Nick RobsonNick Robson — A brief History, April 2007

I was born on 14th January 1961 in East Ham, London, the son of a policeman and a bookkeeper. I have one older brother, Garry Robson. We moved when I was five years old to Ashford in Middlesex. Both Garry and I became friends with Gary Numan, at this time Gary Webb, although my brother was more in Gary’s age group, which at that age is deemed an important factor, so I was the baby of the gang, I guess. Although at the time, I kind of adopted Gary’s parents, Beryl and Tony, as my surrogate parents! They couldn’t get rid of me; I was like the orphan child that showed up each morning to be fed. To this day though, Beryl remains one of my favourite people in the world.

All of us went to St. Anne’s Primary School in Stanwell, which has since been demolished, then Gary went on to Ashford Grammar School, my brother Garry to Feltham Comprehensive and I went to Hampton Grammar School where I was sent home at the age of 11 for dying my hair silver. My brother Garry, incidentally, was responsible for drawing the ’shadow face’ logo that appeared on a lot of Numan merchandise.

One day at Gary’s house, I remember falling in love with a Rickenbacker semi-acoustic guitar that Gary had on loan from his uncle, Jess Lidyard. I then became besotted with a Gibson Les Paul Gold, bought some while after for Gary by his father, Tony. I vowed that one day I would own a Gibson Les Paul myself ’ strangely didn’t fulfil this ambition until 1996, when my wife bought me one for Christmas. I have four now but still can't play my guitars very well, though.

At this time, in around 1973, it was clear that Gary was going to succeed in music ’ he started changing the colour of his hair, using makeup and dressing pretty differently and the rest of us did pretty much the same. The one shop that we used to visit frequently in London, was Shelley’s, for shoes, and Kensington Market, where you could buy very different clothes that just weren’t available anywhere else.

We worshipped initially Marc Bolan & T.Rex and subsequently David Bowie, Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground and Roxy Music. Once we went to see a band called Mott The Hoople perform at Hammersmith Odeon, but they were blown off stage by the support act. They were called Queen and were soon to become very famous. I vaguely remember the first time that Gary performed in a band to an audience. I think it was in Stanwell Village Hall, close to where we all lived. I think the band was called Meanstreet and I seem to remember that they had a bass player who was the double of David Bowie. If my memory serves me well, his name was Henry Sabbini. To us then, the gig was very exciting, with a brilliant version of White Light, White Heat and Waiting For The Man.

It didn’t last long though, and Gary broke away to form Tubeway Army. At this point in time, my brother was becoming pretty accomplished as a sound engineer, and he and I found ourselves as occasional roadies for the band when they were performing at venues such as Dingwalls, Ronnie Scott’s and The Marquee, with Garry performing the sound mix on the desk. Soon, Gary was recording his first album, having put out Bombers and That’s Too Bad as singles. I remember attending some of these sessions, and hearing Jo The Waiter, a song that still remains one of my favourites of Gary’s. (I think the song was about a girl called Jo Casey that he dated at one point)

It was at this time that Gary and I started going to London clubs like The Blitz, Billy’s and Hell. It was just the best time to be part of the underground music thing that was going on between 1976 and 1980. For me, it was also time to start work, having left Brooklands College in Weybridge, where I studied languages. I found myself training to be a film editor, something that I knew nothing about ’ it just seemed like a good idea at the time. It turned out that it was a good idea. I didn’t realise it at the time, but this was the dawn of the video age and I was in at the beginning of it. I remember walking down D’Arblay Street one day, in 1979 I think, and seeing a poster for a weird looking act that was performing the following night at the 100 Club. I went along and was completely blown away by the performance. The guy was called Prince, and two years later, I was editing his video for Little Red Corvette.

