The Tape - Part One

From the cliff top, the haze of the sun obscured the join between sea and sky. Up above, streaks of vapour trails left by flights to the exotic east and the glamorous west formed a series of parallel lines resembling a musical score, and as I looked closer, a faraway flock of seagulls moved like notes across the page, their distant cries following the melody. ‘Hold On’ I thought., I know that tune! Suddenly one note dropped down an octave and then peeled off from the rest, and as I refocused changed from the size of a full stop to that of a golf ball, and then to a screeching cannonball of beak and feathers, mouth agape, eyes blazing and heading straight for me. I ducked in time to feel the soft underbelly brush my hair, rocking me back on my heels and dumping me onto the turf. As I slowly picked myself up and brushed myself down I pondered my disintegrating relationship with all things musical. Music hated me. Music kept abusing me and telling lies behind my back. Now I had the horrible feeling that music wanted me dead.

I descended from the cliff, using a well-worn path through the downland grass and walked onto the beach. A squadron of pigeons banked over the nearby dunes and dropped like stones out of sight. I had to lower my eyes from the horizon as they had begun to water with the glare from sea and sky and the wind skimming off of the breakers. I turned my back to the sea and plodded over the fine sand towards the dunes that bordered beach and fields. A surly mob of crows shouted angrily at each other from the treetops nearby, the raucous sound providing a suitable backdrop to the disturbing thoughts that were crawling inside my head.
I had been standing alone on the beach for some time, but exactly how long I couldn’t say. The white sky made it difficult to pick the position of the sun, and so as far as I knew it could be any time from late morning to early afternoon. I tried to drag my mind back to the events of this morning, but the attempt was met by firm resistance. ‘Not yet, no, not yet’ I said to myself as I clambered over the dunes and walked through the couple of acres of allotments on the other side.
A few gardeners were there, either weeding or sitting in sheds in front of camping stoves. How innocent they looked, not a care in the world. I was jealous of their tranquillity. I wanted to be one of them; have no other thought than what to plant in the spring. But I knew this was false. I knew that behind the calm exterior of the old man with the cloth cap, his head bent over a kettle, would more than likely be the troubled thoughts of age, infirmity and death.
Nobody is innocent. I remembered when I was a boy, about 12 or 13, and had just been caught trying to lift a table tennis ball from a local shop. The shame of criminality; of being flawed. And as I sat in my parent’s sitting room, watching the TV and waiting for them to come home from work, I remember looking at one of the newsreaders and feeling that same jealousy. He would never be caught shoplifting. He was liked and respected. Never a foot or hair out of place. Why couldn’t I be more like him. I bet his mum and dad were proud of him. I bet they boasted about him to their friends and relatives. ‘Oh yes, he’s doing very well now. He’s with the BBC you know. Reads the news. And then years later, that same newsreader was himself a story: of drugs and sex in West End nightclubs. The limited imagination of the ‘D’ list celebrity. Yes, we’re all in the same leaky boat, serene as swans but bailing out furiously below. So why doesn’t this knowledge make me feel any better?
I nodded to a few of the old guys and left them, following the road over a rise that led to a small, white bungalow next to a field full of sheep. A few of them looked at me incuriously as I unlatched the garden gate and walked around to the back of the house, letting myself in through the conservatory. In the sitting room the phone sat innocently on its table, giving no indication of the trauma it had put me through earlier. Some have argued that all objects have souls. If phones had souls they would all go straight to hell.

