A journal I was keeping as we began to make the second RUTH album at home. It runs from April to August 1999 with a little footnote from January 2000 showing an early indication that Things Were Not Well with RUTH. The album was never finished, but some of the songs described are on the 45s album, and one is on Value Music - buy your copy today!

Tuesday 20th April:
Today is the day when we can go and collect our new studio, just in time to start recording the first songs tomorrow. Drive into London with Matt and pack an insane number of boxes into the van; monitors, ADATs, EQ, preamps, compressor, reverbs, flight cases, microphones, stage box and a thousand leads. We are very excited although a little daunted by number of manuals to read and knobs to twiddle. Speed off to pick up MVB and his drums and then return to mine for extended session of ripping open boxes, locating power leads, throwing away numerous warranty registration cards with gleeful abandon and slotting chunky square units into their racks. It amounts to three flight cases, a suitcase and a big box with the mixing desk in it and a huge pile of polystyrene chunks and folded-down boxes - you can just pick up all the bits and take it wherever you wish, which is good because my landlord does not approve of recording drums in my flat. I leave the Matts to finish putting everything together and checking it works and head off out, for I must also have a life, n'est ce pas?

Wednesday 21st April:
Get up early and take all of our new toys to a place called Music City ("where the music lives") which despite being very dingy and subterranean we have been using for rehearsals for the last five years. They are very suspicious about our need for two rooms but are impressed by all the shiny things we bring in.

Now it is time to try and understand how everything works. MVB sets up the kit in one room and me and Matt set up the studio in the other. This requires a lot of head-scratching and going "ah!" suddenly. We mic up the kit for the first time with our lovely new mics. It's a lot less boring than the usual drum session because it's actually us doing everything. Tony arrives to make sure we're not doing anything foolish and then it's time to start doing takes. We're starting with the B-sides for the first single (whatever that is), Hello there and Scary Mary. Sounds pretty cool - sounds a lot like normal studio drums, so that's a relief. Finish recording fifteen minutes before we have to leave, but we're happy.

Thursday 22nd April:
Gig at 100 Club. Just got time to record the acoustic guitar on Scary Mary before going to soundcheck. Record quite a lot of the passing trains (the railway is just behind my house) but hey - that's our sound, man. Gig was all right. Knocked over lots of drinks on the stage, but the new stuff sounded OK.

Friday 23rd April:
Must go into town and buy some speaker stands. Also must go to Studio Shop to exchange poo-y bass drum mic for a good one and broken unit for working one. Now I am carrying too much stuff and may die before reaching station.

Saturday 24th April:
Haha! Chris (flatmate) is out and so I can record some guitar in my house! Only place available for putting amps without annoying neighbours is in the bathroom. Cunning positioning of amp in bath allows for a choice of big horrible tinny bathroom guitar sound or (with judicious use of duvets and foam) close and lovely with no trace of bathroom guitar sound. Nonetheless use too many mics and begin to appreciate difficulties with phasing. Record main tracks for Hello and Scary but they sound a bit funny. Now Chris back and wanting to use bathroom without being recorded. Stop now.

Sunday 25th April:
Pantstyle day out at the Radio 1 Mime Show at London Fashion Week at Wembley. Get up early and traverse big city with guitars. MVB has day off to become a Godfather (The Godfather) and so Jodie Hawkes (yes, brother of Chesney) comes along to pretend to play to tiny group of wannabe models and fashion bargain hunters. Discuss possible singles with Brian and Geri It's either Sundial, Give my heart or Waiting for my heart to break. B&G love latter, Stephen loves former, I hate middle. Still, "quality song" and "single" are not the same thing. Buy some shirts at knock-down prices.

Traverse big city again and introduce Stephen to studio. His eyes big and round. Record bass tracks for B-sides, drink lots of coffee. Tony comes to help make my new computer work, which it finally does, thank golly. I live again.

Friday 30th April:
Return to Music City ("where the music lives") to do drum tracks for the first single ("whatever that is"). Takes slightly less long to make everything work this time, but slightly more long to tune the drums to MVB and Tony's satisfaction.

In the midst of a tuning binge Matt incredulously takes a call from Kim about a flat she has found that appears to contain a studio and rushes off to see it. MVB starts doing takes for Waiting FMHTB and Sundial. Critical listening is hampered by the proximity of The Worst Band I Have Ever Heard rehearsing in the next room. The clock ticks ominously and MVB begins to get migraine. Having got a good take on WFMH we force pale Matt to do one more on Sundial which proves to be rather fantastic, so we stop.

Matt returns excited because fate has handed us somewhere we can make the album without having to pack up all the heavy boxes all the time. The flat has an extension which used to be an office, and within the office is a lesser office with a big window in it which looks a lot more like a recording room and a control room to the experienced eye. This remarkable stroke of luck means that I'm no longer doomed to mic-ing up amps in the bathroom. We rush home and let Matt lie down before his head falls off.