Tim Robinson

Mark Gillespie Demo Recording

The story Behind Mark Gillespie.

Mark Gillespie emerged in Melbourne’s ‘70s theatrical Carlton scene, alongside Paul Kelly, Joe Camilleri, Eric Gradman, Ross Wilson and Stephen Cummings. Much of Marks music has been documented since he released his first LP record, but this article covers a little bit of the pre-history of Marks songwriting career and the recording that got him started on his journey to bigger and better things. I have included some links to other sites that cover in detail some of the later activities and recordings Mark has made since.

Mark also surrounded himself with names such as Daddy Cool’s Ross Hannaford and Mark Meyer. Singer-songwriter and bass player Joe Creighton did backing vocals and helped with arrangements.

Mark Gillespie Photo Credit: Jacqueline Mitelman.

In the years before releasing his first album, Mark needed a demonstration tape to promote himself and to try and get a record deal if possible.

It was Peter Tammer [a local filmmaker] who first recognised Marks musical potential. I had done some recordings for Peter which involved recording sound for some of his films, including "Mallacoota Stampede", which used the song "Strutton the Mutton".

Peter came to me one day and said there was a musician he wanted to record, as He thought he had a lot of talent and could go far. He undertook to pay for the recording of a demo tape of selected songs that Mark had written. I agreed to a mates rate for the initial recording and donated my additional time to complete the demo tape after hearing the songs.

This recording may not have happened if not for Peter Tammer.

Swinburne Union Nights - A bit of pre-history.

Union nights were run by the Swinburne Student Union. This was a monthly event usually held on a Friday.

Rock bands were in the cafeteria area, and Films in the Ethel Swinburne Center at the ground floor level. There was also folk and blues on the top level.

Mighty Kong [Big amplifiers] , Daddy Cool [best live sound mix] and Spectrum were some of the bands that played at these gigs during the early 1970's.

By 1974 I was employed by Melbourne State College [formerly Melbourne Teachers College] as recording Engineer in the [then] new music Department. I was responsible for setting up the Electronic Music Studio, which already had a Synthi VCS 3 Synthesizer [as used on Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon"]. These formed part of the EMS [Electronic Music Studio] which also included a 'Mini Moog' synth, and later a number of Roland System 100 series synths and sequencers. These were all 'analogue' synths. A Mini Moog synth was used on one of the recordings demo tracks [Strutton the Mutton].

Two VCS3 synthesizers at the Melbourne State College.

The Recording

The recording was completed in one day, going on to late in the night [until about 1.00am as I remember!]. I saw many musicians coming and going over the duration of the recording, all friends of Marks who came along to help him.

There was another mixing session following a few days afterwards.

That final mix was done with Mark and myself .

Equipment consisted of a Sony 4 track on 1/4" tape recorder for mastering and a Revox A700 2 track on 1/4" tape which the master mix tape was recorded.This was considered state of the art equipment at the time and the resulting mater tape could have been used to produce 7" singles or even LP records.

The mixer was custom built [see below] to a professional specification and was used for both the recording and mixing process. I designed and built this unit over a number of months as there was no suitable equipment available at the time which the Melbourne State College music department could afford. It would be some years before commercial mixers would be available which could do this job at a reasonable price!

The custom built mixer used to produce the demo.

Mark went on his way once the final mix had been completed, with a number of cassettes to give to people which had expressed interest in his work.

It was only many years later when I was digitising a number of old tapes from those years that the original master tape was rediscovered in a random pile. It was still in playable condition and the quality of the original recording was apparent. As the main release was on cassette at the time, the quality was not nearly as good as the original reel to reel master tape. I hope anyone listening to this recording today can see how good the original recording was and the similarity to Marks subsequent work which was released on vynal LP disk.

Only when looking back do you realise the impact on your life of the times you were living in. It all seemed so 'normal', this is what everybody was doing, it did not seem out of touch at all. The energy in the live music at the time reflected the times, and the variety of styles meant there was a musical niche that most people could find that suited them.

The final track list for the demo tape was:

Black Angels

Black Stallion

Goin' out of My Brain *

Strutton the Mutton

The Jokes on You

* Late night recording! Getting tired by this stage but the 'feel' is great.

There were some other tracks recorded but Mark did not consider them good enough for the demo.

MARK GILLESPIE DISCOGRAPHY

Only Human, 1980

Sweet Nothing, 1982

Ring of Truth, 1983

Flame, 1982

Plus:

Demo Cassette, [5 tracks] 1975 [ish?]

Debutantes (two tracks), 1977

Black Tape (cassette), 1978

Sadly, Mark passed away in November 2021, but his music remains with us. You can read more about his background here:

https://rhythms.com.au/mark-gillespie-r-i-p/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Gillespie_(Australian_musician)

If you have any feedback or know of any musicians that took part in this recording, or any additional information that might be relevant, I would like to hear from you. Please use the email form on this web site to make initial contact and I will get back to you.