after a very eventful year here is dahl's 1998 diary to wrap it all up...
well not
quite 98... but on the 27th of december 1997 simon and sara tied the knot...
congratulations! 2 down, 3 to go...



paul corkett and robert at rak and outside working on the dm cover and the x-files song and the cogasm project...
robert makes a guest appearance on 'south park'
the world cup!
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the parkgate demo session


end of the festivals - brno czech republic
in september
98 we moved back into st catherines court to start on the new record...
when we left in march 96 after finishing wild mood swings, i don't think any
of us ever
thought we would be back... but after looking at the alternatives and remembering
all the
good times we had had, the decision was made to return... technology moves so
fast these
days it's hard to keep up with the latest recording possibilities, and i think
robert must have changed
his mind about ten times before settling on the new studio set up... when the
band did the demos
at parkgate in may they used a hard drive recording system called a 'radar',
and the decision was made to
use this system again at st catherines, in tandem with a mac based system running
pro tools...
what with the cubase midi system also running on a mac, the control room was
so full of
computers there was barely room for us humans! the set-up took a full week with
the help of old friends
steve toth and martin bell... and so we decided to leave them to it and have
some fun in the sun for a weekend...

...hard
as it was, we all got back on the plane and left the beautiful south of france
for bath
and the start of the serious work on the new record... as the band had done
some demos in may
they had a pretty good idea of how things were going to sound - robert also
had words for all the songs, something that
hadn't happened for a long time... initially the band had planned to have everything
finished and mixed by christmas...
but inevitably things ended up taking longer...
the session
broke for christmas and then carried on again... and then on for a bit more...
and as you now know the release was eventually put back from 1999 to 2000...
but the
positive spin to this delay is it has
a) given robert and the band enough time to make it a perfect record
b) given the record labels more time to think about what they are going to do
with it and
c) given us more time to really plan a tour!
and i know
everyone wants to hear the new songs NOW -
but i also know you will all think its been more than worth the wait when you
actually do...


and more recording...