The phone had broken through my reverie at about eight that morning, breaking through my dreams like a commercial interrupting a favourite film. The voice at the other end was scared, urgent.
‘Simon? Simon is that you?’. A woman’s voice.
‘Yeah’, I slurred, still not fully awake.
‘Simon, it’s Anita. Andy’s sister.’
‘Oh yeah, right. Hi Anita. How are..’
‘Andy’s missing. He went out last night. Just popping out to see someone he said. He didn’t come back. I’m worried Simon. He always calls if he’s going to be late’.
The news shocked me into coherence. ‘But Anita I saw...’, I began, and then stopped myself.
‘You saw what?’ she said, hope rising in her voice.
I did a quick rethink. ‘I saw him yesterday evening about six. He looked fine.’
Her disappointment was audible. ‘No, it was later that he went out. About nine.’
‘Oh’, I said. ‘And he didn’t say who he was going to see?’
‘No’. She sounded depressed now.
‘He didn’t mention anything at all’ I said, trying to keep the rising panic out of my voice.
‘Well’, she said, the consideration lifting her slightly. ‘He did mention something about work. That it was something he had been working on lately. You work with him Simon. What do you think it could be?’
‘We work in the same place’ I said, thinking fast, ‘but I don’t actually work with him.’
There was silence at the other end. I had to say something. Give her something to grab onto.
‘Listen Anita, let me make a few phone calls. I’ll see what I can find out and get back to you. O.K.?’
‘O.K. Simon. Thanks.’
‘No problem. Just try to relax and not to worry too much. I’m sure he’ll turn up or phone or something.’
She hung up, and I dropped the receiver as though it was burning my hand. I had seen Andy last night; late last night. And he had left on a mission we both knew was dangerous and that we were both inextricably implicated. Now he was missing, and the fact that he hadn’t called made me scared. Very scared.

I had left the house at that point and fled to the cliff-top for safety and to reflect. The fact that I was back in the house was the result of weighing up all the possibilities and figuring out that nobody knew I was working with Andy except Andy himself, and if Andy had told anybody about me they would have been here earlier while I was sleeping. And anyway, who’s to say anything went wrong? I wasn’t fully convinced however and resolved to make a few discreet enquiries. After half an hour and a few evasive conversations I was none the wiser. Nobody had seen Andy since earlier yesterday evening. Nobody, that is, except me and the man Andy had left my house to see, and I as sure as hell wasn’t going to call him!

I had to think. I poured myself some scotch and sat in the rocking chair facing out through the conservatory to the garden and the field beyond. How could I find out what happened to Andy without hanging myself out to dry. What a bloody mess! And last night we thought we had cracked it. We should have known better, considering who we were dealing with. Considering what they had already done.

* * * *

It was eight days ago, during a lunchtime session at one of the busier pubs near my office, that Andy had come over to where I was reading the paper with my pint and sandwich. I had known Andy since university and ten years down the line we had happened to find ourselves working for the same record company. He had blown up a bit since university days and his mousy hair had already began to thin on top, but he still exuded sufficient boyish charm to have a harem of girlfriends on tow. I experienced this first hand while I was sharing a flat with him a few years ago. Every day it seemed, a new girl could be seen poking her head around the door and chanting the mantra ‘Has anybody seen Andy?’. He had been sharing a flat with his sister Anita for the last year or so while they were both at a loose end. He looked just the same as usual, apart from the remnants of what must have been a fairly nasty black eye.

‘Simon!’ he said. ‘Mind if I join you?’
‘No, no, go ahead’, I said, smiling and folding up the paper. ‘How’s things then Andy. Knocking yourself out?’, I said, indicating his eye.
‘Very funny my friend. Very funny’ he said, then sipped his pint and clonked it on the table. ‘Yourself?’
‘Just keeping my head down and taking the money mate. You know me.’ This wasn’t strictly true, I thought, and pondered darkly on my current ‘recording artist’ list. However, the modern courtier should never show the effort, just an ongoing insouciance and the apparently easy success of the end result.
‘Hmmm’ said Andy, taking a thoughtful sip. ‘Then maybe you could do with livening up.’

