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1985

by John Pattison

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1.
Dreams Are Untouchable 08:49
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2.
Nightlife 03:36
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3.
Sugared Poison 05:14
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4.
Too Scared to Dance 04:32
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5.
White Rose (War of the roses) 05:10
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6.
When I Said I Needed Love 03:56
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about

1985 was a huge year for me. It began with me touring venues, pubs and nightclubs around North Yorkshire with my one-man band show and ended with me taking my first job as Musical Director at Theatr Clwyd in North Wales. In the August of that year I turned 23.

It was an exciting time for music and musicians, particularly us keyboard players. Technology was advancing quickly. I started the year with an analogue string machine, the Yamaha SK10, a monophonic Moog Prodigy and during the spring I bought my first polyphonic synth the Roland JX3P and my first multitrack recorder, a Yamaha MT44 system with a mixer featuring bridge bucket delay (the 80’s cheap alternative to reverb).

The other major event that occurred that year was meeting Alison Watt (Artistic Director, Writer and Dramaturg) for the first time. She was a successful actress starring in a national tour of ‘Shakers’ by John Godber (she was the first ever ‘Carol’, creating the role for Hull Truck) and just beginning on her own whirlwind creative journey as a successful writer. Now nearly thirty-six years later I am delighted to say that not only can she still bear to talk to me, but that we also collaborate on some fantastic projects with our beloved Beach Hut Theatre Company.

In 1984, I had been playing in bands around York since leaving Music college in Devon. My first York band was the Trio ‘Ragnarok’, which had two keyboard Players and the amazing Dave ‘Guppy’ Dawes on drums. I sang for this band and quickly realised I needed a much better reverb or delay unit to ‘assist’ my voice. I bought a Boss DE200 because it could also synchronise to the accent button on my Roland TR505 drum machine. The beginnings of using samples for me.

A spell playing keyboards with York band ‘Toned F’ followed. The core of the band were the three Corner-Walker brothers Andy, Jem and Pat who played Guitar, Saxophone and drums respectively. Andy (who was also a lecturer in Art) was the main composer for the band and it was a huge loss to the York music scene when Andy tragically died suddenly at the age of 27. He was a gifted songwriter with a huge talent. We recorded an EP at Pollen Studios with the experienced production and engineering skills of Dick Sefton. During these sessions, I got to play with my first computer based sampler, the long forgotten Greengate DS3, which was based around a computer by a fledgling company called Apple.

During that time, I became fascinated by acts such as Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw and Vince Clark, who were all doing amazing things with new music technology. I thought I’d have a go myself. It has to be stressed that this was also a cheeky financial decision, because venues at that time tended to pay the same flat rate if you were a seven-piece band or a lone bloke with a pile of keyboards and a dodgy hairdo!

I could have let these recordings be consigned to the dustbin of history, but I felt that if anyone was even vaguely interested, these recordings mark the start of my life-long fascination with making as much musical noise on my own as I could.

I have cleaned up the original tapes as much as I can. They were mastered to metal tape using an early form of Dolby noise reduction. Sometimes the tape becomes a bit over saturated, but I could argue that this was an artistic decision based on Prince’s use of saturation and compression on his Purple Rain Album that I listened to intently the previous year!

Here they are then, warts and all. A selection of my early tracks from 1985.

Stick some mousse in your hair, dig out the shoulder pads, slap on the guyliner and enjoy, or at the very least have a good laugh!

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released February 7, 2021

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John Pattison Scarborough, UK

Film and Theatre composer John Pattison has co-written several musicals with Alan Ayckbourn, John Godber and scores for many West End and international productions.

His film scores include G.M, The Balloonatic and two movies with French film director Alain Resnais, Smoking and No Smoking.

He is Associate Director and Musical Director at Beach Hut Theatre Company CIO.
www.beachhuttheatre.co.uk ... more

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