Filming & Recording with T.Mandrake at Metropolis Studios
Posted by kateplane on June 18, 2009
Wednesday 27th May, 7am; time to leave the house, but I’m not ready. In all fairness, I set myself a 7am departure time knowing full well that I would be at least 20 minutes late. And I was only going 20 miles, from Windsor to Chiswick, but factoring in M4 traffic, and needing to be there at 8am, allowing (realistically) 40 minutes was probably about right. But I was still trying to pack clothes etc at 7.15am so it seems I was spot on with my chosen and estimated times of departure.
I arrived at Metropolis Studios (“Europe’s top recording & mixing studio complex”) just before 8am, perfectly on schedule and feeling quite pleased with myself (despite nearly taking out a cyclist who admittedly must have had a death wish). The boys were there loading in their gear and everybody was in a good mood despite the early hour (we’re usually a band of nightime people). While waiting for the film crew to set up the lights, cameras and practice shouting “action” (not really), we ate breakfast, drunk litres of coffee, had hair and make-up done, ironed our outfits, customised our outfits, accessorised our outfits, warmed up our instruments and voices…and then we waited. It took the film company 5 hours to set up, so despite arriving at the studio at 8am we didn’t actually start filming & recording until around 2pm! Still, what a place to spend a day in…a studio where some legendary albums were recorded and mixed – The Stone Roses, The Libertines, The Verve, Lauren Hill, Amy Winehouse, the list goes on. The studios are housed in The Power House, a converted power station in Chiswick, and the place is BIG!
So anyway, once we got started in the studio we did actually manage to get quite a lot done in a relatively short space of time; filmed/recorded live versions of four tracks – the three new ones we’d recently recorded at Perryvale Studios plus one of our older tracks too. It was really hot in the studio, thank goodness our fabulous make-up girl was on hand all day to do touch-ups! And we were told not to look into the cameras – found it very strange when they’re right in front of you to find something else to look at. Hopefully it won’t look odd in the footage! But the film crew and Director Patrick seemed really happy with what they got on the day and hopefully we’ll be seeing some of the finished stuff next week so watch this space.
T.Mandrake’s live tracks filmed/recorded at Metropolis Studios on 27th May:
Always In The Summer | Bust n Boom |Walking In Tall Grass (featuring Pete Brown on percussion) |Broken Flowers
You can listen to the studio versions of these tracks at: http://www.myspace.com/tmandrake. Website for the Metropolis studios (we were in Studio B – Rhiana was in Studio A): http://www.metropolis-group.co.uk/services.php?m=0&p=0
We finished off the day in the same way we end most T.Mandrake days – with dinner and drinks and another late night…
Kate has BIG hair, Nicki dressed & ready, Tanya in hair & make-up
