The Two Ronnies

I received Luke Haines' book `Bad Vibes' for my birthday, an excellent choice by Sarah it has to be said. I tore through it in a day and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm sure glad I wasn't in a band with the miserable bastard though.

He tells of his own personal journey through the music business, (as leader of The Auteurs and beyond) very truthfully, and is a great read. For the descriptions of Oasis' `Don't Look Back In Anger' as "a brainless, oafish anthem about nothing at all" and The Verve's `Bittersweet Symphony' as "the musical equivalent of a child's colouring in book: simpleton lyrics about life sometimes being good and sometimes being bad" he earns my special admiration...

Meanwhile back in Dusty Rainbows land, it's December 1989, and the Honey Smugglers are completing 3 songs in 3 days at Raezor Studios in South West London. We're recording in a 24-track for the first time with development money generously provided by a major record label, and it's sounding excellent beyond our wildest hopes. For the first time our individual parts are distinguishable from the rehearsal room murk we're used to.

Having recorded our tracks quickly and with spirit we move swiftly on to the mixing with Bernard the engineer. It's a tricky process which can make or break a song, and long hours are spent balancing the instruments in relation to each other. The state of the art computerised desk remembers every setting and fader movement, and after a day or more of moving towards the goal slowly but surely, viola ! ...sorry, voila !..everyone is happy with the final mixes. The studio standard monitor speakers are small Yamahas designed to give a definitive reference point should a band wish to record the drums in one studio, the vocals in another, and the bass trombone parts in yet another. Throughout the mixing process these speakers are the only ones we've heard the songs on.

By now it is well into the evening of the last day and friends and well wishers, (including some chums from late 80's popsters The Muscle Shoal) have started to appear, aware that the end is in sight, bearing bottles and smokes. It is the moment we've all been waiting for...time to hear it on THE BIG SPEAKERS. They are so huge they literally go from floor to ceiling in the control room, on either side of the window to the live room. Luke Haines reckons the official jargon is the `Ronnies' (Big speakers=Biggies=Ronnie Biggs=Ronnies). I'll therefore take that to it's logical conclusion and call them the Two Ronnies, given that they come as a pair.

The long hours of intense concentration are at an end, and it's time to party. When we get to the last of the three tunes, `Listen' the party is in full swing. I will never forget the feling of sheer unassailable joy at hearing this massive sounding THING we have created. I don't even care if nobody else ever hears it, it is the culmination of everything we've been aiming for in our 18 month life as a band. We sound absolutely bloody fantastic, and no-one can take that feeling away. Nobody can talk over it because it's too damn loud. It's loud, but it is as clear as a bell. You can feel the bass through the floor and in your ribs, the massive drums propelling it forwards, the soaring vocals bathed in reverb, the entire contents of the percussion box moving and shaking, and the gwirling, growling Organ are all there surrounded by their own halo of magnificence. If only you could invite the whole world to this studio right now to share this.

In the control room dancing breaks out, mile wide smiles abound, wine is drunk and life doesn't get any better. Three days ago this didn't exist, and now we've made something which will live forever. The massive size and quality of the speakers make it a wonder to behold. The moment is cherished, so much so that it remains clear to me virtually 20 years on.

You never forget your first experience with The Two Ronnies.

At the time I'm working at the BBC, and the next day is the Christmas party at the BBC Club next to Broadcasting House. I've spent the whole day at home listening to a DAT tape of the mixes from last night. It's not the same on my speakers. At the BBC party that evening, Sarah, Russell and I are robbed of the prize of a CD player in the raffle because Russell's number is being called out while he's in deep conversation elsewhere in the room, despite the fact that we know it's his. It goes to some girl who doesn't even work there anymore. CD players are a big deal in 1989, and more importantly I HAVEN'T GOT ONE. We leave the party in disgust at the injustice perpetrated upon us.

We go up to Russell's office on the fifth floor of Broadcasting House where he has a bottle of Scotch stashed away. Russell has not heard the recording yet. We put it on the hi-fi in his office in all it's digital glory. It sounds fantastic. We've had a lot to drink, so we open the door and blast it out down the stuffy, curvy corridors of the ship-shaped front of this bastion of the broacasting establishment. Fuck them all ! This is rock'n'roll and we'll show them ! One day we will rule the world !!

It's approximately 9.30 in the evening, and along in Studio 5A, a mere 100 yards from Russell's small archive selector's office, Radio 4's flagship arts programme `Kaleidoscope' is being transmitted. The clearly illuminated red light is a major clue to this. I'm at this point thinking it would be an excellent idea to give them an exclusive first hearing of the grooviest thing they'll hear this week or next, or the one after that, and set off down the corridor with the DAT tape.
I peer through the glass at the faces gathered around several beautifully suspended microphones, discussing goodness knows what, and wonder what I'm really going to do next.

At this moment I am brought back to sanity by Sahra and Russell who point out that it's likely I'll never set foot in Broadcasting House again if I even attempt to open that studio door. My glittering media career will be at an immediate end. Yours truly having finally seen sense, we retreat to Russ's office, and by way of compensation and still drunk, we manage to get the volume control on his amp all the way up to ten. The noise is deafening, but it still can't compare with the Two Ronnies.

