The album isn’t finished! Plus some recommendations...

Yo!
Even though recording is complete, Nick has to mix and master the album, which isn't going to happen for a while.

I wasn't planning on visiting Myspace so soon after my last post, but David, from our manager's office called me up and told me he'd been besieged (!) by people calling the office to ask when the album was out. I had no idea so many people cared! Or were checking our internet sites! Ha ha!
Anyway, for Dave's sanity, I thought I'd clarify matters.

Well, so that this isn't just an administrative bulletin, I'll fill you in what I'm listening to on the off-chance that someone will find it interesting...

In the Rough Trade East shop yesterday, I bought a double vinyl release of Benoit Pioulard's first two albums on Kranky records. He has a lovely, whispery voice and his music sounds like a sketchy web of sounds. I also bought a 7inch by Shrag, from Brighton, which I haven't listened to yet.
If laughs are your bag, then Warp have just released 2 four-disc sets of On The Hour which features Chris Morris and Steve Coogan in a precursor to The Day Today which appeared on BBC Radio 4 back in the day.

Well, it's a crisp, Newcastle night outside and it's football time. I already have my shin-pads on and have fuelled myself with Pasta and broccoli (one of my, ahem, 'specialities'...).

Peace And Love, just like Ringo,

Paul

10:15 AM - 18 Comments - 22 Kudos - Add Comment

German festivals we’ve never played before (so we will)
Current mood: breezy

Hello all,

The album is 'in the can', as they used to say... perhaps it would be better to say it's 'on the hard-drive'. At any rate, we're all back in England going about our business. Lukas stayed on in California and went on a road-trip, which he has documented using other people's songs that he heard along the way. It'll appear on the band website soon enough with a few piccies, I'm assured.

I pottered off to New York and watched the New York Knicks vs Milwaukee Bucks at Madison Square Garden, which inspired me to buy a Nate Robinson number 4 shirt. In the art department, I saw some beautiful British Vorticist prints at the Met, William Eggleston photos at the Whitney, Elizabeth Peyton paintings at the New Museum, and Van Gogh's starry paintings at MOMA. Inspirational moments and ideas aplenty for the future.

One of the primary reasons for writing today was to tell you all that we're currently lining up concerts for next year and we've been asked to headline two German festivals, which will be an honour and a pleasure! Here's the info:

Taubertal Festival - Tickets here: http://www.taubertal-festival.de/de/main/shop/tickets.html

And the other one is Open Flair - http://www.open-flair.de/tickets.html

We're all dead excited to play these new songs live, and, in fact, that was mentioned in the writing process, as regards what kind of song to write. There were other songs that would've taken us in a different direction, which we've put aside for the time being because we wanted the album to sound cohesive and to sustain a specific mood (although it's difficult to pin down exactly what that mood is...). It's very upbeat and exuberant, but there's a dark thread running through it. Anyway, I want people to hear it before I bang on about it too much and Nick, our producer's taking a little break before starting to mix it, so there's still a little wait yet.

Well well, keep your eyes peeled for more live dates and vague pontifications.
Time for some soup and a Louis Malle film. Winter evenings...

Paul And The Park

3:29 AM - 20 Comments - 37 Kudos - Add Comment

Civil liberties

Hey there myspacers,

I'm not a big soapbox person, but I popped to the corner shop this morning to get some bread and a newspaper only to get home and start worrying about what's happening to this country. The government are attempting to introduce identity cards, slowly but surely, and if you also think there's something sinister about it, then it's not too late to protest. Here's the article for you to make your own minds up:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/nov/22/identity-cards-home-office

Border security is already tight, as the band can verify from our frequent travels, and this sort of invasive measure will further complicate the lives of law-abiding citizens.
Away from such serious business, there'll be a new blog up very soon about some live dates in Germany and other stuff.

Have a good Saturday. I'm off to a football match!

Paul

3:32 AM - 49 Comments - 21 Kudos - Add Comment

No Definitions, Please, We’re British

Confidence grows about the album. It's direct and concise.
The thing about these songs is that I'm so excited about playing them live. You know, some of my best memories are walking around cold towns in England anticipating the crowd's reaction later that day. I remember going for a run on Bournemouth beach at sunset before a gig and feeling so exhilarated and lucky to be alive. Or, continuing along the south coast, being surrounded by kind and respectful well-wishers as the wind whistled around the grey winter streets of Portsmouth.

