‎RIGHT SAID FRED

‎Dead Fred, keyboard player in Hawkwind, Inner City Unit, The Pompatours, Krankshaft, Bob Calvert, Barney Bubbles etc. has opened his tape archives for Gonzo to generate a series of new releases. Gonzo Grande Fromage - Rob Ayling, looked on gobsmacked as tape after tape of unreleased material (both, live and studio) was discovered as Fred went through his tape vault of unreleased jewels. Rob said afterwards, "I am just astonished by the sheer volume of unreleased material. Given the majority comes from the 80's I would of thought the likes of Cherry Red / Atomhenge, would of issued this material, but it transpired they are not aware of its existence. In fact no one really was / is". Fred would pull out a tape and say things like, "That's Bob's (Calvert’s) handwriting, I haven't played this one since the day he gave it to me". Or, "I remember that mix, it was far better than what went out" and so on. In the next few months, John Hughes is going work on pulling the gems out of the tapes, which are spread across many formats. From cassette to 15 ips 1/4" to Umatic to Betamax. Each format represents a challenge but the Gonzo audio restoration team are always up for a challenge.

In closing Rob summed things up as, "it's rare to find such an amazing archive that at least something has sneaked out on the bootleg market from, this collection is pristine not only that hardly anyone beyond the bands have heard it, it is as close as possible to source material and is totally unique in what is in there and it provides an invaluable window into what has going on in the studio / live at a time when the record companies were been very conservative in what they issued".