Here are potted histories for those of you interested in the exciting story of The Sound of The Ladies:
-Read the Quick Biography!
-Delve Deeper with the FAQs!
-Put yourself completely to sleep with the Boring and technical FAQs!
The Sound of The Ladies is the work of Martin Austwick, singer-songwriter, sometime producer and quantum physicist*. The Sound of The Ladies have recorded three EPs: Tissue of Lies (2006), Rosebud (2007) and Scrape The Paint (2008).
The Sound of The Ladies play regularly in London. You may have seen them at The Electroacoustic Club at the Slaughtered Lamb in Clerkenwell, Bedsprings, IK:TOMS and Freedom of Expression at various venues across London, or The Luminaire in Kilburn.
The Sound of The Ladies has been featured on Tom Robinson’s Fresh on the Net on Radio 6, The Best of MySpace Podcast, Penny Broadhurst’s Instant Classic Podcast and the Music is Power Podcast, and have garnered some very nice comments from some very nice people..
“The gorgeous acoustic Sound of The Ladies” -Tom Robinson, BBC6 music
“[The Sound of The Ladies] is actually one guy called Martin Austwick… He should be more famous - his voice is brilliant”
-Josie Long’s “Must Sees” in the Sunday Times Culture Section
“A gorgeous voice, and a set of songs awash with angst, pain and beauty… melancholy,minimalist and touching…” -Subba-Cultcha
[about Tissue of Lies]: “…a very impressive debut EP, displaying a broad range of musical influences and, more importantly, a great talent…” -Backlash Magazine
“Becoming somewhat of a superhero in the underground acoustic scene” - God is in the TV zine
“…a collection of subtle semi-acoustic tracks set against his sombre, gently-swooping voice… recalls the uncluttered sonic distance to some of Jose Gonzales’ self-penned work, with a bossanova twitchiness and a lilt to his voice a little bit reminiscent of Rufus Wainwright…” - New Noise
“Ladies make many different sounds… they sound like the Blue Nile in a blender with Billy MacKenzie while Jeff Buckley gets off with all the ladies outside… that’s the sound you can hear…” -Best of MySpace Podcast
*As much as that looks like a lame joke, it isn’t - he gained his DPhil in the field of purification and Electron Spin Resonance measurement of single-walled carbon nanotubes and endohedral fullerenes, with specific application to quantum computing, in 2004. Think “tiny bar magnets”
Martin played guitar in instrumental post-rock steamcore band The Monroe Transfer until November 2008. Drowned in sound’s new bands wing, DisCover said, “At their most beautiful, The Monroe Transfer are able to lightly brush the places that so few other instrumental acts can”. Rather than rattling on about them, I would encourage you to listen here; they are not what you would necessary expect.
He appears regularly in the house band for The School for Gifted Children, a comedy and music night run by Robin Ince themed around science and knowledge, at which he performs original compositions on those topics. He has played at both the Latitude Festival and Edinburgh fringe under the auspices of its forerunner, the Book Club, and serves semi-regularly in the house band for If.comeddie Newcomer Award winner Josie Long’s comedy night, the Sunday Night Adventure Club.
He produces Answer Me This!, a weekly comedy podcast starring Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann, which answers listener questions, and which in February 2008 reached no. 9 in the iTunes Comedy Podcast chart, making it the highest-rated independent comedy podcast on iTunes. He plays the character of Martin the Sound Man and contributes much of the music used in the jingles, idents and bed tracks.
He also had a TINY voice-over part in Josie Long’s 2005 Edinburgh show, An Audience With Dan Nightingale & Josie Long as Sir Paul McCartney and recorded the hard-to-find People’s Sauce with her the same year. He beatboxed for character comedian Jo Neary at the Laughter in Odd Places performance at comedy critic Bruce Dessau’s house. He has recorded demos of “Scrabble Song” and “Charlie’s Birthday Party” for singer-songwriter Gavin Osborn, and a version of Bryan Adams’ “Summer of ‘69″ featuring farmyard animals for an as-yet unused sketch by comedy team Pappy’s Fun Club. And he is rarely sick at sea.
Q. Who are you?
A. I’m Martin Austwick. I’m a musician and songwriter, and also a quantum physicist, but I work in medical physics now.
Q. What is The Sound of The Ladies?
A. Just lil’ old me.
Q. It’s just you?
A. Yep. On the recordings, I play all those instruments. Live, it’s just me on my own, with a guitar. At the moment.
Q. Are you Martin the Sound Man from The Answer Me This! Podcast?
A. Yes and no. We share many things in common, such as a DPhil in Physics and a love of microphones. But I have less of a tendency to say really offensive things in public.
Q. Have I seen you onstage with The Monroe Transfer?
A. That was probably Nick. But I did play guitar in The Monroe Transfer. Sadly, I left the band at the end of October 2008.
