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Support Acts

At Mudstock Festival, travelling back onto site in our traditional Sunday ‘Terrible Tees’ for the final day of mixing and recording.

As per usual, we are listening to Little Sister Radio in the hire car. “Later on” says Nematode “we will looking ahead to you some of today’s highlights including Kneecap’s performance from the Cube Stage and Calf’s live headline set from the East Den.”

“What the hell is going on?” I heckle from the back. Are we just working our way down the lower leg, or what?

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Off To A Crocky Start...

Over the past months, each of the studios used by the Nations Favourite has received an upgrade to make it more aesthetically pleasing and ready for filming.  Once a mish mash of duck poo green baize walls clashing with every available colour on the selectable LED lights, it is now a black box full of about five little black robotic cameras that look like Death Fader which stare down at the hosts and guests.  Understandably, some presenters have not embraced the change, any many bookings now begin with the engineer needing to either repower the confidence monitor next to the presenter, re-sync the presenter camera which has been unplugged, or reach up to the ceiling to unfold the black metal flaps around the bright floodlights.

One presenter who has embraced the visual aspect of this transformation is Waylon Wine, a technophile who arrives camera-ready for his lunchtime show having presented a live TV morning show every day, and is used to being under the spotlight.  Other presenters prefer to lurk in the gloom.  From an engineering point of view, whilst it’s nice to have new gadgets to play with,  the installation of all the new kit has pretty much entirely eroded any possibility of eye contact between the presenter and the engineer, as well as designating the worse-sounding guest microphone position as the most attractive one.  

The new system readily provides content for social media, and the presenter camera also feeds the video input to Whoosh!, for remote interviews.  A new large screen on the wall facing the presenter is able to display the engineer’s desktop at literally the push of a button.  If the engineer has performed this task correctly, and at the correct time, the presenter will be able to see their interviewee.  If not, they will see bored engineer’s cat videos and their inbox showing the latest promotion on Ripples bundles.  In typical fashion, I try and learn all the necessary ropes to make this new workflow run smoothly, and promote the new facility to others where I can.

Eccentric journalist/cowboy Waylon Wine is a lovely man.  He is tall and slim and likes to wear jeans and statement shirts and is a big fan of the raw hide comfort boots gifted to him by Dave Wrong.  When animated (particularly during the year he appeared on a season of Not Strictly Dancing) he is all windmill arms and big leggy, a little like his predecessor David Sleet at 3am on election night.  Except that instead of riding a horse through the desert he generally rides a bicycle through the West End.  Waylon very much likes to meticulously film, edit and then spew footage from his helmet-cam onto his Twaddle feed.  This allows him to freely comment on to what extent he judges that each driver who has overtaken him has adhered to, or is in contravention with, The Highway Code.  In fact Waylon is such a huge fan of travelling on two wheels that he recently bought himself a penny farthing.  Somewhat of a challenge, the saddle of a penny farthing is much higher off the ground than a normal bicycle, and the wheels are ridiculously mismatched in size.  In view of the fact that Waylon’s head is already a long way off the ground as it is, this renders him a good couple of meters of the ground on a precarious saddle.  I'm no expert, however a ‘working from heights’ course certificate and a basic grasp of physics leads me to understand that the forces at work may accumulate sufficient kinetic energy to be potentially damaging.  And indeed, a couple of weeks ago Waylon managed to knock himself whilst out setting off from his house in his jodhpurs and cycling helmet across the vast Texan plains of his constituency, promptly colliding with a tuft of grass and flying headfirst over the handlebars.  Thankfully, he got away with a black eye, and some back pain, however these – plus the discomfort of his embarrassment - were perfectly counterbalanced by his glee at crowbarring the word ‘divot’ into a on-air discussion with Dave Wrong about the incident.

Today, I report for duty at Waylon’s production desk and routinely listen across the two-way with Zen Hoots to find out what is in store for the show.  It’s typically a mix of serious and offbeat items, however seems fairly serious today.  The Ukrainian refugee crisis, waiting lists for NHS operations, cyber warfare and an interview with the survivor of a crocodile attack in Zambia.  

