Читать книгу Buzzcocks - The Complete History - Tony McGartland - Страница 94

Buzzcocks record the chosen four tracks at Indigo Studios, Gartside Street, Manchester, with (soon-to-be) highly renowned producer Martin Hannett (known locally as Martin Zero, who would go on to be responsible for much of Joy Division’s work). They met Hannett through the agency he ran in the same building as the New Hormones office. The tracks are ‘Breakdown’, ‘Time’s Up’, ‘Boredom’ and ‘Friends of Mine’.

Phil Hampson sits in the studio next to Hannett that day. ‘Buzzcocks set up,’ he says, ‘we mic’d up, and started sorting out the sounds. I was used to loud noise – that’s why I’m hearing a little less well now – but this was special. The studio was in the cellar of an old Georgian building – formerly a dosshouse. There were individual rooms rather than one large area, so I could put the bass stack in a room of its own, loud as you like, without affecting anything else. Using the drum booth and trusty screens as well, I was able to get enough separation to make some changes to the individual sounds on the desk, and then set about padding and replacing the mics.

‘Pete Shelley’s dad, who apparently lent the band some money for the session, had dropped in early on to check on his investment. The story goes that the lads had a budget of a borrowed £500 to record and press Spiral Scratch, so time in the studio was limited. Well, we were pretty relaxed about the clock, and, although mixes were done on the day, it seemed the band weren’t totally happy with the end result. So I came back “out of hours” in early January 1977 – and remixed the tracks. I also added some audio effects – particularly compression – and repeat echo at the end of “Boredom” to take it into the final track.’