Let's get one thing out of the way first: I love old technology. If I had the space, I'd have a workshop full of old radios, open reel tape and wire recorders, valve amps, old keyboards and vintage guitars. (Thinking about it, there are those who would say my house is getting that way already). I also dig obsolete and forgotten recording formats — the more obscure the better — send 'em my way (say, has anyone else come across those weird 8-inch magnetic disc recording machines from the pre-tape 1940s?). I've always loved this kind of stuff. When I was small, in the mid-1960s, I can remember my dad reading the radio hobbyist magazines and building radios and tape recorders with great-sounding names... Leak, Quad, Truvox and Ferrograph... those names alone conjure up a bygone era and a pioneering, experimental spirit. To paraphrase Phil Spector, back to mono, kids! The digital domain just doesn't do it for me in the same way.
Up until just a few years ago, vintage musical equipment was fairly easy to find here in London. Nobody seemed to want the old stuff, and music shops couldn't give it away! Things are changing now though. Vintage instruments and recording gear are becoming scarce and sought- after, so when these items come onto the market, they are often snapped up straight away. Folks seem to be re-evaluating gear previously thought to be obsolete or mundane ... it's as if they're discovering a forgotten world: "Hey, maybe there is something worth using here!" Well this newly acquired "retro-vision" is no news to me, and it won't come as any surprise to the folks at Toe Rag, either, because they've been there all along.
Toe Rag is an East London recording studio operating very much in the classic style. Here's an antidote to the sometimes-too-sterile world of modern digital recording: an entirely analogue studio, fitted out with an impressive collection of vintage recording equipment and instruments, salvaged over the years from auctions and studio graveyards, and carefully restored by the studio's resident engineer and manager, Liam Watson. Liam has run Toe Rag since 1992 and has just relocated the studio to a specially designed new space, so I was delighted to visit and check it out.
The studio room (see picture) is 17ft by 14ft with an 11ft high ceiling and nifty retro-style black-and-white-squared lino floor. Straight away I was reminded me of how I imagine an EMI studio might have felt in the mid-1960s. I was half-expecting to hear one of those stereotypical white-coated studio boffin on the talkback any second: "That's a take, boys!". That feel is captured so well that two film crews have recently been in to shoot sequences amongst the authentic period studio fittings. A large retro "Recording" light above the window into the control room is a nice touch and a collection of vintage condenser mics is arranged along one wall. Outside in the hallway there is a wonderful selection of valve guitar amps, an old tone wheel Hammond L102 and a Vox Continental organ, the latter as used by legendary garagepunkers, ? & The Mysterians on their recent London visits.
The control room (see second picture) is 14ft by 9ft and is dominated by four huge tape recorders including a striking BTR (British Tape Recorder) Model 2 one-track 1/4-inch mono deck from the mid-1950s which, true to form, is painted battleship green. Liam is still restoring this machine and hopes to have it working soon. In the meantime all recording takes place on either of two Studer multitracks: a 1-inch A80 8-track and a 1/2-inch J37 4-track. This latter machine previously belonged to Fab 208 Radio Luxembourg, and was apparently used for a lot of their radio sessions. Mixdown is to a third Studer A80 1/4-inch machine. Mixing desks are a Calrec M Series dating from the
1970s, bought from the BBC, and an EMI Redd 17 desk from 1956 which previously belonged to Abbey Road until EMI had their famous equipment auction in the early 1980s.
Outboard effects include some classic names with compressors from Cinema, Altec, Pye and Gates and an AKG reverb chamber. Most striking of all, in the corridor between the studio and the control room there is a large rectangular wooden box stacked up along one wall, measuring at least six feet long. Liam explains that this is an original EMT 140 reverb plate, and gleefully demonstrates the single large dial looking rather like a water stopcock on the top of the case. The EMT is of course a complete classic, and didn't Abbey Road at one time have a roomful of these monster machines? It's great to see one still in captivity.
Liam Watson's Eleven Favourite Toe Rag Productions
(Not in any particular order)
The Kaisers: "There's lots of great stuff by this group, but I especially like the Wishing Street CD (on Imperial Wireless/No Hit) and the two 45s on Spinout: "She's Gonna Two Time" and "Liquorice Twitch". (Kaisers releases are available in the US via Get Hip)
Big Joe Louis And His Blues Kings Big Sixteen CD on Ace Records and the two 45s on Spinout, "Rock & Roll Baby" and "Wine-Head".
Sonny George Truckin' Country CD on Spinout.
The Bristols Introducing CD/LP and "Questions I Can't Answer" 45, both on Damaged Goods.
Fire Dept Elpee For Another Time on Yep! Splash Four 2 LPs on Estrus.
