Hi everyone to Touchwood Music's new Blog Site.
Just to give a brief about Touchwood Music (dot com).
My name is Michael (Ken) Dixon and have been a Musician, Writer since the 1960's and an Engineer, Producer, Studio Owner since the early 1980's.
I initially setup Touchwood Music as part of my other business, at that time, of Touchwood Antiques (TWA) in Stow on the Wold, Gloucestershire UK.
After a few years building TWA I was approached to start a band.
It didn't take long for a decision but how things had changed; before it was Fender & Gibson, now it had become Ibanez & Yamaha, names I was unfamiliar with (so I opted for a Fender Precision - Mushroom coloured - should have kept that one...).
Soon after a few name changes and member changes we fell on the fact that we were 'elders' - meaning older... we wanted still to play, we were fed up with, what we thought were musical fads 'synths & pimps' but with the knowledge that we too were 'tarts' - if you like 'tarts of the street' - in fact we were 'Hooker' - The Rock n' Roll Band - You'd Love to Hate to Meet...
This was the 80's but briefly back to the beginning.
I started playing at the age of 12, playing, strictly not true but my Mum & Dad, bought me, through my persistence, a 6-string Spanish guitar, which I immediately took the two top strings off, I wanted to play bass guitar...
At 15 I got my first 'proper' electric bass guitar.
My friend John Penfold, who had befriended me on one of my 'leaving home periods' at the age of 12/13. I'd met John who was of Romany stock walking along 'Tinker's Lane' near home. We immediately were friends. I learned a lot from John and his extended family.
We went to London's Tin Pan Alley. I had £3. We found a shop, can't remember the name, but there was the bass hanging in all its glory, brown, white pick guard, pickup - £7 no case - second-hand.
True friends are rare - John put his hand in his pocket and gave me the £4 - no questions - no when will you pay me back - a gift - that was John.
We had very little now to eat or get home back to Windsor.
My memory is of walking through the streets, on the underground, and then the train back to Windsor - I was King - never had the same feeling since but boy did I feel good.
Oh, btw we had to walk the rest of the way home, the 3 miles from Windsor - it was like walking on air.
I was approached, can't remember how or why, by Bruce Rednap, guitarist/singer with the Windsor/Slough based 'Blue Notes'.
I had to learn fast, and I did but then I had no Amp, no Speaker Cab - no guitar case or lead...
This is where friends and parents come in isn't it.
First amp - Linear Concord 3o watt all valve (would you believe HiFi) amp with metal grill cover from the Hammond Organ Shop in Eton High Street (Windsor).
First Speaker Cab: Homemade with one of dad's carpenter friends David Hughes, 2 x 12" Goodman's Bass Speakers and Grill Cloth from a curtain shop - can you imagine the wind flap on that... oh, and FBI on the front cover - it was cool to shadow the Shadows then...
First gig at the Edward Horse Hall Windsor for the Windsor Carnival with all the top people present - me in my grey flannel trousers, white shirt, maroon bow tie, quiff hair, leather shoes and that bass... it was a Broadway Bass circa 1958-9 and I was on 'Broadway' and playing in the 'Blue Notes' who had been one of Chuck Berry's backing bands prior to my joining.
I'd had to learn all the CB songs and all the idiosyncrasies based around the 'legend's' style of playing and how to act and behave should the man come over again... tough stuff while still learning my scales and songs...
The 'Blue Notes' had a name change during 1967 to 'The Left Bank', from memory due to a charting band of the same name and we were very different musical styles. The name 'Left Bank' came, I believe, from Bruce Rednap's visit to Paris and being held as a 'Vagrant' on the 'Left Bank' - ideally suiting our style of music.
The 'Blue Notes' split in 1968 and in the intermediate time I played with several bands finally forming ‘Breakfast’. Soon another name change to the more aptly suited ‘Giant Bird’.
'Giant Bird' I still believe could and should have made it, the music's potential still amazes me through those 1960's and the the formulating Progressive Folk/Rock period. We had so many offers not taken, that should have been taken!
‘Giant Bird’s output and a fan base that included the well known DJ Tony Blackburn at the Beeb. We sent down our latest material only to find that all our ideas had been taken ‘in house’ only to materialise through other bands - that's the music business I guess!This, I feel led to the break down of the band.
‘Giant Bird’ broke up with a split that led two members to join up with friends who had started ‘Heron’, now legendary in their own right ( I got to record their 30th anniversary album back in ’97 down in deepest Devonshire at the original Pye Label album ‘Twice As Nice At Half The Price’ location of Black Dog, using the original farm house emulating as far as possible the atmosphere of 30 years before, the music that the late great producer Gus Dudgeon pronounced 'English - Pastoral'.
Back to Front:
With the advent of 'Hooker' in the early 1980's came the obvious 'recording' again. Except this time, no longer going into major studios in London or even Windsor (Virgin Sound, later home of Alice (Stancoil) Mixing Desks) in the days when you had to do a 'take' in one pass any mess ups and it was "ok lads, do it again *(*(*(*'s messed up..." this was the 80's a time of Technology or Techno - Ology - remember the 'ology's'?
Now we were using Radio Station's studios (through friends and connections) and the onset of 'Home & Studio Recording' but as always recording is a personal choice and a personal taste suited to the style and type of the band and one thing about 'Hooker' it covered many styles, ideas and thought forms. Either the recording was too 'sterile' or too 'under-over rehearsed' laying tracks that lacked a sense of what 'Hooker' was about. Recording had changed beyond 'one take' now the time of multi-tracking, over dubbing, different EQ's - different Reverbs... the 'Live' feel gone - mistakes and all.
With the demise of 'Hooker' and once again the potential of what 'Hooker' could have become with the progressive writing within the group it was time to move on and into my ownRecording Heaven.
Hence 'Touchwood Music'.
From the first Cutec Portastudio using cassette tape, a single limited Alesis Microverb, magic was starting, bit like getting that first bass guitar.
Soon the crackles and pops and 'print through' started to wear thin the ideals and dreams. Next was an up-market 6 input Vestafire portastudio. This lasted 3 months as now work was coming in - crazy thoughts with today's technology.
From first Portastudio to an International Studio learning 20 hours a day for months on end; from cassette tape to 1" & 2" tape, from Seck 18-8-2 to the latest all singing all dancing midi operated 'Tascam MT 32' Desk and 'Tascam Midiizer' to control not only Audio but now Video... and Microphones - from the humble and still widely acclaimed Shure 58 & 57 to the world beating Soundfield for our Atmos recording library just 4 years!
The above is a brief Rock n' Roll History from childhood to maturity and, through recollection, back again.
This has been a brief history - more to follow.
