Sandra's Wedding

It's hard to know where to start really, but I suppose the beginning probably makes sense.

Looking back at the way it began, everything seemed good. Little did we know.

January

We're perilously close to finishing our second album, which would become Frame Yourself. It's dragged on longer than we wanted it to, so myself and Joe are, from Castleford and Goole respectively, driving to Hull on a daily basis finishing the album. Guitar overdubs sprinkled here, vocals added there. I'm probably the most annoying member to work with and my catchphrase is quite often "What if I just stick another guitar overdub there? Okay? Right, let me try it with my Rickenbacker 12 String now." Thankfully producer Pat Dooner has the patience of a saint, and humours me. These sessions are productive, and the added elements really help songs finally come together. We were lucky to rope in percussionist Gary Hammond, who provided the memorable touches to The Beautiful South's Perfect Ten, to come and add the garnish to our tracks, and with these touches we feel they're now coming to life and radio ready.

February

The most poppy of these would have to be Lip Service. Joe's ode to love in the internet age, it seems a good idea to do a music video for that particular track. Thankfully we're blessed with talented friends; Katie & Amy at Fly Girl Films manage to, somehow, make us look almost human and somewhat respectable. We hire a completely white room in Beverley and mess around for a few hours. It was cold. I remember thinking that after working on these tracks for a year, it's a rewarding feeling to be on the home straight and to be at the stage where we're working out promotional ideas for the tracks. After a meeting with our guru Dan Greaves, we decide to release Lip Service as a single ahead of the album on Valentine's Day. The meeting takes place at an American themed diner in Castleford, where far too many sugary drinks are consumed far too early in the day. If you look at the photos, we look exactly like what it is - 9am on a Saturday morning. Anyway, Valentine's Day. Yeah. This is a special day in Sandraland, as it is also the anniversary of our first album coming out, so there is a nice symmetry to this release for us. We like symmetry. We finish the month by doing a gig at Howden Shire Hall with Rachel Makena and The Broken Orchestra supporting. The last track we decided to do was Panic by The Smiths. A song about society melting down. Who would have thought something so apocalyptic could happen.

March

The album is mastered and ready to go. We decide on a release date over a drink at The Bell & Crown in Snaith, where Luke happens to mention "that virus thing" everyone is talking about. We give it about ten seconds thought, and then carry on planning gigs and release details. A few days later I recall driving to our gig at The Polar Bear in Hull, and hearing about a case of this virus in the city. On stage Joe jokingly tells everyone to wash their hands. If only it was that simple. On the 20th March, to no fanfare at all, we finally release Frame Yourself. After months of hard work, we are finally able to share it with the world (or the three people on Facebook that humour us). Then, merely three days later, the country is put under the hardest restrictions of freedom since WW2. Panic buying ensues. Toilet paper shortages. Queues. Madness. Could life ever be sane again?

April - November

Let's be honest, this was all a bit of a blur for everyone wasn't it? Lockdown. Zoom calls. Tiger King. Chris Witty. Banana Bread (more of this later.) We'll certainly all look back at this and laugh, or cry about it while our therapist nods and writes something down.

It was an incredibly bizarre time emotionally to process what was going on for everyone, I imagine. From a band point of view, which is hopefully why you're reading this, it was strange. We were all emotionally drained from spending almost a year creating the twelve track album and then on the eve of promoting it, sharing it and performing it, a global pandemic happened and prevented that. But such is life and far many worse things happened and in perspective it is obviously nothing compared to the sacrifices people have made all year. We were heartened by people enjoying our music in lock down, and the numerous people who supported us streaming the tracks or purchasing the CDs and vinyl releases did make it all feel worthwhile. We were also grateful of the BBC DJs who helped us plug the record and any reviewers who tried to spead the word and get the album out there; marketing in an unmarketable market. I'm sure Joe has said this before on a blog, but being in a band reminds us of the proverb "if a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?" If an unsigned band makes an album, and nobody listens, does it really exist? Alas, in such situations not much can be done and the entire creative industry has had its' guts ripped out and even now, we don't quite know what's going to be left of it.

“A relationship is like a shark, you know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we have on our hands here, is a dead shark.”

I've always felt this quote from Annie Hall reflects being in a band. A band is essentially a polyamorous relationship, almost as dysfunctional as those you see on a Louis Theroux documentary, between several musicians and you have to keep rolling forward being creative, making progress, otherwise you run the risk of drifting apart. It happens to so many bands, and in the darker moments of lockdown I did have a fleeting moment where I thought "what if bands sort of just...stop being a tangible thing and we can't viably make music for ages?" Suddenly you start to envisage a hiatus, which becomes an extended break, and before you know it you're no longer a collective entity. But thankfully, Joe and Luke are of a similar mindset in being quite resourceful and don't enjoy resting on our collective laurels.

So when Joe suggested we recorded a lockdown album and complete it remotely I was quite excited. We're lucky that Luke is technically very gifted and knows how to put things together, so we slowly but surely started assembling bits of tracks by sending them across to each other. Joe would send guitars and vocals, Luke with the drumbeats or tambourine garnishes, while I'd send jangly guitars or mandolin parts. It was quite a contrast to spending hours setting up in a studio and checking levels and tone via soundproof glass, nodding to the control room to now sit alone, with only your own patience keeping you sat plugging away for "one more take." It was quite a breath of fresh air in some ways as Frame Yourself was such an elaborate process that was testing the logistics of hiring saxophone players and guest performers, we were now just sending fragments of sound to Luke and saying "put that in the track mate." In what must have been like assembling the worst jigsaw of all time, our drummer extraordinaire managed to arrange these things into the album that became Banana Bread. While you were baking it, we were recording it.

A slight glimmer of hope came in August with the reprieve of restrictions, which permitted us to stop doing those awful Facebook gigs from Joe's living room, and reunite to play live for a full live stream performance at The Junction in Goole. It was a surreal experience playing to a camera and an empty room, (not the empty room bit, as anyone who has been to a Sandra's Wedding gig will tell you, is the norm...) trying to generate the energy and adrenaline that an audience provides. But it was a great relief and we all felt lucky to perform once again. We made the most of it because as we played the final chord of the last track, with cases creeping up again, I had a sneaky feeling as I saw Luke hammering the drums, Corey digging into the bass guitar, and Joe pouring his heart into the microphone, that it'd be a fair while before we did it all again.

December

And with the cases going as they have and the government adding tiers like video game bonus levels, it looks like we're still a little while off being able to play live again. We'll look back at this year as one where we released two albums and couldn't even gig them. It is difficult to know what live music will look like in the future. We did play an acoustic gig in a rammed bar in Pontefract in January, and now the thought of so many people being squashed together like sardines feels like another world or foreign concept. I'd like to say they were there to see us, but I think they just do really good beer.

But, as we started the year holed up on an industrial estate in Hull, there is a nice symmetry to end it in the same place. I told you we liked symmetry! Joe spent all yesterday getting 26 demos down with Pat and Carl, many of which will form the bulk of our our next album. Having listened to a couple of tracks - Aretha Franklyn and Afghanistan being my favourite working titles - I'm quite excited for what the next album and next year holds. It can't be any worse than what happened this year, can it? (Unless we hit March 2021 and tier 46 is unleashed where bands from the East Yorkshire area are barred from all streaming services)

Take care of yourselves. Thank you all so much for your support and everyone who has bought a record, streamed a song, or reached out on social media to tell us that you've enjoyed it - it really has made it worthwhile, and we appreciate your support more than you'll know.

Jonny