The Housekeeping Society in the wilderness...

Written by Spence

The prospect of a musical weekend away has been on the cards for a couple of years, but in November 2009, with the newly named Housekeeping Society in the initial phase of writing their debut record, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to make the suggestion a reality. The plan was simple – three blokes, a load of instruments, one isolated location and plenty of supplies.



For two-thirds of the Housekeeping Society, Hurst Green (near Clitheroe) in Lancashire may as well have been Timbuktu. Fortunately, being driven into the village by someone with local knowledge (Mr Mack, in the car with the whistling roof-rack), who could navigate the narrow bridges and locate the lodgings (having detoured via the pub to collect Ric who, in all honesty, didn’t have a hope in hell of finding the cottage on his own), images of being stranded in the middle of nowhere thankfully didn’t eventuate. And while the cottage we were staying in wasn’t quite the isolated out-house I’d pictured, in darkness it might as well have been the only house for miles. Stepping out for some night-time air (translation: off to the pub), torches were essential, the solitary streetlight only shed its guiding beam so far.

So, a little village in the glorious countryside; similar (well, a bit less industrial) I presume to where our record’s protagonist would have been living. He possibly wouldn’t have been faced with the dilemmas of what to choose from the The Bayley Arms’ generous lunch/dinner menu however. Not such a fine choice of ales, but fortunately bottled supplies of Leeds Best had come along for the ride (should Leeds Brewery be looking for a band to sponsor/mentor, the Housekeeping Society would be interested in entering into negotiations).



Fellow musicians to whom the tale has been told have responded wistfully to the concept of finding a location out of the usual comfort zone and setting out to spend a weekend working up new songs from scratch. The reality was blissfully just that – setting up the instruments in the living room of the cottage, playing through what we already had and jamming up new material, either from ideas we’d individually brought in, or pulled out of thin air. Ric brought along a Korg, which was the biggest sonic development. It single-handedly transformed my initial ideas for a song called ‘Civic Pride!’ (I’m hoping the exclamation mark makes it to the final cut), which started out taking our March Greens hit Cinders as stylistic basis before undergoing transformations that turned it into a 60s-pop pastiche. It’ll be one for the kids in the front row at the gigs fo’ sho’. Ric brought in an idea of a song that switched liberally between 3/4 and 4/4, which baffled and (almost certainly will continue to baffle) all three of the band at various points. It goes without saying that it’s a fine tune – indeed, one thing which everything adheres to is a fine sense of melody. Even the Korg-led instrumental that sounds like something Air foolishly left off Moon Safari has the kind of nagging refrain that’ll set up camp in most peoples’ minds. Air, I hear you say? On a concept about 1880s millworkers? Yeah, well, we’re pushing the eclectic side of things here, so aside from that, we have some Billy-Joel-70s-singer-songwriter-piano tunes, a ukulele-led ode to the industrial revolution and the afore-mentioned Monkees moment (among other things).

Lots of rough recording and video footage was captured, nothing especially incriminating, you’ll be disappointed to know. We were even quite respectful while doing a spot of recording in the church, leaving out our Muppets covers and focusing instead on the barbershop-trio stylings of Same Old Same Old (with Ric on church organ, no less).

Many important issues were discussed and put to rights, including confirming once and for all that the north of England is better than the south, the joys of watching plane crashes on Youtube, and the most pressing matter – configurations should the Housekeeping Society chaps ever be presented with the girls from Friends. These issues matter, dammit.

We returned to our respective homes the other (right) side of the Pennines with the knowledge that we have a good EP’s worth of material under our belts, if not more. That dream of a concept double-album may not be so unlikely after all. Our 1880s millworker would be proud.