The Ballad of Prince Nelson Rogers and Me (18/3/13)

And as I was driving to Birkenhead I had the radio on.

I don't know why I'd left it on, I knew I was going through the Mersey Tunnel and I was obviously going to lose reception. I had City Talk 105.9 on. Left in place from the day before as its my station of choice for disappointment in Liverpool's performances.

 Obviously as I hit the 'other side of the water' the radio started to communicate with me directly via the medium of song, giving me the music that reflected my mood as I headed to say goodbye to my old shop.

And the songs it gave me on the way in? 'I knew you were waiting for me' George Michael and Aretha Franklin's 80s cheesathon, followed closely by Nilsson's 'Without You'  - as in 'I can't live if living is without you'. Maudlin stuff for a maudlin moment.

But leaving? Leaving was different. The theme to Friends ( I'll be there for you, indeed) to cheer me up, then The Bangles 'Manic Monday' to send me off into the past again and tell me what I had to write about today.

It was 1986, we were a five piece and we'd decided to record a demo at Pink Studios in South Liverpool. Good studio. Expensive. Lot of good work done there. Professional. 16 tracks when the most we'd recorded on till then was 8 in Station House in Birkenhead. We could afford two days recording and one day mixing. At that standard, one song. Our chance to put together a quality demo. Something to get us noticed.

We should have spotted issues right away. The engineer working our session started the day by talking about how chuffed he was that Whitney Houston's 'Saving All My Love For You' had hit number one. We were (basically) indie kids. He obviously wasn't. He was impressed by the quality of  Whitney's sound and material. You can probably guess where I stand on that one.

He didn't like our drummer. Insisted that he should play in time. (I know, it's kind of a prerequisite for drumming but he was more feel than precision, thats the way we looked at it anyway) The engineer suggested using a drum machine. The drummer quit. We talked him round. We wasted a lot of time. On our money.

The song we'd chosen to record was the one we considered to be our 'show stopper'. A big number, a big sound. Everybody loved it live. My cousin visited from the states a couple of months ago - he can still sing the chorus 26 years after it was last played live by anybody. It was, I maintain, a bloody good song.

Live, it was all acoustic guitar and a nice keyboard wash but for the recording Jenny (our keyboard player) had pulled out a fantastic piano line to overdub. The perfect addition to the song. The extra sheen that would show off what we were capable of. Given our time issues we ended up recording a version of the song that probably wasn't as good as our previous demo of it. The sound was good but the performance didn't 'have it.' It lacked spontaneity. It lacked magic. But the piano line was blinding.

None of us had heard the first single from The Bangles' new album at that point. It went to radio about a week later. Round about the time that we went back in to mix the track.

I was The Bangles fan in the band. Genuinely. Their first album was a credible indie album. In 1984 they were part of the American 'Paisley Underground' movement along with the Long Ryders, Dream Syndicate and the early R.E.M.. And I was in love with Susanna Hoffs. But then every man in the western world was in love with Susanna Hoffs. Every man my age still is, if they're honest.

And I was a Prince fan. And everybody knew that he'd written the new single under a pseudonym (so the pseudonym worked really well then) I was the one person in our little band that would have been waiting for the new single, that would have made sure he'd heard it as soon as possible. I know for a fact that Jenny hadn't heard it.

But there it was. All over the Prince written, Bangles recorded 'Manic Monday'. Our piano line. A piano line that was just too similar, just worked in the same way ours did, was just too close. We couldn't use ours, we'd be accused of nicking it from The Bangles. We had an expensive demo that we couldn't use.

So if you want to know why I'm not a pop star? It's all Prince's sodding fault.

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