Old recordings...blimey!

[NancyJohnson]

I've just unearthed a veritable treasure trove of old recordings from 1978 through to the mid-90s.

 

I thought these were all long gone to landfill, but my mother-in-law says, 'I've found a box of cassettes in the garage,' so I did a trip out to pick them up.

 

Man alive.  I'm just transferring the first one to the PC.  In the early 90s we were rehearsing in our (rather well-heeled) guitarist's basement, a double garage conversion that was under the main lounge of his house.  We had a ton of gear...I had two Hamer basses and a huge Laney stack, guitarist came back from a US holiday with three Jacksons (a purple Kelly, two Strat things in custom paint) and he was running a superb Fender Twin Reverb.  Thinking back, I can recall he'd bought a Fostex F-77, a little mixer (for the drums) and a bunch of decent microphones, so we tended to capture fairly clean recordings whenever we rehearsed.  Listening back, it's a home counties cross between Motley Crue, Anthrax and U2.  I'm about halfway through the first cassette (dated May 1991), by which time we seem to have employed the services of a singer who is pretty much channeling Mike Patton (I wonder where he is now).  It sounds bonkers.  So f*cking fast.

 

There goes my weekend.

 

 

[NancyJohnson]

Well, this has been a fairly interesting journey.  Hours of frankly terrible church hall recordings going back to when I was about 13, through to some fairly decent studio reels.  Runs from punky originals, through metally stuff, the white soul boy years and then stops with a few tapes of stuff I recorded in a local studio as audition tapes for band/label prospecting.  I also unearthed a pair of three-track demos I did with a band when I was 18 or 19, the first was self-financed (£65!  I remember this distinctly) and the second funded by Polydor (this is another story).  Dates cut off late 90s.  Interesting.

 

Despite my punky/alternative roots, re-listening to the WSB stuff was the most interesting.  I was writing with a bloke up in Ealing; I'd decamp there for an entire Saturday, every Saturday for about 18 months, and we'd just immerse ourselves and write.  His wife would do a nice lunch, we'd work through the afternoon and I'd get home around 6.00pm.  Programmed drums.  From memory, I was using a Warwick Streamer 5LX...my first foray into a 5-string.  Sadly it was never going to be a live thing, purely writing and recording (I had a 50% share in a 24 track studio, so it was a good vehicle for that).  I'm very pleased to hear these again.

 

For now, the tapes go back in the box.  I'll probably never listen to them again!  If you're interested:

 

https://on.soundcloud.com/u5PWooGdoLMkJ1426

 

 

Edited Monday at 18:12 by NancyJohnson

[chris_b]

On 11/04/2025 at 15:37, NancyJohnson said:

I'm about halfway through the first cassette (dated May 1991), by which time we seem to have employed the services of a singer who is pretty much channeling Mike Patton (I wonder where he is now).  It sounds bonkers.  So f*cking fast.

 

 

It's fun going back and hearing your younger self and realising what kind of player you were then.

 

When we had a 25 years reunion of our R&B/boogie band we got the tapes out, and discovered none of us could play that fast anymore!!

[LowB_FTW]

16 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

If you're interested:

 

https://on.soundcloud.com/u5PWooGdoLMkJ1426

Thanks for this. I quite enjoyed that.

 

Mark

[NancyJohnson]

12 minutes ago, LowB_FTW said:

Thanks for this. I quite enjoyed that.

 

Mark

 

Thank you.  There's a ton of these from this project, maybe 20 complete and another 10 part-demoed. 

 

Inevitably, [it] experienced a falling out...a keyboard player arrived out of the blue; the guy was just awful, terrible player and a genuinely horrible personality.  There were a few heated emails and the guy I'd been working with for a year and a half just replied with one that read, 'OK, I quit,' and that was it.  We never spoke again!

 

 

[NancyJohnson]

2 hours ago, chris_b said:

 

It's fun going back and hearing your younger self and realising what kind of player you were then.

 

When we had a 25 years reunion of our R&B/boogie band we got the tapes out, and discovered none of us could play that fast anymore!!

 

There's one recording that turned up that was lump-in-the-throat stuff.  A guy I was in a punk band with in 1978/79 died tragically young. 

 

It was quite moving just hearing him doing ad-lib riffing vocally over the band, going 'Just swallow that rhythm maaaan, you'd better watch out 'cause this is The Crime, we're out to kill you, we are committed to you and you just remember this, we are the rebels of rock and roll and we are punk rockerrrrrrs!'

 

Bless him.