In the last blog I did, I said our producer, Nick, thought this record was danceable. I had no idea, people would take it so literally! I did an interview the next day where I had to explain how I like to dance to The Smiths or The Pastels and hope that people feel the same way about our new record. It frustrates me that we live in a world where genre boundaries are so rigid, but, to re-iterate, we have have NOT made a 'dance' record!!! Rant over.

Which reminds me, over the weekend, we DJ'ed at an art gallery called Pehrspace in Echo Park, L.A. It was a night called Hungry Beat, which plays C86 and old-school indie-pop. You can check out our setlist and more about this awesome night here:

www.myspace.com/hungrybeatlosangeles

We saw Stereolab at the Henry Fonda theatre recently, which was a grand venue right in the middle of Hollywood. Over here, you get searched at every major gig, which I find disconcerting. Security wanders around the bar as you drink and it seems a bit stricter than in England. The band were tight and groovy, stylistically erratic but always sounding explicitly Stereolab. When they played French Disco we were all sat next to each other on the balcony yelling La Resistance! I thought Archis had wet himself. In fact, I think we were all on the verge of soiling ourselves!!! There were people around us who weren't even clapping and it made me wonder why you would buy a ticket to such a well-established act and not contribute to the atmosphere.

I've been listening to Rock Bottom by Robert Wyatt, which I'm in love with. There are so many moments of brilliance and the overall mood is unique. The tangled bass playing at the end of Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road sticks out, even as the frenzy of trumpet recedes into the background. The regret pours from Wyatt as he brilliantly struggles to articulate himself before resorting to wordless wails that wouldn't sound out of place at the bottom of the ocean. It's jazz, Jim, but not as we know it. Which reminds me, a saxophonist is coming this week, perhaps to add a little extra touch to Tanned. We'll see if it works out or not.

Well, that'll do for now.

Take care out there,

Paul

5:26 PM - 22 Comments - 28 Kudos - Add Comment

Five electric monkeys, and a squirrel

Well,
Are we getting sick of the sun yet?
No.
Are the songs sounding fresh and vital?
Yes.
Did we see Jay-Z at the Hollywood Palladium last night?
Yes.
Did, we then go to a bar only for Tom to sing Aerosmith's Sweet Emotion off-key?
Sadly.
Did he then, unsuccessfully, try to smuggle alcohol onto the street as we left the next bar?
Oh God...

We are still doing backing tracks, which will then be 'assaulted by our creativity' (that's my own phrase, I hope you like it...).
The whole affair is going to be quite stripped down compared to the last album because we don't like to repeat ourselves. Our producer Nick thinks it's a dance record, and who are we to disagree? Don't be alarmed though, we won't be donning face masks and gore-tex like Altern-8, or dancing like electric monkeys. Apart from Lukas.

I've just filmed a squirrel that lives in a tree in the garden here. It's six minutes of raw, edgy footage, I can tell you, with a massively ill-informed, hushed commentary from my bad self.

Election fever is picking up pace here and I have no idea whether either main guy will be effective in office, but there's only one man for the job as it stands, and it's not John McCain...
Not that I can vote or anything. Make your own minds up.

I'm reading Raymond Carver.
I'm watching Eric Rohmer's 6 Moral Tales.

I'm listening to a modern country singer called Kathleen Edwards. She really picks up on small details and sounds pretty disillusioned - perfect!!! It's graceful, which is rare in this genre. It's middle-of-the-road, which is not. But I like it.

Whatever dudes.

Paul

10:10 AM - 12 Comments - 17 Kudos - Add Comment

Good day to you all...

It's another sunny Californian day here in Los Angeles.
We are (fairly) hard at work on the new Maximo Park album with a man called Nick Launay, who has worked with legends like Talking Heads, Kate Bush, PIL and Nick Cave. He's just finished the latest Yeah Yeah Yeahs album too. We're hoping his magic powers will rub off on our new songs...

Lukas is swimming in the pool each day and has just dripped his way past me after another athletic performance in the water. What a trooper.

Dunc celebrated his new album coming out by cooking a tasty spaghetti dish for us all last night, after a day of tuning drums and tweaking musical bridges.

Archis is possibly asleep, but it's only 9am so I won't be too harsh on him!

Tom's on the phone to one of his nearest and dearest, which is one of the only drawbacks to being here - we miss home!

