I’m just contemplating how many prescient moments my life has thrown up. When I was house producer at Neat records how could I know that 40 years later Neat 02, Neat 03 and Neat 06 would merge under one recording session? This will happen this coming Tuesday when Jayne Mackenzie(Neat 03) is part of the backup singers for a new recording featuring the singer of Neat 06John Gallagher of Raven and the guitarist of Neat 03Steve Lamb of Tygers of Pan Tang (ok he wasn’t the original guitarist but I later cut two Tygers albums with him) How well I remember lovely Jayne aged 11 coming in to cut her Neat 02 single. Looking forward to the next session. You’ll get to hear it when the new album “The Long Fade” comes out Mid Spring.
Our new single will be released on 12th April. It will be downloadable £1 and on CD £3. But you can get if FREE.
Everyone who buys a ticket to our show at The Steel Club Consett on April 11th will get a free CD the day before the official release. You can purchase tickets from the venue or online click here.
The “B” side is Red Dust Overture. Both songs have very strong Consett connections: “Father” being about how once generations followed each other into the same trade. “Dust” is from the musical Steel Town.
Vocals: DaveDitchburn, Guitars: Steve Thompson, Bass: John Dawson, Drums: Ian Halford, Keyboards: Richard Naisbett, Lap Steel: Jim Hornsby, Booster Box and Cajinto: Steve Dolder. Backing Vocals: Jen Normandale, Elizabeth Liddle & Jayne Mackenzie.
The Fathers Father Industrial Choir: John Gallagher, Mick Glancy, Steve Daggett, Jen Normandale, Elizabeth Liddle, Jayne Mackenzie, John Verity, Michael Lavery, Steve Thompson
The new album to be entitled “The Long Fade” will be ready mid Spring. There are many collaborators contributing to this album and we’re all very chuffed with it.
We’ll be going into our first rehearsal on Monday for our show at The Steel Club Consett on April 11th. Tickets are available from the venue or online at bit.ly/steelclub
On April 12th we will release a single from the album “Like My Father’s Father” C/W “Red Dust Overture”. Ticket holders for the Steel Club gig will get a FREE copy of the single a full day before official release. The two tracks are very much tied to my home town of Consett. And here’s an added bonus: the original singer of my Consett band Bullfrog (formed in 1969) Mick Glancy will contribute to the single. Mick will be going into a radio station near where he lives in Devon to record his part for the “Father’s Father Industrial Choir”
There have been quite a few of these distant collaborations. Steve Lamb (formerly Tygers of Pan Tang) has just turned in some terrific guitar parts for “Behind The Wheel”, a song I originally recorded with Alvin Stardust. The track features John Gallagher of Raven on bass and vocals plus the only core band member on the track Ian Halford on drums. I quickly recorded the track over the Christmas holidays. John had just got in touch to say he was in the UK visiting family and would I like him to guest on the album. With just a week to spare, I went into Green Dragon Studios in Stockton and laid down programmed drums, bass and keyboards. These parts have now been replaced with a power trio. Johns vocals and bass in Customs Space, South Shields, Ians Drums in TSOM in Thornaby and Steve’s guitars in Bournmoor Barn.
So, The Long Fade will feature everything from pop ballad “Hurry Home” to the hard rock of “Behind The Wheel” and everything in between. Expect that sometime in May. Meanwhile, look out for the single on April 12th or get it free the day before by getting tickets to our Steel Club show in Consett.
It was 1980 and I’d just spent the day in the studio making demo recordings of some new songs. I session guys had done a fine job. One of ’em said “why are you still writing pop songs when all this heavy metal is happening”. (NWOBJHM). They all got onto this and pressed me to do something about it thinking that since I was already A&R for Neat I could get them a deal. “Ok”, I said “you lot fuck off to the pub and I’ll knock off a coupla heavy metal tunes. I said “Make it two pints to give me a little time”. Mickey Sweeney wanted nowt to do with it and just set everything up for me to engineer the session and then he went home. Before doing so he gave the band a great name “Nights That Pass In The Ship” (the very pub the guys were going to). While they were gone I knocked up a couple of songs.
