1:MEETING TOM ROBINSON.

January 2001 and I am visiting Tom Robinson’s website (U.K.legendary gay anarchic troubadour), which is extremely lively and friendly and funny..and so I decide to e-mail him and ask to meet him. I think his website is so generous and fun that the man himself must be.. and of course, I soon discover, he is!

February, I go down from Munster where I am living to Verviers in Belgium to see him play a gig at Route 66. Rainy night. I have flu and feel quite rough but I am so looking forward to meeting him.

At Köln train station I rush into a shop to buy a cheap disposable camera and nearly miss my next train. Take a photo of Köln cathedral as the train leaves over the great steel bridge and the wide Rhine.

This gig is the first time I have ever heard Tom Robinson live. I bought the single ‘War Baby’ when I was a student at art college in London in the late 70’s. The anticipation of hearing this song again is exciting.

‘War Baby’ is moving and poignant but to hear and see the man himself delivering vocals in such a totally committed and raw way all these twenty odd years later is awesome and overwhelms me... makes me cry infact.

I take some photos..including one of a man with unbelievably long legs handing Tom a beer on stage... and listen on...

A very solid gig with a great mix of old hits and new songs delivered at a fairly loud level. Some with just guitar and some with well arranged programmed backings.

Back at the hotel later, over a nice surprise bottle of champagne, Tom answers a million questions (which I have written out on many little pieces of paper ..laid out all over the floor).

At the very end of a serious and warm three hour conversation about my musical future, I mention the title of a strange little waltz song I have written some years ago. He roars with laughs at the title and says ‘You must do it!’

About four hours later, the next morning, we look unrefreshed and half asleep so I finish the film in my camera.

I go back to Münster with Tom’s huge laugh ringing in my ears.This idea is very serious.

2:BACK TO MÜNSTER.

It is February 2001. It is very rainy and grey and I am feeling too tired of winter never ending. Moving from London to Münster is a climatic nightmare. I can’t believe I have moved to the only place, apart from Burma, with a higher rainfall than London.

The photos of Tom and I look awful but the one with the guy with long legs is fun.

In March Clare Lindley and I make the first official ‘over-ground’ tour of my career. ‘Kind of Glory’ German tour is a huge musical success but suffers badly from lack of promotion. We enjoy the gigs and comfort of hotels and professional support. I am so happy to get back to the music.

April is very weird. I move house and live in limbo for several weeks. Have a wonderful time at the Osteresch songwriting workshop then move to live in Hattingen.

This is the first time I have ever lived outside of a city. I thought Münster was small enough.The new place is virtually in the forest. The next thing would be up a tree.

I am a city woman. Not at all used to insects and nature buzzing and creaking and freaking me out on a daily and nightly basis.

I immediately begin to organize the new album.

The ‘Apple Size Golden Clitoris’ waltz will go on this album but I will call it ‘Early Birds’ to be safe and respectable.

I e-mail Tom who replys with ‘don’t be so coy, call it ‘Apple Size Golden Clitoris’ and GO FOR IT!’

I am quite nervous of making this the title track of the album.

I phone my lawyer. I phone the record company who I have a licensing deal with.They say it is fine for me to make the album outside the terms of the deal.. (this means do it all myself..yet again) but it will keep my head above water financially and should be a challenge.

I am an animal lover but I can’t sleep with spiders doing trapeze practice over my bed at night. I get the broom and commit a few murders before deciding that I will make the song and the album happen.

Thankyou Tom.

Thankyou spiders.

Demo about fourteen songs and write all the chord sheets out. Takes two days.

Phone all my musician friends and book the ‘Premises Studios’ in Hackney London.

Sort out some clothes, grab my guitars, and drive to London in my collapsing 17 year old Austin car. I arrive in London after a thirteen hour journey, late on Friday May 4th.

20 days later there are 1000 Apple Size Golden Clitoris' in my mothers lounge.

This is the... 20 DAY DIARY OF THE MAKING OF THE ALBUM.

3:FRIDAY 4TH MAY. HATTINGEN TO HACKNEY.

It is 21:45 and I am trying to sleep in the car in the Calais Port car queue with my legs up the side of the window and my body squashed across the front seats. It feels like heaven and I am looking forward to fish and chips on the boat.

22:00 (U.K. time) I am freezing on the wet deck of the ferry, feeling sick from the chips, but I want to see Dover as I arrive. Oh England, my home, funny little island in the rain.

Feeling very powerful and poetical but totally tired and worried about driving on the left again.

