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"good riddance" - daniel prendiville

The new album from Daniel Prendiville has been eleven years in the making; "Believe it..." (as Jack Palance used to gasp) "...or not!"

Why?

We asked the man himself (Daniel, that is. Jack Palance was unavailable for comment...) to explain this tardiness.

"Well", he explains, using, by pure coincidence, the very first word uttered on "GOOD RIDDANCE", "I actually started work on the tracks for the album way back in 1989. I know this for a fact because I was recently cleaning our my garage and found the multi-track and master tape for the original demo version of "Basketball", which, if I recall correctly, was one of the first tracks I recorded after I had completed the sessions for RUBBER SOLE. In a fit of uncharacteristic tidiness and order imposition, I had actually labelled the tape boxes and put the date of the session on the labels. You wouldn't catch me doing that nowadays...

"Around about the end of 1989, I got my hands on a MIDI sequencing system and set to work over the next few years programming a large number of tracks, 20 or 30 I'd guess. After a while, a plan for an album started to take shape in my head. Originally, the album was to be entitled TRULECTROLUX, a variation on the Electrolux brand of electrical appliances. But I dispensed with that title at an early stage. Too awkward to pronounce.

"In the summer of 1991, I changed jobs and by that stage, I decided to take the plunge and put a number of the songs on a demo tape. In keeping with my happy knack for coming up with crap project titles, I called the demo tape NUDEMO, as I decided not to go to the hassle of designing and producing any fancy covers for the tape. I took the boat to London, and spent a weekend hand delivering tapes to record companies. I must have taken over 50 or so tapes. I only managed to deliver about 20 tapes before the blisters on my heels swelled to the size of...er...basketballs. Now, almost ten years on, I still have scars on my heels.

"I got no positive response to the demo.

"In 1992, we decided to move from Dublin to Nenagh. As part of the moving process, having sold our own house, we had to rent a house in Bray for a few months. In spite of the fact that much of our belongings was packed away in boxes, I still managed to work on material. I have distinct memories of programming Now That I've Found You in the musty-smelling, converted garage of the rented house. The previous occupants had been some form of religious cult, and that added a certain frisson to the atmosphere in the house.

"By August, 1992, we had moved on to Nenagh, via my mother-in-law's house. For the next year or so, the priority was settling in to a new town, a new job and a new house. Songwriting was not an issue. It was almost a year before I was even in a position to unpack my musical instruments and install myself in the garage. I set up what was intended to be a MIDI pre-production suite and even went to so far as to advertise my services as a programmer locally. My only customer was an old guy who went around to old folks' nursing homes, playing "old favourites" on his all-singing, all-dancing, super-dee-dooper, Casio keyboard. I had one session with him, which lasted a few hours and ended very unsuccessfully.

"At the same time, I was finalising the programming of the album that came to be called GOOD RIDDANCE. 'Why GOOD RIDDANCE?' you might ask. Well, I felt that in all the changes over the past few years, I'd said "good riddance" to my old job and my old life in Dublin. I was also saying, in a good-natured sort of way, "good riddance" to all the material that made up the album. Some of these tracks had been knocking around for 2 or 3 years at this stage, and the only way I could move on to work on new material was to kick the tracks out of the nest, as it were. I took the step, against all conventional wisdom, of preparing a demo tape with 11 tracks, and sending this off to all the usual record labels in Ireland and the UK during 1993 and 1994. I actually did get some form of positive response from one label affiliated to Warners in the UK. I sent off another batch of material to the A&R guy in question, but was eventually rejected. And so it goes...

"It is important to bear in mind the circumstances under which the original demoes were recorded. I had no facilities for proper multi-tracking. I was using a multi-timbral sound module with 8 outputs, a drum-machine on which I was using 6 of the 8 outputs and a small synth. All of these instruments were fed into a 16:2 mixing desk. Vocals were recorded live on top the music. If I made a mess of the vocals or if there was a problem with the mix, I had to re-record the entire song, including vocals, from scratch. Not a lot of fun, really. And the sound quality of the completed mixes was not at all satisfactory. This was really starting to bug me, as I knew the material was intrinsically good, but I reckoned I'd never really get decent mixes using the existing set-up.

"My music making went into a twilight period around 1995/1996, and only resurrected itself around the time I started recording the tracks that made up "GARAGISTE". But that's reported elsewhere... In late 1995 or early 1996, I started getting involved in the internet, and found myself in contact with various elements of the American underground music scene. Having heard some of the music that was produced in that scene, I really became convinced that I needed access to a better recording environment.

"In early 1997, I started working with Peter Fitzpatrick on the Benign project, and Peter opened my eyes to the possibility of digital recording. Over the next year or so, I explored the possibilities of acquiring a PC-based system of my own. My ambition was achieved in the summer of 1998, when I got my hands on a suitable PC and software. In October, 1998, I started work on "tantrum ego". And the rest, as they say, is hysteria...

"But it was always my intention to record and release "GOOD RIDDANCE", and in January, 2000, when I had finished work promoting "tantrum ego", I started work on the new album. This involved transferring MIDI files from my old Atari on to my PC. This took a number of weeks to do at evenings and weekends. When the MIDI data was transferred, it was then necessary to convert the data to audio, which again took a matter of weeks. Tracking vocals and mixing required me to take time off work, so that I could have the necessary privacy. I hate people listening to "work in progress"...

"By the end of June, 2000, almost all the tracks had been recorded, mixed and mastered. The track "Heaven Scent" was completed in September, after a nice holiday in France.

"As it happens, "GOOD RIDDANCE" is not in the same form as the original demo version. The track "Sour Grapes" was dropped when I found that the MIDI data for the rhythm track was corrupted. I couldn't be bothered re-programming the data, as I was never totally happy with the song. Three additional tracks were prepared, "Demented DJ" (which later mutated into the track "Farmer's Journal"), "Indecision" and "Chant of the Ever-Circling Food Stylists", which had featured on an earlier demo project called "Breathing Space". "Indecision" was abandoned when I just couldn't make the vocals work for me (it's invariably the case that I end up doing vocals on a day when I either have a sore throat or a stuffed-up nose..). And on the very day that I was assembling the final version of the CD, I dropped the track "3X Love Groove"; the track wasn't tight enough in comparison with the other tracks on the CD, and since the album already contained two instrumentals, a third one was really superfluous.

"So that's the story of "GOOD RIDDANCE". Can I go for a pint now?"

Of course you can, my friend. You bloody deserve it...

I Made You A Promise - Farmer's Journal - Heaven Scent - Suspense - Chant of the Ever-Circling Food Stylists - Diet of Worms

Now That I've Found You - Basketball - Kar Krash - Cologne