Hello all, I hope you’re all feeling festive. We’re still finishing the video for Fear Of Flying but what we’ve done so far looks great.

We’re all going out for a Christmas curry tonight (although I’m still feeling slightly liverish after last night’s excessive Christmas drinking)

I hope you’ve all done some Christmas shopping,

Lots of love

jez

Hello everyone out there, I just thought I’d keep you up to date with the filming of our video for Fear Of Flying. I don’t think we realized how much work would be involved in trying to make a stop-frame animation video (the same effect was used in Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer video made by Nick Park of Wallace and Gromit fame!)on a limited budget. My admiration has increased for anyone who works in this world. The amount of patience you need is extraordinary. It’s all worth it when you see the hours of hard work you’ve put in turned into a few precious seconds of footage. For those of you who don’t know the method, I’ll explain it briefly. The first stage is filming the person in the scene (imagine I’m singing a chorus of the song to camera, about 30 seconds of footage). The video footage is put on a laptop so I can see what I’m doing in each frame (25 frames a second). I advance frame by frame through the scene and a digital photograph is taken of me replicating of each frame (with me so far?). When I’ve copied what I was doing I was doing on the video, the digital photographs are put on the computer (25 x 30 seconds = 750 photographs) where they are turned back into video. This method means that you can make all kinds of magic effects happen between frames.

We’ve nearly got all the footage into the computer now and our hard working editor Graham Affer is putting them in order.

Watch this space for the finished work of genius……

Jez x

Hello everyone, I hope you are all in fine fettle. As you can see from the photos, Farrah had a very special guest at the studio. Kaela Kimura is a big star in Japan and Farrah happens to be one of her favourite bands. She flew over to write a song with me for her album, and to sing on a Farrah track. It was great fun introducing her english delicacies such as Flapjack and cumberland sausage flavoured crisps.

other news is that i have taken up running. I ran around the park near my house last week and found a gun in a bag! I think i must live in a rough area. Michelle is also insisting that i whoop her arse at badminton (very rock and roll). it's quite good to have some leisure activity which doesn't involve booze.

Next week we're making a video for Fear Of Flying. We've got a really cool idea and the whole thing will take about a week to film (gulp!)

Keep checking the site for updates.

Cheerio for now

jez

Well hello everybody, I hope you’re all having a great weekend. I am unsurprisingly hungover after celebrating Will’s birthday last night. I have tried my usual cure of Ibuprofen, halloumi cheese, coffee and ‘emergence c’ an American vitamin drink which cures almost anything. I feel a bit ‘peeky’. We’re rehearsing tomorrow which is going to be fun as we’ve got a whole new bunch of songs to learn. Hope you like the huge budget video!

Jez

I'm not sure who "Art" is and why he would willingly give up a glass of sake, but there you go. A brief update on progress. The band are now in the final throes - some might say death throes - of the artwork for the album so we can meet our delivery deadline in Japan and hopefully get the record out there sooner rather than later. The rest of the rest of the world will follow shortly afterwards ; I had a lovely managerial meeting with our Spanish label last weekend to discuss plans for the launch of the album there. We also discovered the that they have started to serve beer by the pint in Madrid which may explain why I can't remember whatever cockamamie plan I agreed to.

Some live shows will of course follow once the band have actually learned to play all the new songs, which means definitely this century at some stage. My next task is to pound the streets of New York later this month, in search of an American release and also the ultimate burger.

More news as soon as we have a Japanese release date, and expect some new photos on the wite soon!

Cheers

Will ( El Managero Grande )

Time for a managerial despatch from the band's first trip to Italy. Once upon a time, in a small town in the Tuscan hills called Borgo A Mozzano, lived a young man named...well...let's call him Bob. Bob dreamed of making it big in the music biz and, inevitably, left Borgo A Mozzano in the early 1990s to seek fame, fortune and lady friends in London. Fame, and some might say fortune, sadly eluded him for many years but during that time he met another musical dreamer called Jez and joined a band with him. More importantly, he met a lovely lady and decided that, as long as he could get some decent food, he might as well stay in London.

Years passed. By this time, Bob had sensibly stopped joining bands - particularly those with Jez in them - and had become a highly successful sound engineer, working with cool bands such as Sigur Ros, Cooper Temple Clause, Aqualung, and T'Pau. Yet Bob never forgot his home town of Borgo A Mozzano, nestling in its river valley just outside Lucca, and often returned home with his lovely lady to delight the local population with his stories of things being "very loud" in London.