Andy came into my office later on in the afternoon and invited me out for a pub session after work. There was, he said, a little proposition he wished me to consider. Intrigued, I met him after work in the same pub we had been in for lunch. Andy ushered me over to a corner table and got some drinks.
‘Cigarette?’ he asked, offering me one.
‘Yeah, sure’ I said and lit up. ‘So what’s this big deal?’ I asked, blowing a plume of smoke up into the air. ‘Found the next Coldplay have we?’
‘No, not quite’ Andy answered, dragging thoughtfully and trying to weigh me up with his eyes. ‘This is more like a blast from the past’. Two women entered the bar and stood around for a while simultaneously checking out the atmosphere and looking for a table. Andy’s eyes slipped from my face to appraise the two women. He turned back to me and raised his eyebrows.
‘Of course we can always talk about this later…’
‘Andy, just get to the point!’
‘OK, OK’ he drawled, his hands flapping up and down placatingly. ‘Now listen, and promise you’ll keep schtum about this. You know Toby West I take it?’
‘Yeah’, I said. ‘Works for that independent label. What is it? Knee something.’
‘Knee High Records’, Andy confirmed. ‘Trawls pubs for potential one hit wonders and gives the likely candidates to Rick Moody to do a production number on them. They had a hit last year with that skinny bird, what’s her name?’
‘Sandii Clarke’, I said, after a frowning pause. ‘Cover version of some sixties number.’
‘Yeah right, Sandii with a double I.’ Andy laughed out loud. ‘ I wonder if she spells Monday with a double A?’
We both laughed and lit up new cigarettes. ‘Anyway’, I said. ‘You were saying?’
‘Oh yeah’, Andy said, dragging his mind back to the point. ‘Anyway, I met this geyser Toby West at a party the other week. We’d done some work together last year and so we were chatting about this and that and we got onto the sixties and started this weird conversation imagining us going around the clubs and pubs signing up all the famous bands while they were just starting out.’
‘Wow, just imagine’, I said, getting into it. ‘Popping into the Nag’s Head and seeing the Stones or the Yardbirds tuning up for their first gig.’
‘Yeah, I know’ said Andy. ‘Anyway, I was rattling through a load of band’s names when suddenly Toby put one hand on my arm and raised the other to put a finger to his lips. ‘Come out into the garden’ he whispered. So I went out with him and after looking around to see if anybody was in earshot, he starts asking me about The Kings of Melody. Did I know much about them? Was I familiar with their stuff?’
‘Do you?’, I asked. ‘I thought they were a bit heavy for you’.
‘I’ve never really been into him them much’, said Andy, ‘but I’ve read a few books and the singles are good. I’m more of a Steely Dan fan myself. You like them though I seem to remember?’
‘Too right!’ I shouted, making a few heads turn. Andy looked at me meaningfully and gestured for me to quieten down.
‘Sorry’, I whispered. ‘Anyway yeah I do like them. I’ve got everything they ever did.’
Andy looked at me coolly. ‘Maybe not everything’ he said, and the ghost of a smile passed over his lips.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘I’m sure there are some bootlegs of live gigs kicking around, but I’ve got all the songs in one form or another.’
‘Well, maybe you have’, said Andy, grinning now. ‘And then again…’
He was suddenly interrupted by a commotion at the other end of the bar. A large round man in a dark blue business suit was beating up the juke box. Apparently it had swallowed his fifty pence. The barman was just about to interject when the juke box began blasting out the familiar chugging ‘wah wah’ of The Kings of Melody’s ‘System Down’. Andy turned back to face me with a now inscrutable expression.
‘Maybe you haven’t.’

The Two Legged Things
The Kings Of Melody
Rattling Bones
Force of Nature
The Conquerors of Granada

* * * *

Toby’s story, as told by Andy, went like this. In 1996, a friend of Toby’s in the building trade, a guy by the name of Alfie Harland, won a contract to refurbish a house in Brook Street W1. Now it turns out that that this house used to be the London residence of Dave Birdman, the main tunesmith for The Kings of Melody, and previously, had been the hang-out of Jimi Hendrix during his all too brief sojourn in the UK.
Dave lived at 23 Brook Street from 1970-72. The music scene at that time was eclectic and all encompassing with everybody open to influences. For example, when Dave learned that Jimi Hendrix had lived in the flat in the late sixties he went round to a local record shop and bought everything he could by Hendrix. For Dave, Brook Street was the doorstep to the London music scene of the early seventies, much as it had been for Hendrix in the late sixties. The flat was a short stroll from legendary venues like the Marquee, the Speakeasy and the Saville, and he would spend most evenings wandering from club to club checking out the latest bands. The composer Handel’s house, two doors down, was about to be made into a museum, as was the Birdman-Hendrix flat, and it was this refurbishment that had landed on Alfie’s lap.
Anyway, one of Alfie’s sidekicks was adjusting an interior wall when his sledgehammer disappeared through the partition and uncovered a small storage space. In that space sat a round unmarked metal canister about two inches thick with the circumference of a dinner plate. The bloke chucked it on a pile of rubbish and thought no more about it. Luckily, just as the rubbish pile was about to be ‘skipped’, Alfie noticed the canister and shoved it into his workbag to look at later. When he got home, Alfie managed to prise open the canister with a screwdriver and discovered inside a reel of audiotape. He had not owned or even seen a tape-to-tape player for years and so, resolving to eventually find somebody who had the technology to play whatever was on it, bunged the tape on top of a cupboard and forgot about it.

