Ritual Humiliation for the Masses….

May 192012

Ritual humiliation for the masses…

I’ve never been a fan of X-factor, Pop Idol, Opportunity Knocks or any of the other cyclical talent shows that clog up peak-viewing hour on the goggle-box at weekends. I’m sure they have their place, but whatever or wherever this is, it ain’t in my place.

No one with half an ear would ever claim that these light entertainment shows have any great musical worth, being ground from the same karioki roots as ‘Stars In Their Eyes’ (albeit with less fun, less musicality and often less validity). They are blatant money making exercises – slap, snaffle and plop…a musical roulette wheel of fortune for this year’s sickly gaggle of puffed up impresarios.

The latest flavour of milli-vanilli autotunism was launched with much hype, claiming to be based upon a veneer of musical respectability. ‘The Voice’ claimed to be all about the music, not the image – a ‘credible’ alternative to the Callowed wishy-wash of wall-to-wall poppertune-ities. Auditions would be ‘blind’, with ‘mentors’ not judges, thereby ensuring that true talent would shine through the bluff of image and prettification.

Bullshit.

I’ve dipped in and out of the shows to date, in between trips to the loo to decorate the toilet with Technicolor yawns. Because from what I’ve seen, ‘The Voice’ is the most cynical affront to musicality of the bunch, if for no other reason that it takes itself seriously and pretends to be about more than $$$$.

The ‘mentors’ are qualified only insofar as they are recognisable to the viewer. Because let’s face it, those who know this industry would trust the talent-spotting instincts of a successful artist less than they would an office tea-boy. Look at all the artist-owned labels over the years, from Swansong (Led Zeppelin’s ill-fated dabble with labelism) to U2’s equally abortive effort. Recognising talent is an art in itself, best left to those with that rare skill rather than Joe Public on the one hand or Lady Wannagag-a, SmileyIrishEyes, Tom (‘I knew Elvis, Sinatra, Jesus’) or Dollar-Eyes-am on the other. At least Callow knows what’ll sell, and if he gets it wrong he has the muscle to manipulate the market.

From what I’ve seen, ‘The Voice’ betrays its pretentious claims from the outset. If any viewer believes that the last few standing will include more than one taken baldie/fattie/oldie/ugly, then they’re wallowing in Cloud Cuckoo land. The winner will be a twenty-something, photogenic, girl or boy next door type (with her or her signature already scratched into a contract in the producer’s lawyer’s safe). But what is so gut-wrenching is the competitive nature of the show, with contestants paired up in a boxing ring – a bloody boxing ring, for Christ’s sake – and metaphorically poked by the ‘mentors’ to outscream one another.

I’ve rarely, if ever, seen anything quite so tasteless since watching Hughie Green leer at Lena Zaveroni’s twelve-year-old cleavage.

Any self-respecting musician should be ashamed to participate in this sordid travesty of an entertainment show. In its own way, I find it as disgusting as the Black And White Minstrels show, which also justified its existence on the basis of mega viewing figures.

We’ll look back on this string of shoddy karioki competitions with embarrassment, recognising that they did more to damage the standing of pop and rock music than digital file-sharing or Eurovision.

Ten years ago, when Pop Idol sued X-factor and vice versa, Universal GAVE Battery Studios to the A+R man behind Pop Idol in settlement of a law suit bought for signing the winning act in contravention to the contractual conditions participants had agreed when entering the competition. Universal had acquired Battery within the context of their (forced) purchase of Zomba. They tossed it at an irritating litigant to resolve a talent show headache and he immediately flogged the studio to a property developer to cash in his ill-gotten gains, thereby proving that the major record company and the television talent-show mogul were at one in utterly disregarding (if not despising) the mechanics of true music.

A plague on all your houses.

On the other hand…

Huge congratulations to Kate Bush for winning this year’s South Bank Pop Awards in addition to nominations for just about every other award going. She has yet again proved an inspiration to aspiring artists determined to retain their individuality and identity despite the massive pressures to conform to the lowest common denominator applied by wall-to-wall television karioki shows.

It can be done, although it requires a determination and belief (not to mention a degree of talent) that is rare indeed.

Eccentric – Pt 3 of his days working with Roy Harper

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Feb 262012

eccentric, the record production blog

I had never made an album before but it couldn’t be that hard, could it? After all, surely it was just a matter of common sense? I knew my way around studios from my days as a session musician and the process seemed pretty straightforward.

Hmmm…

I was later to learn that logic and common sense are not in abundant supply in the music industry. That I achieved my goals, by and large, was not a matter of luck though. It was down to meticulous planning, careful thought and good fortune to work with some quite extraordinary talent.

We had twenty eight thousand pounds in the kitty, half of which was earmarked for the recording budget (which had to include payments to musicians) a few grand to keep the office going and the rest to promote the album. It sounded like a lot at the time, except…as I rooted through Roy’s accounts within the context of straightening out his convoluted tax affairs, it became clear that his last album for EMI (Unknown Soldier) had come in with the princely price tag of £160,000 – more than ten times as much as I had allocated for Work Of Heart (the title of the new album). Still…what did EMI know about making records? They’d only been doing it for an eternity (that’s not as tongue-in-cheek as it may sound. It remains my belief that most major record companies know naff-all about how to make good records, as my later production escapades were to confirm).

The first task was to find a producer. I had always been a big fan of the production on the early Peter Gabriel albums – Jeux Sans Frontiers, Biko, Salisbury Hill et al. The album covers credited Steve Lillywhite. He seemed a good choice. So I did what any sensible executive producer should do but I now know never in fact does – I rang the artist for a reference. I’d had occasional dealings with the talented Mr. Gabriel during my Buzz Music days, and he was extremely helpful. Rather than confirm Steve Lillywhite’s credentials, Peter raved on about an unknown producer/engineer with whom he was currently collaborating on his current – fourth – album (Shock The Monkey etc). This bloke lived in Peter’s neck of the woods – Bath – and was, according to the great man, a complete and utter musical and production genius, a former composer and classical musician called David Lord. If Roy was looking to the best producer in the business, I should call David.

