The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

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yeah unearthed baby
dug up and unearthly
not all intended for a record
this was a bunch of recordings lying around at the time
at the time i decided to release a solo record
this record sees the transition between 4 and 8 track
the constant upgrading of technology
it was 1985 and life was groovy
i had a swedish girlfriend who played a bit of music
i had my groovy live-in brother russell
just finding a bit of success with the crystal set
who was always borrowing new bits n pieces of equipment n
bringing em home
i had my terrace house in rozelle
where one spare room was where we recorded stuff
you could not call it a studio
it was a spare bedroom with some equipment
the church were doing heyday
and my world was relatively low key
i lived comfortably off my royalties
and my new manager had given me an advance
with which i bought my 8 track machine n some other stuff
i decided i should now do a solo album
so i did some on the 8 track with my new drumulator
the drumulator was an unbelievably complicated thing to work (for me)
i just could not get my head around programming that sucker
all i could make it do was bomp bomp whack bomp bomp whack
so thats what it does on most of this record
some tracks still have the tr 808
a more versatile drum machine
but it didnt have the sampled snare of the drumulator
why why why? people have asked
why do you have a machine n not a real drummer?
because it was done in a downstairs bedroom of a terraced house
sandwiched between 2 other houses
i did not have the space or monitoring or isolation
to record a drum kit
it was totally out of the equation
there you go
like it or lump it but not thump it
i was stuck with drum machines
this record is very much a grab bag of stuff
you see
i wanted to do everything
write every kind of song
including electro stuff folky stuff rock stuff weird stuff
i wanted a stab at em all
i was a chronic overachiever
anyhow i cant write too much about the actual songs
i dont wanna demystify em too much for you
some maybe were demos for the church
i’d say i thought the church could (might)have done out of this world
but it got touchy for a while with songs
someone made a funny comment about my recording
and i probably went off in a huff
thats where the seeds of solo albumdom lay i suppose
i was writing all these songs…but how could they ever get used?
i mean out of this world sounded pretty good
coming off a chrome cassette 25 years ago
especially considering i did it at home
anyway
this would have been at the time we were writing heyday i guess
so i was content to keep it for myself
almost every song on seance had come from a demo tape
and i didnt want to waste peter n martys abilities playing my guitar parts
because they could come up with their own good ones
and yet i liked the way i played the guitar
not as proficient as them
but it had a certain something they could never reproduce
a certain amateur flair
anyway
i double tracked the electric n the ac 12 n the vocoder
a very typical trick of mine
yeah the vocoder
thats the thing on is this where you live
on the first church record
it had synthetic voices
you could also kinda sing thru it
it also had really good analog string sounds
you can hear the vocoder all over unearthed
its the keyboard on tyrant
its the voices on nothing inside
its the strings on guilty
i used it a lot
its all over blurred crusade and seance too
it was my main keyboard axe for a while
then i suddenly stopped using it
eventually in my troubled times
i sold it to marty so at least its in the family
anyway my guitar was my fender mustang
and i had a cheap 12 string acoustic
i used to double everything up a lot
6 n 12 ac playing the electric lines
i had no real philosophy about recording n engineering
i figured it out for myself and was starting to really get my own sound
with my slippery basslines and classic analog keys
unearthed originally did not contain forgetfulness or nonapology
these were added later
then my brother john added 4 other songs
a song called arm chair that really wasnt called that but had no other name
life like love, someone calls you on and you once told me…
these songs were all 4 track n were never remixed at fatboys
hence they are in some ways sonically inferior to the original unearthed tracks
but they might as well be represented here as anything else
unearthed got some ok reviews n was generally well received
it did well for me considering its ‘umble beginnings
a lot of people still say its their favourite record of mine solo
i can see why they might think that
it represents me at a fairly carefree point in my life
before a few troubles were to set in
its quite eclectic
the excellent cover was done by john foy
the picture is outside centennial park
i’m dressed in a vicars get up
it was a very nice package i thought
and i was quite happy with the whole she-bang
it even got a good review in england ……!!??