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...to quote Ottawan!
I've built several mixers over the years, but most recently I've been using a commercial one from Clacton Electronics.
Whilst at Southampton University I helped run the so-called Progressive Music Society - yeah, prog-rock. In its first few months we held musical (records) evenings, using my twin-decks and tone-arms built by none other than John Watkinson! As a spin-off, some Saturday evenings in one of the quiet rooms there were 'Stereo-tek' sessions. Somewhere I have a trailer for these, plugging Neil Williams and myself as well as two other. Some of these Stereo-teks were run by John Peel and he used the passive stereo mixer I built. What a crude affair that was: two hardboard panels made up prism-shaped.
Moving on to Essex University, I often ran the discos supporting the rock-bands including a fund-raising event for URE. This was during the power-cuts of 1972 (??) so Rick Jenkins built us an emergency mains supply run off the two batteries that belonged in an ex-Essex ambulance I used to own.
At about the same time I built a disco mixer for Graham Wade of Cloud-9 disco and did a gig at Colchester's Affair Club with Pete ('Haps') Johnson.
Meanwhile, back in the early '70s, when I was Chairman of the Students' Council (fore-runner of the President of the Students' Union), there was a festival of music and arts at the University. One Saturday (I think) there was due to be a tea-on-the-lawn concert to the sounds of the Essex Police Band. However, some trouble was feared so the band stayed away. Not wanting to disappoint the crowds, and having a collection of old 78 rpm records with me at the time, we ran a 78s disco. Lots of people requested particular tracks and I made all the announcements using an old-fashioned megaphone from Jak's in Colchester. A splendid time was had by all!
Around the same time I did a couple of discos for the sailing club at Brightlingsea. Some of my university mates were members so I was more than happy to ablige.
My most recent disco was for the 60th birthday of one of the regulars at a pub in Dedham called The Lamb. I concentrated on the hits and dance music of the '60s and '70s. "It's fun to stay at the Y . M . C . A . ...."
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