As it is an in-depth feature, we have decided we will interview the crocodile attack survivor via Whoosh, in vision.  I check the outgoing camera feed, then line up the incoming and outgoing audio by selecting the relevant soundcard sources and testing the I/O by using the be-be-deep-ba-dup-boop! tones, dialling the clean feed into Whoosh! back by -8db and toggling the ‘use original sound’ in-call feature.  I do an off-air test with our guest, who is sounding like she may benefit from using a headset mic, so I ask her, with a couple of minutes to go, if she has one available.  She says she will go and get one and gets up…slowly… but makes it back in time. It is only later, during the interview when I discover the attack left her with a mauled lower leg, dislocated hip and badly injured foot that I begin to feel the guilt rise up into my cheeks.  

Anyway, this is nothing to what happens next.  Waylon starts the item, during which I sense him physically reach out and adjust the camera in front of him.  I don’t see what he does, but these cameras are eminently twistable and tiltable.  Manual handling generally breaks the connection with the remote control. Waylon, throws to the guest, I reveal the cameras on both sides at the last minute, which is our new customary practice, and in an instant I hear the very serious item start with an on-air announcement  ‘Oh. I’m realising as I speak to you that you might be seeing me upside down.” “Yes I am, Waylon.”

Oh god. I swiftly cut the camera to save the guest’s sanity, whilst Waylon starts fiddlling and swivelling and thanks to his confidence monitor, turns it up with right way and we carry on.

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Hard to Resist

And when I retire, I shall perhaps regale the world about my exciting days as a signed up Corporation session engineer. And in the meantime I shall regale you.

“‘…Oh, and did I tell you of my discovery about the 12-way XLR loom belonging to the Panic Meat Eaters’ touring keyboard rig?” I shall utter.

Perhaps there will be a small audience, who understand none of it, yet look upon me with some amusement. Much like today.

“Red before brown!” I shall exclaim. “At ONE end only! Cross-patch!!!

“…And then I discretely took the keyboard tech aside, maintaining a 2 metre distance, pointed and muttered through my face covering “wcwndoflajdkfkdjwjf!”

“…And then he said “Oh ok, yes you’re right, that was the fault of The Noise Boys.”

“…And then I said “It’s not a phrase I’m fond of in principle, on the grounds of gender equality, but I understand that rhymes can be very satisfying.”

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#accidentalpigeon

In the name of my own amusement, not to mention a lifetime dedication to spill management, I signed off a lengthy email this morning with these departing words….

“A lot of Hoedown, Stix and Moon Studio recordings didn’t sound acoustically that great, but they had the magic of a band playing together in a room. I don’t recall Otis Brown being banished to a Celebrity Mrs & Mr isolation booth upstairs behind some cameras, but I might be wrong.

If there’s a sliver of light in the possibility of having a proper vocal booth on the studio floor, I would stick a screwdriver in that crack fast and prise open the gap. #accidentalpigeon

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Bad Connection

Overheard at the Mothership today…

“Were you on the Stay Connected meeting earlier?”

“No, it was a nightmare! Couldn’t get on! Tried every device available! Seems NO-ONE could get on to the Stay Connected!”

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Backchat

We are recording in the Theatre. Due to the virus, the producer is not positioned in the control room, but is stationed in the performance space with the show contributors, at a distance of two to three metres.

Meanwhile another guest will be joining us remotely via Room.

Me: “So we’ve set you up with a talkback box to the control room. Here is an additional mic to talk to the remote guest and here are some headphones so you can hear the show.”

Producer: “Ok. Oh, and how do I talk to these guys here? (points to contributors).

Me: “Well, I would recommend opening your mouth and it should just happen.”

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Overheated Elvis Fan Shocker

Just received an email sent to 937 people at The Corporation by The Duty Manager. Sadly no nod to the double meaning at all.

Internal Comms Incident Alert - The Mothership

“Following earlier issues where Elvis was not available a database rebuild completed at 22:00 restoring Elvis. There was another short outage at 01:00 to replace a cooling fan, the system is now working normally with no more work planned.”

