To say that recording this album was difficult is an understatement.
We were plagued with problems—big equipment failure after big equipment failure.
First, the monitor speaker controller blew and took out a speaker, and the sound card stopped working.
We managed to find some parts online and bought them but then couldn’t find anyone who could fix the monitor.
Eventually we tracked down a guy who used to work with our old repairman (he had since moved to a different part of the country).
We sent the speaker over in a cab at not inconsiderable expense and waited a few weeks only to be told that our man couldn’t fix the speaker.
This was followed by the main studio Mac Pro breaking down.
After some rather desperate searching for a suitable repair shop, it was taken to a Mac outlet in Tooting.
They said their main repair guy was in Canada and wouldn’t be back for three weeks, but they’d have a look.
No one else in the shop had any experience with older, professional-level machines.
We waited three weeks only to find out that the machine could not be repaired.
So there we were with the clock ticking and a three-quarters-finished album and no way to record… So having recently bought a refurbished iPhone from Back Market, I decided to trust them with a several thousand-pound order for a newer Mac Pro… Big mistake!
Back Market insisted that the Mac Pro had been delivered—and it had, to an address in Redditch!
I kept telling them that I live in London, not Redditch, but to no avail.
I was asked to provide the following:
In order to open a claim with the carrier, we need to ask you for a few documents below:
* The photo of your ID card (both sides). Could you please upload the document on the secure ID NOW platform, accessible via the following link: https://sdkweb-test.idcheck.io/v2/
Regarding the other three documents below, please transmit them as attachments on this conversation interface.
* Proof of address (less than 60 days old)
* Bank details (RIB)
* Stamped and signed police report
I explained this over and over again to customer services, but they would not accept it.
To make things worse Back Market then stated that I had ‘received compensation from the transport company,’ which I hadn’t!
It’s too boring (and stressful!) to describe the rest of the debacle, but after several weeks of getting no Mac and no sense from Slack Market, I decided to buy another Mac Pro from eBay because we couldn’t wait any longer.
I emptied my bank account and PayPal account to pay for it.
On the same day that Paul returned from the seller’s house with the eBay Mac Pro, the Cack Market Mac Pro was delivered (FFS!!!!), but almost laughably it was a different model to the one I’d ordered.
So we went from none to one too many…
To top off a fun few months, the gas boiler broke down, and our snotty neighbour returned, fortunately not for long, but he stayed long enough to walk dog poo all over the hallway floor and stink the place out.
Our amazing friends and supporters heard about our problems and sent donations and even a monitor screen.
This was so kind and heartwarming after such an unpleasant and stressful experience, Squaddies to the rescue!!
However, there were other hurdles to jump, like the dreaded manufacturing licence….a big wad of cash, plus VAT, for manufacturing songs we’d foolishly assigned to a publisher. Even buying the products from the distributor was a massive pain in the ‘arris because for some reason our bank took a dislike to them!
We had to call the bank and spend twenty minutes answering ze questions, but to no avail.
Apparently the distibutor had added ‘UK’ to their account name and the bank would not release the funds because of this.
Eventually we managed to get the bank to cough up and a day later we took delivery of the fruits of our toil!