home service
We made three singles as Home Service. The first two were on our own label, Crystal Groove Records. Totally independent.
We started off in 1979 as a 4-piece. Myself, Trigger (David Fraser) on Drums, Steve Adore (Steve Roberts) on Guitar, and Chris James on Bass. Steve Adore, who was studying English at UCL, had a friend Rob Nantes whose Aunt had left him a bit of money and wanted to become our manager. Thanks to Rob we were able to buy a synthesiser (one of the earliest polyphonic Synths - the EMS Polysynthi), a guitar amp, a mike, a stand and, most importantly, make our first record.
We did a few gigs around London between 1979 and 1982. The Moonlight, UCL, Conway Hall in Red Lion Square and The Blitz.
We found an 8 track studio in the back of Melody Maker or NME. Telecomms in Portsmouth. We piled into Trig's car and headed down to Portsmouth for our session. 8 hours for £40. Three songs in a day. The engineer asked us to wait outside while he set up the mix. I remember sitting on the floor while he played back “Wake Up” and thinking "this is unbelievable. We sound so good!" Stardom was sure to follow. It was the fairy grotto. A place of magic.
Designed the sleeve (2) myself, using Letraset, like I'd seen my Dad do before. Prepared a montage for photocopying an insert (3). Had the sleeve printed in Cornwall (where I'd been on holiday just before). We had the record cut by Porky, just like everybody else. The record was pressed in High Wycombe. We took the acetate down there ourselves. We all sat in the living room of my flat in Tottenham scoring and folding the sleeves and the photocopied insert, not realising that, for a few extra pounds, the Printer could have pre-folded them. We visited a couple of distributors. Sent it to NME, Melody Maker, Smash Hits. Our friends Pete n Frank gave us a slot in their fanzine “In The City”. We blagged our way into Radio 1 and John Peel played it several times.
001 Home Service "Wake Up!/Foreplay/Automatic Daydream" (2)
002 was a pre-ambient duo called Orior "Elevation/Tutankhamen/Quiet sky"
003 Home Service "New Age Elite Corps/Thin Hours" (7)
I realised during the recording of our second single (by which time Telecomms had gone 16 track) that the Engineer wasn't getting the sound I wanted, and I had to learn how to do it myself.
Trig and I got really interested in the recording side of things. We wanted to do more studio-based stuff, so we became a duo.
I can't remember the exact chronology, but between "Thin Hours" and "Only Men Fall In Love" we were trying to teach ourselves how to record. We did a demo of 5 or 6 tracks in Trig's flat in Finchley (12/13). We rented an 8 track for a week and tried to figure it out. We both became engineers.
We were heavily influenced by Yellow Magic Orchestra around this time. We were also into a lot of contemporary Techno-pop. Kraftwerk obviously.
We did "Only Men Fall In Love" in 1981 which was released by Situation 2/Beggars Banquet (8). This was licensed to Cachalot in the States as a 12-inch (10+14). In my head, at the time, it sounded really slick!
We recorded it in Southern Studios in Wood Green. Frank and Pete (“In The City” fanzine), through their connections with Crass, had introduced us to John Loder and his unusual studio in two terraced houses in Wood Green with its Control Room in the garage at the back. John frequently got complaints from neighbours, so had rigged up a system that cut the speaker volume every time someone opened the door.
I then started producing more and more. We'd always intended to release more stuff, but basically were so busy with studio work that we never had the time. Funny that. Part of it was that it was a pleasure to be in demand, we just went with it.