The Affair

By the time we recorded this I think I'd already got my mind on post-Affair stuff. This is lacking in conviction, particularly with the drum beat, which for some reason I wanted to sound like an old-school drum machine.

It's a shame because it was a great song to do live, but this goes in a different direction. It could have been more brooding, less trivial.

Another live version done at Tim's. I was surprised that I managed to get all the way through this without discernible gaffs!

Took a few attempts mind....

Pretty decent rendition of how we played this live. Shame that it never got played live by a full band. This version always went down pretty well though and was super easy and fun to play.

Live version recorded at Tim's house. Ash on Bass and (erm, can't remember his name, sorry...!?), on Cajon. Mixing that cajon was hard....

The idea here was to use these 'live' versions to get some gigs. Which was a nice idea, and fun, but totally ineffective.

This was a solo track done under the banner of The Affair. Never done live. I think I did the bass, or programmed it. It's a decent enough song. Lacking some soul in terms of the overall feel though.

I do like the drum rhythm - this was back when I used to program by hand and just throw stuff around without any sense of, or care for what a real drummer could do.

About as autobiographical as it gets.... Was originally a seb_7 song, possibly the last before The Affair emerged? I think this was a full re-record - the first to use the drum kit I created by sampling sounds in my kitchen!

A quick one which I did on my own, without bass from Ash. Never played live. Super simple. Playing around with lyrical cliches again, which I always love. It's liberating. Freeing from the compulsion to try and be cool all the time.

I couldn't get the vocal right for a while. Then I went on one of my first dates with Debbie, gave it a try the following day and something was different, easier. It worked first time.

I wanted a kind of Blur-esque sound to this one. Somehow it sounds a lot cleaner and softer than that though. Wish it was harder and rawer.

It was fun doing this one live with Ash. The key change in particular.

Lyrically, it's not at all about what the title, or cover suggests. Btw...

A more complete version than the original. And as is often the case, a bit of the original soul is lost in the process.

Fibrestream nearly did a cover of this, I wish to God they had, it would have been amazing.

Pretty happy with this version. Didn't lose any of the original magic. Well done everybody!

This is very similar to the orignal demo version, except better in all respects. I love the tubular bells - makes it almost funereal.

Another of my favourite songs I think. The lyrics just evolve nicely, and the guitar line has a nice flow to it.

One of the best pieces that Ash and I did together too. I wrote this one while The Affair was in place and so Ash's part was instrumental from the beginning.

Super simple. Didn't want to put any backing or anything to this. Just set my mic up and strummed it out. Captured something quite nicely about 'the end of things'.

This drum beat had been in my head for years. There was a Jack White song which convinced me I needed to get it out of my head, and there was a new feature in Ableton which enabled me to sing the beat into a mic and have it converted into a drum loop - obviously that didn't work quite as well as it should, but with some work the drum loop sounded pretty much like what was in my head....

Another of those super simple, raucous songs which you often feel silly doing, but people end up liking more than the more carefully considered and age appropriate stuff.

I do have a knack for this kind of tight rhythmic singing I think. Almost rap, but not quite.

Wrote this one when I was in a state of almost permanent creative flow. Stuff was just coming to me thick and fast, mainly because I wasn't sleeping and my stress levels were all over the place. Everything about this song emerged from the beautifully ridiculous, but accurate line of "you broke my heart before I met you".

This version was done pretty quickly and used along with the other demos to try and recruit more people to The Affair, alongside me and Ash. When that failed I knew I needed to do a better version myself - with just fake drums and backing. Ho hum....

This was the first song I'd written on guitar in a long time. A long time. I'd written the 40.6.1.2 riff on guitar, but not the song.

The melody and a few words popped into my head one day and it was obvious that it needed to be a country style song on the guitar. For seb_7.

Later it got wrapped up in the set of songs which I presented to Ash for The Affair.

It never got another re-recording after this one. Just never felt as worthy as the other tracks. So simple it's almost trivial - that's its problem I think.

I'd only recently started writing on my guitar again when this song presented itself to me. It captured nicely the events at the time. With a fair dose of humour thrown in.

I'd not yet decided/realised that I wanted to form The Affair, so I guess I intended to do this song as seb_7?

Anyway, the first recording was just vocal and guitar. So I could send it to Ash, to try and hook him in. It was after that I added the drums, organ etc.

And after that again that I decided a better version was needed.

Hmmmm, where to start with this song?

The main hook and theme came to me as my very tired, rather drunk and emotionally exhausted head hit my pillow at the end of another night alone in my new flat. I dismissed this little song at first, believing it to be too simple, too obvious - a mimic of 'Abide with Me' or 'Can't Help Falling in Love'. But through the night and early morning the trickle of a tune turned into a tidal wave, and I was swept along by it.

By the time I set off to work in the morning, it was imperative to me that this song be performed by a band. A whirling, raging rock band with the chaos and swagger of the Pogues and the song smithery and glitter of Neil Diamond. Moreover, it felt imperative that I should form this band. It seemed so obvious and inevitable to me that this would happen. I messaged Ash to say that I had a bunch of songs and he needed to join my band, and start looking for a drummer and guitarist immediately. (I wish I had that original text message still, just to see what it looks like...)

Over the next day or 2 I wrote more verses for this song than it could handle. It was a purpose and a tonic, a therapist and a lover.

The band never happened. But I have a deep affection for this song.