The Story of John Nightly

by Tot Taylor

  ‘I can’t wind it back, John. It’s digital, man,’ Mawg laughed. ‘There’s nothing to wind back.’

  John stroked his chin. ‘“Di-gi-tal, di-gi-talis”, as they say in Latin countries…’

  The kid hit REPEAT on his sequencer. ‘Here it comes again…’

  Mawg dragged the cursor back across the digital terrain. The once-grandiose ‘Fantasia Capella’ had been reduced to a pile of oscillating stalacmites and stalactites, the cyber-visual representation of the tonal dynamics of John Nightly’s most profound thoughts of thirty years back. Not the musings of a prematurely aged, bad-tempered old codger, but the considered wisdom of one who, besides his standing as a sage or a seer, had been a consummate strategist in the promotion of both his music and his own myth. A sheik of the musical desert. A well-tempered Kapellmeister, pitch-shifter to his hundreds and thousands of fellow travellers.

  As if in an act of defiance, from underneath the rugged lime-green shoreline, there appeared a more recognisable musical representation. Crotchets and quavers from a previous era suddenly coming back to life for the fast, percussive interlude.

  ‘That’s the… guide track… for the next interlude,’ announced the kid, as he turned up the fader on a wooden metronome.

  ‘Hm,’ replied John. ‘The bit where all the candles go out.’ He arched his neck and pointed his chin in the air. ‘A patterne for next yeare…’ he said, as his head rocked from side to side, gently rotating on its neck socket, and he attempted to home in on all of the detail emanating from the tiny, takeaway speakers. ‘Play it again, can you?’

  ‘…eleven beats… eleven chords,’ murmured the Wizard. ‘That’s the bit, Mawgan! They go round the clock on twelve.’ John turned to his pardner. ‘Where the last candle goes out… That’s definitely it!’ The Master rubbed his eyes. ‘Extremely difficult thing for them to do…’

  The kid followed the cursor as it made its way through the Alps. ‘That bit, John… what are the chords there?’

  John Nightly hoisted himself up on his chair and stared mysteriously into the screen. ‘Can you get it any bigger?’ he asked as Mawg dragged the window wide open on the desktop, ‘can’t see a thing…’

  ‘Can’t get it any bigger, John. Too much stuff going on.’ Mawg tapped away furiously as he tried another route. ‘It’s telling me… C minor 9, then add D, then… A+… Yeah… augmented.’ The kid wrote in felt-tip on a scrap of paper.

  ‘What I’ve got next is the… Chaconne, that’s the next dance movement…’

  ‘well, that’s not right, then… we must have gone away from it somewhere… or lost something along the way.’ The boss breathed in and out repeatedly as if trying to fill himself up with air; an ancient mannerism that could be alarming unless you knew him. ‘So annoying, this…’ John Nightly tugged at the sleeve of his cardigan and sat down again as Alexandre entered the room, sensed his master’s frustration and lay down across his feet seeking attention. ‘I just literally can’t… remember.’

  ‘But John… man…’ Mawgan appealed. ‘We’ve got seven hours’ worth here. It’s in Quad as well, and 5.1 and all these other things. I don’t think we’re doing so badly with what we have…’ Mawg dragged open a new folder. ‘If I time it all up… add it up… we’re up to almost four and a half hours already.’ Mawgan’s hands scattered around the keyboard at incredible speed. The kid knew his shortcuts and alts so well that sometimes when they’d work through the night, as they had on numerous occasions, he’d turn off all of the lights and work blind. ‘We’re quite a bit further than, well… we’re at least halfway there…’

  ‘I know we are – and I know that’s because you’ve put in a lot of hours, Mawgan – and I’m very grateful to you for it.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that, John… it’s not a case of…’

  ‘I know, I know…’ the Wizard nodded. ‘but really…’

  To save them both embarrassment, the kid turned his attention to Alexandre.

  ‘The next bit is where the violins play with the back of the bows… bit you marked as Britten.’

  ‘…the bit I took from the Spring Symphony… A great bit, I thought… just…’ The boss leaned forward again. ‘You know that symphony?’

  The kid shook his head.

  ‘Well, that’s what he does there, with the violins… it’s a… cold sound, but warm at the same time – you get it in The Planets as well.’ John scratched his head. ‘I suppose it’s… how long is that bit?’ The kid checked his digital read-out.

