THE PORTRAIT DIARIES

The End

2011-12-15T08:14:00.003Z

0 days: Track Eleven: Dorothy's arrival

2011-12-15T07:46:00.004Z

Where do we go from here? UP

11. Dorothy's arrival

The journey closes as a new one begins.

The most important lesson of all.

To receive.

My life has opened in her smile.

The love of my life represents everything to me: Magic, love, life, existence, the universe.

Somewhere between starting to write and meeting her, the line between everything became blurred.

I mean the all encompassing EVERYTHING.

The big one.

She reminds me of who I am and why I am here. She reminds me of the man that I am and the man that I want to be. She reminds me of how weak I am and how strong.

In falling in love with her, I fell in love in love with life.

Writing "The Portrait Diaries" changed my life or maybe my life changed and "The Portrait Diaries" documented it.

The answer lies in fact that it is both.

Upon turning our attention to changing our life we do just that and we get what we ask for. We work with a masterful force and we carve our lives out before us one step at a time.

I will receive love. I will go to be a happy man who leads a full life. I smile back at the man that I once was and in turn to the small boy. I tell them "It is ok, I am here". They can see me waving from the future. I am dressed in white.

I smile at all of the memories that I have and all the people that I knew.

I have loved them all.

I am proud to walk into to my future knowing that I will never give up and I will always stand tall.

Nothing will beat me and I will do everything to be true to my real self in spite of the fear.

My real self is good and pure. I am the light that guides the way.

Richard you are and always will be okay. I love you.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It has been a pleasure

I present you

"The Portrait Diaries"

- Richard Hodgekins December 14th 2011

0 days: Track Ten: New morning

2011-12-15T07:17:00.008Z

Where do we go from here? UP

10. New morning

The first song that I had written for "The Portrait Diaries" period.

In retrospect the lyrics floor me.

Prophetically the lyrics say it all.

Another piece of proof.

Know where you came from and awake into your new morning.

0 days: Track Nine: For you

2011-12-15T07:04:00.006Z

Where do we go from here? UP

9. For you

A moment to look back retrospectively at the past events of my life and now everything moved into perspective.

Nothing "bad" had ever happened to me!

Now I could see that I was always on my way here and by being here everything was becoming true.

It's like my life was changing from a fiction book in a factual book. When fiction becomes fact in front of your eyes the perspective of your existence shifts to pure clarity.

Just knowing that she existed was enough for me.

I had gone through it for a reason! Because if she was real then ALL of it was!

WE create our existence. The true path exists and your instinct will tell you that, but you ARE in control to draw anything and everything.

Step 9: Be grateful even for the "bad times" through the clarity that you are on your way to the better times.

0 days: Track Eight: Fire-lights

2011-12-15T06:22:00.006Z

Where do we go from here? UP

8. Fire-lights

As you move up the levels the human animal side of you will try to keep you on the ground as much as it can. It is an in-bulit mechanism within the human self as strong as "denial".

It does this because the animal side of us just wants to eat and pro create. This is what you are fighting. Survival instinct.

But you are not here to survive in a literal sense because your body WILL die. Your energy is wasted by living in this way. This is the human condition. We are all born spiraling out of control because we all know we will one day die.

What makes this worse is that when things start happening in good ways for us it brings out all of our short comings which in turn will lead us back to where we started.

Fire-lights is about the final letting go of fear and believing in destiny, love and LIFE.

Step 8: This one took me my whole life to realise and I had tears in my eyes when I heard it reiterated back to me from another source. If you are going to take ONE thing from "the portrait diaries" or my work in general the following line is as great a one as I shall ever speak:

"The true opposite of fear is faith"

0 days: Track Seven: Everlasting rose

2011-12-15T06:04:00.008Z

Where do we go from here? UP

7. Everlasting rose

Faced with an impossible scenario I felt the timelessness of our connection and was grasping to write it in concrete.

I needed it written on paper but it was written in the stars.

I have always felt feeble as an artist because I am human. This takes away from the purer form. I guess on some level I will have to admit that "Everlasting rose" is as close a song as any that I have written that comes somewhere close to conveying the truth behind it's imagining.

Why do we have to suffer that by which we live when it alters true form?

We can see true beauty but once you look her in the eye she becomes elusive again. Never put your finger on it. Let it happen around you, be aware of it but let it grow.

I never knew how raw true love truly was.

0 days: Track Six: Pathways

2011-12-15T05:26:00.012Z

Where do we go from here? UP

6. Pathways

An explosion of the primary senses but all happening in slow motion.

Like a view of life from an angle never before seen.

I always knew that I knew, even now I know but I couldn't put my finger exactly on what it is I know.

An ultimate knowing an ultimate peace.

Well even through knowing- I still feel that it is quite shocking just how powerful the levels are when "what you know" starts happening to you. I wonder if we ever get over that. The human-brain is wired for logic. What a shame for us.

I could see myself and my energy heading one way then BANG I hit with another energy. Her energy was as great as mine, as confusing as confounding as literal and as raw.

What did this mean?

For the first time, I had met a person through the power of "IT".

What I had asked for in "(Just like) Dorothy" was coming true. I realised that the first song that I wrote for this period was "New morning" which held the lyric:

"I'll be closer in the morning when she comes"

I looked back to the day that she first contacted me and it was the morning after I had written that song. That compiled with "(Just like) Dorothy", with these feelings of always knowing her and the one of always knowing what "I knew" meant that things were starting to take a shape and form way out of my level. I had always created beyond my levels but this was a new stratosphere.

It was like putty but in a form I'd never seen. Malleable but always pinging gently back to where IT wanted us to go.

Two pathways colided, I'm glad I was there to write it down.

Step Six. Beat the panic barrier. Rise to the purer POWER.

0 days: Track Five: Pretty lights

2011-12-14T23:50:00.008Z

Where do we go from here? UP

5. Pretty lights

As part of my new calling, further on down the river I had a new destination that I wanted to stop and look at.

For the first time in my life there was a destination on my life map that felt true. By letting go of the past and the people in my life it was like the future was revealing itself to me.

Letting go and becoming ONE with my true path was happening simultaneously. Whilst writing the diaries I was contacted through them, this person felt like a dream to me, like someone I knew long ago in another existence.

Trying to separate the elation of looking for the good from the good happening to me was getting harder to do. I was finding the key. I knew that this felt right that this was my destiny but the human part of me wanted to SEE it to believe it.

I never believed that part of me - "the doubter" but this was his dying call.

My soul knew. I knew the beauty in her eyes before I ever saw them. We were half the world away from one another but I could feel it. I have never felt separation like that before. The space between us.

Step 5 - A Lesson -Seeing is NOT believing. Believing is believing. Inside. I knew.

You already know.

0 days: Track Four: Run with the river

2011-12-14T23:05:00.007Z

Where do we go from here? UP

4. Run with the river

After hearing the call I became aware of where I needed to go spiritually and physically. I needed to let go of the people around me, within myself without myself. I needed to break the emotional ties and connections. You cannot truly love nor know yourself whilst you are surrounded by the patterns that you have bulit up over your life. Although you may think it - those things are not your life. People, places, times - all of those things are not your life.

You are pure energy and you are here to EXPERIENCE. The soul loves being in the body that you have. The soul is RAW energy.

Scientifically, spiritually, factually: energy cannot be destroyed. This means that the energy that is YOU living inside that body of yours WAS ALWAYS and WILL ALWAYS be.

You are like a flower growing towards the sun. You are made from the very same material. Your energy wants to grow thats why it manifested into that body when your physical mother and father had sex. Your vessel is one of a human being and YOU were born into it.

The unfortunate part is that the energy that is YOU gets confused by being in that human body. Because the brain works in patterns, by the time we grow up we believe that we are the things around us or that have happened to us!

"Run with the river" was my moment of seeing the river of my journey, my future, and remembering that I'm here to grow and move on. I'll be on this river for the rest of my life here.

We all are.

Step four. Let GO. Move on.

8 Days: Track Three: Petals of a rose

2011-12-07T14:49:00.006Z

Where do we go from here? UP

3. Petals of a rose

The album moves now to track three "Petals of a rose" which is a realisation of the physical manifestation of dreams.

I no longer had my dreams but I did not believe them dead nor missing but saw them still out there touching or moving forms with someone else ( "Someone else's hand", "Someone else's thoughts") or some thing else ("Through the petals of a rose").

This is moment where I could "see" my future through my past brought back to me on the wind. The wind carries greatness, it whispers magic to you if you want to hear it. I heard it once more back from my past through to my future via that wild wild wind.

A moment of elation for sure. Still, calm, elation.

Step three on your journey: Hear your call.

8 Days: Track Two: Starlights

2011-12-07T12:53:00.005Z

Where do we go from here? UP

2. Starlights

The story of "Where do we go from here ? UP" continues after "(Just like) Dorothy" with the song"Starlights".

After asking the question now came the time where I was questioning what creates our realities. Is it our dreams? Where do our dreams go? I was connecting to the old me, the younger me. The five year old. The one before we get brain washed at school. It felt like "he" knew who he was and why he was here but here he was all these years later and those dreams were far away buried in the sand. I was trying to reach out for them, like forgotten poems.

I set out with one goal when I began the portrait diaries and that goal saved my life. The goal was to look for the positivity within every song that came through me. The song was originally called "Between the lines of hurt" because I was shining a light in between the problems and emotions to look for the good.

Here I began to reconnect to my aspirations, dreams and who I was simply by looking there.

So step two on the journey is to dream. Dream BIG. Remember your original dreams and aspirations from when you were five years old, back when dreams were reality. Every thing you see around you within the room that are sitting in right now came through someones dream or vision.

Reality is the tangible expression of dream. Physical the expression of the non-physical.

Go ahead remember why YOU are here.

10 Days: Track One: (Just like) Dorothy

2011-12-05T19:11:00.014Z

Where do we go from here? UP

1. (Just like) Dorothy

The story of "Where do we go from here ? UP" begins here. So just how does one find their trueselves and find their true path in life?

Step one is to ask for what you want, what you truly, deeply really want. You do not have to know how you will get it, if you will get it or even if it even exists. You ask and in your heart you BELIEVE that what you are asking for is the truth from your soul.

I was in the lowest place that I had ever been when I wrote "(Just like) Dorothy", it is the only song on "Where do we go from here? UP" that was not written or recorded within the Portrait Diaries period. This song is a spiritual seed and was written four months before I began the diaries.

I knew that it did not belong on the album that I was recording at the time and I was surprised by it's lyric because I was in a relationship at the time so here I found myself asking to be sent someone from the mystical universe to help me and a girl at that!

It must have been my soul mate (a term over used by the mainstream and misunderstood by 99% of people that use it) that my soul was calling out for. This is part of the brilliance of writing, it allows a human being to let go and connect to something greater.

So there it was, I was lost, alone and suicidal and this song came from me. It would be four months later and only when I began the portrait diaries that I would begin to see the effect of the spiritual seed that I had planted in that cold november.

So step one: ASK for what you want and KNOW that you will receive.

You want your life to change? Well there is your first step.

13 days: People vs people

2011-12-02T12:50:00.007Z

So Just what is the difference between the right people and the people we hold within our lives through pattern?

It is hard to not be tainted by the world and those around us over the course of our lives. Especially when we are trying to move forward.

Did you know that 1% of people earn 96% of the money in the world?

That's a true fact.

If you take this not on a monetary level but on one of people going "outside" conventional ways of thinking to rise UP then this means that 99% of people are following each other like sheep and are leading each other nowhere.

I'd like to put out my estimation that only 5% of people within this world know who they are and why they are here.

This means that the odds of your "friends" advice being "good" is relatively nil.

But still it is hard to not believe that these people "love" us. These people need you in their pattern, need to you to compare themselves against. But guess what happens when you push yourself past their line - do they rise and follow? - no they head straight back to their safety zone.

You are a very lucky person if you meet someone who knows themselves and is heading UP. My advice would be to aspire to push yourselves up the levels too. If you want the knowledge it is out there, listen to the greats and rise out of your paradigm.

Unfortunately it does not happen like this. People that I have worked with and encounter would rather turn their back on their own destiny and stay safe within what "society" tells them is safe.

The sad thing? Deep down people KNOW. I know they KNOW.

Still people continue to lead each other around in circles. They do not even know that they are going nowhere.

They do not know the difference between really doing it or living in a safety zone of patterns.

The easiest way to see is to look at how many people are within relationships and they do not even truly love one another!

They do not know the difference between a pattern, safety, comfort and LOVE.

I know people having children who are not even in love!

How crazy is that?

Common place you will find.

In fact most of us are probably here through those circumstances.

I believe that by becoming REAL, eventually you will draw only REAL people towards yourself or people who aspire to be REAL.

All the fakers will drop out of your life and will go on to live in their patterns and bubbles.

This is why I document my work. This is what "Where do we go from here? UP" is all about. Finding your trueself and living real - with no patterns, no safety nets.

We live ONCE as far as we know. What is there to be scared of?

Aspire to be the person you KNOW you are and everything you ever dreamed of will unfold right in front of you.

Then and ONLY then will you be moving FORWARD ….. UP.

14 days: Oh brothers of the world where art thou?

2011-12-01T16:25:00.006Z

Over the course of my life the only true family feeling or a feeling of belonging within a larger context that I ever had was with the three brothers with whom I recorded "Beginning Of The End", "Soldier and the Rose" and "Portrait Of Time".

I planned on working with these people for the span of my career. I'm in this for life not as a job so the level that I am always working on was for a greater goal and this always pushed the personal limits of those that I worked with.

But I feel that this is the point of life and it is up to everyone to follow their own destiny.

I hoped that it was within the destines of these people to aim with me to a common goal.

I put a huge amount of effort into my relationships with these three individuals, all of whom I loved very deeply in different ways.

Brother one was lost in the end due to him having personal problems through which we just could not move forward together anymore. I was left within a state of trying to finish my first ever record with only half the team and my aim to move on to the next stage was now impossible. This caused much heartache, emotional and artistic pain but I do believe that I could have handled it much better. I am so pleased to see him on the right path these days and I respect his belief in himself. Do it.

When I started "The Portrait Diaries" and specifically when I met the love of my life and began to write "Where do we go from here? UP", left with but two brothers - I began to realise that when I had little time to put into my relationships with them (because I was trying to arrange everything for release, for ALL of us), it all just faded away.

This was the point of my last diary entry.

I realized that unless I was constantly on the phone or pushing then there was nothing.

It would not be this way, If it was REAL. If it was REAL in the first place then nothing could tear it apart.

The relationships were solely maintained by me and my energy. If I stopped, it stopped.

This sounds basic but it was a big realization point: One day I was working really hard "for all of us" alone in my room, my love in Canada, and I saw online that all three of my brothers were together around one of their houses for food and the night involved "The Beatles". This was where a moment of clarity came to me. Spanning a 10 year period, only three times could I recall ever being invited out (I invited myself numerous times)! What kind of dream was I living in? To believe that they cared for me? That we were destined to be together?

This is where I realized that I was not seen as a spiritual partner, guide, brother, hell not even a friend.

I was firmly boxed away under "work".

These were relationships created and maintained by me. They probably saw me as an eccentric, artistic "musician" they kind of knew.

I believe that relationships are two way entities.

When I needed these people the most, all three of them turned away.

I DO NOT BLAME THEM. I DO NOT THINK THIS IS BAD. I wish them the best in following their own paths.

I only wished that early on I knew the difference between real relationships and ones that I was forcing.

I realized very early on that one of the brothers would never come all the way with me but I fought that instinct for many many years believing that he would be true to his word. My instinct was right. In the end he left.

The soul brother was always on the fence and I was unsure with him. It was always 50/50. In the end he left.

I must keep moving forward with the hope that I will one day meet people who's destiny it truly is to live, love, and work with me.

This period in a lot of ways is as hard as letting go of my childhood. To let these people go and move on within MY OWN SELF.

I truly had some of my best moments and loved these people.

I guess that what it all means is that we all have different destinies and for one moment these lines can come together and in that one moment everything is REAL. From then on we replace this energy with patterns and falsehood.

Nothing is good nor bad. Everything just IS.

I hope in my future to meet my true brothers of the world and that they enjoy me as much as I them.

To my brothers - it has been very hard to let you go in my heart and soul but I wish you all the best!

To my future brothers - you must give as much as you receive! On every level! Safety is not an option!

living is easy with eyes closed

Richard Hodgekins

15 Days: Removing frustration to pure the light

2011-11-30T18:01:00.004Z

Ever since I can remember, frustration has always been built into me creating art.

I used to draw the turtles or the thundercats and if it was not exact I would bite my arm screw the paper up and throw it in the bin, what I did not realize was that art is a human expression! It cannot be perfect! It is altered the minute you make it! The minute you manipulate the energy its form has changed!

I have felt this frustration in increasing amounts over the past four years and now is the time for it to be gone, I have held it close as a part of my expression or my channeling but whether it is integral to my channeling or not I now need to remove all frustration within communication and creation. I will be a positive source, no matter how poor of an example I feel.

The teacher always blames himself and not the student. But I honestly believe that I could no more for the people around me before I came to London.

It has been easy for me to be a light and join people together within their own comfort zones (like a pub) and explain to them a particular task within the bigger picture. People can understand that recording an album requires particular mind sets, dedication, belief and concentration. However as soon as I realized that this power and channeling is nothing to do with creating art and is more a way of living or actually it is LIFE itself then it became a harder sell from me. In fact it became just that a SELL.

It's like "Don't mess with my PERSONAL life Richard". "Mess with my JOB, I get it if its a JOB like playing an INSTRUMENT but don't make me hold a mirror up to my REAL life".

There are no jobs. It is all one and the same. Its a real shame that some people will go to their grave having never worked this out.

I ended up having to leave those people behind because I cannot stand still, I can only help and guide the same people for so long until it becomes clear that they have no intention of ever becoming the things that they dreamed of.

I came in the end to realize that some of those people will never understand. Moving out of their comfort zones is too much for them. People need to box things instead of realizing that there are no things - just feelings towards things due to comparison or relation.

I cannot make people move forward, and I cannot believe that If I do not keep pushing them then they will fall back.

When that becomes the case, I have to move on. Someone somewhere else IS willing to understand and IS willing to push themselves.

I am here for those people.

I have to believe that I will attract people who want to move their life forward too.

If i am stopping to turn around then i am not moving forward myself.

I now have to do my job everyday and my job should feel good.

If it does not I either have to stop doing what I am doing in that moment or it is my frustration with myself and I must change my feelings.

You are either getting it or you are not. If you're getting it you are asking questions. I will answer. I cannot ask the questions for you.

I have my own.

16 days: Movement of my energy

2011-11-29T15:24:00.008Z

This period is all about me getting my connection to "IT" into a the right vibration. I need to elevate myself into the right position.

You do not need to be in a certain place nor read a certain book to gain knowledge.

All the knowledge that you will ever need lies within yourself.

Sometimes you need to move away from energies that are your polar opposite or you may need to follow an idea without knowledge of the "Why?".

I have moved to London. I felt that the energy was right and I packed my bags and left. "Technically" I have no idea why I am here. "Spiritually" I know very well. My energy lead me here.

You need creativity to be inspired to move. If you have everything planned out this will not work.

