TAPE HEAD // Ferric Particle Trails
Artefacts from the DD Archive
ENTRY #002: MIDNIGHT BLUE
MIDNIGHT Blue were something of an anomaly even at the time they were active – which was 1986 – as they were purely a recording project, and never a ‘going concern’ as a live band, who would rehearse regularly for gigs on the local circuit, and hopefully, beyond.
Unusually again, they were made up of three musical brothers who all shared the surname Burrow, and lined-up as Justin (keyboards & guitar), Judd (bass) and Mat (drums), along with non-family member, but close friend and lead vocalist, Dave Parry.
Like most bands of the time, they headed up to Linden Sounds in Shap to capture their original material, but rather than laying down as many, essentially ‘demo’ tracks as they could in the precious allotted studio time (only around 8 to 10 hrs.), they, instead chose to focus on just one song per visit.
Their first trip was on Saturday 17th May 1986, and the next day, I can remember Justin coming round to my house (or more likely, I had to go to his) and handing me one of the raw cassette copies, and even the blank self-adhesive Linden Sounds tape stickers as well.
So, it came with no information, not even the song title, and after listening to it a couple of times, I had to make an executive decision, and judging by the lyrics I was hearing from my hi-fi, I reckoned it must be called ‘I’m Touching The Night’.
I duly typed up the label, affixed it to the cassette, and then began writing a little piece about it for the ‘Talk Music’ column which I was writing at the time, on a weekly basis, for The Advertiser newspaper. I would later learn that the song was in fact just called, ‘The Night’.
Musically, the bands’ style was probably best described as recognisably, and unashamedly, mid-80s Atlantic-leaning melodic soft rock, with a definite emphasis on catchy, pop-fuelled sing-along choruses, big reverb-fuelled drum sounds, soaring lead singing and multi-layered backing vocals.
Nowadays, columnists and broadcasters like perky ex-The Word presenter Katie Puckrik, cheekily, but lovingly, refer to this type of music as ‘Yacht Rock’ – but that’s another story, for another day, I fear.
Two more all day sessions at Shap ensued that year – Sat.5th.July for ‘Be With You’, which, in a similar fashion to ‘The Night’, I had transcribed at the time as ‘Being With You’ – and Sun.5th.Oct for ‘You Can’t Rely On Love’, which even I couldn’t misinterpret.
Following on from the last session, the whole band paid a visit to BBC Radio Furness, on the corner of Hartington Street, for a live interview on Sat.25th.October. This went out on the regular Saturday South Show, with seasoned presenter Ron Duxbury interviewing the band, and playing all of the three tracks recorded at Linden Sounds.
Following that, nothing more was heard from Midnight Blue.
But, hey – that was the 1980s, and obviously, nothing like that could ever happen now – could it? After midnight, well, you never can tell.
-David Duffin-