Opposition - Lost Album
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Mark
outlines how we now have the Lost Album and why a leaky roof can be
a blessing...
It
all started with a hole in my roof, rain dripping, maybe for a couple
of years, finally pouring into our loft.
Like most people our loft was/is a dumping area for STUFF. Our loft is
full of photos and Oppos cuttings, posters, bits of wood and boxes of...
well I wasn't really sure what was in the boxes.
We finally got a new roof and I slowly, very slowly, started cleaning
out the STUFF.
Boxes of photos, boxes of cassettes and boxes of tapes marked blank tape,
clean tape, ideas tape and MASTER tape... 1979....
I got on the phone (in an excited panic) to Kenny Jones (oppos producer,
engineer, old mate, and all round tape/recording expert) “Kenny,
I've just found some reels of tape marked “MASTERS” which
have been sitting in my loft for er.. 25 years. (not the same loft, we
haven't lived in this house that long – but just transferred from
the last one to this during the move)
Kenny: “DONT PLAY THEM! They will fall apart.. you need to get
them BAKED”
“
Great, cheers thanks Kenny” So, I'm thinking to myself “Ken
you've just spent too much time sitting in recording studios – you
need to get out more”... But he was right; tape falls apart after
a while, but I didn't really know what was on the tapes, they could be
blank! And I didn't want to waste loads of money “baking” blank
tapes. There was a whole box of them....
Derek knows a man who knows a man who knows a man who owns a “copying” shop
in Hammersmith. Derek made the call: “No we don't copy reels anymore,
there's really no call for it. But I do have an old tape machine in the
basement.. you could try doing it yourselves. “
So for £80 for one week's hire and myself, Derek and Ralph trying
to lift the machine into Ralph's car ... this great big beautiful machine
with VU meters and a noisy motor made it up to my home studio at the
top of the house.
Tape 1 Master 1979 (it said on the box). I plugged the tape machine into
a DAT and the hard disc recorder just to be SAFE. Kenny had said you
may be lucky to get one run through before it starts shredding. We were
very lucky; it played and sounded GREAT.. and it was the Opposition album
recorded in 1979. Both sides A and B plus single mix... And that's what
you have here, from 1979 via tape heads (and a bit of digi remastering
for CD) to the speakers on your sound system... PURE TAPE (don't you
just love that hiss?!)
Kenny, or the back of his head, at least!
