A Short Commercial Break

I don’t think it would be unfair to describe my friend Paul as a bit of an Arthur Daley figure. All the wheeling and dealing at car boot fairs. The ever changing items that came and went at the unit on the industrial estate where he was acting as some sort of unofficial live in caretaker. In the upstairs studio area there were his suits and formal clothing hanging up from railings fixed high towards the ceiling – these were presumably remnants from his time as personal chauffeur to Edwin Starr, because I don’t recall often seeing him dressed in anything other than casual wear.

On the other hand, I can’t imagine Arthur Daley spending autumn weekends foraging for mushrooms off in the Welsh hills, so there was also the old school hippy vibe to proceedings. Ken Kessey and his magic bus, personified by the repurposed ambulance parked in the forecourt with a bunch of musicians living inside.

At one point Paul had signed up with the PRS (Performing Rights Society) and managed to wrangle his way to various industry events up in London where he’d invariably return with a bunch of free swag. He liked to network too and I remember he’d made some connection to former Gong member (more hippies!) Mike Howlett (producer of, among others, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark). Mike was going to come down to record some project or other, although I can’t recall the exact details now and I’m not sure when or if it ever happened.

I don’t really remember how much time I spent at JAM studios, which was the name by which his premises went by. It feels like quite a lot, but in reality I probably wasn’t there that often. But there was always something going on and it was a rich source of interesting stories.

I remember one time when someone came over to record a radio commercial. They were a true professional. The ad was for a local dog racing track and the script called for a range of different voices and effects.

This guy was dialled in. Forget my performance as ‘voice of the balls’ for Actionaid, this was the real deal. He’d come with his own mic, which was plugged in to whatever recording set up Paul had. He’d record one part and then instruct Paul to cue up the next take to overdub exactly as required. One line (I recall) was performed in the voice and character of a dog.

It was fascinating to watch how a professional voice over artist worked. He must’ve been in and out of the studio in under a couple of hours, from set up, recording, overdubs and final mix down.

Most things at Paul’s were more ad hoc, and time often stretched out in odd ways in that windowless environment where 1am and 1pm seemed to share the same characteristics. I met a lot of different bands while hanging out there, of many varied musical types. There was a guy with perfect pitch who explained how painful it was to listen to most music because anything even slightly off key was torture when you were hyper aware of how wrong it sounded. A real blessing and curse situation – one talent I felt thankful not to possess.

One of the bands I met, hyped at the time for big things, were due to play a gig in Bath. This was in my Bristol days and as the local connection, Paul charged me with the task of turning up at the venue to make sure everything went off smoothly.

‘Stick close to the mixing desk and if there’s any problems with the sound, be ready to step in and take over…’

Although I’d been a willing assistant for that one Pulse gig I was hardly about to impose myself in some random club out in Bath. I didn’t even know the band that well and by the time I turned up for the gig I got the sense they’d probably forgotten I was even coming (or who I was).

What I do remember from that night is that it was raining heavily and water seemed to be leaking in slow drips through the roof on to the main stage area. A bad sound mix seemed like the least of the problems when you might get electrocuted at any moment. Luckily everything passed off smoothly and I slipped out at the end of the evening feeling I’d at least made the effort to show up, which is about as good as you could expect from me even back then.

Bristol and Southend were on opposite sides of the country and once my parents moved out to Sussex, my connection with Southend and therefore with Paul slowly dwindled. All that remained were the memories, a random second hand Atari computer that he’d given me, and assorted recordings we’d made jamming together on what in retrospect were a collection of fairly pedestrian musical ideas.

In some respects it was like when I’d been making music with my brother, my abilities were too limited to allow me to jam freely, so I’d end up circling back to the same few notes (like they were a comfort blanket) as though if I strayed too far the whole thing would simply fall apart. It didn’t seem to bother Paul though, he’d happily vibe away to whatever sounds were coming out from the speakers. Occasionally his faithful greyhound might wake up, look disinterestedly at what was going on and then settle back down for a few more hours of sleep.

If everything else was in a state of perpetual flux, the dog remained a constant throughout it all.