Magic Muscle #7

RR: "On January the 4th, 1991 (yes indeed exactly twenty years after the sessions at number 49, Cotham Road) we recorded "Gulp" in Wee Mee Nit Studio in Barnet, London. Adrian and l had planned the whole thing and Nick (Saloman), Simon (House) and Steve (Broughton) agreed to turn up on the day and play. And that's all that happened really, we just all turned up, plugged in, and played Three hours later we had two double albums in the can. But we knew it needed trimming down, so that it would sound like one cohesive album instead of just several drawn-out "blows" So on the 27th and 28th March, Adrian and I were booked into Wee Mee Nit again to join with Steve Broughton and Simon House for various overdubs and general mixdown and production duties on the master tape. Then, on the 1st May, I went and stayed with Nick (did you know he was on a TV quiz show called Countdown a month earlier and actually reached the semifinals, by the way) for a few days and we spliced and edited the finished tape. Things like the old lady saying "Would you like some sweets Willie?" were added then. It was actually taken from a tape from the early seventies that explained the conversion from our old (£sd) monetary system into decimal currency (the tape of  it had been given to Nick by Phil McMullen). Also, there was the problem of the voice at the end saying 'Auntie, could I have some more?" We had to do that ourselves. It’s actually my voice, with Nick slowing and slurring the tape with his bare hands.

The whole "Gulp" experience was a real pleasure. There was no pressure from anywhere or anyone. We did the whole thing ourselves, in our own time, and played exactly what we felt like playing. What emerged in the end has an uncanny resemblance in feel to the original "January The 4th Tape " from 1971, So the whole magical spirit of the thing is intact... In fact 1991 was Magic Muscle’s most prolific year ever, with "Gulp" released and then -at last- the "magic box" "Living Weeds From Ancient Seeds" made an appearance, and finally "Laughs & Thrills" came out on SPM