The next day, Russell can't do any work because apart from a crippling hangover, his speakers are putting out an indistinct and pathetic flapping sound. We'd royally blown his woofers and tweeters to bits the night before and no mistake. He calls BBC premises department and they send a little man to replace the equipment without so much as a question as to how they ended up in this sorry state. People in the office remark about the incredibly loud music which could be heard the night before on the other side of the building. Our lips are sealed.

Put this on the biggest speakers you can find, but it still won't compare with the Two Ronnies !

Listen Link Below
http://www.box.net/shared/mp96vo6llc

Gonna Be A Man

When I first started sitting in pubs a couple of years back with a pint, some baccy and a notepad, I had the grand idea of seeing if I had enough material for a book, after all, everyone supposedly has one in them. My intention was to write down with fondness and perspective some of my experiences as a musician, particularly the heady days of my time in London in the late '80's and early '90's in a couple of bands who were big enough not to be small time, but small enough not to be big time. As a title, `Dusty Rainbows' sprang to mind and I've had it scrawled on my red folder of beer stained scribblings ever since. The rainbows I had in mind are the dreams manifested in hopes and struggles against fantastic odds trying to get somewhere in the business of music. What it is to be young and fearless.

I recently related a tale to Ben Wardle (after reading his excellent blog A&Rmchair www.benwardle.blogspot.com) about my own experiences with "the world's most argumentative band, and Europe's most stoned producer" and he strongly urged me to get writing a blog. Who's going to publish a book by me anyway and more to the point when would I ever have time to write it ? Small doses I think I can deal with though... time will tell.

`Dusty Rainbows' (the song) contains the immortal words "I was once a part, a part of the scene, I liked the kind of people who liked people like me", which just about sums it up. I have only recently come to realise that `Dusty Rainbows' was also probably intended by it's author to be the name of the character in the song (a kind of parallel universe Ziggy Stardust perhaps) as well as the song title. I love that. It's called poetry. I get all fired up by people with real inspiration, people to whom artistry comes naturally, flows through them and makes you say "Wow, I wish I'd thought of that". I was lucky that when I moved to London from Sheffield in March 1988, I immediately ended up in a band with one of them.

My digs were in Camberwell through a friend, in a lovely house, the bus journey to work was a mind-blower, up the Elephant and round the Castle, across the majestic River Thames past Westminster, up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, round to Piccadilly and finally to that great ship itself Broacasting House.

I had landed a job at Auntie Beeb, in the Sound Archive, which was a dream enough in itself for a lad from the North East. All those Peel sessions I'd been dying to get my hands on, curated by the kind of fellow you want to meet on your first day in a big new job, who takes you down to the BBC bar for 3 pints (on a lunchtime) and becomes a friend for life. I got the immediate impression I was going to like it there very much. Phil and I were to spend many a lunchtime over the years having `just one more' and yakking about music until the cows came home, mind you we usually made it back to the office, unlike our boss.

It was at a cheese and wine `do' in the old archive office, stuffed with filing cabinets and bound volumes of dusty pages, that Phil introduced me to Ged Murphy, (now a senior Film Editor, but twenty years ago still working his way up through the ranks) who had written some songs with a friend of his and were looking for a drummer. "I'm your man" I said immediately, with all the confidence of youth. After playing in about a dozen bands in Teesside and then at my place of further education, Sheffield, I was pretty cocky. It was agreed that I needed to meet his friend, and where better than the astoundingly cheap BBC Club ? (Blimey, a pint of bitter's cheaper than it is in Sheffield !)

Chris Spence turned out to be a fascinating and engaging soul, he and Ged went well together, Ged being just about the nicest guy you could meet. He'd always buy you a pint but just loved other people's cigarettes (" I'll buy some later" soon became a familiar refrain). Their songs didn't sound like any of the other bands I'd played with, they were original and fun, and had proper tunes ! Initially a trio, we started gigging very quickly, we still had some way to go in terms of finesse, Chris and Ged used to swap between lead guitar and bass depending who had written the song, but the songs were great. It was the first time I can remember having a song pop randomly into my head while going about my day, and realise it was one of ours.

Ged had a big USA psych thing called `Gonna Be A Man' , and Chris had amongst others `You Are The Sun', a fully formed English pop classic. After a very short spell where names like Apricot Hair, The Flying Pavement and The Acid Spangles were tried and tested, we finally settled on Honey Smugglers from a poem on a Kevin Ayers LP sleeve. We'd started at `A' in my LP collection and the prospect of spending three days going all the way to Z probably hastened their eagerness to agree that it was a fine name.

I'd been in London for about two months, and was already in a band and out and about with my A-Z looking for the the bloody rehearsal room. The only way to experience London ! I'd written on my A-Z , `Get Lost In The World's Toilet' in a drunken yearning for Sheffield, but the truth is I loved the capital from the outset. If you wanted to be at the centre of possibilities, nothing else compared.


ACID SPANGLES `Gonna Be A Man' (Hi-Fashion, Caledonian Rd 21/7/88)
http://www.box.net/shared/u6btr1hz6f

ACID SPANGLES `You Are The Sun' (Hi-Fashion, Caledonian Rd 21/7/88)
http://www.box.net/shared/2sv5tlg85b