Overboard

Track listing

1. Don't Feel so Sad (3:27)
2. Judy Garland (5:05)
3. Blue-Eyed Girl (4:33)
4. Move on Over (4:51)
5. Burn in Hell (4:08)
6. Firehole (5:17)
7. Cry Like a Whale (4:43)
8. 3 Days Missing (4:27)
9. Miranda (4:29)
10. Take it All (6:18)
11. Light (5:05)

The songs

This one is punch all over. Sometimes it's dressed in uplifting pop swagger, others it's in among the dark spiky downtown underbelly. It's a revelation and by far Rich's strongest album to date.

Don't Feel So Sad is a radio killer, 3 Days Missing is one of the sweetest fingers to an ex girlfriend heard in a long while, while Move on Over is Bolan boogie 30 years on. Yet you need to make some sort of treacherous journey across a deep dark unforgiving ocean to get to Burn in Hell and the other radio favourite Firehole.

It's the sort of record where you hit the play button after a gloriously big night out and find it's still toughing it out come the morning.

About Overboard

Musicians: 15
Powered by a sound genius factor of: 10
Studios: 7, including 4 home operations
Number of sleeve panels: 6, but some still under debate
Booze drunk: nautical quantities

Now for a long story...

As one of the reviewers said, ''This album is about what happens when you throw everything away''. You can certainly argue a half of everything here straight off. And I know what the other half was; it was a smart observation.

The songs were written on an acoustic with little but trouble around. The first move Jimmy McHugh suggested when we got together was to dump the big acoustic. Wise call, brother.

It felt like turning back home after being lost for days on the English Pennines with nothing but Kendal mint cake to chew on. Or something less minty, but bleak all the same. It settled the ship, righted the mainsail and allowed us to clear the deck and start jiveing over a pretty basic recording system back home. Tinker tinker, fiddle fiddle. Here's the bulb, now a flower. Easy with that delay. This op shop Lowry's sounding good. Let's cut a little room here...

Demo time later, the next step was to transfer what we'd been doing to a decent studio, taking a quick poll on what was working as we did. Enter Jimmy's mates - Kye Thomas and Troy Trigwell down at the exceptionally fine Woodstock Studios in Balaclava, Melbourne. A quick afternoon rehearsal also saw our forces multiplied by the remarkable Ivan Khatchoyan on drums. Nothing but grand work in store with this team.

First off we got the charges going on Judy Garland, Blue-Eyed Girl, Move on Over, 3 Days Missing and Miranda. Blip blip went the dials, bong bong the electrics, schtumpin, schtum clash the drums. Not sounding too bad at all fellas. So let's see what mighty Dan Luscombe can do on guitar. Yep, we've got something. Book it Danno.

Some fine axe work from Jimmy's brother Lachie McHugh sent the lights flashing, then came revelation number two - the golden tonsils of Jenny Oates was pulling my rural efforts behind the mic into line in more places than it is best to mention. More of that, if you don't mind.

The rest? On a roll, no problems sir. Don't Feel So Sad, Firehole, Cry Like a Whale, Burn in Hell, and Take it All comprised session two. This time ace sticks man brother Dave Eugene Webb was on the tubs as he was over from London taking in the Australian waters. Mr Luscombe again supplied electrifyingly brilliant lead.

We caught the giant Ed Bates coming down the stairs after a session with Joe Camilleri, the Woodstock govenor, which sorted the pedal steel. Monika Antczak tinkled the ivories in a very tasteful fashion, and Captain John Mangan captured the nautical mood on the Hammond like he was celebrating an Arsenal cup victory while navigating his 10th trip around the Cape of Good Hope. Easy work.

Bingo, or sort of. Stuff had gone down so fast it was like overflowing everywhere. The numbers had turned into those boxes where when you open the lid and a heap of snakes jump out. There were BVs a go go, guitars heading to the moon and back, some sticky tape percussion that was going nowhere but the bin, and a genius one-take Moog pass by Khatchoyan who plonked it down before he headed out to one of his regular gigs.

