How funny it is to listen to old tapes of old bands. I had a whole load of unmarked cassette tapes and I've just listened to lots of them, looking for old Chefs stuff for the proposed album. I found a tape of us live in Basildon and separate recordings of Sweetie with two pre-Russ drummers, Muttley and Darrell. I couldn't find a tape of the album we recorded for Graduate though, and my quarter-inch master is badly stretched and damaged. I found a tape of Helen and the Horns' first Peel session, with John raving over us and saying he wishes there was more music around like ours. And our second session, where the producer got a fantastic Horn sound, with Marc Jordan playing trumpet. And a demo me and Carl Evans, the Chefs guitarist made in Wales of which Mike (hi Mike!) described our drum-programming as 'sounding like a drum kit falling downstairs!'. I have to say that although we all fell out with each other, Carl is on a par with Lester Square as one of the best guitarists there was. I thought we wrote brilliant songs together, and always finished off each others unfinished songs really well. I think when you are in bands when you are young, all the anger about being young festers and makes you fight about really stupid things. I remember reading about members of Black Uhuru having a massive fight on the tour bus about a biro, and that about sums it up, really.
I found a tape I made for Chris Smith, one of our trumpet players, of a song I wrote called 'Old Buffer Blues' which is probably worth reviving. I was a better singer than I thought at the time, and now I am jealous of myself. How I miss John Peel, always there in the background, my musical uncle and mentor. I was going to send him new stuff to listen to and there isn't anyone there now, just a Peel-shaped hole.
Meanwhile, Martin Stephenson's sent me a CD of lovely songs he's written which I hope to duet on (some of them at least). It's awful- everyone's away, I can't record, I want to do gigs, I can't get on with writing songs as it's so busy at home. But I have been practising singing and that's good.
3 comments:
Dear Helen, Any chance of releasing these John Peel sessions to the general public. As i remember, you always played unreleased songs at every gig. And some were classics!
Dear Helen, Your Blogger says 5.45 am. And by the 24 hour clock that works out as a quarter to six in the morning. Now why aren't you in bed like any normal person? Only milkmen, postmen get up at that hour in the day! (not rock musicians)
I like the black Uhuru / biro story... :)
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