If there’s one radio guest that you don’t want to have to try to engage in a lengthy technical discussion from the other end of an ISDN circuit five thousand miles away it’s probably the diminutive top-heavy country songwriting legend Molly Carton. But that’s another story.
And if there’s a man on this planet who you would least rather have an “is your radio turned off / is your phone fully charged / how many bars of signal do you have / are you off hands-free / are you parked in a safe place with the windows wound up?” kind of conversation with it’s chirpy Liverpudlian Sir Pete McCarthy from 60’s pop phenomenon The Bugs who’s in the middle of the school run and a bit stressed as he’s about to go and catch an aeroplane.
It’s the morning show on Nations Favourite Radio and Sir Pete is expected to break normal protocol (a right reserved by the extra famous) by calling in on one of the control room telephones. Unbeknownst to the the host of the show, it will be a surprise interview to promote his new record. There are two minutes to go until Sir Pete is due on air and the watched phone sits there all silently. Tom’s on tenterhooks, we are collectively willing time to slow down. Oh and as if that’s not enough pressure, the Deputy Head of The Corporation is sat watching. Andy has scheduled an extra long seventies track to eek out the time but still no sign of McCar. There’s a standby guest ready to go. Tick tick. Record ends. Long chat with the sports guy, good good, and then…here comes the interview, oh damn, fade the backup girl up.
Soon after the replacement interview gets on air the telephone in question shrilly bursts into life. Tom answers, has a brief chat and then says “Sir Pete on TBU2”. I divert the call to the mixing desk, hit the pre-fade to check the line. And what do you know, it’s a bad one! Ffzz Ffzz Zpp. Och. Here goes. “Hello Pete it’s the engineer here.” “Oh Hi. Ab dib bup hep sczscz.” Pants. ”Pete, your line appears to be a little noisy. Are you hearing the program ok?”. This time the reply comes back audible. “Yes thank you, all sounding good to me”. Hallelujah. “And you’re sounding loud and clear to us now too, please stay on the line we’ll be with you any moment”. Cue Top Cat. “Now guess who’s just phoned in! It’s Sir Pete McCarthy! Hello Pete, are you there?”
No choice but fade it up and hold my breath. It’s not so easy to try and operate machinery whilst crossing your fingers. Thankfully it sounds fine. It’s getting better all the time.
One of the many billion things I love about my job is that I get to work with some of the loveliest, funniest, cleverest and most creative people around. Once a year now the music recording studio doors are cast open to a selection of aspiring songwriters, musicians and producers so that they can share in the joy and pick up some tips and it’s all streamed on the internet for the general public.
I have had a few hours of downtime today so I looked into some of these videos. And I must say they are an interesting sideways glance at how my esteemed senior colleagues view the art of recording digested for a lay perspective. Here are some of my favourite bits:-
“The 1176 is God’s own compressor…it was invented by God, to make his own voice louder.”
“Drums don’t scare me. They’re just drums. Hit them. Don’t worry about them.”
“You really have to try and understand where your artist is coming from. You’ve got to try and listen to the voices in their head. Because they’re musicians, they can’t articulate themselves with words, that’s why they play something. You’ve got to try and work out whether they’re hearing a purple guitar in their head and what shade of purple that should be. Insanity doesn’t come into it.”
“Singing drummers. Nightmare.”
“People used the [saturation] qualities of tape to change the sound. Tape distorts in a nice way so you would record it loud in order to harvest some of that distortion. But if you wanted a clean sound…. Erm, I don’t know what you would want a clean sound for! Then you would record it quiet. I mean if you were recording Paul Simon or Sting.”
“I could take all these mics down and use Shure SM57s for everything. I’d be quite happy doing that. On everything I could use £70 microphones. I’ve never tried it but I could…well I’ve only got two SM57s.”
“The idea with compression is to keep the bass instrument absolutely like a big piece of chocolate cake. You know it just doesn’t move. It’s always there.”
“I have these speakers at home. I’m lucky enough to know the guy who makes them so I get a deal. I wish I was friends with Waves. It would save me a fortune.”
“The guitar, the way he’s playing it, the way I see it, just needs a large amount of reverb. Because he’s trying to express godlike sentiments. And when God speaks to you he’s got a lot of reverb on his voice.”