So I did.

Disappointment followed. David was politeness itself, and said he would love to hear the demos but…he was far too busy mixing Peter Gabriel’s album to take on another project. Sorry – thanks but no thanks.

John Leckie wasn’t chosen as an alternative to David Lord. Quite the opposite. John had always been top of Roy’s short list, but had been tied up with a production in London. Until – suddenly John became available, and the production chair was filled. Accordingly, I sent Chapel Lane Studios a fifty percent advance on studio time and the recordings commenced.

It turned out to be a fraught process. Roy proved pernickety in the studio to the point of infuriation. John Leckie knew how tight the budget and therefore the timescale was, and began to suffer increasing stress trying to push the album forwards, particularly as Roy was used to months and even years to make an album (unknown soldier had eaten almost eighteen months in Abbey Road). The musicians we’d found turned out to be sensational, whizzing through the backing tracks on schedule with world-class performances. Except…

We recorded the backing tracks to a drum programme, laid down on a brand new state of the art machine called an Oberheim DMX, programmed by a friend of Bob Wilson’s who flew the private plane for ELO (don’t ask…life is weird.) When the time came to replace these 8 bit samples with real drums, we hit problems. A friend of John Leckie’s recommended a young drummer (who’s name escapes me – fortunately so, perhaps) but the sessions turned out to be a disaster. Sadly, although talented, the youngster’s lack of studio experience let him down badly and ten days were lost desperately trying (and failing) to lay down drum tracks. All the while the stress grew, and Roy became ever more domineering in the control room. Maybe I can understand, as he really did have his life on the line. This was not merely a career saving album, but with the bank ready to pull the plug on his house and financial pressures closing in, the stakes could not have been higher.

John Leckie did an amazing job of shaping, tracking and tightening the backing tracks against all odds but eventually the pressure told and he cracked. He downed tools one day and high-tailed it for the sanity of the hills.. He was, after all, a human being and carried his own personal burdens. Thus it was that I was called to the studio half way through the project to salvage a crisis.

I found a set of excellent backing tracks, minus drums, almost ready to mix. John had engineered as well as produced, and had worked fourteen hours a day progressing the project in the face of Roy’s ever changing mind and more pressures than any producer should have to bear. But I was left with no engineer, no one to mix, no drummer and no track sheets.

Crisis? What crisis? This was my first album. Maybe all recording sessions were like this…

I’d always been a massive fan of a greatly underrated singer-songwriter called Judie Tzuke. Apart from a voice to die for, she wrote (sorry…she writes) intelligent, timeless songs and has always attracted top-flight musicians to her band. In particular, I’d always been impressed by her drummer, a guy called Charlie Morgan. So I found his number from the Musicians Union, rang him up and booked him for an eight-hour session. What I didn’t tell him (until he arrived with a drum kit and Dolby, the dog) was that I wanted him to overdub an entire album in that short day.

Hmmm…

John Leckie had left a well-managed set of tapes, complete with click tracks. Tom Oliver, the main live sound engineer I used for my tour productions, was drafted in to engineer and we sat in the control room with Charlie listening to a playback of the album. He loved the stuff. And he went for it.

I’ve worked with some great drummers in my time (Mannie Elias, Gavin Harrison, George Jackson Jr and many more) but never have I experienced such magic in the studio. Charlie’s energy didn’t flag, any more than his enthusiasm. And lest any of you drummers out there belittle the task of overdubbing forty minutes of music in less than eight hours, it should be pointed out that Roy’s songs aren’t easy. They bristle with time changes, dynamics, subtle extra bars here and there. The title track, Work Of Heart, is twenty minutes long and covers a vast range of light, shade and tempo. But Charlie rose to the task and achieved far more than could ever have been expected. Indeed, there are sparse licks and tight fills on that record that still send a shiver down my spine after a thousand listens. So hats of to Charlie Morgan – drummer supreme. Last I heard, he was a regular member of Elton John’s band. I’m not surprised.

So thanks to John Leckie, Charlie Morgan and Tom Oliver, we had our backing tracks. We were only slightly over budget and schedule, what’s more, although with such a tight budget ‘slightly over’ was a major consideration.

Now to work out how to get the damn thing mixed.

More in hope than expectation, I put in another call to David Lord in Bath. As good fortune would have it, he suddenly had time available (there are plenty of biographies detailing the falling out of David and Peter Gabriel, so I have no intention of touching on that here.) Moreover, David had his own studio in Bath – Crescent – and was prepared to provide his services to mix plus studio time for a week at a figure that precisely equated to my remaining budget, taking into account that I had hired a second engineer to assist with the mix – Paul Cobbold, one of the Rockfield crew and an old friend. A few economies had to be made, though, which meant I spent the week of the mix sleeping in the back of my Volvo estate rather than lavishing precious funds on a bed and breakfast.

Rock `n` Roll (oh my aching back…)

David Lord is a genius. Irrespective of any personal factors, I am happy – nay proud – to shout his musical, production and engineering credentials from the highest mountaintop. Peter Gabriel was right – the man is a musical genius.

David realised John Leckie’s production vision perfectly. He added various overdubs, including some keyboard parts of his own. I’d always imagined sax on a couple of the tracks, and contacted Dick Morrissey. What a geezer…inspiration in every breath, and a master of his instrument. He also knew a few tricks. For example, there was one particularly snappy solo on (yes, you guessed) a Gabriel album, and I wanted that vibe for one of Roy’s tracks. Dick explained that he’d cut the solo on tenor with the tape slowed down. When the track was replayed at normal speed, the sax sounded tighter, snappier and hovered between the ranges of alto and tenor. So that’s what we did and it worked like a dream. Like Charlie Morgan, Dick was the master of the first take. These guys were pros (unlike me) and it was such a privilege to work with them. As much as anything else it made me happy that I hadn’t pursued a career as a session musician. I was nowhere near these guys’ class.