I have been working toward the "Where do we go from here? UP" vision for four years now, so to keep this from feeling "worked out" is a tricky maneuver.

I know can do it.

What I need to do is to follow the path that lead me here. Carry on with my original vision. It has been one strong focused vision for four years. This has been my gestation period.

EXCEPT.

I will be open, adaptable, CREATIVE, feel good and enjoy this period.

Make sure I launch just as envisioned.

Most importantly - Receive.

As a channel we are only here to channel the energy and turn it into form. We must use our brains and bodies to relay this energy back out. We must do this by using ourselves to stay true to our true purpose here. We must understand how the brain works and that we through the brain controls the vibration of our channel. Our channel must be in a ture vibration to recieve what we are destined here to recieve. This will always feel good to us.

The brain is just the switching station.

There are three types of bad thought that can ruin vision, experience hence expression and recievership.

Bad though 1

One is a pre-programed brain paradigm which we have been condition to believe is bad to us. We see/hear/feel this particular moment and we active a picture within the brain that moves our channel into one of a negative vibration. It makes us feel bad. It is actually neither bad nor good. Something only becomes bad or good when we relate it to something. Relative badness is fake and we must remove these levels from our brain.

Bad thought 2

The only way something can be bad is if it is spiritually bad to our true pathway/destiny here in life. If we think this thought it is only there to be an opposite representation by the brain of what not to do because the brain does not have a clear picture of what TO DO when you are following a feeling.

Why it is there is that there is the real thing to do and there is not the real thing to do in every situation. Because doing the real thing is not a plan or most of the time, the brain does not have a picture and is usually a feeling, the only way the brain process this information (because it needs a picture) is to show you what not to do.

Bad thought 3

This is a thought that you are aware of that is just the opposite of a good thought. You are only aware of this level because you can now actually "see" the brain working.

Understanding it all

Things just ARE. They are nether good nor bad but our brain has to see things in positive or in negative because the brain is a switching station. Your brain is not you. This leads you to understand that you may as well see the good side of everything.

The universe works within natural periods. Tide in, tide out. Day and night. None of these are good nor bad. You may have good times or what you perceive to be bad times. These are just a natural part of the universe and each stage or period within the larger period is beautiful and is there to be experienced and enjoyed.

Enjoy the tougher times because you are on your way out of them.

Everything also has cause and effect. You NEVER need to concentrate on the effect. Concentrate and stay focused on your CAUSE and the effect will take care of itself. Only work out what the effect of your existence should be one time at the very start of your journey and this will give you the answer to why you are here.

If someone gives you a negative comment - it is not what is happening to you. If you move on un-scathed - Its how you take it.

It is not what happens to you - it is how you take it.

Energy keeps moving forward into form. It has and always will exist. This is fact. You existed before you were in that body. You will continue to exist. Your parents having sex did not create you, you moved into a different form through that action.

I wrote a song, I did not create it, it existed and I moved it into form. I and you are vessels.

Science calls this energy. Religion calls it god.

Ever present.

The same entity.

I am putting this all together because I need to be the purest and have the purest understanding of it that I have ever had for me to be in the right position to release "Where do we go from here? UP".

Where do it come from? The universe. Who channels it? me/you.

Love to you

Richard Hodgekins

17 days: The power to receive

2011-11-28T16:48:00.006Z

One of my main focuses as I move into this final stage is to move my being into one of receivership.

As an artist there are different periods or stages of a piece of work.

Something like:

1. Awareness

To be aware of a surrounding thought, feeling or movement within the aura sphere. The subject must not turn their full gaze onto this incoming energy or it will go away. The subject must allow the energy to come and go within the subjects aura whilst trying not to let the human brain perceive but to merely be open to movement.

2. Movement

To remove all of ones faculties in order to capture the energy as quickly as possible so as not to tamper with its pure being.

3. Release

To let go of all physical ties to said created object or manifestation and allow it back to where it came from, now with altered form in order to do its job once again for the next recipient.

Receivership?

Now you may ask where receivership plays into the end of this? And true to your thoughts it is a tricky concept.

Especially when one takes into account that as a vessel we should always be in a state of receivership.

At the end of a process though it feels too much like reaping rewards.

A lot if not most if not ALL performers/artists will have some type of psychological reasoning pertaining to why other people need to hear, see, smell, touch or taste their particular piece of art.

In short: Most artists do what they do because of a psychological need for attention of some form.

This has always stumped me because I do not feel the need to be applauded, rewarded financially nor revered at what I do to feel any satisfaction at what I do nor to feel complete. I feel complete by pushing myself. You do not need to read books, everything that you need lies within. I feel no need for reward. Nor outside influence other than that of the universe.

I am the light that guides the way and I am here to document being just that. Within being a document I feel that I have embarked upon the journey of heart, mind, body and soul which I believe are universal truths so therefore by being myself and pushing my existence to its limits, physically, mentally and spiritually, I will be documenting a full life that in turn will give back to the universe that created it by highlighting this pathway.

So you could see where I have a problem building receivership within this end part of the "Where do we go from here? UP" journey.

But I feel that I do need to build receivership into this end point just like I would get myself ready to receive if I was about to write or record.

Why do I need receivership?

I believe I hold a creative relationship with the power that feeds me. I believe that this power is endless. I believe that the end of receivership is the start of awareness.

Now I do not need money nor attention to do my job here on planet earth. I just need to document. But I am starting to believe that the reason that people feel these type of feelings is because of a basic law. The need shall be fulfilled if the subject understands how to channel the power of want.

We can always trace a lot of our brain problems back to our childhood.

This is where I hit a block because it feels that I do not do what I do to receive money but why would that be bad?

I was raised to think of money as an object of pressure, frustration or to be completely ignorant of it due to it being an un obtainable commodity (within large sums).

This has led me to run within the context that money has no relationship what so ever with me or what I do.

This is true.

I know how to get what I want (true vision: which essentially needs you to be of the level of knowing who you are and what you truly want) without the use of money.

I have always held the idea that a person should be creatively rich and wealthy ( I didn't say financially (but why not?))and especially rich and wealthy within the heart, mind body and soul.

I have been bred into a belief that money is a bad thing.

Why have i held bad energy towards money? Would inviting it into my life be a bad idea?

The answer is no and here is why.

If you know why you are here and you know what you are here to do then being open to money as a resource to aid your journey for the greater good has no problems.

I would not turn down a song that came knocking, I would be ready to receive. Am I too scared to admit that my vision of myself is not one of the starving artist, that I am here to help on a large scale? That there is absolutely NO MERIT in starving!

Does it matter If the guide requires happiness and wealth in all areas so he can teach you to receive it too? Or does he need to be a pauper dressed in rags to convince you he is real?

Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa were both highly wealthy people. We like to paint them into rags to prove some sort point that it has more merit if it comes from "one of us" how about we become "one of them" instead.

Too hard? Too bad. The only way is UP.

I am here to move UP and to document it. Merely because the level of money has not been allowed to be abundant within my life and I believe I will do more good by receiving it. I hereby remove these chains.

From this day forth I commence that Richard Hodgekins sees no problems with being abundant in ALL areas of life including those of a financial nature. My pledge to this statement is that I will strive to do my best to document the life of a human being who is alive on planet earth and by shining my light as brightly as possibly. I here by swear that I can be trusted to use said riches to expand the awareness of others by documenting my pathway and doing my utmost best to be the man that I know I can be.

I will now look upon money from a point of receivership and know that it can and will only be used in the form of good from my end as now a part of my destiny.

So let it rain down upon me and let it water the many seeds that I have waiting for it.

your friend always

Richard Hodgekins

18 days: Removing the cork

2011-11-27T20:07:00.007Z

Hello my good friends

I trust that you are well and I send you the kindest wishes from my soul

Within my existence so far here on planet earth you could somewhat compare me to a bottled maturing wine that has been waiting for it's moment to be opened and poured out into a glass.

This has been a long hard road. My hand in now on the door. I can feel the presence behind it and it shall be wonderful!

The time has come to for me to remove the cork.

I have been waiting, building, meditating on and moving towards this moment for all of my life.

Where do we go from here? UP - December 14th 2011

I will be here tomorrow

Your friend

Richard

A bigger picture

2010-02-18T14:41:00.006Z

Leonardo would sit and stare silently at the naked wall for weeks, even months.

All anybody else could see was an empty space, a void.

Leonardo saw more. A bigger picture.

He would sit for hours finding the way, listening.

After several years people began to ask him what was he doing?

As I have sat here for the best part of a decade, in one room thinking, listening and waiting for the time to make my move, my answer is the same as the old master's:

I am doing my best work

Never intent - always the truth

2010-02-15T17:12:00.003Z

Over the course of writing the portrait diaries many things about me have changed. Many things are still the same and some things are in a moment of flux.

I am only always getting to the core of what is already in me, nothing ever feels new - just re-awoken.

Most artists kill themselves internally to do what what they do. Why? Because they are trying to wipe the slate clean. Being clear is being pure - turn the light on so I can see you.

You can't paint on a dirty canvas.

The mind tries to get in the way of the pure message that we can all hear if we really want to and it's not just artists its everyone - the whole human race.

It takes a lot to strip away the layers of the mind. Like what?

Like removing people and actions from your life that are just patterns and not based on the true you that is in your core.

Does that mean removing a relationship? It can mean that.

Does that mean my job? It can mean that.

Does that mean my parents? It can mean that.

Does that mean my siblings? It can mean that.

Being true takes a lot of bravery. I hope - if anything - the portrait diaries have documented not only a path of letting go but a path of bravery. It is ok to fall to your knees, just have the faith that you will get back up. Sometimes you have to fall to your knees to get back up.

You have to go back to the beginning to wipe it clean. Clean it out.

The past is gone, it is not actually happening now. The future is not here now either. The only thing that is here now IS NOW. Any feelings that you now have that are based on the past or based on the future should not demand how you feel now.

Now is how you feel now. Imagine being born right now with no past and no sense of the future, THAT is what it feels like to truly be here now. Imagine what you would have to strip away to feel that.

There is your starting point.

That was my starting point when I began the portrait diaries and that is my starting point everyday.

"What happens if I strip away who I am?"

Well do you believe that you are your past? Do you believe that you are your future?

You are not on that scale. That scale is just a measure - it's not your very being.

Do not be scared.

As I go along my path toward the light I am documenting my way. I am leaving sign posts. Not for anyone to follow. But just to say "I was here".

Here is where I will do my best to draw the line around what I am at the core and something that will never change. It is hard to come across a concious statement of artisitic intent.

Maybe I've read a few over the years.

Bob Dylan "I am my words" or Rimbaud's "I is another".

Here is mine to set it straight, to set it clear, to set it free:

Life does not imitate art. Life is art. My life is my art. Everything is as important as everything else. Everything is everything. I am not trying to be. I am. That is my life. That is my art.

If my 'work' means something to you and has come into your life for a reason then I smile upon that - If it means nothing to you at all - then I equally smile upon that too.

Our lives are ours to live. I am just documenting mine.

The journey is open to all.

Magic and love to you

Be brave

Richard Hodgekins

February 2010

The album is complete

2009-09-22T11:00:00.001+01:00

A deep breath

ah! (and all of the things you think that would mean). I am exhausted on every possible level. Working on a record, or to put it better, having a piece of work hanging around my neck for the last two years has been an immense pressure.

It feels as though no-one on this planet could have worked more hours over the past two years than me!

I swear it. I feel barely alive. Wow.

Ok down to business..

Mastering a 3D album

Mastering is huge subject and a contextual process, so to explain my thoughts on it fully would take about a week so I will nut-shell it for you.

When I sit in my studio I am mixing recorded audio and I am following the journey of making the instruments and that particular recorded moment, true.

True to what it actually sounded like at the time in the room. This in itself is totally different to what most people who make music are trying to achieve.

Most people are trying to achieve what sounds "good" as opposed to being a "true representation" and with me being a documentarian, aiming to make something sound "good" is completely irrelevant.

This includes writing/performing/recording/mixing and mastering.

What the mastering part is, is a process in which I have to try to make sure that the sound of the record gets to you, in as close a representation of what it truly sounds like as possible.

For example: The world cannot all experience the record in the room where I mixed it so as soon as somebody is listening to the record in their player, in their particular room it sounds totally different. Well times that by the population of the world and you can imagine the context of trying to get it to sound true over the average.

It is never going to sound right on all systems and I cannot rectify that but because "right" does not really exist then it just "IS" what it "IS".

ie wherever you are listening to it is a representation of where your listening to it too.

When I am mastering the mixed songs, I am eqing them, trying to put onto them the frequencies that the room I have mixed them in was fooling me into thinking was actually there. This is what gets lost when you get to hear them - the room acoustic that I completed them in.

Another part of mastering - more commonly known - is to get the songs to sound "loud" so that you can compete with other artists.

This is quite simply your typical macho stuff - "I am a man, I have more muscles than you therefore I am better" ie "My song is louder than yours, so it is better".

Well I have absolutely no interest in playing this sort of game. If "Where do we go from here? UP" is quieter that somebody else's album and then a person who is listening thinks "Oh this is not as good because it is not a loud" then that is their loss.

The odds for why not to make it sound squashed and loud - far out weigh the reasons of why to make it sound that way.

Transparent Mastering

The main reason that I know I have followed the right direction in this area all comes back to the album being a document of a period of time and NOT a game.

Why?

If you listen to most music nowadays it is compressed and limited to hell, it sounds terrible and do you know why?

Number one: Music is not dynamic anymore, there is no realness to it. It is designed to be on in the background at work, through ipod headphones or played in a club. There is no dynamic within the track, there is no louder parts than others, there is no "moments" that rise and fall, it is all very flat.

This is designed so that the general public can keep sitting at their computer with the radio on and there will be no sudden "loud" part to a song, nothing to distract you from the trance of your daily routine - background music.

This has basically stripped away dynamic feeling from music. The fact that you cannot be disturbed from your computer by a moment in a song that suddenly swelled (think orchestral music) is the wrong direction for music to go in, in my opinion.

Because these usual techniques make the sound flatter and squashed that is how most peoples music gets LOUD and that is what they want the "My song is louder than yours" scenario.

"Where do we go from here? UP" is as true to it's true dynamic form as I could possibly make it. So in this sense I hope that it is a fresh difference to most music that you could experience.

I have made every effort that I could to make my mastering as transparent as possible and I have been very careful with the audio.

Mastering is a contextual process and obviously if I was making "Hard Rock" music then volume and that compressed sound might matter - anyway what I am trying to say here is "Where do we go from here? UP" has been preserved as best as possible.

It is actually not a quiet record but that is not my point. My point is that people think that mastering is something that it is not. Mastering is the same as any creative scenario - contextual and in this scenario the context is "Realness".

Replicating my acoustic environment is what this mastering process has been all about.

3D

I have really tried to put the album across in it's 3D space, I have been developing as I have been going and am pretty happy with the results. Depending on where you are sitting (in comparison to your speakers) you will get a completely different experience of the record. Try it out. You should be able to "see" in your minds eye exactly where the narrator/singer is positioned and where the rest of the music is positioned, it's a deep level to the album.

There is never a more extreme version of this than through headphones. If you listen to the record out loud, directly in front of your speakers first and on your next listen you listen through headphones you will find you have two different albums.

This is intentional.

Whilst listening out loud you are invited to be a part of the room within which the record was recorded (along with the mystical magic that surrounds the room) and you can observe all the goings on in front of you but when listening through headphones you actually become the room itself, the room is you.

Try it.

The end is near

So in terms of the audio, my work with "Where do we go from here? UP" is finished.

It has taken me a great number of years to get here.

I have no firm release date to give to you yet but rest assured things are moving ahead exactly as they should.

It will not be long.

I can't wait to share this record with you.

Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 5 - The Magic

2009-08-21T09:18:00.000+01:00

'Where do we go from here? UP' is not only a document of a time period presented to you real and in a way that is raw but it also touches upon the fact that there are things within the room or within our lives that we don't see or hear and we can't always capture or document.

This is duality of 'Where do we go from here? UP'.

Because the songs are a narrative then the vocal is what leads the moment, or perhaps present the moment to you the listener and within in that itself it demanded that I did not mix the band parts too action packed or too loud. It is much more subtle and gentle than you would think, very quiet and very still no "big" bass or drum moments - we served these songs gently and connected to a very beautiful thing, that In a lot of respects sounds totally different to any record that I have ever heard.

These performances are not ashamed to be rough, to be raw, to be quiet and to even be underplayed sometimes. They are unashamed of what they are and as I said earlier as a producer I have had to raise my bar to a much more mature level and let go of thinking that everything has to blow away the listener in volume or be "Action packed". There is beauty in the stillness.

However what was there, sometimes within and sometimes around these performances was the Magic. The moments that were put on straight after the live take to quickly try and capture what ever was in the room with us that we could not hear.

I originally thought that this extra layer would feel more cartoon like, more Disney esque but in actuality and after much work they simply come across better by being treated more real and more like spirits or destiny or actual "Soul - Feelings" that too have actually been captured on tape.

So for instance there are many combinations though out the album that represent the difference between the "live band" take and the "Magic".

All of this surrounds the narrator as he tells you his tale of reconnecting with magic. In unfolds much like a story book and the "Magic" parts can be as subtle as a Guitar part that appears to be floating above the narrator symbolizing a future event - to a much more obvious, Harp and violin part that is coming from some fare off land and into the room.

The difference being that instead of these "Magic" parts tuning in from some nether world it is as if they ARE actually there in the room with the narrator as he tells you the story.

Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 4 - Different to the opposite Producer

2009-08-20T09:09:00.000+01:00

As you can imagine with this real "In the room" sound, 'Where do we go from here? UP' demanded that the performances not be manipulated in any way. They are real and true to themselves and do not live within the scope that most people make records under.

It is not about a nice sound. It just is what it is. A document. True.

As a producer this was a huge step for me to leave things raw and go with the moments and to not try to make things sound better. I have respected the moments that were recorded and that is all.

The top of my list is to respect the actual song - above all else. So everything has been created to serve the song THEN the moment because that is also how we record - to serve the song and through that we find the moment.

This is not a pop record, it is a document and any work that I have done as a producer on it, is to be see-through and to serve it for what it is. I have not come in here to manipulate it to be something that I would "like" or "wish" for it to sound like.

The only time that anything has been manipulated is if it was something that was a technical fault to the point of getting in the way of the listener listening to the song and/or moment. If there are any, what you could call musical or technical faults within the music itself then it has stayed in the finished record as a document unless it got in the way of the song or the moment.

Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 3 - Panning with space

2009-08-19T09:49:00.001+01:00

So with the individual instruments Eq'd in respect to themselves and to create the space between the players I was left to use the space of everything in between 100% left on a speaker and 100% right on a speaker.

To use the Vocal track as my example - I would now have a vocal that had been Eq'd to sound real just like it would have been there in the room on the day it was recorded. The EQ would also have determined how close to you (the listener) that the singer was.

Now If I just panned (moved) the vocal to the left speaker or right speaker (in varying degrees from 0% to 100%) to create where the singer is placed, then that would still not create the 3D space of the studio for you to hear and for you to feel like you was there with in the room. I needed something more.

