Pop Shield

I am stood on the station platform to take my train into London, en route to Maid Of Orleans studios. On these kind of days, my normal routine is to get settled on the train, put my headphones on to listen to the recording artist du jour.  Then I get out my notepad and sketch out some patch lists for the session. 

However, the usual routine is not to be.  Today is just one of those days which is about to be forcibly derailed. One minute before the arrival of my train, the world turns upside down. 

So, there I am, standing on the platform, phone in hand.  I idly click on my InterFace app icon to divert myself into the world of status updates. It is then that a sequence of words jumps out of my smart phone and smacks me between the eyebrows.  A post from Yoda – announcing the death of our dear friend and colleague, Nick Waterfall.  I read the post, and then begin to scroll through the […] of comments amassing.  A real time outpouring of disbelief and sadness. 

The train doors open and I fall into a nearby seat, winded, tears of shock streaming down my face. I hurriedly check my work emails for some kind of official announcement, but there is nothing. In haste I decide to take advantage of being in a signal yes-spot to quickly call Christopher Mulligatawny to alert him. Thankfully, he picks up. He is also on the train, and has received a message from Guy. Christopher tells me he will send out a circular later – which he duly does, with sensitivity. 

I turn my attention back to the InterFace app. Over and over again these tributes refer to what a gentleman Nick was, how unflappable, patient, and what a gifted and skilful engineer he was. But most of all what excellent company he had been, with a wicked and capricious sense of humour.

It’s quite a day. My intended prep goes to the dogs. Thankfully it appears to be a relatively simple session involving a DJ and rapper. As such, I get by without any detailed planning. On arrival in Studio MOO4, I feel shaky and wrong footed. This is the room where I worked on so many sessions in the past as second fiddle to Yoda, Mixmaster General, Mike, Mate, Nick Waterfall. All of whom have moved on, and somehow now I find myself increasingly entrusted to sit in that big old chair. Just how on earth did that happen.

Fast forward a month to Nick’s funeral and I’m chatting with Mike, who has now retired.

“How’s it going Pop?” he asks.

“Great!” I said. “Doing loads of stuff.  Feel a bit in the deep end, mind, I have had a bit of a kick up the bottom of late.  No-one to hide behind any more, everyone has left!  No you, no Paul, no Yoda, no Rupert, no Quincey, no Mixmaster General, none of the Squared Off Audio lot, no Mate, no Nick. Just Jamie, Eusebio, Guy, Ian and a few others.”  

“I know exactly what you mean” replies Mike.  “I was like you.  Quite happy ticking along as a number two, and then suddenly one day I looked around me and said to myself “CRIKEY!  WHERE HAVE ALL THE OLD BLOKES GONE??!!!”

Back to Maid of Orleans today. I’m happy that Mad Dog and Guy are both in the building, meaning that I can take the time to step out and talk to them.  Rather than just plough on for hours at a time, as is so often the case these days.  When I say the session is ‘simple’, what I really mean is that it involves a visit to the famous valuable-equipment-repository-cum-graveyard that is Room 101. ‘Curated’ by your good friend and mine, half-man-half-rucksack Roger Andrews.  He’s not here today but I’ve received a MIDI message with the various information codes and keys required to get through the various levels of the game.

The equipment is rigged.  The performers perform.  Sounds are recorded.  The session moves towards a close to the image of me soloing the vocal channel on the mixing desk, whilst Jack pores over a set of the lyrics in French.  Our goal is to try to work out which of the words are just in French, and which ones of them are in French French.  If you know what I mean.  With the help of the radio plugger and Bamboozle Translate, we are empowered to hack out the unwanted profanity with a virtual razor blade. 

Mission accomplished, I set off on my journey home.  I decide to give Mate a quick call on the way to the tube.  He picks up.  Mate is sad.  He says he wasn’t able to get hold of Nick on the recent occasions he had tried to contact him.  It’s during this conversation that I start to feel the burden of remorse, and the acuteness of Nick’s loneliness living alone during lockdown.

