*Time As An Illusion
The Sundays wheel on. Life during the week continues to happen regardless. Some of the band gets married. Some of them buy houses or think about it. Some get promotion in their day jobs. Some wait for loved ones to return from overseas trips. Some Sundays are cancelled. Everyone takes turns at feeling inspired, bored or just plain over it. While Miles rests sore ears, Danny mans the controls to coach Jarrod through the vocals to Sunburn. They end up capturing the most outstanding vocal on the entire album.
Throughout this piecemeal project, Major proves to be a real band after all. Every possible combination of the line-up works: Danny and Miles create the, frankly, outrageous second verse to What’s The Attraction? (Supertramp, anyone?) whilst Jarrod and Simon find new ways to harmonize on So Ordinary. Both tunes throw up the most spontaneous and memorable sessions of the entire album.
During playback of the newly recorded vocals on So Ordinary, Dan finds a recorder sticking out of a box in the corner of Shabby Road and starts absent-mindedly playing along to ‘Birds in the trees and the words on the breeze say it won’t be long’. He is duly sent into the booth to record it for a laugh. It sounds just like a music lesson from primary school. Jarrod can hear a classic descant line in his head and records it. Next in is Simon with an old violin that was hanging on the wall (who’s was it?) to bring some authentic out-of-tune-ness to proceedings. Add to that some remedial taps on a bongo drum by Miles and all of a sudden you have something that either sounds like a year seven production or a renaissance early music ensemble playing with a rock band. Listening back you begin to realize that no one is doing stuff like this these days.
What’s The Attraction? is so full of edits and bug-eyed weirdness now that the ending seems positively tame. Someone comes up with the idea to suddenly morph the band into a 1920’s lounge act. Miles hops onto Simon’s upright piano and begins hammering out a chintzy foxtrot feel. Simon leaps onto the drum-kit with a pair of brushes to tap out the beat whilst Danny comes up with a vocal line and then plugs in Simon’s bass to jam along. There is no way it should work but somehow (with the added sound effects of a mighty record scratch and a background craps-game) it does. It soon becomes clear that if people can accept this craziness then they certainly won’t mind the rest of the record.
*Are We There Yet?
It’s October 2006 and Major are putting down about 8 tracks of a mob choir for the end of Fuckin’ Up. Many bottles of Cooper’s Pale Ale are imbibed to achieve the requisite cultural effect. It’s over a year since the recording started and the boys are in festive mood. So, mixing next, then? “Oh, no”, says Jarrod, “Next it’s time for the expensive sounding bit of the record-strings and brass!”
Sure enough, the following Sunday, Miles is back in Shabby Road with a handful of written violin and viola parts for Kathryn Brownhill to play. Kathryn is a brilliant player who has played with Miles and Simon on lots of non-Major related music over the last ten years or so. She is also eight and a half months pregnant and about to be subjected to a couple of hours of repeating herself a lot inside a non-air conditioned booth. Father-to-be, Jonathan keeps popping his head in to make sure Miles isn’t working Kathryn too hard. Sterling work is created, particularly on DOOK where the cascading string lines over the middle eight bring yet another level of vibrancy to the song.
Through some of Jarrod’s contacts a trumpet player called Todd Hardy is booked in for a session. Shabby Road has seen a bit of partying in the preceding weeks and the site of Major frantically cleaning, dusting and vacuuming the place before Todd’s arrival is about as un-rock n’ roll as it gets. Miles seems a bit nervous. He knows that this player needs to be very good to give the parts the authority they need. Once in the booth, Todd starts warming up to Moving On and everyone is suddenly smiling. He is recorded playing one line three times to simulate a full brass section and then comes up with a harmony line that sounds so right. When he launches into Revelation everyone is blown away by his tone, power and precision. If that wasn’t impressive enough then his solo on I Know A Place leaves the room gob-smacked. Over a couple of takes, He captures the whole Marriachi feel so perfectly that everyone is salivating over the best parts to use.
Somehow it is now only two weeks before Christmas and the final instrumental track is recorded. Kyrie Miskin agrees to come and play trombone on a few tracks for a couple of beers and a spot of reminiscing. He and Miles go back a long way together having both come out to Australia in the mid-nineties with the same band. When the session is finished everyone sits out in Simon’s yard with a drink in hand whilst Kyrie’s two male dogs and Jack (Simon’s Jack Russel) simulate some extremely graphic gay-dog-sex. It’s a suitably bizarre ending to a year-and-a-bit of Sundays.
Go To Part Four