Pressing the record button on pop history

Wham! George, Andrew, Dave and Me!

I have pressed the record button for quite a few famous artists during my time involved in the music world since the late ’70s, yet it is one particular band that continually rears its head, even though I recorded them when they were not actually famous, and it was a rather long time ago, at the beginning of 1982.

With the release of Andrew Ridgeley’s recent book, Wham! George & Me, my small, yet significant involvement with them is briefly touched upon again within his story. This part of the duo’s journey to superstardom has been told countless times before in other books and documentaries, mostly with varying degrees of accuracy. Almost always two other characters involved in recording their initial infamous demo are never mentioned, let alone name-checked. In the bigger picture, it is fair to say why should they be in the context that neither are known and the general public, after all, are mostly curious about George Michael. When push comes to shove and if everyone involved in the Wham! story were mentioned, there would probably be a million unknown names that really nobody is interested in. It is a bit like a movie, where inevitably, all the rolling credits generally get overlooked, outside of those in the film business perhaps. But we all have egos, are fragile beings and it is part of human nature to want to be commended, or at least acknowledged for your integral part involved in a slice of pop history, however minor. So, it was somewhat disheartening to not see either my cohort Dave West’s or own name appear in Andrew Ridgeley’s book, where he simply declares they hired a 4-track porta-studio for a day at the expense of £20, which was all they could afford at the time. Naively, I thought we might get a little mention this time around and not get unintentionally omitted yet again, in the same way many other journalists have told a distorted version of this part of the story over the years.

Does it all really matter if the nitty-gritty finer details for the recording of a very basic demo is relayed flippantly? The answer is ‘no’, although by the flip of a coin it would have been nice and not too difficult to pass a quick comment saying how two local lads called Dave West and Paul Mex had helped out, or at least assisted in their small way, especially as some other unknowns to the public from that time get mentioned in the book. Perhaps Dave and I are from the wrong side of the tracks because we had both attended the local school for hoodlums in Bushey, known as Grange Park, whilst George and Andrew were at the more posh Bushey Meads. Of course, I am jesting, although Dave and I were from the same local music scene of that time in Watford and Bushey, being around a year or two older than George and Andrew. At that point, we were slightly more seasoned than them, with our own respective musical endeavours.

For several years, Dave had already been recording, playing live in bands and involved in the music industry. It was from within the local music community that he first came across the Wham! boys, when he lent George his bass for a gig with their short-lived initial ska band, the Executive. Dave later rehearsed with a prototype version of Wham!, consisting of George and Andrew, along with Paul Ridgeley on drums and Dave playing bass. It was here, whilst practicing an early version of Club Tropicana, Dave came up with the opening slap bass line that eminently eases the song in.

Likewise, I had already been in a handful of (punk) bands by time it came to assisting on the Wham! demo, although with the acquisition of my porta-studio, I was fast becoming ‘Watford’s answer to Trevor Horn’, as one local fanzine cordially put it at the time.

Because George and Andrew could not afford to go into a proper studio to make their demo, an inexpensive alternative was needed, hence Dave and mine’s involvement.

The first time I met George was actually at the recording of the demo in Mrs Ridgeley’s living room, yet I had stumbled across Andrew several times within the local music scene, with our first proper communication being in Don Miller’s Hot Bread Kitchen, a Watford bakery where I worked. My friend and fellow band mate at that time, Lindsay Beard, brought him in for a chat at the bakery about the proposition of me recording him and George with my porta-studio. This occurred a good six months before we actually recorded the infamous first demo, as initially I was too tied up with my own band and other stuff at the time.

Back in those days when we were still just about teenagers, Andrew was certainly a cool cat on the scene, with an appearance akin to a young Sylvester Stallone. George however, was in the throes of formulating his look, with a bit of a hangover from his schooldays and lacking confidence in self-image possibly.

Now, it is important to remember that at this stage of proceedings, technology was a long way off from being as advanced as it is nowadays, where one person can quite easily make a recording in their bedroom on a laptop, with the end result sounding like a full-blown polished record ready for release. Back in those days, essentially you needed an entire band to fill the sound out and all George and Andrew had was the voice and guitar.

Dave West is an outstanding bassist and so by getting him on board meant the Wham! demo was going to have more depth to its sound and a solid foundation. The main song for that demo Wham! Rap, is primarily all based around the Chic-influenced bass line. So it really is fair to say that without it, the thing possibly would not have worked well at all. Hence, it is curious that in his book Andrew makes no comment whatsoever about Dave’s crucial input and one can only assume this has become forgotten over time, or perhaps publishers just deem this type of information unimportant, notwithstanding other inconsequential events and folk dressing pages of the book.

