And so once more to the darkling halls of the British
Broadcasting Corporation, wherein Songs from The Blue House are to record a
number of songs in our radio-friendly light East Angliacana style for broadcast
on Radio Suffolk’s drive time programme. It is a credit to the organisation
that in these straitened times they continue to invest as much time and
resource in promulgating new and original music as they do, and it is probably
more a reflection on us and our arbitrary approach to the unique way in which
they are funded that on this occasion we have chosen to record a version of
Judas Priest’s Breaking the Law.
Thematically, the song fits in with our repertoire of
slightly peeved protest material (A Land of Make Believe and My Boy from the
album IV on this occasion) and I for one have certainly always wondered if the
signature intro riff wouldn’t have sounded better on flute and octave mandola
in the first place. There are many reasons to look fondly on Judas Priest and Breaking
the Law. For a start, the hilarious video is victim of one of the worst
storyboards ever committed to paper (step forward, Julien Temple) secondly,
singer Rob Halford persuaded an entire generation of NWOBHMers that spandex,
leather, studs and a jaunty bikers’ cap were an acceptable look for regular
casual wear, which is a hell of a trick in anyone’s book. Let us not forget
also that in an age of such nom-de-guerres as Steve Zodiac, Biff Byford and Thunderstick
the band sported a drummer called Les Binks. Look, when they got booked for Live Aid
they decided to play a Fleetwood Mac cover. You didn’t get that with Kenny Loggins.
In a spooky high
Priestesque quasi-coincidence we, also, have been involved in a back-masking
controversy as the last time we came in to do a radio session we performed a
still-nascent version of My Boy to which the shadowy figures whom affable
studio engineer Dave Butcher refers to only as “the technical guys” applied a
technique which reversed the word ‘pissing’ so as to make it appear
unintelligible, or at least not quite as obvious as the one Chumbawumba got away with
so blatantly and for so long. In response we suggest that on this occasion Our Glorious Leader
James simply sing it backwards to begin with.
We try the song a couple of times and on the third run
through everyone mostly gets their parts right, including a lovely sinuous bass
run by Gibbon during the bridge part of the song which may help distract the good commuting folk of Ipswich from my "You don't know what it's like!" vocal interjection. We’re all relatively happy and
lay down our various instruments. Butch appears through the snugly fitting
studio (or, more accurately, fuse box and switch room) door. “It’s always a
pleasure” he begins, before adding with perfect comic timing “…when you leave”.
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