We secured some free recording time at the BBC, recorded Poor Man and offered it to John Peel. Then Roy left.
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Offer Recordings To John Peel
Clive was working at the BBC and secured us some free studio time just off BBC House in Portland Street. We recorded Poor Man and some reworks called Poor Man Dub which had all sorts of echo and effects all over it1.
Later Clive, Robbie and I went back to get a copy of the tape and then walked across to BBC House where Radio One was broadcast from. The idea was to leave John Peel a copy to see if he would play it on the Radio once more. But Clive had other ideas.
Pressure Peel
“Let’s see if we can talk to John Peel,” he suggested. Robbie and me looked at him quizzically. It was gone 10pm. “But he’s on air, doing his show,” we said. “Doesn’t matter,” said Clive. “He takes calls when he’s playing songs.”
Clive flashed his BBC pass, explained who we were and to our surprise the receptionist picked up the phone. We watched as he had a brief conversation with someone and then, a few seconds later he held out the receiver and said, “Here. It’s Mr Peel for you.”
Clive and Robbie both stepped back, looked at me and said, “It’s your band, you talk to him.”
I was cornered. I took the receiver.
“Hi, John here and who might you be?” asked John Peel in his nasaly, scouse accent.
“Hi John,” I said just a little star struck. “My name’s Lee. Lee Adams. I play guitar in the Pressure Stops.”
“Ok, so what are you up to at the minute?” he asked.
“Well, you played our first single and that was great but you didn’t play the last one and I wondered why not?”
It was the first thing that came into my head.
Despite being a bastion for youth culture, it should be noted John Peel worked for the BBC
Hey John…
“Well, you know I receive a lot of music from all over the place. I can’t play it all you know.”
“Ok, fair point but we’ve just done a recording over in Portland Street and wondered if you’d be interested in listening to it,” I asked him.
“How did you get in there?” he asked. I explained about Clive and the spare studio time and he started to distance himself from what I was saying by saying things like “Oh, can you do that? Is it above board?”
“Yeah, it’s fine,” I said casually. “Don’t you worry about it.” I was beginning to get into my stride and for the time-being at least, was feeling a little less star struck. “Anyway, how about we leave a tape of the recording down here on reception for you? Would you be able to give it a spin and let us know what you think?”
Even right at the beginning I felt like I was on the outside, looking in
“Sure absolutely, leave it there and someone will bring it up. And thanks for calling. Much appreciated.”
“Cheers Johnny. Nice to catch up.”
I gave the receiver back to the receptionist and looked at the others. They were smiling expectantly but I didn’t say anything. After a while they prompted me. “Well? What did he say?”
I nodded slowly, wide-eyed, with a gormless grin. I indicated the phone with a nod of my head, and then said “I just spoke to John Peel.”
“Yes, we know but what did he say?” they asked again.
There was an elongated silence whilst I mulled it over in my mind. Then I looked up, smiled, and with added emphasis said, “I just spoke to John Peel!”
Learn How To Write A Proper Song
The song Poor Man was a favourite of mine and we played it a few times live. It was one song where I edited some of Steve’s lyrics. At some point I added/edited the final verse which went like this:-
“Poor man and his wife have found, as they stand hand in hand,
Life for them is not material gains, or cashing in on someone else’s fame.
Each other’s love is all they need, along with the baby mouth they feed,
Life is simple, not just or fair, but they’re much richer than any millionaire.”
Poor Man
It fitted with the melody and was short, succinct and direct. Unlike this series of blogs.
Splinter Group
Soon Roy decided to quit the band citing musical differences as the reason. In truth I didn’t really know why he quit, because despite the single we were doing a lot more gigs. Also, we had much better songs, were a lot more accomplished and I felt we were moving in the right direction.
To begin with, just being in a band is enough. Then things change and enough isn’t enough anymore
But at this time, synthesizers had come into the mainstream, and we even played some gigs with synth bands like Unit One and The Picture. Other, local bands had been and gone: The Gangsters, The Rabbits, Howard Like, Spelling Missteaks, had all folded and so the ‘Harlow Scene’ wasn’t the same Harlow scene it had been two years previously. Like all things, it had moved on.
Despite have the Tubeway Army album Replicas, synths were never going to be part of the Pressure Stops canon
But now it was populated by different people with different ideas. And there were different bands, younger than us, like Poetry In Motion for example, who were doing something new and different to us. We weren’t the young teenage whipper-snappers anymore. We were one of the established bands, and suddenly I felt old and past it. I was 20 at the time.
I wrongly assumed we would continue ad infinitum
Roy, I thought, had begun to find Steve’s verbal abuse a little tiresome and even when we’d recorded the second single there were disagreements between the two because Roy couldn’t nail a bassline. However, on this ocassion Roy had come up with the bassline (it wasn’t one of mine!) and it transpired that in the recording studio, it was too difficult for him to play well enough to be recorded, which needed to be perfect.
Bass Effect
Steve, becoming more and more frustrated, started to tell him what he thought of his bass playing, which clearly didn’t help. In the end I had to ask Steve to go and cool off outside so I could get Roy calm enough to play. All I was interested in was making the best record we could, not point scoring. But that was the first time I saw a real issue between the two. Until then, it had usually been nothing more than good humoured ribbing. And then, soon after Roy left.
What do you mean you’re leaving???
“I do not know to this day why I left. The only thing it was down to was meeting Helen (Roy’s future wife), and having other priorities. And that turned out well, didn’t it (they divorced). Steve could be a twat, but I don’t think that was it, although funnily enough I sometimes thought Lee took it all too seriously and I probably didn’t take it seriously enough and so I became the new Steve Byrne to an extent, because I wasn’t practicing as much as I should’ve.”
Roy
So, we’d just released our 2nd single, had gigs lined up and then suddenly, we had no bass player. And I thought that was bad. Soon I discovered this was just the start. The beginning of the end. And I also discovered there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
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