And so Work Of Heart finally saw the light of day – a collection of great songs, faultlessly performed, beautifully recorded and mixed by a genius. I had made my first album on budget (a paltry fifteen grand) and pretty well on time. If I have one regret, it’s that John Leckie was never given the production credit that he so richly deserved, but then that’s Roy. He rang to compliment the finished product, and to say how much he liked David Lord’s mix. John was a true friend to Roy and modest to a fault.

And what happened next?

Well…I rewrote music bizz history a little. I negotiated the first ever commercial sponsorship for an album marketing campaign (Maxell Tapes gave me £35,000 to promote the record), negotiated heavy preorders with a couple of chain stores and charted the album. ‘Work Of Heart’ was voted album of the year by Derek Jewell in The Sunday Times and was also named one of the five albums of the year in Music Week. We shifted thirty five thousand albums through Pinnacle, an independent distributor (the equivalent of selling three hundred thousand on a major as I was later told by the publisher, Dick Leahy). The band toured and were great, with Tony Franklyn, Bob Wilson and George Jackson ably supported by Jackie Graham and Ruby Turner on backing vocals. On their night, they were dynamite – a million miles from the old-hat crustiness many associated with Roy Harper. And then, just as I had overseas licensing deals lined up with promised advances in excess of £60,000 I learned a bitter (but valuable) lesson about the music business.

Public Recordings numbered amongst its major shareholders Robert Plant, Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, David Gilmour, Robert Grayburn and me. However, in my innocence, the label had no formal agreement with the artist – he was merely a fifty per cent shareholders. One day, a contrite and embarrassed Roy appeared in my office with news that his accountant had advised him to liquidate the label and buy the master tapes back from the receiver for £100 (without his consent to release, they were worthless to anyone else). He could then release through a new label and use the proceeds to buy another house to replace that foreclosed upon by Barclays.

‘Sorry Mark,’ Roy mumbled, ‘but this is the only life I’ve got. I have to think about myself.’

I have no idea whether the business scam worked out for Roy. Possibly. Possibly not. I was left high and dry in Birmingham with the wreckage of the label and all the bad vibes associated with a bankrupt company.

David Gilmour and Paul McCartney had been right. Roy’s investors never saw their money back, let alone a profit. But I guess they knew that all along. I was the novice in the Harper stakes.

Apart from being a great learning curve, I take great pride in ‘Work Of Heart’. It was an album that should have been impossible to make. Even today it sounds fresh and stands beside any other album of its era in terms of quality and creativity. It is rated by most reviewers of Roy’s output as his second greatest album after Stormcock. Indeed, Roy personally rates the demos (released as Born In Captivity) as his favourite album, or one of them at least.

Born In Captivity cost four hundred pounds (my time was donated for nothing – a bounced cheque) and Work Of Heart cost a fraction of what the record companies I later worked with imagined. Indeed, after I came to London and joined the music mainstream, intent to learn from the major record companies I worked with, I was amused to find that they were more interested in discovering how I’d achieved the results and accolades represented by Work Of Heart rather than trying to teach me their tricks.

I could only offer one answer – always trust talent above cheque-book production.
That rule remains as true today as it was in 1980.

You better believe.

Roy Harper; Born In Captivity/Work Of Heart Science Friction HUCD008

Eccentric

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Eccentric – Pt 2 of his days working with Roy Harper

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Jan 212012

eccentric, the record production blog

Nineteen seventy-nine marked the end of one decade and the dawn of another, mirroring the changes in my life.

My time was increasingly devoted to the task of resuscitating Roy Harper’s stalled career, no longer from a tiny rented house in Hereford but from a makeshift office in Birmingham, cobbled together in reclaimed derelict space above a recording studio in Gas Street, spitting distance from the Canal (an appropriate description as it happens; this was definitely downmarket – even less salubrious than the shabbiness of Rotten Park, where Annie and I rented a dilapidated flat).

For several months a fellow traveller shared the Harper universe that increasingly dominated my life. One of Roy’s old mates moved into The Vauld for a while, seeking refuge from a collapsing marriage and his own career hiatus. Being more of a jazzer than a rocker in my youth, Led Zeppelin had passed me by. Indeed (and perhaps amazingly) I was wholly unaware of the mega-star status of Robert Plant, the new arrival who hung out with Roy and I during this period. Indeed, nothing about Robert’s bearing or mannerisms betrayed his status in the rock firmament. He was down to earth, unpretentious and about as normal as any muso could be. There were occasional glimpses that he was a little less than an aspiring Brummy, though, as one treasured anecdote demonstrates (and I’m sure Robert will excuse me if I slightly guild what is a real-life lily…)

A frighteningly posh Jaguar car showroom occupied a large expanse of street around the corner from my dingy Gas Street office. One day, Robert phoned me. ‘Mark,’ he said, ‘I noticed a neat Jaguar convertible in the showroom round the corner. Do us a favour, mate, and pop in to see how much they want for it.’

I duly complied.

Now, those who know me will attest to the fact that I’m something of a sartorial disaster. My standard wardrobe comprises jeans, whatever shirt comes to hand in the morning and a comfortable jumper. My hair may be a mess these days, but it’s positively neat compared to the mop that flopped across my head twenty-seven years ago. In short, I guess I’d sheepishly own up to the fact that more often than not I’m one stitch removed from a tramp or (more kindly) a plumber’s mate rather than a music bizz impresario. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the dishevelled figure knocking the glass window of the super-posh Jag showroom was ignored for several minutes before a tetchy salesman answered the door, more in irritation than welcome.

‘Piss off son,’ came the welcoming response.

‘No, please,’ I pleaded. ‘I’ve been asked to get a price on one of your motors for a mate.’

A scowl accompanied by a half raised hand suggested that the salesman intended to give me a clip round the ear rather than any advice. He hesitated, though, probably unwilling to crease his dapper ‘Top Man’ suit.

