*The (inevitable) Final Fiddle
Once the rest of Major get to hear it in the cold light of day it’s decided that a couple of tracks are sounding a bit brittle in the top end and a bit bass-lite. After conferring with Carpenter, Miles ducks back into the mixes at home and boosts some bass and vocals on DOOK, I Know A Place and What’s The Attraction? He also manages to get a trumpet solo under more control after it nearly took Carpenter’s head off at the first session. So, back at Turtlerock, Michael gets the dynamics for Better Days just right on his second attempt and Moving On is spot on, straight off. Fades and links are refined and Miles walks out with what he believes to be the finished article. It’s all there but on review, Miles is still not happy with She’s Not The One. The vocal is getting a bit lost and it’s sounding too dull next to Toyshop (the little ‘music box’ intro that precedes it). However, there’s no more budget and no more time available at Turtlerock in which to do it. Luckily for the band, Carpenter comes through with the goods again and manages to get Major another couple of hours in the mastering suite at a reduced rate.
Carpenter proves, yet again, to be a godsend for the band. Not only does he do a brilliant job of his first, proper mastering gig but he can also hear what the band are trying to do artistically. Consequently, he goes above and beyond the call of duty because he believes it’s a great piece of work: “No one is making albums like this at the moment. The reach and breadth of the songwriting and arrangements is just out of this world. It shows how clever the guys are without them disappearing up their own arses… plus it’s a lot of fun too”.
*It’s Easy To Believe
So that, in a nutshell (or rather in a large orchard full of outrageously abundant, fruiting nut trees) is the story of how the album called Montezuma came to be made. There’s more that could be told but, hey, there’s a war on and the cat needs feeding. And in the end what is it, this Montezuma thing? Well, opinions are meant to differ. To some it’ll be a case of “It’s a long time to spend on something that isn’t Ok Computer isn’t it?” Whilst to others it’ll be, “Bloody hell, that’s all a bit over the top”.
Obviously, at its simplest it’s just twelve songs made by four blokes who live in Sydney, Australia. It’s definitely a piece of work. If you can’t hear it in the music then you can read it in this story. Montezuma is an example of what you can do when you put your mind to a task; how you can actually make something from nothing. That, through the often mind-numbing tedium of a working week, you can have something to look forward to; a place where you can go to make stuff up and the fun you have doing it is kind of sacred. Everyone has a shed of one sort or another but the size of the revolution doesn’t really depend on the size of the shed. It’s more the way that you spin.
Back To Part One