Farrah used Bob to mix their live sound whenever he was available and whenever they could afford him. Which wasn't very often, to be fair. Yet in the Spring of 2006 - when Italy being in the World Cup Final was a mere pipe dream - Bob wangled Farrah a gig in his home town. On Sunday 10th July. World Cup Final night.And so it came to pass that Farrah arrived on a steamy Saturday night in Borgo A Mozzano to headline the town's Beer Festival - without Bob. Bob had sensibly decided to stay in London and do the sound for the Chemical Brothers instead...

We arrived at the Beer Festival at midnight to suss it out prior to the show the next day. It was in full swing with a variety of lethal rides and indeed lethal beers on display. There were numerous stalls selling cakes and sweets but also one that was doing displays of hoovering for some unknown reason. The locals were producing a marvellous dish involving a round piece of dough, which then has a kind of tomato paste spread on it, followed by a variety of "toppings" - ham, mushrooms, salami etc - which is then baked in a wood fired oven. If only some bright spark would launch them here, I think they would really take off. Anyway, we checked several of the beers then headed off at breakneck speed to our hotel driven by Stefano, the promoter.

The hotel was deserted as the owners were away ( www.francos.com/villa ) but luckily had aircon as the weather was somewhat "clefty" as they say. The next morning we trooped into the local cafe to be confronted by 2 brioches, a confused man, and little else. Luckily Stefano rescued us and took us for a huge feast at a brilliant restaurant, the Osteria I Macelli - wild boar ragu, mushroom risotto, ravioli with walnuts and copious amounts of red wine. Just what you need before a soundcheck. We were slightly alarmed as thunder started rolling around the hills near the show, but it quickly passed - possibly driven off by the powerful cigar I was smoking.

Suffice it to say that the crew were mildly distracted by the prospect of the World Cup Final which was being projected on a huge screen behind the stage. Soundcheck over, we sampled some more beer and the round baked things - and doughnuts - before the match started. There followed over 2 hours of unbearable tension, shouting, abuse, recriminations and torment, but that's bands for you. The footie crowd were fine. The whole place went completely barmy when Italy won...and strangely enough the somewhat "refreshed and emotional" crowd paid polite yet only cursory attention to a Farrah show which marked Jez's first forays into Italian stage announcements, some of which skirted the bounds of a possible international incident. My suggestion that he went on stage in a stripy vest and carrying a baguette fell on deaf ears. Quiet literally, he had his earplugs in.

The set was the usual high energy mix of songs old and new, played for the first time since Seville in May. Wisely refusing Stefano's suggestion to "come into Lucca and drink all night" we emerged the next day for another fantastic lunch, followed by a fascinating tour of the area led by Bob's Dad, the local doctor. In the Second World War the whole valley was heavily fortified by the Germans who built a network of tunnels and gunposts in the mountains, so we spent a couple of sweaty hours dodging cobwebs and looking at rusting hand grenades with the marvellous "Father Of Bob" ( (c) Stefano ) who then took pity on us - being a doctor - by prescribing beer back at his place.

We were driven back to Pisa airport last night by the lovely ( yet possibly slightly hungover ) Freddy in time for a final slice of the round baked dough things before catching the plane back to Gatwick. Due to some kind of terrible mix-up with the booking I was upgraded to Club Class ( beef stew, warm roll, bottle of red, vanilla cheescake, stilton, since you ask - and a lot of mince ) and we all got home in the early hours.

So thanks to our friend Bob, to his Dad, to Stefano and Freddy for a wonderful 2 days. If you are ever in Tuscany, go to Borgo A Mozzano. It's great.

Will, The Manager. Capo Di Tutti Capi

After a very long night I'm over the moon to tell you all that the album is mixed and is getting mastered later today! I hope all is well with all of you. I'm heading home to grab a couple of hours sleep beofre heading off to the mastering suite (mastering is when they take the finished mixes and a boffin makes them sound louder and shinier and special!) Can't wait.

I Can't believe we've finished it

Lots of love

jez

Well we're in the home straight now for the record. We're mixing Fear Of Flying today which sounds really cool. We're putting some airport recordings on the intro that we've made on our travels.Tthe studio seems to have a serious leak as it's been raing cats and dogs today. Talking of cats and dogs. My jeans got soaked today on the way here. They smell of old dogs. It isn't attractive. Why should denim smell of dog fur?

