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27 November 2008 Hand Elephant Records needs to change our website now that Adventures With Alice have their own site – check it out at www.adventureswithalice.com! Our own website can now become just that, leaving Adventures With Alice to run their own, personalised site. Of course, we still love the band and their music, but the two are separate and quite rightly so.

The album has been delayed a bit, in fact, because Adventures With Alice are being very particular about the sound of the songs and have taken longer to mix it than we were expecting. We wanted to be angry, but when we heard how good the sound has become, we couldn’t, because we were too busy tapping our feet, dancing badly and, occasionally, shaking our heads in a quite passable imitation of that famous scene from Wayne’s World. Oh well, we never claimed to be trendy or hoopy, and Adventures With Alice music just makes us move, admittedly in peculiar ways! That’s what happens when you’re older, we guess….

2 October 2008 Adventures With Alice needs just a few more studio sessions to complete the recording of the album, Stereo In The Mono Age. Just a few little bits are left to do; some final vocals, a little bit of brass, some keyboards. Then it’s on to the mixing. That process is vital and has, in fact, already started. The mix determines how loud every individual piece of the puzzle sounds when you play a song, what effects, such as echo and so on., go on to each element. Mixing can’t be rushed, so our impatience needs to stay in check. And we are impatient, you can believe us, because this album has taken a great deal of work so far and we’re really looking forward to the finished article.

The photos for the CD insert are all done and we’re in the process of putting that insert together, with our graphic designer, Patti. These things are all part of the effort that’s involved in actually putting the CD together, so they’re all important and they all point to the fact that the CD is nearly ready to be released. At this point, we’re hoping it will be out in November. Fingers crossed, because anything can go wrong yet, but soon you could by listening to Adventures With Alice on your home stereo and enjoying the fruits of everybody’s labours, which promise to be even tastier than bananas or strawberries, which are about our favourite fruit!

31 August 2008 Hand Elephant Records needs to employ somebody to update the blog more often, obviously. In the almost two months since we last updated you, lots has been happening. The recording has continued to progress, with many of the songs well on the way to completion. Once they’re finished, they all need to be mixed, which Mark told you about last time. That should be happening, we hope, in October. Soon after that, the Mastering stage happens. Briefly, mastering is the setting of the overall sound quality for each track, the tone, equalising the level of sound between all the songs so they all play at the same volume in your CD player or iPod etc. We’ll tell you more about that nearer the time it happens.

We have managed to recruit another musician. Jess has joined us on trumpet and trombone, adding powerful brass to some of the songs. We’ll hope to have some songs available for you to listen to that feature her soon. Debbie decided she wanted the “brass section” to have a name, like the Tower Of Power horns and so on, so she’s decided that it’s the Wilderness Horns. We’re not quite sure how Jess is a whole section on her own, but then again, she is young and very talented, so we guess anything’s possible!

4 June 2008 Adventures With Alice need to understand how come it’s June already! Most of what has happened since we last brought you an update has centered on plenty of work in the studio, resulting in the new music we’ve put onto the website recently, which we hope you’ve been enjoying. We’ll bring you more soon, we promise. All the beds are recorded now for all the songs, so it’s just a case of adding all the layers of vocals, guitars, keyboards, percussion etc to bring them up to the finished article.

You may have noticed on the Music page references to Mixing and Mastering. We thought we’d let newest member, Mark, explain Mixing to you in his best Coronation Street accent.

“Mixing is the process of taking all the multiple tracks that have been recorded in their pure form and adding effect, such as echo, for instance to them before getting all the tracks at the right sound level. At the same time, the music is “EQd”, short for equalised, which essentially means adjusting the tone of the individual sound on each track, maybe adding more treble to make it sound brighter and so on, as well as adding Pan, which determines whether the sound goes into the right speaker, the left speaker, or a little of both.

The level of each track is important. If the lead vocal is too low in the mix, it’s basically too quiet and you don’t hear it properly. Backing vocals do need to be lower in the mix so they don’t overpower the lead vocals. Each guitar needs to be at a volume that enables them all to be heard, so mixing has a major impact on the finished sound.”

Thanks for that Mark. Get practising now, lad, as there’s plenty of work ahead for you in the coming months, adding in your fabulous keyboard playing to all the songs. We’re looking forward to that, and so must you be. You won’t be disappointed, as we’ll be bringing you more Adventures With Alice music soon. Now, if only we could fix the calendar so that the time didn’t fly by quite so fast….

