Recorded

How much fun is making music! I mean, seriously! It's as much fun as you can possibly have with your clothes on (though that's always optional!).

Whilst I've published cds of music compositions for commercial use (such as documentaries and tv commercials, etc), I've only recently discovered that there's nothing quite like the experience of recording with a band.

Going through this incredibly creative experience for the first time in the past two weeks with the eclectic members that make up our very, very serious musical group, Uranus, has re-focused my thinking on music. 

It all started last year with a chance meeting with William Pfeiffer, our "indelibly" energetic frontman. William stopped by the bar I then owned for a beer - or several hundred - and mentioned a jam session later that night with another mutual friend, Ed Bean. The three of us hooked up and fell into a regular jam session on a weekly basis. Realising the need for a weekly bass-ist, William invited another mutual friend, Jasper Donat, to join one of our sessions. Jasper had played with both William and Ed in a previous incarnation called Set Top Box. A month later, we were introduced to a new producer at FX Channel, Ryan Poppi. With guns the size of oak trees, the Popster turned out to be a tub thumper extraordinaire and low and behold, Uranus was born.

Our first gig was at the Global Battle Of The Bands a month later (about this time last year, actually). We finished third in the finals (thanks to well-placed but expensive bribes) and after a few gigs in and around town we found we had a following of Uraniuns.

The jokes about the band and the name keep us all constantly amused, although none of us really understands them. People keep suggesting we call our first album "Plugged", "Unplugged", "Backdoor Boogie", or other equally profound suggestions, but I think we'll probably go with something far more intellectual, like "But Whole", or "Titan Uranus", which kind of plays on the whole Greek mythology theme.

So, armed with a stack of originals, it was time to take the next step and have our sound professionally recorded.

Thanks to Q Studio, Thomas the Tank Engineer (and plenty of Heineken), we managed to lay down two tracks in one 8 hour session last week. We then spent two seven-hour sessions producing and mixing the results of that epic studio recording over this past weekend.

Last night, we burned the results of that studio session to cd and today we are holding the first baby of Uranus's musical love fest.

We plan to make a bit of a song-and-dance about the release of the two singles  so stay tuned.

In the meantime, we have another recording session with the Underground label planned in October with new original songs and we aim to have a cd compiled and released by the end of the year.

My mother thinks I'm having a mid-life crisis. I think she's being rude - She was listening to Santana before I was even a glint in my father's eye.

And don't forget to tell your girlfriends: "Uranus Rocks, babe".

C.