20
H
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Bido Lito! April 2015
A
R
C
Believe it or not,
bands don’t just walk out
on to a stage, plug in and become Spinal
Tap. It takes a whole lot of hard hours of craft to step
up at a gig and be able to play through a set without making
a hash of it, even for those bands who you find utterly boring
and you wonder why they bothered. Even with all the advances
in technology that the music industry develops year after Autotuned year, there’s still only one thing that can get you from
hopeful to headliner: good, solid practice. And lots of it.
In our ‘Who Are Ya?’ series we’ve been looking at the oftforgotten people who make music happen – the people who
work in the shadows, thankless and without the credit they
deserve. This month we focus our eyes on Liverpool’s longestrunning rehearsal studio CRASH, and try and cast a light on the
hardy souls who keep their rooms open for the noisemakers.
Tucked away between Stanley Street and Cumberland Street,
the entrance to Crash Rehearsal Studios on Davies Street has
very little fanfare. The black door that hangs ajar underneath the
‘Imperial Warehouses’ sign is like a secret entry to a speakeasy,
but with decidely less glamour. It’s Friday night and there’s
already a knot of people gathered in the street clutching guitar
cases and having one last ciggie, before they duck inside for
their shot at glory. I’m here to speak to Jon White, one half of the
team that’s managed Crash since it opened in 1987: a man who,
alongside partner Mark Davies, has helped several generations of
Merseyside musicians by providing a place to come and play. They
can rightly claim to having given a leg up to dozens of local artists
who’ve honed their talents in these rooms: Ladytron, The Coral,
Carcass, Anathema, Cast, The Zutons, Clinic… The list goes on, and
is in fact pinned up on the wall in Crash’s foyer-cum-communal
area. “Clinic were one of the first bands we had in here,” Jon tells
me as he pours himself a shot from his flask (tea, sadly). “They’re
still here now actually.”
It’s obviously an important place in the development of a lot of
these groups as the road outside – Crash Alley, as it’s affectionately
known – continues to crop up in promo shots of bands based here.
Under certain lighting Crash Alley can look menacing, but it’s always
been a safe haven for musicians just out of the glare of the bright lights.
The BBC has also taken note of the alley’s rough and ready charm,
and
Go
ake
m
using
it as a backdrop
for scenes in Foyle’s War, and
even turning the studio in to a replica of
The Iron Door Club for the recent production of Cilla.
Our conversation takes place on a busy Friday night, as the
evening session ends and the night sessions starts. It’s not long
before the hustle and bustle of the changeover gives way to a
steady clatter from the warren of occupied rooms, creating an
anarchic soundtrack which underscores our discussion of where
it all began.
“Before this was Crash it was SOS Studios, which goes back to
the mid-70s I think,” Jon remembers. “Mark and I were in a band
together at the time and we rehearsed here. Everybody in the
early days did their stuff here – OMD, Black, China Crisis – recording
on 4-track. It was OMD’s machine actually.”
With Jon and Mark being part of the building’s community
already, they were the perfect new custodians when they took
the studio on, thinking from a musician’s point of view. And
that’s something that continues to this day, with the bar in the
communal area supplying everything from strings to plectrums
to spare leads, and that most vital of musical lubricants, beer.
What’s more it’s just a place to hang out: at one point our chat is
interrupted when a band comes in moaning to Jon that they’ve
got to learn two Bob Marley songs for a wedding they’re playing
the following week.
As well as catering for the regulars, Crash also serves as
a perfect spot for touring artists to come and get a bit of preshow practice in before playing a show. In May 1990 a tribute
concert was staged in memory of John Lennon at the Pier Head,
with performances from some huge artists. Crash was pressed
in to action for the event, providing rehearsal space for some
of the stars. Mark remembers: “The room order for that day was
something else: Room 1 – Wet Wet Wet, Room 3 – Lou Reed!”
Wet Wet Wet arrived three days early and got to work straight
away. They formed a fast relationship with Jon and Mark, and on
one of their last nights the band invited the pair to join them
for dinner. So they all hunkered down on the floor of the band’s
studio for pizza, after Marti Pellow’s minder had chaperoned it
safely back from the pizzeria. On the day of the show itself the
studio had yet more visitors, as Curtis Stigers set-up shop. And
then, in a whirl of police escorts and hangers-on, Lou Reed was
ushered in to the building. “He was almost carried in by his
entourage of onlookers and helpers carrying his guitars and
baggage,” Mark remembers fondly of the slightly manic day, and
"
me
so
ise"
no
Words: Christopher Torpey / @CATorp
it wasn’t long before the gues