19 April 2008 Hand Elephant Records needs more time. There’s so much to do at the moment, with Adventures With Alice recording hard, plus rehearsing the next batch of material, updating the blog, updating the website, constantly looking for new musicians and ideas for the album, why there’s hardly time for us to have a break. Still, it’s all very exciting. Any old hoo, the latest and greatest news is that we’ve relocated Hand Elephant Records Tower from crowded, noisy, bustling Sydney south by about 100km to the peaceful, green pastures of the Southern Highlands. Adventures With Alice is still recording at RUMA studios in Beecroft in Sydney, and most of the members are all still living in Sydney.

Oh yes, we nearly forgot, but speaking of members, there’s a new one to tell you about. We’ve recruited a fabulous keyboard player called Mark. Mark is British (or, in Australia, a Pom) and he sounds as though he’s just finished a pint of stout in the Rovers Return with Albert Tatlock and whoever else used to be in Coronation Street when it was on. But it’s the magic in his fingers we need, and he’s about to start recording with the band. There are changes afoot with our website too, which you’ll all see very soon, with new songs and lots of updates. It’s all happening, and it’s all happening with Hand Elephant Records, so order up another pint of stout (but drink responsibly!), perhaps a packet of chips or a pie and settle in for some rockin’Adventures With Alice!

8 March 2008 Adventures With Alice needs money to pay for the recording studio because, finally, after months of preparation, the band has begun recording the songs. Burning the candle until late into the night, the beginnings of the album were recorded at RUMA studios in Beecroft. We thought we’d let Bryce, VP Being Left Handed, give you an explanation of what’s currently happening.

“The first step in recording is to record the basic track, or the bed as it’s known. This is, like, the cornerstone that the recording is built up from. It’s basically the drums and the bass guitar, which is what I play. Oh yeah, Debbie sang and played guitar, but that was only, like, to keep everything, like, held together while Jester and I recorded our parts. It’s called a guide vocal and guide guitar. Anyway, she like totally made heaps of mistakes and stuff...”

Oh dear, poor old Debbie. And poor old Bryce, who’s young and speaks strangely. Anyway, let’s hear from Jester, VP Being The Son Of A Golfer, about the actual process.

“Firstly, we all arrive at the studio and I set up my drums. Then microphones are placed all around the drum kit so that each individual drum can be recorded onto its own track, as Ailsa explained back in October. At RUMA studio, the drums are in a separate room, known as a “Live Room”. This is because drums are loud, and they need to be recorded away from other instruments and mikes so that the sound doesn’t get recorded on the tracks reserved for other instruments. Then, when we’re all happy with how each drum sounds and it’s ready to record, Bryce and Debbie, who are in another room known as the Control Room, set up their microphones and guitars so that they, too, are recorded onto their own tracks. I’m in the Live Room, hearing everything on headphones, while they’re playing along in the Control Room, hearing everything on speakers in that room. The engineer is also in the Control Room, monitoring the overall sound and making sure everything we play is recorded correctly.”

Thanks to those guys for explaining what happened. The next step is to start building up the rest of the tracks on each song by adding vocals, guitars, keyboards etc on top of the bed. More on that as it happens. Meanwhile, Debbie’s here begging for money to pay Russell at the studio. We’d better let her have some, otherwise there’ll be no Adventures With Alice album, and that would never do.

24 January 2008 Adventures With Alice needs to update the blog more often! Anyway, a Happy New Year to all of you. Actually, we haven’t been as active through the New Year period as we all enjoyed a little holiday, including Jo, VP Online Interface, who went all the way over to Perth for a well-earned rest, which is another reason the website hasn’t been as active. But now we’re all back and raring to go. And what news we have for you now. Just over a month ago, we suffered a blow when our musicians all fell by the wayside and things looked a little dark-cloudish. But we hinted even then at some positive news, and now we can share it with you. Two new musicians have come on board, and what fine additions they both are.

Jeremy is Adventures With Alice’s new drummer and, strangely enough, he also sometimes disguises himself as the son of a golfer, as Scott used to. He’s a very talented young fellow and we’re all very excited about him.

