A Trip Down Memory Lane

[RedLeo]

I came across these recordings recently and they brought back fond memories as being from the first "pro" album I ever recorded, in about 1984 - 85 I think. The band was Stratus, formed by Clive Burr shortly after he left Iron Maiden, and was comprised of Clive, Bernie Shaw (now Uriah Heep) on lead vocal, Tino and Cris Troy (Praying Mantis) on guitar and bass, and me.

The budget for the album was about 50 pence, and was recorded in Frankfurt at Dreamboat studio, now presumably long gone.

These sound like they were recorded from vinyl, and were basically your typical British AOR-style rock from the mid-eighties, an offshoot of NWOBHM.

The first track is a breezy up-tempo number, the brass (ahem!) being made up of about a million overdubs on an Oberheim OB8 and my Juno 60, and with a Minimoog solo at the end. I remember having a lot of fun putting the "brass" parts together like a jigsaw puzzle, with one of the other guys operating the synth controls - filter, pitchbends and such - while I played.

The second track is just your typical cliched AOR ballad, but it features some lovely guitar work by Tino. I used the studio grand (a Steinway I think, but I'm not entirely sure), and an OB8. Quite how we got the piano to sound that bad is a mystery. Oh, and dig those ridiculous 80s drum reverbs!

• Romancer.mp3

• Give Me One More Chance.mp3

[Marlowes]

Hej Leo!

OK ... really, really nice, but what about some cheesy electro stuff from 1984?
"Golden Grave", by 7 Man På En Scooter, recorded at Voice Musik in Karlskrona, Sweden.
(Hans Södergren - DX7, yours truly - Juno106+TB303+TR606+SH101, Jörgen Lindgren - guitar, Klas Ljungkvist - vocals)

Voice Musik

voice-window.jpg (20.38 KiB) Viewed 1512 times

• Golden_Grave_RM.mp3

/Amicalement
Michael in Scania
(How the H*ll could I ever sell those synths? )