Beginning to get excited about These are the Things. Lottie re-recorded some piano, And I put on a second guitar – my Gretsch Tennessean, which I love playing. I saw it and tried it in Munjos in Denmark Street a few years ago. It was expensive and I wasn’t sure I could afford it….So I […]
So….I ran away. Manchester was another life, of students, theatre, acting and a household shared with Mick and his pregnant girlfriend. I wouldn’t have to think. Jeremy (Jel) came up to stay, bringing his guitars. He stayed in the attic – a large space which we decided could be our studio. We could play every
I remember, well actually I don’t, not really, only bits, images rather than chronologies…. The other plan in the Ultras heads (see It’s Alright, Isn’t It….) was to become a recording band. We were writing our own stuff – what better way to enrich the waiting world than by making records? Easier said than done,
Al Spokes’ house was in Bourne End, a well-to-do area on the river about half an hour away from Beaconsfield. Big house, big garden, lovely neck of the woods but, most important, there was a room above the garage. My Dad drove me over (a trip he generously ended up making dozens of times) with
Why was a drum kit in the room? I can’t remember. It was a house party, a birthday I think. It’s possible another group was doing a set – it might even have been me, drumming for Tim Cansfield, one of my only two friends from school, a terrific guitarist who still works sessions and
The joke goes like this…. A young man finds a teacher and asks if he’ll teach him to play bass guitar. “Come on Saturday,” says the teacher. At the lesson, the teacher tells him to pluck the bottom string. “That’s an E,” he says. “Now go away and practice that string and come back next
Walkwood Quiz question: In the world of popular music, what is the year 1967 particularly significant for? Answer: Well, the release of Sergeant Pepper of course. And.…wait for it….the birth of NTP!! Soon after Jeremy made his first ludicrous suggestion, we set about playing. More accurately, he set about teaching me how to play. I
Now, clearly it’s ridiculous to own a guitar you can’t play. Well, I’d always liked music. The first thing I remember hearing – I must have been two or three, maybe four – was a record my parents were playing downstairs while I was in bed. It was the Soldiers’ Chorus from Gounod’s Faust. As
Everybody goes on holiday in August. Sounds great, doesn’t it. The problem is that music is collaborative, we have to be together, in a room, struggling with words, or tuning, or broken strings, or even (yes) arguments. So how do you do that when she’s in Turkey or he’s in Italy?! Or, actually, when they’re
Jeremy Blackford Robert Hickson I must have been about 15 when Jeremy made a ludicrous suggestion. Jeremy Blackford and I went to the same school in Beaconsfield, where we lived. We must have met when we were about 7 or 8, my memory is hazy there, and though we were friendly, we weren’t exactly friends. But