It was a really late night last night. I left the studio at 5.15 A.M and caught the first train home. London looks great at dawn. No traffic except milkman and police eyeing me up (not in a sexual way i imagine)

I hope you all had a splendid weekend.

Lots of love

jez

Hello everyone, We're mixing a track called No Reason Why today. It's a jaunty little number about bereavement and clinical depression witha brass section......

jez

It's the longest day of the year today and it seems to me like the longest album recording session of all time. All the tracks are sounding amazing and Ben (who worked on Me Too)is twiddling his knobs very hard to polish the mixes. We're working on one of the first songs we recorded back in January, its called 'awkward situation' It's got a similar vibe to Tomorrow Never Knows by the Beatles (although it's a tad faster!).

I've worked out that since January we've consumed 34000 hobnobs, drank 12000 cups of tea and i've played 12 different electric guitars, 3 acoustics, a spanish guitar and appalachian dulcimer! It's been really good fun.

We've just ordered an enormous curry which should keep us going for the next few days.

I hope all is well in your world out there.

Lots of love

jez

Hello all. I hope you’re all having a great summer. Sorry I haven’t posted for a while, I’m on flaky email and internet at the moment and keep getting disconnected. Things have been busy down at the studio. We recorded some flutes and saxophone and trumpet this week which was really good fun (big thanks to Billy and Jane). The other titbit of news is that I met Cathy Dennis last week. She wrote lots of big hits including ‘Toxic’ for Britney and ‘Can’t get you out of my head’ for Kylie. Don’t worry though, it hasn’t changed the direction of the Farrah record and you’re not going to see me in hotpants or a school uniform on the cover. I have a slight hangover today (I wonder if there’s an official scale of hangovers? Like you have the richter scale for earthquakes why not the ‘chunder’ scale?) I think I must be about a 4.2 which means mild dehydration, mouth like the bottom of a bird cage and yearning for a fry up……

See you all soon

Jez

The mighty Farrah touring machine grinds into action once again, today, Thursday 4 May. Bad Machines are / should be on a ludicrous train journey between Toulouse and Madrid which is so long - 13 hours - I can only assume that the train is stopping at Istanbul or somewhere. I myself, Farrah's trusty manager, am lumbered with taking a spare bass on the plane to Madrid this afternoon and then, very late tonight, will no doubt perform the traditional managerial function of "getting the beers in". Luckily I have an extensive knowledge of most places that serve fried food in that wonderful city very late at night. That also applies to most cities, to be honest.

Jez and Mike are flying in tomorrow, Jez no doubt sporting a pair of chaps and a Stetson, and Mike sporting a beard so voluminous it will be like having a wizard on drums. In strictly the beard sense. Nothing magical is going to happen. Do not, repeat, not buy a ticket for the show in the hope of seeing a real wizard. It's just Mike. I myself will be testing some of Madrid's finest cigar shops. My God they are cheap there. Hopefully I will purchase one so massive it will enter Copernico 5 minutes before I do.

So after rocking Madrid both bands then travel to Seville by van while I snooze in air-conditioned comfort on a luxurious Spanish train, ready to give Seville a proper seeing-to. Luckily our flight back is not until Sunday night so we will have the chance to (a) recover from the night before and (b) buy some marmalade / other orange-related produce. And I can ponder the time-honoured question - why is orange juice so ruddy expensive in Spain?

Spring is in the air, the new album is nearly done. All is well. To all those of you coming to the shows - Get Ready To Rock! Farrah are BACK...

I hope you're all having a great Easter Weekend. I'm busy organising things for Nashville tomorrow. The album is sounding great but its a long process to make because me and Andy are engineering and producing. One of the great advantages of having artistic freedom is we can make whatever album we want to and and have whatever mix of songs we like on it. We started off with the quite rocky songs back in january but last night i watched as Mike added congas to an acoustic track and I attempted to learn the 'appalachian dulcimer'. I hope all the varying styles will gel together when they're all mixed.

I'm looking forward to spending a couple of weeks in the U.S. I've still got a load of lyrics to finish (gulp), I'd better pack a rhyming dictionary...

all the best

jez

We're in the final laps making the magnificent 3rd farrah opus. And things are going well. Recorded so far are:

• Dumb Ditty
• As Soon As I Get Over You
• Wristband Generation
• Fear Of Flying
• Hopeless Situation
• Colour Of Your Love
• Lonely Boy (a cover version of the Andrew Gold classic)
• Stay Together
• No Reason Why
• Easy Way
• The Things We Shouldn't Say
• Do You Ever Think Of Me
• School Reunion

Of course these are not in order and some of the titles will probably change. And these songs are not all finished yet. Most of them have bass, drums and guitars but we've yet to do some keyboards, piano and final vocals. Only 3 or 4 are mixed.

