The last time I wrote I told you about my plans to create a band of Asian Chefs to promote a new magazine I was working on. I planned to call them The Spice Boys.
Well, things moved on a bit since then and we did actually record the backing track at London’s Stone Room Studios. A great little studio to work in, intimate yet atmospheric, thanks mostly to the enthusiasm of Indian producer Suj Joshi and my co-writer Dhiren Raichura who were both tickled by the whole concept and gave me every encouragement.
We worked all day on the music track and then, in the last half an hour I got to play the superstar as I put down the guide vocal. Even though I was a bit rushed as time was running out, I still had great fun performing in a booth where truly talented people had stood before and I was giving it my all. Of course when you listen to the track later, back at home, you can hear all the things you phrased or timed wrongly and all the improvements you could have made with more time. Oh well, that’s show biz I guess. Studio time doesn’t come cheap and budgets must be kept!
The other factor that made this a fascinating place to work was the knowledge that so many greats had been there before me. The Stereophonics, REM, Manic Street Preachers, The Damned, Steve Winwood, Beverley Knight, Shola Ama, Moby, Paul Weller, Jamelia to name but a few. They had all used the same facilities as me and it didn’t do their careers any harm at all. Maybe some of the magic would rub off and I would be discovered by a label that specialised in short, overweight, middle aged wannabes still stuck in the seventies…. Well, you never know!
Sadly, it would seem that The Spice Boys are as dead as a Bombay Duck, for no matter how I try I just can’t get the five of them together at the same time when the studio is available. Deadlines are pressing but there is still no sign of a solution. Dhiren is relocating back to India in November and there is a chance that the whole studio will be broken down piece by piece and shipped out there too to specialise in working within the Bollywood Film Industry.
So, while I hoped to have a lot of fun with The Spice Boys project it may be that fate has played a hand here. The magazine I was working for seems to be in difficulty, but while I was with them I was offered the chance to start my own independent magazine. So that is just what I am going to do. The first edition will come out in January 2008. You can watch our progress at www.tasteofasiamag.com
Maybe the hand of fate that stifled the recording will turn a negative into a positive that will enable me to make my fortune instead…. Well, you never know!
