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40th Anniversary: ‘Too Cut A Long Story Short - Forty Years On by Richard Burgess

Sat, October 31, 2020

Forty Years On…

It’s impossible that forty years have passed since I was in Trident and Jam studios in London with Spandau Ballet but to make a very long story short, my longtime friend, Rusty Egan, called and told me I had to come to the Blitz Club one Tuesday night. I had no idea. Walking through the door of 4 Great Queen St, changed the course of my life. The music Rusty played was a revolutionary mix of European electronic music including recontextualizations of some of my own group, Landscape’s music. Like the music, the fashion was new, street, and exciting.

A couple of weeks later some people I had been chatting with at the bar suddenly got up on the dancefloor and played a set. Stunning. It was a new sound, a new look, and new classic torch songs. I had been in the studio finishing up the Landscape album, From the Tearooms of Mars… I mentioned that to Gary (Kemp). He wanted to hear some, so we sat in my car perched half on the curb in front of The Blitz, while I played him a few roughs. I didn’t give it much thought until a couple of days later when I got a call from Steve Dagger to see if I might be interested in producing the band.

Oh yes! Most definitely!

In no time, the buzz on the band grew to a roar. We recorded a Peter Powell Radio One session, at Maida Vale Studios. Labels were at a fever pitch trying to sign the group. They were so hot that we recorded the first single, “To Cut A Long Story Short,” without knowing which label would pay the bill. I have never seen that happen before or since. Chrysalis claimed the prize and after a long night of mixing and a scant few hours sleeping on Gary’s floor in Islington, we drove into Stratford Place to play it for the team. Barely days later, it was on the air and climbing the charts.

Most 45 rpm singles had another song on side two. Gary thought we might try a remix for the flipside. The track had strong up-tempo dance elements. We bounced influences and preferences around and Gary reflected on the Jamaican dub reggae mixes: the pioneering sixties and seventies work of King Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry. Tubby and Perry were not working with high technology in Jamaica and our trick-bag was still light even as the eighties dawned. Drum machines, samplers, and digital audio workstations were a futuristic dream. We were limited to repeat echo, reverb, overdubs, mixing breakdown pieces, and tape editing. There was no attempt to emulate the reggae forefathers, but we tipped our hat to their inspiration by subtitling the B side, “Version.”

Spandau Ballet was born of the burgeoning London club scene. Their beginnings begged for longer club DJ versions, so we remixed every single from the album for 12” vinyl. Then, when Journeys to Glory was complete, at the band’s behest, I remixed the entire album again into new club versions for a groundbreaking box set of twelve inches. We stretched our limited technology beyond the max. To my knowledge this was a first outside of the Jamaican reggae scene. We could almost feel the impact reverberating out of clubs around the world and these mixes along with Spandau Ballet’s epic talent, undoubtedly paved the way for their triumphant trip to New York City shortly after that.


Richard James Burgess

October 2020, New York City

(Photo: Neil Mackenzie Matthews  / www.instagram.com/nellymacmat/)

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‘Too Cut A Long Story Short’ 40th Anniversary 12” vinyl is available to pre-order here.

‘Too Cut A Long Story Short’ 40th Anniversary release is available to stream here, now.