What would this be?

Subtle delays.

Instead of panning the vocal (and all of the other instruments) to create it's space I would put a subtle delay created precisely to represent my studio, on to the vocal track. So the vocals needed to be placed at the fore front - to do this I would created subtle delayed replicas of the vocal track and place them behind it and use a blend of the delay either more in the left or more in the right speaker to create a 3D space within which the vocal would sit.

For example if the guitarist was sitting to the left and slightly behind the vocalist then the guitars EQ would be slightly thinner then I would put a subtle room delay onto the Guitars Right channel and not pan the guitar at all but by putting the delay in the right speaker it creates the illusion to you ear (because you are hearing a slightly late guitar in the right) that the guitar is over on the left.

This took me months to get right.

So imagine that - with all of the recorded tracks combined and you can start to imagine the 3D space and "in the room" sound that I have managed to put across.

Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 2 - 3D EQ

2009-08-18T09:54:00.002+01:00

The 3D album

As the producer of 'Where do we go from here? UP' I want to present these eleven moments to you, as the listener, in the most real way as possible. I want you to be be-able to feel the moment in the room just as it was and to feel where the narrators connection to song is coming from.

Ultimately I only have two speakers or a set of headphones to present these moments to you with.

This is where a large portion of my time went. Most things that I originally did came off as a manipulation and sounded too "good".

So I went back to basics.

I started with the "band in the room" takes and removed all overdubs for the first stage of mixing.

Creating the 3D space

First of I would start with the Vocals and the Piano.

I would have my recorded vocal track and it would start off sounding very flat. How on earth would I get this to sound like it was here in this room, in that very moment? The reason it did not by default is as I said in my previous entry - because the studio is so small the microphone(s) on every instrument had to be very very close thus stripping any space or room from the recording.

Keep in mind I also could not create anything that sounded manipulated. I needed to get it to sound like the reality if what it was, what it truly was before the limitations of the studio had stripped it of it's true beauty.

Through much trail and error It ended being a combination of things.

In the stereo field I only have what is in-between 100% Left and 100% Right, plus the perceived closeness to the listener as low end (BASS) and farther away from the listener as thinner top end (treble) - to work with.

This is how our ears work to so I knew that in theory it would be possible.

EQ - Removing Microphones

I started with EQ. EQ = High, middle and low frequencies.

Because every instrument had been recorded close, they were all very bassy. Generally things that are closer have more bottom end (Bass) and get thinner with more top end (Treble) the further away they are.

Imagine some one whispering in your ear, it is quite "breathy" and bassy in tone - much like a night club from the outside, but don't confuse that with the fact that they are whispering close and a night club is loud and you are far away from it, that is volume not EQ.

Things can be quiet and bassy but can also be loud but thin. The difference between this is what the relationship that EQ has with space.

So by removing some bottom end from the vocal it would appear to get further away - but because this is a real recording I could not do it too much before it would sound manipulated - I just needed to remove what the microphone had put there. Basically trying to remove the microphone so that you can actually hear my voice as though you were here in the room with me naturally.

This was a hugely complex undertaking and took some highly skilled work and effort and countless hours to get the right mix of, because not only did I have to do this with the Vocals but also with Drums (snare, overheads, cymbals, bass drum), Bass, Acoustic Guitars and Pianos.

Then after individually doing the EQ on the instruments to not only stay true to themselves, to remove to microphones but also to (just within EQ) to create the space around them individually and then in comparison to each other.

This left me with still a flat 2D recording but I had put the space that was originally in the room between the musicians back in - in terms of EQ.

Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 1 - Recording

2009-08-17T19:03:00.000+01:00

One of my greatest moments of listening to any form of music was about five years ago whilst listening to Robert Johnson.

Robert Johnson is a delta blues player from the 1930's and is in my opinion the master.

However what struck me to my core was nothing musical. It was the sound recording, it was the legend of the recordings. When putting this music on I felt like I was listening in to a moment in time some Seventy years ago. On these recordings you can hear this, at the time unknown musician, putting his songs down on tape with one microphone, I felt like I was there with him in the room.

He was saying to me "This is not an art form Richard, this is a document of me in the 1930's recording my songs and you are now here with me whilst I play them".

It was spine chilling.

It was then that I fully realized what had been trying to come through me for about a decade - Music does not have to be presented in some 'Spectacular' way or polished or in a way that we perceive to be perfect. It can literally be a document of a time period and can be true unto itself - just on that level.

But I wanted to take this further, I wanted 'Where do we go from here? UP' to acknowledge itself as a document and not be ashamed or manipulated in any way that would take it away from it truly is. What I also wanted though was to serve the songs and to recognize what this time period actually was - because on a higher level the actual songs themselves are also 'Diary' songs - as in documents of moments of my life. So you could say "Why not just record them on one microphone?"

Well that in itself would be creating something that would come of as "artistic" over the fact of it being "true". I did not want an "Artistic" record but I wanted a true document. That would mean true on every possible level. A true document of the Vocals - Pianos - Drums - Guitars and Bass not only unto themselves but as a whole a true document of the whole band in that particular moment in this particular room.

True foremost to the place that these songs were coming from. Let the narrator tell his tale and let the moment in the room strengthen that.

They are not made up. They are moments of true magic that actually happened.

So with each instrument being given its own microphone(s) we would be ready to go.

Keep in mind that all of the songs are recorded live i.e everyone playing at the same time - just like you would see a live band, real and raw. To push the stakes even further as a producer I try to demand that we record no more than 5/6 takes of each song because usually anything further than that creates a more "thought out" piece which does not sound like an document of time but starts to sound more like a "Record".

"Record" as in what "Records" have evolved into since Robert Johnson - which is a manipulation of sound to either earn money or to please an audiophile ear very rare is it that you get to hear a real moment.

When I was writing 'Where do we go from here? UP' I was writing many songs a day and trying to catch just one each day in the net, then I would put that song down on my dictaphone and forget about it.

After having maybe 50 songs in a 30 day period I had no-idea what we really did have, I was just following the journey.

A couple of months later the band and I came in to record these songs. I would listen to a song from my dictaphone on the morning - once - then when the band came in I would play it to them - live on the piano - tell them the chords, give them maybe 10 - 15 minutes to read the lyrics and think to themselves and that was it. Press record and try to capture the song and the moment as quickly as possible before it became a "thought out" record.

During the recording was where problem No.1 came in. With my studio being so small and the band having to be within a very close vicinity to each other every body's microphone(s) would be picking up each others sound.

So to get around this I had to mic everything very close and this would contradict the "moment in the room" sound. We ended up with a very "Dry" recording. The exact opposite of the room sound. Ultimately I would have had some microphones just dotted around the room to capture the room sound however as I said - in a room as small as my studio this would have just created technical buzz and bleeps that would actually go against the "moment in the room" and would present it as something that it was not.

This was to be a doccument as if you was there in the room not a doccumnet of anything you want.

So with the album recorded I had raw takes, real moments captured on tape. What I did not previously consider though was that I was re-connecting with a feeling that I now call 'Magic' and I knew that this was there in the room with us as we recorded -

How could I capture this?

We would be allowed to 'overdub' (record over the top) the live recordings, the moments and add the magic that we felt was in the room with us. Creating a real moment containing the hidden things that we don't always tune into in life - like spirits or love or destiny.

Mixing the Album: The Second Half

2009-07-31T17:06:00.004+01:00

Track Six: Pathways

Track Seven: Everlasting rose

Track Eight: Fire-lights

Track Nine: For you

Track Ten: New morning

Track Eleven: Dorothy's arrival

So... I had 3 days rest after my last post and re-entered the studio on Tuesday 7th July and from then until Tuesday 28th July I worked twenty hour days three weeks.

I have slept and ate very little and felt quite hallucinogenic because I also attempted juice fasts and removed meat from my diet completely because being "full" on food gets in my way of connecting to "IT".

That may sound a little over the top but it is true.

In those three weeks I have completed the album mix.

I have followed the album as a journey and the mix unfolded in front of me, It is very complex but I know things have happened as they as should have.

I have definitely not mixed this album, I have removed my opinion from it and allowed it to breathe as a piece unto it's own self - A very hard level to achieve as a producer is to resist the want to make things sound "better" and to rise up and treat everything with the respect that it deserves as a document of a period of time.

I have done the exact opposite of what anyobody else does I have NOT tried to make this sound GOOD. It sounds like what IT is.

It is sad that so may people confine music to "good" or "bad".

I worked hard and worked fast on purpose trying to make myself mix a track every two/three days because I believe that when you move fast you can bypass the brain and connect with magic better.

This has proven to be true.

Because of the speed and intensity of which I have worked there are a few loose ends to tie up, tiny little things like audible "hiss" coming in and out in some tracks which I will be working on because it actually gets in the way of the experience plus it's not true to what was there "in the moment" on the day it was recorded.

I did not document it here day by day because I felt that talking or even recognizing what I was attempting to do would have jeopardized the point so I put my head down and here I am.

A few days of tieing up ends in the studio and then I am onto the mastering stage.

I am ehausted a little insane but definatley on the right track, I can feel the train coming and I will be leaving with it.

Mixing the Album Track Five: Pretty lights

2009-07-04T20:25:00.001+01:00

Something strange is going on. The fifth track on "Where do we go from here? UP" is "Pretty lights".

This is a point in which the albums shifts...

Magic becomes more apparent here as the band themselves have half merged with it and the line between magic and reality is becoming ever so slightly blurred.

I was betting on "Pretty lights" being a five dayer because I remembered in my mind that it had been left in quite a mess, with lot's of extra tracks overdubbed some being required, some not.

Sure enough that was how the track had been left except all of the eq and instrumentation problems that I though would occur did not happen and I pretty much sailed through it in about 12 hours. All day I felt really, really strange like abit out of my body and like something was with me all day.

It was pushing me and caused me to mix "Pretty lights" so quick and so without thought that I could not really hear what I was doing, It was very much the same as writing a song.

It was strange. But I just kept saying to myself "follow it, follow it" - something that has been sorely missing in my life over the last two years.

MY fight.

"Pretty lights" has surprised me and has told me more about "Where do we go from here? UP" than any other track that I have mixed thus far. Strange things are opening up as I progress and this track is far more important as a turning point than I had previously thought.

This is where the journey really starts to open out on more levels than just the life level.

I have blasted through these past four tracks and am doing many things to connect with myself through this record, the answers lie within it.

I have many barriers up and I am going to smash them down.

I have been working insane hours and have been averaging four hours sleep a night and the studio in this heat has been un-bearable.

So I am taking a few days to rest my ears and will be back with track six.

Mixing the Album Track Four: Run with the river

2009-07-03T11:16:00.003+01:00

Took me a few days this one. I am completely changing as a producer, the way that I mix now compared to before this point is drastically different.

I used to mix a song by weaving it's different parts in and out to come together as a whole. In a way alot like Phil Spector or Brian Wilson, not that my music sounds like that, it's just mixing to a vision, like painting.

This has been pretty much impossible on "Where do we go from here? UP" because there is no "action packing", there is no "Big" loud moment. It is all very gentle. I could have mixed with a bang but it would have been wrong. It's all about being real.

If you was standing there in the room with the band when say "Run with the river" was recorded, then the vocals would not suddenly get louder at the end or in the chorus or something like that, it would only get louder acoustically within the range of the human voice. Not a big loud impact.

The minute that I mix anything louder for an "impact reason" it sticks out as being "fake" and not true and makes you feel like you are not listening to a real moment that has been recorded.

So my old style of mixing is out. The only time I will use the old style of weaving is when an instrument represents the magic that was in the room.

This maybe some sort of turning point for me as an artist. I feel like I am letting things be and letting the work have it's own dynamic shifts and pulses.

Mixing the Album Track Three: Petal of a rose

2009-06-28T12:53:00.001+01:00

I apologize if my posts recently and for this period, seem a little vague as to what I am actually doing. This is because I am trying to work fast and re-connect in an emotional way to the pieces and just the thought of documenting seems to slow it and me down.

Yesterday I moved on to the third piece on "Where do we go from here? UP", "Petals of a rose".

"Petal of a rose" is a fragile moment about the light shining through the dark clouds about seeing tomorrow for the first time instead of the past. It is a moment that could have gone either way - this story either leads to the end of a person or a new beginning. "Petals of a rose" in many ways is the fine line that change can turn on. Change's "pin head".

Because it is a raw, raw moment emotionally, I wanted to reflect that in the recording so during the recording we pressed "record" and captured it in take one. I insisted that we do no more takes of it.

It sounds exactly like it should, raw and nervous, you can really feel the moment there in the room, there is nothing hiding just a PURE moment. You are part of it.

This is exactly the kind of "Recording" that I like. This is on my personal taste list. Mistakes, hell - YES! The beauty of music lies within it's imperfections NOT within it's "thought out" perfections. You can hear every morsel in the room.

So with this in mind, I thought that it only be right and respectful to the piece to try and do all of my production work fast - just like the take - I needed to be in that moment and not over think or over analyze anything.

It was imperative to the piece.

Yesterday I entered the studio at 4pm and left at 4am and "Petals of a rose" is mixed and finished.

It is a raw, emotional, warts and all recording and a moment that is very important to be that way within this story.

Mixing the Album Track Two: Starlights

2009-06-26T00:27:00.001+01:00

The second piece on the record is "Starlights".

This next act that follows "(Just like) Dorothy" furthers the story in terms of a dream.

The end of "(Just like) Dorothy" hints that magic could exist and that there may be hope and "Starlights" is the calm before the storm. The silent wish. A lullaby.

A lullaby that speaks to one's soul about finding and ultimately keeping yourself safe.

The real you, not the bull-shit one, not the animal. The REAL deal. The BABY.

This is the start of breaking the inner barriers down, it's the night before the morning to come.

It is becoming aware that there is a place deep inside that you can find but you don't know how to get there.

In terms of production this is "the night before" so it is a gentle lullaby.

What has been hard is that I am staying faithful to the "REAL" AND the "MAGIC". So instead of doing something very spacey and basically just doing what "I want", I have to be aware that these are performances by real people in a real room.

I am not pushing it too far and it is scary to NOT rely on production techniques and I am trying to put these across as true as possible, the beauty that surrounds the realness is the magic.

All in all it is a lullaby that is ACT 2, the night before, the calm before the start of the awakening, before the barriers come down.

It took me four days to mix. An improvement. I still need to be faster.

Tomorrow awaits.. Track three.

Power of the Gods

2009-06-23T12:20:00.001+01:00

I could not sleep last night. Finally got there at about 6.30am.

I am about to go back into the studio to carry on with mixing the rest of this record.

I have come full full circle and feel just as I did before I started recording two years ago.

Which is strange because "(Just like) Dorothy" was recorded before the rest of the record in separate sessions so only now am I able to re-connect with this record properly.

As I said "(Just like) Dorothy" is a question so for the past few months I have re-gressed back to where I was when I wrote that song and have not felt well, mentally or spiritually. It is not healthy for me to always be working on past works when I break through so many barriers to get them recorded I don't need them hanging around my neck.

I feel this journey is laying before me now and I do not know what will happen.

I am going in today to start "Starlights" and to tap all the powers that I can to search for the positivity, to believe in myself, to believe there is more and to finally start the whirlwind that will spin me back home.

Maybe it had to happen this way.

I am going in and looking to the songs as the answer that they gave to me two years ago, I need to take that step towards re-connecting to the real inner me.

To feel, not think.

I feel nervous.

This is going to take SOME power.

The power of the Gods.

Changes

2009-06-18T15:42:00.000+01:00

I am going through some changes. I have not been looking after myself very well and have realized that I could be a classic early death (always knew anyway), just not this early.

I know what these things are and I am going to fight them.

That being said, I finally finished mixing "(Just like) Dorothy" on Monday 8th June.

It took a lot. I know what my mistakes were and can see them and am rectifying them within myself.

I cannot really express just how complex what I am going through is. Over time it shall become more clear. Hey, maybe one day I'll actually get to express myself in the here and now instead of playing a continual catch up with the old me...
..and in that is where the actual problem started.

How things have worked for me.

(Just like) Dorothy

This song came to me and I wrote it within the time of how long it takes to play it. Literally written in under 5 minutes. DONE.

Then we recorded it that very night and the recording is, I think, take 3.

Back then my point was to not show the band the song before take one, just tell them the chords and go for it. The final is take 3, which rolls in on the tape about 19 minutes in, so all in all I wrote the song in 5 minutes then as soon as I wrote it we recorded it in the studio within 25 minutes.

All in all 30 minutes. That is how fast I work and SHOULD work all of the time.

It is no harder than that. That is why there is so many albums recorded.

Then everything that goes into setting up business and websites and videos etc... meant that TWO YEARS later I have to mix a song that took 30 minutes and because I am two years away from it. it takes me ten weeks.

I need to BE a song to complete it.

30 minutes. DONE. 2 years = Ten weeks. FINISHED.

I am not moaning. I am learning.

I have to work fast.

I believe in this record an I believe that this all happened for a reason.

I just cannot go on like it.

In the future I will strive to be in a position once and for all to achieve the full potential of my powers and what is needed for that is freedom and speed.

Things have to change.

Talking in visions since I was a kid

2009-05-27T23:34:00.003+01:00

Nobody said it was going to be easy..

When I have a vision I fight endlessly for it.

I will try and communicate what that is like a little better for you...

Have you ever had a panic attack? or maybe had "that" feeling just before you jump of a high diving-board into a pool or maybe how you feel on an aeroplane just before you take off or.. on a roller coaster before the drop.

Well imagine that feeling except prolonged for insurmountable amounts of time and it will not go away. All of the time you have to stay focused through it because it is that feeling that is the barometer of whether you are getting what you are doing right or not.

Well that is what I walk around in all of the time, until something is completed.

Then guess what? It starts again on the next thing.

However there is a different way and I have only got there once.

When I was recording this record.

When I was there it flowed pure.

There are a few tricks to it that I have worked out mainly to do with re-wireing the brain.

Give yourself to it

I know that if I sit here endlessly trying to get.. say the piano sound or vocal sound "right", then eventually I will. It is not endless, however I think it could be instantaneous if I was tuned in correctly.

How will I tune in?

What I am going to try is mix and finish a version of "(Just like) Dorothy" everyday starting tomorrow instead of concentrating on the vocal then the piano endlessly.

What my Brain will say to this is "Well what's the point? Just get the Vocal right first. If you know it does not sound right then why move on?". And I will also get that feeling of endlessness.

And the key to the brain is..

"Because mister brain with speed comes connection plus mister brain you are not in control of this, you are just a PART of the channel. Except your part. Your part in this is to be clear NOT to think".

So in a way speed will bypass the brain slightly and open the channel further.. it will not be perfect straight away but with a little time I think it will come.

Nobody said it was going to be easy..

p.s the brain is not your enemy, just a little difficult at times because brains like patterns. Remember the brain FEELS better when it is part of the WHOLE and not allowed to rule as "just" a pattern.

New Direction

2009-05-26T12:57:00.000+01:00

It is what it is, not what it's not

There are so many thing's that I have been approaching with the wrong mind frame mixing this record that I could not mention them all in detail.

These songs are documentations not pieces of perfection.

There is no such thing as perfection.

