Early 1980, Nic Potter suggested making a second Long Hello. I was in the early stages of setting up a studio at Pyworthy using old vave desk from Volume One days. (This particular item is of some historic interest. We bought it in 1973 from Polydor Studios where it had been in use throughout the sixties. It had apparently been used in the recording of 'Are You Experienced?' I would like to think that it carried with it some of the spirit of Jimi Hendrix).

Hidden Drive studio was nowhere operational but Nic was not to be deterred. Each time he came home from his working trips to America he would immediately make the trek to Pyeworthy with some new instrument or device - a new guitar, bass, drum machine, synthesizer and, as ever, boundless enthusiasm. His visits lasted three days at the most but each time manage to record something we liked.

        Interruption was the keynote; for Nic his other recording and touring commitments; for me, equipment failure, agricultural problems and fatherhood. Towards Christmas, we reworked some of the old tracks, added to others and recorded new ones.

David Jackson came down for a weekend and recorded the horns. I mixed the whole album in one twenty-four hour sitting, then drove off the snow to begin work on 'Sitting Targets'. 


       I have always great affection for the sound we ended up with which has intentionally not been tampered for this release. Its special quality no doubt comes from the measures we were forced to take to overcome limitations. We had no limiter/compressors but found that by overdriving the output of the main desk into the mix-amps of valve desk an authentic 'pumping' effect could be achieved. Likewise we had no reverb unit but by blasting the main mix via a hundred-watt bass amp into an old piano frame then mixing in stereo from a few feet away, we could sound quite expensive.


        I really did record the sea in four-foot surf at Welcombe in January which is why it sounds so much better than a library sound-effect and se still makes me want to drop everything and drive down here.