Today’s studio-blog is the third part of the story of AIR Studios Oxford Street.
A boy from Indiana; three kids who met George Martin and a band from Rain town.
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Thanks Niall. I really enjoyed reading that.
American Fool is an album I go back to often. In fact, I am listening to Hand To Hold On To as I write. It may be a bit hokum, but I love it.
Interesting to to read about the ups and downs of Raintown. I listened to it a lot when it first came out and I still think that Chocolate Girl and When Will You Make (My Telephone Ring) are fine songs.
EDIT: just noticed that the lyrics of When Will You Make (My Telephone Ring) don’t include the word “telephone”. The lyric is “When will you make my phone ring”.
It was the first and last record they did with fully formed tunes, rather than a nifty sounding phrase and the promise of a tune that is never quite redeemed. All those “When Declan walked the dog” type songs. Yuk! But Chocolate Girl, yummy.
@retropath2 I didn’t keep up with Deacon Blue after Raintown, although I do remember liking Real Gone Kid. I have a “best of” somewhere, but I don’t know when it last saw the light of day. Having said that, that goes for a lot of my CDs unfortunately.
@Pajp Thanks and thanks for the DM.
Marvellous, as per.
I’ve surely told my ‘Deacon Blue nearly cost me my job’ story on here, haven’t I?
A couple of minor typos:
“He gave up the drugs and alcohol will still in college”
“there’s every possibility we will be as big as the Beatles” – we, or he?
“we were making a Neil Diamondtype album”
Thanks 👍
You have @fentonsteve?
Must have missed it.
From 1986 until 1991 I spent my summer, Xmas and Easter holidays working in a hi-fi factory neAR CAMbridge.
Late Feb half term 1987 was the Bristol Hi-Fi Show, held in a large hotel in the city centre. The firm were showing off their CD player, and it was my job to play Brothers In Arms and, when that finished, put on Graceland.
Linn (from Glasgow) had a larger room along the corridor filled with their LP12 turntable (fitted with Troika cartridge), LK1 preamp, active crossover, six LK2 power amps, Isobarik speakers (each slightly smaller than a single wardrobe).
One lunchtime I took my sandwiches, headed for the Linn room and sat in the back row. They played, amongst others, A Walk Across The Rooftops (obviously), Hounds of Love, Hipsway, Rattlesnakes, and a promo of the still-unreleased Raintown. The whole room shook. It was bloody fantastic.
As 5pm approached, I dipped out, ran round to the local branch of HMV, and bought a load of records.
I then returned, sheepishly, to my employer’s room.
“Where have you been?”
I held up my HMV bag in reply.
I wasn’t invited to the Bristol show in 1988.
That wasn’t dull.
Standards are slipping. That was verging on interesting.