Thread by @martin_carr

I find it hard to sit still and focus so during the day, when I’m not drinking with the alcoholic couple upstairs or lying on the big bed in the back room bathed in the shifting sunlit patterns from the trees outside.. #TimsTwitterListeningParty

I wander the streets for hours upon miles upon hours upon miles.

After working in crappy jobs for years, it’s a steady joy. I have no money of course but I don’t mind, I am free.

An idea is forming in my mind. A vibe, a sound that encapsulates this moment. Big like New York with skyscraping highs and deep booming subways. It starts with a riff, played by my girlfriend on her clarinet.

I record several versions on a fostex four track machine, overdubbing and layering until the track disappears under a blanket of hiss and I start again.

Ooh I just found this

Probably listened to that a bit 😀

It's called Hornsong. I write about myself, the way my mind lays tricks on me, already ruminating on past mistakes. I’m at the beginning of a search that continues to this day.

This is the birth of Giant Steps. Lazarus comes out in 1992 and goes nowhere. Our press officer @mrasaunders calls me up in a huge Las Vegas hotel room, where I’ve just set fire to the tour managers accounts so I won’t have to pay back all the extra money I’ve had.

He tells me that nobody is interested in Lazarus. It disappears without trace.

I wrote Lazarus and I’ve Lost The Reason in that flat. Soon after we rented a house on Chetwynd Road with Tim and his girlfriend. London was scruffy and affordable in those days, I loved it.

I resumed my wandering during the day and at night I would drink Wild Turkey and write and demo the songs that ended up on GS. We did six weeks on the road with Sugar in the US, the gigs were pretty bad but we had a huge drunken adventure and I brought home piles of new records

hang on. clapping

We were given six weeks to record, nobody told us what was expected of us, if anything. There was no pressure, it was all very relaxed.

We recorded in Protocol Studios off Benwell Road where Johnny Rotten was born and near where the Emirates stands today. It had a beautiful large live room with a piano vocal booth and drum space.

We spent an awful lot of time laughing. There were hardly any drugs around then, we were skint. Leb when we could afford. Our main vice was a couple of pints of Dog Bolter in the Firkin pub on Holloway Road or a Massala in the Standard curry house opposite.

We used to have sausage butties from Bert's Cafe on the corner of Holloway Road and Drayton Park. Bert used to drop sausages on the floor then pick 'em up and put 'em in your buttie

I Hang Suspended - I wrote this in Chetwynd Rd. I had a great melody for it but was sent to the shops before I could record it. If I don’t get something down straight away it’s lost forever. I used to write notes to myself all the time

The melody I lost must have been good because I still think about it. The words are useless. I can’t remember if it was conscious or subconscious but the title is from Dylan’s Chimes Of Freedom.

Starry-eyed an' laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended.

When we were recording Everything’s Alright Forever with Ed Bueller, he was very excited about a new band he was working with. He played us a track and I was blown away by the guitar player. I was an awful guitarist, I couldn’t play in time or with any discernible rhythm.

I could make a noise and build towers of feedback but everything else was amateur hour. I never practised, couldn’t focus for long enough.

Anyway, the guitar player was @bernardbutler and this was my attempt at picking out notes rather than strumming along. I think there might another further along.

I always loved playing this live.

Poor Sice, having to sing drivel like this.

Upon 9th And Fairchild

I called it this because I’d met someone who lived On Hennepin Rd in Minneapolis which made me think of 9th And Hennepin by Tom Waits. We were using Fairchild compressors in the studio so I swapped Hennepin for that.

I wanted the feedback to be cold and stark so I recorded it in the machine room at Protocol. I love listening to Hendrix play Star Spangled banner at Woodstock, this was an attempt at that.

Feedback speaks to me and I can express myself very well using it. It’s the one thing I miss about having that kind of setup.

Great bass from Tim. He’s such a good bass player.

Was very lucky to play with Tim and Rob. I'll always regret not sticking with them.

Most of these songs are about the same thing, searching for an answer to the question Who Am I Today? This one is first draft stuff, I should have done it properly.

I forgot to start the album. I'm guessing now.

Sack the strummy guitar layer. I wouldn't mind but he's twice as loud as everyone else.

player. my p is on the blink

Cellos and flutes and feedback. That's my happy place.

Wish I Was Skinny - Guitar intro might have been influenced by Therese by The Bodines.

If only I lived here, if only I did this, if only I was with them. I was always looking for a way to feel different, I ended up making bad life choices which affected me and others.

This was one of the main sounds on the record. My sister got it for Christmas in the mid 80s

The gap between upon 9th and skinny is a cover of the gap between Piggies and Rocky Racoon

I'M SPINNING OUT MAN

Leaves and Sand takes the whole quiet/loud thing to new heights. Impossible to listen to in the car.

This is hard to listen to. I was in bad shape, mentally. Waking up to feeling wrong every day really takes it out of you.

Don't be like Martin, kids. Get some help!