‘That…’ I pointed at the convertible XJ6. ‘How much?’

I doubt that the salesman could have mustered a more derisory response had he practiced for a month. ‘Forty Thousand,’ he scoffed with a smirk. ‘Pounds, that is, not pence. Now piss off, sonny.’

I left Mister Jaguar Salesman chuckling at his naff joke and wandered back around the corner to report back.

‘Forty grand, eh?’ Robert’s voice on the end of the phone was curious, his interest clearly pricked. ‘Do us a favour, Mark, and ask what they’ll do for cash. See how much you can knock them down.’

Ten minutes later I was knocking on the plate glass window again.

Tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap…

‘What now?’ The Jag salesman strode rather than wandered to the door, murder in his eyes. ‘I’m busy. What do you want this time?’

I took half a step back and cleared my throat. ‘The convertible…’ I pointed to the gleaming green XJ6. ‘What’s your best deal for cash? Cash pound notes?’ It was just as well I’d taken that step as I swear the salesman would have taken a swing at me and ended up with blood on his pinstriped shirt. His mouth opened but not a word came out.

I tried again. ‘How much for cash? The bottom line? Rock bottom?’

Although his voice mouthed the words ‘piss off…’ what came out was…’thirty five thousand pounds,’ before he caught his breath, pointed to the street and hissed… ‘now stop wasting my bloody time…’ and slammed the door in my face.

I can honestly say that I’ve never enjoyed any moment more than when, two days later, Robert and I wandered into the showroom to confront my best buddy (not), the car salesman. Robert laid his briefcase on the counter, flipped open the lid and pulled out a banker’s draft made out for thirty five thousand pounds. Done deal.

I was never able to walk past the Jaguar showroom again without that slick, foulmouthed sales-weasel rushing out to greet me with news of his latest bargains.

Don’t judge a book by its cover and all that jazz…

But back to Roy Harper.

My strategy to revitalise Roy’s ailing career was two fold; firstly, to find a great band to back him on the gigs that we both agreed were essential to raise his profile and secondly…to choose the right record deal. Yes, that’s right. In my naivety I believed that every record company in the world would be blown away by such an amazing demo album and fight one other to sign the great man.

Hmmm…I had much to learn.

We held auditions for backing musicians in Pete King’s recording studio, below my office. These took the form of a couple of days recordings, which Roy and I later mixed at David Gilmour’s private studio (later developed to become Comfort’s Place). Sorry folks…that is yet another story.

We trawled Birmingham for musicians and one name kept cropping up – that of guitarist Bob Wilson, formerly of The Steve Gibbons Band. He topped our list, was offered a gig after (probably) twenty seconds in the studio and fully justified his reputation as being very special. Had Bob lived in London, he would have had the pick of any band in the business as he was both an exceptional player and a true pro. And a diamond geezer to boot. In terms of bass players, we’d pretty much decided on a guy called Dick Cadbury who ran a studio in Gloucester and had quite a pedigree on the session scene. I asked my old mate, drummer George Jackson, to come and lay down drums for Dick’s audition and he was happy to oblige. George had run the drum shop at Buzz Music for a while and was a great player. As chance had it, he was now resident drummer with the Birmingham Top Rank house band, and so was local. However, just before the audition Dick rang up and cancelled, leaving us with a booked studio, a guitarist (Bob Wilson) a drummer but no bassist. I asked George if he could drag along a dep, and this is how we first met Tony Franklyn.

I’ll never forget that first session. I’d been nervous when George turned up with Tony, for Tony was a lad, a kid, a giggling seventeen year old. ‘Just listen,’ George whispered. So we did.

Tony had recently joined the Top Rank band from his native Derby (I think) as resident bass player. He read dots fluently, was a dab hand on clarinet and had made the gig his own immediately. Although shy and a little overawed by the occasion, all his nerves evaporated the moment he plugged in his Precision bass.

We were gobsmacked.

Now, I’ve been fortunate to work with some of the most talented musicians of my generation in one capacity or other. I have high standards and can recognise an exceptional musician when I hear one. I can honestly say that Tony Franklyn was a league above any other teenage muso I’ve ever heard. On every score, he dripped talent. His sound, his timing, his fluency, his precision – on every score he was not merely the finished article but was already a highly individual voice. Am I over-egging the cookie? I think not. Indeed, he had the same effect on Jimmy Page and Paul Rogers when, upon the demise of Roy’s band, they asked him to join The Firm and tour stadiums in the States. By all accounts he stole show after show, despite being half the age of the other superstars in the band.

So Roy’s band was taking shape nicely. I’d even unearthed some superb backing vocalists who later went on tour with us – Ruby Turner and Jackie Graham. Those girls could sing, as the world was later to discover when they both signed solo record deals. Meanwhile, I started the rounds of London record companies, demos in hand (and those were the days when there were upwards of fifteen majors clustered around the West End).

My meetings proved puzzling. Pretty much everyone was curious but…I was soon to learn that Roy had developed what might best be described as something of a reputation as a loose cannon in the industry, as was summed up by my dealings with Simon Potts at Arista.

I left the demos with Simon (whom I knew quite well from my Haircut 100 days) and met up with him again a week later. He sighed and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, Mark.’ He was sympathetic. ‘Good luck, though.’ He smiled. As I got up to leave, disappointed he added… ‘Oh, do you mind if I keep the demos? They’re amazing –the best demos I’ve ever heard. Roy’s a genius. There’s a classic album waiting to be made…’

‘Well why not sign him, then?’ I was puzzled.

Simon shrugged. ‘What? Sign Roy Harper?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Life’s too short…’

With all the majors passing one by one, we were left to find another strategy. The solution came initially from Roy.

According to Roy, his superstar friends would be happy to invest in a label and finance the making of the record. Guaranteed. After all they were mates, weren’t they?

And so the lunacy began.