When they came back I went through the two songs with them. Then I set the tape running and jogged back to the studio and picked up my guitar. Also on the session was Peter Richardson: Guitar, Garry Maughan: Bass and Michael Black: Drums. We recorded the two songs and went back to the pub. The next day I called Phil Caffrey and he came in to sing them.
And that was that. The songs never saw the light of day. And then I spotted them: they’re on the same tape reel as the Raven audition tape. I’m about to digitise this before shipping off to John Gallager in Florida. Perhaps these recordings will join my archive stuff going out on Vainglorious UK
I am in a philosophical mood today. Just ignore me if you wish. When I quit my band Bullfrog it was to concentrate on becoming a songwriter. I made some demos assisted by Bullfrog drummer Jim Harle in a studio called Mortonsound in Carliol Square. I recently chanced upon the tape from that day and borrowed a Revox to have a listen and digitise the songs. These demos are too primitive, naive and cringe-worthy to share. They will not be joining my forthcoming releases from the archives.
The picture of me and Jim is roughly from that time. I was 22 making him 23/4. I’ll be sending Jim the recordings. Jim recalls there was an “elderly gentleman” at the mixing desk that day. That would be Roy Hartnell who became a friend of mine. He was 40 years old – elderly!
Cringe-worthy yes, but the recordings represent the first step on a journey I was determined to make. Some might say my real first steps were with my band Bullfrog but this did not take me to my chosen destination. Or maybe it simply took me to the destination that was meant to be: Carliol House, Newcastle. Perhaps the start of a new journey. Those who know me will not be surprised that I embarked upon that journey with a determination more like a curse than an asset. I did reach my desired destination as well as several other destinations. I guess I’m still on the journey.
My mate John Cook found some picture in his attic that has brought memories flooding back.
Early 80’s I had bought a house in Whitley Bay with the proceeds of a hit record. I’d built a recording studio in the dining room. That place became a Mecca to local musos and singers. Mrs T declared that my life revolved totally around music and I needed a hobby. So one Christmas she bought me a Commodore 64. That computer changed my life. I loved it, playing really primitive games and I learned to program it. Then Steinberg produced the first ever music software. The Pro 16 (forerunner to Cubase) http://www.oldschooldaw.com/forums/index.php?topic=3433.0
When I hooked it up and ran it, it was an OMFG moment!!!!
One day my mate John Cook came ‘round and I played him what I had been doing and his knees turned to Jelly. He went straight out and bought a Commodore 64. John also had a recording studio located more conventionally in his garage. We embarked on many CBM 64 driven collaborations.
I even went on the Internet briefly using a huge dial-up modem. I quickly got bored with it and thought “that’s never going to catch on”
Footnote: The dining room studio began with a Fostex X15 Portastudio. The demos for The Tygers “Wreckage” album were done on that. Then armed with a publishing advance I went large. To build the studio Jon Deveril and I went to Dickens Home Improvement Hypermarket to buy wood. Neither of us drove so we went on the bus. We could only carry so much at a time so we went 3 times. Luckily this never made it to the pages of Kerrang!
I’ve been having a ball with old friends and new in various recording studios. They say when you retire you should take a hobby. Painting, gardening, fishing. I’m cutting an album. How rock n roll is that. We’ve been at it since the summer so there’s a lot of pics. There’s also been a lot of music and a lot of laughs.
We had an absolutely wonderful time at Custom Space Studios today. The music and the playing was terrific. I laid down some acoustic guitar and then Steve Dolder played his Beat Boxx on a track. I declared his drumming “beautiful”, an adjective I’ve never used for drums before (Steve said he’d never heard it before either). Then Dave Ditchburn sang Fathers Father like he had his bare feet planted in the soil and was singing for generations of working men. Jim Hornsby played some soaring slide and we then finished off with Dave singing “Guy Walks Into A Bar” like he’d lived the story (and he most probably has) We followed the not trodden path in our music making, it was all organic instinct. But best of all was the conversation and the laughter from start to finish.
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A Boy Band
Dave Ditchburn, Steve Thompson, Steve Dolder, Jim Hornsby
We laughed a lot. We even spent a brief time talking (and laughing) about our respective mortality. Hence the reason for one of the two album title suggestions that came up.