24:20 (Sat 5th May infact) Arrive in Hackney. Oh Hackney, my home, funny little....dirty bumpy roads and some new big buildings as usual. Each time I come home there are new buildings and strange spaces where others have gone.

Mum is watching a movie. Dad went to bed hours ago.Their lounge looks so familiar and so very English.Carpet, curtains, cosy furniture, lots of pictures and charming objects.

Cup of tea then bed. A bomb exploding will not wake me tonight.

4:SAT 5TH MAY. CHOOSING SONGS.

Spend most of the day phoning studio, musicians and typing out the lyrics and liner notes for the album booklet. Artwork deadline is the 9th (next Wednesday) and all the text and images have to be ready for the layout session. This is keeping me very calm. I am touching every letter in every word in every song. Bizarre sort of meditation. The schedule ahead is incredibly ambitious but I don’t realize it at this point.

Rush over to Janines for a photo shoot. Need some photos with an apple in. Feel very stupid doing silly things with my fingers and tongue to an apple outside Janines house with all the neighbours watching.

In order to meet the very tight deadline to get these albums made for a festival in Rostock on June 1st, the artwork has to go to print before a single note is recorded.

I have to work out the song list for the album cover and I have to get it right.

I write out the song titles with their keys and timings on little pieces of paper.. and yes lay them out all over the floor. Stare at versions 1,2 & 3 before I go out to Sarah Jewel’s (songlines choir director) party.

Red wine, humus salad, choir reunion and old friends. I sing the almost finished version of ‘Doris’. Lots of laughs. Sing the clitoris song. Lots of astonished faces.

Lovely to see everyone again but too smokey for me... home I go.

Alison (Bass) phones to confirm the rehearsal Tuesday.

5:SUNDAY 6TH MAY. FIDDLE-DI-DEE.

Cornflakes, toast and marmalade and coffee. I’m drinking coffee again since I moved to Germany.More typing and endless song list versions and paper pieces all over the floor.

Play through some of the songs... for the first time in fifteen or twenty years! Great to sing them again. MUST finish ‘Doris in the Deli’. Need a book on cheeses.

Meet Clare (fiddle) at Clancey’s Pub gig and give her the song list for Tuesday's rehearsal.Great to see her. She’s playing like a demon. Amazing Irish tunes and country ballads. Pub's too smokey. Since I stopped smoking I have a very low resistance to smoke’s negative effects.Can’t be sick right now. Home again.

6:MONDAY 7TH MAY. QUEEN’S MOTHER’S SHOES.

Drive down to drop the film into photolab (my sweetie old car I love you).

Practice songs and finish the artwork ideas. Post demos of the songs to the musicians and hope they receive them fast. Recording starts this coming Friday!

Put new strings on guitars. Gardening and watch TV.

I love the political gossip and latest royal family news. England is a nation of voyeurs and I am unashamedly one of them.The Queen Mother will be 101 this summer. I hope it never happens to me.When she was 100 she received a Royal Congratulations card from her own daughter. That’s hilarious...

AND.. she wears shoes with 7cm heels!

7:TUESDAY 8TH MAY. APPLES AND CHEESE.

11:00am..

Clare Lindley (fiddle), Alison Rayner (Bass) and I meet at Alisons for a runthrough. Clare is looking like Tom Robinson and I did in Verviers! ... not a morning lass.

Patisseries and coffee.. then down into Ali’s cosy cellar studio.

Wow! the songs are really coming to life. It’s a bit like kissing a sleeping princess after years of stillness and she rises up all smiling with rosie cheeks. I feel very moved and completely excited about it.

14:00

Back to photo lab to chose prints from the contacts.There are some very silly shots.

Sean talks for hours about a band his cousin was once in, who had a crap record deal, so they recorded some crap to get out of the deal. Hmmm..does it show lack of self respect to do that? Long discussion..Go off to buy master tapes and all DATs and cassettes.

Home to e-mail all text and songlist to the graphics guy.

Have decided to open with ‘Apple’.. and end with ‘Switzerland.’So many 3/4 songs that the best order seems to be dividing them by the few 4/4’s and treating it like a live gig. Oh my golly gosh! what if we can’t record all these songs in the time allowed.

Maybe I should put an explanation just in case in the liner notes. Oh sod it! It just has to all happen.

Phone calls and begin to finish ‘Doris’. Dad has found a book on cheeses! Cool!

8:WEDNESDAY 9TH MAY. THE LAYOUT SESSION FROM HELL.

10:00am Phone the photo lab.

Photos aren’t ready so re schedule the layout session .This is getting very tight.

12:00am

Rehearsal with Clare. It’s impossible to make many specific arrangements. She will undoubtedly play some spontaneous lovely lines in the studio. Busk it!

