In The Studio…Allegedly.
Bar the odd demo and straight to tape live recording, there was not much in the way of recorded BGB music around. I’m not sure how it came about, but in 1989 plans were laid for an actual vinyl record..with a cover and everything.
As far as material went, the bare bones were there. Many of the blues and other standards that were played live were radically different arrangements, so George decided to write some lyrics, re jig arrangements a bit and transform them into new originals.
Some examples..
Van Morrison’s “Streets of Arklow” became “The Storm”, “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” morphed into “Long Black Train”, “Crossroads” turned into “Roll The Dice” and “Hey Miss Linda” became less specific as “Hey I Gotta Tell You”.
I was not around for the first day of recording when the basic tracks were done at Shabby Road Studios in Kilmarnock. The journey down the following day was a lyric writing frenzy for Big G, and this continued in the studio. If only I had kept the cardboard curry lid with original hand written lyrics!
The frenzy continued into the mixing stage, compounded by George spotting some fellow musos wandering around Kilmarnock with little better to do. The window was opened and a cheerfully obscene invitation to join us was hurled. Thanks to Johnny Carr for reminding me that it has he and Kenny McKay that I couldn't remember paying a visit.
At that point, ngineer Clark Sorley requested that we all please adjourn to the pub so that we could get some peace and quiet. It got done somehow though.
There then followed a protracted process, George and Shifty went down to London to get the master cut. This was performed by the legendary “Porky”, who will be known to the vinyl junkies amongst you. He added his “A Porky Prime Cut” comment to the run out groove. This was apparently only done with albums he liked, so this was praise indeed from the man who did the biz for some major artists.
When the cover was discussed, a bootleg look was decided on. Well, it was much cheaper. Shifty knew someone who could get a thousand blank white 12” sleeves done, Greg pulled in a favour and got a load of front and stickers done and we persuaded someone or other to print up some inner sleeves.
Ian Robertson (God rest you sir) provided the venue for the packaging plant, here’s how it went. Drink…
Insert album in plain white sleeve..add printed inner as album did not quite fit..stick sticker on front..stick sticker on back..write catalogue number BGB 001 on by hand…stick the odd sticker upside down and a cheeky message to relieve the tedium
Drink….
Repeat a thousand times.
The first delivery was also made by hand. Me and George took a hundred copies (bloody heavy) to the legendary Lost in Music shop in nearby de Courcey’s Arcade. A startled customer, who was about to buy an Eric Clapton album, was advised that the Alleged Album was a much better buy.
The first run of a thousand was sold really quickly after being hand delivered to all the major stores in and around Glasgow, and at gigs. A second pressing followed, with a pre-printed cover…relief! CD releases followed via German and Canadian companies, but that first DIY operation was still my favourite.
I’m finding it hard to believe that this was all twenty one years ago.