Perfection is in the eye of the beholder.

Are they close to what they were suppose to be?

The point is that I am going one higher than that theory and saying that the

"What determines if it is "right" is how close to what it sounds like in my head"

is actually not true.

This whole album was given to me by "IT" and I NEVER knew what it was, I just followed it.

I have been a fool to think that this has ANYTHING to do with me at all.

All I have to do is follow it.

These songs were not created in the context of "the world" hearing them.

These songs are what they are, not what they are not.

I have been obsessing over getting "(Just like) Dorothy" exactly like it is in my head but that is not true to it. It is not what is in my head, "It" is what "It" is.

I think that I can be forgive myself for taking a good few weeks to re-gain my bearings, going round in circles is not always bad but I think that I am re-connecting now.

I was trying to up my gain on a technical level and using my brain instead of using a balance of my Heart/Mind/Body and Soul to reconnect to it.

Strap in. Here we go.

Mixing the Album Day Thirty Nine "(Just like) Dorothy": Hardest day of all

2009-05-01T00:15:00.002+01:00

I just don't know what to do here.

It feels as though all of the work that I have put in doesn't really mean anything.

I can't get it to sound right.

Today has been my first mix day.

I have done 12 hours straight with only a half an hour break and surprisingly my ears are fine, they have held up well. I think that they only "go" when I keep listening to the same part over and over again.

I hope, because I am at the end of the day, that it sounds worse than it actually is.

Maybe tomorrow.

I can't get the vocal to have the clarity it needs, when I pan (move instruments left or right within the stereo field) everything out of the way of it then the "room vibe" is too thin.

This is one huge battle.

I feel like I can't hear it. There is too much information, but I feel that way when there's just a Vocal and Piano at the start so there's not really too much information, there's just something that hasn't quite fell into place yet.

My ears are tired now so I'll have to stop.

Also today I have felt quite insane and nervous and I don't know why.

Lack of sleep and sheer concentration probably.

Come on magic. I believe in you.

Mixing the Album Day Thirty Eight "(Just like) Dorothy": Just like writing

2009-04-30T00:28:00.001+01:00

I spent a decade of my life writing songs in one room. Non stop basically.

When I got to a basic stage where I could write roughly what I needed to write, then that meant I could go on to record them.

After recording I realised that song writing came to me stronger if I pushed myself, let go of "Thinking" and merely "Tuned-in" and wrote - no matter what.

But it WAS important to write for all of those years to LEARN that lesson.

This is much the same as where I have been slowly getting to with 'EQ, panning, delays, compression' & all of the other "technicalities" that go along with finishing one of these recordings.

I am now getting ready to let go and "Feel" the record, I want to look though it like a looking glass into another world.

When I write, there are many ways to tap into what is there, one way is to say, I'm going to tap in. no matter what and except what comes.

Well, dare I say it, I think I am ready to tap into "(Just like) Dorothy" and let go.

I could be on the wrong ground at the wrong time here but I am going to attempt to say that I will finish this song by Saturday.

I hope that by letting go, my powers will increase and magic will guide me.

I believe.

Mixing the Album Day Thirty Seven "(Just like) Dorothy": Nothing gets in the way of the message

2009-04-28T23:53:00.001+01:00

I have staggered through today. There have been many "artifacts" on the vocals that had to be removed. Digital "clicks" and "blips", some phase issues from leakage. (IE the "Vocal" is picked up slightly on the "Acoustic guitar" track so when both are playing it can phase out the vocals (cause a nasty sound)).

You see there is A HELL OF A LOT of work here just to get things that ARE REAL to sound REAL!

It has been S-L-O-W work.

Also I have pondered on what to "leave-in" and what to "REMOVE".

These are real "In the room" takes remember so I can't and don't want, everything to be clean.

I have justified what stays in and what goes out (Seat noises, digital clicks/pops, heavy breathing, Phase) based on instinct.

The rule is: If it takes you out of the moment long enough to notice it then it goes.

The moment and the message is more important than the "Room" sound.

Nothing gets in the way of the message.

Over and out,

Richard "audioitus" Hodgekins the Third

Mixing the Album Day Thirty Six "(Just like) Dorothy": Thank you delay

2009-04-27T14:23:00.001+01:00

Thank you delay.

Everything that I have been trying, every test that I have done to create the space that I have wanted - lies within the use of delays.

Subtle delays.

What are delays?

For example: On a recorded piano track, you can treat your dry (non effected) original track with effects. Now I am not using crazy effects here, I mean they are probably so subtle that you can barley hear them, but it's got to be right.

If you imagine an echo from the top of a mountain.

"Hello - hello - hello - hello"

Each "Hello" progressively getting quieter. Now imagine controlling how many repeats of "Hello" there are and where they are spaced around you - High - Low - Left - Right - to create the sense of space that you are in. Now imaging controlling the volume of each "Hello". Well that is delay and subtle use of it can create spaces.

That has been the hardest part of all of this. Because when I am finished you will not hear the delay at all - Just the space that it has created in the stereo field.

It is much easier if in your head you could hear an "Over the top" effect because then you can find that easier.

Like a HUGE space, but that's not what I am doing. This record was recorded too dry and the sense of the "Room" that is was recorded in needs enhancing.

I have my theory of what I have been trying to do 99.999% now and I am so pleased that I got there. But I'll fill you in on that in another entry.

For now, I just wanted to landmark here that this is and was all about using DELAY.

So thank you delay

Mixing the Album Day Thirty Four "(Just like) Dorothy": Being Subtle

2009-04-26T00:05:00.001+01:00

You would not believe how long this is taking me.

I feel like I have learned about five years worth of audio lessons in one month.

My ears are burning.

Whats it all about???

Well, I may sound like a broken record but I am trying to get this to sound like what is in my head.

Subtle use of reverb and delay to create space for a record to breath within is the hardest thing that I have had to learn in the world of audio EVER.

My ears can only last for a couple of hours a time because this is real precision work, minute, detailed, work. I have to break for half an hour every so often and that is really frustrating.

What about letting go and just following it?

I will. That time is coming. I have been testing, testing, testing.

Why? Because I am trying to give the sounds more ROOM.

If you want to imagine, I am sitting here now on my own in the studio for anywhere between 12 and 18 hours a day, mixing the same song. I am not lost here. I am just not up to the standard that I know I have to be. So sometimes I am spending a whole day on say the Bass guitar sound, only to find that what I thought would work is wrong. The beauty of this, is that hopefully it is getting rid of all of my rust and cobwebs so that as I progress on to the next track I can start to pick up speed.

This is a BIG ask. But I can do it.

To give you an example of what I have been doing: I have been playing my already recorded piano track for "(Just like) Dorothy" back out over the studio monitor speakers and re-recording what is coming out of the speakers with distanced microphones and mixing those with my original piano take.

That along with subtle uses of reverbs and delays is where I am and things are starting to get to what is in my head. This record was sounding too CLOSE (like a humid day) and it needed some AIR. I have never done this before.

I am here in my little studio like a mad scientist and I will be back to talk to you - Richard

Mixing the Album Day Thirty "(Just like) Dorothy": Waiting for a miracle

2009-04-21T03:33:00.003+01:00

Waiting for a miracle

I'm still here. I have been working every day on "(Just like) Dorothy" the first song on the album. I needed to stay underwater for a moment there, to pull things back around.

Documenting is harder than it looks you know, because I have to be sort of "Final" with myself at the end of every day and with music I don't really work like that.

I was doing some things wrong on here before also. I was treating this like a blog and it is called a "Diary" for a reason - I am just suppose to be documenting here, not "reporting" which is what it felt like (to me).

I have learned some good things over the past thirteen days.

One of those is that I should not play ANYONE the work until it is done or I am ready.

It is too fragile at such an early stage. This has nothing to do with anything but trying to get whats in my head out on to the speakers. No one could possibly offer anything towards that.

Here's what it is:

When I am writing and a song comes to me it does not just come FULLY formed, I am no way in tune to it for it to be pure form.

That would be an ultimate. To capture one pure.

I think though it would probably just sound like silence.

Like I would be "There, can you hear that?" and some-one who was tuned in would say "Yeah man!" and I would say "What then?" and they would say "Nothing, it's silent" and I would say "Exactly".

That would be the ultimate, if what was tuning in was silence.

It's hard to communicate with people without putting little things in like that just to see what level they're on.

After a song has come to me and I have deciphered it and transcribed it, most of the time it has lost all of it's purity. It's like 1% of what it originally was out there as its floating around.

This is where alot of people who make music get things wrong.

It is easy to WOW somebody with technically well thought out things or musicianship. Neither in my opinion are anything to do with creating something that truly exists.

I don't understand how it works otherwise.

I'll give you an example. If you played most people Norah Jones then they would understand: "Oh, there's a live band, recorded and it sounds "Old" and "PROFESSIONAL - like JAZZ" that makes it good to them.

If you played the same people Anthony and the Johnsons then they would probably think, this is "ART" this is "COOL".

If I talked into a microphone for ten minutes then added a bongo and released it then most people would think "this is rubbish". If I played piano for ten minutes then some people might say "OH, I like piano" and some would say "I don't like piano". If I showed them a record with somebody who had "Great singing" then they would like that more.

WHY?

It has nothing to do with creating anything. Things ARE whatever they are meant to be.

Things are NOT what people think about them.

I genuinely believe that people in this world think that what something is, is what their opinion of it is.

Anyway, back to "(Just like) Dorothy". When the song came to me I captured it and then the next day we recorded it.

We being me, Chris (Acoustic Guitar/ Bass) and Lee (Drums).

So if you imagine the night that we recorded it, it was about eleven o clock and after spending all day writing, I am now in the studio trying to describe what this song is to the other two. Now I don't really know what it is myself, so we under the pressure of recoding and back then we had to record the songs within four/five takes max - straight off the bat without the other two even hearing the song and with me having some vague mirage in my head.

So there has been two stages.

1. A song has come, it was 100% then after it comes to me it has already diluted down.

2. Then we come into the studio and record it and two other "Humans" are putting their touch to it, hopefully doing their best not to think but to capture the spirit of this thing that is here with us in the room.

Now I believe that these songs actually STAY around for specific periods of time and maybe they stay for a day and that would be a pinnacle moment to record it or maybe they stay until you record them but I truly believe they are only connecting and percentages of their true real selves, I don't believe you record "IT" I believe you record a transcibed version of some spirit/soul.

Well we recorded this song over two years ago, it was special then and it is the only song of mine from a different period that has come forward to take its place within another piece.

"(Just like) Dorothy" was born before her time.

But I have worked out that the connection is only there for a limited period of time and if I had mixed and mastered it on the night that it was recorded then it would have been much easier.

I believe in this passage of time. I believe that it has waited for a reason.

However the biggest lesson of all is wiping memories of the song or the recording sessions out of the way. They too are not what it is. I cant mix this song built on a memory. It has to come straight from the mouth of whatever created it.

Ultimately in life, when things are hard or what feels like the impossible is at hand, it is not what don't have, it is what gets in our way that stops us.

I'm sure this entry does not make alot of sense, I'm sure alot of this whole thing doesn't. Where is the hope Richard? where is the light?

Waiting for a miracle ?

Don't wait for anyhting, either see it or don't see it, there is no wait.

I am looking.

STOP

2009-04-09T21:07:00.000+01:00

Today I have not been into the studio to mix.

I have been talking all day about the record.

I possibly have THE answer and the missing link.

I am thinking.

I will be back tomorrow with more developed thoughts.

Mixing the Album Day Seventeen "(Just like) Dorothy": Fighting in a different way

2009-04-09T00:20:00.001+01:00

I made a record in 2005 called "Beginning Of The End" which was my first recorded record. I mixed the whole thing WAY too loud and probably permanently damaged my ears.

I can make my ears click if I squint.

I feel the tell-tale signs of when my ears are starting to burn and now I just stop, take a rest for an hour.

I have been pinning down the mix of the Vocals/Piano/Drums/Bass today, there have been a few technical hazards on the drum tracks.

The studio is very small and because we record everything live there is leakage of the drums onto the vocal mike, guitars on the drums, and all vice versa, it's a pretty huge challenge just to get anything to sound audible let alone what is in my head.

It's also about doing justice to what you HAVE got NOT what you WANT.

I respect that. It is what it is. I can hear it. Magic.

So when getting down to mixing, if I move the vocal higher in the mix for a word then the drum sound will change and become more top end (higher/thinner). It is like a balancing act of passion, weaving in and out but being aware of the whole. I am getting used to zooming in on particular things then quickly zooming back out to hear the whole again, most of the time within micro-seconds. Like Anakin Skywalker in the pod-race.

For a time "(Just like) Dorothy" was moving way too fast and I could not hear it, not in a metaphorical way, I literally could not hear it - I was zooming in too fast, trying to take in too much information - listening through headphones - like I was listening to the Universe and waiting to hear an alien signal... CONTACT!

If this record is trying to fight me then it will not get me down.

These days I fight in a different way.

I fight by not fighting.

Mixing the Album Day Sixteen "(Just like) Dorothy": And it turns...

2009-04-07T23:20:00.001+01:00

Today was the day. No more listening to Eq, no more understanding compression, no more Technology in my way.

I put the headphones down.

I switched off my laptop.

I gave "(Just like) Dorothy" the ears to my soul.

I turned on the speakers and let the song begin to play, within minutes I realised what was there, nearly there or not there at all.

I have completely pulled it around today.

All of the build up, all of the preparation, all of the re-connecting, as deep as I had to go, it was worth every moment.

Listening through headphones was my only way BACK-IN.

Every instrument has now been treated, given it's own space and context, the story remains intact, the magic is flowing at the end.

This new way of working is still strange for me and I don't really know what has changed.

Maybe I am calmly creating rather than frantically creating.

Well whatever it is, it has got me here and now finally "(Just like) Dorothy" is ready to mix.

Mixing the Album Day Fifteen "(Just like) Dorothy": Test bed

2009-04-07T00:33:00.001+01:00

This is exhausting.

Eventually I hope to have a finished mix of a song every three or four days.

But that is something that I am building up to.

"(Just like) Dorothy" , the first track on the record has taken me thirteen.

Thirteen days so far...

I have been blowing off the cobwebs, getting back to audio land on the brain level, hoping that in the long run It will serve me well so as to be able to navigate the rest of the songs.

My time has been devoted to getting the story right, to re-connecting with the "me" of two years ago and to do him proud. I am a different man now, in many ways.

I am nearly where I want to be in the land of audio: Compression, Eq'ing, Gating, Limiting, panning, noise reducing.. If they sound like alien words to you, they are merely "tools" with which to learn how to get from what's inside my head and out to you through speakers (or i-pod headphones these days I suppose).

I had actually spent a few months a year back Eq'ing the whole record but that is out of the window, I have started from scratch.

I have not actually started mixing yet. This is a whole new approach for me. Getting everything to sit WITHOUT a mix. Also I am positing everything within it's own space and I am doing all this finite work though headphone NOT out loud.

Dangerous? Hell yes.

Do I know what I am doing? Hell no.

This approach has been most necessary, to reacquaint myself with the technology side and to add an intimacy.

If you want a record to sound LOUD you need to mix it LOUD, just to get that mentality in. A good way to mix is to mix at a "Real" volume i.e what the instruments would sound like naturally in front of you.

I am building everything around the Vocal because he is the narrator telling a story.

I am zooming in on him that's why I am starting in headphones, because this record needs to be intimate. I will be moving to speakers shortly.

I am definitely pushing it, to put a vocal so high and centered, especially when these are "Real" performances and usually take 1-4 (of the whole band) so there is a kinetic energy between the band that I cannot loose, I have to follow it without detaching the vocal too much.

This is probably the hardest thing that I have ever done.

And you know what? I will get it right. If it's the last thing that I ever do.

Upping the ante

2009-04-05T19:40:00.001+01:00

I have taken today as a day of reflection. I do not have a firm grasp on this album.

In fact it is still up in the air and that's the way that it likes to keep me.

I feel that I am in the twilight of something.

Things are about to change.

Mixing the Album Day Twelve "(Just like) Dorothy": Angel wings

2009-04-03T17:48:00.001+01:00

I am having a really hard time with the Acoustic Guitars and the High Pianos.

They play a part in the key line:

"Then she'll tap her shoe's just like Dorothy"

I just can't get them right.

I think that they need to sound like a prayer, like they are part of what is pushing the message out into the universe.

They are maybe the angel wings taking the words from my mouth and flying away with them.

It is very hard to do this in audio land.

They need to be light but not flimsy, they need to be of the soul area but not dark, they need to be away from the Vocal/Piano/Bass/Drums that are in the room but not detached.

This is proving to be the hardest part so far.

Angel wings - come show me.

Mixing the Album Day Eleven "(Just like) Dorothy": Still balancing

2009-04-02T21:33:00.001+01:00

On a tightrope here.

I am no further down the road than yesterday. I'm on a different road.

"(Just like) Dorothy" is currently in this stage of development:

The Vocals which equal the "Narrator" are sounding "Real" and are talking to you, they are talking to you from the "Richard Hodgekins" that wrote the song on the day.

The Piano is there with "Richard Hodgekins" in the very same room, except that is where the deepest part of "Richard Hodgekins'" soul is, so the timbre needs to be deep/not-distracting/in the room. With that I am nearly there.

The Drums and the Bass are locked together to form the backdrop. Imagine them like cardboard scenery except made out of gold.

So the band in the room with Richard Hodgekins = REAL, or from the book/magical perspective it is the Scenes backdrop with the Narrator almost fIXED in place now.

It is sounding very stark and not really what you are probably expecting but I have the "Magical" elements to weave in and out of this, so there will be a few more turns yet.

I am looking to capture the raw prayer like performance but present it in a way of hope, hope of what WAS to come from those very moments, a long time ago from a crying soul.

Mixing the Album Day Ten "(Just like) Dorothy": The light

2009-04-02T01:51:00.004+01:00

S-l-o-w-l-y the light is starting to come through.

Today was a great step forward. I stripped the mix back down and started again, from scratch. I now have a mental vision of EXACTLY what goes on within each track, Vocal/Piano/Drums etc...

It's getting near to me being able to mix this song in my head, which is good. It means that I am becoming one with the piece.

It is sounding much closer.

The story telling element of the narrator is coming though, the drums, piano and bass are starting to form the perfect backdrop to the scene.

The beauty of music is in it's imperfections.

A human-being doing things exactly right is only a form of control and there is nothing worse than controlled creations. You can HEAR it.

REMOVE YOURSELF. IT IS NOT YOU. LET GO.

I am bringing myself around to love the characteristics and I am seeing them as part of the charm, "good" or "bad".

How different from tearing my hair out.

S-l-o-w-l-y the light is starting to come through.

Remember

2009-03-31T18:50:00.001+01:00

This is a book. You don't think about the illustrator you just look at the picture. But if you did look at the picture you could still see a brush stoke because it's not a perfect disney animation. It is REAL and MAGIC.

Mixing the Album Day Nine "(Just like) Dorothy": Step back

2009-03-31T18:48:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I finished the basic mix of "(Just like) Dorothy". In basic mix I mean the band that was in room on the take.

So the song now has Vocals/Piano/Acoustic Guitar/Drums/Bass pretty much balanced out through out the whole song.