I formed a record company – Public Recordings – and committed my remaining resources to the project. A friend of mine, Robert Grayburn, also invested some working capital (thanks Robert…you’ll get it back one day, I promise…) and Roy gave me a list of his ‘friends’ to contact for additional investment. An injection of five thousand pounds as a loan would buy shares and points on the album. Easy, eh?

In my innocence I believed so.

Over the next three months I wrote letters and held meetings with a series of potential investors who’s records graced my collection. I sat in Bill Curbishly’s office making a presentation to an inebriated Pete Townsend, spoke several times to Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull (who had always publicly claimed Roy as a major influence) and put in repeated calls to Jimmy Page whom Roy was adamant would chip into the kitty. All of these offered verbal support, but nothing more. However, one by one investors did send cheques. Robert Plant and David Gilmour needed no persuading, although Gilmour quietly suggested that the likelihood of ever seeing his money back was about as remote as a hike on the dark side of the moon. I realise now that he knew Roy better than any of us. So that was ten grand in addition to the ten that Robert and I had invested. Kate Bush was an avid fan and had covered one of Roy’s songs somewhere down the line. I met her several times (and a new hero was born; what an unpretentious, lovely, generous, honest human being…) and one day a note arrived with a cheque for three thousand, all she could afford at the time. So we were nearly there. Just one more investor, and we’d have the budget we needed to make the album at long last.

The pressure mounted. Pressure from Barclays to repossess Roy’s farm, pressure to keep the musicians we’d found for the album on-side, pressure to confirm the pencilled studio dates at Chapel Lane outside Hereford, close to Roy’s house (meaning we had accommodation for the band). I needed one more investor, but all I was getting were rejections. Rejections from Pete Townsend, stoned silence from Jimmy Page, haughty indifference from Ian Anderson, until…

The phone went.

‘Hello. Public Recordings.’

‘Can I speak to Mark please.’ It was a familiar voice. I racked my brains, trying to place where and who and when…

‘Speaking.’

‘You sent me a tape with a letter asking me to invest in your new record company.’

‘Ye-es…’ I answered hesitantly. Who was this? It was such a familiar voice that I assumed I was speaking to someone I knew well.

‘I love the demos. I think the album deserves a chance. I’ll put a cheque for five grand in the post today. OK?’ …a pause… ‘ and thanks for thinking of me.’

‘So…you’re a close friend of Roy’s?’ I was still desperately struggling to place the voice, too embarrassed to ask who it was in case it was an obvious friend, desperate for a clue.

‘Me? A friend?’ The caller laughed. ‘No. We only met once. Linda and I were recording at Abbey Road and dragged Roy in to help out with backing vocals. But I’m a big fan. Always have been. So is Linda.’

I knew. The voice. I knew who it was. And if I hadn’t, I would have found out soon enough. The caller confirmed in his own modest style…

‘Oh, I’ll send a personal cheque, Paul McCartney, rather than getting MPL involved. Less paperwork needed.’ As I gasped, he added… ‘And by the way, regard it as a gift rather than an investment. I may not know Roy very well, but I know him well enough. I won’t expect to get it back. But good luck with the album anyway, Mark.’
And the phone went dead.

At last we had our money courtesy of Robert Plant, David Gilmour, Kate Bush and Paul McCartney. Oh, not forgetting Robert Grayburn and me, of course.

Rock and Roll…

(to be continued…)

Roy Harper; Born In Captivity/Work Of Heart Science Friction HUCD008

Eccentric

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Eccentric on his days working with Roy Harper

Eccentric 4 Responses »

Dec 242011

eccentric, the record production blog

I often wonder how recording engineers and producers stumble into their (often accidental) careers. I found this in my archives the other day and enjoyed revisiting an eyelash of my own, and UK recording, history. Maybe it might interest others?

Bear with me, dear reader (if you do in fact exist) as I delve into the fading greyness of my hazy memory banks to recount a strange, strange episode in my professional life.

I spent most of the 1970’s developing a business, Buzz Music, in Hereford, a sleepy and forgotten but extremely beautiful English county town a ten-league-boot stride or so from the Welsh borders, half an hour’s drive north of Kingsley Ward’s famous (infamous?) Rockfield recording studios in Monmouth.

From humble roots as a small record shop, Buzz had stretched and yawned it’s hippy wings and spawned guitar, drum and keyboard sales departments, a large flightcase factory and touring PA rigs, putting us at the heart of the anarchic two-tone and new wave music scene of the late 1970’s. I could write chapters about my madcap adventures with The Selecter, The Beat, Bad Manners, The Pretenders and more, but will spare you this indulgence. Suffice it to say that these were crazy days – the archetypical sex, drugs and rock `n` roll years of ill repute. Please kiddies, be warned – such a lifestyle is seriously prejudicial to your health and should be avoided at all costs. Stick to liquorish and pussycats, don’t inhale and live a quiet, uneventful life. Otherwise…you might end up like me (heavens forefend). Those days are far behind me now but I wouldn’t have missed them for all the microphones in China.

Back to the plot…

Like Icarus drawn to the sun, Buzz reached for the skies and eventually burned its wings. The collapse was slow and painful as my partner, Alan, and I spent a year working for the receiver to pay off the company’s debts. We succeeded, but emerged in 1978 broke and jobless.

By this time, I knew how to coordinate a rock and roll tour, knew the promoters, the sound rig and lighting suppliers and found I could turn a buck applying my knowledge and contacts for the benefit of clients. So it was that I found myself scraping by with a series of tour production gigs that kept the wolf from the door.

One fine day, totally out of the blue, I received a call from a Mr. Ian Tilbury, self-styled impresario and artiste manager. One of his clients had recently moved to a small village outside Hereford and wanted to hire some bits and pieces of recording equipment to make a demo of his next album. Could I supply a Brennel Mini 8 recorder and a Roland space echo, a DI box and some cables for a couple of months?

