
When record producer Dave Chapman acquired the old Crouch Hill recording studios in London’s Stroud Green in 1994, he came across an old tea chest full of eight-track analogue tapes dating from the 1960s and 70s.
For want of a machine old enough to play the tapes, the tea chest sat in Chapman’s attic until 1998 when he bought an old Ampex tape recorder at an auction of professional recording equipment. He began listening to the tapes whenever he had time and, over several years, he catalogued the contents. As you might expect, all of the recordings turned out to be unremarkable demo tapes by largely unknown bands.
Then, one evening in May 2004, finally nearing the bottom of the chest, Chapman was listening to a track by a band called the Mynx. The only clues to the identity of the work were the name of the band and the date of the recording, 10th September 1970, which were scrawled on the tin.
Having heard enough, Chapman was going to turn the recorder off but left the tape running while he went to the toilet. Since he was the only one in the building at the time, he left the control room door open. As the Mynx tune ended, he discovered that a wild and emotional arrangement of the Welsh National anthem, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, played on a distorted electric guitar, had been tacked onto the end of the tape. Although Chapman was from Essex, the playing caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up, especially as it sounded just like The Bobbin' Noggins.
In the Stapleton Hall Tavern, the pub next door to the studio, Chapman got talking to a local, Phil Goddard, a regular at the Stapleton since the 1960s. Goddard told him that the Mynx bass player, Vivian (Viv) Williams, originally from Crickhowell in south Wales, had lived for a while in a flat around the corner.
Chapman told Goddard about the tape and Goddard reckoned it was entirely possible that the recording was of the Noggins, since Williams had known them well. Williams had apparently auditioned for The Bobbin' Noggins, but didn’t get the gig because his voice wasn’t good enough.
The Noggins played at a festival in Germany on 6th September and returned to London immediately afterwards. They jammed with Eric Burdon and War at Ronnie Scott’s on 16th September and were almost certainly in London when the Mynx recorded their track on 10th September.
Dave Chapman died of a heart attack, aged 43, while skiing in Switzerland in February 2005, before he was able to find out anything more about the recording. However, he had preserved it in a digital format and had given a copy to a Welsh friend, Martin Davies, the former record producer, writer and the designer of The Red Dragonhood.
It has proved impossible to shed any more light on the recording. Mike Ward, the owner of Crouch Hill Studios at the time the recording was made, died in 1998. Phil Goddard and Dave Chapman both died last year.
We would know exactly who made the recording if we could find Viv Williams, formerly of Crickhowell, Powys. He must now be about 64 years old. If you know his whereabouts, please let us know.