Time to go back home with it all then. The delis of Balaclava had been emptied, we'd quadrupled the beer takings at the local offie and we needed a regroup for sure. We decided to get a mini Pro-Tools rig happening. Suddenly we were talking, again. Jimmy set up a posher studio over at his place and we began bobbing and weaving back home (without the Alan Ball bit in the middle).

As luck would have it, Jen's dad, gentleman Mick Oates, hit town shortly afterwards, and a few reds later it was our pleasure to mike up his vintage concertina for a quality pass on Take it All. It turned the song on its head and opened the door on...

Well, further recording but at homes this time without the sands of time burning up big quids in a non -existant budget. So we cut the bushes back hard, then started looking for cello, we started looking for sax, we started looking for keys. But from where? Better pass this hot potato over to Blighty.

Enter some mighty work by my Bros. The sax was all Jon, signed, sealed and delivered. The rest all Dave. Being the drummer of choice for many in the new 24-hour drinking capital, he pulled in remarkable talent behind the cause - Rhodes scholar Chris Letcher provided pumping keys, and cello magnet Simon Fellows the bottom-end heart stopper. While he was at it, Dave conjured up some mightly fine crystal guitar himself, just to keep the dogs at bay and the Clapham pipes whistling.

From this end, it was better than good. While we had our heads down tidying up what we had, we kept getting daily dips into the chapel bran tub. One day we'd pull out 'Keys - track 3', the next 'Try this guitar on track 1', the next 'Trumpets, track 7'. Fantastic stuff.

So there we were. A few vocals to wrap up on a couple, many candles burnt setting up the rhythms and on pedantic fine tuning, then, all of a sudden, that was it - we were ready to go. Just a pucker mix to nail the whole damn thing.

Finally it was easy sailing. The main part of the finish was a given - sound genius Paul McKercher was behind the dials if we could only get him there and in a studio fitting of his precision ears. We'd been in touch with Mr McKercher very early in the piece and he was keen to do the mix but now it was like, many moons later (there were big gaps to reload the wallet - we were dealing with a one-shooter here).

But around this time we scored a lifesaving grant from Arts Victoria. Hats off to them indeed. The grant application involved a business plan which in itself proved a mind-clearing exercise. When the grant money came through, we were suddenly sitting pretty with a way forward. Diaries were consulted, opportunites explored, our people talked to theirs, then bam! We got to mixing day.

We had five days booked in at Sing Sing Platinum on Chapel Street, Melbourne. Mr McKercher levered some big black boxes into our spot, turned them up very high, got a spanner in the works early on, and we had the very fine pleasure of seeing him work his magic with the help of mix assistant, bon vivant and all round top bloke Jimmy Maroudas. It was a breeze, and we were three sheets to the wind.

Yep, the mixing room looked like the back of a transit van prepped to receive Paris Hilton after a big night out at champagne corner, but this SSL desk in McKercher's hands rocked. And for the first time we didn't have anything to do. It was like we'd been driving a Cortina for a year and handed over the reins to a chap who knew how to handle a Formula One. Brilliant. So we eased into the back seats, looked out the window and watched the world speed by...

Credits

All songs by Rich Webb except Move on Over by Rich Webb and James McHugh.

Produced by Rich Webb and James McHugh. Mixed by Paul McKercher at Sing Sing Platinum, Melbourne. Mastered by Steve Smart at 301, Sydney. Recordings engineered in Melbourne by Kye Thomas and James McHugh, and in London by Eugene Webb and Jon Webb.

Rich: vocals, guitar, organ, bass piano, percussion; James McHugh: bass, synths, drum programming; Eugene Webb: drums, percussion, organ, guitar; Ivan Khatchoyan: drums, Moog; Dan Luscombe: lead guitar; Simon Fellows: cello, double bass, bass; Chris Letcher: Rhodes, glockenspiel; Jenny Oates: vocals; Monika Antczak: piano; Jon Webb: Sax; Ed Bates: pedal steel; John Mangan: Hammond; Lachie McHugh: guitar; Kye Thomas: Moog.