It is not rocket science operating a porta-studio, although Wham! benefitted from my 4-track recorder being supplied with an experienced user who knew that thing inside out. I also provided a couple of production tips to utilise, that they may not have thought about themselves at the time.

Having only 4-tracks at one’s disposal also meant an element of creativity had to be employed in mixing-on-the-fly with live bounce tracks of new performances. This was resorted to for mixing the bass and drums together, along with all the backing vocals and George’s double-tracked lead voice.

When it came to the drums, a very basic Sound Master machine was used, not a Dr Rhythm as reported in Andrew’s book. Whilst on that subject, my 4-track happened to be a TEAC 144, not a Fostex porta-studio mentioned. I know clarifying this might seem over meticulous, but who knows, the tech heads and anoraks out there might appreciate the factualness of the gear used. I also had a very crude outboard duel delay reverb unit with noisy circuitry (made by Ibanez, I think) which George seemed to like his voice going through, so much so, that he called me up about a year later, offering to buy it from me. Apart from the fact it was not for sale, I advised him to spend his money more wisely on a decent unit.

My memory is a little fuzzy about that Sound Master drum machine; I think it was loaned by another chap Dave West and I went to school with, called Barry Bignall. If it was not his, then it would have been borrowed from the singer in my band, Gary Pinker.

On the day of recording during January 1982, Shirlie Holliman, Andrew’s girlfriend at the time, had a car and picked me up with my porta-studio for the short drive from my parents’ house in Watford, to the Ridgeleys’ residence in Bushey. Of course, Shirlie ended up being in the Wham! backing band and later having several hits of her own, as part of the duo she formed with Pepsi, who joined Wham! after Dee C Lee departed the group.

Dave West arrived and Paul Ridgeley was on hand to do some backing vocals, as credited in Andrew’s book. There were also a few of George and Andrew’s friends, hanging out in the Ridgeley’s living room, ready to witness the first steps to something that would ‘make it big’ (pun intended).

I was intrigued that they called George by his nickname Yog, which somehow felt a bit disrespectful to my mind, in relation to his Greek heritage, despite that, he seemed perfectly at ease with it.

The actual recording process was all very straightforward, although at the time I didn’t have a microphone stand, so, as a solution, we shoved a broom upside-down the back of the Ridgeley’s family sofa, resting the mic (a Shure Unidyne B, which I still have) on the bristles for a makeshift stand. George Michael, singing into a broom brush seems like a far cry notion from how it panned out for him later, singing on the world’s biggest stages.

Andrew kept the enthusiasm and fun levels up with pranks during recording, whilst George was much more studious and serious about it all. They made a good team despite that, at times, it seemed some of Andrew’s antics might have irritated George in places.

It goes without saying that when George sang it was simply incredible. I had come across a couple of exceptionally talented singers in my short recording time at that point, but George was phenomenal. It took their sound to the highest level, despite that this was a very basic demo. To his credit, he also would not accept second best and went over every single line of the song until he felt it was perfect or right, despite that to everyone else, the melody coming out of his mouth sounded spot on.

We spent the bulk of the day recording Wham! Rap and everyone seemed excited and happy with the result, as it was fresh, tongue-in-cheek, controversial lyrically, and original for the time. There was absolutely no way the industry could ignore this demo, although it seemingly initially did, and who knows what would have occurred had local music executive Mark Dean not signed them up to his Innervision label, having secured a deal through CBS/Epic records (which is another story).

Although the recording day was almost over, given Andrew’s parents were soon due to arrive home from work and wouldn’t take too kindly to their lounge being turned into a makeshift studio with unknown characters strewn about the place, the boys were keen to try and quickly capture on tape another song idea they had. That song happened to be Careless Whisper, which we pretty much recorded in one take as a snapshot. Regardless that it only had one verse and chorus at this stage with some of the lyrics being slightly different, it was obvious to everyone this was the embryo of a very special song indeed. Even in its most basic form and despite possessing a complete punk rock sensibility with a disdain for anything overtly commercial, even I thought to myself, ‘Crikey, they have something a bit special here’.