  ‘Two minutes, forty-two seconds; three frames. I can give it to you in milliseconds if you like…’

  item: Monthly Cultural Notes: April

  Days become suddenly warmer in April. ‘Seeds to sow and lawns to mow!’ goes the saying. Set the blades on the mower high and follow up with a nitrogen-based Weed and Feed. Cover seedlings in straw or waste paper to protect from cold nights. Thin out herbaceous borders and trim camellias and rhododendron. Pelargoniums, lantana, pinks and early roses should be in full bloom. Check your climbers and creepers and their ties, canes and supports. Roots of mint and sage can be planted out. Look for shoots of canna and montbretia. Remember: April showers bring May flowers.

  If they happened to be in London, John and Iona would be out exploring five or six nights a week, often to several gatherings a night, after which they’d end up at the Ad Lib or Sibylla’s, the Scotch or any one of that week’s places, along with everyone else. The London in-crowd was small and self-contained, more or less the same faces each evening, with the addition of visiting film or fashion types and the odd philosopher, activist or evangelist who might be in town. A convergence of like-minds generally occurred by word of mouth, getting together to check out the latest thing, whether it be a concert, art opening or ‘benefit’.

  Sometimes the group would come together to check out itself, narcissism being a major preoccupation of a scene that consisted of re-made mods and rockers, converted Teds and greasers, scruffy Cambridge grads and Oxford ‘letchers’ along with the first hippie capitalists; the architects of the new society – a group specialising in the creative sciences of independent film production, pop-star mismanagement, performance-based art, book publishing and people’s theatre. Like all social movements and trends, the new establishment was launched on a wave of ambition, adventure, creativity and commerce – just like the old one.

  If Iona was modelling and John recording she’d show up at Regal, Sound Techniques or Levy’s, where they’d smoke a joint or two and generally be ‘together’ – often to the embarrassment of their co-workers. Hashish and pot were an integral part of the couple’s carefully controlled diet. John and Iona would get through a couple of spliffs over breakfast with perhaps another one or two mid-morning. Afternoon ‘snacks’ would be followed by the new ‘family entertainment’. Getting high on acid was, more often than not, a communal event organised within a familiar domestic circle.

  At the end of the evening most people expected to have some kind of out-of-body experience; finding themselves in a semi-comatose state and behaving in a very silly manner. The fact that everyone around them was joining in, usually in the confines of someone’s home or within the locked-away, sheltered world of the recording-studio, meant that it mattered very little how much of a fool they made of themselves. Though there were few musicians who could afford to waste very much studio time on anything but the job in hand, with Central London facilities coming in at a rate of around £200–£300 for a 12-hour day.

  In 1966, the recording industry still operated on a basis of strict three-hourly sessions, carefully regulated by the Musician’s Union, whose rules stated that all players booked to perform in Britain’s sound factories must be MU members, adhering to an MU contract of employment and booked by a certified MU contractor, or ‘fixer’.

  If a group or band had an orchestral session in progress, or if any contracted musicians had been booked to perform solo or as part of an ensemble playing along with the group – the ‘artists
’ themselves – the rules would have to be strictly observed, with an MU rep – a kind of sonic shop steward – in attendance at all times. When a three-hour stint was up there would be no possibility (even when players were available and willing) of going even a few seconds over without consultation – closely followed by remuneration.

  Jonathan Foxley talking to DJ John Oakes for the Radio 1 series, The Record Makers, BBC Enterprises. 1977.

  One time, at Levy’s, the old CBS studio in Bond Street, we had five minutes to go to the end of recording some strings. The violinists put down their bows and started to put on their crash helmets – wanting to get off to the next session. John took offence and asked them how they imagined they were going to be able to put their headphones around their heads to do the next take on top of these helmets. He managed to make them feel pretty stupid and rather… ashamed of themselves… Amazingly, they agreed to stay on to make up the extra ten minutes.

