by Tot Taylor
‘Hole in the bread, then,’ Mawgan rocked back and forwards on his chair.
‘But that… well, that sometimes means…’
‘Death in the family, Mawgan.’ RCN put Endy out of her misery. He turned to the housekeeper. ‘That’s what you mean. Isn’t it, my dear? All those old wives’ tales and superstitions’ RCN sat down at the kitchen table and waited for the telepathically requested fresh pot of tea, his head already in the local rag.
‘Not superstitious are you, Endy?’ Mawg was in a mischievous mood today.
‘There’s nothing suspicious about that, Mawgan,’ the house-keeper replied – at which point everyone laughed, including the lady herself. ‘Super-stitious! You know what I mean! But that is… well… that’s the deepest hole I ever did see. Dear oh dear oh dear…’ Endy put the tin-fresh loaf down on the draining board. ‘We won’t be eating that tonight, I can tell you. I’ll put that straight in the bin.’ She looked forlornly out of the window. ‘It just means we don’t have any white bread for me to make you a sandwich for tomorrow…’
‘He’ll have plenty of grub – I told you.’ RCN turned to the kid. ‘That’ll be the least of your worries, my dear Endy…’
EMI Recording Studios, 3 Abbey Road, St John’s Wood, London NW6. Monday, 2 July 2006.
Mawgan sailed along the freshly mown corridor hung with multiplatinum trophies. The Pink Floyd, Sir Edward Elgar, Paul & Linda, Daniel Barenboim, Leonard Bernstein, Stokowski, Hollies, Patrick Moore, Russ Conway, Mrs Mills, the Pretty Things, Sir Adrian Boult, Sir Malcolm Sargent, George Martin, Ravi Shankar, Peter and Gordon, Yehudi Menuhin, Freddie Mercury, Glenn Miller, the Fourmost, John Barry, Benjamin Britten, Michael Tippett, Radu Lupu, John McLaughlin, Johnny Kidd, Anthony Newley, Lionel Bart, Imogen Holst, The Action, John Taverner, Cliff, the Shads… all Abbey Road regulars. The dude completed a full two laps, taking it all in.
‘Hi!’
A tiny olive-skinned lady in a white dress, hair dyed a little too dark for her skin colour, stood in silhouette at the end of the passage. Small and ornamental. The genie in the lamp.
‘Mawgan?’
‘… oh… hi…’
‘I’m Carrie, Jonathan’s wife? It’s nice to meet you today,’ the tiny lady extended her hand.
‘… and you…’ Mawg smiled bashfully. ‘And thanks for…”
‘Jon asked if you wouldn’t mind waiting just a few moments in the restaurant? They’re still at work out there but he’ll be through in just a moment.’
‘… no worries.’ Mawgan made sure to appear unworried as he pulled down his hoodie until it covered his T-shirt and belt. Atypically, the kid suddenly felt a little underdressed, out of his depth perhaps in such refined surroundings.
‘… had a cup of tea?’
‘… uh… yes… yeh… thanks.’
‘… well, would you like another?’
‘I’m uh… alright, at the minute, thanks.’
The white lady indicated toward a heavy soundproofed door. She walked ahead of Mawg, leading him down a connecting staircase into a low-ceilinged, light-filled room, the studio restaurant, which looked out onto a cottage garden. Some 100 or so bodies were packed into the busy dining area. Discussing the session and the sunny weather. Worse-for-wear orchestral contractors stood at a bar in the corner, their eyes fixed on a huge TV screen relaying satellite football. They cheered and jeered as fortunes changed. Beside them a group of five or six neater-looking men were sat around a table scribbling furiously.
‘What are they doing?’
‘Oh… they’re copyists,’ the lady smiled. ‘Copying parts for Jon. On film assignments the picture tends to be changing all the time… right up to the last minute, so we’re working right up to that time – literally, until we actually put it down – “record it”, that is. They’re constantly having to modify the orchestral parts so that it fits the edit…’
‘But can’t they do that on a computer?’
‘They can… or they can do a bit of it,’ she elaborated. ‘They can change it and make the inserts on the computer. But the players still need individual parts… pieces of paper to read from, so…’ Carrie looked up at the football screen. ‘Tricky job… as with all these things.’
Mawg surveyed the busy dining area. ‘And they do that while there’s all this noise going on?’
