Sofa Sound
Random Hold
I produced an album by Random Hold in 1979. They were an outstanding
group and I commend "The View from Here" to you without reservation. In
addition to live tracks this CD contains the full double album in its
original form...in my view the only way in which the set of recordings
makes sense. This is really fine, invigorating and life-affirming work.
There remains, though, an unease between some members of the group and
myself about the way things finally went. You will find this
graphically expressed between every line referring to me in the history
of the group as presented by Bill MacCormick on their homepage. These
are old wounds which I cannot hope to heal. Nor can I justify myself or
my actions at the time save by reference to the finished work.
All I can say is that I was doing my level best to present the Vision
of Random Hold in a finished form, on budget and in full effect. It's
true that ultimately this involved a degree of dictatorial behaviour on
my part. I had no agenda other than to get the work done on their
behalf and to keep the rest of The Biz off their backs.
It remains a matter of some regret to me that Random Hold did not have
greater success and go on to make other recordings, from which,
perhaps, production comparisons could have been drawn with my own work.
Apart from the above, I won't bitch. My contribution to the Random Hold
recordings was, finally, to get the work finished in something
approaching its intended form. I emphatically believe I did so. It also
remains my belief that any other producer (including and maybe
especially PG, Bill) would have struggled to do so.
I speak as one whose fingernails remain somewhat ragged from the
experience.
Maybe I'll come back to this later....
Meanwhile, believe me, the record's really good.
It's been pointed out to me that the link below is now broken. I'm sure
you'll be able to find the relevant page with just a little bit of
googling but since it continues to contain the slightly toxic and
emphatically one-eyed version of events which Bill originally presented
there, in spite of the fact that various personal rapprochements have
been made, various explanations explored over the years, I'm now
reluctant to do a direct point from here. I'm still a fan the record
and have deep fondness for all the players in the psychodrama,
including Bill, who I now believe was the hardest done by of all - but
not, particularly, by me.
And you can go to the RH history here.