I literally have no clue what it means.

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Karma Police

A year on into changed operations due to the virus. A vast sea of remote recordings, phone calls, virtual meetings, waving through windows and wiping down talkback buttons.

I’m in the studio, on the last of a succession of interviews we’re recording over the phone this afternoon, for the legendary radio DJ Dave Wrong.

Andy calls up the personal assistant of androgynous 80’s pop sensation Porgy Bess on a mobile phone.

“Hi Cassandra. It’s Andy the producer. I’ll pass you over to Pop our studio engineer today.”

Meanwhile I’m trying to wrap up another call to the Engineering Tech Support Helpline. The guy at the other end is talking a lot, because he’s lonely just like everyone else.

“I better call you back later with that asset number” I say. “Got Porgy Bess on the line”.

Andy passes me a mobile phone through the door with his extraordinarily long arm, which luckily extends well over the recommended two metres.

“Thanks Andy. Hi Cassandra. It’s Pop.”

“Hi Pop. Porgy is winding up on another call. He won’t be long.”

I inform Dave and his two remote co-hosts. “Porgy Bess is just on his way. I’ll patch him through in just a minute.” (I say ‘just’ a lot.)

Then. “Hello?”

I suddenly and inexplicably get flustered whether I should address our guest as Porgy or Bess. So I plump for neither.

“Ah! Hello, welcome! It’s Pop the engineer”

“Hello.”

“You OK?” we both say at the same time in a pandemic kind of tone.

“Good thanks” we reply.

Then “Who am I talking to?” says Porgy. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Pop. I’m just Dave’s engineer. If you’re good to go, I’ll patch you through to him now.”

“NO!!! You’re not JUST an engineer POOP!!! You’re not JUST anything! From now you must always say “MY NAME IS POOP AND I AM TRIUMPHANT. OK?”

“Ha ha. OK. Noted”.

“Yeah right. You definitely gotta say that back to him next time” says Dave to me afterwards.

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Pick Of The Tops

A busy - and at times hairy - morning working on nations favourite debut appearance by TV presenter and model “Ooh” Betty Dooley today.

Remote production due to the virus. Endless discussion on the talkback between myself and the producer about the upcoming sequence of events.

Favourite part was the chat about which of two music beds would follow each record. Typically, the one with the Betty ident at the start (labelled “Ooh Betty (top)”) or the one without the voiced intro (“Ooh Betty (no top)”).

Cue lots of excited consensual shouting. “Would you like to go topless this time?” “Keep a top on for this one?” “Top off please!” Etc etc.

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We Will Pop You

In a week that has seen both a second national UK lock-down due to coopervirus, and the defeat of Ronald Flump at the polls, my main highlights have been (a) the hygiene-safe removal of an award-winning veteran comedian’s pop shield, and (b) a jolly punctuation-off with one of the most famous guitarists in rock music.

It is Thursday.  I’m working in the Corporation Theatre.  We are recording a show with Mark Sheffield, a comedian who is as polite in the flesh as he is potty-mouthed on the microphone. Mild mannered to a tee, on stage Mark likes to shout.  

We are not generally encouraged to use pop shields these days.  It’s due to the virus, not the HF loss.  As ever, audio decisions rarely govern procedure. Meanwhile, the Shure SM58, emblematic of stand up comedy, is not always tolerant to the plosive nature of the genre.  Many a pub quiz has seen me sneak to the mixer while the quizmaster has nipped to the toilet to slip in a high pass filter.  Sometimes needs musts.

Confusingly, nearly everyone on this gig is called Mark.  The comedian, the theatre manager, the show balancer, and the remote sound guy in a darkened room just inside of the M25. Whose job it is to mix the laughs of 500 virtual audience members sat in their bedrooms far away in Barnyard Carterton. All watching via Whoosh, and who have inevitably failed to follow the instruction to wear headphones.

