The River Nihil: Logistical Miracle

Being on somewhat of a roll creatively with having two quality SWO EPs under the collective belt, my zest for continuing engagement with the songwriting process, as well as musical performance via the funk band, only continued to rise.  2017 was a momentous year for me creatively and professionally.  The Uni job was going especially well at that time.  We were preparing all year for an external accreditation of one of our courses in November of that year.  Given my now lengthy experience with the administration aspects of the course in question, I was very happy to make a significant contribution to the preparation and delivery of that accreditation process that year.  So much so that I won a performance award at the end-of-year address to faculty staff. That was gratifying; and I was deserving, too – many of my colleagues had already collected awards over the preceding years I’d been there.  And many were congratulatory when I won one; several were disgruntled.   But forget them…

From memory it was around May of that year that I sent an email around to the SWO collective (ie the musicians involved) asking if everyone would be keen to do it again this year.  It was a unanimous “yes”, and I proceed with the now established routine of booking studio time!  Unconventionally, Cam and I started the recording process for Nihil by recording and editing the bass tracks.  The guide tracks I had created for the recordings were a bit more developed than the proceeding two albums and it was the bass and whistled vocal melodies which formed the back bones of what the songs were to become! As was now standard practice, I had the studio dates with Incremental locked in several months in advance.  We had the bass tracks completed and the weekend sessions we had booked to record the drums then guitar tracks rolled around – when pandemonium struck! At about 2pm on the Friday before the recording sessions for guitar and drums, I received notification from Cam that he’d come down with a diabolical flu and was laid out with chronic symptoms.  It meant that we’d have to reschedule that weekend’s sessions!  Given how long in advance all the sessions were planned, due to the musicians’ availability and busy schedules, that would have been difficult to work around!  But I had no choice but to advise both Toby and Nathan that this weekend’s recordings would not be proceeding.

I ran a post in one of the local music groups online that afternoon in the desperate hope that we could book another studio and engineer that weekend at extremely short notice.  Miraculously it was Niyi Adepoyibi who responded quite late that Friday evening saying he has a studio at Hunting Ground and is available both those days.  While Niyi’s costings were more than what I’d budgeted for, I locked the sessions in with him straight away!  I desperately tried to reach Toby late that Friday night to advise that, “Hey – we’re back on for tomorrow?”  Being a family man with a couple of young kids, I didn’t hear back from him.  Now with an alternative studio booked for that Saturday, but without an available drummer, it seemed those sessions just weren’t meant to be.  I reached out to mate and skins genius, Jonny Pickvance to see if he’d drop in to do the drums – “I can’t reach Toby but have the studio booked for two hours time.  Pay you cash for the day and a writing credit?”  Talk about a one in a million long shot! “Count me in!” he said. “I’ll pick you up in an hour, then I’ll have to pick up my kit from my parent’s house on the way to the studio!

The studio was on the opposite side of town to where Jonny’s drums were.  The traffic was chaotic – and Jonny hadn’t heard any of the songs or guide tracks!  Due to the commute and traffic, Jonny and I were running 45 minutes late for when the booking was scheduled and were still half an hour away.  I got a text from Niyi – “There’s a drumkit you can use in the studio if that would help?”  We already had Jonny’s kit in his car, so I didn’t mention it.  Then a text from Toby, “Hey mate, I just got your message from last night that recording is going ahead today – I’m still available if you want?”  “Thanks, mate – sorted. :-)” I replied. A whirlwind 12 hours by the time Jonny and I finally got there!  We were over an hour late when we met Niyi.  He was understandably sceptical that we were even going to show up!  But we did, we’d listened to the guide tracks in Jonny’s car while in the traffic on the drive there. A highly skilled professional, Jonny was pretty chill and ready to roll!  Phew!!