15:00pm off to Photolab to collect photos. Janine arrives to help me select the shots. Have four scanned onto CD. Quick coffee in Clerkenwell.

16:00pm rush to studio for artwork layout session upstairs with Adam. Just sitting on a seat feels wonderful now... I am knackered.

Fours hours later we have a version of the album artwork that has taken much longer to layout than expected. This idea is kitchy with country and western style tilted photo of me sticking end of little finger into hollow on apple. It takes Adam an hour to find the right lettering and I am going completely nuts with exhaustion and have to leave before I explode.

Exhausted and go to bed.

9:THURSDAY 10TH MAY. HEAVENLY VOICES

Lovely lie in bed then over to Alastairs’ for a piano rehearsal. He has this wonderful religious sounding intro idea and ends with a sort of musical box outro. Perfect. The guy’s a genius.

Back home to practice and MUST finish ‘Doris’. Oh dear this is freaking me out now.

The cheese book is full of strange stories about the history of cheeses and I get completely absorbed and read it for an hour. Practice and sit in the garden to try and empty my head.

20.00 Drive to Union Chapel church to introduce the ‘Apple Size’ song to the choir. Sarah has told me they are really up for it. I can’t imagine it really.

I arrive and feel a bit of an idiot playing them my lonely little solo demo version. A room of English white forty something’s all staring into space listening to my tape with very straight faces. Gung-ho I hand out the lyrics sheets and begin the big sing-along. After a couple self conscious run through it’s ‘hand’s up who’s going to come and record it then?’

There are ten takers and I hand out the demo tapes and split.

Rush home and pack. A hall full of bags and guitars. Put the alarm on and swallow a herbal sleeping pill. Amazingly I soon fall asleep.

10:FRIDAY 11TH MAY. TAKE OFF!

9:00am Arrive at ‘Premises’ studios much too early. Go and buy lots of fresh flowers to put in studio. Viv the boss arrives at 9:30am.Then Justin the engineer ( who I’ve never met before).

Studio ‘One’ again. Nice to be back.. home for the next week. The eccentric piano tuner has arrived wearing a red tartan suit and a gold bowtie. Flowers look great everywhere. Richard Newby (drums) and Alison (bass) set up until 12:00.

Alastair (keys) arrives and the jokes begin...

Alison is set up behind some screens in a corner and I can only see her head from my little glass booth. I am sitting on a high stool Charles Aznavour style in a sort of telephone box. Richard is in the padded cell and can only see my left ear and elbow out of a tiny window. Al is at the grand piano in the middle of us all surround by many cubic metres of delicious space.

I love studios.

Recording starts at 13:00 until 19:00.

We start with ‘Angel Delight’. It is brilliant to hear a song I wrote 20 years ago played live for the first time. Sounds wonderful!

Alison and Richard dive into the studio cafe for a B.L.T (bacon lettuce and tomatoe sandwhich) while Alastair and I get ‘Switzerland’ down.

By seven o’clock we have five band tracks down and the others go home and leave me to put a few solo songs down. I consult my green bible - album note book and check the details of my album plan. God, I MUST finish ‘Doris’ later tonight somehow.

Home and crash at midnight.

11:SAT 12TH MAY. TOM OPENS WIDE.

10:am Alison, Richard and I continue with the tracks without the piano which has been magically dismantled , upended and removed in a matter of minutes by Viv and Co.

I miss Alastair already. He’s brilliant. We are not as solid wthout him but we steam on with ‘Dominique’ ‘September Slow’ and finally ‘Catch the Rain’. We have run over Richards time and he’s looking at his watch and telling me which I find very stressful.

Tom Robinson arrives and goes off to buy me a B.L.T. Kind man.

14:00 Alison and Richard leave, pleased with the way things have gone. I teach Tom the melody to the ‘Apple Size’ song.

The synth that Alastair put down just before he left on Friday, has made the track quite cinematic. It’s really exciting bringing this one up. I’ve got this spooky feeling this is going to get quite big. I wonder what Tom will do?

It takes him a while to learn the melody. His first takes are a bit ‘proper English’ sounding so I ask him to sound like himself and he lets rip into his authentic textured Tom Rob vocal which I absolutely love.

Then he comes up with the big ‘Open Wide!’

Some very mad ideas are left out. We try singing together but I can’t stop laughing so

I sit in the mix room and just enjoy.

I show Tom the album artwork and he says it is ‘MUCH too nice’.

‘You want people to pick this album up and go .. ‘Jeezus! What the hell is that!’ My heart sinks. I’ve blown it.