Up to now we've been going through songs and making sure they are water-tight for your listening pleasure. It's been a long process, but it feels tantalizing now we're so close to recording them. We work every day til 10 o'clock at night, except Sundays, because we can't go any later. We're in the middle of the suburbs and the neighbours will go bananas if they hear drums. However, after the rhythm section have done their work, I'm expecting a few late night sessions searching for 'the take'...
As we're in the Valley, there aren't many distractions (especially since I can't drive), although there is a cable channel that shows English, Spanish and Italian football. I've already set my alarm to watch the early Premiership matches... at least it doesn't interfere with the schedule!

In our free time, we've seen My Bloody Valentine, No Age, the Santa Monica sunset and the beautiful planetarium, high in the Hollywood hills, where we pretended to be Morrissey pretending to be James Dean.

Ameoba Records has also been abused quite heavily... what a shop.

And so on...

Well, we'll be updating you regularly on our progress, so stay tuned.
The Park are coming back!!!!
Even though we've never been away!!!!

Take care,

Paul And The Park

10:08 AM - 10 Comments - 13 Kudos - Add Comment

Vivian West-Hollywood

We're in Los Angeles.
I'm listening to Vivian Girls.
They are awesome.
Tom's just cooked a brekky.
The sun is shining.
There are squirrels in the garden.
I'm still partially deaf from seeing/hearing My Bloody Valentine last night in Santa Monica.
More new Park songs to play today.

Just the facts.
Paul

10:36 AM - 39 Comments - 35 Kudos - Add Comment

Duncan Lloyd - Seeing Double - Special Preorder

Duncan Lloyd, your favourite guitarist, has recorded a solo album 'Seeing Double' - set for release on 6th Oct 2008.

Check his MySpace Page for tracks and a special edition pre-order.

http://www.myspace.com/duncanlloyd

Maximo fans do not fear, this is just more music for your ears - we're all in the studio recording the next record!

1:00 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

A Lad Inane

I'm riding on a train.
Through the windows I can see golden-topped clouds shredded in the sky.
I've had a very sweaty day in London hauling a new guitar around the Tube system.
It was made in 1951 and it makes me happy already. I won't bore you with the details.

We've just about finished writing our new album now (there will always be loose threads that need taking care of). Two intensive weeks of demos after a few months of initial writing, playing and recording. We've got a lot of songs now, which is what we intended.
I'm too much like an ostrich with my head in the sand, so I don't know what kind of music it is, in all honesty. They were intended to be high-calibre pop songs, that's all I know.

We are off on tour this week, so when we get back we'll attempt to find a producer and a studio.
Any recommendations? We'd like to push some sonic boundaries. Maybe Brian Wilson's free...

I watched The Notorious Betty Page last night and found the character's naive enthusiasm for her job quite endearing. It made me giggle. As did Team America, which swiftly followed. I've always thought it should be funnier more often, but the funny bits still crack me up..."Matt Damon!"
Anyway, I've ordered the soundtrack to Betty Page which was choc-a-block with swoonsome ballads and chirpy 50s ditties.

The new Batman movie almost killed me via an increased heartbeat that remained at peak level for the 2 and a half hour duration. One friend who went to an earlier showing texted me saying "Heath Legend!", which I can only agree with. The scene where he made the pencil disappear was awesome (if you haven't seen it, that info won't spoil the moment, don't worry). Despite any number of flaws, including the Dark Knight's worryingly Vader-esque voice (rather than Vedder-esque, although now I think about it...), I was totally overwhelmed in true comic-book fashion.
It also helped that I have an unhealthy interest in American Psycho, directed by Mary Harron (who also directed The Notorious Betty Page) and was looking for parallels between Batman and Bateman, of which there are many (take away the 'e' for a kick-off). In essence, Bruce Wayne IS Patrick Bateman.
Also... I seem to be one of the only people in the world who love both the film and the book versions of American Psycho- both pitch-perfect satires that bring a mirthful tear to my eye. Most think the film is inferior- crazy talk I tells ya!

I've finished The Wire's second series. Bring on number 3!

Well, this is exposing me more and more as someone with too much time on their hands...
Hey! I am on a train after all.
Thanks to a downloaded micromix from the Deerhunter blog, 'Alladin Sane' by Dame Dave Bowie is on my headphones as we speak- what an odd chorus - and I have the option of Neil Young's biography or Raymond Carver short stories.

Offski (which I would never say in real life, okay?!)!!

P. Smith

6:40 PM - 44 Comments - 37 Kudos - Add Comment

Maximocast 5 - Sounds From The Park Part 2

Maximo Park have recorded a brand new podcast, featuring a slection of favourite songs chosen by each band member.

Click on the link below and follow instructions to subscribe and to listen to the new and previous podcasts.

8:57 AM - 7 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment