THE EARLY YEARS

'Theres a sampler going for 450 quid at A1' Pinn looked at me - he knew damn well i didn't have that kind of money,i "shrugged" and allowed my attention to wander- 'i can afford 200' he left it hanging-it was obviously up to me to raise the difference'.'It s a 2 sec full bandwidth Akai s612'.For some reason it seemed like the answer, within days i'd part x'd an old drum machine and rustled the remaining 50 quid from a girlfriend and we had the unit in the studio which Pin had borrowed ,knicked and had 'on loan' for the last year or so.For the first week we minced STU Allen hip-hop recordings through it and thought it was the buisness.

The problems soon began,there had been intermittent problems with Pins attitude on and off -now there was no stopping the guy -the studio was in his bedroom and he soon began to conveniantly thwart access to the new jewel-he of course was rampant- playing and creating until dropping into bed a couple of feet away each night.Each new day i'd come round-everything seemed normal -we'd share some hot knives and then he'd smugly play a new creation from the imposing silver ghetto monster next to the stove.This is where the mind games began-bluffing through the power of the knife and the reality inside which told me that what i'd just heard was fucking brilliant - 'yeh its pretty good-'soon i'd had enough,the final straw had been an Mtv ident we'd recorded -moments before the final recording at a studio called Spirit in the city centre was due to begin i discovered he'd got 50 quid for the work-and had been holding out on me.Iwalked away from him hurt ,biting my lip but knowing ultimately that i would continue with the session-i mean -rather IN than out of this shit- id packed my electronics degree in some time ago and was now little more than a bar man serving slops to students for a tenner a night.

The club was owned by gareth -a smug little ass-pipe that strutted with a faint sneer -he wanted you to feel inferior but you could see the yearning in his eyes-he was jealous of all the young things working there -they were cool and he wasn't-it was as simple as that.The walls were plastered with signed mugshots of some of the bands that had passed through its piss-stained interior-its where i'd met Pinn -he'd been collecting pots -a chore sneered upon by the barstaff-who were raking free drinks, tips and money which never saw the till-Pinn had his own use of this more menial task- it was only later that i discovered he would spend five in every fifteen minutes piping in the toilets.A friend pointed him out one day as the guy who owns a small studio-a guy with a knome like quality wearing dungarees-they'd formed a band called' culderra saloon' which seemed like an awful name to me-i continued work at the club -doing sometimes five nights a week money in hand as well as signing on-i felt flush what with the fruit packing job on a sat morning-soon id be able to afford that reverb unit i was after-