Grinn 3/4 and lost songs recording session

Last night we were joined at our practice studio by Paddy, who after his year away from Grinn is now ready to get back into the action.
We will introduce Paddy back into the live work steadily over the next few gigs so we'll be appearing as both a 3 and four piece intermittently for a while.

Having Paddy back will be great live as it means we now have access to our entire back catalogue - some of the songs just can;t be done as a three piece as the double guitar and vocal parts are integral. Its going to especially good to be able to resurrect standard set opener 'Bully for you' and traditional set closer 'Def Con 1' among others.

It's going to take a bit of work getting up to speed again with Paddy - as a three piece we have become as tight as the proverbial gnat's whatzit, but it'll be worth it for the double guitar attack, the twiddling, vocal harmonies and writing contribution, not to mention welcoming back a non drinker who drives a van!

Working as a three piece has been great - it's forced me to improve my playing and given a little more space to push Nev's bass playing forward. Lee's drumming has jumped another quality notch, and it was pretty damned good already!
So when we finally hit the road and studio as a four piece again we should have progressed. It will be the same old Grinn but not the same old same old old Grinn - if you know what I mean!


Also, we are set to record a session of lost songs for our split EP with liquidhead. These are songs which either didn't seem right for the albums, weren't ready in time or were written during the various false starts in 2005 when we were trying to gain momentum again.
Some of the tracks we have gigged - other although old to us will be new to even the most ardent Grinn fan.
The songs set for this session are most likely:

1. China Doll - Moody heavy alt rock which we dropped from the Bubblegum & Machine Guns album at the last minute in favor of Radio Waves because we weren't entirely happy with the arrangement.
2. Do what you want - A bit of pop rock nonsense which we dropped from the Ordinary Day album in favor of Rip it Up
3. Ordinary World - A conceptual sequel to Smallville which fell between the cracks when Paddy went for his break
4. American Hero - Another slice of Paddy script pop punk fun which didn't fit with the more straight ahead heavy rock of the ordinary Day album
5. Bully for you - I've never been happy with the album version which somehow seems to lack the balls and big guitars, let alone the pace of the live version, so it will be nice to have another crack.

Recording these songs is a slight exercise in clearing the decks of unfinished business ( how many metaphors can you mix?) before we settle down to writing album 4.

There are a few other lost songs kicking about including Persistence, and some early Primal Scream type affair I can vaguely remember from about 6 years ago that Paddy wrote and was something about motorways or highways or something. Anyhoo - these will probably stay lost or maybe we'll steal riffs from them for other songs.

To keep costs down, we'll be recording the session in The Grinnstitution (our practice studio) using digital multi track recorders and an exquisite collection of microphones as blagged from Liquidhead and Rhombus.


Ian