Marc and I are working out the various aux and multitrack feeds from the desk.  Mark is trying to find a place to have Whoosh meetings which are out of earshot of sound checking, and not breaking any social distancing rules. Gary, who is not called Mark, has finished editing the audio clips and is trying to find a spot to play ukulele in a quiet place away from the soundcheck which is not breaking distancing regulations nor interfering with Mark’s Whoosh call.  It’s all a little like the puzzle where you have a boat, a fox, a chicken and a sack of grain.  

After a while Gary comes back to the control room, strumming rhythmically and steadily G, Am, D and G over and over again.  

“What are you learning, Gary?”

“Baby Shark” he replies.

“Baby Shark! You’ll never get it out of your head again!” I exclaim.

“Apparently” says Mark, “it’s the most watched YouthTube video ever. If you put all the global views end to end it would run for 30,000 years!”

Gary plays and I sing and do the actions. Then we get back to work.

“Mark?”  says Marc.

“Yes Marc?” replies Mark

“Since Mark is a bellower” says Marc, “please can I have special dispensation to use a pop shield?  Pop says it’s ok if we bag it up safety afterwards.”

“Well, yes, alright.  But we don’t have a system in place.” says Mark.

“That’s ok, Mark.  We can make a system.” I offer, in my traditional way.  I like to call it a ‘can do attitude’, others possibly call it ‘downright pushy’.

“Do we have any little plastic bags around?”

“You need something like a dog poo bag” says the PC.

“We need something exactly like a dog poo bag”, I say.  “Who owns a dog?”

“I do”, says Marc.

"In which case, you’ll definitely have a dog poo bag in your coat pocket.  Don’t you, Marc?

“Yes, I do.”

Yes. We’re in business.  Literally.

It’s an enjoyable, if strange evening, watching a man perform to an empty room.

Time to derig.  “Can you ask Marc for his dog poo bag” I holler over to the vision mixer, who is standing by the door of the control room. “He’ll know what I mean”

“It’s on the Dither & Co. desk!”  comes the reply.

I grab the dog poo bag, a little over-excited, and throw it over the 58 with the dexterity of a reptile hunter capturing a wild lizard. I pull off the pop shield.  Then seal the bag with camera tape and label it MARK SHEFFIELD - 05/11/2020 and stuff it into an already full drawer underneath the printer, ready to be discovered in 2025.  It’s quite a robust system. Job done.

Meanwhile, fast forward to today.  I’m working with Mickie Junction, star of Up The Junction quiz farce fame. 

The Corporation has now entered a bizarre era where programmes are held together with bits of string and sticky tape.  Well ok, personal mobile phones.  Depending on the day of the week, these may or may not be logged onto the somewhat flaky Corporation WIFI.

At the start of the show, I send a little Wassup message to a couple of celebrities to let them know that I’m going to be calling them for interview from this number.  GDPR seems a hazy memory.

I send a polite message to Sir Derek Spring.  A man who is rock royalty, a pioneering guitarist and the head champion of the Otter Preservation Society.

“Hi Derek!” I begin, wanting to keep the tone upbeat, in keeping with the Nations Favourite radio station.

“Hi Pop!” he replies.  “I’m standing by to stand by. Del”

The upbeat tone seems to be working.  But Del?  Wow.

“Perfect - thank you!” I reply.  Now that I’ve started this exclamation mark thing, I just can’t seem to stop myself.  “I’ll call you in about 5 minutes.”

“OK!!” comes the reply.  Wait, now he’s gone up to two exclamation marks!! What shall I do?  If I tone it down, he might think there’s a problem.  

So naturally, I do what anyone would do in this situation. Show off about it to their immediate colleagues via Wassup.  

“Use the otter emoji!” says Guy.

Nice touch, but I decide to wait until after the feature, just in case I balls it all up.  I hurriedly silence my phone notifications.  It’s not very professional-sounding to have wildlife emoji Wassup notifications pinging their way through an on-air interview.  

Speaking of which, Guy had a good one the other day.  He had a guest patched through to the live broadcast desk via her mobile phone and was all ready to fade her up.  Meanwhile her husband had gone outside their house and powered up their car on the drive to take the kids off to school.  The presenter threw to the guest, meanwhile the guest’s mobile phone automatically connected to her car’s handsfree kit via bluetooth, leaving the husband and the kids on air instead of herself.  Brilliant.