Despite only having a fraction of music industry experience at that time and having been involved in it for what equates to a surreal ten minutes longer than George, at the end of that demo session I remember him turning to me and saying “Do you think we will get a record deal?” In my mind and picking up on George’s sensitivity and vulnerabilities, I thought to myself ‘I sure hope so, for your sake’ but optimistically responded with “Yes, but it will not be easy and you will have to knock on a lot of doors.” I still wonder to myself had Mark Dean not given them that deal, if George had taken a more traditional route of work in life, would he perhaps still be with us now? I guess we will never know and maybe that’s a nonsensical question to even ponder.

One of the things highlighted about that first Wham! session is how they paid the grand sum of £20, where it seems both George and Andrew, saw it as a simple transaction for payment of service, with Dave and I gaining a tenner a piece. But it was not really like that from my standpoint, as I viewed it more of ‘get yourselves a drink boys’ type of gesture. I know £20 was worth a bit more in 1982 than it is now, but if I had not considered the session more a kind of helping out lads from the local scene, of which there was a real community mood back in that post-punk time and place, I certainly would have charged a befitting amount. There were many bands in that local scene I recorded in the same spirit — it was all part and parcel of the fun of it, yet history has painted a picture that we did it cheap, where some of that tag stains. I guess from a PR standing it makes a better story with the classic rags-to-riches tale that goes ‘we were so poor we could only afford £20 but made it big in the end!’ The reality from my perspective is that it was just a great youthful time to be cross-collaborating with everyone from within the local scene and I was happy to be involved regardless, with or without remuneration (there were very few local acts around at that time that did not manage to escape me recording their demo!)

Hand firmly on heart, there was no bitterness in this financial part (and why should there be?). Besides, George gifted me nicely down the line when I gave him the original multi-track tape from that session, which had sat in my cupboard for several years gathering dust thereafter. I never asked for any remittance for the tape and with his well-documented kindness, he gave me a lovely personal gift out of the blue and totally by surprise, which was really sweet.

Clearly I am aggrieved about our minor role always getting side-lined, yet equally I appreciate George and Andrew’s expedition was so out of the ordinary, that it is not hard to see how only an unadorned snapshot of the little things can become etched into the memory of time, especially when such an extraordinary voyage was had. The world they were involved with was so detached in many ways that perhaps it is hard on that side of the fence keeping a clear picture. I think I really assimilated this fully when I stood on set at the band’s making of the video for Young Guns, whereby their team of people did their best to keep the boys detached and separated from everyone else. Yet only the evening before, Andrew Ridgeley had no chaperone, bodyguard or PR person keeping him segregated, as he stood alone in my teenage bedroom at my parent’s house in Hertfordshire saying to me “If you aren’t doing anything tomorrow, come and jump around in our video for Young Guns down in Piccadilly.”

I guess unless you become an international superstar yourself, it is actually impossible to know what that experience is like… Possibly like living in an outlandish freakish human goldfish bowl, having to meet so many people and travel the world many times over — it is inevitable memories will get lost in transit. But for those of us who had a brief small part moment hanging on the shirttails of such success, the memory stands like it was only yesterday.

Writing this has been cathartic and humour is probably the best way to deal with things and from this moment on, I will be taking a new stance on that infamous first Wham! demo session. I digress but please stay with me, seeing that you’ve come this far… I have mentioned punk within this piece and I still have a punk rock attitude and it is within this realm I shall take my lead…

A myth continuing to this day is that Chris Spedding (one of my favourite guitarists) played the parts on the Sex Pistols classic album Never Mind The B*llocks Here’s The Sex Pistols. Some people still believe this, yet the truth be told, Pistols’ guitarist Steve Jones, actually played not only all the guitar parts, but much of the bass and undertook backing vocals as well; he actually did more than anybody, yet this ridiculous notion continues. He has jokingly commented that not only did he not play on the album, but Chris Spedding also used to play guitar for them from behind the curtain when the band played live.

So, from now on if anybody ever asks me if I was the guy who pressed the record button on that first Wham! demo session, I am going to tell them “No, that was someone else… I was down the road, recording Simply Red’s first demo in Mrs Hucknall’s lounge for her red-haired young son”, which of course is not true.

I think it will be fitting to end this piece with an extract of lyrics written by one of George’s favourite singers, Freddie Mercury.

Nothing really matters

Anyone can see

Nothing really matters

Nothing really matters to me

Any way the wind blows

Paul Mex

© October 2019 / Edited by Wayne Imms

UPDATE: September 2022, Andrew Ridgeley phoned me this morning regarding that infamous original demo and I was cheeky enough to comment about the lack of a name check in his book! His response was 'the memory isn't what it once was.' To be fair, as time ticks on, I second that emotion.