Time travel
The cassette I unearthed was dustier than this one, but at least mine had all the tape INSIDE!
Some days ago, a name from the past reappeared on my mailbox. That name was Stefan Cybichowski, someone I hadn’t heard from for over 30 years. We used to share a flat in Derby, when he was a part-time drummer working at an electrical wholesalers, and I was a part-time bassist working at a power station. Together, we were part of a band called “Crosstown Traffic“. It was great to hear from him again, and it re-kindled a lot of old memories about those days. It also prompted me to dig around and I unearthed a dusty, badly-oxidized cassette of the band, circa 1978. I remembered that we used to record things simply back then, to put it mildly. The rehearsals were recorded by putting a mono cassette recorder on the floor in the middle of us all, and using the built-in mic. Needless to say, the sound quality left a lot to be desired, even on a pristine new tape listened to at the time, but stick on 30-odd years, and it takes on a strange quality, as though your past is an old, crumbling house and you are afforded a glimpse of it through murky cobwebbed windows. It was fascinating, and I sought to clean up the tape as best I could. The results weren’t perfect, but after realizing what a fine set of songs we wrote, I am resolved to investing in some software to get the best out of these precious recordings.
One of the songs, “The Pimp” was re-worked and made it onto our Tubeless Hearts album in 1994, and you can listen to the ‘94 version here:
It was originally written in 1977. I would love to do a project where I re-record all of the songs with modern technology. A task appreciated perhaps by only the former band members maybe, but a labour of love nonetheless. The song I retrieved and sent to Stef last week was ‘Takin’ Time’. I salvaged it from the rehearsal snippets and tried to recreate its original format with some judicious editing. The sound quality is not great, but i think its worth persevering with. So listen to “Takin’Time” below, warts and all, and I’ll raise a glass to those guys that made making music such fun in those formative years:
Mark Bryan “Honeycombe” – Lead Guitar
Adrian “Fos” Foster – Guitar
Kev Moore – Bass
Jim Thomson – Vocals
Stefan Cybichowski – Drums
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Kev Moore Bio
(Born: 20th May,1958, Chesterfield, England) is a Bass Player and Lead Vocalist. Formerly with Tubeless Hearts, he played with English Pop band Christie from 1990 to 2003, and featured in Graham Oliver’s Saxon on two European tours, before other commitments resulted in John Ward taking over vocal duties for the resulting Oliver/Dawson Saxon CD releases. Nevertheless, he appeared on Graham Oliver’s solo album End of an Era returning the favour after Oliver had appeared on Tubeless Hearts Three CD.
Since 1998 he has been an occasional member of The Gonads, the punk band founded in the mid-seventies by journalist Garry Bushell, touring America and appearing on the albums Back and Barking and Schiz-oi-phrenia, and two videos of songs from the yet to be released third Gonads album that featured on the Bushell on the Box DVD.
As of 2005 he has been Lead Vocalist and Bassist with BC Sweet, the band originally founded by Sweet vocalist, the late Brian Connolly.
2006 Meets Miki, and a stream of CD releases follow, The Classic Collection, Stars over Desert Springs, One Moore Reggae for the Road, The Brush with Poetry project in conjunction with Miki, a CD EP of re-worked Sweet songs and a full-length original album.
2007-2008 Kev still tours Spain regularly as a solo artist and throughout Europe with BC Sweet, and continues to write and record, collaborating with different artists around the world.
2009 Reunites with Christie for an extensive European tour. He also writes and records “Derby Pride” for Derby County Football Club – the first in a series of Derby-related songs for a projected CD.
April 25TH. 2009 Fan Fayre for the Commons People CD released to coincide with DCFC’s securing Championship status!
November 20th.2009 The Long Walk Home solo album released as a digital download through Jamendo.
Tubeless Hearts 1994
Christie 1990
with Graham Oliver
BC Sweet 2008
Download my new solo album FOR FREE!!!
CHRISTIE
CD AVAILABLE NOW!
Video Downloads
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Hi Kevvy baby,
How’s it hangin’?
Thanks for the namecheck & the hard work on those old Crosstown Traffic tapes. We sounded alright for teenage muso’s didn’t we? If you want to re-record any of the old stuff, just say the word and I’ll be on the next plane out there!
PS I’ve found some old mildly embarrassing photos of our flat sharing days. So I’ll get ‘em online when I get a minute and I’ll let you know the secret URL (or post it on here!).
Looking forward to catching up in November fella.
Take care,
Stef
Comment by Stef Cybichowski | October 6, 2009
Kev
What a trip! I’ll bet if you had waited much longer, little would have been left on that cassette. I wonder if we’ll be frantically transferring our CDs a few years down the road.
Pretty impressive music from a bunch of part timers! Takin’ Time struck me as having a bit of a Zeppelin ring to it, with the vocals and the switch back and forth between quiet and rockin’.
You’re creating quite a legacy!
Comment by bob cornelis | October 6, 2009
Funnily enough, Bob, listening back to this and some of the others on the tape, I was struck by the Zeppelin-esque nature myself. In fact, I can hear all our influences of the time, the jazz-rock we were listening to, the unusual time signatures, it’s fascinating. And now we’re really going to re-visit the music, with Stef in the UK re-recording the drum track, sending it to me, and I will re-build the song with modern technology. What a blast!
Regarding the cassettes deterioration, I think you’re right. In fact, re-visiting this tape has prompted me to dig out the cassette ’safety copies’ of songs we recorded with another of my bands, Tubeless Hearts in the 80’s. They’ve never been played and have been sealed so they may be just good enough to transfer into the computer.
Stef: the photos are great! Looking forward to catching up too!
Comment by kevmoore | October 7, 2009