Another blinder recently was where the newsreader had accidentally left a PC running a backup player faded up on his desk.  Prior to the bulletin he had additionally used that same PC to check a detail on the network’s home page. Which unbeknown to him, was auto-playing a delayed live feed of network.  Which as soon as he went to air was also containing, yes you guessed it - a feed of himself.  All of which resulted in utterly surreal chaos on air, featuring a man trapped in a never-ending nightmare of being announced and starting to talk, then being announced and starting to talk.  Over and over again in a neverending loop like a right TK Turnstyle.

Thankfully, the interview with Derek does not ensure such ill fate. After Mickie’s sign off, I fade Derek out and thank him in person.  That should really be enough, but for good measure, I send ‘Del’ a little follow up message.

“Thank you for a lovely interview!!!

THREE exclamation marks.  Touche. Then I throw in an otter emoji.  Why not, let’s turn it up to 11.  He is a rock and roll guitarist after all.  The reply comes back.

“Thanks to you too!  Enjoyed it!  See you any time!!! cheers!  Del”.

I leave it there.  Always quit while you’re ahead!!!!

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“It’s so clever, I understand it”

Ian tries on self-deprecation for size, only to discover it doesn’t fit at all.

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Pan Control

It is with some sadness that I report the sudden demise of my trusty kitchen tool known in this house as Wobegon’s Wand.  Used and loved for several years now, it has served up many a hearty brunch and flipped many a delicious pancake.  How on earth will it ever be replaced? 

I have sent it on to utensil heaven to be rejoined with Sir Jerry, whereupon he will no doubt complain about whatever is he to do with such a useless tool.  #RIPWobegonsWand

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Room 101

The Corporation’s legendary Maid of Orleans studios have, at one time or another, been frequented by most of the famous musicians in the land.  Once home to Ray’s Bionic Glock Shop, creators of incidental music for early television programmes, its endlessly long and confusing corridors spawned a myriad of crazy sound sculptures including the Doctor What Theme. And for the past sixteen years, inexplicably, it has been one of my places of work.  Hello Cleveland.

It’s 7am on Sunday morning and I’m parking up outside the building’s long white façade.  Upon entering, the security guard on Reception looks, quite frankly, put out to have to engage with another human being. I feel the same. It’s too early. Come 8am today we are going to have our work cut out because a film crew are invading with their own unique type of bizarre military organised chaos. They are making a TV documentary series about the history of electronic music. They will be filming Ray showing off a vintage bionic glock from a collection belonging to the Corporation.  Which is curated by my friend and yours, the legendary Sir Roger Andrews, head of everything.  

I use the term ‘curated’ loosely. It’s mostly bits and pieces packaged in bubble wrap and hidden in crumpled cardboard boxes stuffed into wonky metal cupboards around the building.  Some items are ‘filed’ in Room 101, more of which later. The important thing is that Roger Andrews recognises the important difference between, say a piece of extremely valuable legacy equipment worthy of being exhibited in a museum, with a load of old tat. Which no-one else does. 

Roger Andrews has set this booking up.  In the trade, it is known as a ‘Roger Andrews Special’.  This is when Roger Andrews dreams up something unfathomably complicated in his head and it’s everyone else’s job to try and reverse-engineer what he might be thinking.

Roger is a small, quiet and helpful man.  I say man, he is actually half man, half rucksack. He walks quite fast but prefers to travel using a combination of white magic and MIDI message, and can easily vanish to any room in Maid Of Orleans and back in a split second.  The catchphrase during these bookings is “Have you seen Roger?”. Whereupon he sometimes apparitions, already having just done what you were about to do, and sometimes not, but then he appears when you phone him. None of his devices have ever run out of battery power. The trade-off being that precisely one minute prior to any live radio transmissions broadcasted from Maid of Orleans, the equipment has a tendency to drop out and then inexplicably restore itself, having been perfectly fine during the soundcheck.

The entire building is dark, and so I play a little game of Automatic or Not? with the lights.  Interspersed by a few rounds of Switch Hunt.