Now I have taken a step backward today to truly think about what needs to be done.

The questions I am asking are:

Can you hear the band in the room?

How much of the room can you hear?

Well "Where do we go from here? UP" is a story book and the songs are chapters. The vocals are the narrator describing the scene, the band are part of the scene and the extra elements are the magic all around.

All of this is going into one cooking pot to bring a REAL story of how reality finds magic.

The vocals are the narrator, but exactly where the basic band sits in the mix is really hard to get right.

Piano/Drums/Guitar/Bass.

What I have figured out at this point is that each song is going to have the balance of magic/reality but they may drastically differ from song to song.

I think that the narrative of the piece is what has to be the most important element, so if a band in the room sound would equal the "reality" within a song PLUS STRENGTHEN the NARRATIVE then that would be what is right.

But there will not be a "The band is ALWAYS the reality" rule.

There are no rules.

Sometimes the band can be the magic and a violin part could be the reality.

What I think I have got wrong with this first "(Just like) Dorothy" mix is that I have treated all of the band as the reality, because I still have the other elements to mix i.e Violin/Glockenspiel which will be the magic.

What I am going to do tomorrow is try to start again form scratch.

I will be treating the Vocal as the narrative then the drums and piano are the reality within the room (BUT ITS THE INSTRUMENTS THAT ARE IN THE ROOM NOT THE PEOPLE). The Drums are the sky, the Bass is the background and the Piano is the foreground.

Then the Acoustic-Guitars and High Piano are a HINT towards the magic that is coming.

That is what I shall try.

Mixing the Album Day Eight "(Just like) Dorothy": TIME

2009-03-30T21:16:00.002+01:00

I know that I am taking some time on this "(Just like Dorothy)" mix.

That is for a number of reasons.

When I was working on the "Where do we go from here? UP" artwork and designing/making the websites, I pushed myself to the limit, working for 20 hours a day, 7 days a week for over a year. I was smoking too many cigarettes, drinking too much tea and coke zero and all the while I had a clock ticking down in my head like it was a race against time.

My destiny would not wait.

In the end this left me completely burned out.

Life is about BALANCE.

Now there is something to be all encompassed by what you do, and I am I mean this is my LIFE.

I am always working. The clocks are always turning.

Since I finished recording the songs a year and a half ago, there has not been more than an hour go by that I have not thought or been thinking about this album.

This time for once I am reigning myself back a little bit, I'm not burning myself out early.

This will be a marathon.

I am working around 10 hours at the moment, which with a 30 minute break in the middle is good to rest my ears.

It is an IMPORTANT lesson to tell myself. I will get more and more engulfed in it as it goes on.

It is critical to ease into it.

How good will a more BALANCED Richard Hodgekins be? Time will tell.

"Where do we go from here? UP" is going to take everything that I have got and I am making sure that I've got it to give.

Mixing the Album Day Seven "(Just like) Dorothy": Mixing is like making a thundertank

2009-03-29T22:06:00.004+01:00

When I was nine I was infuriated that the makers of the Thundercats Thunder-Tank toy made it with only one seat in the front. In the cartoon it had two seats and all of the thundercats could fit into the back. The makers of the toy made it with one seat in the front and one in the back. Rubbish.

Now this is a case of "Vision" not only failing but being completely ignored. The thunder-Tank must have been designed by some-one somewhere and he approved it to have "Two" seats. So whats this? Some big cat in some boardroom somewhere must have said "One seat will be cheaper to make, so we will sell more". Whats the point? Therefore this is NOT the Thunder-Tank. I want the REAL thing or nothing at all.

Now, you would be wrong to think "You should be happy with what you got" because I tell you, when I was small I did'nt have alot.

And thats not the point anyway. I am talking about VISION.

Because of this I spent countless hours making my own Thunder-Tanks out of cardboard, cellotape and then I'd paint them. Two seats.

Somewhere back there I was figuring out something about making things. I could always make-things. I loved making things. But if I sat for days making something and it was not right then I'd smash it and then I'd bite my arm at my pathetic attempts.

I always had visions in my head. I remember when I was about three or four and for the first time I was given plasticine and with my mum I made pop-eye, she made olive.

I think that was my first creation.

Well thats the person that mixes these records and "(Just like) Dorothy" will have TWO seats.

p.s I was Liono

Mixing the Album Day Six "(Just like) Dorothy": Starting to turn

2009-03-28T23:38:00.008Z

❝ Maybe... 1920's Vaudeville except in Richard Hodgekins' head - being secretly looked upon by magic as he sleeps ? ❞

Things are starting to turn now. The wheel is in motion.

I have been working all day on the balance between Vocal/Two Piano's and the Acoustic Guitar. I still have not found the correct space within them, so that can they sit together as they should.

How SHOULD they sit?

Well I have learned something and remembered something today.

What I have learned is that the slow start and the fighting of equipment and problems does turn around, there have been moments today where I have said aloud to myself "YES!", it does all come together in the end - for a moment there I thought I was going to get forever lost in the "Technical" trying to achieve the "Spiritual".

I AM NOT OUT OF THE WOODS YET THOUGH. NOT BY ANY MEANS. CALM DOWN RICHARD.

What I remembered was to do with how the band should sound. The band and I recorded "(Just like) Dorothy" during the "Soldier And The Rose" sessions waay back in November 2006. Right from the start I knew that this song, she was different.

In the end she was the start of "Where do we go from here? UP" not just literally but on EVERY LEVEL - anyway that is a different story (is it?).

What I was saying was - that I remembered today that when we recorded "(Just like) Dorothy", I said to the rest of the band that we had to record it in three takes and that to imagine that it was "Vaudeville" or a "Stage show".

Now whats strange is how that translates when you have a REAL song about REAL life, so If you heard it, it's not really there, but it's there in spirit and that spirit went on really to become the album. Well today I am trying to think of the band in that way and I don't quite know where I am going yet.

Maybe... 1920's Vaudeville except in Richard Hodgekins head being secretly looked upon by magic as he sleeps?

It's coming...

Mixing the Album Day Five "(Just like) Dorothy":Rising to a new level

2009-03-28T00:27:00.001Z

It has dawned on me today that this could take me ages.

That I am going to have to rise to a whole new level of mixing to do this justice.

I hope that I can get better into the swing of things starting tomorrow. I really do.

I have been VERY slow of the mark with this and I am doing my best NOT to get frustrated with myself.

I have been sat here endless hours, testing, listening, thinking.

You see I have a burning desire in me to get things EXACT to what's in my head. I literally sit here listening to the same vocal line, over and over and over again for hours. I will not accept it until it sounds like I know it should. Now that puts on a big pressure, like I am trying to "control" this album into existence and I'm not.

That's exactly why I have been slow of the mark; I am trying to tune OUT of the TECHNICAL and into the Magic. But it takes TIME. I long for these mixing days to be FREE and FLOWING but it's a lesson folks that's hard to swallow. If you can hear it, you have got to get it to sound like what you can hear and that (unfortunately or fortunately) means sitting with technology.

These machines were not built to channel souls.

I think they were built for spacemen.

Mixing the Album Day Four "(Just like) Dorothy":Telling the story

2009-03-27T00:07:00.000Z

This album is ultimately telling a story. There are many threads running through it weaving in and out, which will become more apparent over the mixing stage. I will go into more detail post by post.

The way I am looking at it is that Where do we go from here? UP is like a book and the eleven songs are chapters within the book.

It is a fairy tale with magic but it is a REAL life tale at the same time. It has the realness of everyday except it shows the magic that is always around us.

I am trying to get into the studio in the mornings so that each time I go outside (about every four hours) I can see the colour of the day changing, right up-until that midnight magic hour.

Putting colours into sound and making sections feel black and white is what I am currently doing in here on "(Just like) Dorothy".

Today has primarily been work on the vocals and wrestling with TECHNOLOGY until It sounds like what is in my head.

Very early stages on the first track at the moment and I'm consciously easing into this.

If it shall be a marathon. It shall be a marathon worth running.

Mixing the Album Day Three "(Just like) Dorothy": It's all in the mix

2009-03-26T00:10:00.003Z

It has just occurred to me that many of you reading this may not know what I'm talking about, when I talk about "Mixing" and "Mastering".

I think, but not definitely, that I wrote some thoughts about it on here way back when I was mixing "Portrait Of Time" but I can't remember so I thought I would briefly explain a little bit for those of you who don't know what a "Mix" actually is.

Imagine that there are four little yous.

One little you is clicking your fingers.

One little you is clapping your hands.

One little you is humming.

One little you is singing.

One little you had roast beef, one little you had none. (joke).

So you have recorded the four yous all playing their parts fingers, hands, humming and singing.

Now imagine that you can control the volume of each little you and you can also control the sound of each little you. Imagine"Sound" as in high, as in low, as in a screech, as in a thudding bass.

Here at this point is where many producers, mixers and mastering engineers start arguing as to what "sounds" best. Which doesn't mean anything.

Can you imagine that? Arguing over four little yous.

Over the years the science of how the "little yous" hand claps sound, has become or been turned into just that: a science. with rules.

The other camp within the producing/mixing/mastering world say that it is an "Art form". That it takes years worth of career building and experience.

To me it is neither. It is very, very simple. Not simple to do but very simply neither of the above.

There is no actual point in doing it at all unless you can hear it in the first place (in hear it - I mean hear what it should finally sound like), If you can't hear it then you should be trying to open yourself to it, either when you are recording the four "little yous" or when you listen back to them.

It is NOT about what sounds good, it is about what sounds RIGHT. Not right to you or to your personal tastes but right to ITSELF, right to the thing that you can hear.

That is how you know when you have mixed it true to itself.

Opening up that channel is what is hard but it is there. You have to know it.

I could paint a blue stripe on a canvas and you could say that it was rubbish but if I know that I made it true to ITSELF then you don't know what you are talking about.

You would only be offering an "opinion".

What something actually is, is how close it comes to vision that it came in when it came to the vessel that it was born from.

A persons opinion of something has nothing to do with what something ACTUALLY is.

So that. is mixing.

Mixing the Album Day Two "(Just like) Dorothy":Into the future out of the past

2009-03-25T02:51:00.004Z

Well working on this song is really really strange.

I remember when the band and I recorded it. Three of us. It was special. They were special times. Hard times but special.

It has transported me back two years working on "(Just like) Dorothy", I am moving into the future out of the past.

Today I have been working on the end section of the song in which I have to walk a very fine line because there are hints of magic in there but not full on, it has to sound like optimism an optimistic ending by the magical ghosts that surround this soul. I have had a Harp part in my head since the day we recorded this song and today I finally got that recorded, it was a struggle but after a little while we got it and it sounds EXACTLY like whats in my head. LOVE it when that happens.

So Harp and some Violin/Cello for the end section. It is very hard for me to judge at the minute and in a way I have carried on the work in the same vein as yesterday.

It is incredibly hard working on these songs, so many memories, so much time has passed, they have been waiting for me.

Overall I would say that I have returned and I have almost been walking on egg shells, I feel that I'm being a little bit "safe" maybe too "safe", I don't know.

I think I have everything there recorded now and I will only be able to judge if what was in my head has TRULY transcribed to the song when I sit down to mix these final parts.

And that will be tomorrow.

Tomorrow I begin mixing the first track towards the completion of "Where do we go from here? UP", tomorrow "(Just like) Dorothy" gets dressed.

Tomorrow I am moving into the future out of the past. But aren't we all??

Mixing the Album Day One "(Just like) Dorothy": The Return

2009-03-24T01:10:00.001Z

Hello.

Well I obviously could not sleep very well last night but I eventually got about four hours.

It has been a long day.

Sometime during the last year, I heard parts of how the album should open and close (in my head) and made some mental notes to myself.

So today instead of jumping straight into mixing "(Just like) Dorothy" I thought that as I am starting at the beginning with the first track then I should really try to get this opening moment recorded as it flows straight in to "(Just like) Dorothy".

There are a few little "bits" like this that need to be put into the album, things that came to me over the period away from "Where do go from here? UP".

What has been hard is that the start needs to sound like a mirage, a beautiful yet poignant calling, it needs to sound like what was around Richard Hodgekins just before he wrote that song, when he was low, when he was asking to be helped.

They were there.

The mirage is to represent a mixture of people from the nether world, some who have passed, some who are here now, speaking to the Richard Hodgekins of 2006, as he was about to begin writing the song but could not hear them.

They were always there underneath the piano chords.

I think all of the necessary parts have been recorded today: Vocals, Cello, Violin and some trembling Double Bass.

However it is hard to tell because this is really going to be all about how I mix these parts to create a mirage.

I need to mix it as though the nether world was trying to reach me back in 2006.

whispering:

"Richard, it is ok, you will get there, REMEMBER.. REMEMBER"

There is also the possibility that "(Just like) Dorothy" needs some Cello and Violin at the end. You see, I need to be really careful here to stay TRUE to piece itself and to the Richard Hodgekins that recorded it.

I cannot just do what I want.

It feels like messing with fate.

I have to trust my insides and trust what has come to me over this period and be true to the songs.

I do and always will SERVE the song.

So all in all a pretty hard core day that has transported me back two years

- to a man asking for help

- I can hear him

- I will do him proud.

Spring cleaning of the Heart, Mind, Body and SoulIn six miniature chapters

2009-03-23T04:00:00.011Z

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Chapter One

Two silhouettes approaching...

Well spring is here again and another chapter of my life is about to begin.

I am eating healthier, I am walking every day, I am stopping certain brain loops and I am consciously connecting with my body.

Yesterday I was out walking, my angel and I we were singing:

"If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake, baked a cake, baked a cake.."

As we were singing, for the first time in a year and a half the moment I have been waiting for happened. I saw the image of us walking together down the road, further and further away...

"If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake, baked a cake, baked a cake.."

....and at the bottom of the screen in this vision it said:

March 2009

...then it faded away.

Right then I knew a new chapter had begun. I have had these "Movies" as visions since I was a little boy. They show me when a new chapter has arrived.

Now I Know "It" is ready.

For the interests of this "documentation", for those of you who don't know, for those of you who do and for myself (because I myself have never been back and read these diary entries), I am now going to attempt to bring the story fully up to date and hopefully fill in any holes that have been missing.

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Chapter Two

The Story so far...

Between 2004 and 2006 I recorded two albums "Beginning Of The End"and "Soldier And The Rose", both in their respected times were intended to be released as my debut album.

I was not recording and releasing them to become "Famous" or to earn money.

The point was a lot deeper.

I though, like you could imagine therapy to be, that they would heal me and help me rid myself of my inner demons and that then I would "feel normal".

Due to circumstances documented elsewhere, neither of these albums could be released, however I recognized that with "Beginning Of The End" and "Soldier And The Rose" that they were "part one" and "part two" respectively of something that had not been finished.

I needed to finish my story and I figured that I could do that with one final album.

This album would be my final piece.

I would do all that I could this time to make sure that this piece would become the debut album. I even had the thought that maybe I'll never release an album, that maybe my "therapy" would be just that.

That is where "The Portrait Diaries" come in.

On March 1st 2007 I began to document online this one final journey of making my final piece in this trilogy. I was so low and lost that if I had ended up committing suicide then at least there would be a documentation of the wrong way to try and heal yourself but if I did succeed (which seemed highly unlikely) then there would be a document of resurrection, of a human being finding themselves - either way, for the sake of humanity it would be a positive outcome.

Positive being the operative word.

That was my whole point of existence back in march 2007. All I knew about writing this album is that I had to write one song a day for thirty days and that I WANTED to look for the positivity within the songs and that if positivity was there, even a hint of it, then i would follow it's trail.

This album that I was writing, right form the start was different from before (you can go back and follow the journey for the full details), I felt the positivity in the songs and followed its every turn until I became a spirit to the music, a pure form channel.

I soon began to realise that I was really writing two albums, "Portrait Of Time" WAS the final piece to my trilogy and was about accepting what had happened to me in my life, exorcising my demons and letting go.

The other album was originally called "Where do you go from here?", then "Where do you go from here? UP" and then finally "Where do you we from here? UP".

One of the reasons for this was whilst I was writing the portriat diaries, thought the entries themselves I met somebody, this person turned out to be my angel and my true love.

Without going thorugh what I had been through in my life, I would not have been writing this album and if I had not been writing this album then there would have been no Portrait Diaries and with no Portrait Diaries my path would not have crossed with my Angel at the exact point that it had to.

Talk about your whole life coming in to context.

Without knowing it I had waited for her my whole life.

As these diary entries were unfolding something incredible was happening to me, I was reconnecting with the Richard Hodgekins from my childhood. But not the hurt child, the one BEFORE him, the one who was FREE and could see the world for what it was:

WONDROUS, MAGICAL.

I carried on writing, with these songs coming to me like never before, a distant land that seemed somehow familar was calling to me and for the first time in my life, I was ready.

I finished recording both albums.

And so with "Portrait Of Time" the final piece in my triolgy was done and did I die?

Well, in a way I did. But I would call it a re-birth.

A re-birth that happened as the old me died. As "Portrait Of Time" faded out "Where do we go from here? UP" faded in.

"Where do we go from here? UP" is about reconnecting with the true self, seeing and believing in fate, destiny and magic. It is an untouchable source that starts with me asking a question and ends with my question being fulfilled. BY DESTINY.

This album showed me that my life was not over, that it was just beginning and that I could live my life by spreading positivity throughout the land.

I wanted to quickly mix, master and finalise "Where do we go from here? UP" and take it immediately out into the world.

But then...

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Chapter Three

One step backwards to take Two steps ahead...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

- Charles Dickens,

Finding and reconnecting to my true-self and at the same time meeting my angel was almost bitter sweet.

We met at a peak, a peak of magic, destiny came blowing our way and through the Portrait Diaries two people from opposite ends of our planet earth met.

Two pathways collided.

Angels also have their own problems within this life, they too are on their own journey.. so it has almost been like starting all over again except this time there is two of us.

For the first time in my life I have lived with another human-being, in the same room, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for the past year and a half.

Both of us knowing that we have to lift off from here and out into the land, two old soldiers of life yet just a little boy and a little girl.

We have been through everything together, we have been each others rock, we have been each others enemy, we have struggled through the mind level together and through the body level too. At times I feel like I have completely regressed back to a five year old, crying out for my mother.

I have also for the first time in my life been an angry person, angry that we did not just spread our wings together and fly away.. high above the world and smile down upon it, angry that I can't change the world with my bare hands, angry that the world works in ways that are alien to me.

Angry that I got to the end and had to start again.

I have always known that doing this with my life is very hard, living by destiny, it is barely handleable for me, let alone involving others.

It is a very very very hard life, LIVING REAL.

I had just reached my mountain top with "Portrait Of Time", only to begin climbing a new mountain beginning with "Where do we go from here? UP" instantly - without pause, without rest.

It had taken me ten years of writing and recording only to reach the beginning and that is hard to swallow no matter what it is you have fought for or been through previously.

I was exhausted.

I knew that doing this with our lives together would be the most hardest of tasks.

Yet our pathways have crossed for a reason - we have followed and most of the time we have followed blindly.

I have no money, we had no-where to live, we had to take one step backward and promised ourselves that we would come out of the other side of this together.