16.00 Tom leaves and invites us to his gig at the ‘Ocean’ down the road tonight..

I push on with vocals and at 21.00 Justin and I rush off to catch his second set. I take my earplugs along.

12:SUNDAY 13TH MAY. PEN BLOWS THE TRUMPET.

Get the kettle from the reception and prepare for steam inhalations in the vocal booth. I’m going to sing in the drum room because the telephone box I was in for guitars is too claustrophobic.

Kettle doesn’t switch itself off and the whole room is dense with steam. I can’t see Justin through the window.Our sense of humour kicks in today.

Doing quite well by mid afternoon.Voice feels fine and we have worked out a clear communication between us that speeds up recording.

By evening I have sung almost the whole album and done a few backing tracks too.

Finish with ‘Good For You’ which is the most pushed vocals I’ve ever done. (shows you what a crooner I am).

21.00 Pen Rimbaud arrives with trumpet to put down the title track intro.

Pen has had very little time to practice and isn’t hugely confident. I badly want him to play it although it turns out that my enthusiasm is completely blind to his knowledge that he is a bit rusty lately and it might not work.

It is difficult but also extremely funny.

At one point I ask for one single note. It is a bugger to get so he takes a break. Then suddenly, from out of a void, comes the longest and loudest note EVER. About thirty seconds of C then a little voice says ‘Was that o.k.?’. Haven’t laughed so much for years.

Tonight in bed I can’t sleep worrying about the trumpet and knowing that the artwork for the album is not enough of a statement and should be more daring. I know Tom is right.

Well god knows how but it will have to be changed.

13:MONDAY 14TH MAY. WONDER WOMAN, COOL DUDES AND HEROES.

Pens trumpet doesn’t work and the artwork needs to be changed.

I feel very sorry that I pushed Pen to try the trumpet and have to ask Viv about the artwork.

Show Viv the cover and tell him I’ve realized it really needs to be changed.

Adam the graphics guy has gone on holiday by now. The artwork goes into print Thursday morning. Viv offers to change all the artwork himself. I can’t believe my luck.What a hero!

Must find another trumpet player.Phone eight trumpet players and leave messages on machines.

Diane McLoughlin (saxophone) and Ian Maidman (electric guitar) arrive and set up for ‘Good for You’ and ‘Mini Fat Black’.

They play live together and it sounds great. Diane looks so relaxed and sounds so powerful.

I am rushing for hours on end between the studio and the graphics room upstairs. This is mad and I feel like Basil Fawlty. Listening to everything the musicians are putting down , then running upstairs to check the album artwork which now has a massive close up of my tongue licking the apple.

It looks so ‘in-yer-face’. Horny and shocking and Tom will love it and I don’t find this at all easy but I think he’s right.

A woman in studio two tells me there’s a guy from New York in her studio playing cornet.

I pop my head in. A cloud of dope smoke and a tribe of smiling faces. Graham Haynes , a very cool dude indeedy, agrees to put the title intro down for forty quid!

Saved! He’ll come in at six o’clock.

Back to the artwork. Must put Graham’s name in now and remove Pen’s.Phone Pen and leave a message about the trumpet being replaced. Feel awful but it had to happen.

Back to the studio.

Ian has put some lovely mandolin down and the most delicious Hawaiian guitar on ‘Mini Fat Black’. He’s really enjoying himself. Great musician.

13:00 Clare arrives with the fiddle and the others leave.

She’s so cheerful and willing. I have been running on adrenaline all morning and I am so relieved that the artwork is now in the bag .What I didn’t notice was the mis spelling of ‘Deli’ which goes to print as ‘Delhi’!.

Slump on the mixing room sofa and enjoy Clare making fiddle sound so easy and free.

‘September Slow’ is exciting with beautiful spontaneous layers of fiddles and viola. Like a river. By six Clare has played some storming fiddle on five tracks, which I then notice are all scheduled one after another on the album. Oh well, that’s the violin section of the album.Too late now.

Graham with cornet arrives.

‘So what’s the project man?’

‘Um, well it’s my new album and this is the title track’

‘What sort of music?’

‘Acoustic..songs..’ ( I show him the latest artwork )

‘Jeezus! What the hell is that!..a slug on a bagel?’

The opening horn line on the apple track has no click track and so his timing is crucial. It needs to sound steady, solid and stately.. and it sure does.

It makes my hair stand on end. I ask him if he can pop in again tomorrow and add a few more lines at the end of the track.

