School of Music

Fancy that! M-J gets the Abbey habit

Her group seize chance to record at famed Beatles hang-out

A Popular and World Musics student has grabbed the opportunity to record with her band at the most famous studio of all - Abbey Road in London - a venue that lent its name to one of the Beatles' most celebrated albums.

Second year Mary-Jane Latimer, a member of the group the Fancy Dress Party, was given the chance through music connections close to home In Essex.

In April, the group laid down a single, entitled 'Grandfather', in Abbey Road's Studio 3 and M-J, as she is known, is just thrilled to had the door opened to a great record business institution.

She explains how the recording break arose. 'A few years ago my band befriended another local band in called Cathouse. The lead singer of this band, Christian Wright, has been a mastering engineer at Abbey Road for the last 10 years or so.'

When Christian flagged up that there was some downtime in the studio that the Fancy Dress Party could utilise, they certainly didn't need any persuading to fill the gap.

As M-J remarks: 'This was a massive privilege for us as a band as we are really just used to playing in pubs, often going unpaid, and as half of our band are away at university, we can only record, practise and perform in the holidays. We never thought we would record in the same place as Radiohead and the Beatles, especially for free!'

'The room we recorded in was a more modern than the others and was extremely cosy and inviting. There was even a kind of apartment upstairs in our studio - with a kitchen, living room and massive TV and a shower cum bathroom,' she says.

So what's next for the band? 'If this all works out, we should also be filming a music video to go with this song and will hopefully release the single in August. The plan is to have a launch party gig around that time.'

 

Date Published: 01 Xxxx 20xx
Keywords: Xxxxx, xxxx & xxxx