I had a remarkable day in a recording studio yesterday with these two incredible bass players. My regular guy with my band John Dawson rock solid as ever. At one point the studio was invaded by a fan who declared “John Dawson, you’re my hero! – then, (to his friend) hey Eddie- It’s the bass player with the Russ Tippins Band
Then John Gallagher who I hadn’t seen in 38 years since we worked together on Raven’s landmark “Rock Until You Drop” album. It was almost as if no time had passed at all. We were right back in 1980. As crazy as ever and laughing fit to bust. Producing that Raven album was my craziest time in a recording studio ever. Today reminiscences abounded and some memories emerged I had long forgotten. Some will be revealed in my book and some will remain under wraps forever. John Dawson you are sworn to secrecy.
At one point the two Johns got to talking bass. The studio clock was ticking over (i.e. money) but we didn’t have the heart to stop them.
A Quiet Moment in The Studio
Last time I was in a studio with John recording the Rock Until You Drop album there were NO quiet moments!
My first band Bullfrog formed in 1969. I have always said there is only one picture of the original 1969 line-up and that’s a Sunday Sun clipping from when we gave an impromptu concert on Eldon Square. However, I have just re-discovered these tiny “proofs” in my scrapbook.
I’m scanned them at a ridiculously high resolution and they’re coming out reasonably viewable.
My (unfinished) book concludes with a gig my band did at The Georgian Theatre last March. So much has happened since that I decided to do a series of blogs “after the show”. This is one such blog.
Not long after that show my lawyer Simon Long called me. It was my birthday but that’s not what Simon was calling about. Simon has looked after my affairs since 1982 and has become a great mate. He had been watching the promo’s for my band, activity around my book and general Facebook stuff and was taken with the revitalization my career seemed to be taking. Oddly the catalyst for this communication was none other than singer Chris Farlowe.
A couple of months earlier I was preparing for the Georgian show. In the set was a song I had written for Chris Farlowe “Looking For Love in a Stranger”. This had never been released so I just wanted a picture of Chris to put on screen as I introduced the song. So I Googled for photos of Chris and guess what?…… I discovered that my song was on at least THREE Chris Farlowe albums.
This gave me an even better story to tell at the show. You see Chris’s backing band on “Looking For Love in a Stranger” was the Jeff Beck group. Except it’s not Jeff on guitar, it’s me! You know me, I’m not one to brag but I was playing guitar with the Jeff Beck group!
I informed my publishers about the three Chris Farlowe albums. To my surprise they weren’t particularly bothered. You see they’re huge and I’m some old dude they signed 15 years ago and forgot about.
And so back to the phone call from my lawyer. Simon said “do you want me to shop around for a new publishing deal?” I said “sure, why not”. Simon said he had in mind a small family run company who would be more likely to give me a personal service and get involved creatively. I said “OK, go for it”. When I got home I Googled Fairwood music and found they looked after David Bowie, Jim Cregan (Rod Stewart), U2, Sarah Brightman and others!
So here I was booking out new shows for the band. The guys were also keen to begin work on an album of the songs we’d been performing. This seemed pretty straight forward but how was I to know ……….. (more follows)
In 2018 I began writing a book as many people had been encouraging me to do. The book is a combination of all the stories I’d told people over the years. It is unfinished but in skeletalform I know it concludes with a show I did with my band at the Georgian Theatre in Stockton on Tees in March 2018. The show was such a resounding success that it seemed a good place to conclude the story.
The final sentence has been written.
However the story continues. After that successful show, enthusiasms in my band were running high. The energy between the six protagonists was palpable. More shows were booked and we were on our way. Then suddenly the drummer quit. And then like dominoes falling others left too. It was somewhat bewildering. Eventually we were just three. Now that’s not a band but incredibly the three of us, me, bass player John Dawson and Vocalist Jen Normandale believed we were still a band. Incredibly a drummer, Ian Halford, for some weird reason thought it looked like a band too and joined us.
In the Summer of 2018 the four of us went into a recording studio and made some music. Not just any music, there was a reason and a story to what we were doing. Over the coming months more sessions took place in several studios and a new story started to emerge.
I’ve decided to blog these stories in a series I’ll call “after the show”. This is the beginning.
