Peter Bright

I think my first exposure to Peter Bright’s This Window project came with this tape on the IRRE label from Germany. Peppered with experimentalism and a sense of wander and wonder, I was later to receive other missives from Peter including old material he has rescued from the archives.

If you sat me down and asked me what were the main reasons for getting involved in this emotionally draining and sometimes very unrewarding ARTFORM called ‘home taping’, then I would say two things:

In the early 1970’s when I was about 13 or 14 years old I loved ‘Motown’ and ‘Led Zeppelin’ (my music tastes were very eclectic). In the UK there was a TV show called ‘Top of the Pops’, which shaped the adolescent pop culture. The stars appeared on a Thursday night and lip-synched to their hits. Then one night (1972) a band called ‘Roxy Music’ appeared and turned the whole thing on its head. I can still see the performance in my mind’s eye. I had suddenly been exposed to ‘Art School Rock’. They were remarkably radical, different musically and visually.

Around the same time (1973) an album was released on ‘Virgin Records’ called ‘The Faust Tapes’. This was a marketing experiment which had a retail price of 49 pence (UK) – so lots of people bought it and a lot of people threw it into the trash. The German band Faust were without a record deal and their producer Uwe Nettlebeck gave these tapes to Virgin for free. These apparently thrown together bits of tape noises, sounds, songs etc. were all mangled together – well, that is what most people thought. In reality it was an exceptionally well crafted piece of work and was the inspiration for my EEtapes release ‘Extraction’ in 1989.

These two things combined with going to Art School eventually got me involved in experimenting with recorded sound. The first machines I used were a Phillips reel to reel and a budget priced cassette recorder.

At Art College I was in a band called ‘T34’ which was an experimental electronic thing (1979). We were booked to support a band called ‘The Urge’ at my graduation show. The singer of ‘The Urge’ was a friend. His guitarist a couple of weeks before the gig was sectioned under the mental health act and I was asked to sit in for him… The gig came and in the audience was an A&R man from ‘Beggars Banquet Records’ who asked the singer if he would like to support ‘Bauhaus’ for a few gigs. The singer explained he had no guitarist, to which the A&R man said, pointing to me, “What’s wrong with him?” ….. That is how I was offered my first record contract (which I never signed).

Demo studios in the late 70’s were a nightmare, the quality was always shit. I wanted to take control but the set up costs were well beyond my pocket!

In 1981 I joined a band called ‘Finish The Story ‘which had an amazing exposure in the underground and mainstream music press. Our first gig was described as ‘…better than the second coming of Jesus Christ’. This was a fantastic experience (at the time it felt like purgatory, torture, hell itself) and introduced me to the big stage, supporting ‘The Cure’.

We bought 2 Teac Tascam 144 cassette multi-tracking machines and on one of them I recorded a track for ‘Beggars Banquet Records’ which was released in 1985 (vinyl and cassette) and in 1981 I recorded a live gig of a band called ‘The Dancing Did’ which was eventually released in 2007 (CD and iTunes) by ‘Cherry Red Records’.

These machines were a gift from heaven and enabled me to experiment with recording – I still use it sometimes!

After an acrimonious divorce from ‘Finish The Story’ – caused by me storming off the stage at a prestigious venue in London (WHOOPS) I began recording my own stuff.

I can’t remember how I found Alain Neffe and ‘Insane Music’ but he was the first to release my stuff on cassette in 1986. After that EE Tapes, IRRE Tapes, A State Of Flux, Old Europa Café etc. began releasing my scribbles.

Home recording equipment became more accessible and I recorded most of the cassette releases on a Fostex M80 quarter inch eight track and mixed down onto a quarter inch Revox PR99. Tragically the tape stock I used was a poor batch and none of the original tapes survive. I also used Dictaphones, telephone answering machines and anything else that would record sound.

I’m still recording and releasing stuff (via iTunes) and still contributing to projects but the recording equipment I’m using now is far more common place. Any PC or Mac will produce the goods.

The democracy of releasing material has punched a hole right through the mainstream record industry, the business models of the 20th century no longer apply and ironically the ‘Home Tapers’ philosophy and strategy of DIY has suddenly become the mainstream itself. It is no longer viable for major labels to invest and promote new stars. MySpace, ReverbNation et al, have enabled the artist to become creator, producer, distributor and manager. The object as product and art, the cassette, has become replaced by the file. The freedom we craved in the 1970’s has now actually happened. We all have bigger audiences and the distribution of music is cheap but the question we need to ask is – Are we better for it?