Q. Haven’t I seen you playing guitar at [The Book Club/The School for Gifted Children/The Latitude Festival/The Sunday Night Adventure Club] behind [Robin Ince/Asher Trelevyn/Josie Long/Martin White/Ben Moor/Bridget Christie/Pappy's Fun Club/Gavin Osborn]?
A. I do hope so. Some of those only ever happened once.
Q. Why do you ask people to download and copy your songs?
A. Because I want to be like Alex from the Arctic Monkeys?
Q. Really?
A. No.
Basically- I would rather someone listen to my music for free than they don’t listen to it at all. But tell your friends.
Q. Do you have CDs, vinyl, etc?
A. Vinyl - no. It’s expensive and I wouldn’t sell enough. CDs - yes. But… CDs are crappy and bad for the environment and you’ll just copy it to your iBox and then lose it under the bed. If you really want one, I will make you one up and post it to you, just email me.
Q. Don’t computers use energy?
A. Sure. I’m with this web hosting company which runs entirely off my own smugness. Thank you Matt Groening.
Q. Is that it?
A. No, I’ll add more questions. It just depends on how frequently you ask them.
Q. I’m having trouble with the website/downloading songs/your RSS feed… can you help?
A. Sure! Just email me.
Q. What is RSS and why should I use it?
A. RSS is way to get regular updates from a site or service that regularly changes its content. It basically works by having a little document on my site, which is like a contents page in a book. Every time I add stuff, the contents page gets updated. Every time you start your browser or reader, it looks at the contents page and tells you if there’s anything that wasn’t there last time.
Q. How do I subscribe to your website’s RSS feed?
A. There’s an excellent if somewhat patronising video explaining it here. Clicking the “subscribe to feed” button usually does it… and it’s free, btw. As is the podcast.
The podcast has something similar, but you subscribe to that using something like iTunes, and iTunes handles all the tricky stuff.
Q. What guitar/amp do you use?
A. Live, I typically use a Fender Telecaster, and instead of using an amp I use a Zoom G2.1u effects unit as an amp sim, going straight into a DI box. Because I was tired of humping an amp. Around.
Q. What recording equipment do you use?
A. All kinds of stuff.
Q. What equipment should I get if I want to record myself or a podcast with a couple of people?
A. Welll… based on what I have in the cupboard, a minimal setup for me might be:
- Early 2007 Apple iMac running Garageband (or Logic Express)
- Focusrite Saffire LE firewire audio interface
- Rode NT1A large-diaphragm condenser microphone; this is a punchy-sounding mic and great for robust vocals
- Audio-technica 3035 large-diaphragm condenser microphone; this is a bit more delicate-sounding I reckon
- some headphones and popshields are always useful
Which would give me two simultaneous inputs for voice and guitar, say. However, there are lots and lots of options for a musician wanting to get a basic recording setup, particularly on the interface and the mic side. Try digital village, for example. This is just what I started off with.
Q. What do you use to record the Answer Me This! podcast?
A. The above, plus
- a Focusrite Sapphire Pro 40 Firewire interface
- SE1A small diaphragm condenser microphone
[nt1a on Olly, at3035 on Helen, SE1A on me]
Helen edits the podcast in Logic Express or Garageband.
Q. What other recording equipment do you use?
A. Mainly
- An m-audio iControl control surface, very useful for mixing
- An SE Electronics SE Z5600a valve LDC. This is brilliant for vocals and bass, but a bit pricey.
- I have a matched pair of SE1As which I can use for stereo recording
- A lexicon mpx100 rack/outboard effects unit for putting reverb onto my vocal monitoring
- Stereo separates for listening to mixes and that. I should have proper monitors I suppose.
Also
- A shure SM57 which I hate
- A Behringer outboard compressor which I have literally never used
Q. Do you have loads of guitars and stuff?
A. Uh…
- A Fender (Mexico) Telecaster
- A 1980s Antoria Jazzstar electric acoustic (hollow-body electric jazz guitar)
- A classical guitar I can’t remember the name of
- An Encore Precision bass guitar with the frets ripped out
But also
- A 2007 Gibson Les Paul Vintage Mahogany Studio which I used mainly for The Monroe Transfer
- A 1980s Aria bass guitar (with frets not ripped out)
- A 2006 Gretsch Electromatic Baritone guitar strung as a superbass (bass-E, bass-A, guitar-D, guitar-G, guitar-B, guitar-E)
- A parlor guitar from a local junkshop
Amp-wise, I use a Peavey Classic 30 valve amp for everything. I have a few effects like an EHX big muff pi and a holy grail, but they don’t get used much. [Ooh, I just got a boss tremelo for Xmas. Woo Woo!]
You don’t need all this stuff. I just like guitars. For drums, I have an electronic kit, and I have borrowed a friend’s electric piano for midi keyboard stuff
Q. Who designed this website?
A. Wordpress, Tarski, and me. That’s why it looks 1/3 like a ball.
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