Television Personalities I Was A Mod Before You Was A Mod LP on Overground and the "Seasons in the Sun" 45 on Twist
Neanderthals Menace to the Human Race LP on No Hit and the "Aru-la-mata-Gali" 45 on Spinout
Eddie Angel Various stuff especially the "Casbah" 45 and the Guitar Party LP, both on No Hit/Spinout Quant "Play With Mary" 45 on Detour Country Teasers Their 10" LP on Crypt
Toe Rag Studio Kit List
Mics:
AKG C12; C12A; D12; D19; D25
Neumann U67
STC 4021; 4033; 4035; 4037; 4038; 4105
ElectroVoice 666
Altec M11
Shure 545
Mixing Desks:
EMI Redd 17, ex Abbey Road, 1956
Calrec M Series, ex BBC, 1970s
Tape Recorders:
Studer A80 1" eight track, 1970s
Studer J37 1/2" four track, ex- Radio Luxembourg, 1965
Studer A80 1/4" two track mastering machine, 1970s
EMI BTR2 1/4" one-track mono machine, mid 1950s (undergoing overhaul)
Effects:
Langevin EQ units, early 1960s
Cinema EQ units, mid-1950s
Altec, Pye and Gates compressors (compressors are also built into the Calrec desk)
Ashtronic Response Control Graphic
EMT 140 Reverb Plate
AKG Reverb chamber
Monitors:
2 x Tannoy 15" dual concentric speakers with original Lockwood cabinets, mid-1950s
2 x Quad power amps, 1956
Various vintage instruments and amplifiers are also available.
So what sort of bands record at Toe Rag? As might be expected, the studio has always been very popular with the bands on London's retro music scene, which revolves around such groovy go-go clubs as Frat Shack and the Dirty Water Club. Toe Rag has been central to capturing the sound of the bands on that scene, and over a hundred records have so far been cut there. Liam: "People like the fact that we're analogue, and that we do things in the classic, or perhaps the 'old- fashioned', way. Also we're ideally set up to do live recording. Quite often, in fact, bands want to record completely live, including the vocals! So when we start a new session, I'll talk to the band about how they want to work. I'll get them to run through their songs so I can see how they work together. I'll look out for the obvious stuff like drummers playing one side of the kit harder than the other — there, for example, I'd know to compensate when we start recording. Then we'll either start doing live takes, with everyone in the studio at the same time, each musician in a different corner, or we'll be doing the bass and drums first, getting the rhythm track down. Then I'll mix that to two, maybe three tracks and build it up. We're eight- track, which might sound at first like a limitation, but I like working with eight- track tape. There are more than enough tracks there for whatever you want to do, and it demands discipline and skill to get good results out of the equipment. Anyway I wonder sometimes how many favorite 1960's records were recorded on four-track."
Having expanded into their new premises, the Toe Rag team is seeing a wider range of musicians coming in for sessions. Liam: "I don't think we're a purely RETRO studio, that's too narrow a description and it alienates people. The equipment here is all classic designs and good quality gear, and we're set up for a wide range of music. Just lately I've been doing rock and roll and rockabilly with a band called Number Nine. Also, possibly surprisingly, we do quite a lot of country type stuff with accoustic guitar and stand- up bass, with a traditional sound. Just before that, we had a punk band in, and then a couple of weeks ago I was with this ska or reggae band. That was quite different. It was very instrumental, with a big brass section who played completely live, apart from the conga player, who couldn't make it on the day and came in later. So I've been doing all sorts of things."
I ask Liam what was the most bizarre or unexpected thing he's found himself doing on a session. "Well, there was a band called Vibrasonic; I did two albums with them. Take their first album in particular... they were a psychedelic group, there were two of them and they played guitar and would get other people in to play drums and then maybe they'd put down bass — fine. Then they'd spend hundreds of hours overdubbing millions of the weirdest things you've ever heard! Nothing was recorded at the right speed; we tried everything backwards and everything was phased — of course this was all done in the
old way, we don't have any digital effects here — we do it all with tape recorders. By the time this all came to the mix, there was one song in particular which was about ten minutes long and we'd done so much that the guitar bass and drums were all bounced on to one track, with the other seven tracks filled up with these different sounds. In the end, I found myself having to try and convince the band that it sounded good, and that they had put enough down on tape. It was already quite a challenge to keep track of what was going where. It was good fun though, I enjoyed doing that and I learnt a lot with it."
How would Liam react if a mainstream act called him up and wanted to come down for a session? First of all, I suggest UK indie outfit Blur. "Sure ... as long as they were aware that we do things in a traditional way here, I'd be up for that." Then I suggest a Top 40 pop act. "Dance music.... That's not really my scene, and anyway we're not set up to do dance stuff here — for a start, we don't have any computers!"
Finally, I ask Liam to name two big influences and he cites two of the great British producers from the 1960s. Shel Talmy (producer of classic mid-'60s British freakbeat including the Kinks, Creation and early Who [and expatriate American]) and Joe Meek (legendary maverick producer of early to mid-'60s British pop, a true genius and years ahead of his time; famous for his wholly unconventional, self-taught approach to recording and also for being the first of the independent tape-lease record producers). "I remember when I was about eleven or twelve, this was around the time that punk was going strong. I heard those old Kinks records they made with Shel Talmy, especially "All Day And All Of The Night" and I thought to myself, this is nothing new — punk was going years ago! And of course there was Joe Meek. He was a real big influence on me too, in fact he was probably the reason I got interested in recording technology itself in the first place. I remember reading about his home-made studio where he made all these strange, pioneering records, some of which were just way over the top — The Tornadoes' "Jungle Fever" for example, and The Syndicats' "Crawdaddy Simone" I loved as well."
So, kids, if you've ever wanted to capture that classic 1960s sound, or just make a record using classic techniques, Toe Rag is the place to do it!
