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BLUE MAX
Preston
Pete McCarten: Rhythm Guitar. Hofner Club 60. Dave Mohan: hidden - Drums.
Fran Ashcroft: Guitar - Vocal. John Drazek: Guitar: Futurama solid.
Note the absence of a bass player - we didn't know anyone who had one, let alone who knew how to play it!
My own band at the time when I was a wee lad was Blue Max - from Preston. We were all about 14, only me and the drummer could really play.. but you had to have four in a band, didn't you!
As I remember, our backline consisted of a Watkins Westminster Tremolo amp, a hand built six watt combo - both of which I dearly loved and wish I still had - and a little Selmer bought from another band for the princely sum of a quid, which belted out a massive 1 watt - hard to believe, but true!. All easy gear to take home on the bus..
We used to play the youth clubs, Labour clubs, saturday mornings at the Top Rank.. that kind of thing. Best gig was the Adult Training Centre Xmas party, 1969 - pic attached. Got paid £4 and a packet of handkerchiefs as I remember.
Fortunately I made it out of Preston, did the major label thing and started producing records in the early 1980s, which I've been doing ever since. Surprisingly I'm not quite obsolete yet!
Now I run Happy Beat recording studios. I previously worked at Abbey Road and Trident, with Damon Albarn, some Dandy Warhols, big labels, small labels both in this country and around the world, some bands you know, and a lot of bands you’ve never heard of.
I’ve taken a taxi to Euston station with Billy J. Kramer, spent an afternoon in The La’s garden shed, stepped over an unconscious PeteTownshend, had a pastie fight with Eurythmics Dave Stewart, a drink with Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols, read several books about Bob Dylan, bought one or two albums by Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones, and my Auntie Jack lived next door but one to Pete Shotton, childhood friend of John Lennon of The Beatles. Who also worked at Abbey Road and Trident studios.
Credits are not always what they appear to be. They can be bent and shaped to fit the message, and don’t always reflect the truth. They don’t say whether you or the artist actually did a good job, and you can’t base that on record sales either. We all have to use our credits as some measure of our skill, status, and experience. It would be very bad for business not too. But it really doesn’t matter what we did or who we worked with when. I’m only as good as my last record.
www.happybeat.net
Fran Ashcroft: November 2011
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