It was meant to be one of those days when you set out to do one job and you accidentally open another can of worms and get completely side-tracked. I was intending to clear all the old cassettes from the cupboard in my room/office. I’ve got a case of old music cassettes, mainly old prog like Hackett, KC and Oldfield and intended to take them to the charity shop. But to get to those cassettes, I had to lift down another case which had all my old cassette masters of my musical noodlings before I got into computer recording.
I was a late starter in music. At sixteen, I begged my grandmother to buy me a bass guitar so that I could join the band that my schoolmates were forming. Unfortunately, by the time I got the bass, that band had split up and those friends had moved on, leaving me alone in the sixth form doing A-levels with a bass I couldn’t play and no band. I didn’t get my first guitar until a good few years later – I think I was 19 then – so I started playing late and wasn’t particularly good at it. I don’t think I have natural talent for music like some people have, those who can hear a tune and play it note-for-note after one listen. Those are true musicians. For me, music is a bit tougher and even though you might hear a simple tune when I put stuff up on here, it is a hard road travelled by me to get it together.
Anyway, in the beginning, I managed to figure out how to overdub my musical noodlings using my JVC ghetto blaster. I can’t remember how I did it, but I could record something onto tape, then rewind and dub another layer over the top. Unforunately, the first track was degraded by the second and because this wasn’t a professional tape machine everything ran at different speeds, rendering the “song” or more appopriately jam, completely out of tune. Either that or I was really, really bad. I think a little from column A and column B might be right in this case. Anyhow, I could jam along to myself without the need for a band. I thought this was really clever and recorded some of these jams and subsequent lost them.
Well, I found them the other day while going through these cassettes. They have to be the worst recordings ever made. They are toe-curlingly bad and if I had a skull and crossbones warning sign (or one of those biohazard spiky symbols) I would be warning you all to turn away now. I like a healthy portion of humble pie served in a rich humility sauce, so I am posting this hideous recordings below. These are historical or hysterical depending on how you look at them, so try not to split your sides laughing. Instead of having guitar lessons, I spent my time recording myself and my mistakes and gradually improving (well, I like to think I am improving).
The equipment used was a Columbus Gibson Les Paul copy that weighed a ton and cost £50 second-hand from Allan Marshall Guitars in Markhouse Road, Walthamstow, run through a Zoom 9000 FX unit, a Encore Coaster bass (which I still have in the cupboard for sentimental reasons) and a Casio MT32 keyboard I bought for £20 that provided the backbeat. These first sonic shitstorms were put down in 1990 (I think):

First Thing

Second Thing

If you managed to get through all that, I am so sorry. I did warn you and it’s not like I twisted your arm or anything. Feel free to pass these on to your chums and use them to poke fun at me. It is OK, my back is broad.
On another tape, I found some mixes of tunes I had completely forgotten about. They were never finished or put down properly. These were recorded on a Vestax MR44 four-track and by this time it was 1994 and I think I had my first GR-1 guitar synth and a great Alesis HR-16B drum machine. The guitar was a Yamaha RGX121 and I regret selling that one because it was a good little instrument, despite being a bit “heavy metal” in appearance. This next track is a bit long, but I think it had some potential especially call and return of the lead guitar. When I played this songs back to The Missus, she said: “Oh yeah, I remember those.” This was a bit shocking as I had completely forgotten about them, whereas she had those remnants of musical memory tucked at the back of her mind. Poor cow, no-one deserves to suffer like that…

On Bright

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