‘They can do that on the back of a bus, Maw-gan. These guys can read batshit.’
‘Hi, darling…’
A very tall, very bald man appeared behind the genie.
‘Maw-gan?’
The kid got up. ‘Jonathan?’
The tall, bald man, having the appearance of a GP or local-government canvasser, bore no resemblance whatsoever to the crazie in pink loon-pants who peered out from the gatefold of Quiz Axe Queen. Jonathan shifted a bunch of papers from his right to left hand so he could greet the dude properly.
‘Nice to meet… really very nice.’ He looked Mawg up and down. ‘Very nice to see you.’ The man swapped hands again and took a breath. ‘So… this is a big thing, isn’t it? Shall we… sit down…’, Jonathan looked up and down the crowded room. ‘Though where exactly, I’m not quite…’
The maestro nodded to the many familiar faces squeezed around the tables. With the orchestra on an MU break, the canteen overflowed with cellists, flautists, oboists, percussionists… and copyists. Members of the Royal Philharmonic who had been performing Jonathan’s soundtrack in Studio 1. Carrie manoeuvred the three of them into the garden then went off to get tea for everyone in order to allow a plot to be hatched.
‘So… John knows nothing about this?’
‘Oh, he does, yeah… he knows everything – more or less…’ Mawg remained in upbeat mood. ‘But he thinks it’s coming out without the interludes. Then after me and RCN… the other John…’
‘Daly?’
‘John Daly, yeah.’
‘He’s still around?’
‘Sure he is. That’s the only reason John… John uh… Nightly’s still around. I mean John… Daly… he sorts out… well, he sort of does everything for the boss really…’
Jonathan paid close attention.
‘I’m amazed he’s… hung in there so long.’ He put down his papers. ‘And is he well?’
‘RCN? Oh, John’s fine.’ Mawgan looked around him. ‘He’s a pretty chilled guy…’
‘That’s good to hear… and… sorry, but… before we go on to talk about it all… do you mind if I ask? We will get on to the main stuff but…” Jonathan edged closer to the kid. ‘What sort of… “state” is John himself in? Really in…’
‘The boss? He’s fine too.’ Mawgan considered, “well, he’s kind of fine. I mean… he’s not that fantastic at the moment actually. Not in terms of… ‘normally well’, I guess. He’s not well in that way… but… it’s like… he’s like… he’s really into doing this. This job… ‘project’. We've been working on it for like… two years… probably nearly three.’
‘You’ve been with him all this time?’ Mawg nodded.
‘And you’ve actually managed to get him back into it… music?’
‘Yeah.’ Mawg gazed around the room. ‘More or less…’
‘That’s amazing… awesome.’
Jonathan was being signalled to by the guys at the bar, one of whom pointed to his watch. Time was getting on. The kid continued.
‘I’ll be glad to get it done, to be honest. And to get it out. ’Cause I think it’s like… we’re like… we’re on the edge of it at the moment… Maybe even starting to lose it a bit. Or we will do. If we don’t do it now. If we don't get it sorted now. I think so, anyway…’ Mawg drew back his hood. ‘But the thing is… I’ve spoken to John – John Daly – it was sort of… It was his idea, really. Or both of ours, I s’pose. We just thought that if we could get the orchestral bits – sorry, interludes – recorded again, it’d make the whole thing really complete, and it’s like… we’re only gonna do it once.’
Jonathan looked at his watch. ‘Will John be there?�
��
‘Nightly? No… John Nightly won’t be there. Definitely not… no way. We want it to be a surprise. But also… me and John – Daly, that is – we sort of… We went through it. And there’s no way that John will wanna be there anyway.’ Mawg paused. ‘There might be an area somewhere in the future where he might have “wanted” to be there. In the future…’ the kid scratched his head. ‘Somehow he might… but I… I think when he adds it all up… getting him down to London and…’
‘Can he travel?’
‘No, no. He can’t travel. No… he – John, the boss, I mean – doesn’t go anywhere. He’s out in the garden but…’ Mawgan fidgeted with his unopened notebook. ‘Up on the rocks sometimes. But in terms of him actually being there – “showing up”, kind of thing – and everyone sort of looking at him and that…’ Mawg picked up a teaspoon. ‘Ain’t gonna happen, y’know. Gonna be much too much for him. It’s never… well, y’know what I mean…’
The kid sensed his moment was up.
