Vicki Swan & Jonny Dyer's Blog

Hello!
Yesterday was photoshoot day. The venue was St Martins Church in Colchester, an old disused church, a very very very cold church! We've chosen Andy Carne from The Long Drop to do our artwork for this album. He's an amazing designer and as we had no ideas what so ever we hoped he'd come up trumps! Fingers crossed, we can't wait to see what he and Terry com up with! We video blogged the day so have a look!

(f you can't see the video click here)
Our very good friend Jock came round in the week and fixed the D chanter reed. The A chanter reed is now sulking, but we're hoping that's temporary!
Our part in creating the album is now over and it's up to Doug and Andy to create the final products between them. (Although that one elusive pipe part still might need re-recording). We'll let you know how we get on. Release date it scheduled for the end of May, but we'll have updates along the way. We've enjoyed video blogging so much that we're going to keep going with it, so watch this space!
Thanks for watching/reading!
:))
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!
We're done recording now. Day Seven was very relaxed and easy, some extra nyckelharpa tracks (a raised eyebrow from Doug at needing another 4 channels on the desk). The Cittra was recorded too. A joint effort between us both, I (Vicki) tuned the cittra, roughly four times before it stayed in tune and Jonny played it. Lovely jubbly! A vague attempt was made to see if the pipes were going to play ball again today, but they didn't. So we'll have to wait for the first mix on the offending track and see if it was ok, or if a return to the studio and a re-record is required. Only time will tell. In the mean time the reed needs some TLC. It's finally time, I need to learn how to make reeds ... {goes to Google}. Here is Day Seven in the Studio for you:

If you can't see the above movie, you can visit our youtube page instead.
We're having a photoshoot next weekend to redesign all our artwork, so we'll videoblog that event for you too!
Don't forget you can see us at the Baccapipes Folk Club, Keighley on Friday.
More soon.
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!
We're back in the studio after five days at home writing parts and trying to get the pipes in tune. Day six went well, but against all odds. The D chanter on the smallpipes definitely are not very well and need to go to see the reed doctor. We'll see if the track is good enough to be included on the track, it hangs in the balance.....
Here is the video blog:

More tomorrow!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!
We've been busy since Sunday writing a few extra sparkly bits for the album. Not too much, with Mark, Roy and Pete we've already got quite a lot of extras. I thought now might be a good time to give some background on our wonderful extras:

Mark Southgate - bass guitar player.
Mark most recently has played with lyckerty splyt, but in the past played soul funk with Jonny and also appears on our album Celtic Labyrinth from 1998 whilst we were playing under the name Muckle Flugga. We're very excited to have Mark on board with us.

Roy Jones - bodhran.
Roy currently plays with Kiss the Mistress and at the tender age of 19 is sure to go far!

Pete Flood - percussion.
Pete is probably best known for playing in Bellowhead and Van Eyken. We're sure that Petes awesome reputation precedes him, but we had the most fabulous time recording with him.

We are planning to do at least one CD launch with our extra guests, so watch this space for details! We'll be blogging again at the weekend.
:))
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!
We've finished our fifth day in the studio. Mark came in to lay down some bass guitar tracks and an extra vocal on one of the songs. We've had fun this week. We've now got a few evenings to listen to what we've laid down, assess, evaluate, write some extra little parts and then return again next week to finish off. Here's the Day Five video blog.

In case you've not been able to see the videos posted (the links definitely don't seem to work in facebook), here is a link to the videos on youtube.
http://uk.youtube.com/profile?user=smallpiperblog&view=videos

We'll post again in the week to let you know how we're getting on!
:))
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!
Day Four is over and done with. We had Roy come in and lay some bodhran tracks and then laid some Nyckelharpa and vocals. A long day, have a look...

More tomorrow.
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!
We've now finished our day three in the studio and have uploaded our video blog. It was a long day! Bodhran tomorrow.

:))
Vicki & Jonny

Hello all!
We had a great time yesterday with Pete coming in and laying some amazing percussion parts for us. Watch the video blog to see some tiny snippets. (We can't film whilst recording, but you get some good idea of how we're getting on!)

Today it's songs and pipe parts again. More tomorrow!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!
We're in the studio and we're running a Twitter Stream and Video Diary so you can keep in synchronous touch with how we're getting on. Each day we're posting up a youtube video and updating our Twitter as often as possible. Day one is up online for you...

Keep an eye on our front page for the Twitter or see our Twitter Page.
You can follow us and be our Twitter Friends. We've linked this blog into our face book page, so it's eve easier to hear our news! More tomorrow!
:)
Vicki & Jonny