| First blog for the new website and I'm writing from deep in the trenches of album mixing so excuse any general irrationality. With most of our albums I've found there's a point during the recording where you're so far in that you can't remember starting, with so much more to do that there seems to be no end in sight. That's where we're at right now... It hasn't always been like that. A couple of our early albums were recorded down at the (late lamented) Radio New Zealand studios in Wellington so we were on the clock with non-negotiable deadlines. To Be Or What and Stromboling were both like that – five days recording, two days mixing, bang bang bang, all done. That was also the last time we had an outside producer. Since then the various Kokomo albums have been self-produced. We've taken our time and learnt as we go. The first Kokomo album I produced was Little Heroes in 1999. I produced, Nigel and I mixed it, Grant did the artwork, Kokomo had become our own cottage industry and that's how it's been for 15 years. Some years later Nigel and I were playing in a band backing a wonderful woman singer/songwriter, Jane Sienne. It was a heavy band, all electric, pitched somewhere between Nirvana and The Clash.  Jane was a great singer and had written a bag of remarkable songs. She also had the finance to record them at Neil Finn's Roundhead Studio in Auckland with ex-Split Enzer Eddie Rayner producing. It was a bunch of fun, and interesting to hang at Roundhead for a week and check out the amazing vintage gear they've amassed (I even got to play a couple of Neil Finn's Telecasters and a baritone electric of his - thank you Neil!). (And that weird white 12-string in the pic - don't remember the make but it came from Italy) So, after our week in the studio (it was always a week in those days) Nige and I returned to Tauranga and Eddie set to mixing and making the album. We did go up to Auckland briefly to do some backing vocals and the bits of songs we heard seemed rather different from the original sessions. Then, sadly, somewhere along the line, there was a breakdown between Jane and the band. In all honesty I still have no idea what happened. Irrespective of the details, the far bigger shock was eventually hearing the album. It sounded nothing like what we thought we had played on. Instead of aggressive electric guitars it had become something resembling a pop album. Jane's songs were still great but everything had become very mainstream FM radio friendly. No more Nirvana or Clash, it had all been “Eddie-fied”. Maybe it was a good thing. Who knows? The album had no support and disappeared immediately, which was a crying shame. Perhaps Eddie's version had more chance of commercial success, we never found out. That's the deal with a producer. To a certain extent, you make the album they want and somewhere along the line Eddie added a whole bunch of “nice”. Perhaps that was his brief – it wasn't my album so I don't know. But whenever I think about that experience I feel better about doing it all ourselves. We may not be the best mixers in the world, and I'm certainly not the best producer. And the Boatshed's not the best studio in the world (though it does have a swimming pool!). But what we end up with is exactly what we want. We work within limitations of course, but we have complete control.
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In some ways I regard this album as a sequel of sorts to that first album I produced, Little Heroes. It's a smorgasbord of sound and in amongst the new directions I think you'll still find plenty of the blues that the band is best known for. But now it's only one element of the “Kokomo Sound”.
Derek
Derek
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