Here's Where The Story Starts Podcast

I have been working behind the scenes on the next part of the Away from The Noise project and here it is.

Episode one of the Here’s Where The Story Starts podcast, where I talk to the people behind the records, and explore the stories behind the music we grew up with.

I recently sat down with George Shilling, who has worked on Soup Dragons’ ‘I’m Free’, Coldcut’s ‘Payback Mix’, all three of Bernard Butler’s solo albums and has also just remastered The Mission’s first three albums and The Sound of McAlmont & Butler for Demon Records, among many other projects.

George walks through how a letter-writing teenager with a reel-to-reel tape machine ended up in the room for the Sisters of Mercy’s first album, and what he learned from every studio after that. We also get into the mystery of mastering, what it actually is, what a mastering engineer does, and why it can make such a difference to the records we know and love. Along the way there are plenty of stories from 30-ish years as a sound engineer and mastering engineer in the music industry.

In this episode:

00:00 Introduction

00:13 George’s musical background

04:23 George’s early studio career, Sisters of Mercy, Coldcut & James Brown

12:31 The Soup Dragons

14:25 Bernard Butler, Teenage Fanclub & Liam Gallagher

17:14 Working with Bernard Butler

23:46 McAlmont & Butler

27:01 My Life Story

29:32 What is mastering?

34:44 The Mission remastering & Demon Records

37:58 Sundae Club

40:36 Close

If you enjoyed this, subscribe here on Substack, and the podcast will be coming to Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all other podcast providers shortly.

Links

George Shilling’s mastering credits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Shilling#Mastering_credits

George’s websitewww.georgeshilling.com

The Mission reissues on Demon Records https://www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk/the-mission-fan-editions/

McAlmont & Butler ‘Sound of McAlmont & Butler’ reissue - out now https://www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk/catalogue/releases/the-sound-of-mcalmont-butler-2lp-green-blue-vinyl-signed-edition/

Away From The NoiseWebsite https://awayfromthenoise.com/TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@iamawayfromthenoiseInstagram https://www.instagram.com/iamawayfromthenoise/

Sundae Club & Carmelo Alfano ‘Is This You?’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4dH5vTrZ0