This project had it's genesis in Melbourne on a pretty generic Sunday afternoon.

Melbourne is not a bad place to be on a Sunday afternoon when you are a long way from home, and you don't have that much else to do.

Under the umbrella of: "you just gotta see this band....man" from one Kevin Garant, guitarist extrordinare, we find ourselves at the "Pint", St Kilda. Now I gotta say, you do get the call for seeing bands that are....."..." pretty regularly, (especially when one runs an independent label)and whilst it's always good to see whats going on, and enjoy great live music, it's not that often that a band takes your breath away, playing in the front bar, no fancy PA, just a bunch of shitty looking amps, a couple of 58's thrown through an old Eminar PA (yes the purple one), playing songs that are Australia, and as street level as you would ever hear, played with the enthusiasm and attitude that you know these guy's would be doing this, whether they were paid or not, and they been doing this for that long, it's obvious that they don't gotta think too hard about it....it just comes off the bat like s sweetly hit 6 over the northern stand at the "G"

As a passionate "recorder" and documentor of Australian music, I was compelled to sneak back into the bar one Sunday and record these guy's....exactly as I heard it..in the pub, in the bar, guiness flowing...punters going off....and capture the energy and sound of this great band.

This was the ONLY way to document this bit of almost unoticed Australian musical landscape.

So.........

In the back of the benz wagon goes the RADAR, a suitcase full of Neve Prism's, 1064's, 1066's, Avalons, UA's, more ribbons than a six year old girls birthday party, and a bunch of LA-2A's and 1176's

The Twelves were recorded, live at their work, nothing changed from their every Sunday gig. I just made a balanced split for the two vocal mic's, straight to tape via Avalon 2022's / 1176's. Guitars were tracked via AEA R-84's into Sytek and Neve 1066 pre's...straight to tape (RADAR) Drums were recorded through Neve Prism's (VR) via Josephson CM-42's, Beyer M-88, 451's and 421's Bass was via a balanced split to a UA 6176, mic input to tape. Room was recorded with a Soundfield mic in Blumlein in the middle of the room...up high Accoustics were put flat to tape via Avalon U-5 DI's, to be "re-amped" later

Basically this set up did not change the normal set up of the band, which on the surface of it was very simple, but sounded ablosutely wonderful in the room, a chemistry and resonance that is pretty rare. The idea was to capture this with the Soundfield.

The sound to me was reminiscent of "Tonight's the Night...NY", probably my favourite record of that type, produced by my favourite (one of em anyway) producer, David Briggs, just a great no bullshit producer.

The gig went off (of course), Charlie Owens amp got rained on (with the ribbon mic as well) by the air conditioner for the whole first set, which made life on that Sunday just that bit more interesting for this puppy, but managed to get it all on tape.

Standing hidden behind my fortress of vintage and new boxes, feeling like some sort of space cadet, when the band started, I knew this was going to be worth every mile and every skun knuckle.

The raw beds came up a treat, it was all there.

Next the mix....

It was always the intention to get the most out of the accousic guitar in the mix, as live, Horse plays it plugged straight through the Eminar PA (unbalanced, and surprise, surprise, it sounds awesome), but a mic on the PA cabinet was never going to work for obvious reasons.

The answer was to record it with the best DI available, straight to tape, and then re-amp the signal from tape, and run it through a great amp and mic it up again as I mixed. This was done through a Rob Squire (the legend) transformer based reamplifer (we call it the "recycler"), this device turns the +4db signal from tape, back into an unbalanced signal, so the amp sees what it thinks is a standard guitar input.

This gave the exact results hoped for: A filthy dirty acoustic sound (not distorted), just driven...not clacky DI, not pristine accoustic...just perfect....very happy.

This was recorded via Royer and Josephson mic's through Neve 1064's, signal from tape plugged into a "Neale" hand wound transformer "Deluxe" style amp with celestion green backs, and a bit of help from a Vox AC-30 top boost and some GML eq on the last leg, before it hit the stereo buss of the SSL.

The vocals were recorded via 58's with lots of spill (don't you love it) so they received very serious eq via Avalon 2055, slammed into LA-2A'S and finally into Orban de-essers, they came up a treat.

Everything else was just given a few steroids via GML eq and Neve eq...no effects at all...room mics right up there, and mixed from the RADAR to analogue tape at 30 ips....way to go

And not one screen was turned on in the whole process.

Now wouldn't that be fun.....in this digi conspiracy age.

This project bought the best of both worlds (digital and analogue) into a head on collision that preserved one very important Sunday afternoon in St Kilda, that would have slipped through the net unless someone stupid enough to get off of their arse and do it.

To quote the Twelves:

"Luna Park's smile is frowning on St Kilda"

Should be our new national anthem.

This is a great record, from a great, authentic Australian band.

It don't get any more real than this.

M