I pull a giant lever to power up Room 333, where Ray and his fellow pioneers of early sampling used to work.  Whiling away their days tweaking test tone oscillators with their toes, hitting piano strings with whistling kettles, and running five mile tape loops to The Mothership and back via a secret hatch in the basement leading down to the Bakerloo line. This is one of two spaces I am to offer the film crew.  The other is Studio 5 downstairs.

As well as the famous bionic glock, Ray will need two old tape machines, a rare vocoder and a vintage analogue synthesizer (now worth two million guilders).  Roger has told me that he would set everything up in advance.  However, there is no sign of any equipment anywhere.

I head downstairs to Studio 5 to throw a few more giant switches and play a few more rounds of Automatic or Not?  No gear. Hmm. 

My phone rings. A man called Luke and his crew of thousands have arrived at Reception.  I head upstairs.  Looking at the throng, I have no idea who is who, and just say hello to anyone and everyone then instantly forget their name.  Aha.  Here is someone who looks organised.  “Hi, my name is Pop, I say.  “So is mine” says Pop.  “That’s easy!”  says Pop. “Yes Pop, it is.”  Pop seems to be in charge.

Luke asks me where to load in.  He now seems to be in charge. I explain that one space is upstairs and one is downstairs, but they are a few miles apart and it rather depends where the filming is going to be. And that depends on where the equipment is. It is time to send a 16 bit trigger message to Roger Andrews’ brain via carrier pigeon. He generally responds just before you press ‘Send’.  In the meantime, Luke and I do the sixty mile round trip to view the two spaces and back, whereupon Roger Andrews both calls me and apparitions in Reception at the same time.

“Morning!” I exclaim. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today but I sure am glad to see you”.  “Ah yes, it got a bit complicated.  I’ll explain later” he says.  He never explains. “We’re in Studio 2.”  My phone goes again.  It’s Pete from the film company.  Pete seems to be even more in charge.  “Hello Pop” he says. “I’m in charge and I’m rather concerned you haven’t got the message that we’re in Studio 2”.  “It’s ok, I have just received it.”  I reply.  “Sorry about the delay and the confusion.  Load in at Door D.”  The security guard interrupts me. “Because the crew has more than twenty people, the unreliable goods lift is therefore out of action.” He says.  “Load in at Door C”.  “Load in at Door C” I repeat pointlessly to Luke.  “Let me show you where that is.”  We do another sixty mile round trip.  “You’re going to have to carry all your gear down the steps.  Sorry once again for the delay and confusion”.  

Roger disappears to start setting up all the crazy stuff.  As I mentioned, one of Roger’s many unique talents is hoarding old equipment. I have never known one person to gather up so much near-obsolete gear in my life. It lives everywhere, but most of all in Room 101 in a backwater of Maid of Orleans.  Room 101 is a nightmare.  It is full to the rafters with shelves upon shelves crammed with unsorted gear.  

The master key for Room 101 is long-since lost, probably inside its four walls. In order to get in there you have to go to the engineers’ room and borrow their spare key which is attached to a brass candlestick so that no one can lose it.  If their room is locked, which it is today, you have to do the sixty mile round trip to Reception to borrow their key, which is attached to a concert grand piano so that it definitely cannot leave the building.

Roger teleports to Reception, puts the piano and the key in his rucksack and disappears.

Meanwhile, I open up Studio 2 and play a quick game of Switch Hunt in the control room.  Hundreds of people appear, all of whom seem to be in charge.  They start setting up tables of croissants and asking for access to WIFI, which only works every other day.  It never works if the visiting artists are taking a flight or staying in a hotel within the next 36 months.

Just after the crew have loaded in, Pete appears and says “Hey, this isn’t the right studio.  It’s next door’.  The crew then do some kind of crazy stop-frame animation thing, with tables of croissants and tea urns jumping from studio to studio all around the building, until everyone is in the right place and logged onto WIFI.  It takes about 25 milliseconds.