On the train home, I take the opportunity to catch up on the outpouring of grief-stricken accolades on various friends’ InterFace pages. I can’t seem to stop Nick’s voice from resonating around my head. I scour my mind for memories.

I was lucky enough to work with Mr Waterfall on many a session.  A few of them really stick in my mind, not least the final session to take place in The Lounge at Ye Olde House before it was closed.  Of course, having special staying powers, The Lounge is reincarnated as The Lounge at the top of The Mothership.  During the virus, The Lounge is moved to the spacious Grand Hall, albeit as prerecorded tracks packaged up to be played out later.  This approach is quite a dead one for a strand that thrives on the magic of all the elements coming together in one moment.  Thankfully, when things return to new-normal, The Lounge gets back to the Top of the Mother again and is reincarnated once more.  It’s like a cat, all those lives. 

I think about Nick mixing in strange spaces with lashed up equipment using video monitors for stage surveillance and lengths of fibre to carry the audio. Even coping with mixing on monitors rigged behind him (rear-fields). It was on these kind of gigs (usually Roger Andrews specials) that Nick truly excelled. He would pitch up in his trade mark faded black polo shirt and faded black trousers carrying a special briefcase containing some awesome vintage compressor with settings like “Thwack’ and “Slam!”. I feel grateful for all the times he made little suggestions about EQ corrections, or would run off to the engineers’ store to borrow a case of bug microphones, which he would proceed to tape on to the target instrument with great care. No matter what the kit was, he made it sound lovely. “That’s why he was such a great engineer”, says Patrick. “Just good old-fashioned right judgement”.

Mr Waterfall was one of life’s independent thinkers and a craftsman. To work with, he was always kind and helpful and bursting with ideas about how to make something sound just a little bit better. Musical and golden-eared. Impeccably polite to all. Except for in the pub, when the other side of him would tend be showcased. A dark sense of humour, angry undercurrents and a love of telling long stories. His shoulders were the type that would rise and fall when he laughed. He was as British as can be, with lots of eccentricities.

For example, many years ago, Nick had taken the decision, that the hassle of regular hair maintenance could be efficiently dealt with in the form of an annual haircut which took place annually at Christmas. Christmas, in our part of the Corporation, of course being celebrated every year in June at Mudstock Festival. He would get a buzz cut and look all feisty and punk rock, then gradually spend the year turning into a prog rock wizard, then the cycle would repeat.

Fast forward to arrangements for Nick’s Funeral.  There is some chat on Yoda’s InterSpace Group.

Friend 1: “One more question.  Is there a dress code for tomorrow?”

Friend 2: “When would Nick EVER want a dress code?”

Friend 3: “Stage blacks?”

Friend 4: “Bumbags”

etc.

I think about the evening of Nick’s final day working for The Corporation. It was in the height of the first lockdown, at the point where our team Friday night online social Room meets are at their crazy best. I have a conversation via text message with Nick in which I try to get him to join the call.

“Hi Nick, here is the link to get onto our Room meeting tonight.  Just click on it and join in the fun.”

“Hi Pop.  I’m afraid I have no internet at home and I can’t join on my phone.  Make sure you all have a laugh at my expense that my old Blokia 3310 with the original ‘Yellow’ logo on it has just realised that the future is not so bright after all!”

“Ha ha.  Hang on!  I just realised you can dial in to join the meeting.  Call this number…”

And he did, and spent hours on the phone with a load of friends on a Room meeting, telling stories into the night.  The last time many of us spoke to him.

And I think of him now, sitting quietly in the control room of heaven or hell or wherever it is he hangs out in the world beyond.  The bright green gain reduction lights of his analogue outboard compressors dancing all around him. Listening intently, with his wispy hair falling onto the collar of his faded black polo shirt, his head cocked. He leans forward, takes out some lower-mids, pushes the voice of god/satan a little more into the compressor, and adds just a touch more reverb.