‘Cool. Well I’ve played on a lot of stuff. Funky stuff, world music, jazz, you name it. But I never something like this before! Make sure you send me a copy’

Justin takes a break and goes off to play bass in his band downtown. Clare and I go to Brick Lane for a curry.

Back at 20.00 to sing the backing vocals on ‘Catch the Rain’.

Try singing together but can’t stop laughing. I leave Clare to it. This has been the longest day so far. It’s going to sound great. It’s magic.The choir are coming in tomorrow. I hope they all turn up.The ‘Apple’ track is going to really take off.

14:TUESDAY 15TH MAY. LONG NOTES AND SHORT FUSES.

10.am I finish off some vocals. Justin and I are both exhausted. We get very stressed and it reaches a head and we can’t go on. Time for a big hug and acknowledge that it has been absolutely full on for four days.We get some teas and sit in the yard and wait for Kate Shortt to arrive.

I have asked Kate to sing sort of opera style in-between Tom’s verse through to the end. She is a wonderful singer- musician- comedian, always game for a laugh.

12:00 Kate swooshes in and gets straight to it. I am watching her through the console room window as she dramatically acts out each flurry of notes with great swooping hand gestures and wobbling head. Amazing how she can deliver so seriously such a ridiculous part. She’s very funny and cheers us up completely.

Graham can’t come in yet to finish the cornet so I try the rest of the vocals again including ‘Doris’ which is now complete with Camembert, Emmental and Brie.

It works and we keep the first take.

Graham returns later looking a bit stoned.

I haven’t worked out the passages of horn notes for the end of the apple track. It gets more and more stressy as his precious time passes and we try to work out some lines for the last verse. This is definitely the most stressful recording moment for me.Graham wants to leave right now and there are still 16 bars to go.He sticks with it and I am very lucky.

It’s wonderful when an idea you‘ve had in your mind turns into a reality. I imagined the beginning of this song like an empty battle field. Flags flying, wind blowing gently and some thing about to happen. Now it’s there!

I steam on with harmonica and twelve string until the choir arrives.

19.00 Twelve sets of hired headphones are delivered and Justin clears the room for everyone.They arrive slowly and I start to worry if there will be enough voices. One man so far and seven women. Two more guys arrive thank god and we all squash into the control to room to hear the now, quite colossal backing track.

We divide into basses middles and tops but Brenda is the only top. I join her and we all stand aroung the mikes poised for the backing track. Brenda is an English teacher in a grammar school. She puts her handbag down beside the mike stand and asks me very politely

‘Are we meant to sing clit..OR..is or would you prefer clit..ER..is?’ I put this to the group who think we ought to stick with a soft sounding ‘ER.’ The backing track blasts our ears off and levels are sorted out while they all practice their ‘clitERi’ ..

We balls up the first take by coming back in on the final ‘It might fly inside’ at completely different times. Sounds glorious though.

Second take. I conduct the ending timing and it’s there. All back in the control room for mega listen. Most of the singers have never been in a studio before and the play back is thrilling. Everyone wants to do it again but for me it’s there.We have to speed on with other stuff.

Everyone gets a quick listen to the rough mix of ‘Good For You’ then sadly they are asked to leave.

It is all over so quickly. Tea break then on with guitar and vocals.

15:WEDNESDAY 16TH MAY. FLOWER POWER.

The flowers have half died so I prune them and put them in smaller jars.I am wearing something smarter to give myself more energy.

Viv arrives with the proof films of the album artwork. The green looks very strange. It is meant to be more apple green so he disappears to investigate colour numbers.

We had planned to start the mixes this morning but there are still guitar overdubs and vocals to finish.

I am tired but somehow find the energy for more playing. Albums just take as long as they take. This might need an extra day at the most but we have worked so hard and continuously for six days now, it is almost on schedule!

I have drawn out song charts with each instrument on each song. Most of the boxes on our charts are ticked now. My chart is covered in doodles and I can’t see or remember what’s left to be done.

Viv pops in and out all morning showing me colour charts and trying to finalize the artwork. I ask him about using the studio for another two days mixing if we need to. From Saturday at 1pm it is booked for another artist so we only have two and a half days left.

Oh well, keep going.

More vocals and guitar parts.I love doing backing vocals. I love the sound of multiple voices as you keep singing over. Wish I could have been in those early Motown sessions with the girl groups.

Long hard work and we are both pretty tired at the end.

Justin is very easy to work with. He is relaxed, quiet and quick and we get on well.

16:THURSDAY 17TH MAY. PICK ‘N MIX.

Have received an e-mail from Tom Robinson urging me to have the album mastered by a guy called Paul Phippin who he says is ‘a genius who can make anything sound incredible’. I take his word for it and phone Paul but get no reply.

