Our ‘acoustic period’, as it is now grandiosely referred to, kicked off with a set at the King Edward VII pub (the Eddies) in Stratford in August 2006, and culminated in ‘A Daunce from London to Norwich’, our ‘first all acoustic offering’ as Dave put it.
As with most of Little Hands Clapping’s phases, it was perhaps practicality that persuaded us to try working for a while exclusively with two acoustic guitars. Although our turn-up-and-plug-into-whateverthereis approach with electrics had already made out lives way easier than most bands’; we saw the advantage of not even having to plug in, and it suited our small-room aesthetic.
However the acoustic thing was also something I, at least, was getting really into at the time. I had started listening obsessively to Bert Janch, John Renbourne, Nike Drake, (selected) John Marin and host of Americans who I couldn’t name or tell you anything about, and around Christmas 2005 (that long ago?) I wrote the intro to what would become ‘The Nine Daies Wonder.’ Although we have now worked out an electric-acoustic version of the song that I think works really well, my initial idea cried out for a complimentary companion. It was clearly an acoustic song.
As we started to get the song together we realised that the acoustic-acoustic set-up would give us an opportunity to have another go at ‘King and Queens’ and ‘Ivy’ our only other acoustic numbers. ‘Ivy’ never really came together, but K&Q was working fine, and we were keen to get a better played version on record than the one we made for ‘Waging War on the Ungodly’. Dave then ‘did a Dave’ by writing ‘Orgone Accumulator’: a tricksy number that I learned through ‘shapes’ rather than notes – the notes being impossibly incongruous (along with the time-signature [and my punctuation]). Orgone works with any combination of guitars, but we particularly liked the boom of the acoustics, and figured it was good practice to do all that double-stopping, stretching and fretboard runs on heavy-gauge brass.
By now our fingers had calluses that would protect us from even the hottest of saucepans, and we had half an E.P. A reworking of the ‘Swedish Dream of Salt’ (we believe there is always room for a reworking of the ‘Swedish Dream of Salt’), and an accidental improvisation springing spontaneously from a tune-up (‘The Representation of the Peoples’ Cat’) finished it off, and there we were: ‘A Daunce from London to Norwich.’
The E.P. was recorded in a day by Howard Pull. A man who knows his compressor-mics, and managed to capture that long-sought LHC gold: ‘the sound of the room.’ See our CD ‘geek notes’ and Howard’s ‘production notes’ for more details.
After the Kind Eddies gig we played some or all or the acoustic set at Leytonbury 2006, a private view at the Tram Depot Gallery in Hackney, at Tate Modern and on Colourful Radio (see gig reports).
Our acoustic period came to an end once we’d recorded ‘A Daunce’, again from a mixture of practical considerations and musical inclinations. We moved into our electric-acoustic phase (if it needs a name) because the new set-up mean that we needn’t lug guitars around when we practice seeing as both Dave and I have an electric and acoustic. We were initially concerned for how we were going to make an electric and acoustic guitar sound right together. They have such different qualities (something we had taken advantage of) and so don’t blend so easily together. The only solution was to practice, practice, practice (isn’t it always) until we started playing in sympathy. We found that the setup offered way more variety than before, and realised that with some minor re-workings we could play most of our repertoire. Even songs like Squeakyboots which we had neglected since going all acoustic, worked in this new way – in fact, in some ways it worked better. Anyway, this is all another story – one that we are only at the beginning of (well a year into, but we are working slowly); it’ll have to wait for another time.
Tom (LHC) 12.10.07