Squire are thrilled to announce a special BLACK VINYL reissue of NO TIME TOMORROW b/w DON’T CRY TO ME!
Re- Released 21st August 2022 in Black vinyl.
Previously Released in Pillar Box Red (only a few available) and Bubble Gum Pink (Totally Sold Out!)
Squire's 5th single release was a psychedelic pop masterpiece, an alchemy combining the spirit of The Beatles 'Revolver' and summoning the presence of Beethoven! The flip side contrasts with a mop top pop Squire beat combo classic! Together they create the perfect evocation of mid 60s musical style and were another unexpected surprise from Squire.
But the original demo recording is perhaps even more of a psychedelic pop masterpiece, as you can hear below - for the very first time!!
Way back on 28th November 2020, we looked at the story behind the release and recording of the song - you can re-read the newsletter here!
The story goes that we were looking for a song that drew a line between the earlier ‘mod revival’ repertoire, as heard and released on the Hits From 3000 Years Ago LP, and we were inspired by some of the experimental recordings we were making with out limited equipment at home, to make a record that eschewed the need to arrange and constrain the arrangement so we could play it live.
This very limited equipment was based around a TEAC 3340S 4-track reel-to-reel recorder, a single vocal microphone, an HH 100 guitar amp which had a built in ‘Hammond style’ spring reverb, and a Casio VL Tone which was a mono synth, one note at a time, with a very basic rhythm sound.
With this and our guitar and drum kit - we managed to create the demo of No Time Tomorrow!
The basic track was built around a selected Casio rhythm which could be programmed to switch between two styles by playing between them in real time while recording to tape.
Then guitar was added by plugging the guitar straight in to the tape machine. The vocal melody was sung and then the synth melody was played. This filled four tracks. We had to make room for more recording by ‘bouncing down’ three tracks (track 1 - Casio, track 2 - guitar & track 3 - synth) onto the track 4 - vocal track which wiped it. We also played a second synth line over the top - live while we bounced the tape tape tracks in record, to add another sound!
This gave us three now empty tracks 1, 2 & 3 we could fill up again, alongside the new mixed down track which was on track 4. Now we could record again. First, the lead vocal was sung again, and then two harmony tracks were sung, one recorded and one live as we bounced yet again to free up two final tracks for a single track of live drums recorded on one microphone and extras like the backward guitars and extra rhythm guitar! Seemingly complex, but that is how recordings were made on 4-track tape machines, so we became very good at all this bouncing tracks stuff!
Each time we bounced down we ran the sound through the HH100 guitar amplifier to add reverb, and the process added some unwanted but unavoidable distortion and fuzziness as well!. So the final sound is quite rowdy and has lots of reverb, with drums dropping out where there wasn’t enough room to add extra sounds, we had to tape over them - so sacrifices were made. However, a demo is like an artists sketch, trying the different parts and sounds out to see what fits and what is too excessive. Its not about getting the best performance, but getting ideas working while being in the ‘flow state’. As you can hear on the demo below, never heard before, we got quite carried away with the arrangement!
Later on during the actual recording studio session, we repeated many of these ideas, and also added the Beethoven ‘Ode To Joy’ intro fanfare, which symbolically heralded our new era and newfound confidence.
While the final studio recording of the song certainly creates a psychedelic soundscape that evokes the best of the mid 1960’s, it is interesting to hear the original demo and how the tape experiments, and chaos of ideas which were thrown at the tape without much regard for sculpting an arrangement, inspired many of the motifs that survived the final recording. They inspired and were grown into the pieces that give the final record its character.
For instance, the ‘bip-bop’ Casio rhythm that became exposed in the middle section when the drums cut out, appeared to fit the overall meaning of the song as they sounded like a ticking clock, so the signifier was recreated with handclaps. The backwards guitar became a vital sound of the arrangement, so the guitar solo was played forwards and then repeated backwards rather than having a totally abstract backwards performance, such as heard on The Beatles Revolver LP on tracks like ‘Im Only Sleeping’.
The heavy guitar in the middle section, which was intended to drive the song all the way through to the end, was abandoned as an idea too far, but the high and low harmonies remained as a vital answering phrase. The different reverb available in the actual recording studio session dilutes the otherwise ghostly effect of the demo we got on the guitar amp reverb. The final coda was toned down in the studio, as it it difficult to recreate such an abstract collage without sounding contrived, so we focused on a different approach, which subtly referenced the melody of our previous ‘psychedelic’ coda on Walking down The Kings Road!
As mentioned in the previous newsletter, Squire rose to the occasion with a song inspired by the passing of time that wasn’t creating forward motion. The lyric expresses an inner urgency to make a future, and get up and get on, rather than dwelling on a recent past and descending into melancholy. The sound, that turns in on itself by going simultaneously forwards and backwards, impresses a soundscape that matches the lyric and heralded a new found confidence and was a forbear to the broadening of the sound that would give birth to the Get Smart! album within a year.
You can hear the original demo below, and buy the vey limited Black Vinyl pressing of the single by clicking on the pictures at the very top or botom of the newsletter!
All the best from Squire!