Punk Rock Radio was written and recorded against a rather tense background because we had a really tedious neighbour who went out of his way to complain about our ‘Noise’.
Extracts from Beki’s diaries
Sunday 3rd January 2010 We wrote four new songs this week, ‘Little Red Gloves’, ‘LA Low’, ‘I Dream The Road’ and ‘Punk Rocker’.
Friday 12th March 2010 I did a guide vocal on ‘Advance Britannia’.
Saturday 13th March 2010 I wrote the lyrics for ‘Sick of Being Poor’ and sang while the neighbours were out.
Monday 29th March 2010 We demoed ‘UK OK’ and demoed the vocals on ‘There’s Always One’ yesterday so managed to be creative in spite of neighbours.
Sunday 25th April 2010 I did some singing this week and insisted on altering the melody on ‘Advance Britannia’ and singing the old melody up a third or a fifth on the chorus.
The whole song sounds much better now, more moving.
Saturday 12th June 2010 On Wednesday I wrote a song with Paul called ‘Him Indoors’, originally I called it ‘Domestic Parasite’ but decided that ‘Him Indoors’ was funnier.
Paul was laughing a lot which was generous of him considering that he is the main inspiration behind the lyrics!!
Saturday 20th November 2010 We spent most of the week on the songs, we did ‘End Of The Line’ (Inspired by the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station) and ‘Done Before’ (inspired by a friend’s experience of a particularly odious estate agent).
Thursday 13th January 2011 Neighbours still not in so we did more work on the album.
I sang two new songs Friday evening ‘Punk Is The Blues’ (which I think is great) and ‘Catchy Song’ which I found irritating.
Wednesday 9th March 2011 We listened to the album order and I thought it needed more fast songs so came up with an idea called ‘Seventies Misogyny’.
I wrote a couple of riffs and some lyrics and then Paul came up with a chorus idea so we demoed it.
He also came up with the Punk Rock Radio title and a riff.
I didn’t like the riff much because it’s too derivative of other bands but I do like the title.
I came up with a vocal melody for the latter on a different chord sequence when we sat down together.
Monday 21st March 2011 I recorded vocals on ‘Punk Rock Radio’ and ‘Seventies Misogyny’.
Wednesday 30th March 2011 Wayne arrived in the afternoon and we did backing vocals on ‘Seventies Misogyny’ and ‘Punk Rock Radio’. We were so loud you could hear us half way down the road.
Saturday 23rd July 2011 Yesterday Amy Winehouse died and 77 Norwegians were shot by an alleged right winger who is ‘A keen hunter’, aren’t they all….
Thursday 1st December 2011 The Punk Rock Radio CDs arrived at about 11:30am and I was very busy packing orders and listing things.