Posted February 7, 2014 Posted by Adam in Uncategorized
This was a slightly unstable time of life. I was living in Sydney, about to go to Hawaii and Vancouver to visit a friend, then returning to Sydney to pack up my stuff and take it to Adelaide, then prepare to go and live in Turkey. It was the summer of 1990. I had a job in a school so I had some money again. I decided that I would farewell Australia by consigning a couple of my songs to vinyl. My band had made a demo at Earth Media studios earlier in the year and I liked the place and the people. 
I booked a downtime slot (all night) on a week night and alerted the drummer.
We spent all night recording. I started the lead vocals at about 4am. I had tonsilitis and a day of teaching then a full night of recording made me sound fairly awful. Still, we went ahead and I was at school at 8:30, ready to put in a less than professional day of teaching.
At 5 o’clock, I went back to Earth Media to see how the mixing had gone. It’s a funny feeling to walk into a studio and hear a familiar song blaring out on a top quality sound system to realise that it’s me booming over North Sydney.
I put the order in to the manufacturers and disappeared to North America. When I returned, I picked up the records and gathered everyone together for the debut playing. Diabolical. The discs had the hole bored off centre so every rotation had a fast bit and a slow bit.
I went back to the manufacturer. They agreed to press another batch. I could come and help if I liked. So, another all-nighter, this time in a factory in Darlinghurst. I got to see the process. Plonking a sort of bun of vinyl on the machine. Bringing the two shiny masters together to press the doughy plastic into a disc with my songs encoded on it. Setting and trimming.
In the office, I saw a selection of records that the factory was pressing. I think the manager felt a bit guilty because of my off-center record fiasco and said I could take what I wanted. They were mostly pop albums but I was pretty happy to get the whole catalogue of Windham Hill Records. The one thing I regret not taking was a comprehensive set of recordings of Coca Cola jingles through the ages.
Posted February 7, 2014 Posted by Adam in Uncategorized
Posted February 7, 2014 Posted by Adam in Uncategorized
Posted February 7, 2014 Posted by Adam in Uncategorized
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