Pressing the record button on pop history - Wham! George, Andrew, Dave and Me!

I have pressed the record button for quite a few famous artists during my time involved in the music world since the late '70s, yet it is one particular band that continually rears its head, even though I recorded them when they were not actually famous, and it was a rather long time ago, at the beginning of 1982.

With the release of Andrew Ridgeley's recent book, Wham! George & Me, my small, yet significant involvement with them is briefly touched upon again within his story. This part of the duo's journey to superstardom has been told countless times before in other books and documentaries, mostly with varying degrees of accuracy. Almost always two other characters involved in recording their initial infamous demo are never mentioned, let alone name-checked. In the bigger picture, it is fair to say why should they be in the context that neither are known and the general public, after all, are mostly curious about George Michael. When push comes to shove and if everyone involved in the Wham! story were mentioned, there would probably be a million unknown names that really nobody is interested in. It is a bit like a movie, where inevitably, all the rolling credits generally get overlooked, outside of those in the film business perhaps. But we all have egos, are fragile beings and it is part of human nature to want to be commended, or at least acknowledged for your integral part involved in a slice of pop history, however minor. So, it was somewhat disheartening to not see either my cohort Dave West's or own name appear in Andrew Ridgeley's book, where he simply declares they hired a 4-track porta-studio for a day at the expense of £20, which was all they could afford at the time. Naively, I thought we might get a little mention this time around and not get unintentionally omitted yet again, in the same way many other journalists have told a distorted version of this part of the story over the years.

Does it all really matter if the nitty-gritty finer details for the recording of a very basic demo is relayed flippantly? The answer is 'no', although by the flip of a coin it would have been nice and not too difficult to pass a quick comment saying how two local lads called Dave West and Paul Mex had helped out, or at least assisted in their small way, especially as some other unknowns to the public from that time get mentioned in the book. Perhaps Dave and I are from the wrong side of the tracks because we had both attended the local school for hoodlums in Bushey, known as Grange Park, whilst George and Andrew were at the more posh Bushey Meads. Of course, I am jesting, although Dave and I were from the same local music scene of that time in Watford and Bushey, being around a year or two older than George and Andrew. At that point, we were slightly more seasoned than them, with our own respective musical endeavours.

For several years, Dave had already been recording, playing live in bands and involved in the music industry. It was from within the local music community that he first came across the Wham! boys, when he lent George his bass for a gig with their short-lived initial ska band, the Executive. Dave later rehearsed with a prototype version of Wham!, consisting of George and Andrew, along with Paul Ridgeley on drums and Dave playing bass. It was here, whilst practicing an early version of Club Tropicana, Dave came up with the opening slap bass line that eminently eases the song in.

Likewise, I had already been in a handful of (punk) bands by time it came to assisting on the Wham! demo, although with the acquisition of my porta-studio, I was fast becoming 'Watford's answer to Trevor Horn', as one local fanzine cordially put it at the time.

Because George and Andrew could not afford to go into a proper studio to make their demo, an inexpensive alternative was needed, hence Dave and mine's involvement.

The first time I met George was actually at the recording of the demo in Mrs Ridgeley's living room, yet I had stumbled across Andrew several times within the local music scene, with our first proper communication being in Don Miller's Hot Bread Kitchen, a Watford bakery where I worked. My friend and fellow band mate at that time, Lindsay Beard, brought him in for a chat at the bakery about the proposition of me recording him and George with my porta-studio. This occurred a good six months before we actually recorded the infamous first demo, as initially I was too tied up with my own band and other stuff at the time.