Thursday, 3 July 2025

Rock and Roll Stories #38 - Getting it all back together part one

On Saturday, The False Dots will be playing at The Jester Festival in West Hampstead at 5pm. Our latest single is being regularly played by various radio stations and it is fair to say that I am enjoying making music as much, if not more than I've ever done. It seems strange to think that I hung up the guitar for ten years, between 1990 and 2000 and consigned such an important part of my life to the dustbin. I did not walk away from music. I spent the decade building the business that is now Mill Hill Music Complex from one rehearsal room in a lock up garage, to a ten studio complex, withr ecording facilities, a PA hire business and a music shop. I also managed a band in the middle of all of that, who achieved some minor successes. 

But I put the guitar in its case and didn't play it at all for a decade. The reasons were quite simple really. I'd lost my musical mojo. In 1990, there was really nothing on the music scene that excited me. The only number one that I really liked that year was The Joker by The Steve Miller Band, and that was a reissue from 1970! In hindsight, Dub International's Dub be good to me was a great record, but I rather sniffily dismissed it as just nicking a Clash bass riff and a rehash. All of the music I loved was in the wilderness, Punk and Ska were as unfashionable as it was possible to be. Wed had a decade of Thatcherism and it looked like we were set for another decade of it. The band had found it impossible to get gigs, apart from the odd one at local venues. Between 1980 and 1985 the band performed 44 gigs. Between 1986 and 1990, we performed four. All of those were in Mill Hill or Hendon. I thought I'd written some cracking songs, but when I played them to people they simply said "They sound really dated". I realised that I just wasn't enjoying the whole thing. I thought "We had a blast, but all the joy has gone". Tony, Grahame and Paul tried to persuade me otherwise, but I just had no energy for music. Sometime you have to admit defeat and do something else. Not having a band felt like a liberation. I was done with being a musician.

By 2000, the studio had taken shape. Not having the distraction of a band had meant I focused on running the business properly. We had a great team of employees, including Fil Ross and Toney Cavaye, who were both musicians. Tony started to nag me to have a jam. My then business partner, Ernie Ferebee had told them that I'd had a great band with some excellent songs. The idea of playing in a band again horrified me. I was going through some old cassettes and I found a track I'd written, when I'd been doing the songwriting course in 1985. It was called "It's raining outside". In 1987, we'd recorded it with a mate of mine, John Shillibeer, who is a brilliant singer. Johnny sounds a bit like Geroge Michael and Paul Young combined. I was stunned by how good it sounded. I thought to myself, maybe, as we now had a recording studio, I should record a few of the songs. No gigs, no pressure, just get the songs recorded for posterity and maybe if a famous artist turns up and is looking for a new song..... 

Having made my mind up about this, I went to see Paul Hircombe, our old bassplayer. Paul had tried really hard to persuade me to keep playing in 1990. I hadn't. Paul had been a partner in the studio with me until 1994. I bought him and my other partners out. In 1995, I'd had a massive fallout with my ex studio partners. Paul had tried to stay out of it, but when I went to see him, he said he didn't want to get involved. In his words "It would be too much stress". He was still playing in a band with my ex studio partners. I was quite shocked. Paul had always been my wingman. I thought he'd be delighted, but it was clear that he really didn't want to do it. I was quite deflated. Maybe it was Gods way of telling me to let sleeping dogs lie. 

I went home and dug out some old tapes. I made a list of the songs I wanted to record. I then made a cassette of the songs. Included were Not all she seems, Falsedub, It's raining outside, If you really mean it, Come back home, Africa morning, Pauls song and Winter in your heart. I then went back to see Paul. He said, before I even said a word "Look Rog, if you want me to play with you, I am not interested". I said "I've made a tape for you of some of our old numbers". Paul put it on. We had a cup of tea and as we listened, he said "It's better than I remember". I said "look, I don't want to do gigs or anything, it's just I have a recording studio now, so I want to put them down properly, we never really did them justice, I could get someone else, but you were part of these and if there's any way you could do them, then that would be brilliant". Paul said "Look, I'll think about it". I didn't hear anything for two weeks. I decided to go around and see what he thought. We chatted a bit, then I said "Have you thought about it". Paul had come up with a cunning plan to fob me off. He said "Rog, the songs sounded great, I'd love to do it, but I don't have a bass anymore. I am playing lead with The Apostles". Fortunately for me, I had the perfect riposte. I said "That's OK, we've got a music shop and I've just bought a second hand bass in. You can borrow that until the recordings are done". He was lumbered. He said "Look Ok, I'll do it. But no gigs and when the recordings are done, that is it". 

Having got my wingman back, I approached Fil and Tony. I explained that Paul would play bass. I asked Fil to play guitar and sing and Tony to drum. The plan was simple. We'd rehearse the songs a few times until we were competent playing them, record them and then maybe get a guets vocalist to sing them. I gave them a couple of weeks to learn the songs. In late 2000, we started rehearsing. I hadn't played guitar at all for ten years. Not a strum. I was appalled at how bad I was, when I picked up the guitar for a strum through at home. By the time the day came around, I was absolutely panicing. Having spent the best part of a year trying to get it all together, I felt I was the weak link and I felt embarrassed. We turned up and I asked Fil which song he wanted to do. He said Not all she seems. We launched into it and it sounded great. About halfway through the second verse I caught Pauls eye. He smiled and I knew that it was going to be OK. The False Dots were back. We played all of the songs a couple of times. At the end, I was scared to ask Paul. He said "That was great, when do you want to record them?". I said "I think we need a few more rehearsals to get them ship shape. He said "Yeah, I agree". We scheduled a rehearsal for the following week. I went home and by the time we had the next rehearsal, I had two new songs for the band. I said "look, we may as well do an albums worth". Paul looked at me and said "I knew this would happen". He'd done it on the strict condition that we'd record the six songs and that would be that. What a fool I was, we'd only had one rehearsal and here I was taking the mickey. I said "If you don't want to do them, that's fine". Paul said "No, it's cool, I know what you are like Rog".

To be continued..........

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