the sPrinG

Contact us.... jcac@spookysounds.co.uk

The sPrinG began in October 1997 when johnnie heard the album Eerieconsilliation by ELEVATOR TO HELL for the first time. One of the songs on the ELEVATOR TO HELL album gave johnnie the idea for a character he could use in a story that could be used as the story around which the music for a story based concept album could be written and johnnie thought that when the songs for the story based concept album had been written they could be recorded and put on a CD that could be accompanied by a story written to accompany the recorded songs that made up the story based concept album that featured the character that johnnie had thought of whilst listening to one of the songs on Eerieconsilliation by ELEVATOR TO HELL for the first time. That was a pretty big idea and one that johnnie thought was good so he thought a bit more and came up with some other characters and a bit of a story.

johnnie started to write the story, wrote a couple of riffs and asked James (the drummer from the sTriP) to help him record the album. James said yes so they practiced a couple of times and got some music together and johnnie continued to write the story and more songs. The music helped johnnie to write more words, but the words he wrote got him stuck at a critical point. He read the incomplete story to Shahzad of the AhmaDilloes, but Shahzad could not unstick the stuckness of the story. In a despondent mood johnnie described the stickyness of the situation to James who immediately suggested a solution to the sticky situation johnnie had written himself into. The solution suggested by James enabled johnnie to complete the writing of the story that johnnie had been writing to accompany the music that he was writing to provide the backing to the songs that he was trying to write to tell the story that he had got stuck writing.

After the sTriP broke up johnnie and James decided to record their concept album. In June 1998 they recorded guitar and drums on a four track cassette tape in a practice studio at Red Tape in Sheffield. johnnie did lots of overdubs over the following few weeks at sPookY sounds and then mixed the first version of the album that at the time was known as "the concept album." Although the story was written johnnie felt the album needed more work. Unfortunately all sorts of things happened to delay the completion of the album and the sPrinG split up before the album was finished.
In January 1999 johnnie bought a 16 track reel to reel tape recorder and transferred some of the tracks from the 4 track recordings to the 16 track and started adding more overdubs. alice helped out by singing and playing recorder on a couple of songs as well as drumming on one song. Eventually the album was finished in March 2000. The story based concept album ended up being called "a story about a little girl, the moon and me" which is the same as the book that accompanies the album and may or may not be a better name than "the concept album."

In early 2001 johnnie, James and alice decided to write and record more songs. They began to practice regularly as a three-piece with alice and James playing drums and johnnie playing guitar. In April 2001 they began recording a second album in Lincoln with further recording in Sheffield in a practice room at Yellow Arch studios. Overdubs were added at sPookY sounds. Some songs from these sessions made up the five track ep "meet me under the sea" released in Sept '01.

Sometime in 2001 johnnie started to compile an album of cover versions of ELEVATOR songs. the sPrinG started to record a cover of the song Forward to Snow during the unfinished sessions for their second album but this like the other songs remained unfinished. As the final release date for the ELEVATOR tribute album drew nearer johnnie and alice recorded a version of the ELEVATOR song Hurricane. As James was not involved in the recording johnnie and alice called themselves "almost sPrinG" for their contribution to the album.

The songs intended for the difficult second album stayed untouched on tapes for several years, but were transferred to a hard disk recorder just before the reel to reel tape machine died. the sPrinG hoped that the songs would finish themselves, but they didn't.

Eventually someone will get round to finishing them, though at present it is not clear who that someone will be. It is possible that the songs will be left to be finished by the children of the sPrinG.