Genius. Love you guys.
Followers of this blog may recall the time I helped songwriting legend Bach Bertrach out of a fix by giving him a green teabag. Or perhaps the time I broke open my new box of Yogi Cold Season herbal tea to give a bag to songwriting legend Roy Davis. No? Well never mind. Now I bring news of a brand new celebrity drinks-related anecdote. Which, as many of these stories go, is just a shameless excuse for me to drop made-up names.
In an exciting turn of events I am asked to accompany producer Adam and britpop jacket-flapper turned king of culture Calvin Jocker to an exclusive Mayfair hotel. A place often frequented by the late great crotch-grabbing white-gloved monkey lover Jackie Markson. Our mission is to record a question and answer session with veteran Canadian poet and musician Chester Lohen following playback of his new album to a theatre full of journalists and art critics. I am nervous about the audio as it is to be used on air by several big arts and news programmes such as Tomorrow and Back Row, as well as Calvin’s own Sunday Sequence.
The album is lovely, all deep and sparse and the conversation is honest and thoughtful. Calvin points out to Chester that his sad poetic imagery of a broken banjo floating in the sea is offset by the fact that it is perceived in the UK as a somewhat comic instrument. Chester takes all with grace, humour and humility. My BB+ recorder holds out too.
After the event I join Adam and Calvin for a quick drink in the private bar. It’s detox January and Calvin and I are both off alcohol. I order sparkling water, Adam beer and Calvin asks for an adventurous tonic with a few drops of angostura bitters. This is a talking point. Calvin kindly offers me a sip. I give it some careful consideration and say yes please. The only problem now is that there is a straw in the, as yet untouched, drink. This presents a social dilemma: Do I sip from the straw or ignore the straw and sip from the side of the glass but risk the eye-poke? Not without awkwardness, I opt for the marginally more hygienic third way of beverages. I plunge my own straw into the drink. Which, as you ask, tastes exactly like the word ‘interesting’. Say if “Interesting” were the name of a drink this is what it would taste like. (Note to self: avoid career change to marketing.)
So for anyone who was hoping for a rum and coca cola story I can only apologise.
Wintery sunrise at Breakfast. Light passes through the spokes of the London Eye and then through the strings of a royal Welsh harp.
Absolutely loved the juxtaposition today of a slightly testy atmosphere of a room full of grown men with cameras navigating the logistics of filming a bunch of blokes wearing cuddly classic Wimbles outfits miming their new single live on the radio, and everyone taking it all a bit seriously. A discussion breaks out about whether or not it would be acceptable for The Wimbles to muck about in shot behind a business news report. Meanwhile, forearmed with the knowledge that “The Wimbles require foldback” one question I am not expecting is:- ”Can you put even more backing track in the monitors please? The Wimbles are finding it hard to hear anything through their costumes.” Sorry, maxed out, my furry friends. Good luck studio.
Uses For A Boom Arm: No. 28
Here is the joyful chair that sits in our common room.
“
I do not ‘constantly abuse’ you.
(pause)
I SPORADICALLY abuse you!
” — Top Cat to producer“How are you getting on with that plate-smashing music?” — Producer to assistant
“O.M.G. I was working on this very show exactly SEVEN years ago today’” I say to Dave Wrong yesterday on the anniversary of DJ Reel’s passing, shellshocked by the memory.
And - lets face it - i am also a little bit shellshocked by the fact I have been working on this show for SO long…
“Were you?” says Dave.
“Yes, it was me and Gary, I remember it vividly” I recount. “News broke at lunchtime. We tore up all the prepared material and did a special tribute show”
“Really? I just can’t remember it at all. I liked Reel, he was a nice guy wasn’t he? Hard to get to know but a good guy” says Dave.
I warm. Then…
“By the way, I’ve been working with Gary for THIRTY YEARS” he adds. “Seven years is NOTHING!” he says.
Oh.
How odd that one of the potentially best recordings of the year should prove to be, well, so dysfunctional. Families on the road can be, I guess.
There are a few things necessary to secure a well-received live concert and broadcast which the industry take for granted. We do things in a certain way for a reason and when convention is broken it can almost seem to be a lesson in how not to go about things. For example:-
Do not randomly switch between mic and line levels on your handheld RF mics after each has been tested by three systems.
