Solo time for Swill.

Why did I decide to do some 'solo' stuff? Well, let's go back in time a little. 2004 was a landmark year for The Men They Couldn't Hang's. It was our 20th anniversary. In those two decades 10 albums (including one live and two compilations) had been released. Countless gigs had been performed. This whole process also provided the added benefits of travelling to places, and meeting people, that we would never have seen if it hadn't been for the band. Being in TMTCH covers a wide range of emotions and experiences. We are close like a family and we always like to make the most of what we find. As a reviewer of a gig we played as part of the International Guitar Festival of Great Britain (The Wirral, 2004) aptly puts it "TMTCH are not so much of a band, as a way of life, having created a deep influential path for which its band members, former players and fans can follow. They are an exceptional group of musicians, an exceptional band, with an exceptional attitude towards music - exceptional!" All well and good so far but it still doesn't answer the question 'why did I decide to do the solo stuff' does it? Well, I love TMTCH and long may we continue. We're all still mates and the core of the band is the same as it was on that 1984 Easter Monday at The Alternative Country Festival in Camden. It's strange to look back at the line up from that day where, for just £4 you could see a bill the included: Poguemahone, Boothill Foot Tappers, Hackney Five-O Cut Loose, The Blubbery Hellbellies and the svelte, fresh-faced and recently formed The Men They Couldn't Hang. This was the birth of a significant music scene that would send ripples round the world. However, for various and complex reasons, the only band that has survived intact has been TMTCH. Swill OdgersTo say that it playing in a band like TMTCH is an emotional experience would be a massive understatement. On a long tour, privacy is a luxury, nights are long and the back of the tour bus smells like a yak's arse on a bad day. When it comes to the music, everyone in the band has his own variations on a theme. There is common ground, of course, but we all have our own particular favourites. It makes for a great melting pot when it comes to songwriting and recording and, in my opinion, this is what gives TMTCH such a unique flavour. Although highly productive, this method of working inevitably means that certain songs get overlooked because they just don't sit right with everyone involved. This was one of the main reasons that I wanted to record something that I had complete control over. I didn't want to get distracted by the technology of a big studio, or a producer with a ponytail. For better or for worse I wanted to be responsible for the end sound and I wanted the end sound to be simple and lively. Also, to be honest, I couldn't really afford a big studio, or a producer. Ponytail or no ponytail.

The Day After - My first solo album

Paul Simmonds, the lead guitarist and main songwriter with TMTCH, and I have been friends for even longer than we've been together in the band. We've also recorded and gigged side projects as 'Odgers & Simmonds', 'Liberty Cage' and, way back in the mists of time, 'Catch 22' ("before it catches you…" as the old song goes). I told Paul about my ideas and asked if he had any spare lyrics floating around that he would like me to put to music. So armed with half a dozen excellent sets of lyrics from Paul, a couple of covers (picked up from watching endless re-runs of 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou' and going to a few London Irish weddings over the years), two re-worked TMTCH songs and some of my own scribblings, I booked a small studio in Shepherd's Bush. The plan for the album was a simple one: I spoke to several friends that I wanted to accompany me on the recording session and asked if they would like to be involved. The deal would be that I would send them the rough song-shapes and we would meet up at the studio a couple of weeks later. There would be no rehearsal: we'd simply run through the songs and record everything we played until we got the definitive version. Oh, and all the instruments had to be acoustic.

The Band with no Name

So, who were these friends, these guest musicians?

Well, Ricky McGuire, bassist with TMTCH added his unique blend of highland and lowland malt bass to several tracks whilst my brother, Jon Odgers, who played on the first five TMTCH albums dusted off his drumsticks and played snare, bongos and any other small, defenceless percussion.

Tom Spencer, of Fast Lane Roogalator and sometime TMTCH tour manager, played guitar and banjo. Tom is a great guitarist and has been playing guitar for years but on this album he was playing banjo for the first time - literally!!

Jamie Mathews (who was recording on the Roogalators' album in another part of town) popped in and added some great harmonica. He also plays a tasty ukulele: that led to the uke and vocal version of 'In the Jailhouse Now'. We also recruited the studio receptionist, Marsha Swanson, to join in on a little yodelling.

Next up was Bobby Valentino. Bobby was his usual brilliant self - possibly a tad brillianter! - he not only added some wondrous fiddle to six of the tracks but also played a mandolin that had belonged to his grandma, dates back to the 1800's and was bombed in the blitz and dug out of the rubble. It sounds magic though.

Last up was TMTCH roadie and neighbour Ashley Halloween (and yes that is his real name) who contributed some fine picking to 'The Flood' and 'Family Way' and surprised all of us, even himself, as this was his first time in a recording studio.

Take your time, time your takes

All the lead vocals were recorded live - which is very rare - as where most of the instruments. There's a kind of unspoken acceptance in the music business that very little is recorded live and most bands go along with that - even to the extent that most 'Live' albums you have heard will have been taken back to a recording studio and had almost all the instruments and vocals replaced (or at least patched up). It is not unknown for a live album to have barley anything from the gig left intact apart from the sound of the crowd - and there's a good chance that that will have been enhanced! I wanted to take the live feel to the other extreme insisting that didn't even rehearse these songs before the recording session. Wherever possible all the instruments were recorded at the same time too…although there were limits with some of us (Tom and Bobby to name but two) playing more than one instrument on some of the songs. This was very much the way I wanted to record - to capture the freshest performance and was something that we (TMTCH) had done, to some extent, on 'The Cherry Red Jukebox' but now I wanted to take it further.

The studio, beneath the Hammersmith and City tube line, is compact and not superbly soundproofed. In the same complex are several rehearsal rooms so this made recording tricky as the mics would not only pick up the odd sound from any particularly heavy trains rumbling overhead but also spill from bands in the other rooms (not all of who followed our 'acoustic instruments only' rule). All in all we had to time our takes carefully otherwise that meaningful fading hum of the last mandolin note would also pick up the thrash metal bassist in the adjacent room.

The Smoking Guns

Following on in TMTCH tradition each session had a large social element to it, there was always a bit of a party atmosphere pervading our studio space and I think this cuts through in the recordings. We would also follow each session by a visit to the local boozers or a meal in one of Shepherds Bush's finest eateries. Often on these occasions, after much patting of backs and mutual appreciation, we would get down to the subject of names for the 'backing band'. We spent one long and merry evening in 'The Light of Nepal' debating over the merits of 'Loaded Dice', 'Smoking Guns' and 'Loaded Guns'. This discourse carried on, in a near obsessive manner, for weeks during which time we also solicited help from visitors to www.tmtch.net and the list grew to include Swill and:

• The Swaggers
• The Dark Stars
• The Bounty Hunters
• The Acton Shuffle
• The Loaded Dice
• The Smoking Guns
• The Loaded Guns
• The Light of Nepal
• The Mad Cowboys
• The Braxton Hicks
• The Wild Cards
• The Peacekeepers
• The 4 Horsemen
• The Wrong ' em Boyo's
• The Band with no Name
• The W Three
• The Swillettes
• The Trough Boys