  Recording schedules… studio time, and money, were very tight in those days, which was why, for example… [smiles as though about to reveal a secret] The French horn that you hear at the start of ‘Dead End Street’ [the Kinks – Pye 7N17222] is actually a trombone. The story being that the producer, Shel Talmy, not wanting to… I was going to say ‘shell out’, on a horn player… [chuckles] Nor having either the time or inclination to book one, had come across a trombonist in a trad-jazz band at the local pub during a break in recording and asked him to come round to the studio. They got the guy to play in a kind of ‘muted’ French-horn style – putting his hand inside the bell, I assume… [puts his hands together in the shape of a brass horn] Like a horn player would. And that’s what you hear on the record. [smiles again, pleased with his recollection]

  Most sessions, except in the case of the Stones, who became… renowned for doing things over and over and over again, were actually very organised in terms of a… normal… ‘un-experimental’ situation, you might say. [takes a sip from a glass of beer]

  We weren’t at all in the era of silliness that we got into in the ’70s. [feigns exhaustion] Endless amounts of studio time wasted ‘experimenting’ with sounds and long hours and… All sorts of craziness and God knows what. In the mid ’60s the engineers still looked, and behaved, like technicians. They wore white coats. And though that kind of… ‘getting it together in the country’ thing, a much looser – Traffic, Led Zep… kind of approach… [mimics people with lots of hair… thinking himself hilarious] Was sort of becoming the thing, in summer ’66 there was a lot of exciting recording… Orchestral sessions, recording controlled by the producers and arrangers, all the musicians playing together at the same time, actually doing ‘takes’ – like on a film. A lot of discipline… real excitement. And a lot of very… structured songwriting going on. We were still a long way from those crazy… ludicrous…

  item: The Weekend Book: ‘Children’s Stories from Cornwall’, John and Joanna Gingold (Very Small Books). 1954.

  The sand whipped itself up into a swinging, swirling mass. Farmsteads were overwhelmed and lay buried, leaving wastelands of sedge, sea-rush and bog. Stiff-stemmed reeds were planted by the locals to stay the driving sand. Then one morning, all was calm.

  The cliff edge now lies silent. Rain falls in a mizzle, the tide ebbs, birds swoop to the mudbanks, the tide slackens and the birds are hushed. Porthcreek, near Morvah, beyond St Agnes Head, sits high on the moors of West Penwith, near the quoits and tombs of the burial places of the Spanish settlers and invaders.

  item: John Calve. A Survey of Kernow (Cornwall), 1666.

  There was somtyme a haven towne at Porcreeque decayed by reason of sand which hath choked the lande and buried the church and houses. Manie devises they use to prevent absorpation of the churchyarde upon the cliffe.

  item: Baptism Register, No 9, 1816/1856, ref. Carn Point, meteorological data, ­­­p118 hurricanes/sand. In 1607, in the reign of James I, a dredful hurricane occurred. An influx of sand gorged the coastline, shocking churches on the coast at Gwithian, Perranzabuloe, St Dinesor, Black Cliff, Porthlee, Peneed, Zawn Moor and Carn Point producing massive sand dunes (towans) and… [remainder illegible]

  The sand invasion of 1607 created enormous problems for John Nightly. On the one hand, in terms of drainage for exotics, it was a godsend, but when the two Johns first began planting at Trewin, in the summer of 1983, they hit sand just a foot beneath the peaty earth. Wherever they dug in any part of the property they found pockets of the stuff just under the topsoil. There were ledges of impenetrable granite, knots of ancient cedar root, then… a good deal more sand. When BT came to install phone lines they found furrows of sand under the kitchen floorboards and behind the lime-plastered walls. The Johns had to get sixty-two tonnes of peat put down beneath the cold frames and along the cliff edge to stop any subsidence of the new structures. Sometimes John Nightly would be walking up to Hothouse 5, the agapanthus house, and be literally blasted and almost knocked over by sand blowing up off the cliffs.

  Although he and John RCN had tried to establish a proper shelter belt, with fast-growing and salt-resistant shrubs, copying the example of St Michael’s Mount, the sand would still swirl up and beat at the windows of the hothouses closest to the sea, numbers 6 and 7, in the process frightening to death Chilean bromeliads, Fascicularia bicolor and A. arboreum ‘Atropurpurea’.

  The answer was to build a walled garden, which they had begun to do the following year, establishing Sparrmannia africana (African hemp) along with strelitzias (birds-of-paradise), escallonias, opuntias and healing aloes. If you positioned yourself on the perimeter of this semi-circular sunspot in calm weather the garden unfolded in a mosaic of colour trailing down over the rocks all the way out to the water and the vast horizon of the bay. Such was the extraordinary confluence of light that quite often, with just a couple of minutes’ worth of drizzle, a double-rainbow would form, the outer circles framing the edge of the coast as far as the eye could see, the inner forming a multicoloured bridge from the corner of the north cove, the extreme edge of Trewin, as far as the old churchyard at Black Zawn, some three miles further up.