Indeed I could, I replied, at a price. A deal was done (I could sub hire the eight track and the margin would pay at least a week’s rent), and I arranged to deliver. And who was the client, I asked?

Roy Harper, came the reply.

I drove the equipment to Roy’s farmhouse– The Vauld – in the village of Marden with my hands trembling at the steering wheel. For this was my one, true musical hero, a man who’s Magnus Opus – Stormcock – was rarely off my battered turntable. I was about to meet my musical god. It was a feeling that I’ll never forget, a high that ranks with any I’ve ever had before or since.

Roy had bought The Vauld with the proceeds of a large EMI advance after renegotiating his Harvest contract following success in the mid 1970’s. Part of the deal was that EMI supplied him with a recording console – one of only three dedicated studio desks built by Jeff Byers under the ‘Midas’ banner. Very Neve-like and built like a battleship, this was a quirky twenty four input, eight buss beast bristling with transformers. It was somewhat idiosyncratic but (as I now appreciate) it sounded great.

Roy had converted the old Granary behind the farmhouse into a grand annex, including a gallery where the Midas lived. By this time – 1978 – he had parted company with EMI after the failure of the horrifically expensive ‘Unknown Soldier’ album (initially recorded as ‘Commercial Breaks’ but revamped at great cost after EMI’s cold response). In typical Harpic fashion (Harpic being Roy’s nickname in the bizz) Roy had retired from the music scene to breed sheep (an occupation for which he was utterly unsuited) and smoke dope. Meanwhile, he had fallen out with his longstanding manager, Pete Jenner, and entrusted his career to the slick but shadowy Ian Tilbury.

Hmmm…

Roy’s coffers were pretty well exhausted by now, but Tilbury claimed to have Geffen Records hanging by a string, hot to trot, ready waiting and willing to sign with a huge advance, subject to…subject to hearing demos of the next album. There was insufficient dosh in the kitty to put Roy in the studio (in no uncertain terms, as I was later to discover) so the cheap option was to let Roy loose with an eight track, his old Midas, a Shure mic (yes – one mic) and some bits and pieces. Ian was confident that a set of polished demos would result.

Wrong…

I unloaded my bits and pieces from my trusty old Volvo, tugged my forelock with trembling fingers, humped the Brennel upstairs via the tradesman’s entrance, hooked the machine up to the old Midas and made sure that everything was working fine. I recall that Roy seemed confident that I could leave him to it, and Verna, Roy’s girlfriend, made me a cup of scented tea before I tugged my forelock once more and hit the road for Hereford and home.

I had met the great Roy Harper. What’s more, he seemed like a nice guy. Lovely gaff. Ah…what a memory for the collection.

I slept well that night.

Two days later I received a phone call. Apparently Roy was having some problems recording electric guitars (he was experimenting with a couple of early Tokai’s sent to him by the importer as a mark of respect – another fan. They were exceptional Fender copies…better than the real thing, I’d go so far as to say). Like a sloppy Labrador at his master’s beck and call, I headed back for Marden, The Vauld and Harper’s modest home studio.

‘I can’t seem to get the DI box working,’ muttered Roy, his forehead creased into an uncomprehending frown, his finger pointing at the small metal box on the floor.

‘I’m not surprised…’ came my reply, wide-eyed and horror-stricken.

This was the moment when I realised that, musical genius or not, matters electronic and mechanical were not Roy Harper’s forte. Lying on the carpet was an MXR DI box with one cable going to Roy’s guitar, one cable going to the Midas desk, and the third going from the XLR output to…to the mains. For reasons best known to the Muses of Marihuana, Roy had decided to slam a mains plug on to one end of a mic cable and plug a redundant output of the DI into the 240v mains supply. That he lived to tell the tale is remarkable.

One thing was crystal clear. This man should never, ever, EVER be left alone with any kind of electrical appliance, let alone the spider’s web of cabling associated with a multitrack recording rig.

And that is how I was called upon, by force of circumstance, to apply my fairly extensive live sound engineering skills to a humble recording rig. As of that moment, I became Roy’s demo engineer.

Over the course of the next two months, I visited The Vauld every evening after my other freelance duties were done, with double-bubble at the weekends (thanks to the tolerance of my longsuffering girlfriend, Annie Jay). Personally, it was anything but a drag as Roy, Verna and I became friends. I found Roy one of the most cultured and learned musicians I’d ever met; beneath the surface, he was miles from his eccentric public persona. Thoughtful, considered and…well, to be honest he was (and probably still is) somewhat bonkers in the best tradition of English eccentrics. Musically, though, the period was an education that went beyond any I could have hoped for.

By this stage in his life, Roy had made half a dozen (or more) albums and had probably done more gigs than most successful artists do in their lifetime. The bulk of his previous recording had been done at Abbey Road with a roster of engineers that reads like a who’s who of recording alumni – Alan Parsons, John Leckie, you name them, Roy had worked with them. Whatever anyone might think of Roy’s voice, he was a singer with few peers, capable of effortlessly and meticulously double, triple, quadruple tracking a vocal in one, two or three takes. He could instil a degree of emotion or subtlety or finesse to his extraordinary lyrics without parallel. His guitar style was extremely personal, and although not an ‘educated’ player, his style has influenced hundreds of acoustic musicians down the years. Moreover, he had a unique way of leaving gaps in an acoustic track, ready to overdub a related part and build up the backing with crossed rhythms and guitar harmonies, creating a rich patina against which his voice could weave and soar.

For a young, naïve makeshift engineer, the experience of working with such a sophisticated and practiced musician provided an education without parallel. As a studio virgin, of course, I wasn’t aware of how privileged I was to work with someone capable of such intense and relatively faultless performances, take after take. The recording rig was basic to the point that any experienced engineer would cringe. There was no click track, no sequencing, no computer (computer? Roy would have had a heart attack) – nothing other than the Midas, the Brennel (with no autolocate, of course), a pair of Tannoys, a Delta Lab DL1 delay/modulator (for Roy’s electric guitar) and (I think) a Roland Space echo for reverb and delay. Yet over the course of those two months, Roy and I recorded what was later to be released as an album – Born In Captivity.

