Third Rail - Recording

Third Rail recorded their noise at many places over the years. Here is a list of some of the important times - with pics!

April '98

Don't Know, Summat to do, diary of a no-one and no bridge were recorded by johnnie on a four track at Red Tape Studios during a practice. This went to make up the first Third Rail demo tape.

17th July '98

After a practice at Avalon Third Rail went to sPookY sounds and watched England get knocked out of the World Cup by Argentina and recorded some songs for a tape/fanzine called "6ft Under." The band recorded an acoustic version of Summat to do (the first failed take of which ended up on the album Third Rail). In addition to this Scott recorded his version of Brewers Magic Fingers and Adam recorded a song called Ylenol for the "I guess indie punk-rok still does suck!" CD.

22nd July '98

Third Rail paid money! and went to Fudge Studios (Fostex 16 track reel-to-reel) for the day. They recorded Don't Know, Summat to do and I Hit A Wonderwall. The recording was produced by Simon Gilman.

November '98

Third Rail (as a three piece - adam, scott and james) went to Red Tape Studios (24track ADAT) and recorded Forget and a version of No Entry (though at that point it had no title) with Linden (from Electracloud) producing. This recording of Forget was used on the bands first album "Third Rail."

24th Feb '99

Third Rail (again as a three-piece) went back to Red Tape Studios and recorded a version of what at the time was called "High-String One" but was later renamed "if what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, you're gonna make me superman" with Johnnie and Alison producing, but unfortunately there is no surviving copy of this recording.

19th - 23rd May '99

Third Rail (with Chris on bass) began recording their first full album at the Bed studios though on the 22nd Chris was sacked as a result of the band listening back to the bass he had recorded. Following a pathetic attempt by James to play the bassline of one song Johnnie rejoined (though Chris was not informed of this until a few days later). The recording was scheduled to continue until the 24th, but when Adam touched the 16-track for the first time on 23rd May it broke!!! The curse of Third Rail having struck the session was abandonned with the plan being to continue the recordings at sPookY sounds when the tape machine was fixed....

June '99 - Jan '00

Recording continued intermittently at sPookY sounds. Sessions were generally short with long gaps in between. Too much beer was drunk each time with the result being that the first few hours of each session was spent correcting the mistakes of the last few hours of the previous session.

31st Jan '00

The album was finally finished and released at a gig at the Boardwalk in Sheffield as "Third Rail" (the band were each given a copy and a total of TWO!!!!! copies were sold {only one to a friend of the band}).

June '00 - Sept '00

Work began on a second album at sPookY sounds with Chas on bass. After a couple of sessions the band split-up as a result of Scott moving to Leeds in Sept '00. Luckily all that was left to do was the vocals......

Sept '00 - Feb '01

It took a long time to do the vocals....

Apr '01

The album "swan song" was roughly mixed by Adam and Johnnie and completed by johnnie and james.