10:00 I leave Justin to bring up ‘Angel Delight’ and slip out for a huge veggie breakfast. I have brought all my guitars in again just in case.This is going to be the monster-mix day!

We decide to do all the band tracks first then the solo and little ones and leave the ‘Apple’ track till last.

12:00 Basic mix sounds great. Hee hee this is so exciting!

14:00 Discover that the fiddle is slightly but noticeably out of tune in one section on the solo. Oh dear.. The other fiddle take is too different to use.

I phone Clare and ask her to zoom down to the studio and replay it. She arrives 45 minutes later and re plays the whole solo and is much happier with it too. Felt horrible asking her.

E-mail Tom that I can’t reach Paul.

By 18.00 three tracks are mixed and sound lovely.

Paul phones from the airport in L.A. (USA) to say he can do the mastering but not until Sunday after his ears recover from the flight back to the U.K. GREAT!

This means I will now go to Wales Saturday night. Will stay overnight and start the mastering Sunday morning. Don’t want to think about it right now.

Midnight and Justin is losing it so we call it a day.

Four band tracks in the bag.

17:FRIDAY 18TH MAY. MIXING AND FISH AND CHIPSING.

9 o’clock start and straight into ‘Good For You’ which wakes us up!

I wander around the building while Justin brings the track up. It is busy as hell in here this week. Every studio is full. Every practice room also. It’s totally buzzy and the cafe is packed. Great little place.

A long day of adjusting and setting levels and listening. I keep coming and going to give my ears a break.

Paul phones to say he has booked me a hotel for Saturday night. Says he is knackered from the flight.

18:00 Fish and chips and steam on until 1 in the morning. The cleaners stick there head round the door at midnight and realize they can’t do their job.

Home and crash at 2am.

18:SATURDAY 19TH MAY.HAPPINESS IS AN APPLE SIZED GOLDEN CLITORIS.

There is no way the mixing will be finished by one o’clock. I ask Viv for more time and he delays the other artist until four o’clock. We now have a crucial three hours extra.

I will take the train to Wales tonight and stay over then we start mastering tomorrow morning.

This project is turning into one of those relentless activity challenges you see on T.V. where the contestants one by one collapse and one mad idiot is left at the end smiling like a zombie.

13:00 and we begin the title track mix. An old friend Mark, from art school, drops by with his little boy Otis.This is the most important mix and Mark is trying to occupy Otis in a quiet sort of way. Justin is under huge pressure and Mark films Otis and I dancing around to the song on his digital movie camera. They leave after an hour.

Janine pops in on her way home with bags of food shopping. Just time for a coffee then disappears.

A few others drop by and sit on the sofa for a few minutes then slip out.

I can’t believe I’m going to Wales tonight. The master tape has to be delivered to the plant first thing Monday morning. THEN I am going to collapse!

All the visitors have distracted me from really listening to the track properly . Now I am concentrating and can hear that the main vocal ( the guide take which I really like) has some pops and breathing on. I have to re sing it. This is MAD. There’s one hour left!

We switch to recording and I have a nightmare 30 minutes trying to re perform the opening verse which without a click track is a complete bugger. Finally get the timing right and amusingly the last note, the very last thing on the whole album to be recorded is the ‘clit’ in the clitoris in the first verse.

What a way to end!

At 16:30 the album is finished. Justin is finished. I am finished.

WOW! We did it.

But it doesn’t end here...

I wait for all the mixes to be transferred to CD and sit in the cafe feeling exhausted. When this is over I guess I will sleep for days on end. Saying goodbye to Justin is hard. Nine days together from 9 in the morning till about midnight.

Now I have to drive home and quickly pack for the train journey.

19:SOMEWHERE NEAR WALES.

Sometime later I arrive at a tiny train station near the welsh border with the master tape in my small rucsac.No sign of Pauls partner Tina who is coming to collect me.Just a pokey little kiosk with two sad looking characters inside who tell me the phone doesn’t work and that the nearest pub is five miles away!

Ten minutes later a huge four wheel drive jeep screams into the carpark and it is Tina. Large, smiley ex- Londoner who has ‘just done all the bloody shoppin’.

Half an hour later we arrive in the middle of nowhere at a huge rambling house where large smiley Paul is waiting with a cup of tea.

Very friendly and kind couple who live in the heart of the countrside running a mastering studio and website business.Tina is certainly not the type of wifey who makes tea all the time while her husband knows everything. She set up the studio and website business with Paul and knows loads.

I leave Paul with the masters which he has to down load and prepare for the morning. Tina takes me to the hotel.

