This podcast is only temporary
Irish songwriter and producer Andy White’s third series of This podcast is only temporary tells the story of the writing and recording of his latest album 'Good Luck I Hope You Make It'.
As in the first two series, going track by track through solo album ‘This garden is only temporary’ and the 'AT' album co-written with Tim Finn, every week Andy looks at how a song's layers of lyrics and music work together, how sometimes ideas appear as if by magic – and if not, inspiration can always be encouraged.
Andy plays excerpts from the master tapes and discusses process and influences, recording, playing and writing in a home studio. If you're thinking of making your own album, you might find a way of doing it here. Each episode ends with a different version of the song from the one you'll find on the released albums.
If the underlying theme of Series 1 is "How to make an album" and Series 2, "How to co-write an album", Series 3 might be all about going back to the beginning. As always, "If you want to express something but don't know how to express it—tell the truth. This is powerful."
This podcast is only temporary
Bass Priority
This week's penultimate episode is all about the bass and includes an official bass warning. Often hiding behind everything else, this one is all about the bass. Andy's looking at Bass Priority, a track that didn't make it onto his latest album This garden is only temporary and talking about the sequencing of an album. How important this is, and suggesting some ways you could go about it.
There are digressions on vulnerability in your playing style, leaving some musical ideas for another time, how the order tracks are recorded isn't necessarily the order you find them on the final version of the album, and things to think about if you're putting songs together for an album that will come out on vinyl.
On the way he mentions Seventeen Seconds and Hello, as well as his own albums Rave on Andy White and Garageband.
In this episode, the track is instrumental. The words were the last to arrive but turned out to be the start of his next album. In October 2023 Andy released the completed version of Bass Priority on Bandcamp. Take a listen to find out what happened next.
This is the penultimate episode of the first series. As ever, please share and subscribe.
See you next week.
Andy's albums are available on Bandcamp or www.andywhite.com