I don't know whether lyrics like this mean anything to anyone else but they put me right back to that time.

One of those guitars was known on the desk as 'Make It Stop'

Me and Sice used to play John Madden Football and EA Ice Hockey, the one where fights break out.

When we had a disagreement, even if we were in the middle of recording, one of us would say "Right! On the fuckin' hockey" and off we'd go

Intro to Butterfly MCQueen is a rip of 'See Saw' by the Moody Blues.

Tune

I remember saying this was based on an overheard conversation. I don’t know.

Most of the racket on this is Tims. I always think this is his.

Rodney King - Oh here I go, inventing dance music.

I believe this is a treatise on dehumanisation 😶

I gave Meriel some shit lyrics on this, Sice didn’t even get that.

I think this is my Dr Rhythm.

Oh I love the sound of major 7ths drifting about the place.

Thinking Of Ways - I’d been out with my old pal Adam, to a party underneath railway arches in Kentish Town.

Those harmonies are lush. Harmalades we called them.

I couldn’t relax or think rarely. I couldn’t grab hold of time and let it dangle for a moment while I sorted my shit out. I used open up only after drinking for eight hours but then I didn’t make any sense.

Go Giles, Giles was the tape op. Hair like dot cotton and a glass of white wine welded to his right hand.

Those guitars at the end were supposed to sound like fireworks but I don't believe I've ever heard fireworks that out of tune.

Barney And Me - called it Barney and me because the intro was ripped off Electronic. I think I started this on Belvidere Field in Wallasey while I was out walking one frosty morning near my parents house. Cellos and flutes. Old man song, I was 24.

I would have been singing into this

Faye Dunaway ? No idea. I'd probably recently watched Bonnie and Clyde.

I'm going the full Mascis.

Oh god i don't like this one

Sounds like that advert where the lady gives a blowie to a Flake

for older viewers

Sounds like a suicide attempt but was the aftermath of a particularly heavy sesh. Bit too much drama

If You Want it - Ah this is the other Butler song.

First time I met Noel G he said this was his favourite song of ours. Hmm, because it's prototype Oasis or he liked the vaguely Thatcherite tone of the lyrics? You decide.

I'm knackered.

Best Lose the Fear. At some point I decided there weren't enough good songs so on a day off I went into the studio on my own and wrote this and The White Noise Revisited.

Joe 90 guitar!

Sometimes I insisted on playing keys instead of Tim who can actually play for realsies. If you listen closely you can hear him roll his eyes while I play.

I wrote it about a friend who was going through some relationship shit. He told me about a dream he'd had where everything was back to the way it was when they first met.

I'd forgotten all about this song. I like this song.

Take The Time Around - Bob Mould had an amazing guitar sound. He had it in stereo with one side delayed by a microsecond which sends the whole thing W I D E.

'Take what you know / break it up and rearrange it' is as near to a manifesto as I ever got.

No idea what this is about. Probably a bag of weed. I've got form.

hahah THREE GUITAR SOLOS. They sounded shit on their own.

I listened to Ronald from the Lips guitar playing on Hit to Death towards the end. He was a lovely guy, great guitar player. I went back in and put another ten layers of guitar on everything. just in case.

We didn't want to put Lazarus on. It was old news to us. the label insisted so to make it different we got the master engineer to twiddle nobs as the master went down.

Vibes - Tim Buckley Happy/Sad

Flutes, cellos and feedback

I played the album yesterday for the first time in twenty years (I think). It's ok, better than I thought it would be.

We were listing to a lot of bootlegs, smile/beatles/accidents/talking/noises.

Please don't listen to my guitar playing on this.

No idea what this is, some random nihilism. Pfft.

I love Run My Way Whatever Its Called!

The intro was supposed to be a clip from Midnight Run where Charles Grodin pretends to freak out on the plane. THIS THINGS GO DOWN

But they wouldn't let us use it. Bet they regret that.

I had convinced myself I was afraid to fly. The bells at the end are supposed to like Keystone cops chasing the plane as it crash lands.

I've Lost The Reason - kill the guitar player

Another one I don't like to listen to. Searching, searching. High and low. Who can I turn to? Where can I go?

Get me flute out!

Spacemen 3 vibe!

We would just leave big gaps in songs that we had to go back and fill in later.

Bass is really lovely on the verse.

Lads, I've got an idea. What about a really loud guitar?

Hang on lads, I've had another idea. Open your minds real wide now. What about.. a really loud guitar?

The White Noise Revisited - The other song I wrote on the day off. First time I'd ever used a capo. Revelatory.

Drums recorded in the vocal booth. They sound ace.

Fashioned by the blade of a world that does not care. That’s a good line.

The finished version never captured the warmth of these sounds from Protocol. Somebody mix it again.

We got a load of mates to sing on the end. Moose, @KeithCameron2 , Prince etc

Thats a trip, eh? Thanks for playing. I love you all.

I'm going to start reading replies now.