Wow don’t often stay in hotels.This one is unbelievable!

20:HOTEL FROM HELL.

I asked Paul to pick a cheap one.You couldn’t get cheaper. This is a small pub with five strange people at the bar.Funny accents and quite funny looking.

The 14 year old bar maid cannot find the key to my room. They all stare at me while I try to look calmly at the pots and pans and kitchen crap hanging from the ceiling.

Key finally found after several phone calls and I am taken up a narrow staircase to a narrow corridor and she opens the narrow door to my room with very narrow bed!

‘Alright luv. Breakfast at 9 in the pub room.You can get in an’ out by the back door. It’s Elvis on the jukebox tonight. Sorry if it’s a bit loud..and me mates are in the next room’.

The floor in my room slants steeply.I am above the pool room below with the juke box. There are two small beds covered in nylon blue and a ‘teasmade’ machine in the middle.Out of the window I can see the back garden of the neighbouring pub.

The toilet is along the corridor and the door doesn’t lock. It doesn’t even shut properly. The shower is cold and there’s a couple of lads in the room next door.

I go out to eat.

I have no idea where I am. A small village near Wales. The high street is a ghost town of charity shops and closed cafes.Some teenagers sitting on a wall smoking.

21:GRIMSVILLE.

I find the ‘Cock and Peasant’ restaurant open. Inside there is a tall bespectacled woman who looks like a librarian at a small bar.She has a horrible voice poor thing and is very crispy and stiff mannered. I order trout and a gin and tonic.

This is Grimsville.

Half way through my drink she comes over and whisks me off to a table at the back with all the others.I sip my drink watching a samurai size farmer eating the biggest slab of steak I have ever seen in my life.The size of a frizby.

Finally a twelve year old waitress carry’s my soup towards me forever. It is over full and she is walking like a chinese grannie with bound feet.( Unbelievably like the Julie Walters comedy sketch) Scalding hot packet vegetable soup.

The trout is excellent and a huge mountain of real chips and pathetic salad.One more gin and tonic and I slip out, back to the hotel.

In through the back door past a gaggle of local teenagers all getting into their big Saturday night out at the pub.

The beds are like sponge puddings .The earplugs do the trick and I can only hear the faintest sound of Elvis as I drift off.

8:am Toilet call. Ever had to have a pee with one leg stretched out to hold the door shut?

8:45am and I am ready to face breakfast but I discover that I am locked into the upstairs of the pub! Not funny. I call out of the bedroom window to the cleaner of the nighbouring pub who is busy at the dustbins.

‘Oh that’s always happening. It’s Jean, she won’t be long. I’ll give her a call.’

I try to operate the teasmade but just make a big mess so I abandon it when there’s a knock at my door.

‘Sorry luv. I woke up late. You can come down now’.

The pub room stinks of smoke and booze and I can’t believe I am meant to have breakfast in here. I convince her to set me a table in another room.

The tea is like acid. Three bags in a tiny tea pot. Rice crispies first, then I order the ‘full cooked.’ A totally dead high street out of the window. I am reading tourist leaflets about monkey sanctuarys, owl sanctuarys and train rides through bluebell woods.

The cleaner knocks £5 off the bill due to the toilet door and the cold shower which brings the bill including breakfast to £12.50.

I will never ask for the cheapest hotel again. Never, ever, ever.

Tina burns up the high street in the four wheel drive and we speed off to Paul for the mastering session.

THE MONSTER MASTERING SESSION!

All my previous albums took between 5-8 hours to master. This session turns out to be the Mother of all mastering sessions.

It is 10:30am and Paul is sitting in his grand mastering throne in the awesome studio with the gigantic speakers and special velvety wall padding. This is his carefully designed acoustic heaven in his lovely country house.

I am imagining I can leave in the late afternoon and get back to Hackney. Then I’ll take a trip out to Hayes and deliver the masters to the plant Monday morning... dream on..

Mastering sessions are exciting because you get to hear the album change from good into amazing. Everyone thinks that their baby is the most beautiful thing ever and it’s like that with albums.

For hours on end Paul restores and improves the overall sound with all sorts of tricks and effects. To be honest I can hardly remember what happened between teas and trecks to the loo.

At 6pm it is clear that this is going to to take much longer and we know there’s a long night ahead. Paul is a detail merchant and an absolute perfectionist so I just keep on hanging in there with him.

The hanging in goes on till 3.am when we discover that the mix of ‘Switzerland’ consists of piano with no reverb and vocals with rather too much. It sounds weird.Very weird. It won’t do and it’s not something Paul can change.