Along with Jeremy, there’s an extremely young up-and-coming bass player called Bryce, given to wearing incredibly sad shoes, but he plays his bass left-handed, just like Sir Paul McCartney, so that has to be a good thing, right? The band have been rehearsing madly, and mostly separately, for a few weeks, but Debbie and Bryce have been rehearsing together and there is a rumour that the whole band might get together for a rehearsal very soon, and may be in the studio much sooner than we thought around Christmas time. How exciting is that? More exciting than being boiled alive in the sweat from Andrew Symonds’ cricket helmet, that’s for sure!

18 December 2007 Adventures With Alice need more musicians. That was decided in recent meetings that went on late into the night. Unfortunately, there have been a couple of backward steps in that area recently, with our prospective keyboard player not working out to start with, and now busyness has consumed young Scott, leaving the band short of musicians. But every cloud has a silver lining and, even as things looked bleak, they immediately looked hopeful again. We hope soon to bring you news of developments on this front, but once bitten, fifteen times shy (to quote one of the songs on the forthcoming album). We won't reveal any more in anticipation this time, unlike before, because falling from a great height is painful. We continue to believe that early 2008 might see some recording work begin. In fact, let's make it a New Year resolution. That and world peace. If we get time for world peace, that is...

20 November 2007 Hand Elephant Records needs videos for the website. So we re-made our introductory video, as a starting point. Check it out. More will be coming soon, we promise. Adventures With Alice’s young drummer has been practising hard, despite all his busyness, so we’re getting a bit excited, because we reckon they might get into the studio soon, with a bit of luck. There’s been a slight lull in activity over the last couple of weeks, so the thought of things kicking into a higher gear has sent a buzz around Hand Elephant Records Tower, we can tell you, and it’s not just because a swarm of bees has got in through the windows!

6 November 2007 Adventures With Alice need to bring their music to the public, which is one of the reasons Hand Elephant Records was set up. On the music page of this website, you’ll find samples from the songs. Initally, the samples are just from the pre-production work, but we’ll post updates as the band move forward with the process, so you can compare the same piece of work at different stages of the project. It promises to be a roller-coaster, magic carpet ride and we’re glad you aboard. Hold tight, and please keep arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times!

27 October 2007 Adventures With Alice need to round out their songs on the new album, and what better way than to use different musicians and instruments? It gives us great pleasure to announce that negotiations are under way to bring in another band member - a keyboard player of great repute named Jennifer. Classically-trained, we're looking forward to her keyboard adding a whole new dimension to the forthcoming Adventures With Alice album.

On the subject of exciting announcements, we are ecstatic with our new logo, which has been produced by the startlingly talented creative pairing of Janet and Patti. Janet drew it and Patti (who is a graphic designer, which sounds very cool and clever to us) digitised it for us. We love it! We hope you do too. The logo forms an important part of our recently-created strategy to promote the Hand Elephant Records brand. So check it out and keep coming back, because we're on a roll now and we'll be thundering down the track to a station near you very soon, always assuming the government doesn't axe all the rail services to raise money for some other political white elephant, not that we're opposed to any sort of elephant, you understand..

21 October 2007 Hand Elephant Records needs to determine the best way to go about marketing Adventures With Alice. We felt we needed a strategy, and what better way to formulate strategy than to launch yourself whole-heartedly into an off-site strategy meeting, complete with lavish, expense-account meals and the decadent consumption of vast quantities of alcohol which the music industry is famous for? We went into Sydney for the whole weekend to discuss strategy, staying at our favourite city hotel, the Sheraton On The Park. While we were there, we came up with a whole lot of great ideas for promoting the band and the album. If only they had it recorded. We're as impatient as you, but one simply can't rush these things.

Anyway, while we were having our meeting, it was brought up that we haven't completed the song-writing story. Debbie has told you how she writes the music, but what about the words? They're so important in a song, always assuming you can hear what the singer is singing about. Even if you can't, you can always read the lyrics in the booklet that comes with the CD, always assuming there are lyrics on it and they aren't written in somebody's rubbishy old handwriting that even a doctor wouldn't put their name to. So - over to Debbie, song-writer extraordinaire and renowned pompous, self-obsessed muso.

"My songs are personal, so they're always about an event or a person - sometimes both. They usually represent a snapshot in time that I want to record for posterity. I love to make my lyrics fairly obtuse (that's a difficult word, Debbie - keep it simple please) - that is to say not blatantly obvious. Not all my lyrics are so subtle, but the ones I like the most always are. I pick a subject then try to find clever ways to refer to it in such a way that other people aren't totally sure what I'm referring to (clever, yet devious). I'm pretty traditional in that my lyrics usually rhyme, although I respect other people's disregard for this discipline, like Alice Cooper in School's Out or the Tubes, who mangled words to make them fit."