We needed a vehicle to tour with, we needed live equipment, we needed a full time band, we needed the artwork finished, we needed a website and everything set up on-line to go hand in hand with what we are about to do, we needed to stay connected to magic and to set everything up so we could spread our wings and follow the magic of our destinies.

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Chapter Four

Cleaning the slate with a Double A Side

It became apparent that the only presence that had been put out there as far as Richard Hodgekins' work, was songs on a myspace page from "Beginning Of The End".

"Everytime I Breakdown", "TheViolenceSequence" and "MONSTERS" had done well with
a good base of people liking the records and wanting more.

However "Beginning Of The End" wasn't me anymore and what people thought I was, I was not.

I had the song "Two Steps Ahead" and felt that it was connected to "Where do we go from here? UP", then in a moment of magic I suddenly wrote the song "Where do we go from here?". Magic.

It seemed right as a whole. Releasing these two together as a Double A Side single would clear the decks of the old material and set the tone of things to come. I am not overly impressed by either song but they are a good piece of the jigsaw in the long run.

They are diary entry songs and were never meant to be "Big" pieces. They get you ready for the real deal: "Where do we go from here? UP". They get you from A to B.

For the first time I thought that it would be appropriate that I make videos
to go along with these singles.

The time had come for me to truly start my visual journey. I had always know that writing and directing film would begin at some point in my journey, so why not now?

We went through nearly a year of hell with those videos, getting formatting right, as always the inspiration and the connection to magic is there easy. It is the TECHNOLOGY that gets in the way or should I say LEARNING the technology.

I always try to capture where I am with anything that I do, so if something is rough then it's rough, the work is a documentation within itself, so I never want to come straight out of the blocks with polished perfection - but that does not exist anyway (except to those that speak but can't do).

I want my film work to evolve at it's own pace - regardless of any pressure.

At the same time that all of this was going on, the editor of the two single videos began making "A Portrait Of Time - The Documentary" which I had to oversee as an executive producer.

That brought in a whole new level of complexity.

Over-seeing this "the story so far" documentary whilst trying to move forward on my new mountain was the strangest of experiences, it was like living a double life.

I didn't want to see that man there on the tape.

Richard Hodgekins had become an entity from the past, it's like he was dead before he had even begun.

Whilst balancing all of these things and trying to move forward, in March 2008, we set a date to play the first (and to this date ONLY) live performance.

This was set up at a local venue and would be broadcast over the Internet.

Playing live for the first time I debuted "Where do we go from here? UP" in it's entirety with my band "the Magic". It was a special night. There were spirits in that room.

We had thousands of people trying to tune in to this show live online, but the sound was appalling over the Internet and most people could not even get a picture.

At that point after that first live performance, I felt connected to "Where do we go from here? UP" again and could not wait to get into the studio and finish it.

However, fate turned it's hand again and we spent months restoring the on-line footage and audio so the first ever live performance could be re-broadcast. After many months work I decided to shelve this footage.

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Chapter Five

Web-headed writer

We needed all of the on-line side setting up so that once the album was finished we could concentrate on taking it's message out into the world.

Immediately I was steeped in the web design world frantically learning java script, html, php, dreamwaver, flash, setting up data bases, you name it, I had to learn it.

Again TECHNOLOGY battled me.

I needed the websites to reflect the work that was coming.

I needed to support "Where do we go from here? UP" visually and for the long run. I have never ever felt so pressured to comelete anything.

I had to learn a whole new level of programs and tools whilst all the time feeling the clock of life tick-tockin in my head.

"Richard - get out there"

I ended up building five different websites.

It became obvious that whilst I was in that stage we may as well get everything that we need for the long run.

This has all been about the marathon - the long run - NEVER the race.

For anyone proposing to do ANYTHING like what I am doing with their life - I will repeat that last line for you.

This has all been about the marathon - the long run - NEVER the race.

During all of this I was also going though bouts of writing sprees which was even more confusing.

All of this going on, now with albums jumping up here and there saying "Record me!", I had to fight every urge in my body to not record them.

Over this period I wrote a double album, a single album and enough songs for about five albums.

I began writing my first book and designed clothing collections for "Where do we go from here? UP" and "I believe in magic".

It seems crazy. Magic works in ways that are above and beyond anything logical.

All of this time tick-tock.. tick-tock...

Believe me I heard it.

"Richard - get out there"

Something was making sure that I had been to hell and back before I was ready and now It was doing it again, only this time there was two of us and it was even worse.

There were times when I felt truly beaten, that finding your soul-mate and trying to "carry-on" with life is basically impossible.

I have learned more in the past two years than the previous twenty.

These "six chapters" that I am writing here are basically pathetic. The wealth of issues and knowledge that has un-folded and re-folded within the past year and a half is enough to drive me mad for a life time.

But I am letting it go.

At times it did not look like I would ever get here - even I doubted myself.

Yet somehow, someway the world around me seems to have slowed down again. It has began to dissipate, the sky has parted.. I can see something...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Six

...Two silhouettes approaching

"If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake, baked a cake, baked a cake.."

March 2009

Here I sit at 4am on Monday 23rd March 2009, the world is quiet, the house is still, I am awake.

I know what I have been through, I know what we have been through.

I am sure there is more to come.

But this time I am ready.

This time we are ready.

In just a few hours on this spring Monday morning I shall lift myself out of bed and return to the studio - and for the first time in a year and a half begin the work of
mixing and mastering the album that started this whole thing.

It has waited and now I am ready.

Tommorrow I begin the final run that will result in the release of my debut album.

It has been a life time in the making.

Tommorow I will look destiny straight in the eye.

And I'm going to tell it.

"Where do we go from here? UP"

Where do we go from here? UP - I can see a star

2009-02-12T16:34:00.000Z

Time has moved slowly as I have sat at this computer for a year.

Everything else has crumbled away.

I have fought for things, visual things and I have had no idea why.

"Why am I not in the studio?"

"Why don't I just finish the record first?"

"Release it - release it"

"No"

"Why?"

"I don't know, it's just not right yet, I can't look at it yet, something is telling me to wait"

Much like the ten years I spent just writing songs - It's like the blind leading the blind.

I don't know why I do what I do, most of the time.

I just have to have faith in my destiny.

It has guided me here and by now I know that it works in ways that are not always clear.

The building and the launching of the websites was very frustrating and hard to get right visually, so that they can run in sync with the rest of the work and be a portal that feels as much a part of what I do as the music does.

I have been transitioning back to the music end of my life/work after a year of artwork, website work, video and many life lessons. Also I am beginning to set everything up on the business side of things which is, as you can imagine, very hard here with such a small team.

"When is this team going to grow bigger? Where is the rest of the round table?"

"Soon"

There has been record company and financial interest running along side of all this but all I keep saying and thinking is : "Wait for the album to be finished".

And secretly to myself "When are you going to return to the studio and mix this album?", "Soon".

I have waited ten years for an album to be right. For one to come to me that I feel is the one and Where do we go from here? UP is that album.

It has been emotionally complex for me to carry on working on the music when so so much else has had to be set up, for me to be free to give this record the attention and time it deserves, not only now - but for the rest of my life.

It is as close to having a child as I can imagine. I carried it, gave birth to it and am coming close to letting it go, letting it out into the world.
I want to be at my best to be able to take the songs out on to the road and share them with people and I want to be in a position to be-able to do that with as much respect as the pieces deserve.

"They have to be real Richard" "I know, I know"

All of that has been an impossibility - until now.

My head has been clearing of the "Visual" side of my life/work and now I am about to attend to my child.

My time away from "Where do we go from here? UP" - I think has strengthened my bond with it, there were times when I felt that it could be yet another un-releasable album of mine.

Why?

Because I am still learning to take my time with my art. To learn that sometimes it's okay to let it rest, to let it mature.

Every record I have made has been a fast process - I like to write a song on the morning, record it on the evening - done. All in One day.

The songs that you hear of mine that are out there are like that - very fast - very free - instant.

I still believe in that. "Where do we go from here? UP" was recorded in that way.
The pieces/songs on the record were recorded and finished (not mixed and mastered) in the same day. Most of the time two or three songs were recorded a day.
It's fast when your insides are screaming and you are tuned in to the nether world.

But for some reason destiny and magic stepped in and said "STOP. DEEP BREATH. WAIT" and I am still learning why it did that.

The time just wasn't right, the stars were not in line.

Well the constellation is shifting and I can feel it.

"Is it real, is this IT? what can you feel? what can you see?"

I can see something shining, It is faint but....

"what?"

I can see a star.

Let it go

2009-01-18T17:45:00.001Z

Let it go.

There are a thousand million people every day in the world going about their business, talking and communicating to us, telling us what they feel, what they think, want, like, don't like and what is "right" and what is "wrong".

Add that up over the amount of time that you have been alive and that's a massive amount of information that is not yours.

It's not you. It's not who you are. It's not even part of it.

Let me put it this way:

Imagine being punched everyday by somebody. Everyday for ten years.

You, then over time become conscious of your body being hurt or you may get startled by LOUD noises.

You may yourself have thoughts of punching someone and hate yourself for it.

Then ten years later you meet the person who punched you and they say "Sorry" that they have been in a clinic and that they had problems which they took out on you. That they really didn't mean to hurt you or affect you, it was just their own problems that they were dealing with.

Then what? What about you? What about how you feel?

What about the fact that you still jump at a LOUD noise or that you are super sensitive to your body?

Nothing.

You reacted to nothing, and you reacted to the concept of somebody else dealing with their own issues and you made it or let it effect who YOU became.

It's not real.

That is what most people are doing on this planet day in day out. Reacting to each other.

Life is not a reaction.

I have seriously considered not following my path over this past year and turning my back on it and becoming the white knight on a black horse.

Why?

Because it's hard, it's painfully hard. To live in a world that is run by money and people who only care about being "Realistic".

In my moments of utter weakness I have nearly broke.

I forgot. I let the pressure in. I began making my decisions based on what some sort of final out come would be - Weighing the odds.

There are no "odds".

There is me. there is my destiny and there is my belief in that. Full stop.

I cant make decisions in my life based on money, friends, goals, realism, mathematics or calculations.
That is NOT reality. That is what WE made this world into. Not what it is.
It could have been anything. And what that anything is, is what I follow.

MY insides.

MY instinct.

That is what has led me here and I will not turn my back on it.

No matter how hard - only the ones who let go and believe will make it to the other side.

Let it go.

Let it go.

Let it go.

The art of "Where do we go from here? UP"

2008-11-17T16:58:00.000Z

Dreaming the cover

In May 2007 during the recording of the record I took two days out, those two days where very special, those two days were beautiful.

About a week prior to this, I knew that my angel was coming, I knew she would be traveling from a far of land and our faces would meet for real for the very first time.

When I met her, It felt like I had known her my whole life. I had. Deep down inside me she had always been there. In many ways she is me.

From the moment that we met and before, I fell in love with the angel of my life.

I had a dream of my angel, hovering over me with a red rose and tinging me with her magical powers, signifying a new beginning, the moment that magic was born.

I usually draw or paint or take my own own photographs for artwork but I knew this time would be different. A time for someone else to come in and capture what was truly there; the love, the magic, the realness. I work closely with a photographer on other projects so I called her and described exactly to her my dream, the vision in my head of "the ting".

We got in the car and drove and found ourselves arriving in a field with a fallen tree in the middle of it. As we headed toward the fallen tree, the clouds parted and the sun came bursting through. It truly was heaven on earth, something was looking down on us, something was ready, the wind had changed, my heart began to beat a different beat, I caught my breath and looked into the eyes of the love of my life.

We shot for about an hour and as we left we had one more Polaroid taken of us sitting on the log and we left that Polaroid in the middle of the field on the log itself. I wonder if it still there, I wonder who will find that magical place and that photo in that field. We no longer remember where that field is or was, we stopped there randomly and maybe it only really existed for that one hour.

The most complete hour of my life.

All of those photographs came out exactly as the visions I had been having. The photographer beautifully captured my dreams and my realities.

The reality of the art

The album art for "Where do we go from here? UP" is a classic case of the moment being documented instantly then the long
process of seeing that vision completely true. I want people to know that to truly get your vision true to itself does take alot of work, yes there are moments of pure connections that happen instantly and that's what you stay open for, but sometimes the reality of bringing it to it's final birth takes the human element which is, as I have stated many, many times... crude.

So for over a year I have sat here and worked on the album artwork, getting the colours and lighting exactly right along with the tone of the over all piece.

The typography was not in my dreamed vision as clearly as the image itself, all I knew for sure was that it looked hand written in white and that the "UP" was prominent.

Well after a year of struggling with my connection with it, last week it all finally came togther.

It is a moment of magic, love, honesty and a vision of a positive future.

So with that I am proud to present to you the final "Where do we go from here? UP" album cover art.

(click image to view larger)

From Cavemen to Me

2008-10-05T16:03:00.002+01:00

My world for the past year has been a visual one.

Websites, Artwork, Photographs & Film.

I always thought to myself that once I returned to the visual side of my work full time, It would be clear how easily I connected to visual creations compared to musical ones.

What has actually happen however is that I have learned how much I had neglected that part of me and it has taken twelve months to get back up to speed and connected in a way that before was even more natural to me than writing.

What I was not planning on encountering though is technology.

Creation and technology go hand in hand.

I have thought a lot about creation and technology and this is what I see:

I imagine a caveman discovering how to paint except it's blood that he's painting with.

He has seen the sea and wants to document or express what he has seen.

He does so by cutting his finger and using the red blood to paint the sea.
He has created what he saw.

The next caveman has discovered a blue flower. If he crumbles it's petal and spits into it, he then has a blue coloured liquid.
He too then paints the sea, now the sea looks more like a representation of what he saw.

Does this mean the caveman who expressed his picture of the sea with blood is less of a work than the blue caveman's?

No. It represents the birth of technology and art being forever entwined.

Everything to do with connecting to creation comes from this scenario.

If the painting is to be a document for documents sake, then the preferred color of sea would be the blue of the flower, if the painting is to express feeling then it can be the blood red or and other colour.

The third and final scenario is that the red caveman does not know that the blue flower exists so he uses what he has got. Making using what you have a third form of creation.

Once you know that there are more options then it is up to you to follow the vision being given to you and use what you can to see that vision true.

Not use them for the sake of it.

Technology is not Art.

Art is not Technology.

They stand together, hand in hand as equals.

The technology of today is computers and I have spent this last year learning several different programs that I see will help my expressions for years to come.

In the film, photo, web and communication areas.

These are the necessary areas that I needed to learn to let my communication with creation be as free as possible.

A frustrating set back, but one which I have embraced and will continue to embrace as
technology forever moves forward.

Balancing Contexts

2008-10-03T12:50:00.001+01:00

From being a very small boy as far back as I can remember I knew that I was an artist, or to be more exact - I see things in terms of creation.

I've heard people use the term "Artist" way too often but you can tell an artist from a musician or a poet or a painter very easily. They are different. It's how their creations are seen to themselves that make those differences.

I see things in terms of a cardboard box. It doesn't matter if it's writing, recording, drawing, painting, cooking or living - I see them all in the same way.

With these eyes, I am always aware of all of the sides of different contexts.

For example: A record or recording to me has many different sides to make it complete. The vision of what the music is, not only comes to me in terms of sound but also in terms of vision, feel, emotion and light.

That's just one box. That particular box sits within many other boxes.

"Where do we go from here? UP" sits within itself, but then within the box of everything I have ever recorded, then the songs sit within every song I have ever written, the production within every production I have produced.
You can then take that globally: every song I have written is within every song ever written which is within genre, within male, within female, within length, within soul, within feeling. The documentation of the record sits within the time period that it was written which sits within time, which sits within my time line of existence which sits within decades which sit within a century and so on and so on.

That is how I see everything. All day. Every day.

The immediate box (or you can call it context) that I sit within right now is one of many but here are the two main core contexts of what I am doing here with my time on planet earth.

- Documenting & Leaving sign posts

- Connecting to the path of destiny

My work is one of two sides.

1. I follow my destiny, I follow magic - they are both very very real to me.

2. I document the process of everything so that the sign posts are left here when I am gone.

Within the work as we stand right now, we are nearing the time to step outside the hive and out into the world.

But there have been many factors that I have been sorting through, cataloging and working on.

- The trilogy "Beginning Of The End" (2005), "Soldier & the Rose" (2006), "Portrait Of Time" (2007)

- Ten years worth of writing and documenting (2000 plus songs)

- Beginning my film work

- Beginning my book

- Setting up ways to carry on doccumenting once out in the world

- Balancing the context of the message

The ten years I have spent following my true path are well documented and this past year has been one of bringing everything together and trying to follow what is right and what is relevant.

The reason that I have not been documenting these things here on the Portrait Diaries are simple.

The Portrait Diaries are the documentation side of my work, not all of my work.

It is however right to write brief entries on thes things because they ARE facors in making the first released record. If this was my tenth released record then maybe the documentation could be pure to just the record but it is not we are starting from groung zero and I want this to be a true representation of what that is.

This past year has been about getting ready. On EVERY level, to live.

And that has meant cataloging and sorting a decade of work so that we are ready to go out into the world without chains of the past.

I know what relevance that period of work has and know that it is part of my journey but I am choosing to go with the positive and start out into the world with "Where do we go from here? UP" .

Contexts

2008-10-01T20:54:00.000+01:00

I have been writing, painting, drawing, making and creating all of my life. I stood brave to the world and gave up "surviving", "because you have to" a decade ago.
It has been one long journey this past ten years and throughout times that I thought I was going to die, I carried on, moving and searching blindly.
Blindly moving towards something but I did not know what. I was writing like a crazy animal (I am), holed up in one room for one decade with no money, no where to go but inside myself.

It was my lifes mission to find out "Who am I?".

I would stop at nothing to peel away each and every layer of my existence.

It was a journey that was very long, hard and very painful. I am glad for that journey for it saved my life.

Within the last four years of the journey I started recording the songs that I was writing.

My main mission in life in 2005 was that I would stop writing the hundreds of songs and make one statement about where I was at that particular time. That album is called "Beginning Of The End". I knew as soon as I started it that it was but one part of bigger work. So, I thought that I could write myself better within three records - A trilogy of albums that would cure me and set me free. Then I would quit music (because
I actually did not enjoy or like any of the proccess of making music) and become "normal". Whatever that was suppose to mean.

After recoding that album I felt better for about a month.
Then I crashed, harder than ever before, as always I carried on writing - only now I also recorded my compositions.
The album that doccumented that period is "Soldier & the Rose". The darkest of my days.

With "Soldier & the Rose" recorded I was exahsted and an emotional wreck but just as before I knew I had to keep going, I though If I can record one more album that would be my trilogy done and if I was to die at the end of it (suicide or fate) then at least I had doccumented it and the posts left by "Richard Hodgekins" would be warning signs of how not to live.

Thats where the Portrait Diaries began. I would document out into the world my one last journey and that would be it.

Well from day one of writing these diaries, my life changed. COMPLETELY. forever.

The songs started to come strong from the netherworld, predicting postivity, telling me secrets, whipspering like angels to me. They brought me hope and pulled me out of my socket and said "Here! Richard HERE".

