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Graham
Marsh, a godlike genius of immense personal attractiveness and the
patience of an Albion fan (which he isn't, and that's the only thing
I can say against him) took the DAT of my set at the Glenfarg Folk
Feast and turned it into what you hear.
Editing - of running order, omissions, fluffs, applause, etc. -
needs fine judgement. It's a balance between:
(i) a more or less artistic enhancement of the performance's flow
and integrity - its overall feel, if you will - which, sensitively
done, hopefully creates an abiding impression of the specific ethos
of that evening and
(ii) cheating to make it sound better
We did lots of both. Everything in the live section of the
CD really did happen that night but - as Eric Morecambe (sniff)
might have said - not necessarily in that order. A few sample discrepancies:
1. My opening number on the night was Tarentella but we dropped
it because the old studio version was faster, cleaner and cost more
money.
2. At the end, for the encore, I in fact played I Got Rhythm, a
frantic crowd-pleaser with a long comedy routine which wouldn't
have borne much repetition.
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3.
The guitar introduction to Birmingham Song was exactly eight times
as long as on the album. Moreover - and this is my favourite edit
- during the spoken intro the letter "E" in the phrase,
"The Sithe, spelt S.I.T.H.E." was rather swallowed. Graham
spotted this (I hadn't) and, under my astonished gaze, digitally
stole some of the "ee" sound from the nearby word "yuppies"
and tucked it neatly into the offending vowel. Told you, the bloke's
a genius.
4. The mime before Cat Song had the help of a wee boy in the front
row who was primed to say "Hello, cat" at a particular
point. This he did perfectly, earning himself a huge, warm laugh.
So we used the laugh and cut him out. If he wants to get in touch,
we owe him an album.
5. Stan's banjo heckle came before the Bach prelude, which itself
fell victim to tuning problems after 26 bars and I had to start
again. But the retake, done in a oner, is exactly what you hear
on the track.
And so it goes on. The ums, ers, tuning pauses and my more incoherent
ramblings have all been ruthlessly excised. Even ignoring Tarantella
and the encore, this has cut nearly 15 minutes from the running
time.
You
can read a full transcript of what I actually did and said on the
night by clicking on Transcript, above.
And I have to say that this has in turn led to a radical change
in the live act: these days, I do about 10-15% more music versus
chat.
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