we thought could be a very special track. In never came. It ended up on the scrapheap. In The Answering Machine song cemetery with so many other ideas.

After we finished recording our new album, ‘Lifeline’, we gave ourselves a week apart, to gather ourselves before things moved on with the band. I got itchy fingers, being away from the creative process was difficult, after such an intense period. I decided to spend a couple of days in our makeshift studio, digging up the old idea and trying to rework something. Pat had written some wonderful lyrics in the meantime, that I found lying around in our rehearsal room. They went as follows:

All alone in a courtyard,

He watched the cable cars,

Watched them stammer on their lonely wire.

All alone in a limousine,

She felt the language leave,

She cannot speak now her mouth’s a museum.

I couldn’t get over the beauty of the lyric. It just sounded so hollow and empty, yet had this magical tone to it. I began singing the lyrics over the chords I had, and slowly built up what eventually became ‘A Courtyard’. I wrote and began looping a chorus lyric which just seemed to nicely reflect Pat’s verses:

She dragged his fractured heart,

Back to the start.

Protected by the walls of a courtyard,

She flickers through his hands.

Our original version had a US Alternative vibe to it, in the vein of Death Cab For Cutie.  Although we’re big fans of this sound, we just didn’t feel it fitted with where we’re at musically. I decided that I’d make the guitars as scratchy and fuzzy as I possibly could, kinda like a thick, warm blanket.  I converted Pat’s original lead guitar part into a poppy synth sound, and made the song’s instrumentation much more ‘left-field’. I guess I felt the freedom that we had nothing to lose with this track, so maybe things didn’t need to be so conventional. I also wanted my vocals to sound quite distant and cold, to juxtapose with the guitars a little.  The result is this kinda ‘heart-tug’ feeling when you listen.  That’s what I like to think anyway.

The song also features the return of Mustafa Beat on drums.  Our battered old drum machine is  still on fine form.  This is the first song that I’ve produced AND mixed myself, I think the naivety adds to the rough charm of the track. It’s kinda something that can’t be planned or contrived… in a “it’s not perfect, but it’s perfect to me” kinda way.

Anyway, we really hope you enjoy the song. It will be available to buy from iTunes in the next couple of weeks, as part of the ANIMALS EP package.

Thanks,



Martin x