1986 was a good year for TMTCH. Our first album had done well enough to get us signed to MCA Records with a fancy ceremony at their offices in Brewer Street, Soho. They put us down in Townhouse 3 studios in Battersea with producer Mick Glossop. Townhouse 3 had good history; it had been owned by The Who; Quadrophenia was recorded there along with Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak and the Heartbreakers muddy but vital LAMF. Mick Glossop had just come off doing The Waterboys album This Is The Sea, including the epic Whole of the Moon and we knew his name from The Ruts’ darkly euphoric single Babylon’s Burning. He’d engineered Van Morrison too; we thought he was just the right guy for our punk/folk crossover.

We were right; working with Mick was the beginning of our musical education. I learned more from him than anyone else, before or since. He knew the old desks inside out and he was one of the last guys who would cut the master tape right there in front of you. No nerves at all. He didn’t suffer fools though, which was hard for him I guess as its a job description for most young bands 🙂 Ourselves included.

Mick was a very tall guy with a bit of a stoop; looked like a long, squashed question mark. It was always fascinating to watch him fold himself into the tiny 2 seater blue sports car that he always turned up in. Once inside the studio though, he was in command of the vast flight deck of magic buttons.

He had his eccentricities as all good producers do. He once ordered us to go to the pub and get pissed (‘ok, if we must’) so as to create a good vibe in the studio. Another time he ordered Swill to start smoking again after he’d quit as ‘Your voice has changed.’ He loved ordering in instruments. We spent a whole day couriering over basses as Mick decided Ricky’s Precision didn’t have the right sound. Eight basses later and he finally found the sound he was after. Of course, it was Ricky’s Precision. ‘It’s weird, its whole sound has changed’, he said, airily.

We were working on Dancing On The Pier one night when he reckoned that I should play a lute on the vaguely Spinal Tap middle section. I’d never played a lute, never seen one. But over it came and I spent about 3 hours trying to tune it. And another 3 trying to play it. Mick’s tape cutting abilities came in handy that session but you can just about hear it somewhere deep in the mix.

Another night we were working past midnight when we discovered that there no biscuits left in the biscuit tin; no biscuits anywhere. Everything came to a halt. No biscuits!

‘You’ll have to go out and get some’, Mick told the tape op.

‘Mick, it’s midnight, it’s freezing and it’s the murder mile out there!’

‘You’ll find somewhere I’m sure’

‘It’s ok’ we said. ‘We’ll survive. We dont need biscuits.’

‘You do.Yes you do. You need biscuits.’

Silence.

‘YOU NEED BISCUITS!’

So that was that, off he went into the edgy, echoing night.

I dont remember if we got the biscuits but I do remember how much I loved recording that album; working late and getting cabs home at 2 am, along the Thames, past the palaces of light, through the bubbling West End to Camden up to my Finsbury Park garret, nothing to do but listen to the mixes, fall asleep and come straight back to Townhouse 3 the next day ready for more, more, more.

Heaven.