| March 2009 | Part V finished! |
Assisted by the brass section from Berlin's polka-meisters the Polkaholix, recording for the fifth part of the on-going Mammal Trilogy is now completed. Despite the ice on the River Spree outside, inside the boat it was warm. Well, warm-ish. And there was plenty of room to stand up. Well, for those of reasonable sizes, anyway. This naturally excludes trombonist Iven Hausmann, who was reduced to crawling and sitting in order to make progress around the boat. |
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| Sax player Oliver Oltersdorf was a perfect fit, however. |  |
| Trumpet player Andreas Hillmann (named after the British car beloved of nostalgia-freaks) positively revelled in the lack of headroom. |  |
Here Iven tries to decide whether he is deaf or not. Apparently he is not deaf, and this was confirmed by the Mammal-meister after a quick quality control process. During the session, we were visited by the source of inspiration for one of the tunes being worked on, namely the Aerosmith-ish 'Passionate About Your Elevator', derived from the slogan for a well-known lift company's proposed advertising campaign. It is not yet known whether the howls of derisive laughter have persuaded Bruce to forgo his creation, but this song certainly will add weight to the campaign if not. |
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Scandinavian heart-throb Pelle Almgren dodged the collapsing Svidiish real estate infrastructure to deliver some of the greatest vocals in his long career. He, too, had his own pron-issues to deal with but emerged unscathed. Or at least unstained. Well, relatively. Nothing that a good scrub couldn't sort out. | 
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Whirlwind rhythm guitarist Ralf Leeman took time out from renovating original bluegrass versions of stolen rock classics to rotate vertically especially for Part U. Of course, as any self-respecting rock-musician does, he first investigates new directions nasally. No animals were (significantly) hurt during the recording of Part U. At least none that we recall. | 
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One of the secrets of the indefinable Leeman-sound is the use of the smallest possible equipment. Well, that's the word on the street, at any rate. Here we see the world's smallest Marshall stack. Alternatively, it could also be the world's largest Neumann U-87. The choice is yours. We are saying nothing more on the topic. | 
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Enrico Antico interrupted his overwhelming eating schedule to perform some sterling widdly-widdly, as ever. Perhaps influenced by Ian Macleod's turning up at a recent Radio Stars gig without a plectrum, Enrico decided to leaves his bottleneck at home. Fortunately, Leonid Brehznev is available as a substitute. Eating follows, celebrating of the triumphant return of a formerly-discredited discredited Soviet hero.
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| Heeeeeere's LEONID! | 
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| Steve Budney heroically performs in a boat whilst avoiding brain-meltdown. This pic, like the other one, is taken at the exact moment when he avoids implosion, again. It's a wonderful life on the ocean brain wave. | 
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Steve finds THAT knob which all musicans twiddle when photographed. Fortunately it also exists in Germany, and especially in German boats. And so it is twiddled. Steve prides himself upon his knob-twiddling ability. | 
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This rather slim thing will appear on Part U, once it's owner has figured out how to perform on it. Nothing that a good feed wouldn't sort out, perhaps Enrico can assist. There are no frets, apparently. Perhaps it fell off the back of a lorry. We'll take it back in the morning for a real one. No worries! | 
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