Meanwhile Roger keeps disappearing and reappearing, during which time the other Pop and I try and reverse-engineer where he is by looking at some recce photos on Pop’s phone.  I play detective and try to guess which room he is in by the distinctive vintage colour tone of the seamless flooring in the picture.  I get it wrong about five times, during which we cover another few hundred miles of the building. We later discover Roger has been in a secret room that no one else has ever noticed. It houses Ray’s famous bionic glock, one of the world’s rarest electronic instruments.

I give up trying to find Roger and instead focus on collecting spanners and kettle leads and GPO to igranic connectors.  I am quite good at this as I’ve tidied them all up into a special entropy-free zone.

Whilst we are setting up, a camera lady, who seems to be in charge, starts randomly wheeling valuable kit around to make the frame look pretty.  She seems completely oblivious to the fact that the items are (a) priceless (b) plugged in to power and attached to each other with cables and (c) that I am lying on the floor right next to them like a car mechanic trying to find inaccessible output sockets of unknown connector-type.  She does her best to run over my precious head at every available opportunity.  I glare at her incredulously, which has zero impact. So I ask her to stop it. Immediately she is at it again. If she takes Roger Andrews out we’ll really be in trouble.

Then my phone rings. I do another sixty mile round trip to Reception to collect Ray. Ray is not in charge. He is going to be interviewed about the history of Ray’s Bionic Glock Shop. He is wearing a kaftan with a brown lab coat on top. His glasses are upside down and he merrily spouts endless fascinating facts about the former activities that lay behind the 527 doors that we pass along the corridor before taking the stairs down to the studio.

From there on in it all runs very straightforwardly. Roger Andrews evaporates.  We record for one minute whereupon the massive crew pack everything away via stop-frame animation teamwork in about 30 seconds. “Bye” says the other Pop. “I’ll never forget you!” “Bye!” I reply, and instantly forget her.

It then takes a couple of weeks for my weary head and body to work out where to put all the incredibly heavy equipment back.  During the course of this, I find new routes and several other rooms I have never seen before, and probably will never again.

The building falls silent and somewhat eery once more.  I throw some things into Roger Andrew’s scary lair and shut the door, slipping the latch and turning out the lights as I go.

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Acting Up

DJ Dave Wrong has invited a throng of production staff to record some trail liners in the studio. The joke is that they are all ‘ordinary people’ not actors. They receive direction from Dave on how to each deliver their line badly with ill-advised emphasis.

He takes the opportunity to record some new applause.

“It’s the same clapping but it sounds five years newer.” remarks Jon.

It’s the turn of Mr Tickle, Steve’s ex-radio producer.

“That’s RIGHT. And LOTS of fun” he drones blankly.

“Try it slightly more enthusiastically.” instructs Wrongy.

“I’m trying to get a balance between bewildered and enthusiastic” says Mr Tickle.

“You’ve always managed it before” quips Wrongy.

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An Open And Shut Case

I’m at that Lark In The Park with Nations Favourite, staring at the set list I’ve taped to an empty flight case and pondering. About exactly why so many of the classic chart hits by two of these big MOR bands on the bill seem to be obsessed by the vertical axis.

It’s like they were literally written with future elevator playback in mind.

Or perhaps I’m missing the spiritual aspect here.

Anyway...

‘Rise’ (up it goes).

‘Shine’ (down, from the sun above).

‘Out of Reach’. (presumably featuring an arm extended upwards, but arguably across).

‘Ocean Drive’ (in horizontal plane shocker!!!!)

‘Dreams’ (which appear in a little thought cloud above ones head).

‘Live Again’ (rise up from the dead).

‘High’ (up again).

‘Lifted’ (case closed).

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How to mix like a six year old.

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Rock and (Vegan Sausage) Roll

Ubercool American drummer with big hair: “I’m hungry. Say, do you have one of those little pastry restaurants near to here?”

Me: “Hmm. Pastry restaurant. Do you mean Presque?”

Plugger: “I think he’s referring to Dreggs.”

Me: “Ah yes sir. The little gentlemen’s pastry restaurant around the corner. Go out of the building, turn left and left again and it’s on your left.”