Toby’s appearance on the scene starts about six months ago when Toby visits Alfie’s flat to recover some albums Toby had left there the week before. As they root around they uncover the metal canister and Alfie gives Toby the rundown regarding its history. Toby is intrigued by the Hendrix connection and offers to take the tape away and record it onto a cassette tape so that Alfie can hear it. Alfie agrees, and the tape ends up in the back of Toby’s motor; the same motor that is parked outside the house where Toby and Andy are guests at the party.

Now Toby is getting bored with the party and leaves to drive to his studio and try out the tape. Andy stays behind as he is convinced that the brunette by the drinks cabinet has been giving him the eye. Half an hour passes, and Andy the shark is just about to move in on his prey when his mobile goes off, the idiotic ring tone forcing him back out into the garden. It is Toby on the phone and he is very excited.
‘Andy…bloody hell… Andy, ANDY!’
‘What? What?’
‘The tape. You’ve got to come over and listen to this’, Toby gasped. ‘It’s fucking dynamite!’
‘What do you mean? What’s on it?’
‘Look, I don’t know for sure, and I could be mistaken, but I think I recognise some of the people on the tape, and if I’m right I am in fucking clover!’
‘You’re drunk’, Andy says suspiciously.
‘Yeah I know, but bollocks to that. You’ve got to hear this!’
‘Look Toby’, says Andy. ‘I’m sure what you’ve found is very exciting, but there’s somebody here in a short skirt undressing me with her eyes, so record it onto a cassette and send it over to my flat. I’ll have a listen to it tomorrow.’
‘Listen you dipstick this is earth shattering – world changing! Forget your todger for five minutes and..’
‘Yes, yes Toby’, Andy interrupts him. ‘This is all very interesting but duty calls and all that’ and Andy cuts him and switches off his phone with Toby still screaming at the other end.

The next morning, Andy wakes up on a sofa accompanied by a blinding headache, the smell of frying bacon and the sound of somebody playing the acoustic guitar, badly, coming from somewhere behind him. A girl who he vaguely recognises from the night before is staring coldly at him from across the room.
‘Hmmm’, Andy thinks. ‘Perhaps I didn’t behave myself too well last night.’
The girl comes over. ‘Hello bastard’, she says, conversationally. ‘How is bastard. Got a bastard headache have you, bastard?’
‘Er, hello..er…sorry?’
‘Gemma. The name’s Gemma.’
‘Ah yes, of course, Gemma. Now listen Gemma..’
‘Don’t waste your breath’, says Gemma. ‘I’ve just come over to return your mobile, on which I’ve had a very interesting and very long conversation with my friend in Australia. Oh, and by the way, there was this madman called Tony or something.’
‘Toby.’
‘Yeah, that’s right, Toby. Anyway he was very excited about something and insisted you rang him when you came to.’
‘Thanks Emma..’
‘Gemma!’. She was glaring at him now with enough ferocity to make Andy subtly check the nearest exit.
‘Of course, yeah, Gemma. Listen Gemma, perhaps I can see you again some time.’
‘Yeah sure’, says Gemma. ‘If you can raise that bulk of yours a couple of inches you can see me leave in my car. Bye now. Bastard.’
‘But Gemma’, Andy cries. ‘What about last night? Did it mean nothing?’

