Apologies for the lateness of these ramblings, but as many of you will have read, I am awaiting surgery and so a few things had to go by the wayside and the House of Lords was regrettably one of them and sadly the Strictly Wakeman tour has been postponed (not cancelled) until next March and for this I will also have keyboards as well as the grand piano and Hayley of course.
July is very much a month of recording templates for the band to have in order to acquaint themselves with the new material for the Return to the Red Planet which is really taking shape. The way that we are doing this album is that after all the music has been written (which it has), I go to Erik's studio and we lay down the basic track which is then sent out to each of the lads (Adam Falkner, Dave Colquhoun and Lee Pomeroy), for them to start thinking about what they would like to play on the different tracks plus the two tracks (possibly 3) that will go to Mollie Marriott for vocals.
This will all be recorded at a residential studio and I will also be doing all my keyboard overdubs there too and all the recording should be completed by the end of August and then it'll be down to Erik to wave his magical mixing wand over the music. The album is turning out to be even more "proggy" than The Red Planet was, which sort of just happened!
So that's it really, it's all music for the next month or so, whilst I'm waiting on my hospital date… more next month!!!
Cheers Rick