Nort from “the Surface Mutants”

Hello John, came across your site and it brought back some good memories…I was in a band from Sheffield, The Surface Mutants in 1980 and we came to Rochdale to record our first self financed single…Our singer Pete was a big Ian Curtis fan and I remember him insisting he stood in the exact spot where Ian had also stood to do his vocals…It was eerie as Pete had a deep dark voice very similar to Ian’s and the three songs we eventually recorded had a real bleak spacious sound that we loved…The band went onwards with later tracks produced by Cabaret Voltaire whom I went on to work with before joining the band Hula in 1983 and therefore enjoying 3 years of touring, recording and releasing on red rhino records, 3 John Peel sessions, supporting Depeche Mode on their Black Celebration tour and working with Daniel Miller from Mute records…I set up my own studio in Sheffield in 1987 and still run it today…i still have an old 16 channel soundcraft series 2 desks ,which from your pics looks like you had the 24 channel version…The eq on this desk is awesome…I think Colin Richardson was our engineer for the session and it was my first experience of a serious recording studio so thank you for what you did for us and all the other great music you produced…

Sadly we never came back to Cargo as a few studios in Sheffield had started to spring up and it was easier to get a bus to the studio..never the less you always remember your first time…glad it was at yours…cheers Nort.x.