I enjoyed the Belgium sessions more than I expected to.

Three tracks, loads of cameras, a friend running the whole thing, every part played by me. It was the first time I’d seen these records played back at me as something you could watch rather than just listen to, and I liked it more than I thought I would.

So when I got home, I did one more on my own.

This one’s Rowboat Song, and it isn’t Belgium. It’s ACHQ2, my own studio, nobody else holding a camera, just me, the camera on my phone and a tripod. Which makes it a bit more homespun than the others. Fewer angles, less polish, more of the room as it actually is.

But that’s sort of the point. What you’re looking at in this one is the lot. My gear, my instruments, my setup, in a room I had built to do exactly what I need it to do. Everything that goes into an Adult Cinema record is in that shot somewhere.

A quick note for the long-timers

If you downloaded Teaser Trailer at some point (and for a lot of you that was years ago) you’ll have had an email from me a few days afterwards about this song. The one with the police in it.

I won’t go through the whole thing again here. But for anyone who hasn’t had it: recording the shouting on this track once ended with six coppers in riot gear taking my garden gate off its hinges, and the night finished with an impromptu album playback and a pot of tea.

That wasn’t this studio, by the way. That was ACHQ1, in the garden of the old house. This is the one that came after.

There are two versions of it on Teaser Trailer, and they could hardly have been made in more different places. One was cut in a London studio, during one of those sessions I got when the business was having a look at me and deciding whether to sign anything. And deciding not to… The other is the Southend one: end of my garden, makeshift vocal booth, mate shouting into a microphone at midnight.

So this is the third version!

The problem with filming it

Rowboat Song opens with oars going through water and a man shouting, and there is absolutely nothing to point a camera at.

In Belgium that wouldn’t have mattered. On my own, it’s just me standing still, waiting for the track to start properly.

So I put what I see there instead.

I’ve had vivid dreams my whole life, and the darker end of them is a fair chunk of where this music comes from. When I hear that intro I see a rowboat on black water, and I always have. A boatman carrying souls across the River Styx, or something along those lines. I had a go at making that with AI and it’s not far from how I imagine it. I’d sooner show you the picture that’s actually in my head than a minute of a bloke standing about waiting to play a note.

I think it’s come out alright. Have a look and tell me what you reckon.

Teaser Trailer is still a free download if you haven’t got it - https://thisisadultcinema.com/free-music/

But, as I’ve done with each of these videos, there’s a 48 hour offer to get the CD or vinyl if you like to hold the thing. Both versions of Rowboat Song are on there.Mike