I contributed a lot of ideas to the arrangements and even sang backing vocals on one song – Stanley – but take no credit. I’d aways arranged the songs in all the bands I’d played in, and enjoyed chipping in ideas and making suggestions. The talent was Roy’s and Roy’s alone. But somehow I engineered the sessions and achieved a passable result, sufficient to meet with Ian Tilbury’s approval and conviction that the tapes would swing the Geffen deal. Tilbury remained bullish about this until, that is, his cheque for the gear hire bounced and he disappeared to America having mortgaged Roy’s house to the hilt (by virtue of the Power Of Attorney Roy had granted him during a particularly dumb and trusting moment) and pocketed the proceeds.

So there we were, Roy and I, me an avid fan, the two of us good friends, a decent set of demos in the can and…and Roy staring ruin and bankruptcy in the face. Drastic action was called for.

Enter John Leckie, engineering genius and human being par excellence. Out of the goodness of his heart, John came up to The Vauld and rerecorded some of my demos and polished others (a few were left alone, inflating my ego hugely). He did a superb job given the lack of gear, but then John Leckie will ALWAYS do a superb job without complaint or fuss. (Come on, some of you ‘credible’ superstars – get John on the case with your next album. He’s too modest to hustle his credentials, but he has more talent and musical ability in his little finger than most ‘happening’ producers who seem to dominate to plumb jobs these days). Meanwhile, I was preoccupied with an extremely time consuming but surprisingly lucrative tour production gig. Despite this, Roy’s predicament remained at the forefront of my mind.

By this time – 1979, I guess – I’d established an enviable reputation for providing top class sound, lighting and logistics for UK and European tours. I knew the ropes, and could usually skim twenty or more percent from other quotes and come in on budget.

I was offered several potential tours by major record companies, but could only take on one. I recall that I whittled the options down to two possibles – a new EMI band that offered a decent profit and an Arista act that intrigued me. I submitted a reasonable budget to Simon Potts at Arista but he came back to me with an alternative proposition; the band in question was not a priority act, and Arista were looking to trim costs wherever possible. If I was prepared to undertake the tour production and coordination at cost, he was prepared to agree a contract whereby I would get 20% of any profits the tour generated. Now, as all you pros out there know, agreeing to such a deal on an unknown act is tantamount to commercial suicide. Bands lose dosh on the road in the early stages of their career, and the dates that the band’s agent had booked hardly left much scope for profit even if they sold out. However, I really liked both the band and their as yet unreleased album and went with my gut instincts. Although I was skimping and scraping to make a living, I negotiated a bonkers contract with Simon Potts and Arista. I’d do the tour at cost, but would pocket twenty per cent of any profits generated.

And the band?

An unknown act called Haircut 100.

The week before the tour hit the road, Haircut’s first single raced to the top of the charts. Hysteria broke out. The tour gigs were swapped for larger and larger venues, and as many punters were locked out as could be shoehorned in. And then the tour was extended. The clubs were cancelled in favour or Top Ranks, and then municipal halls were added – larger and longer and longer and larger. I recall sitting with Simon Potts at the back of the (then) Hammersmith Odeon on the first of five sell-out nights, looking at Arista’s sales figures. Two weeks before Christmas, Haircut’s first album was shifting one hundred thousand copies A DAY. Eat your heart out, Artic Monkeys. This was the 1970’s. When an album shipped big, it shipped B-I-G. And the band put on a great show, night after night. Sadly, they couldn’t cope with the pressures of so much sudden success and record company politicking destroyed the goose that laid the golden egg. After my involvement, the band bombed in Europe and the States, Nick Heyward (a decent talent) was persuaded that his future lay in a solo career and that was that – another ink blot on the history of pop.

So I had brass in pocket, the opportunity to take my foot off the rent-gas and a continuing belief in Roy Harper and what I genuinely believed was a great album waiting to be recorded. But Roy needed a manager. He was broke, The Vauld was close to being repossessed by the bank and there was no sniff of the promised Geffen record deal in the air.

A longstanding friend at the time was John Mostyn, formerly manager of The Beat (and later manager of Fine Young Cannibals). John was currently at a loose end, so I drove him out to see Roy and we spent the afternoon chatting. Fingers crossed, I drove John back to Birmingham, imploring him to take Roy on as a client. As we hit the outskirts of Brum, John shook his head. He didn’t believe sufficiently, he confessed. Roy just wasn’t his bag. However…he turned to me and winked…why didn’t I manage Roy? I had the belief John lacked. I knew Roy. And for the first time in years, I had filthy lucre in the bank. And after all, management was a combination of common sense, efficiency and industry contacts. I would learn the rest in time.

Why not?

Why not indeed?

And that’s how I was persuaded to embark upon one of the more crazy episodes of my life…

(to be continued…)

Roy Harper; Born In Captivity/Work Of Heart Science Friction HUCD008

Eccentric

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Eccentric enjoys a Chinese Takeaway

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Nov 292011

eccentric, the record production blog

A decade or so ago, we used to buy microphones from a company in China called 747 microphones, established by engineers from Geffell in (the then) East Germany in the 1970’s. We gave these cute condensers the moniker of ‘Micro Funk’ and at sixty or so squibs a pop, they proved a popular addition to many a professional and semi-pro collection. They were adequate for most purposes, although lacking in character. Still, at that price they were a definite bargain when compared to better made (and better sounding) examples from Germany and Austria.

