How I became a Lo-Fi Low Star (written May 4 2003)

As a toddler and junior, we had one record player in the house. It was an old portable mono Philips, and I must have been about six before I could actually lift it. My mums’ collection contained three albums that I used to play to death, With The Beatles, Lionel Hampton on the vibes and the South Pacific original soundtrack. I obviously drove my folks sufficiently mad with these regular DJ sessions, `cause when I was about ten, they got me my own record player. It was a little stereo, and the speakers clipped on top so you could carry it round like a small suitcase. Around the same time, we got a new family stereo, and we inherited an old 78 player. I was in heaven.

A friend called Peter and I formed our first band when we were 11. I had a little half size acoustic guitar and he had a practice drum pad. We stole a snare drum together, but soon after split up over musical differences… Well who was going to play the snare drum actually.

I decided to go solo. I got some empty boxes and polystyrene packing from behind the electrical shop, and made a drum kit. The persistence with which I battered the cardboard for the next two years impressed my parents enough to buy me a second-hand bass drum, high hat and snare for my fourteenth Christmas. I was now ready to begin recording.

I would record  a drum part on to my portable cassette player, and then play it back whilst simultaneously strumming my untuned acoustic and recording the 2 parts on to my brothers portable cassette player. The same process was used to add vocals.

I soon developed a craving for some different sounds, so I began to experiment. I'd picked up this white label 7” in a second hand shop, and the B side contained a single tone that ran for about 3 minutes, presumably to let you know instantly that you’d put on the wrong side. I soon worked out that by changing the speed of the record player, I could change the pitch of the tone. I could also slow it down and speed it up with my finger. Now there were obviously some New York DJs living next door at the time, `cause a few years later they started doing this sort of thing on a regular basis (with far more commercial success).

I also discovered that by tuning my transistor radio between stations I could get some great noises, with occasional ghostly voices or snatches of tunes wafting through.

The following year my brother and his mate added to the turntable collection when they got themselves a mobile disco set up. They got a few bookings, and I was allowed to accompany them to their second date at Roundwood School. It was going fine. I was watching the sixth form girls boogie to Mott the Hoople and Status Quo. Then my brothers mate pulled out a new record he’d bought that day, and cleared the dance floor in 5 seconds. I on the other hand bobbed my head up and down enthusiastically and grinned reassuringly at my brothers mate. The record was New Rose by The Damned, and for the first time in my life everything began to make sense.

Enthused with my new found punk lust, I set about putting down another track of rhythm/noise experimentation, but with angrier vocals. I sent it to our local record company. They never replied. A couple of years later I sent a tape of my first proper band to the same company. I went to see them and the man said “I kinda liked it, but what I really liked was that weird dub stuff you used to do”.

By that time though my life had been changed. One night, under the bed covers, listening to John Peel on my transistor radio, I was reduced to tears of joy by the most wonderful music I had ever heard. The New York Dolls had entered my life forever. The following week I bought a second-hand electric guitar and amp, and set about learning an E chord. Strangely enough, the old Selmer amp had a habit of making high pitched squeals and picking up occasional ghost radio.

I never lost that lust for creating music/sound in non-traditional ways, and that approach re-emerged in much of my work in the late eighties and early nineties as a Youth Arts Worker and Music Animateur, in the shape of urban/industrial sound sculptures and experimental work with digital technology.The ethic also informed our early Los Chicos Muertos recordings and contributions to the pan European lo-fi collective The Anglo German Low Stars.

I still use funny old drum machines and small plastic keyboards on a regular basis, and recently purchased a hand held light operated theramin that sounds like a moped revving up. This has already appeared on stage and is likely to appear on a recording soon.

Sometimes, when I’m sitting at my 4-tracck, laying down some ideas, I swear I can hear the ghostly voices, valve crackle and static interference of a long lost radio broadcast permeating the ether like the sirens of redundant technology calling my name.

Grae J. Wall