Well, that certainly has us looking forward to trying to unravel the hidden meanings in some of Adventures With Alice's songs when the album is released. Maybe we'll have a treasure hunt or something with you all - find the reference and win something of very little value that you'll struggle to find a use for. We'll see.

Check back soon for the next update.

13 October 2007 Adventures With Alice need to learn the songs and do some pre-production arranging. That means that they need to record the bare framework of the songs so that Scott can learn them in between all his busyness. The framework can then also be used to practice vocal arrangements and guitar parts while Scott works on coming up to speed and before the band start rehearsing together prior to going into the studio. To fulfill this need, we needed a new egg on board and we scoured the known universe to find our latest Hand Elephant Records person, Shilpa, VP Procurement. Let her tell you what she did to facilitate the latest Adventures With Alice need.

"We held a project meeting in the boardroom of Hand Elephant Records Tower and decided we would bring in a small, eight-track studio for Adventures With Alice to record the basic framework with. After looking at the options, we chose the Boss BR-900CD studio, which has enough recording ability for the simple recordings Adventures With Alice need to make at this stage. Ailsa told you about tracks in an earlier blog, and this little studio allows Adventures With Alice to record eight of them in one go. That's plenty with which to record a basic CD for Scott to play to himself in his busyness downtime and learn the songs. The band can add to the recordings as well, experimenting with backing vocals particularly. This is an efficient use of time, as expensive full studio time is not the right place to be experimenting. With my focus on delivering value for money solutions, I was able to realise my key performance objectives with this compact studio."

Yes, well, Shilpa comes to us from a corporate environment, so we'll have to put up with the occasional buzzword we reckon. Now that Adventures With Alice are making some early-stage recordings, we hope to put some of them onto the website for you listen to soon. Check back for more updates!

1 October 2007 Adventures With Alice needs a recording studio to record the new album. After a long search, we've chosen Russell's Music, in Beecroft NSW. You can look at their website if you want - http://www.russellsmusic.com.au/home.htm. Or don't look, if you don't want. Anyway, we thought you'd like to know a little about recording, but Debbie goes on a bit. Over to Ailsa, VP Vice at Hand Elephant Records (and a scientist in a former life).

"Everything gets recorded onto tracks. Not tracks like you find on your CDs; Track 1 is Hotel California, Track 2 is New Kid In Town etc. Tracks hold different instruments, voices, even different drums from the drum kit. If you imagine a story written on a piece of paper a mile long, with different lines running parallel for each part of it, you'll get the idea. Line one might say ‘A man is walking down the street'. Under that, line two might say 'The sky is blue', under that line three might say 'He's wearing a hat' and so on. Reading down all the lines builds up a picture of where the story is at any given time. Each track in the studio combines in a similar way to produce the overall sound.

At Russell's, there are 48 tracks to work with, recorded onto a computer. The great thing is, Adventures With Alice can keep going back and adding more stuff on a new track and it just runs right along with all the other tracks to enhance the overall sound. Once all the recording is done, the whole thing is "mixed", getting the right volume level and sound effects for each part. That's briefly how the whole thing is created."

Thanks, Ailsa. You can get back to those vices now. She has a lot of them, but she's fun to be with. Most of the time.

26 September 2007 Adventures With Alice need songs. In fact, all musical acts who record an album do. Obvious, right? But how does somebody go about writing an album full of songs? Is it easy? Are there any books on how to do it, you know, "Songwriting For Dummies" or something. Well, since we're trying to let you know about every aspect of recording an album and that's a pretty basic requirement, let's ask Debbie, who has written all the songs for the forthcoming album.

First of all, I can only tell you how I write songs. Everybody will be different, and if there is a book called "Songwriting For Dummies", I wish I had a copy. Songs basically fall into two categories - music and words, or lyrics as they're usually referred to. I'll talk about lyrics later, but let me tell you how I write music (that would help, seeing as how that's what we asked
you).

When I write, I either set out to write a song or the song happens by accident. For instance, I might have had an experience and really want to write about it, so I try to write something. Alternatively, I might come up with a song out of the blue and just decide go on with it, turning it into a song by writing the lyrics about some event I haven't previously written about. Either way, the general structure of the song comes out of me experimenting with my guitar. I'll sit and play for hours, just making stuff up, and out of that I sometimes find something that catches my attention. If I like it, I'll usually scribble some notes about it, but I don't write the music down formally any more, although I have in the past.