And then a strange thing happened…

Gradually, the same bulbous contraptions started to appear on the market with different badges and vastly inflated prices. What was most alarming was the claim by many ‘manufacturers’ (middle men, in other words) that these were ‘U.S. made’. They weren’t. Oh, for sure some had been tweaked en route from Asia with the addition of a different transformers, a new resistor here or a capacitor there, but without exception the capsules, the bodies and the bulk of the electronics were identical. But prices…

New shapes appeared. Some were clones of established classics. Indeed, I was called upon as an expert witness by AKG who successfully sued one Chinese company for ‘passing off’ – manufacturing a replica of the C12VR. Other examples represented new designs, alarmingly so on occasions. We received a succession of tube mics from different ‘distributors’ with potentially lethal power supplies, as the male and female sockets had been inexplicably reversed, leaving HT voltage exposed to prying fingers on bare pins. We asked the distributors to withdraw these dangerous products. They refused. We contacted trading standards and shortly thereafter the most blatant examples disappeared. Thankfully.

By now, prices of these well-marketed microphones had edged up into the middle hundreds, but worse was to follow as in the last few years the market has been flooded with high-end microphones costing thousands of pounds and claiming to be lovingly manufactured in the States or Europe.

They’re not. In fact, I can buy exactly the same microphone as one marketed with a prestigious name in the west at over two thousand pounds for a couple of hundred directly from Beijing.

Now, I have a problem with this. Indeed, I have two problems. The first is misrepresentation. A degree of tweaking and component swaps doesn’t constitute manufacturing and it’s downright dishonest to claim a Chinese product is made in the West. But secondly, these mics just don’t sound very good. The limiting factor is the capsule, a decent general purpose affair but lacking the precision and design quality needed to deliver top quality results.

Every week I seem to find myself debating the origins of yet another expensive addition to the range of mics flooding the market. Time after time a distributor or manufacturer swears blind that his new microphone is made in America only to back down quickly when pushed into a verbal corner. Because these Chinese mics are simple to identify. The giveaway is the cheap connector that protrudes from the base rather than being inset as with most European mics. All these Chinese connectors are identical, so if your new, expensive, US mic has a mini barrel-like protrusion into which to stuff the mic cable, it’s Chinese made. And of course, all these mics have similar, flimsy suspension mounts and (usually) a tacky aluminium flightcase.

Be warned. These mics are mutton dressed as lamb, destined to devalue faster than the Drachma should you want (or need) to part with the thing.

Lest I always seem grouchy and negative, it’s only fair that I heap praise upon the one exception to an otherwise shoddy bunch.

Manley used to market a Chinese microphone under their Langevin brand name (the 201). In fact, this was a pretty decent microphone, but what made it special was the informative instruction brochure that came with it. As well as having a host of useful recording tips, there was a detailed background to the genesis, making clear that the guts were made in China and then assembled with selected additional US parts in the Manley factory in the States. There was no apology for using Chinese capsules, and nor should there have been. The microphone was excellent value, looked good (I believe the case and grill were American made) and performed well.

Manley’s honesty was refreshing, as that company’s approach always is. Moreover, they had no desire to hide the origins of what they acknowledged was a budget microphone. On the contrary, their explanation confirmed why they could offer such good value. But why should this company be the exception? Why should so many other brands hide the honest truth?

I suspect the reason is staring me in the face, along with the shoddy XLR connector.

Filthy lucre. Only a fool would pay £2000 or more for a £200 Chinese mic with a fancy badge.

Ever been fooled?

I sincerely hope not.

Eccentric

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Eccentric: We should be embarrassed and ashamed

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Nov 062011

We should be embarrassed and ashamed…

On the front page of Recordproduction.com is a rogue’s gallery of leading producers and engineers. These are the good and the great of our industry, the musical brains responsible for some of the best sounding cuts of recent years.

Have a look. Now look again. Closer.

Notice anything unusual?

Out of one hundred and thirty cheesing faces, four are women and three are black. That adds up to…bugger-all per cent. Then cast your eyes across your CD collection, thumb through your hard drive or check this week’s top 100 selling albums. Yes. White, Anglo-Saxon artists are in a minority, a small, small minority, squeezed between female vocalists and African/Asian./African-American/Jamaican artists.

I’ve long since suspected that if nine females and one bloke apply for an assistant engineer’s gig in a studio, the guy would get the job. Similarly, if eight out of ten cats in the queue were black…yeah, you guessed it. Our nice suburban middle-class white applicant would be employed.

So, wazzup, doc? Mountains of fuss are made about the comparative lack of female directors in major corporations, but compared to the recording industry, mainstream business is a veritable hive of female talent. Not merely are we squandering 80% of the potential around, but it’s utterly illogical and totally counter-productive. These days, more than half the successful recording artists are women (condescendingly called ‘girls’ by Um and Ah executives) yet by my earlier reckoning, only two per cent of the engineers and producers running their sessions are female.

This abject chauvinism has further implications.

Lyrically, pop music remains sickeningly blokish in character, often aggressively so. Half the audience are women, but where is their voice? Strangely, I find that most of the artists who open my eyes to the world these days are women – Kate Bush, Nerina Pallot, Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Rait, Alicia Keys – but they struggle to be heard against a roar of stereotypical male banter. So half the population, and therefore half the record buying public, are being starved of music that is relevant to their lives. It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that record sales are in decline.

The Victorians expected women to be demure and decorative.

Rednecks expected a woman to stand by her man

It seems that in the twenty-first century the music business regards women in much the same way… as frothy product rather than an equal in the creative or technical stakes. Disgracefully, our ‘progressive’ industry retains a Victorian outlook when it comes to human values.

Not merely is this wrong, but it’s a criminal waste.

If you run a record company or an associated recording business, take a good, good look at your staffing policy. It’s time that the technical and executive mix reflected the diversity of creative talent and our target audience. This is not about equality, it’s about common sense and opportunity. And it’s in all of our interests to view our peers on the basis of their ability rather than their gender or the colour of their skin.

Oh, and I sure ain’t one of them politically correct Grauniad readers. I’ve had my wrist metaphorically slapped by my (female) co-directors many times for cracking sexist jokes. I just get annoyed when the glaringly obvious is so utterly ignored.

Growl, growl, humph, humph.

Eccentric

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