Welcome to the first entry of my Studio Diary.

I realise it’s been a while since we had a new blog entry here, but this particular series of blog posts has been a long time in the making.

You see, my foray into the world of sound recording began in the summer of 1993 when, at the age of 15, I borrowed some microphones, various cables and a reel to reel tape unit from my grandfather, set up my own little bedroom recording studio, and began recording every little musical idea I had. Over the years, this grew into a mobile recording unit where I would record live shows, choirs, cathedral organ performances, and sessions for bands.

My set up was mostly mobile, because I never really had a dedicated space to record in, but this gave me the flexibility to allow musicians to choose where they felt they sounded best and recording in a way where the space brought its own character to the music. But I always had dreams of having an empty space I could move into, free to set up however I wanted.

Toward the end of 2007, I worked with a friend to help transform a small outbuilding into a rehearsal and recording studio that we aptly called The Shed, which was the first step I had come toward this dream. Some of the early seeds of Croydon Tourist Office stemmed from there, as this is where Lullaby and the original version of Johnny, Are You an Android were recorded. This is also the home of some of my favourite recording sessions with some Devon based bands, such as Jet Pack Men. Sadly, life gets in the way sometimes and The Shed fell into disuse.

When Epicentre opened, not only did I have a bookshop and cafe, but a performance space. It was there, during a writing workshop, that the idea of setting up Epicentre with microphones and recording the results was born, which is documented in our two Epicentre Nights albums. But while this yielded a lot of music, it wasn’t to last forever.

And all this is why I’m excited that work will begin on setting up this space tomorrow. I’ve spent most of this weekend clearing it out, sweeping it, getting covered in dust so that my hair became many shades lighter.

I’m setting up the space to the same specifications that we had used with The Shed, so the place will be soundproof and any loud noises from within shouldn’t leak out. The final result should be a roughly 5 metre by 3 metre space with an open plan, so I can set it up for music recordings, podcasts, and so much more.

I aim to continue to share updates here of the progress over the next few weeks and I hope to be able to announce some up coming recording sessions here. It’s been a long time since the good folk at the Croydon Tourist Office had a space to come together and record the results of an improv session.