John Robb of the Membranes

Cargo was the first studio I ever went to and we did a night session to record a track called ‘Ice Age’ for a compilation EP of Blackpool bands that we put out. It was an all night session and I remember some of the band having difficulty staying up all night, me and the drummer went for a walk round Rochdale as the dawn broke, it actually looked quite pleasant round the town hall! From the start we fell in love with the studio and used it for nearly everything we did, and when we went really noisy it was perfect, John brierley was a brilliant producer, we wanted a wall of sound for ‘Spike Milligans Tape recorder’ which we had half got in section 25’s rehearsal room in blackpool which was a huge echoey room, we took the rehearsal cassette to John and said we want that but louder and bigger- a punk rock spector wall of sound that sounds like avalanche of noise- he got us that, perfectly, the record sounds astonishing to this day…the shrill beginning of the treble guitar then the million decibel volume jump when the bass comes in- it caught everyone out!

We used John for our next record the ‘Death To trad Rock EP” which was completely over the top, perhaps the nosiest most deranged record ever recorded! (Check it out- I’m not bluffing!) it destroyed John’s ears and he had to retire from studio work!

The whole sound of that live room was amazing and when you opened the back door you could put a mic on the roof for serious ambient weirdness- that was what was great about that place- you could do what the fuck you liked- just look at all the groups who went through there – the most important single studio in post punk…

I also remember the san remo cafe down the road and must have been going in there for twenty odd years as I would use Suite 16 for producing bands – the staff like the sandwiches never changed! the two Italian brothers and the school girl who worked behind the counter who gradually became a grown up – it was like some weird time lapse experience…the club across the road where all the drunken hordes would come crashing out in the morning when you went out to get a breather – Xanadus I think it was called…

(Go to the Gallery page to see photos of the San Remo Cafe, the Galleon Pub, Tractor Music Shop, and the place where the Roma cafe used to be. I’m afraid Xanadus was demolished a few years ago now)