Pop Manifesto - a quick background
The sessions for Pop Manifesto actually began in very late 2004 with the songs “Anger”, “Money Girl” and “Silver & Gold”. At that time The Scruffs’ line up seemed consistent to Stephen Burns and included Zac Ware on guitars, Simon Cottrell on bass and Mark Rodgers on drums. Zac and Simon had finished up the album “Swingin’ Singles” with Stephen and Mark Rodgers had been added for a live performance during the summer of 2004. Looked like a band.
Avoiding the Glaswegian winter, Stephen wintered in Kan-tuck-ee, or in reality, Arizona, where it struck him to start writing material which really stretched the limits of the 4 piece Scruffs. Burns was convinced that The Scruffs were up to it and his relationship with composer/arranger Peter Shand had blossomed to the point that Burns knew The Scruffs could count on delicate and intricate orchestration.
Recording began again in April 2005, but disaster set in as Zac Ware was hired onto The Proclaimers, famed group from Edinburgh, and Zac began recording a record in London. As his replacement, Zac sent young (but wise) Paul Napier who performed on guitars, mandolin, piano and harmonica. The untested new Scruffs set about recording in April 2005. The first songs of these sessions were “Your Eyes Shine”, “She’s Got It For You”, “There’s A Girl I Know, “Situation Critical” and several others. Luckily, at that time, Giles Lamb was also able to make most sessions for keyboards. As usual, all tracks were recorded live with at least 3 or 4 Scruffs with Burns on either guitar or piano.
Burns wanted to make this a really interesting record based on the songs, performances and orchestration. At times there would be “two Scruffs”, one a pop group which at times would step aside for an alter-ego orchestrated band. Burns composed the remaining songs in both America and in Glasgow.
During 2005, Burns lived on and off in Glasgow and sessions were held in May, June, and October; finishing in Feb, 2006. During these times, Peter Shand scored six songs and the orchestrations were also recorded. All recording was done at CaVa Studios in Glasgow. On May 27, 2006, The Scruffs and engineer Geoff Allan arrived at Ardent Studios in Memphis, Tennessee to mix the album which now had the title “Pop Manifesto”.
July 25th, 2006 at 7:05 am
Whatever happened to those initial songs called “Anger”, “Money Girl” and “Silver and Gold” ? They still exist, in pretty good shape. We actually did some vocals and percussion on “Silver and Gold” in Memphis during the mixing of Pop Manifesto. But, by that time the song listing for Pop Manifesto was pretty much set and we really could not add any additional material. Pop Manifesto runs about 46 minutes or so. In vinyl terms, that makes it a double album as you just are not going to get more than 20 minutes cut to a vinyl side with great quality, particularly using 180-220 gram vinyl. All 3 of the songs were cut on 2 inch multi track Apex G9 tape and have been transferred into digital protools awaiting additional work at Ardent in Memphis (although the tracks were cut in Glasgow at CaVa). So, we’ll just see if they work into the next Scruffs album project. Stephen
August 21st, 2006 at 6:44 pm
You know, time flies when you’re having fun. The original sessions for this record were actually September 2003, when “Money Girl” and “Silver & Gold” were cut in a three day session, with “Anger” being cut late one evening at the end of April 2004, all with Zac on guitar before he was kidnapped by The Proclaimers. “Anger” was cut in Studio 1 at Ca Va, as indeed was Giles’s piano on “Be A Dream” and the Hammond Organ on “The Test” during the April 2005 sessions, and a fair amount of percussion from me too - a lovely, big old fashioned live room that sadly no longer exists.
Everything else was done in Studio 2, which although as well equipped as Studio 1 was, is considerably smaller in size. However, the plus side is that it is much more intimate a setting and therefore really suited to recording “live.” Stephen’s approach is to cut as much of the basic tracks as “live” as possible so Studio 2 was ideally suited for this. For example, quite a bit of Stephen and Paul’s basic guitar tracks, as well as the vast majority of the drum tracks and a fair amount of the bass were all recorded live at the same time, the band running through takes until selecting the best one to then add vocals and overdubs to.
There was pretty much a gap of a year between the “Anger” session, and then we reconvened in April 2005 for a week long session. The idea was that probably three,maybe four songs might get recorded. In the end, seven songs and a brief jam were recorded. As I recall this seemed to prompt Stephen into birnging forward more songs and ideas and further sessions took place in July and November of 2005 and again in February 2006, typically lasting a week or so each time, where the remaining tracks and overdubs were recorded.
There’s another song also in the archives, recorded in the November 2005 sessions, called “You’d Better Know Why.” A basic quick mix was completed right at the end of the Memphis trip in June 2006. It was another one squeezed out for the reasons that Stephen explains - simply because of the need to keep to a certain number of tracks and a time, and that the tracks and order finally chosen sat better together.
However, I know the rest of us think it’s good so we are hopeful it will also get a public airing in future. There are also a couple of other basic ideas recorded that may or may not see daylight in the future, either as more developed versions of these rough takes, or the basic ideas used elsewhere.
Hope whoever listens likes the tracks. We all enjoyed recording them, and certainly we enjoyed going to Memphis and mixing them (thanks Stephen) - but that’s another story….
March 5th, 2007 at 4:12 am
You guys should update this website. What a blog! Record has been released almost a month ago. How come this blog is not ticking with news and updates and gig dates or something???? Liked the record, but some action wouldn’t go amiss.
Anyway, what is with the fucking title? Can anybody explain that?
April 4th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Hey Ivan.
Glad you liked the record.
Discussions are taking place regarding both more potential recordings and some USA gigs. There has also been a lot of work going on in the background in relation to sorting out distribution, press, radio and so on. It also takes a certain amount of time to arrange recordings/gigs when band members are split across several timezones and continents and to ensure everyone can be available at the same time, but we are on it. More news when it is available.
Stephen’s the one to ask about the title.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Well, thanks for answering Mark. I hope you lads get something going soon. Good luck. The record is good.
The Pop Manifesto title. Do you mean this is the Bible of pop, like the Comunist Manifesto of commies? Because if that’s it, it seems a bit over. Why the war caps? Most of the songs are girl love songs, no politics, so I don’t get it.
Stephen is the one I am asking
June 4th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Hi Ivan, largely it’s my fault. I’m presently dredging through 1,000 comments on this blog most of which are spam. I’ll be putting some better spam filtering on the site soon so as to allow us to find the genuine input. Thanks for yours.