The Gathering

I've been listening to a lot of Curved Air (1970s-present UK band) this week, and also to a long interview with singer Sonja Kristina. One of the points that she makes in the interview is that Curved Air recorded their first album after doing a number of shows. In that way, she says, the band had learned how to develop and perform the songs before they went into the studio.

On the band's second and third albums, things were done the other way round, and Sonja feels that the results weren't so good partly because they hadn't really allowed sufficient time to get a feel for how to deliver the songs.

So, given that the current practice very much seems to be record and then tour, I wonder. Would TG (or any other band, for that matter) be better off doing things the other way round? Or is there plenty of "trying out" anyway? Given the line-up changes, would TG have benefitted from being able to perform the new songs for a while before making The West Pole?

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AS far as TG's concern, unless i'm mistaken, they did some shows before the recordings of Always..., Almost a Dance and Mandlyion. Also for Souvenirs were a couple of songs tried out several times...

I think it's actually a god idea to try songs live cause you cant "fake" a song live while the studio gives you the ability to hide behind technology. and edit a song with the best moment of each takes + make tons of overdubs if you feel like it...

To me gigs will never be replaced by CDs... ever...

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Maybe i'm paranoid, yeah that's my problem
You almost have to be when you look like me

There is, of course, a natural process - new bands that don't yet have recording contracts will always perform first and record later. That's just about inevitable. My interest here is whether that process also gives the studio album a real boost. There are so many cases of artists/bands producing very good first albums, and then getting into difficulties with later albums. I've always tended to think "Oh well, they obviously had a long time in which to write material and prepare for that first album" - that's a natural process. Sonja's comments put a slightly different spin on it.

Playing live first also stimulates demand: a good case of that is the upcoming first album, Lungs, by Florence and the Machine. Several weeks before release, there were already six reviews on the UK Amazon site, largely based on hearing live gigs.

The benefit of making the studio album as good as it can possibly be - and as representative as it can be of the live gig - has to do with the future. When the band has changed or split up, how will the music be remembered years into the future?

So, for example, would The West Pole have sounded different if it had been recorded after the new line-up had been playing live for, say, six months? Modern ideas about recording - sending tracks to and fro over the Internet, for example, - are very flexible but perhaps a bit "clinical". And there are sometimes moments when you can just tell that the vocalist in particular was singing by him- or herself, in an empty room.

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As opposed to the normal reason there are reviews several weeks before the album release, because people have illegally downloaded the leaks?

Well, be glad if your favourite bands are still making new albums, rather than what some bands do now when they reunite - go on a reunion tour, then another tour, then another ... then eventually maybe make a new album.

Might be true for rock music. But otherwise I prefer the recording. A gig is something special, seeing your favorite band live and so on. But for example, I doubt that The Gathering could catch only a small amount of the atmosphere of Pale Traces live. (But there are exceptions of course. )

Ontopic: I think best would be making the songs, recording. Then some gigs and probably bringing in a few new ideas for the last versions of the recording.

One of the six Florence and the Machine reviewers says that he/she has heard the whole album. The others seem to be writing on the basis of having seen live gigs over a period of about 18 months.

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Of all the bands I've seen live recently, TG have been far and away the best at reproducing the studio album sound on stage. If a band has set out to do something very complex in the studio that really can't be played live (apart from by lip synching to a backing track!), then that's fine, because we need imaginative music that goes beyond the normal live possibilities - but I wouldn't expect them to try to play the thing live. In their early days, Pink Floyd used to try to perform "Interstellar Overdrive", but it didn't sound anything like the album track.

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I strongly believe that live music cant be catch on records... and that actually music is made for live performances... that belief lead me to work in the live art fields...
To get ack on topic and stay related t TG I would say that Souvenirs is the perect eample of what album can become after several songs were tested live (just compare the Melkweg 2001 bootleg to the final songs) and the West Pole is at the opposite: would never have felt so urgent if first presented live (and the live version of the album keeps that urge very well )

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Maybe i'm paranoid, yeah that's my problem
You almost have to be when you look like me

I prefer to hear a cd before seeing a band play the new songs, live.

At this point. I don't care about new music first with The Gathering. I just want to be able to see them more often. I can travel 3,000 miles to the east coast if need be. I can't spend 1,500 to 2,000 to see them in Europe.

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The Gathering pics