Cuttings

A few nights ago I was reminded of something from 30 years ago.

Nothing unusual in that, I guess. Unless you are under the age of thirty three.

Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s I was in a band. Not a successful band. Not a band that played to thousands of adoring fans, night after night. We didn’t even play to adoring fans, occasionally. We didn’t play live. We didn’t have any adoring fans. But, I was in a band, none the less.

The band was called ‘Mystery Incorporated’.

The name was taken from Scooby Doo. 

In case you didn’t know, the ‘gang’ in the cartoon were called ‘Mystery Incorporated’, hence they drove around in the ‘Mystery Mobile’. Certainly they were on a non-Hanna Barbera endorsed album called ‘Scooby Doo and The Snowman Mystery’ that I owned as a child. It is this album and the opening theme that inspired our band's name:

Anyway. Back to the band. It wasn’t a big band. Just the two of us. Me and James. Duo.

We wrote songs. Some were bad. Some were worse. But, some were neither. Some were good. I can still play a couple if I ever stumble across a piano. I play them badly. I probably always did.

Recordings that we made are, sadly, now lost. Somewhere there are a couple of tapes floating around. Lost in boxes stored away in a loft, somewhere between here and the Midlands. Forgotten. 

Except they are not forgotten. I can still hear the lo-fi hissy recordings if I concentrate hard enough. Slightly awkward in composition and delivery, but still passionate and created with love. I harbour dreams of stumbling across them, so that I can lock myself in a dark room and play them again. I wouldn’t share them, they’re too personal, but I would enjoy the moment when I heard them. Genuinely, however ever much I would cringe and become as awkward as some of the middle eights and bridges, I’d relish the songs; I’d relish the memories of the days making them. The warmth of friendship, the hope, the aspirations and dreams.

Alternatively, the lost tapes have ended up at a charity store in Tooting (this is a possibility) and are now being worn raw by being played on repeat on some kids tinny stereo in a SW17 bedroom (also a – albeit less plausible – possibility).

But regardless, for the sake of argument, the tapes are lost. The tapes will never be found and the music is lost forever.

The reason for thinking of these hopeful, halcyon days is that I played a song I discovered a few months ago. The song sounds like I wanted our band to sound like, way back in the day. But with the limitations of equipment, resources and technical ability, combined with the compromise that had to be made to James’ desire to follow a more conventional pop approach, it wasn’t to be. But, in all the 30 years that have passed, I still have urges to make a noise. Electric noise. Disjointed noise. Beautiful noise. An urge to convey what I hear, perhaps even feel, through music. An urge that is unspent and unfulfilled. So, I am left having to make do with hearing other’s make noise that approximates to what I hear in my head. Like the other night and like so many other times before, where a song just made me prick up my ears and think…

“Yes! Yes, I know why you made this. I know why you made it this way. I understand why every sound, every chord, every note sits in the composition where, when and how it does. Because, this is what I hear and have always heard inside my head”

Grasscut – The Door In The Wall

Note. A couple of months have passed since I wrote this. A dozen other songs have had the same effect on me in the intervening time. I cannot recall what they are. But. Researching and seeking out the ‘Mystery Incorporated’ theme linked above, I found this…

And, this also fits the bill.

Perhaps it marks how I could have compromised our sound to be a little more commercial.

OK, it’s nowhere as good as Grasscut, but what a great synth line!