Studio Anecdotes

or

" Tales from Pennine Studios"

A regular feature of wacky/allegedly amusing stories accrued during many years of sitting patiently in the

        control room.................................................................................................Updated monthly.         

        Names of the perpetrators have been omitted in the cases of the REALLY SILLY ones for obvious reasons.

                   To save you clicking around like a prat , there are NO LINKS ON THIS PAGE!!!!

       Tale for May 2002

        The sound clip that opens with the " some of my past transgressions " page is indeed that of one   John Cooper Clark ,a well known Manchester punk/alternative poet of the mid 70's onward...a bit like Adrian Henry in Liverpool in the 60's . During the burgeoning  stages of  the Manchester punk scene , Pennine Studios in Oldham , had seen its recording business grow from an 4 track facility to an 8 track one ( WOW ! ), and we began working quite a lot for Rabid Records of Manchester which was when I first met Martin Hannett and Tosh Ryan .One of the records we made was the " Innocents " E.P. by JCC .Other records  include Ed Banger and The Nose Bleeds ,Chris Gill ( Central Detention Centre ) and The Panic ( K ? ), Johnny The Postman .

        The Rabid sessions were , to be polite ," very relaxed " in attitude ,with most of the production ideas conjured up by messing about with one thing or another until the budget ran out ( wot budget ) or the chemicals wore off ( I didn't say that ).

       Martin ( Hannett) decided it would be best to do the JCC EP live...to get the " meter " of the poetry  scanning  with the tasteful backing . After many false starts and trying various ruses ( 'cos nowt was running in time ) and trying to explain that you really can't put the drum machine on AFTER 'cos it won't run in sync.   (pre-midi days...If I had a quid for every time I've tried to explain that one ! ) , I calmly tried to explain in   non-technical jargon ,       that " when you hear the drum machine start up in your cans , all you lot start up and keep in time " .

      Hence , the out-take at the start of  " SUSPENDED SENTENCE " ( bring back 'angin'..fer evrywun "  ) with  Clarky re-explaining to the band in those immortal words...

 " WE ALL START WHEN THE DRUM MACHINE STARTS LADS "

..........a phrase used many times over the years for many different but equally exasperating situations !

      It's unfortunate that I lost the full out-take in which you can plainly hear me squawking down the talk-back the instructions and trying not to confuse the issue even further !

                                                                    HAPPY DAYS!

    JOHN COOPER CLARK IS ALIVE AND WELL...I HEARD HIM ON AND  ON CLASSIC FM     RECENTLY READING A SHORT VERSE FOR A NEWSPAPER AD I THINK..HE'S STILL GOT IT!

Footnote: Shows  how times /fashions change...at the end of the track called." PSYCLE SLUTS"  the pay off line is      " ...   for you that's how the world will end, not with a bang but a WIMPY "..............really funny at the time!

Doesn't seem to work with " not with a bang but a flame-grilled-whopper " / " ....chicken McNugget " does it ?

STAY TUNED FOR MORE REVELATIONS INCLUDING " OUT-TAKES FROM THE ARCHIVES "

NEXT MONTH:: Richard Stilgoe glimpses life in't grim North