Pete Hammond - Get Down Here and Mix Yourself a Hit: Mixmaster: My Story

MIXMASTER-MY STORY BY

Pete Hammond

Whenever friends and acquaintances have quizzed me on what I do for a living, or likewise when I share music industry stories with friends and colleagues in the business, I always seem to get asked the same question

So how did you get into the music business then?

When I tell them the story they are all quite amazed and almost unanimously theyve suggested that I write a book.

So in 2006 I started to write this book about my life and experiences working in music. I thought I should start from the very beginning because when Ive told my story to people, thats sort of where Ive usually started. As you read the first few chapters youll discover how, in my very early days in groups, I came into contact with several people who went on to become very big household names, yet were not famous at that time.

I have written this book on my own and have proof read it myself many times - my friend Fergus McGovern also proof read some of the chapters for me.

However, Im afraid there hasnt been time to get it properly proof read, therefore I apologise in advance for any spelling or grammatical mistakes that you may spot.

All that I have written is, to the best of my knowledge, absolutely true, and relevant in some way or other to my eventual success, decline, and as it now appears, return.

I sincerely hope you, the reader, will find it interesting, amusing and enlightening. Its certainly been a very strange, exciting and unplanned journey for me.

Pete

ISPN: 978-1-78281-163-3

Copyright Pete Hammond 2015

Cover Illustration & Graphic Design: Dylan Martin (www.friedbanana.co.uk)

Pete Hammond has asserted his right under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

I guess it must have been 1950 or 1951 when I first became aware of music. I would have been a messy little three-year-old at the time - I was lucky to have made it to three as I had suffered a severe case of pneumonia aged 18 months and nearly died.

I remember it was lunchtime. The radio was on as I was eating my mashed potatoes with two fried eggs on top it was all that my mum could afford at the time.

The song playing on the radio was, People will think were in love, from the musical Oklahoma. The lyric started with,

Dont throwbouquets at me.

As a three-year-old I had no idea what a bouquet was; I thought it was Buckets that they were singing about and I had a strange vision in my head of a man throwing buckets at a lady very odd I thought?

My parents, Miriam and Kenneth, (better known as Sissy and Kenny) had married after my fathers return from war service in the Fleet Air Arm, based in South Africa. We were living in two rooms at the top of a big old house in Carshalton, Surrey. In the first few years after World War Two there was very little housing available and the local council had given my parents this temporary accommodation as a result of my birth on the 23rd of June 1947.

In September 1950 my brother Geoffrey was born and two years later Sis and Ken were given a brand-new, two-bedroom council maisonette on a new housing estate in Coulsdon, Surrey, about six miles away.

My father was an intelligent man and had a good job designing electronic control systems for the huge dry cleaning machine manufacturer, Neil and Spencer. He earned a good income and we were one of the first families in the road to be able to afford a Stereo Radiogram.

Although it was fully equipped to play 45rpm stereo records, at the time the only records available were in the 10-inch mono, breakable, 78 rpm format. I remember one of the first 78s we bought was Paul Ankas, Diana, which I played over and over again. We also bought quite a few records on the Embassy Label, which were budget records sold in Woolworth.

They were usually cover versions of the latest hits made by unknown artists and session musicians - and occasionally Stars working under false names!

I remember how I used to stack ten of these records on the auto-changer. I would then sit and watch it in action; more fascinated by the mechanism than the actual music!

Coulsdon is a small town situated on the A23 between Croydon and Gatwick Airport. If you approached the town from the north end in the early hours of the morning in the early 1960s you could smell the bread cooking in the small bakers shop. We also had a fine selection of shops including a Woolworth, a Co-op, a Sainsburys (where you got served by people in white coats behind a counter), two shoe shops, a couple of restaurants and a local electrical appliance store, appropriately named, GHT Sparks.

It wasnt long before GHT Sparks started to stock the new Stereo 7-inch 45rpm unbreakable records. In those early days the shop had three record turntables behind the counter and three small soundproof booths, where you could listen before buying your record.

After selecting the requested record from the shelf, the assistant would put it onto one of the three turntables and tell you to go to the appropriate booth. I remember so clearly the first 7-inch record I bought in 1958. It was Lonnie Donegans, Tom Dooley, which I didnt particularly like but it was the best 45rpm single the shop had at the time.

I felt no aspirations to become a musician at that time. However, in 1959 Eddie Cochrans, Cmon Everybody, was released on a stereo 45rpm and I bought a copy. I loved the sound of the guitar intro and played it over and over again. Around about the same time Duane Eddy started releasing Twangy Guitar records. It was after hearing these great electric guitar sounds that I felt the first stirrings of what was to be a long and eventful career in the Music Industry!