At about this time, Gary had recorded Replicas. It was one of those albums that you just knew was going to be massive. I remember watching Gary use a Mini Moog at the studio in Soho where he was recording the album, and just being gobsmacked by the sound that came out. The same experience was to occur when I first heard a Polymoog and then later the Arp Odyssey. Replicas still sits in my top favourite albums of all time. Gary, Garry and I were all due to go on holiday to Greece in April 1979, when Gary received an invitation to appear on The Old Grey Whistle Test, and he obviously had to cancel his holiday with us. It was the best thing that ever happened, because only a few weeks later, he had his first number one single with Are Friends Electric? The rest is history.

Realising that I had better start earning some money myself, I threw myself headlong into my work. There was no money in the business at the time ’ I was earning ’22 a week, so while learning my trade, I worked through the nights in a petrol filling station so I could afford the train fare to Soho. By day, I worked as an editor, striking lucky one day, when I met two guys who were about to make their first promo for a relatively unknown band. The two guys were Andy Morahan and Matt Forrest, the latter to become a lifelong friend. Oddly enough, The Quick, the band for which we had made this first promo featured a musician called George MacFarlane, a guy I was to meet ten years later, through my brother, and write some songs together.

I started to build a good reputation as an editor. I was very lucky, working with many variously talented artists. I did a whole video album for The Pet Shop Boys called Television, videos for Grace Jones, five or six promos for The Human League, and about a dozen or so for George Michael, to name but a few. At the last count, I had cut about 200 videos.

At the same time, my own desire to write had not diminished, and after a bet with Gary (that I couldn’t write a song if I tried!), I decided to put a band together. The drummer was Terry Lee Miall, to depart soon after to join Adam & The Ants. Keyboards was Alex Godson, who later joined Patsy Kensit’s band, Eighth Wonder (I think!) and Andy Hale, who later became Sade’s keyboard player. Terry Lee was replaced on drums by Simon Kunz.

I did vocals and the songs were my ideas that were then generally written by Andy and myself. Gary liked what we were doing and I signed to Scratch Records, having done just one performance at The Whisky-A-Go-Go club in Soho. We put out one single, Stars, and recorded a follow up song, Boys, which was never released. It’s a long time ago now, but I think the main reason was that the record company went bust. Or maybe, they just didn’t like what I was doing. I can’t remember. Anyway, I had decided then, that I wasn’t terribly fond of the record industry and that I would concentrate on my own career as an editor.

I bought into my company in 1985, having squirreled away all the petrol station money I had earned, and developed my career. Throughout this period, I had lost regular contact with Gary, as he became increasingly busy with his own career, at one time living in the States for a year. In about 1992, Gary and I discussed the idea of making a promo for a new song of his called Machine & Soul. Gary was at a pretty low ebb in his career, and so financially it was a difficult one. However, we made the video and it was fantastic working together on a project for the first time in over ten years. We went on to make The Radial Pair film and I subsequently filmed a live show at Hammersmith which we later put together as the Dream Corrosion tour video. At the same time, we began to record together again, and produced amongst others, What She Wants. It was a very enjoyable time, being able to exchange ideas and use our professions for each other’s mutual benefit.

Time went on, I had met Jayne, the woman I was to marry, and we had a daughter together, Lucy. Together with my stepdaughter, Harriet, they are my love, my life, my soul and they give me my whole reason for being. Gary has always been a good friend, underlined by the fact, that when Lucy was born, he was the first person to arrive at the hospital to see her. That meant a lot to me. I haven't actually seen Gary since he and Gemma got married. We still exchange Christmas cards, of course, but to be honest, you build friendships in life that can never diminish through time, because of the base on which they are built. If I saw Gary tomorrow, it would be as if no time had passed, and we'd just pick up from our last conversation. In fact, I just spoke to Beryl and Tony, Gary’s mum and dad. Gary’s fine. I’ll call him tomorrow, probably.

Having sold my business in 2002, I was awarded Green Card status to live in the USA. We moved to America in 2005 and have lived here ever since. Now I just record in my home studio for my own pleasure and for anyone else who’s remotely interested. I am also nearing completion on a book entitled, ’Living The American Dream? which I hope to publish in the summer of 2007.