39 days 20 hours and 21 minutes to go.
I've been thinking about my new album ‘Jenga Society’, which I hope to have out in November and I cast my mind back to my very first ‘album’ which I made in 1968 (yes, you read that correctly, 1968, let me explain).
I was so into rock ‘n’ roll, I so wanted to be a songwriter, I so wanted be in a band and have an album out, that even though I didn’t have a clue, and only basic skills on guitar, I decided I would do it anyway. In this era when you either needed a degree in music or that you could play Led Zeppelin’s (you know what I am going to say here) ‘Stairway To Heaven’ note perfect, to ever be able to show your face on a stage. I, in what would later become the norm in punk rock, created an ad hoc band, wrote some songs with the three chords that I knew so far and created an Indie label (albeit with zero distribution) in which to bring my music out.
The album was recorded with the aid of John Mortimer who had some rudimentary recording equipment and virtually all of the album was taped in his bedroom. The resulting collection of songs included the occasional electronic crackle of his parent’s fridge turning on and off, that bled through the mains and into the music.
I had a bassist called Mark Knockles, Pete Hollis played a bit of lead guitar ( he told me not to put ‘clever chords’ in my songs to sound ‘clever’, keeping them simple was the best approach for a good song, I was somewhat relieved to hear this, as it was the ‘clever chords’ I was having the most trouble with). Micky Howard (later to take the drum seat in the legendary Harlow Punk band ‘The Sods’, among other musical accomplishments), contributed a bit of bass and some drums.
Long before the Sex Pistols decided on their name, because it described the sexual organs of the human male. I decided to call my band after the sexual organs of the common worm.
Now I am sorry to say, I have forgotten why I chose to do that but nonetheless I called my band of merry musical travellers, The Seminal Vesicle Band and after persuading local graphic designer Kathy Deeks (now Kathy Baxendale) to create a cover for my album, It was released, not on vinyl but on acetate (acetate discs comprised of an acetate coating on both sides of a metal platter into which the grooves were cut on a lathe. The discs were just to check the ‘cut’ of the album before committing to the stampers that were made to create mass produced vinyl albums.
I wasn't signed and only had pocket money, so could not afford to make any real records but I could stretch to three acetate discs and so came into existence, my first and ultra-rare album ‘Acetate Memories’ (see what I did with the title there?) by the Seminal Vesicle Band and I felt I had ‘arrived’.
I still to this day have a copy (see the attached images) but I have no idea who ended up with the other two ( you lucky, lucky sods you).
I've been thinking about my new album ‘Jenga Society’, which I hope to have out in November and I cast my mind back to my very first ‘album’ which I made in 1968 (yes, you read that correctly, 1968, let me explain).
I was so into rock ‘n’ roll, I so wanted to be a songwriter, I so wanted be in a band and have an album out, that even though I didn’t have a clue, and only basic skills on guitar, I decided I would do it anyway. In this era when you either needed a degree in music or that you could play Led Zeppelin’s (you know what I am going to say here) ‘Stairway To Heaven’ note perfect, to ever be able to show your face on a stage. I, in what would later become the norm in punk rock, created an ad hoc band, wrote some songs with the three chords that I knew so far and created an Indie label (albeit with zero distribution) in which to bring my music out.
The album was recorded with the aid of John Mortimer who had some rudimentary recording equipment and virtually all of the album was taped in his bedroom. The resulting collection of songs included the occasional electronic crackle of his parent’s fridge turning on and off, that bled through the mains and into the music.
I had a bassist called Mark Knockles, Pete Hollis played a bit of lead guitar ( he told me not to put ‘clever chords’ in my songs to sound ‘clever’, keeping them simple was the best approach for a good song, I was somewhat relieved to hear this, as it was the ‘clever chords’ I was having the most trouble with). Micky Howard (later to take the drum seat in the legendary Harlow Punk band ‘The Sods’, among other musical accomplishments), contributed a bit of bass and some drums.
Long before the Sex Pistols decided on their name, because it described the sexual organs of the human male. I decided to call my band after the sexual organs of the common worm.
Now I am sorry to say, I have forgotten why I chose to do that but nonetheless I called my band of merry musical travellers, The Seminal Vesicle Band and after persuading local graphic designer Kathy Deeks (now Kathy Baxendale) to create a cover for my album, It was released, not on vinyl but on acetate (acetate discs comprised of an acetate coating on both sides of a metal platter into which the grooves were cut on a lathe. The discs were just to check the ‘cut’ of the album before committing to the stampers that were made to create mass produced vinyl albums.
I wasn't signed and only had pocket money, so could not afford to make any real records but I could stretch to three acetate discs and so came into existence, my first and ultra-rare album ‘Acetate Memories’ (see what I did with the title there?) by the Seminal Vesicle Band and I felt I had ‘arrived’.
I still to this day have a copy (see the attached images) but I have no idea who ended up with the other two ( you lucky, lucky sods you).
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