The Housekeeping recording weekend

On the weekend of the 17th of July 2010, ably assisted by our friend and honorary housekeeper Gary Chilton, the Housekeeping Society embarked upon a weekend of recording. We went to my house (bought almost specifically for this very purpose) and set up a sea of mics, cables, instruments and recording equipment.

As well as eating custard creams we got a lot done. We recorded the bare bones of the song's "But I Won't", "Spin a Yarn", "100 Years" and a new, as yet untitled piece. We did the recordings in our usual way, with the three of us playing live together, and then one by one adding different overdubs.



It was great to get as much done as we did. Up to now we've been doing the recording a song at a time in evenings after work and stuff, and, though this has been successful, has been less enjoyable. It was great to have less time pressure on us - like when we went to Hurst Green at the beginning of the writing process.

These tracks still need mixing and a few overdubs (notably a couple of lead vocals), but at this stage we're very excited...

New Single!!!!!

We are very proud to release our brand new, download only single. you can listen to it and buy it here...

if you would prefer you can also purchase it via iTunes. There will be plenty more news about this over the next few weeks, but for now please listen, download and share with all of your friends... Thanks

Acoustic Sessions Vol.1

We've just made a brand new acoustic EP entitled "Acoustic Sessions - Volume 1" for your listening pleasure. The plan was to release something for free on the same day as we release our new single "The Wheel". We picked three tunes and did some simple acoustic arrangements and prepared to record them live. We were ably assisted by our friend Gary Chilton, who recorded and mixed the tunes and did a cracking job of it too I might add. You can see some photos from the session on our facebook page.

As well as an acoustic version of the Wheel there are two other songs here; "All That Changes", about a millworker who still dreams of a woman in a nearby village with whom he had a childhood fascination and "The Inventor" about a hapless inventor who thinks that life in the late 1800's is so perfect that there's nothing left to invent.

Big thanks also go out to our friend Ian Smart who took some great photos, one of which was used for the cover of the EP. Enjoy...

The Making of "The Wheel"

Here's a video put together by Spence about the making of our forth coming new single "The Wheel"

April update...

Written by Ric

Thought I'd update the blog to let you all know how things are going. Basically were very busy. I'm in the process of finishing off the new single "The Wheel" which (I'm hoping) will be done in the next couple of weeks. Everything is recorded and is sounding awesome - just a couple of synth parts to add and we're done. Me and the guys are really excited about it - i think it sounds genuinely different to anything we've heard before. we've got a brass band on there, some flutes and some cello as well as some samples and sound effects recorded at Styal Mill - cant wait for the world to hear it.

At the same time as this we've been sorting out other elements of band life - Spence is in the process of building our new website (which is looking ace BTW) while Ivan is liaising with artists to try and get the visual elements of the band up and running. Also, we've teamed up with a company called totmerch to design some T-Shirts which are looking great.


As well as the single we've been working on the recording of some other songs "Little Boy Lost" and "All That Changes" in the studio and we're really excited about them both - they should be done fairly soon as the lion share of the recording was done last weekend so there's just a few overdubs to deal with.

There are also some ideas floating about to do with launch gigs and live recordings as well as putting a little "making of..." film together so there is much to be excited about. Naturally, we will continue to keep you all in the loop as best as we can. Exciting times for The Housekeeping Society...

The Recording Begins...

Written By Ric

On the first day of march 2010 The Housekeeping Society began the lengthy process of recording their upcoming album at the studios in Wakefield College’s Thornes Park campus. Assisted by honorary Society member Ray Tovey, we set about recording the basic tracks for two songs; “The Wheel”, which we intend to be our first single, and “Sluice Gates” an instrumental (and dance floor filler in the making) that attempts to depict the journey of water from a sluice gate through to a water wheel (who’s excited?).

The session went unfathomably well and we managed to get the main bones of the tracks down. With me on piano, Ivan playing a brushed cajon and Spence playing a mixture of acoustic guitar and bass we put the tracks down live and by the third take of each had a really nice feel that sat very comfortably “in the pocket” as they say. The tracks are sounding awesome at this early stage and I’m really excited about doing the overdubs – in fact as I write this I’m surrounded by manuscript paper as I begin to arrange parts for cello, brass section and flute to add over the top.

When we finished the rhythm tracks we had time to add some glockenspiel and a hilariously “seaside-sounding” organ that had been sitting in the corner of the studio redundantly for many years, both of which are sounding good.

The next stage is overdubs which should take quite a bit of time but so far so good….

check out more photos from the session on Facebook

Housekeeping in Styal

Written by Ric

In January 2010 Ric, Ivan and Spence went to visit Styal Mill in Cheshire for a days fact finding. As you probably already know, under thier band name "The Housekeeping Society" they are making a concept album based on northern mill towns and Quarry Bank Mill in Styal is still a working mill (in fact it has the largest working water wheel in all of europe).



Spence was designated driver and other than a short war of attrition between Multimap and Googlemaps we got there safe and sound and on the way listened to some of the dodgy demos we have made of snippets for the new project. After some sandwiches in the car we hit the mill. Ivan soon kitted himself out with recording equipment so we could capture the sounds of some of the machines for use on the record (he got some undeniably funny looks). Without wishing to sound too nerdy, all the stuff in the museum was really interesting and gave us lots to think about. as well as the great audio stuff we found there were some great things in there that will definatley end up in our lyrics at some point. We also recorded some video stuff for our website and got some lovely photos as well.



After some good cake (tiffin) and a pleasent journey home we rounded off the day with a few pints of old perculiar in Fanny's Ale house in Saltaire and discussed our findings.