That journey is written witin these very pages. They are my sign posts for this period of my life.

I found my path, my purpose here on earth and the record that I began doccumenting here, which I thought was the last part of the trilogy, actually came through me as two records "Portrait Of Time" and "Where do we go from here? UP".

The end of the trilogy did not result in my death or demise it was actually my beginning and the "Beginning Of The End" was the beginning of the end of my journey of finding purpose in life, not the end of my life.

That journey has continued to this day, I have been here this whole time, getting everything ready to finally move myself out of this room and out into the world.

But as I said my friend, context. I feel it necessary for the diaries to bring context as to what has been going on on this journey over the last year.

Introduction to the final chapter

2008-09-30T20:05:00.003+01:00

Hello magical person, you are welcome here and welcome to these words.

Within the next few weeks I will be returning to the studio full time to finally put the finishing touches to the record that was the original purpose of my Portrait Diary entries.

That record is called "Where do we go from here? UP".

There is only mixing and mastering to go. She has sat waiting for me for over a year like a little treasure box under the sea.

The seasons have changed from winter to summer all the way through to nearly winter again as I have sat here in my place working around the clock to get everything ready.

I have lost weight, gained it back and lost it again. My hair has been cut, grown long and been cut again. I have aged ten years and deducted fifteen. I have seen the light at the end of the tunnel slowly getting larger and larger everyday.

Everything around me has been changing but I have been in a time warp, a different dimension, one of past, present and future combined. Connected to my destiny.

I have been trying my best to put the lessons learned to practice.

Everything is about BALANCE.

The balance of heart, mind, body and soul. This period of balance has been one predominately of the mind and I think this is my last push of the mind level.

Magic came and stepped in for good reason. It demanded me to set everything up before I am allowed to touch those beautiful recordings again.

It has been frustrating at times but I know its all for good reason.

The studio awaits my return and I will be returning a much wiser man.

Before I re-enter the studio however, I though I would return to the diaries early to give some context as to what has been, what is going to be and what is.

This my friends is the beginning of the final chapter.

The Portrait Diaries Returns

2008-08-20T20:12:00.001+01:00

The Portrait Diaries will return for the last time this September.

The final run of entries will lead up to the release of the debut album:

"Where do we go from here? UP"

Date anouncement coming shortly.

May the Magic be with you wherever you are.

Colour to a black & white world Part 1

2008-02-16T00:13:00.000Z

During the last five months I have been following magic. "Where do we go from here?UP" has been being worked on continuously, through my thoughts, through my feelings, and hands on in the studio. I have been developing my thought processes and how to translate them, so that I can let the record come through me, in the way that IT wants, not how I want.

I think personally that where many people go wrong with creation is in not letting the creation exist as what it is itself. They control it too much and try to use knowledge instead of feeling. Feeling the place that the creation is really coming from which I truly believe is not within us but is an external channel that guides us.

To me I don't just use feeling or channeling when I write, I stay as open and as true to the channel in everything that I do. The purpose is to stay out of the way of it,
to take the mind to a place free of conscious thought. This applies to all aspects of creation and eventually being, as a whole.

The hardest part is when the knowledge side of the brain confuses what the channel wants and it's all about communication, right? So i have to be able to communicate to my best ability whats coming through. I have to respect it.

The world of feeling is where we all live.
It's extremely hard to communicate to another human-being exactly how you feel or felt at any given moment, and this plays a huge role in getting what's in my head out in to the world.

A song can come to me in a variety of ways and over many years of writing It's been very hard to make sure that I have not been getting better, because craftsmanship is not what I am, therefore not what I want. Songs come no easier to me now than they did ten years ago. The only difference is that I have learned to be open to the channel that they come to me from. This channel guides me and i would put my every faith on the place they come from.

I quite honestly can tell you now as a real human-being, that I don't feel like I write a lot of my songs, they just appear. Sometimes, I consciously write them, and sometimes I WANT to write about a specific incident, which is what I did do for many years. But then something changed, something else started coming through the writing and thank God I listened because it has changed my life forever.

When I sit down to write, I am basically the vessel; an empty ship, doing my best not to help the passenger that's coming through but at the same time keeping them from drowning. The thing that's coming through me is vision, audible and emotional all at once. I would probably better describe it in the way that I don't hear a song, I see it, hear it, and get moved by it all at the same time.

It's especially hard when the time between writing and recording is a lengthy period because you form a different relationship with the piece. So what i've learned is to try to not listen to a song after I've wrote it until I record, so I can keep it as frozen in time as possible. That way it stays closer to it's conception.

In the studio we are speaking in a language that we all understand.

Getting to that point has taken hours of conversations over a long period of time to sync myself with the band as human-beings, not musicians, so that what i describe is understood in a real way. Something which is an on-going process because communicating
something to others that isn't even mine is very hard.

Double A sides

2008-02-08T05:46:00.000Z

For many years I knew that a double A-sided single would be part of what I'm doing. I just didn't know how, where, or when.

All I knew for sure was that the double A-sided single would go hand-in-hand with a full-length record. Not be tracks on the record itself but be the record's companion piece.

Now, for me everything has to have reason behind it, I am by no-means of the school that if you can do it then do it. Absolutely not.

Things happen for a reason. Always.

Upon realizing the story of "Where do we go from here? UP" I realized that we also had one song that does not fit on the actual record itself but belongs with the record as a companion.

As i was putting together the preliminary un-mixed, un-mastered version of "Where do we go from here? Up" and realizing the story and how it would play out, I understood that the song "Two steps ahead" was part of the story but almost as an encore.

It actually comes after the record in the context of the story, it is quite literally two steps ahead of itself in coming out as a single before the record that it comes after... see?

Thats when a piece really works, IT tells you.

So I understood this but also understood that as a piece on it's own it really would not make sense to release it first; it was telling me something, what was it? It wanted a companion, but what could it's companion be?

I listened back through all of the Portrait Of Time/Where do we go from here? Up recordings and it's companion piece was not there. Around this time (September 2007) I had a song come to me which I thought was called "Underneath the piano chords", that particular title had been with me pretty much all the way through the recording of the album. I didn't know what it meant or if it was a song, so I gave in and wrote it and found it to be about letting go of the past, embracing the future but also reconizing the past as real and as an important part of my life, ground which I had never covered before.

During this time, I left the song to sit and pondered on it, wondering where and if it would fit with future works (When I gave into it, it came through me along with another sixteen songs). One night in early October 2007, I was out with the band and it hit me, If "Where do we go from here? Up" is a question with an answer then "Where do we go from here?" as a question alone would be the counter point to "Two steps ahead".

"Where do we go from here?" is a question before the record "Where do we go from here? UP". "Two steps ahead" follows the record but is two steps ahead of itself so you get it before the record.

We came back to the studio and just played with the record button on, scribbling down the lyrics and with the band just playing as i conducted the mood. However, as I listened back the next day I was unhappy with the results.

The song needed to be written by me on the piano, in the same manner as the rest.
When i sat down my lyric book was open on "Underneath the piano chords" and it called me in. As I began playing it, I came to a stop and sang the line "Where do we go from here?" witihn it and everything fell into place.

That night the band came over and we recorded it as always, live, the piano, vocals, guitar and drums all going down together, I believe in three takes.

Where I have been, where I am: 2/2

2008-02-05T07:59:00.000Z

It's been hard to decide on how and when to inform you about which and what things have been going on. The amount of work that has been going on behind the scenes has been breathtaking; spiritually, mentally, and personally. The hour is upon us in more ways than one. I am more ready than I have ever been in my life to step out into the world and say "I am".

However, I am still unsure as to what parts go with documenting the making of this record (apart from reporting on songs actually on the record) I should elaborate on. So I shall not excuse myself but just let you know that there is a hell of a lot more to making a record when a record is YOUR LIFE.

Recently, there have been videos shot, interviews given and filmed, art work created, album running orders finalized, singles written/recorded, websites designed, and a tour planned. Literally thousands of things, day after day, all of which have been very hard to decide whether to write about in this diary or not.

I will hold my word with you

My word has been that I will be true, real, open, and honest about every part of this journey. I will give you everything, for it is not mine to keep.
This has been one long insightful, yearning, dream-like, positive, start, middle, end, and dawning of a journey that everybody and anybody is welcome to be a part of, for it is your journey too.

If only one person can read this diary and even consider to themselves whether they're living their life real or whether they believe in believing or whether they ever felt magic whistle by their ear in a play ground or on a mountain top, then maybe that is the purpose of the Portrait Diaries.

Maybe there is no purpose.

Maybe the purpose is only for me. Without being egotistical or believing in myself as being confident or anything "special", I truly believe that I have found hope in my life when I had forgotten that such a thing could ever exist. For that alone I'm happy that it's documented.

So as we stand here in the twilight about to take off for the final run of entries on the Portrait Diaries, I am in reflection mode on the diaries themselves.
How to bring them to a close.
I would like to be true to them for the form that they are and hope you understand that this is the documentation of the process of making a record and not the other thousands of other things that have been going on in the background.

This record and I are one in the same. My personal journey is documented within the songs and within the choice of words within the entries laid here. I have not personally gone back to read the story that began on March 1st for myself, maybe one day I will.

The Portrait Diaries will resume after this, then leading up to the album release there will be one final ultimate entry on each song from the record taking you from it's conception to it's birth.

It has been an emotional experience. And signing off the diaries and braving the cold wind of the world with these songs under my arm seems almost bitter sweet.
I thank you whoever you are.
Let's go out in the way the journey started with wonder and of course....hope.

Richard Hodgekins

Where I have been, where I am: 1/2

2008-02-04T02:32:00.000Z

Here I stand, on Sunday February 3rd 2008 and the hour is upon me.

There are a couple of things that I would like to say about these diaries. One thing I have learned about myself over the past six months and about creation, documentation, and art in general, is that people have their own constrictions put upon what pieces should be. "A website should be a website, a folk song should be a folk song, and an action movie should star Bruce Willis." These things are very confining as I believe that the form is free. It's an unfortunate rule in a process of creation that has no rules.

That's where I come to the Portrait Diaries; unfortunately, or fortunately, I chose the form of a blog to document these entries and people seem to see the form of the blog to be a regularly updated piece. To me it's a diary and was intended to be updated sporadically. However, there is yet to be a form of an Internet diary other than a blog. This is frustrating to me because the Portrait Diaries have turned into something which has grown out of my hands but at the same time something I truly appreciate.

There have been many, many, personal, mental, and spiritual happenings going on over the past five months and it has been very hard to draw the line between what I have been thinking, feeling, and going through and what is real.

There have been entries of the Portrait Diaries that may not necessarily fall into the form or within the boundaries of the piece itself. I believe that the post BELIEVE is possibly one of these entries as it does not document the process of making the record "Where do we go from here? UP" But then again, neither did documenting the process of "Portrait of Time".

It's been hard for me to see what is relevant for a Portrait Diary entry; which is the documentation of the making of a record which is at the same time also a documentation of myself. I believe all true art is. The line is almost inseparable between the two.

How do you know the line between whether what your thinking at the moment is part of the making of the record or not? Therefore, I will not retract the post BELIEVE because it is a diary entry that at the time felt right and maybe only in hindsight can we see the true meaning of our creations.

END OF PART ONE

So what is magic?

2007-10-25T21:50:00.000+01:00

Magic is in the eye of the beholder.

For the past ten years, I have been on the never ending road of self discovery and made a promise with myself that I would document this process as well as live it. Through my songs, I have learned more about myself and the world in which I live than from anything else. Re-connecting with the feeling of being five years old and remembering that wonder and that life was magical is the eye to which I behold it.
It has not been easy for I have found magic to be just as elusive as a tidal wave, it bends and shifts and you can become part of this world again before you know it.

Over the past two days I have been hit with the magic again and it's back with its fullest force. Because I became aware of it I somehow became TOO aware and you cannot control it or be it, we are only human, and that is a sad fact. However, I feel like I'm remembering something that I never forgot, like the smell of baking bread or an ear-ache.

It's all about speed and not letting the brain get in the way of what your channeling. It's easy to let the pressures or expectations of life get in the way. One thing leads to another and before you know it you are humanised again and a product of your surroundings. You have to let go of these things. NOT think. Become one with the flow. It feels like you're going against it by having to remember not to let these things get you down, but you're not. The brain is wired in a way of act and react and we DO have to fight that in order to free it up.

You can't think about magic or watch a movie or listen to a record or see a sunset to be inspired or connect with it; it's already within you, in that place that only you know about. It's your brain that tells you that things or conditions have to be just right for you to connect or feel; they don't, you don't, it's already there. Don't be scared of it. All you have to do is be it, right now, don't think, do. And if you leave your brain out of it, even if the phone rings, a dog barks, or you get a debt letter, believe and believe in believing and not just now but also in hindsight, you will see that it's there guiding you, helping you, speaking to you at all times. Let go of yourself, your too young to die.

Believe

2007-09-19T01:30:00.000+01:00

Over the past 4 weeks a lot of lessons have been learned.

Magic is real.

Not in the sense that something that is magical can be an entity but in the fact that magic is not perfect, it has flaws to it just like you and I.

It is therefore maybe not THE answer but a big key to finding the answer.

By believing, you let go of your own insecurities and those of others around you. The key is to believe with blind faith that what you believe in is real, even as it shifts and twists its being around you. You should not take it positively or
negatively you just take it for what it is; which is believing.

Believing IS what it is, not the product, the out come, the past, or the future of it, it is the believing.

Believing is believing.

A major lesson is how to overcome your own moral outlooks and your own existence, for the greater being of following and believing in spite of everything. Even if what you believe in fights back at you, trying to prove itself as not being believable, you must surpass even the belief itself by believing in just believing. If you can forgive the belief for not being exactly what you believed it to be, then you truly forgive.

When a belief repents itself, you only realise that by putting your own thoughts onto a belief is not believing in the belief. It is you believing in what you want to believe in, which is not what true believing is. You believe in it, in its pure real form, which is in-perfect. Nothing in this world is perfect because perfection relies on point of view and point of view has to be taken out of the equation if you are truly believing beyond your own self and on the higher plain.

To ask oneself if one believes beyond all doubt, beyond all measure, beyond the body,mind,heart and soul, beyond all human aspects, and to be the belief in the belief; is where the answer lies.

My whole life I have documented my journey and what has happened over the last 30 days has been a life times journey within itself. Forgiveness is key. Under normal circumstances I would have written a hundred songs within this period but with life and art being one and the same I now live what I live. So with this being the most important period of my life I have kept on documenting but not in the form of songs but in the form of a piece that represents the journey.

I present to you "Believe" a piece that documents two coming together as one entity and in believing beyond all... that to believe is to believe.

I hope you can take it for what it is. A documentation, a key, an answer, a journey, a belief.

The diaries will return this week as I begin mixing "Where do we go from here? UP".

with love and belief from

Both of us

click below to experience Believe:

Believe

Direction: HOME

2007-07-30T05:35:00.000+01:00

Hello people,

As I'm sure you are all aware the documentation of the making of this record has spanned mountainous highs and briefly plunged the low depths.
Here I stand on this Sunday July 29th and the pathway that my life has laid before me has a direction and I can see it.
When I began writing these diaries on March 1st, I was a man who was lost, a man who felt that the end was near, nothing could be further from that here and now today.
I have re-found my soul and connected to my body and mind in ways that I could have only hoped for.
I now believe in the magic again. She came and saved me. I knew she would.

Throughout the writing period in march, I composed around thirty songs and I could feel two separate sides of the journey happening at once. One journey was about me letting go of the past and becoming ready to face the future and becoming ready to love myself and therefore be able to feel loved and accept love.
That record is called "Portrait Of Time".

The other journey was about BELIEVING in magic again, accepting it back into my life and therefore discovering that it's ok to be me. I believe in me. I believe in love. That record is called "Where do we go from here? UP".

After going through this journey within my mind, within my soul, within my heart and maybe most importantly within my body, once through the writing then going through the same journey again as we recorded the songs in April, I was already sure that "Where do we go from here? UP" was the album that I wanted to release.
However I still wanted to mix and master "Portrait Of Time" and leave it in a finished state. Going through those songs for the third time was VERY very hard for me, but I battled on and now that record is 80% complete. Time has run short on us and now I have to switch my full attention to "Where do we go from here? UP".
As this is a documentation of the making of a record I'd like to inject here that there are hundreds of other things going on behind the scenes and the pressure and deadlines that im facing on a daily basis are ALMOST unbearable.
But I'm strong. I always have been.

Because of all of the other parts that go into the release of a record IE: single/art-work/website/tour/video/interviews all of which I'm as hands on and treat just as importantly as the music, I have to commit myself to the work that's going to be released now.

I've been working like a little submarine under the water and been having meetings with the rest of the band. I've been listening to rough cuts of "Where do we go from here? UP" and really tyring to define and refine what the record is before I begin mixing it. A few things have stood out and have become clear about this record and there have been a few changes.

So from this day forth it's all about "Where do we go from here? Up". I'm massively excited about this work and very proud. I cant wait for you to be able to hear it and come and be a part of the magic when we arrive in your area.
It's all stations GO! in camp Hodgekins.

I have some work to do within all of these areas for a short period then I'll be back on the diaries to begin and finish the mixing of "Where do we go from here? UP".

Take some time to have read through the journey and I'll be back before you know it.

The last stretch of road lays before me now.

Direction? HOME


 Where do we go from here? UP 


1. (Just like) Dorothy             writing recording
2.  Star-lights                    writing recording
3.  Petals of a Rose               writing recording                      
4.  Pretty lights                  writing recording
5.  Pathways                       writing recording
6.  Everlasting Rose               writing recording
7.  Firelights                     writing recording
8.  New morning                    writing recording
9.  For you                        writing recording
10. Dorothys Arrival               writing recording

The Slow train/Moving rivers Saga pt 1

2007-07-18T10:56:00.000+01:00

We have a will they? Won't they? moment going on here.
Both of these tracks are riddled with problems, both are great cuts but are unfortunately troublesome on the technical side.
I'm not sure if they're going to make it, I'm working as hard as I can on them continually and It's wearing me down. totally.
The part that keeps me going and the part that's always the best right from writing through recording, is that I know what they REALLY sound like.
Like a sculpture and I keep chippin away until It's complete.
The problem with these two songs is that as i chip away I'm in massive danger of breaking the nose off of the sculpture.
If I can get them them to work it won't be without a minor miracle.

Over half way

2007-07-16T08:58:00.000+01:00

I am now over the half way point on mixing the record "Portrait Of Time".
The following songs are finished:


Portrait Of Time
DEMONS
In The Universe
Confessions Of The Scared
God Like Love

"Slow Train Coming" has run into a few problems and maybe needs some vocal re-shoots due problems with the recorded levels and "Moving Rivers" is coming along in terms of the noise elements that have had to be removed. It's very hard for me to keep this diary real and not get frustrated because in the mixing part of the process a million different feelings and creative flows change by the second.

I equate this part of the process to being like when a movie is in it's editing stage, like when the movie is being shot you get set stills and lots of news then everything goes quiet for a year as they edit the footage.
Well that what I'm doing, like a little wizard in my cave cooking up some magic spells.