  In terms of being able to carry out physical work or even just looking after himself, it wasn’t that John Nightly was incapacitated in any way. He wasn’t. Mentally (apart from his brains being fried like onions on a burger stand) he was fine. Physically he was in good shape too, or at least ‘okay’ shape, and so when RCN had to go into hospital himself – three days of tests on what turned out to be nothing more than a minor but still painful stomach ulcer – John Nightly was actually fine. He could probably have coped by himself. But of course a replacement was laid on. A Cornishwoman from Verdah Care in Truro, the place with the best reputation locally, as far as RCN’s research could make out.

  Mrs Peed came and stayed over at Porthcreek for three days, getting John Nightly his dinner and tea and generally keeping the place clean and tidy. In fact, RCN thought that his old friend had enjoyed the company, and the change.

  The elderly former staff nurse had visited Trewin before, of course, for the ‘audition’, prior to which RCN had had her checked out separately as well. Two brief visits to meet both Johns and to quickly go through what the day-to-day requirements might be.

  Like everyone else, the housekeeper had been enchanted by the ex-heart-throb, and fascinated by the strange, otherworldly atmosphere surrounding the white farm, its weird and wonderful vegetation and even weirder (though slightly less wonderful) Homo sapiens. When it came time for Mrs Peed to leave, John presented her with a giant Canna ‘Lucifer’, carmine-pink, three stems already in flower, cultivated from one of his very best rhizomes. It was a magnificent specimen, a show plant, and he explained to her how it should be looked after before being divided up and re-potted next spring – not into a very large pot but just one stage up at a time: a 7-inch up to a 9 before being put into a deeper, more protective 12-inch container a few months later, ensuring that the roots had good drainage of course, as cannas, like so many other rhiz
ome-derived varieties, do not like to sit around in the wet. As RCN looked on, he could see that his temporary hospitalisation may well have turned out to have been a very good thing. His employer had been forced to communicate with someone else for a change – the eventuality being that this episode would turn out to be the beginning of some kind of ‘comeback’.

  Trewin House, Porthcreek, Carn Point, Cornwall, Saturday, 26 August 2002.

  ‘What happens if you toast cake?’

  ‘Toast cake? Why would you want to do that?’

  John Nightly put down his chunk of Endycake and picked up his guitar.

  ‘I like toast… and I like cake. Just wondered…’ The boss played a shimmeringly unresolved chord as Mawgan knelt before one of Trewin’s most valuable ‘antiques’ – RCN’s treasured Zorbot stereo-replicator, circa 1971.

  ‘Ancient!’ cried the dude. ‘We can do a load with this!’ as he flipped the toggle-switch marked ‘triple-stereo’. ‘Can’t really use it like normal ’cos it’s, like, ancient and stuff. But we can link it up to my lappy and…’ Mawgan stopped abruptly, noticing a pre-war (Falklands) Atari. ‘Woah… this is some shit!’ he whooped as he picked up the clunky keyboard and turned it over. ‘Does it still work?’

  ‘Course it still works!’ cried RCN as he peeled off a couple of slices of cheese. ‘It’s all brand new – it’s just old… like me!’ RCN spoke with difficulty, a doorstep of toast wedged between his teeth. ‘Literally never been turned on. Think we turned it on when the guy came to install it, but that was…’ he thought hard, ‘back in… 1982 or…’

  ‘Ancient!’

  ‘I suppose so…’ The nurse scratched his head. 1982 didn’t seem all that long ago at all to RCN.

  It wasn’t every day that Mawgan walked into a wax museum of ’70s recording equipment. He picked up an automatic Harmonizer, an effect developed to provide an electronic ‘harmony’ to whatever was fed into it. The matt-black box looked like it could do with a session with Endy, her scourer and a tin of lint. Another unit, a ‘compressor’ – complete with valves and levers – a machine that squeezes the highs and lows of a signal into the middle area, making a track sound harder, tighter and more dynamic, lay beached in its rack, road-weathered and rusty. A BBC Commodore computer – the very latest thing in 1982 – corpsed in its corner, exactly where Ric Locke had installed it all of twenty years ago now. Well, twenty years was a good few years, though still firmly in the era of ‘modernity’, the way RCN looked at it.