November 29th, 1953: Bud Isaacs started the ball rolling with his revolutionary use of pedals as an integral part of his playing on the recording of Webb Pierce's Slowly. I was born 12 days later.
The Pedal Steel Guitar and me ...... part three
The Triffids completed the album Born Sandy Devotional by the end of September 1985 and we were pretty pleased with it. At this point we had no major label deal but we felt confident we'd get one when we shopped these tracks around. No such luck. All majors expressed interest in the band but no one was willing to go out on a limb and release BSD, so we did it under the auspices of Hot Records/White Hot/Mushroom in Australia and through Rough Trade in the UK. It received glowing reviews and luke warm sales setting a trend that, unfortunately, continued for the life of the band. We turned our thoughts to the next record. Ornery cusses that we were we intended to record in a woolshed hundreds of miles from civilisation in Western Australia. Nervous ripples emanated from our management and the few labels still circling around the band.
The idea of recording far from studio luxuries, far from any kind of luxuries actually aside from beer, sheep and good company had been in David McComb's mind for quite a while, since an early sound person Paul Bolger had suggested it a couple of years earlier during one of the many marathon crossings of the Nullarbor Plain that were part and parcel of the band's existence at the time. We all knew it would seem like a crazy idea to A&R people at Virgin or Island, and probably to our management too, but we set off in April 1986 with an 8 track reel to reel, some halfway decent mics, a few slabs of beer, some friends and a whole sheep to the McComb's property near Ravensthorp south east of Perth. There, with a disappointingly faint Halley's comet visible in the vivid night skies, we ate that sheep, drank that beer and recorded a score of songs. It took us five days. That record became a well loved one and it's just been remixed and re-issued in 2007. It still sounds great. The relaxed settings and the basic recording setup allowed us to make great versions of songs that were of world class quality. There's a bit more steel on it than on the previous album, even one or two country licks that somehow sneaked through.
We still did not have a major label record deal but we did have a swag of great songs for the next record. We wanted to go in the opposite direction. No more woolsheds, we were ready to embrace as many and luxurious recording studios as a major label could locate for us in greater London and Liverpool. And that label turned out to be Island Records. This was a big deal for many reasons, not the least being that we didn't have to head off on several back to back, soul and life threatening tours to pay for the previously mentioned luxury. It also, on a purely selfish level, gave rise to a certain pedal steel player catching a train out to Newbury on the outskirts of London, clutching a cheque with a palm tree emblazoned on it, to purchase a brand new 10 string single neck MCI pedal steel with three pedals and four levers and a Peavey Vegas amp equipped with a single 15 inch Black Widow speaker. I still use both of these today. I hope Island don't want them back.
The MCI was a step up from the Maverick and I was finally able to explore the world of possibilities that a full complement of levers presents. Thanks to Gerry Hogan for selling it to me. And thanks to Island for buying it. I believe Gerry still operates both as a fine player and a purveyor of fine steels. Sometimes I wish I'd waited until they had a red one in the store but the moment passes. Ironically enough, Calenture, the first album that was recorded with my shiny new steel is perhaps the one with the least obvious steel on it. But it's actually all over the place. We recorded in seven different studios between April and August 1987and in between times the band, the MCI and I spent a lot of time on the road. The picture opposite is my young son getting a taste for his heirloom.