If you want a three hour soundcheck to pay off, put the monitor engineer behind the console and not behind the lead singers mic.
Avoid holding two microphone capsules together and announcing to all sound professionals in the venue that you are doing an important check for phase correlation.
Probably best not go mental about the lack of salad dressing.
Think twice before throwing the freelance patch monkey onto the FOH desk five minutes after the gig has started having banned him from the board during s/check.
Perhaps best for the band not to collude with the assembled audience in the event that the singer may complain about sound levels in the house.
Do not take numerous scheduled breaks during the concert for banjo tuning accompanied by announcements to the audience.
Actually, why not? And if the audience are denied all bass frequencies in order to keep the artist happy and able to hear the key stuff so be it. And in the scheme of it all we’ll remember and honour the unusual circumstances.
The parting of a celebrity and their mobile phone is a traumatic moment. But all guests at a radio station have to go through this step. Most opt to leave it with a minder in the control room. Others take it in, but turn it to silent or off.
Our guest this morning is wild-eyed, wild-haired, comic monitor lizard Buzz Bailiff, who adopts a typical leftfield approach.
“Paranoid about the phone!” he exclaims, walking straight into the studio. ”Yes, take it apart!” he says, proceeding to dismantle the phone to render it powerless. ”Aha! That should do it!” he pronounces, separating front from back from battery and laying the three pieces on the desk in front of him. ”Ha ha! Won’t go off now!”
For the period of the interview, Buzz looks not into the eyes of our jaunty irish host, but at the three pieces of mobile phone which he lines up in parallel then reverts around each other, always in straight lines, tessilating wildly throughout.
Would you just LOOK what I’ve got!
A five pound note from the Bank Of Nicey for triumph in the face of technical adversity.
It is nearly 10am and I have arrived at The Mothership to record links for a radio documentary. When I reach the studio, the compact cheeky cockney treasure Joan Britain is already there. She and the producer are sitting in swivel chairs discussing the script.
I say hello and go to offer a handshake to Joan by way of introduction. But, darn it, I’ve gone for the wrong gesture. It is clear that Joan will not settle for less than a lovey double-kiss. Now, here is a lady with wonderfully coiffed lofty hair and high heels. These no doubt help enormously to increase her diminutive stature whilst afoot. However neither of them do anything to help this tall engineer in high boots and a rucksack reach the tiny low-slung swivelling target. To make it worse I’m not entirely sure whether I am aiming for Joan’s cheek or for the air immediately to the left and right of her cheek. I have to summon all my powers of balance to not end up in her lap. Thanks to pilates, I succeed.
We set up for recording. “Are you happy to wear headphones?” I say to Joan, looking at the high hair.
“Of course, darlin’!” She replies, and puts them on TOP of her head in the neat little place between the top of the fringe and the bottom of the high bit. Not under the chin like some other coiffed lovies I can mention. This is how to tell if a celebrity is a good sport or not. Somebody who doesn’t mind ruffling up their High Barnet with a pair of Desperate Dans. Love a duck.
When endearing/irritating attention deficit twins Jodward came in 50% of them/it was the coolest ever in the good sporting headphone challenge. Like totally. One of the Jehn or Odwards put his headphones on top of his six inch high hair and it still bounced back up twenty minutes later. The other Jehn or Odward was, like, a total loser right because he went under the chin right. Then they totally stole all the grapes from our fruit bowl. Help.
Anyway, back to lovely Joan. In an unconventional twist, the producer opts to convey all his instructions to Joan on the talkback through me. It is hard not to feed a fraud giving feedback after every one of the thirty or so links including emphasis, pronounciation and so on on a subject about which I know nothing. I lurch between overenthusiastic and a weird ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ tone. Lucky for me she is excellent and brings much colour to the story. ”Good!”, I say. “Great!”, “Lovely!”, “Nice!” I vary. And occasionally ”One more, please” in the style of a doctor discussing a terminal prognosis. And of course I studiously avoid the elephant command in the room: “Carry on!”
Don’t you just LOVE Boogie Bolland’s jazz bathroom tiles!