It's coming up to 2 years since we formed The Cracked Man, and not far off a year since we released our EP. So now we're working on an album.
One of the core aspects of The Cracked Man is every song we create, and every arrangement we produce, has to be something we both approve of. If one brings in a riff the other dislikes, or suggests an alteration that doesn't appeal to both, then it is discarded. This means no song has a sound completely dictated by either Kim or Marcus - every output is a collaboration.
As Marcus once said, "We're not a democracy, we're a dual dictatorship..."
Although we're pretty satisfied with the arrangements of our songs for our live performances, the album is turning into quite a different beast - not least because we don't have to be restricted to to a maximum of 2 instruments and 1 voice.
Marcus is a producer and sound engineer by trade, which gives us the wonderful luxury of being able to play, record, listen back, tweak, add, adjust, rearrange, experiment, delete and start again until we're both satisfied.
And what we've discovered is every time we start recording one of our songs, something new happens that we couldn't have predicted before we began. It could be the addition of an instrument, a different way of producing a sound or even a change of rhythm.
So what we've decided to do, for anyone who is at all vaguely interested in how songs develop, is create a series of short video diaries, documenting some of these changes on the very evening they've occured.
This means the videos are not rehearsed, highly produced or polished - they are just 2 blokes talking or playing to the camera to illustrate a particular alteration. We hope this means that what might be lost in slickness is more than made up for in a sense of authenticity.
At the moment, we are unsure how often these video diaries will be put up online - anything from weekly to monthly is our best guess - but over time they should accumulate into a collection that gives an insight into our creative process.
Here is our first, which is looking at our song, "Zero Energy"
Original foot-stomping, spine-tingling, brow-twitching, cheek-spasming, tea-dunking music that will leave you breathless but deeply satisfied
Zero Energy
Kim reckons one of the things he enjoys the most in the world is standing on stage with his bouzouki, while it is plugged through a delay pedal and distortion box, and he's using a bottle-neck slide.
Photo courtesy of Mark Robinson
One such time was when we played at "Stereo" in Glasgow, and in a rare stroke of fortune, it was actually videoed from 2 different angles. We were sent the footage, but unfortunately the sound quality wasn't very good, so it got shelved.
However, we are slowly putting an album together and a few weeks ago we were working on the track, "Zero Energy", which is one of our songs where Kim gets to use the magic combination of delay, distortion and slide.
Although the recorded version of this song is still being developed, Kim decided to see if he could construct a video using the footage from Glasgow and one of our more recent recordings.
It took a little while to line up the music with the video, because it turned out we played it live at a slightly different speed to our recorded version. However, changing the video angle each time it started to drift, helped a bit.
He also raided the freely available video archives of The Hubble Telescope to throw in some images of planets and exploding stars, to add a bit of texture to the visuals.
The result was this:
Hope you like it
Photo courtesy of Mark Robinson
One such time was when we played at "Stereo" in Glasgow, and in a rare stroke of fortune, it was actually videoed from 2 different angles. We were sent the footage, but unfortunately the sound quality wasn't very good, so it got shelved.
However, we are slowly putting an album together and a few weeks ago we were working on the track, "Zero Energy", which is one of our songs where Kim gets to use the magic combination of delay, distortion and slide.
Although the recorded version of this song is still being developed, Kim decided to see if he could construct a video using the footage from Glasgow and one of our more recent recordings.
It took a little while to line up the music with the video, because it turned out we played it live at a slightly different speed to our recorded version. However, changing the video angle each time it started to drift, helped a bit.
He also raided the freely available video archives of The Hubble Telescope to throw in some images of planets and exploding stars, to add a bit of texture to the visuals.
The result was this:
Hope you like it
Live on Alive Radio
"...Any track we decide to develop, we've both got to be 100% behind it, or we don't do it."
On September 17th, we appeared on Alive Radio's Thursday Night Showcase, talking about The Cracked Man. The three tracks of our EP were played on air and we did 2 extra songs live - "Moving on" and "Spaceman".
Live on Alive - thanks to Ali for taking this while we played
The show is normally hosted by Melissa Gunn, but she was recovering from an operation so Ali Donowho stepped in for her. His relaxed and friendly manner meant any pre-show nerves on our part soon dissipated.
If you'd like to hear the show, we were sent a copy which we uploaded to Soundcloud and we've now embedded below. We've also marked off where you can find the music if that's the bit you're interested in.
