Back in the old days, many years ago when life was good, everything was cheap and music was brill, Grenville, with whom we were staying near Richmond in Londinium, recorded a single with his punk band
The Cut-outs. Gren was working on
Swap-shop at the time as a set designer but they were short of a band. Being a muso in his spare time, he put together a band and they played a set on the show - with a fab backdrop designed by himself and paid for by the show. The other band was something like the Monkees and they played with a black backdrop because Gren had spent all the money on their own set. Like you do.
Mr Grenville Horner. Post-punk period.
The set went well, and they got a call to sign for some record company or other - but they turned them down as they all wanted a life! However, they did get to record a single produced by the great
John Leckie at
Rak Studios- owned by Mickie Most .
Last week, while we were in London, Gren got a call from his mate John to come along and be an audience at the studio for a recording with
Baaba Maal, the Senegalese musician with his friends and performance poets
Lemn Sissay,
Zena Edwards and others.
We went. Brilliant! like being in some parallel universe. Young men in tight trousers, beautiful young things in African dress, musos and tech geeks twiddling knobs.
John Leckie introduces.
"
More reverb on this one". "
Loose some on the low end". No idea what they were on about but the results sounded brill. We drank the free drinks and nibbled the nibbles too whilst they caressed our ears with music and words. Loved it. I even shook hands with the great Mr Maal. How good is that?
I sneakily took some snaps while they were setting up. Slow film and a loud camera did not help :-)
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