The songs left to mix are:


Run With The River
Cinema Of Tears
New Morning

Then "Portrait Of Time" will be complete.

Fast Train

2007-07-12T06:07:00.000+01:00

My thoughts and feelings are buzzing with "Slow Train Coming". I hear it in my head like a 2007/1957 cross breed.
Give me 2007/57.
Ok I will.
I want to blur the line just right and this train is coming fast, the mix will be finished tomorrow.

Mixing Rivers Pt2

2007-07-10T08:50:00.000+01:00

It's exhausting on the mind body and ears to be mixing one in one out continually.
A constant Battle daily to get the pieces to sing to the tune of my head.
"Moving Rivers" has a lot of technical issues so I'm leaving it for the time being, It has not beaten me, there is some work being done on the technical side as I move on to "Slow Train Coming" when I've finished that hopefully I'll be able to move back to "Moving Rivers".
Signed,

An exhausted English fellow.

Mixing Rivers pt 1

2007-07-09T09:57:00.000+01:00

"It's not what you thought you shot, It's what you actually shot that you have to work with" - Francis Ford Coppola

Well the same applies to music. I thought I knew what I had in "Moving Rivers" it turns out not to be what I thought. I have two places to go here:

1. Try to turn what I have into the vision in my head
2. To see what it is and work it into that

The problem is if I take it to the place that it wants then it seems really hard for me to picture it on this record.
As a song it fits perfectly, in fact It's a important piece.
Will it work if i do it?
We'll see.

Connecting Pt2

2007-07-07T13:31:00.000+01:00

God this song has taken everthing I've got.
I knew the song was burried somewhere within the recorded performance I just didn't realise how deep, I've had to rip this song apart and start again nine times.
I found the message burried deep underneath the mess and had to overdub some piano to bring it back to the vision.
It's as good as it can possibly be now and because I'm also thinking of the whole album as a vision in my head as well as the individual songs I think "God Like Love" will fit nicely where I see him.

Connecting Pt 1

2007-07-06T11:23:00.000+01:00

I have been averaging 5 hours sleep a night so today i got about 8 hours, nicely recharged.
"God Like Love" is coming along. I spent the day re-connecting to it and the conclusion that took me three days with "Confessions Of The Scared" took me one. It is too big and needs to come down.
In my head it sounds naked so I'm trying to use minimal production methods.
The problem is the recorded performance takes the song as a big piece which was the wrong way to go. It may slowly build to a climax but needs to feel naked.
You can't play the god of love, you can only be naked and I am naked.

God like love writing recording

Finishing Confessions Pt2

2007-07-05T13:19:00.000+01:00

My lord this record has fought me ALL the way.
I have spent three days mixing "Confessions Of The Scared" and by 7pm tonight had finished, It was nothing like the vision in my head nor did the atmosphere of the music feel right. I had suspected that it felt wrong this morning but carried it through because sometimes they turn right at the very end but no not this time.
I had wasted three days.
But had I?
No.
I knew it was in there somewhere and carried on battling.
I ripped the mix in half, took it, rode with it and continued the mixing until 20 minutes ago it's now 05:11am. If anything I've learned that my vision is always in there somewhere, I have to keep battling and trust my instincts.
I am incredibly happy with the final outcome and if I played the finished version from 7pm and the final version from 6:40am I would find it hard to believe they were the same performance.
Never give up.

Finishing Confessions Pt 1

2007-07-04T11:06:00.000+01:00

Tonight I'm nearly at the finishing stage of "Confessions Of The Scared".
It has required deep very low depths of the brain sound, like how you feel when you just wake up, quite hard really.
When I begin the mix, I start by listening to what I've got with all instruments in then I usually strip it back down to it's basics Vocal/Piano/Guitar/Drums/Bass and get the performance to sit and also to breathe the instruments together so that they all have one goal, one destination.

The destination of becoming.

This record needs to feel isolated and nearly triumphant.

Confessions Of The Scared writing recording

In the skies

2007-07-03T08:24:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I began work on "In The Universe" and today I finished it and got "Confessions Of The Scared" mixed to it's first shape.
"In The Universe" in it's final form is exactly what I wanted.
It has the coldness of outer space and the warmness of the hot sun, It is empty and full, it is spacious and busy.
That's how I mix and master, that was my thought pattern and vision for this piece of work.
It's the hardest part but ultimately the most fulfilling because I finally get to turn what began with me sitting at the piano writing and then became a recorded performance into what it actually IS.
All three parts are integral to me giving the piece it's life.
Some people are songwriters some people are musicians some people are artists.
I don't think I'm any of those. I connect to a passing wave, see it and try to channel it back out the way that I saw it.
That's why I have to do the mixing/producing because there's no way that anyone else can see/feel what I did because they wasn't there.
I'm lucky to have a great band who understand me and who have been chosen on a personal level not a musical one because I believe connecting to someone on a true level is the only way to get true work done.
We've talked ALOT.
All three aspects of creating a piece have to be right not one link in the chain can be weak or fail.
I start out with my vision of the box and "In The Universe" looks exactly how I wanted it to.

A brand new life.

In The Universe writing recording

SUPERMAN!

2007-07-02T11:03:00.000+01:00

I don't really know where to start with this post so I'll start it there.
It has taken me three weeks to mix and master "Portrait Of Time" the song.
It nearly beat me quite literally. It took me to into the depths of myself and back to a place that I thought I had gotten far far away from.
I experienced the pain and mental lows nearly to the degree of when I was recording "Soldier & the Rose" which includes songs called "Movement of suicide" and "END" to give you an idea.
Only now am I able to return and tell you what's been going on.
The difference between me before starting this whole period on March 1st and after is that through going through what I have has made me able to categorise the pain of my childhood and my demons into how they relate to the real me. The me of here and now.
As opposed to not knowing the difference between the two.

I have effectively written a song here that has exorcised my demons and had to go through it again to record it then have to live through it continually every day for the past three weeks non-stop, quite a dangerous thing to do and one that I thank the gods that I never have to do again.
I let them go and had to bring them back.
You see, there is no such thing as just mixing a record for me.
I AM the record and I don't say that to be "arty" or "cool" I absolutely mean it. I don't see how people can mix a record thinking of it in terms of "music".

I cant offer a plug in to my mind/body/heart & soul to TRULY express what I feel.
I am a human-being and the best that I can do is communicate what I feel with my hands and my mouth.
Within mixing I treat Eq, compression, mixing, mastering with the same feeling.

I listen to whether it speaks and sounds like the message does within my head not to whether it sounds aesthetically pleasing.
I make my records in the mixing stage.
I am now going to attempt to mix and master a song each day. I finished "Portrait Of Time" on Saturday and finished "DEMONS" on Sunday

The worst is over.

Error

2007-06-15T22:56:00.000+01:00

I've been having technical issues for the past three days. The tracks coming along and Ive fixed the problems. Should be in the bag tomorrow. See you then.

Phonebooth

2007-06-11T07:28:00.000+01:00

This song is so close to the core of who I have been for twenty-two years that it's shaking me.
I have a basic mix of all the instruments for the whole seventeen and a half minutes.
I need to start the weaving and mixing the overdubs tomorrow.
I cant wait to be superman.

Clark Kent

2007-06-09T10:12:00.000+01:00

When I was mixing "Beginning Of The End" I had a whole concept of what the album was which was the mythological hero's journey of man, so my every choice within that record was determined by the story.
Every thought right down to how loud a snare drum on a certain track was all came down to the story.
Well I've been trying to find the whole context and story to "Portrait Of Time" as a record at the same time as trying to mix.
Like what am i essentially telling here?
I dont make stories up.

Well the answer is:

It is what it is.
A portrait of time. What ever magic was captured in the room on each individual track along with what is being said is what has to be brought out and enhanced. Got it.
Also remember I'm up against a couple of other things here "Portrait Of Time" the song is seventeen and a half minutes long, so it's the equivalent of mixing four normal length records, plus it's possibly the opener, plus it's a very important and heavy piece.
Well I've worked for 13 hours today and have the Vocals/Piano/Guitar/Drums/Bass sounding like the moment and the feel, and how the atmosphere of the piece does in my head, for the first seven minutes.
Superman?
No.
Clark Kent?
Definitely.

One step back

2007-06-08T10:53:00.000+01:00

Today I put on my superman t-shirt and red scarf and entered the studio for the first day of mixing.
He did'nt show up.
I spent nine hours in the studio sitting in front of "Portrait Of Time" messing around with drum sounds, guitar sounds, Eq, bass... Then I realised that the whole thing is pointless unless I understand the record to begin with.
You cant just mix something.
I cant mix the opening track to a whole record without a complete understanding of the whole record.
So here I go again, shutting myself off from everyone and everything because I cant live two lifes. It's just me again.
I'll keep on battling because it's in my soul.
Im doing alot of thinking tonight.
I WILL understand.
I'm getting up at 9am and expect the track to take a further fifteen hours.
Take me home.

Mixing: Foundations

2007-06-07T08:52:00.000+01:00

I really underestimated how hard this part of the process was going to be for me. Not on a technical level.
I thought that I could put a producer cap on and look at it from that point of view and I cant. I have to be completely in the piece that I'm working on right until the end. Today I have realised that I'm going back on this journey again for the third time. And I'm kinda scared.
The reason behind this is that "Where do we go from here? UP" has changed me and my life in so many ways that going back to start the mixing with "Portrait Of Time" feels like I may undo all of the beauty and magic that is now part of my life. But I have to be strong and on my own just one last time.
The Portrait Of Time running order has now been reversed so the record begins with the song "Portrait Of Time" so that's where I have to start the mixing which is the hardest place to start.
I have spent the day listening to the records, becoming one with them.
I know where I have to start now and tonight I'm just searching for the reasons why.
Why I need to put myself through Portrait Of Time again. It's not a negative record by any means but Ive moved to best place that Ive ever been in and going back is very hard. But that's what this portrait has always been about.
The first record is about excepting who I am and my life is my art so until I've finished it I haven't excepted who I am. So there's the reason why.
I'll see you tomorrow when I've finished the first song "Portrait Of Time".

Phase Three: Cardboard box

2007-06-07T02:57:00.000+01:00

Well we've been on this journey together since March 1st, we have been through all the twists and turns through the writing then the recording and now we're about to enter the third phase: Mixing.
Ever since I was four or five I began to realise that I see life as creation. I used to make things out of card, stick it together with tape, paint it, highlight it, add finishing touches. This is pretty much how I see life. As a cardboard box. No matter what I'm doing whether Its writing or cooking it's all the same thing. You create something even a conversation with someone or a relationship starts as just the plain card then as you come to a conclusion or in some cases not, you have created a piece, you let it flow and it became something.
Each stage is just as important as the other in fact it's impossible for all the stages not to exist.
Well this next phase within this terminology is thus:

The writing was taking the card, deciding what I thought I wanted to create, cutting it out and taping together the foundations of my creation.
The recording was altering the foundations where needed, taping on the more complicated parts and finishing the main structure off and then adding on the paint giving the creation it's colour, colour in the sense that it helps me to show you what I mean more accurately If I add colour.
This third phase the mixing is adding highlights, lowlights, adding shadow and putting in and bringing out the detail.

I have wanted for the portrait diaries to be as an accurate account of how a record is made by me as possible. |I understand that some stages are more interesting to people than others but I guess that what I'm saying is that it shouldn't be. Each stage is just as important to a creation as the other.
A child's 1st birthday is not more important than their 2nd.

At the bottom of each post through this mixing stage I will be bringing you in on the equipment used to record this album and the techniques used to achieve certain sounds. I have no idea really how long the mixing will take but I can tell you that I'll be finishing at least one song per day. We are back to an entry a day now. I hope you enjoy part three.

A letter from the magic

2007-05-27T02:33:00.000+01:00

I have always felt like there was something out there; something above the clouds, around the stars, something beyond this human existence of mine. I feel like I’ve been waiting for it all my life. In a way it is a destination; a place where I stand still and am the real me. I have been on this journey my entire life.

And that is exactly what these past few months have captured; a journey, a portrait of time. However, as you paint a portrait onto the blank canvas in front of you,
life is still happening all around you. This, is what the Portrait Diaries have been all about.

The portrait that I began to paint in the beginning was one of a past haunted, a reality brutal, a life unlived, a world cruel, and a thousand me’s holding it all in and waiting to let it out in every brush stroke, in every word sung. Every song I wrote, every note heard was another me being shed, another hurt being accepted, another monster being banished, and another pain being let go. To this end, I served the art well. I exorcised the demons. I painted a portrait of time.


PORTRAIT OF TIME
 

 1. New morning                    writing recording 
 2. God like love                  writing recording
 3. Cinema Of Tears                writing recording
 4. Slow train coming              writing recording
 5. Confessions of the scared      writing recording
 6. Run with the river             writing recording
 7. Moving rivers                  writing recording
 8. In The Universe                writing recording
 9. DEMONS                         writing recording
10. Portrait of time               writing recording

However, as early as March 7th I knew that my work was being pulled in two directions. I could feel something happening around me as I painted my portrait of time. I was not only letting go of one journey, but starting another as well. I was leaving and arriving at the same time.

I was letting go of everything I had built for myself to follow a feeling. I felt the wind changing direction and I had to go with it, it had been calling me all my life. The good ship Hodgekins awaited my arrival.

And for the first time, I felt closer to this thing, this destination, than I have ever been. It was really just over the rainbow.

This was the real journey I was on and I didn’t even know it. This was a journey of the mind, body, heart, soul. A portrait of time was just that, a portrait of time, and the real journey was where we went from there. When I stripped myself bare, I found the meaning, I found me, and I found the one thing that’s been missing all my life.

So it came, another pathway, another album; written while painting a portrait of time. It came out of no where, like magic, and I accepted it; I let it in. Destiny came to me and I said “hello”.

And it was IT, on every level.


Where do we go from here? UP


 1. (Just like) Dorothy             writing recording
 2. Call a taxi                     writing recording
 3. Pretty lights                   writing recording
 4. Pathways                        writing recording
 5. Petals of a rose                writing recording
 6. My Lady lays                    writing recording
 7. Everlasting Rose                writing recording
 8. Fire lights love                writing recording
 9. Starlights                      writing recording
10. For you                         writing recording
11. Dorothys Arrival                writing recording

There it is, one album accepting myself and my past and another accepting magic and the future. I choose magic.

So what is this magic, you might say? What is the one thing that’s always been missing? What is the destination? What is the answer?

Well, you’ll have to just wait and see.

signed,

the magic


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next step for me is the mixing/mastering stage in which we will return to an entry a day.. There are alot of plans in motion at the minute so ill let you know as soon as the next stage can begin.

p.s I didnt write the letter from the magic...

Portrait Of Time

2007-05-15T00:06:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we recorded possibly the key piece, its called "Portrait Of Time" and I wrote the lyrics last week. It is the only song that I have ever wrote where the lyrics came separately from the music. The song is a portrait of my whole life beginning with my father being born to meeting my mother etc... right up until now. It came very fast and has been waiting for me for twenty-seven years. I have had a piece of music called "Message 2 U" which is one of the first things that I wrote on the piano so it has been around for about twelve years.. its been through alot with me..so I thought it would be fitting to tell the life portrait of time over a musical portrait of time. We started recording it at 03:33 because three is my number and got it in take two. The first time the band had heard it and the first time I had put it to music is caught on the tape. Its seventeen and a half minutes long.

Run with the river

2007-05-12T11:16:00.000+01:00

Hi all, recorded "Run with the river" today, a song that I wrote last week which is kind of the flip side to "Moving Rivers". Its about giving your life to fate/destiny and how hard that can be for somebody to understand. The recording is a straight band record with a hard twist of magical nursery rhyme (if you get me).

Tomorrow is possibly the final day.

Tomorrow we record a song that is three pages long lyrically and will have a 10-20 minute running time. I want to record it in one take and at the same time it will be the first time that the band have ever heard it.

Heavy.

Accepting Magic

2007-05-12T03:33:00.000+01:00

So.. over the past few days we finished all of the double bass overdubs. Next stop Cello/Violin and Harp. Theres a couple of options regarding those. I sat in the pub with the song lists and basically felt out a track order, I think Ive known for a long time that there are two different records here. So after the pub me and the guys got back to the studio where we listened to both records in their preliminary line ups.

Both records are strong. Both records are important.

Its all a little loose at the moment but Ill try to sum them up as best I can and then expand on it as it makes more sense over time... Both records are a portrait of time. One is the REAL HUMAN side of becoming/feeling at one with oneself and loving yourself and the other record is a statement that while the human side is a big thing to get over (like get over yourself) that it really is MAGIC and the magical side IS part of destiny/love. A yin and yang of real life and magic. Both sides.

So....

You have to be ready to accept magic.

Double Bass

2007-05-06T12:07:00.000+01:00

Double bass day.

Ed Butler - My Bass Guitarist has been a very busy fellow today.

We have been overdubbing bass on:

Petals Of A Rose
Underneath the skies
When a heart is broken
Slow Train Coming

There is already bass on the original takes but I'm just adding flavour at the moment and also Ive wanted double bass on my records since the start of time.

Bass day again tomorrow. Things are shaping up.

After we finished today, after a looong day, I sat down and a new song came to me in probably less than 3 minutes, it came fully formed and I think it's the piece that Ive been waiting for. It's called "Two steps ahead" and I'll post the lyrics at the bottom of this entry.

Studio Brain

2007-05-05T08:53:00.000+01:00

My head is gonna explode.
seriously.

Forgive me if this entry makes little sense but my brain is well and truly studio'd.

An intense day, recorded a song that I wrote this morning while the rest of the band waited for me, it took about fifteen minutes and it's called "For You".
A piano basic and a magic ending kinda like what I imagine a cloud to sound like.

We then moved on to a new version of "God like love" which has continual piano notes that I still have a head ache from. Good though.

This record overall sounds old in a grown up way.

thirteen hours hard core in the studio, we went in at 1pm finished just before 1am. I ate my breakfast at 11pm.

Studio bum

Richard Hodgekins.

p.s the double bass arrived today, so its bass day tomorrow.

Hard Times

2007-05-05T06:34:00.000+01:00

On the same day that "Demons" was captured I also captured "Pretty Lights" and "Where My Lady Lays".
The next day "Today" (f/n/a Gone Tomorrow Here Today), "Peace Of Mind" and "Me~" were all recorded.
I'm happy with the difference within all of the tracks and I'm pretty confident of what this album is. I think I have two separate records here. Not sure yet though.
Over the past three days I have been writing again and am waiting for the final pieces to fall to me. They're coming.
We go back in the studio tomorrow to add double Bass to some of the existing tracks and then record new ones up until Wednesday of next week.
Entries will return to an everyday basis from tomorrow.
I'm half producer half writer at the moment and am finding it hard.

This journey of life/art never ceases to amaze me.

I feel like my life is the hands of some external force and I'm doing my best to release all control and let it take me.

It will all work out.

5 days

2007-05-05T06:23:00.000+01:00

The past five days have been very very hard for me.
I have given my life to destiny and unfortunately that means I have to let go of people who care for me and who I care for deeply.

I am being brave.

What for?

I don't know.

I feel the wind changing direction and I have to go with it.

It has been calling me all of my life.