{"id":19230,"date":"2020-08-26T05:30:22","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T09:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19230"},"modified":"2020-08-26T16:43:12","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T20:43:12","slug":"three-is-the-magic-number-the-lickerish-quartet-part-3-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/26\/three-is-the-magic-number-the-lickerish-quartet-part-3-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Three is the Magic Number: The Lickerish Quartet (Part 3 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a> \u2026 <\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"EPs Versus Albums <\/b>
\nThe Lickerish Quartet made the decision not to release a traditional debut album; instead a series of EPs is planned. Threesome Vol. 1<\/i> was released May 15. And while Adam James provided the startup money for the project, funding for the debut EP was completed through a successful pledge campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had twelve songs that were close to the finish line,\u201d Manning says. \u201cWe took four that we felt worked together as a batch for this EP, finished them off with the mixing, and said, \u2018Let\u2019s reconnect with the fans the way I did with my pledge campaign in 2018, and let\u2019s see what becomes of all this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s cautiously optimistic. \u201cIf the fans want this, and if the whole process happens as well as we think it can, then it will justify the release of the next two EPs,\u201d says Manning. \u201cI\u2019m happy to say, so far so good. The following EPs are slated to happen over the next year and a half.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other songs are in various stages of completion. \u201cI could probably play you our rough mixes, and for most people, including myself, a lot of them are fine the way they are,\u201d Smith says. But he, Dover and Manning will continue to work on those tracks until they meet their highest standard.<\/p>\n

Those releases will be scheduled in between the members\u2019 other projects. \u201cIn between the Lickerish Quartet EPs, I will probably have more solo EPs as well,\u201d Manning says. That\u2019s a serious workload, because as anyone who has ever heard anything with which Manning has been involved will know, finished recordings take a lot of time. \u201cOur music is very labor intensive,\u201d he acknowledges. \u201cAnd that\u2019s fine; I\u2019m very happy with the results.\u201d He laughs and muses that it would be nice if he could \u201cknock out a song in a day or two,\u201d but that has never been the case.<\/p>\n

Tim Smith points out that releasing EPs has another benefit over albums. \u201cWe want to be able to have something new come out on a regular basis, so it\u2019s not just throwing twelve songs at people all at once,\u201d he says. He notes also that there is data suggesting that today\u2019s music consumer only listens to the first three or four songs on an album before moving on to something else. So, Smith says, releasing four-song mini-albums is a way to \u201ctry to keep people interested in what we\u2019re doing a little bit longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

For The Lickerish Quartet, the writing process is truly a collaborative one. \u201cObviously, somebody brought in the original kernel of the idea\u201d for each song, Smith admits. The trio chose songs that seemed to work best when grouped together for each EP. None of the three writers made demo recordings before presenting his ideas to the others. \u201cWe all pretty much added our stamp to them,\u201d Smith says. \u201cEric wrote lyrics to \u2018Lighthouse Spaceship\u2019 and \u2018Fadoodle,\u2019 which were both Roger music tracks. So it\u2019s pretty collaborative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lickerish Comes Alive?<\/b>
\nEven when the planet reaches a post-pandemic era, the prospect of live performances by The Lickerish Quartet remains an open question. \u201cThere is a joy of playing live,\u201d Manning admits. \u201cAnd I know the fans really like to see that personal connection.\u201d But the challenges to mounting a tour are substantial. The group\u2019s arrangements are complex, and realizing the music onstage would require significant resources. \u201cIf there\u2019s going to be any level of production, there\u2019s got to be some kind of financial infrastructure,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd that\u2019s the biggest challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

But live dates aren\u2019t completely out of the question. Citing his previous experience touring Japan under his own name, Manning sketches out a scenario that maybe \u2013 just maybe \u2013 could work. Promoters there organized a tour that included large and small venues, and they managed to subsidize Manning\u2019s touring costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to their business sense, I not only covered all my expenses to rehearse and get a full band out to Japan, but I ended up actually pocketing a little bit of money at the end of the day,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that was a huge surprise.\u201d If something similar can be put together for The Lickerish Quartet \u2013 \u201cin the States, Japan, England; I don\u2019t care,\u201d says Manning, then \u201cAnything is possible. I think we\u2019d all be game.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in the next breath, Manning cautions against getting one\u2019s hopes up about live dates. \u201cWe\u2019re not 22 years old. We\u2019re not getting in a van and sleeping at my friend\u2019s house, hoping that there\u2019s 50 people at the show.\u201d Having toured extensively with Jellyfish and other bands, he knows what the road can be like. Sometimes \u201cyou don\u2019t take any [money] home, and you\u2019re eating McDonald\u2019s before you go to bed at night,\u201d he observes. \u201cBeen there, done that. And that romance has long since passed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim Smith has a similar perspective. \u201cWe\u2019re all really at a point in our lives where we\u2019re not really willing to get in a van and go around and busk our songs out in little coffee shops,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t know that we have the kind of material where we could<\/i> do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s in a Name?<\/b>
\nStill, like its music, The Lickerish Quartet is good-natured. The group\u2019s collective playful sense of humor shines through in its name. The Lickerish Quartet<\/i> is an Italian 1971 soft-porn film described by noted film critic Roger Ebert as \u201ctoo good for its own good, which makes it very little good at all as a skin flick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manning admits that wasn\u2019t even the group\u2019s first choice for a name, though he won\u2019t share the unused possibilities. The process involved \u201cgoing though hundreds of names and tons of research and finding two or three that we could agree on, only to realize that our first choice was actually in use,\u201d he says. Then while perusing the film archives of director Radley Metzger, he happened upon a film he had all but forgotten about. \u201cI was like, \u2018Damn, that\u2019s a good name,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cAt least to me. Tim and Eric liked it, and we just went for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of names, Manning emphasizes that there was never any thought of reviving his old band\u2019s name for the new group. \u201cThat would be a discredit to all parties, to The Lickerish Quartet and to Jellyfish,\u201d he says. \u201cThere was never the intention to do some kind of carbon copy or next-best thing.\u201d Launching a new band with a new name brings a certain creative freedom. \u201cI also didn\u2019t want the project to be limited,\u201d Manning says. \u201cThere are a couple songs \u2013 you\u2019ll hear them on the future EPs \u2013 that are almost Supergrass-like punk-rock, and [you\u2019ll think], \u2018Wow, Jellyfish would have never<\/i> done this!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Eric Dover, Tim Smith and Roger Joseph Manning are all proud of the work they did in Jellyfish. But they\u2019ve moved on to new musical horizons with The Lickerish Quartet. And if memories of their first collaboration motivate listeners to discover their new music, that\u2019s fine by them. \u201cAt the end of the day,\u201d Manning says with a smile, \u201cour personalities end up being in the camp of \u2018post-Jellyfish-friendly,\u2019 if you will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Come back soon for more from my conversations with Roger Joseph Manning and Tim Smith. — bk<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two \u2026 EPs Versus Albums The Lickerish Quartet made the decision not to release a traditional debut album; instead a series of EPs is planned. Threesome Vol. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,51,62],"tags":[1130,4271],"class_list":["post-19230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-pop","category-rawk","tag-jellyfish","tag-the-lickerish-quartet","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19230"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19514,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19230\/revisions\/19514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}