‘John Daly’s got a budget and all that. He will work that all out with you. That’s no problem. It’s just… it’s like… it just depends on…’
Mawg began to lose it a little. Wondering whether Jonathan might be just that little bit too grand, bit too ‘employed’ generally to take on what would likely turn out to be quite a frazzled, chaotic situation.
‘It’s like… in the first place, if you've still got the parts really. The music parts and… and also… if you think that you would like to do it – we’re all kind of all really hoping that you will… would, like to…’
The kid picked up a serviette, folding it in halves until he couldn’t fold it anymore. It was apparent that Jonathan was in two minds. Mawg lifted his hoodie, threw back his unruly dreads, smiled a little too unconfidently and rested his case. Carrie, pushing through obstructive instrument cases, chairs and umbrellas, arrived on cue with tea and treacle cake. Jonathan got up to take the tray from his wife.
‘Darling… we’re going to record the Interludes!’
Jesu, lover of my soul, let me to Thy bosom fly
While the nearer waters roll
While the tempest still is high:
Hide me, O my Savior, hide,
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide;
O receive my soul at last
‘Jesu, Lover of My Soul’, Charles Wesley, 1740
from the Primitive Baptist Hymnbook (1887 edition)
item: Monthly Cultural Notes: December.
The December gardener reaps the benefit of preparation in autumn. Bring cyclamens, primulas, and cinerarias into the living room for Christmas decoration. Attention switches to the greenhouse. Keep the air moving with good ventilation and heat where necessary. It is essential to keep greenhouse soil dry if plants are not in flower. A satisfying, quieter time, then, but a difficult one. December is not the coldest month, but it is the darkest.
With the final recording session about to take place, the one thing remaining to be done before the Mink Bungalow Requiem could finally be set free was the disc mastering, which Mawgan himself would supervise with RCN.
The mastering of any record is the final step towards its proper completion. Transfer from a professional recording format to a domestic one needs as much care and attention as any other stage of the operation. Not only to convert the music from tape to disc, but also to ensure that it arrives at its destination bigger and brighter than it was when it left home. A procedure that involves listening, checking and adjusting, then listening, checking and adjusting again (and again), all the time referencing favourite records that have been as life-enhancing to your own ears as you hope your record might be to others; tracks which have proved to be life-givers, seducing on the radio or dance floor, as you A/B between your offering and songs as familiar as the wind, flick between your little symphony and the absolute behemoths of rock’n’roll. How do you compare with Lennon, Led Zep or the Floyd, those who are beyond us, the standing stones of rock culture? Words and music that are etched into our collective psyche, a few random seconds bringing back time and place, people, past lives and our own former selves, the way we were. Songs that not only tuned us up, made us grow, but that also distracted and diverted us, revolutionised the way we think, the way we behave. Or, on the other hand, the toothpaste squeeze of today? The flat-pack pop of this week’s top downloads, indie bands sponsored by luxury brands, the panto-rock that these days passes for the behaviouristic revolution in aesthetics known as rock’n’roll?
On the final turn of your journey you will polish your creation, shape and tone it, dust it off sound-wise, adapting it to the formats on which it will be listened to: radio, iPod dock, streaming, hi-fi and lo-fi, headphones, earphones, iPhones, car speakers, DJ decks, festival PA systems. Although you went out of your way to make a record that would sound ‘individual’, you’re now going to try to make it sound like all other records, part of the musicalised correspondence, the ongoing archive that is Recorded Music Sound.
A&R executives refer to it as a ‘sit-right’ quality. More often than not this stands for a flattened dynamic. Elimination of the peaks and dips, the headroom and vast bandwidth of frequencies – removing the ‘hi-fi’ itself, the life and soul, the very gut of rock’n’roll – to make the track sound good and loud, louder than the rest, and therefore more ‘commercial’, more ‘sellable’ in the outside world.