‘Hence the black eye’, I said, sympathetically.
‘Yeah’ said Andy, and rubbed his eye ruefully. ‘I still don’t know what I did. I’m not that bad when I’m drunk am I?’
There was an awkward silence. I suddenly became very, almost scientifically interested in the look and taste of my pint.
‘Yeah, all right’ Andy admitted, laughing now. ‘Enough said’.
‘Anyway’, I said. ‘Did you ever get back to Toby?’
‘Well I tried’, Andy said, ‘but I kept getting his voicemail. I’ve tried since, it’s been a couple of weeks now, but I can’t seem to catch him.’
‘It’s not that surprising’, I said, taking a thoughtful sip. ‘You know what his job’s like. Always on the bloody phone.’
‘True, true’, Andy said. ‘Still, considering he was so desperate to get me to listen to this tape I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to contact me.’
‘Have you tried going round to his place?’ I asked. It’s not that far.’
‘No, I’ve been a bit busy’ Andy said. ‘We could go now if you like. Fancy it?’
‘Yeah, why not’ I said. ‘I’ve got nothing on.’
‘O.K.’ said Andy, suddenly all businesslike and brisk. ‘Drink up. Let’s go!’

As Andy’s BMW snaked through the early evening London streets, I quizzed him further.
‘So what do you think Toby found on that tape. Something to do with The Kings?’
‘Well it won’t be a Handel bootleg will it!’, Andy snorted.
‘Maybe it’s Hendrix strumming along to the Water Music while sitting on the bog’, I said, and gave a brief impression.
‘Yeah maybe’, said Andy. But whatever it was, from Toby’s reaction it was worth a fortune, and now I can’t get hold of him anywhere’.

Toby’s studio and office were in a side street behind Chapel Street market at the Angel, Islington. Andy parked the car in front of an innocuous looking building resembling a small, brick-built warehouse. There was a concrete ramp at the front of the building leading down to a metal gate at basement level. I noticed Andy was fiddling about, looking for something in the glove box. He let out a sharp cry of triumph.
‘Gotcha!’
‘What have you found?’
Andy waved a plastic card in my face. ‘The key to the door my son, the key to the door.’
He drove the car down the ramp, opened the window and stuck his arm towards a metal plate stuck on a post, waving the plastic card over it. There was a metallic clunk, and the gate seemed to fold back into itself, revealing an underground car park.
‘Class’, I said, admiringly. ‘Must have cost a few bob.’
‘Thank Sandii Clark and a multitude of other one-hit-wonders’ Andy said. ‘Toby may seem to have a screw loose most of the time but he’s one smart cookie when it comes to business.’
The BMW cruised into a space and we got out.
‘Well’ said Andy. ‘Toby’s car’s not here, so he can’t be in. That bugger never walks anywhere.’
‘How did you get hold of the card?’ I asked.
‘Toby gave it to me at the party’ Andy said, waving the card in front of another metal plate beside a green door at the rear of the car park.
‘Sounds like a trusting soul’, I said, following Andy through the now open door.
‘Oh, me and Toby go way back’, said Andy. ‘Now, of I’m not mistaken, the studio is through here.’

I followed him though a double door, along a corridor and, turning right, entered a large room full of musical equipment: drum kit, a few guitars, two keyboards.
‘Dis mus be da place’ said Andy and, picking up a couple of drumsticks, sat in front of the drums and started knocking out quite a cool rhythm. I picked up a bass, plugged it into an amp and joined him. Soon we were sounding like a pretty tight rhythm section. Andy’s eyes were closed in concentration and he was nodding gently to the beat. My head was involuntarily jerking forward in time like a chicken while at the same time my lips were pouted out in an exaggerated kiss. Andy and I used to be in a band at college and had actually played a few gigs in the college bar. We were pretty good, but soon realised that the real money was on the other side of the glass partition. I looked up at it now, the window separating the studio floor from the mixing desk. I stopped playing and moments later Andy stopped as well.
‘Brings it all back’ he said, wistfully. ‘You know, we could have been contenders.’
‘What for? Stars in their Eyes?’
‘No, really. You listen to some of the crap they play nowadays.’
‘It’s always been the crap that sells’ I said, ‘apart of course from a few honourable exceptions.’
‘Yeah, I suppose your right’ said Andy. ‘Anyway’ he said, snapping back into action, ‘Where’s that bloody tape.’ I indicated the room on the other side of the partition. ‘Right!’, he announced. ‘We’ll start there.’

