Mellotronists

O.k. o.k.: Mellotron maintenance isn't his thing. But I think he
has written a fair amount of fine music. As always, musical
tastes may differ, sure.

>
> They are afwul
>

If you mean their music, o.k. Everybody's free to hold a opinion
on that. But as individuals, I think they are one of the easiest
musicians to deal with. Very 'down-to-earth' and accessible for
their audience.

BTW they have a new drummer: http://www.andyedwardsmusic.com/

As a result of this thread I went to the attick to find this old
(1993) interview I remembered. And I found it.

I was very surprised to see how passionate he seems to talk about
Mellotrons then.

"To me the Mellotron was irreplacable"

Q: "Do you also use it on stage ?"
A: "Always"

"The Mellotron is a cult instrument"

"Nothing has ever appeared on the market that sounded like a
 Mellotron and as long as I can have it vaguely play the notes
 I want I will always keep using it"

But also Tronbros' remark regarding lack of maintenance becomes 
clear. The tron was bought for 250 Pounds. It has been re-painted
twice: first white, then black. The intense touring brought it in
a sorry state.

"After a while the interior looks afwul [...] On the bottom all
 sorts of things are compiling: beer, dust, cigarettes, dead flies,
 tea bags, old socks etc."

"One day I decided to give it a good cleaning job. After removing
 the bigger parts, I vacuumed the unit. While doing that I got a
 phone call. While answering the phone I saw these three tapes
 disappear in the vacuum cleaner. I took the tapes out of the
 dustbag and ironed them flat again."

Some other interesting things:
------------------------------

"It's not a regular 1/4" tape but rather an oversized 3/8" tape.
 Unique supplier was Fergold String Electronics. He used to have
 his workshop in his garage. You could send him your old tape set
 and he returned a new set for you"

"When we recorded 'The Last Human Gateway', the "D" tape
 malfunctioned. When playing the intro I had to skip the "D".
 After that we ran the recording tape at a different speed and I
 added the lacking notes."

"When we were recording 'Are You Sitting Comfortaly ?' with Terry
 Brown, we lugged the beast into the studio and Terry fell off his
 chair laughing, he couldn't believe his eyes. He looked at this
 fridge of tapes and said: 'There is no fucking way this is going
 on the album' ".