Hoooboy... Football tunes?
No I never recorded England, but I DID record Liverpool and Everton every year that either of them made the FA cup final in the mid-1980's onwards. (...which was just about every year... I probably did about ten singles in all) -In 1986 BOTH Liverpool AND Everton made the FA cup final, and I actually got to engineer on BOTH records! -John 'Digger' Barnes was on that one (the '
Anfield Rap') although I should point out to those unfamiliar with this traditional abuse of music exactly what happens...
The two Football (soccer) teams who reach the final of the biggest sudden-death knockout tournament in British Football (the "F.A. cup") are suddenly besieged with an insatiable clamouring demand from fans for merchandise, souvenirs... specially those making specific reference to that year's competition.
WAY back, it was discovered that ANY soccer team who puts out a kitschy tune (no matter
HOW awful) will sell enough to make the top-50 for a few weeks. The record is essentially GUARANTEED sales in the 250,000+ range, even if it's the most sonically-offensive crap that you ever heard... -Oh, and just to make this sonic-fest even "better", tradition demands that the football team has to 'sing' on it.
The first one I ever recorded was for Everton FC in the early 1980s... it was called
'The Spirit of the Blues'. Now invariably a soccer team is NOT known for singing, so it takes a 'craft services' table loaded with food and STRONG beer (Calrsberg Special Brew was found to be
"productive" in setting the mood) and -after the 'musicians' have laid down the backing tracks and a guide vocal in a couple of hours- the soccer team arrives, -usually by bus, so that they don't have to drive home after the "necessary skinful".
So -to summarise- the usual formula for a soccer single is:
*a three-minute tune (usually written in about four minutes).
*Two-hours for setup and backing-track.
*Two hours for the team to booze and lose their inhibitions about singing.
*finally, a half hour of recording people who CAN'T sing (even when they're sober) while they're utterly gassed out of their brains.
*45 minutes for the mix, and an hour for tidying up the room (the assistants usually got to take home the leftover booze as a courtesy... sessions like this with that many 'under-discplined' egos in one room tend to need a LOT of help from the assistants!).
Anyhow, on that particular session I met a particular live sound engineer (who was friendly with the band members) for the first time, a fellpw who later became one of my very greatest and dearest friends. (He was my first choice for best man at my wedding, and happened to be touring through Florida with 'Del Amitri' at the time when I proposed to my wife) He has since grown his sound-reinforcement company into quite the empire, and was (just this year) it was voted European S.R. company of the year, IIRC.
Anyhow, Last time I was back in Liverpool for a few days on my own, Liverpool were playing away on the other side of the country, but I called up my friend Andy (who now has permanent season tickets behind the Everton goal for himself and his father) and we went together to Goodison park, with his dad giving me his ticket for the game.
The WONDERFUL thing about the city of Liverpool's soccer teams is that the rivalry between the two clubs is ENTIRELY good-natured. -Whereas in Manchester there is a pretty strong dislike between 'United' and 'City' fans, Liverpool and Everton fans will happily share a ride to a game, then go to opposing ends and SCREAM at each other for ninety minutes, then share a car home again, with the winning team supporters ruthlessly mocking the (understandably subdued) losing team fans.
THIS in particular was (though we didn't know it yet) to be a magical game. Everton versus Blackburn Rovers. -When Andy and I walked into the ground, they immediately started playing the tune which I'd first engineered on that session when we first met... Everton were playing with their THIRD-CHOICE goalkeeper, since their first choice keeper was injured, and their reserve keeper had been sent off in the previous game, so was sidelined.
Everton scored nine-minutes into the game.
About one minute later, Everton's (3rd-choice, remember!) keeper handled outside the penalty area, so received an automatic red card.
Everton then played the remaining eighty minutes with only ten men, against a determined Blackburn, with a FOURTH-CHOICE goalkeeper (making his debut, I think). Despite ALL the odds, they managed to put the ball in the Blackburn net THREE MORE TIMES... all three further goals were disallowed, two of them probably legitimately, but not so the other goal.
By the end of the game, I was utterly and completely drained. There had been action. There had been struggle. There had been conflict. There had been drama. -When the final whistle blew, my voice was hoarse, my throat was raw, my heart was pumping... there had been more than a half-dozen occasions where Blackburn had almost equalized, -with only the ULTRA-inexperienced goalkeeper to beat... yet somehow Everton had managed to scrabble, claw and scratch their way to a bruised-yet-rewarding victory.
-And that wasn't even my team!
There were forty-thousand people there, no cheerleaders danced, no tee-shirts were fired from cannons, most of the music played was sung by drunken idiots who couldn't sing... yet the level of entertainment was simply without peer, and nobody felt that they hadn't received their ticket's face value in entertainment at least five times over.
It was an
enchanted afternoon.
When Everton -once again- made the FA cup final last month, I called Andy, and I called his parents. I told them how much I was rooting for Everton, and incidentally how proud I was that Everton now had an AMERICAN goalkeeper... (and I mean U.S. American, NOT South-American!) -Andy and his dad actually went to see the FA cup final with the Kaiser Chiefs (a band who are doing quite well over there at the moment) and got permission for the band bus to park next to the stadium overnight, with all the hook-ups... (-now
THAT'S the way to do it!)
Sadly Everton were not up to the job of winning this particular final, but it was STILL an honorable fight.
As it happens the Kaiser Chiefs are coming to town (with Green Day) in about a week or so if I remember correctly... Anyhow, I'm going to be there at the board, catching up on the news and reliving old times with my buddy... -Long may he reign!
It's a grand old game, and it does the heart good!
Keith
