This morning I was moving books from one shelf to another and found Norman Sheffield's. That reminded me of something: he claimed the whole story of the band waiting for the phone to ring just to rush to the studios and record briefly because the record label didn't want to spend money was completely false.
Now, I know the late NS is not very popular in the Queensphere, but I think he's got a point.
As spectacular as the tale sounds, it's open to debate how realistic it actually is. I'll play devil's advocate and picture the scenario:
It's spring/summer 1972, a high profile artist books the studio for six hours but is too high and goes home after two. It's three a.m., and what does the receptionist do? They phone four different flats to summon a bunch of students. Nobody moans about people phoning landlines at 3 a.m., public transport's safe enough for them to take their instruments and by about 4 a.m., they're in the studios, fully dressed and they spend about an hour and a half setting up. Then they record for half an hour (which in your average recording session would amount to a couple of seconds of material that actually ends up on the final cut) and then the cleaners come and they have to leave. Repeat process for months and months and voila! They've got their début album.
For that scenario to have taken place you'd have needed a lot of contrived coincidences, such as:
* The four of them always being available where they lived.
* The receptionist always willing to phone four landlines at that time.
* The occurrence of a session been cancelled prematurely being ridiculously usual.
* If that had been the case, Mott the Hoople, Harry Nilsson, etc., wouldn't have completed any records that year, since they were always cancelling.
* By doing half an hour at a time with a frequency of twice per week, they would've needed about six to seven years to complete an album with so many overdubs.
Now, let's see Norman's scenario: Queen sessions are booked and programmed with enough notice during graveyard shifts because 'sensible' hours have been taken by high profile artists. That allows them to be prepared, take their instruments, see if the recording schedule conflicts with their studies, etc. That also makes far more sense considering they'd need a couple dozen of those sessions spread across a few months to track the album, and it'd also explain why they worked with quite a few engineers.
What do you think?
^ your scenario sounds plausible. Maybe it's a combination of the two, with the occasional unforseen openings. There also might have been times when only one or two guys were available.
It's a pity they've never put it out truly in their own words. But I imagine they've got other things to do.
Perhaps we'll have to wait for John's memoirs ;-)
its more like they got hours warning that the proposed artist cancels rather than does not turn up...downtime, when the studio is not being used, not last minute- quick get em in..!
I think that's what 'As It Began' claims but I read elsewhere (maybe 'Queen in Cornwall'?) it hadn't actually been the case. No idea... for a group of young students, it wouldn't really make much of a difference as they'd often sleep over elsewhere anyway. Perhaps the receptionist also had to phone each of their girlfriends, lab partners, lab partners' girlfriends, etc., as well.
Yes, that was in Queensgate in Kensington. At the end of Smile (Summer, 1970) and beginning of their time at KM Fred and Roger were living in a flat in Shepherds Bush, then Roger went back to college and moved to Kew, whilst Fred moved in with Mary. Fred was still managing Alan Mair's stall at KM as late as Seven Seas being in the charts. I believe John was living in Fulham at that time.
Having gone into Advision to do work on film music in downtime in the 80's (2 or 3 am) on a few occasions, I can say that no 9-5 staff were there. I would think Trident would have been the same - I agree that downtime sessions would have been mainly pre-arranged and the band probably hung around there ((as Phil Collins did a lot, reading the paper!) after hrs waiting for the studio to become available. From the reading I've done it does seem they hung out there a fair bit just socially - after all, Trident were practically offering the band a base/HQ. And some have described Trident at that time as almost an artistic colony of musicians - a very creative place.
You can still see the imprint of the outside of the Trident logo on Brewer Street where they had Trillion - I often walk past and look up and smile...