A Radio 1 Sound is what it is. Pluggers lining the corridors of Broadcasting House use the phrase repeatedly, as they boast to one another about having a Radio 1 Sound in their record bags and a hit on their hands. A Radio 1 Sound*, or ‘radio-friendly record’, strikes a hard-to-achieve balance – some would say compromise, between overall impact, roundness of tone, consistency of volume, ‘rightness’, ‘wrongness’, ‘wow’ factor, ‘now’ factor and sheer ‘ordinariness’. A necessity and a problem ever since, sometime around the mid ’70s, pop music’s collective ambition seemed to diminish, to almost go into reverse, following the parting of the ways between rock and pop. The watershed creating a new tributary, a kind of ‘concept-rock’, a more thoroughly conceived, sometimes ill-conceived, more considered, more technical, more rehearsed, ‘better’ performed, more expensively produced, altogether shinier stream running alongside two mainstreams. This more conceptual state is the antithesis of coffee-bar skiffle, rockabilly, Merseybeat, the groups of the Blues Boom, the Brum Sound or any other primitive or provincial subgenre. Concept rock is Self-conscious. More linked to non-musical forms – performance art, theatre, mime, dance, spiritualism, Evangelism, Belief – than normal rock. Conceptual rock thinks itself more worthy than basic rock-’n’ roll. Through its mercury channel flows the glistening debuts of Queen and Roxy Music, King Crimson and Jethro Tull. A new beginning for the Bowie re-heated Mott the Hoople following their mentor’s own eventual infiltration of the student common room and the surrender of T. Rex to the demands of Woollies sales reps after many years of loyal service to the cause. The mouvement creating another new New World for ELO, Todd Rundgren, Alice Cooper, Focus, Sparks, 10cc and others who took the road less travelled, at least for a while, as opposed to the jammed-up B-carriageway of hard rock and metal1. In terms of presentation, this strand looked back to the antics of Screaming Lord Sutch and Johnny Kidd, while musically it recast pop in the mould of classical music; more melodic, more chromatic, thematic, more harmonically unusual, more structurally complex and more gimmicky while being seemingly more lyrically philosophical. It put the jump-leads on rock’n’roll itself, but could not perform the same feat on the movement’s chief protagonist.
That third summer of the ’70s had been John Nightly’s eventual Zero Point. The point at which the ailing superstar jettisoned both his mind and his body from an existing cocoon, preferring the uncharted waters of oblivion to the more logical step, career-wise, towards the new popular genres and formats, pop rock, art rock, space rock, made-for-radio, adult-orientated (AOR) pop and stadium roc
k. Each one of the Nightly recordings had been conceived with the idea of recording-studio as instrument. With the refinements in the recording process, 24 tracks available instead of four, a galaxy of FX, more budget, and therefore more time – too much time – and a willingness to experiment with sound itself, much more was now achievable and therefore conceivable.
The fans’ enthusiasm for a more deluxe listening experience meant this was also the point at which the door opened for anyone with a tin ear and a cast-iron bank account to take part in another new phenomenon – ironically, one that threatened the act of music appreciation itself. Sound reproduction – the quality of ‘sonics’ – had always been a major component of rock. The very progenitor of the music. Now rechristened the demon audio it became much more; almost a concept in itself. The era of the self-proclaimed audiophile had dawned.
Those who had been unable to decode the musical fabris leaking from the matchbox speaker of their Dansette were now able to invest in and enthuse about audio to their fellow non-hearers. Talk of tweeters, bins, woofers and subwoofers along with all manner of super-decks, amps and pre-amps, compressors, limiters and equalisers taking mono into stereo, stereo to Quad and Quad to surround sound seemed to almost take the place of consideration of tunes and words. By the time the pop machine had been repackaged yet again, stadium rock had taken off and John Nightly had been taken away, it was as though rock’n’roll had never happened.
Suddenly we were all rewound, back in the pre-Beatle world. The part-word pop once more stood for disposability and instant appeal. The Pop Music Product was again aimed squarely at the new decade’s teenage (this time ‘teeny-bop’) audience. Success – the desired outcome linking each new release with eternity – seemed not at all dependent upon the product being viewed as being hip or influential or even on being actually liked by the public at large, but rather on its potential to be literally ‘successful’: i.e. money-making, unit-shifting at retail and ‘instant’ in broadcasting terms. Radio-friendly enough for the BBC Playlist – an all-too-select selection of tracks on rotation in any given week, injecting content via Telstar and the BBC’s own satellites into every home in Britain. The new Radio 1 Sound was as instant as a popper or a suitcase containing a million dollars.