On Saturday, March 6, 2004, at 10:10 am, Ignacio Nieto Carvajal wrote:
>
> Um... you are right, in the 60's they must cost much much more :-$. So
> you are not THAT old, jejeje. But in 1988 getting a working mellotron
> must have been a complete adventure.
You're right!
My first one was scruffy but worked reasonably well. I bought it at a
shop called the Music & Hi-Fi Exchange in Kentish Town Road in North
London for £120. I then saw an advert for a (badly!!) restored 'Tron
once owned by Manfred Mann's Earthband for £400. This one came with a
couple of frames with sax sounds as well as the standard frame, so I
sold my original for what I paid for it and thought I'd done well! The
second machine never really worked very well, and one tape was missing
in the standard frame.
As Martinge will testify, a couple of years of high interest rates at
the bank and ill health meant that needed to sell my second 'Tron in
around 1990 to pay a mortgage payment on my house.
Ouch...... Les Bradley and Martin bought it (telling me I was mad to
sell it!!) and that machine was later restored (PROPERLY!) and became
the main Mellotron featured on the "Rime" album.
I always kept in touch with Martin, and much later, after years of
Tronless existence, a night at a Julian Cope gig inspired me to bite
the bullet and buy a fab restored Streetly machine (viewable on the
'pics' page of
http://www.technostalgia.org ) Very lovely and now part
of the family!!
You'll have a lifetime of fun with yours!!
C
http://www.s-club.co.uk Sundae Club∗
[there ain't no party]