The plan is to get everything recorded in the next week before The Bad Machines go on tour and Jez leaves for Nashiville. And then when we return from the gigs in Spain we'll get the whole lot mixed and mastered.

And then i'll finally have time to get a haircut and take a bloody long holiday.

Of course we still need to agree on what the record is going to be called and get the artwork done. At the moment "beat detective" and "auto tune" are the most likely titles.

We're looking forward to playing a few of the new songs when we're in Spain. It's always good fun to introduce new material into the set.

ac
x

Jez and I have just got back from a secret 4 day trip to Japan...the secret being a brief acoustic performance by Jez at the wedding of our label boss Nobu and his beautiful wife Ikumi in Tokyo! People were - to say the least - surprised when Jez appeared! He played "Tongue Tied", "Say It Again" and "First And Last" to a relaxed and refreshed crowd, just after some Hawaiian dancers and before the cake. The reception was held at an amazing venue which looked like a James Bond villain's lair complete with a massive koi carp pool, which also contained huge catfish, and what looked like golden sturgeon and pike. We also met up with our fantastic music publisher June at Sony ( thanks for lunch! ), who introduced us to Kaela Kimura - she is a huge star in Japan and has named "StopGap Product" as one of her favourite albums. So we went along to watch her rehearse and say thanks. We also met up with a big Japanese promoter to discuss some shows later this year, and with our friend Takeshi ( thanks for dinner! ) who looked after the band amazingly well at Nano-Mugen last year. All in all, an amazing whistle-stop visit to this stunning city..photos may follow shortly! We will return as soon as we can.

we have a deadline on wednesday this week. we've got to get 3 songs finished so the wheels of industry can stir into action and start the promotional & business stuff for the album.

obviously, we're running late so this weekend we've been using 2 studios. Today Jez is working in "Studio A" doing vocals and bv's and i'm in "Studio B" doing keyboards. It's 12.20am and we're still at it....

can't see us getting much sleep this week.

ac x

Hey all,

Having had most of the fun so far recording drums, my new DW kit sound ace, it's now time for Jez and Andy to make my ears bleed for a change. I can't understand how it takes so long to choose which guitar through which amp using which mic, but it keeps them happy...and it ends up sounding great. As we don't have that much time...can you hurry up guys? Can't wait to get out on the road and play the new tracks but our manager has us chained to the desk until the album gets finished. See ya soon,

Mike x

Hello all, it's good to know you've been tuning in on the webcam! The recording is going well. Mike's new DW kit sounds awesome and the mesa boogie amp we've been playing with makes my trousers flap. We're recording using protools which we're learning as we go along. Today we're recording a song called 'No One Stays Together'. It's a breezy tune with a west coast feel.

Keep in touch

Hello all, I’m heading down to the studio today to record some guitars with Andy. It’s always an interesting experience when you get involved in a new album. It’s been really fun so far. My diet now seems to be completely biscuit based.

More news as it happens

Jez x

hello everyone, I'm in the studio today and waiting for Mike to come and rehearse a new song for the record. We're already behind schedule but I promise you we're going to deliver an amazing album. Keep watching the webcam for thrilling stills from the control room

Jez

Hope everyone out there is having a great weekend. We're heading to the studio today to rehearse a new song fo the new album. The webcam will be switched on when we get there so please feel free to say hello on the chat board!

Lots of love

jez

Hello all, I hope it's going well out there. Just wanted to tell you that we're in the studio tomorrow and we will hopefully have the webcam switched on.

It is now 18 days since I had an alcoholic drink. It’s an interesting experiment I try every January. ‘Is life worth living without Guinness?, every year I seem to get a resounding ‘no’ feeling.

As someone cleverer than me once said: ‘If I gave up everything that made life worth living, I’d live for another 10 years’

I must admit that having no other reason to exist other than making music has upped my work rate quite considerably though!

When all is said and done we all have to admit that January is a particularly crap month (apologies to all those who have a sparsely attended birthday this month), everyone is poor and depressed after using up a years worth of liver damage and fun at Christmas. The one silver lining is that I’ll be playing my acoustic tomorrow. Tune in if you can.

Goodnight Vienna

Jez