Now, the problem with finding a tape in a studio is similar, in many respects, to finding a particular piece of straw in a haystack; namely, there’s a lot of them about.
‘So what are we looking for, exactly’ I asked, rummaging through a series of cupboards jam packed with cassettes, CD’s and large reels of audio tape.
‘Well’, said Andy. ‘I haven’t actually seen the original tape, but it was in a standard metal master tape case. You must have seen them around at our place. They haven’t changed much over the years. They’ve just been taken over by the digital stuff..’
‘But didn’t you ask Toby to record the tape onto cassette?’ I asked, opening a metal case from one of the cupboards?’
‘Yes, yes I did. Well remembered Robin. OK, let’s get all the cassettes and tapes into a pile and go through them one by one.’
‘But that’ll take fucking ages!’, I complained, looking at all the cupboards stuffed to the brim.
‘Well, we’d better get started then’ said Andy, picking up one of the cassettes and shoving it into one of the many tape players. ‘Cue tape and. …roll!’

Three hours later we were still at it. Not an altogether unpleasant task as many of the cassettes and master tapes were demos and work in progress from some pretty good bands. A few times we had played a tape and liked it so much we began bouncing around the mixing desk. At one point Andy was actually standing on the mixing desk playing air guitar while I was pogo-ing around the studio floor. Eventually we hit pay-dirt.
‘I’ve got something here!’ Andy shouted, his head buried inside one of the cupboards directly under the mixing desk. He emerged holding a cassette triumphantly in his right hand.
‘What does it say on the label?’ I asked.
‘It says ‘Andy – Brook Street’, Andy said, and gave it to me. ‘Shove it on.’ I slid the cassette home and we both sat back in our chairs expectantly to listen.

The first thing we noticed was that the recording was of poor quality. There was a lot of tape hiss and background noise. Whatever was on the tape, we couldn’t use it as it was. However we were both used to listening to demo tapes recorded on Mum and Dad’s music centre and so, switching into professional mode, we filtered that out and concentrated on what sounded like the end of a studio session. There were both male and female voices, some English, some American, and they seemed to be in high spirits. Suddenly I heard something that ran a cold draught of excitement down the back of my neck. One of the women had shouted ‘Is that it?’ Innocuous perhaps, but it was the way she said it. A New York accent rising at the end in disappointment I had heard that before; so had every other The Kings of Melody fan, and the reason it was emblazoned upon all our minds was that by the time the average The Kings of Melody nut had heard this they were in a state of seventh heaven having been blown away by one of the best live studio tracks ever laid down by the band. It was the end of the long version of ‘Ride On’ from the seminal ‘Damage Limitation’ album, and the reason for my building, sweaty anticipation was that these voices came at the end of that famous session – and this tape had only just started.
A general hubbub of conversation was maintained for a few minutes until a squeal of microphone feedback preceded the picking up a simple jazz beat on the drums with some fancy high hat work. The bass guitar then kicked in and soon, The Kings of Melody’s two piece rhythm section of Danny Box on drums and Sam “The Man” MacIntyre on bass had found a deep groove and were chugging along like a locomotive, obviously heading somewhere special. My eyes were shut and my whole body was throbbing with the pulse when the electric guitar kicked in, just behind the beat. The guitar seemed to pick the rhythm up and gently lift it to a slightly higher plain - this was great work by Steve Dillon, The Kings of Melody’s highly creative axe-man - and I could hear Andy shouting “Yeah! Yeah!” in the background, but now I was fully immersed in the sounds and my heart was beating along with the bass-line. Imperceptibly the rest of the band had now joined, with Hugh Baker’s keyboards flitting melodically across the driving beat like swallows in a storm, and Dave Birdman himself, his rhythm guitar now driving this great machine onwards. Every player was going hell for leather at this stage and the beat was rocking the studio, but now incredibly the pace and strength began to intensify and accompanied by a string of expletives from Andy who by this time was thumping the mixing desk with his head, Dave Birdman began to sing, his voice deep and melodious in counterpoint to Dillon’s wailing guitar.