Tom Robinson’s wonderful Nuemann microphone is set up in the corner so Paul suggests that I re-sing the whole song.We use the piano track that’s on the ‘playback’ mix.

This is at a ‘point of no return’ when we can hardly hear what anything sounds like anymore and everything feels like a mad dream anyway.

It is 4am and I am singing ‘Switzerland’.When it’s over I collapse on the sofa and fall asleep.

At 6am Monday morning I am on the train to Hayes. I feel completely stoned and the little DAT tape in my bag feels like the crown jewels.When this album reaches the manufacturing plant at last I can let go and rest. I will still worry whether it will be ready for the deadline but I can sleeeeep!

The train is delayed and I arrive late.

The receptionist at the plant is filling in the album details on a form and getting embarressed by the title. She tells me it will be pressed Tuesday and delivered all complete with booklets by the deadline.

I go home to Hackney in the sunshine.Wow! That’s it.

23:MONDAY EVENING HORROR!

8pm and I am eating beans on toast watching T.V. The phone rings, it is Paul. He tells me that he can hear a ‘glitch’, a funny drop-out of sound, on the master tapes that he didn’t notice before. He didn’t notice because there was no time to listen to the finished mastertape completely. (Fatal or what!)

He plays it down the phone to me. I think I can hear it. I don’t want to take any risks and he seems convinced there’s a problem.

I thought the stress was over. I will call the plant in the morning and stop that master tape being used. Paul will send another master. It has to go by courier to get there on time. It will take about three hours by motorbike.

24:TUESDAY 22ND MAY. TELL ME IT’S ONLY A DREAM..

First thing this morning..I phone the plant and am told enthusiastically by the receptionist that the album has been made. They decided to make it yesterday so there are a thousand copies waiting for booklets. I am horrified!

I arrange to have them reserved and another batch made with the new masters. I am told that they cannot guarentee meeting the deadline now unless the new master tape arrives before lunchtime.

A morning of highly stressful phone calls and a sinking heart.

This is going to cost another eight hundred pounds to sort out.

I can use the first thousand copies for promo only, which allows for a very generous promo campaign!

The new master tape reaches them just in time and the album is repressed that afternoon.

Paul is extremely sorry. Tom Robinson offers all sorts of helpful things. This is a blow to my budget but I guess it will work out in the longrun.

A week passes while I recover and get on with other things.I will fly to Germany Thursday 31st and head for the LFT Festival in Rostock where I hope to perform and sell the album.

25:WED 30TH MAY. ‘ HOW GREEN IS MY VALLEY...’

At 10:am I am feeling slightly anxious about the album delivery and I phone the Premises Studios.

‘Oh they are here, come and get them!’

I zoom off in my old Austin to collect my babies.

There are stacks of boxes in the hallway. I open one carefully and see the bright lime green edge of a new album inside.Feels like Xmas.

I am in that deliciously exciting moment when you open the first new album. I pop open the surreal green cover...’Apple Size Golden Clitoris’ .. and inside a bright green appley disc shines out! Then I pop out the apple disc and enjoy the song titles behind all floating in different colours in the perfect case.

I pull out the booklet and read the text as if I’ve never read it before. Huge smile on my face. Viv grinning says ‘Well lets hear it!’and sticks it into the CD player.

The hall way starts to fill with the ominous opening of the title track. I wish Tom was here.It sounds great.

Back at the house I find places to store the Cds.The family home is packed with stuff anyway so it’s not easy. Mum comes back from her long walk and asks ‘Did they arrive?’.

I play her a few tracks and she really likes it.

‘What’s it called?’

She is revolted and convinced that everyone will now think that my music is awful. She is highly unamused.

I send Tom an e-mail ‘Mother is Revolted’. He tells me to be grateful and that it is a very encouraging sign.

Half an hour later she gives me a beautiful bunch of flowers and says ‘Congratulations!’.

Later that day I post copies of the album to all the musicians and friends involved in the making. About 40 copies into the post. A final drink round at Pete’s house where we sit and enjoy listening to the album at high volume with a glass of wine.

The most amazing result for me is the way the song order works. I am impressed at how much music was recorded in five days. I am still too near the project to hear it objectively but I am truly amazed.

I manage to reach Rostock and the concerts and the album go down extremely well.

It turns out that I, nor anyone else can hear a 'glitch'or drop out on the first batch of albums made.Paul must have ultra-super-sonic hearing. 'C'est la vie!'

Unbelievably my Mother flys to Germany in November carrying another two hundred copies..’I just hope they don’t stop me at customs’ she says on the phone.

Jan Allain