Stereo, Glasgow
We played our first Glasgow gig in July, at Stereo on Renfield Street, as part of The Lost Wasp Showcase, alongside The Mind Sweepers and The Razorbills.
Thoroughly enjoyable with a supportive audience - what's not to like?
Our friend, Mark Robinson was on hand with his camera and produced a great set of pics:
Thoroughly enjoyable with a supportive audience - what's not to like?
Our friend, Mark Robinson was on hand with his camera and produced a great set of pics:
Eden Festival 2015
Eden Festival is one of our favourites. It seems like pretty much everyone dresses up and the atmosphere is wonderful.
This year we were back playing at Rabbie's Tavern - the beer tent - to a small but very appreciative crowd on the Sunday afternoon.
As Kim is a professional photographer, one of his great frustrations is not being able to photograph us while we're playing. However, in the audience he spotted fellow photographer, Chloe Adams, and handed his camera over to her. To our delight she took some great photos.
Many thanks Chloe!
If you'd like to see some of Kim's pics of Eden, you can find them on Facebook, here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1079153875432649.1073741866.114749591873087&type=3
This year we were back playing at Rabbie's Tavern - the beer tent - to a small but very appreciative crowd on the Sunday afternoon.
As Kim is a professional photographer, one of his great frustrations is not being able to photograph us while we're playing. However, in the audience he spotted fellow photographer, Chloe Adams, and handed his camera over to her. To our delight she took some great photos.
Many thanks Chloe!
If you'd like to see some of Kim's pics of Eden, you can find them on Facebook, here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1079153875432649.1073741866.114749591873087&type=3
EP Launch
Our EP launch at the Gordon House Hotel on Friday 13th March was a great success.
Support slots from both Alan McClure and Blue were wonderfully enjoyable, and the crowd was with us all the way.
A superb night all around and greatly enjoyed by all who came along.
Thanks once again to Pete from PR Imaging - www.primaging.net - for bringing his camera along and helping us all to look cool :)
Alan McClure
Blue
Support slots from both Alan McClure and Blue were wonderfully enjoyable, and the crowd was with us all the way.
A superb night all around and greatly enjoyed by all who came along.
Thanks once again to Pete from PR Imaging - www.primaging.net - for bringing his camera along and helping us all to look cool :)
Alan McClure
Blue
EP Launch - Friday 13th March
It's now one year since The Cracked Man was created, and we've been working on our debut EP.
The artwork has now been created, the tracks have been mastered and everything has been sent off to Discwizards.com where we're getting 300 printed up.
We played around with several ideas when trying to think of a cover for the EP, and decided to go for a mix of both our heads blended into one. Originally it was going to split it straight down the middle, but after playing in Photoshop we discovered it was more interesting if it wasn't exact. So although the top half is an even split, Kim's nose is more dominant, it's Marcus's upper lip and Kim's beard.
That was quite fun, but then we played with aging it - sepia toning and a mold-speckled glass overlay - and then it leapt to life like some bizarre Edwardian creation. We knew we had the cover we wanted.
On Friday 13th March, we're going to be officially launching the EP with an event at The Gordon House Hotel in Kirckudbright. As a wee taster of the EP, we've put together a short video of photos of us performing and about 40 second bursts of each of the 3 tracks.
On the day of the launch you'll be able to buy CDs or download the tracks online. But if you're in the area, do come along to see us play live.
And if you don't live elsewhere in the world, then we're open to travelling if you fancy being our manager for the country you live in :)
The artwork has now been created, the tracks have been mastered and everything has been sent off to Discwizards.com where we're getting 300 printed up.
We played around with several ideas when trying to think of a cover for the EP, and decided to go for a mix of both our heads blended into one. Originally it was going to split it straight down the middle, but after playing in Photoshop we discovered it was more interesting if it wasn't exact. So although the top half is an even split, Kim's nose is more dominant, it's Marcus's upper lip and Kim's beard.
That was quite fun, but then we played with aging it - sepia toning and a mold-speckled glass overlay - and then it leapt to life like some bizarre Edwardian creation. We knew we had the cover we wanted.
On Friday 13th March, we're going to be officially launching the EP with an event at The Gordon House Hotel in Kirckudbright. As a wee taster of the EP, we've put together a short video of photos of us performing and about 40 second bursts of each of the 3 tracks.
On the day of the launch you'll be able to buy CDs or download the tracks online. But if you're in the area, do come along to see us play live.
And if you don't live elsewhere in the world, then we're open to travelling if you fancy being our manager for the country you live in :)
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