‘It’s a cold, cold evening
And the sun is going down
I can see the shadows moving
As I’m entering the town
All the eyes behind the windows
Seem like sparks before a flame
But I keep on moving
Moving
Moving on.’

It was unlike anything I had ever heard from them before. A mixture of fast driving rhythm with Birdman’s cool delivery making my body jerk to the beat while at the same time prickling my neck with a cold shiver of excitement. I could see my reflection in the studio window and there was a huge grin spread across my face. I looked across at Andy and could see that grin mirrored as, with eyes closed, he was bouncing up and down on his chair and drumming furiously with his palms on the desk. The lyrics went on, speaking of life’s lonely journey and the wayside perils, but carried along by the optimism and excitement embodied in the playing. With a final extended roar of “Moving on” from Birdman, the crescendo of noise finally climaxed in an enormous explosion as every instrument was hit with maximum force at the same time.
As the noise died away there was a long pause, both on the tape and with us in the studio, as everybody came to terms with what they had just experienced. Suddenly, and simultaneously, whoops and laughter from the tape and ourselves filled the studio. We all knew that what we had heard was a one off and would never be repeated. A very rare occasion when inspiration met improvisation with the result that the complete track – and when I checked the timing I discovered with amazement that the track was 16 minutes long – seemed instantly recognisable. It felt as though I had known it all my life. It was, without any shadow of a doubt, the best single rock song I had ever heard, and, glancing across at Andy, we both knew instantly it was worth a million.
‘Jesus H. Christ!’ Andy gasped, leaning for support on the mixing desk. ‘What he hell was that!’
‘Beats the hell out of me’, I said, and started laughing. ‘But whatever it was I hope they got it on the master. If that was what it sounded like on cassette, just think what it would sound like in digital sound around!’
‘My God, yeah!’ cried Andy, smashing his fist on the desk. ‘Wait a minute’ he said, looking at his reddening hand and shaking it. ‘They’re talking again.’
The whoops, claps and hollers had now died down and Dave Birdman’s voice was shouting through the mike.
‘I hope you got that Stig!’
‘Got it Dave’ came a gravely American voice. ‘ I put that new tape in for tomorrow’s session.’
‘Stig Glowman’, murmured Andy in awe. ‘I’m telling you, his voice on tape alone is worth a few quid.’
Stig Glowman, the producer’s producer. Everything he touched had turned to gold, apart of course from that final runway.
‘When was it?’ I asked. ‘The accident I mean.’
‘Must be twenty years ago now. In fact, about three weeks after the making of this tape.’
‘So this was probably the last thing any of these guys ever did?’
‘I guess so’ said Andy, thoughtfully. ‘That’s got to at least double the value. Nose-diving into a Frankfurt runway was probably the best career move they ever made.’
‘But didn’t Birdman survive the crash?’
‘Yes you’re right, he did’ said Andy after a pause. ‘Birdman and two of the roadies. Birdman’s a recluse now of course. Never picked up a guitar again. They say he went off his head, crash knocked him silly.’
‘What about the roadies?’ I asked, fiddling with the volume of the tape player.
‘Oh, they were OK. Walked away from the crash into the nearest bar and drunk themselves into oblivion. ‘I think they’re still in the business. On the pub circuit I think.’
The brief silence that followed was broken by the sound of a guitar being tuned up on the tape.
‘Try that song you played us yesterday Dave’ came a woman’s voice. ‘That one about the sky, “Cloudscape” was it?’
‘Got enough tape Stig?’ shouted Birdman.
‘Another hour if you want it” growled Glowman.
‘Cool’, said Birdman. ’Right, get yer ear’oles around this!’