Heroes

Gavin Monaghan - Top Banana

I mentioned before that I'd gotten back in touch with Tony, the-singer-from-a-band I once 'graced' - as in left the rest praying I'd get better -  in my relative youth, and as it happens he was in the neighbourhood the other day and I met up with him.

It was the first time in 15 years, by my reckoning, but it was nice to compare notes and do the sad middle-aged misty eyed thing about playing to three people in a pub and our bass player playing tambourine with a broken arm...the usual stuff, I guess.

One thing we both had in common mind you was that neither of us had proper copies of the songs we recorded over a few visits to a recording studio in Wolverhampton. We both had DAT tapes but no DAT player, and to be honest neither of us could face spending a couple of hundred quid or more on buying one from t'Bay just to hear the songs again.

Anyway, as it happens the chap who produced us all that time ago has since gone on to be a rather famous  producer, recording people such as The Editors, Ocean Colour Scene, The Twang, Kings of Leon, Robert Plant Jesus, Robert Johnson and god knows who else. I keep seeing his name on those little notes they put on CD display stands in HMV 'Produced by the Gavin Monaghan', for it is he, as a major selling point for another up-and-coming band he has found and polished into a little gem.

So, springing into life a decade late and using the power of Facebook, I dropped him a line and despite being an international super-producer-chap, he replied within a couple of minutes and said that he will take the music off the DATs and put them on a CD for me, which you have to admit shows a nice bit of class.... It was before midday, so I'm guessing he hadn't been to bed yet. Rock 'n' Roll, and all that.

So all I have to do is get myself organised and send them him...

I must admit at the time, we all figured him for a top bloke; he was already pretty well established - I might have this wrong but I think he engineered the bands on The Tube, which if you are old enough to remember Paula lay on a bed and Jools causing scandal by swearing on the telly, is pretty impressive - but he would still let many a local band pop along to the studio in his Magic Garden for a day and record a demo or a single or something, which probably cost him money in truth as basically, he just loved what he did. Even when we did it, as he let us in three times in all.

I hate to admit it, but I am really rather (yet, sadly) quite looking forward to hearing how we sounded - with a tadness of trepidation, as I don't think you really hear it right at the time.

You hear what you think you were playing and obviously we were entirely original and displayed no signs of any outside influence whatsoever. Apart from the Rush bits the drummer and bass player managed to insert, seemingly at random. (I know I mentioned that before, and I love them both dearly as it happens.)

Of the songs, I do remember one featuring a rather mean bit of piano playing deep down somewhere in the mix, though which one I couldn't say. Gavin played it, but very nicely buried it, I guess so as not to embarrass the rest of us with the fact that he was rather nifty at that as well as everything else.

Anyway, more of my glory days sometime later, but I just wanted to say -  Gavin Monaghan, what a geezer.

You can follow Gavin on Twitter HERE