SESSION shenanigans
The studio guitarist’s guide to happiness and personal fulfilment, as related to us by session legend Mitch Dalton. This month our hero gets to be James Bond – sort of.
The Music Business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.” (Hunter S Thompson)
I know what you’re thinking. Grotesque exaggeration? Overegged pud? Nah. The guy goes nowhere near far enough with his timorous, ineffectual analysis. In reality, it’s a wonder we’re not all heavily sedated and strapped into our chairs behind high-walled accommodation. By way of proof, here is October’s choice tidbit from the bizarre world of the unpredictable, the unavoidable and, to be fair, the unplayable.
It so happens that a few years back I had my name inscribed in microscopic type in the Bond Movie Roll Of Honour. The nice Mr David Arnold inherited the composing gig from the sadly departed Mr John Barry and, in turn, he inherited me. Please don’t ask me the names of the specific celluloid capers in which I participated. All I can tell you is that they were the ones with the interchangeable permutations of titles like Die Tomorrow Night, Another Day Is Enough, The World Has Died Today, and on.
And jolly good fun it was too. I got to play some damn fine orchestrations, some gorgeous Spanish guitar Music-To-DisrobeTo, plus a fair hunk of the iconic (aargh - I promised myself never to use that word in impolite company again) “Dah de-de-de de, da da da...” On a ‘62 Strat with heavy gauge strings, since you don’t ask. All of which segues, if I may be permitted to test a musical term to destruction, into an invitation to The Royal Albert Hall for three days of Casino Royale in concert. By which I mean this new-fangled (yet eerily old-fangled) notion of an orchestra performing the score live to picture. I’m sure Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and even Daniel Craig himself would have heartily approved of the giant screen, the digitised cinematic detail and the symphonic sweep of sound.
Suitably primed with upbeat anticipation and major sleep deprivation, I left fashionable Hertfordshire shortly after the signing of Magna Carta and set off for SW19 rehearsal studios (all clues neatly embedded in the title), primed for a day of gridlock, groove and Bond girls. Hey, a man can dream, right? After a polystyrene cup of economy coffee and a value biscuit had rapidly revised my expectations of the day ahead, I approached the folder marked “Guitar” with the usual combination of optimism and fear. On this occasion all was not quite as anticipated. My elegantly bound booklet was packed choc full of cues, their relevant tempi and key signatures, and enough miscellaneous info to bring joy to the music preparation anorak in us all. And to be fair, the opening credits clearly required my services. Then, after about an hour of long-term underemployment, I noticed an instruction to play three separate bars of semiquavers utilising the note B with the famous Fender vibrato effect. And that was pretty much that. The interval followed shortly thereafter and, after an invaluable break for refreshment, the second half was upon us. An Entr’acte followed, presumably commissioned for the occasion and demanding my full attention, albeit briefly, before I found myself reverting to the day’s metaphorical standby switch.
There were but two further notes to pluck and perfect (a quaver and an adjacent semibreve, to be specific). These forced me to snap out of a coma of increasing depth with only milliseconds to spare and attend to the matter in hand. Once that obstacle had been overcome, and with some panache if I may say so, I was left to my own devices for another hour or so while looking forward enthusiastically to the closing credits.
At this point I deduced that my presence on this glittering occasion had all along been concerned mainly with executing The James Bond Theme at the death (so to speak), and in the style that I had been employed to reproduce on the soundtrack sessions themselves.
As it happened, I also noticed a Fender Twin Reverb and Gibson ES-135 parked nonchalantly adjacent to my backline... and Mr David Arnold headed my way.
“Hi Mitch. Did anyone mention that the production team thought it would be fun if I played the 007 Theme at the end? I’ll creep on to the stage dressed in a Bond-alike tuxedo and give it the full treatment from the front. We think the audience will love it. Is that Okay?”
And that, gentle reader, is exactly what happened. The following day I sat through a dress rehearsal and two performances at the iconic (aargh!) venue. And then once more the day after that. I sat in the same chair and was prodded with a considerate colleague’s double bass bow at the same vital moments before each of my meagre contributions. Imagine a very long intercontinental plane journey. With a loo visit allowed every three hours. Where they show the same film repeatedly all through the flight. But behind you. Where they run out of sandwiches two hours in.
But where they pay you. So, fair enough. Best to take the money and er... fly.
“They also serve who only stand and wait”. (John Milton, Sonnet 19, 1673). Although I believe he played mostly acoustic guitar.
I waS proddEd by a coNSIdEratE collEaguE’S doublE baSS bow bEForE Each oF my mEagrE coNtrIbutIoNS