Sometimes, I'll have an idea and it will take me ages to turn it into a song. There's a song on the upcoming album called (Blue) By You. I love the riff at the start of that, but I probably came up with it ten years ago and have never found a way to develop it into a song. Recently, I wanted to write about a specific experience, and I turned to that riff and was able to finally complete it and craft the whole song. That's unusual, because I normally finish a song fairly quickly, and often I discard ideas down the track without ever returning to them.

I love to experiment with altering the structure of the chords. I don't want to get technical, but I like to play chords with extra bits added, by adding a note not normally in the chord, and I'll be looking for new ones whenever I'm playing. Once I've got a chord sequence I like, I try to find a good melody to fit it. I don't worry any more about everything having to be totally original and not derivative, but I do try to make each song sound in some way distinctive so that it's not just a rip-off of something somebody else has written. It's hard, and getting harder, to be totally original, as there are only twelve notes in the musical scale and Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Burt Bacharach and so on have already used them all in most of the original combinations!

I always write the lyrics last. I usually sing something dumb while I'm working on the melody, but sometimes that stays in the song. I'll talk about lyric-writing another day though. For now, that's a quick insight into how I write songs. I realise I'm very lucky to have the ability to compose original material and, although I don't consider myself in the same league as the people I've already mentioned, I have found it a great outlet down the years. Hopefully, other people will also like the songs once the album is finished."

21 September 2007 Adventures With Alice needs a drummer. Still. Though it seems like only six days have passed since the meeting with Scott, much has transpired. Adventures With Alice need him, and frankly, he needs more busyness, and we think we can give him that. Another conversation needs to take place. Can the dark clouds be dispelled? And now, readers and fans-to-be, we can exclusively reveal the good; nay, great news. Scott will do it! Even the Hand Elephants appear happy about this news, although they're quickly distracted by the arrival of some pizza, which they set about with great voracity.

But how do Hand Elephants order pizza? Simple. They go to GetMyMenu.com.au where they can find all of their local menus online simply by typing in their suburb. How easy is that?!

Hand Elephant Records needs a logo. No self-respecting record label doesn't have a logo. But where can we get one? None of us can draw worth a damn and there's a disappointing lack of public domain photos of this rare creature on the web. Oh, if only we hadn't lost touch with Janet all those years ago. You remember Janet, don't you? You know, veterinarian, scholar, impossibly thin and, yes, fine artist, renowned for her sketches of the Hand Elephant, drawn during many hazardous safaris far from civilisation (though rarely far from order-out pizza). And, on this most auspicious of days, we can now report the second item of great news. She once was lost, but now she's found, and what's more, she lives in Queensland, which is just up the road from Hand Elephant Records Tower. What's more, she's prepared to offer us one of her illustrations as our logo. Happy, happy, joy, joy (we hope that isn't a copyright of that chihuahua and cat whose names we can't mention 'coz they almost certainly are copyright). Blue skies settle over Hand Elephant Records Tower. Look for the logo here, and soon.

15 September 2007 Adventures With Alice needs a drummer. They don't want just any old drummer; in fact they want a young drummer, preferably called Scott. They set off in search of such a creature, travelling to the wilderness of North Sydney where, in a moment of pure serendipity, a young fellow called Scott appeared to them, disguised as the son of a golfer, and revealed that he is a drummer. Conversations were held, songs were played, money was discussed and water was drunk. We're not sure why vast quantities of alcohol weren't drunk in place of that water. I mean, aren't these folks supposed to be musicians? Oh well, that proves it, I guess. Anyway, let's get on with the story.

Scott, it turned out, was a busy man. Busy working, busy buying a house, busy being a soccer player, busy being the son of a golfer and busy being busy. His every minute was filled with busyness, which isn't the same as business, although that's a confusing concept, one I'm sure Debbie might address in a song on the second album. So he wasn't sure he could commit to the long hours of practice it takes to be a member of Adventures With Alice and to do justice to Debbie's inspirational music (wait a minute, who let her take over the typing again?). So they parted for the time being, with Scott needing to mull over his options, and Adventures With Alice needing to find a way to solve the problem of music conflicting with busyness. Dark clouds settled over Hand Elephant Records Tower.