Friday 28 June 2013

John Foxx and The Belbury Circle

Coming from Ghost Box this September is John Foxx and The Belbury Circle's Empty Avenues, to which I made a tiny musical contribution. Looking forward to getting my hands on that vinyl.

Pop over to The Belbury Parish Magazine for more info and other great stuff.

Monday 3 June 2013

For Men Who Don't Have To Try... Too Hard

It was my absolute pleasure to talk to Dave Richmond recently, for a short piece I've written for Bass Guitar Magazine. Dave was a prolific UK session man in the '60s and did a lot of work for the library music label KPM in the '70s. You probably know him as the bass player on Serge Gainsbourg's ...Melody Nelson album.

One of the stories he told me, for which there sadly wasn't room in the final cut of the article, was about his KPM track "Confunktion" (from KPM 1163 Rock Spectrum). The piece makes uses of a thunderous sound that's somewhere between an angry Moog and a helicopter, but it wasn't created by a synth at all. It turns out we are actually listening to the sound of guitarist Clive Hicks' malfunctioning fuzzbox! Given the number of sessions these guys did, it's not surprising that happy accidents like that popped up from time to time.

The track was used by Denim aftershave later in the '70s so here it is in context. Heavy!



Dave was also kind enough to share some photos with me from his personal collection. A great one of him and legendary drummer Brian Bennett should make it into the piece, but this one of the man himself from 1972 (with his Burns Black Bison bass) was too low-res for the magazine, so here it is to enjoy!