Being Resourceful In The New Business

With my equipment and record collection I was ready to conquer the world. Word soon got around in the neighbourhood that I was available for bookings and I didn’t have to wait too long. Being resourceful in the new business was essential for it to grow.

1979 kicked off with 2 bookings in the first tow months, that may not seem a lot but if you think about it, it was twice as many as the whole of the previous year. Both bookings were for birthdays, one for a friend and one was mine.

These early discos I kept to a play list within reason, I’m a great believer in planning and organisation, without it, I’m lost. Both gigs were well received, probably about 30 people attended each of them and my confidence was increasing. At the end of each gig I also wrote up what had happened which helped for future discos.

Forgot to mention, I had also bought a mic so I did a bit of intro too. That bit was the one thing that probably worried me as I was looked upon as being a bit shy so I was pushing myself out of the comfort zone. However, after saying that I was getting a real buzz from doing it, you could say addicted.

It wasn’t long before the local church had caught wind of the budding DJ/Entrepreneur and I was approached to do regular discos in the church hall. This could hold about 200 people and at the time it was a BIG thing. A deal was brokered that the profits would be split 50/50, to me that was a lot of money, in today’s equivalent it would be about £250 each for a nights work.

I had reasonability for ticket distribution and general promotion. Bearing in mind I was in the VIth Form I had identified my ticket distribution system as people of similar age and mind throughout the schools in Plymouth. Fortunately I had some creative friends too. One in particular, Ken Leake who was inspirational at writing quite bizarre posters and adding some wonderful artwork. It had to be different because I was different, whilst many of my friends were planning social weekend’s pubbing and clubbing my focus was on planning the ‘next Freak Show’.

On top of Ken’s creative ability with the posters which were distributed throughout our network, he had also come up with a novel way of printing tickets. If we went to a ‘proper printer’ it would have cost an arm and a leg. Ken had managed to find some old floor lino which he carefully etched out the ‘Freak Show’ logos for the front of the ticket. It was all labour intensive and took hours, but the costs were minimal and meant we had ended up with a unique product which was recognisable.

All of these experiences drew on being resourceful in the new business and using the imagination, not only was is fun to do but I was learning how to run a business on a shoestring and create interest that would last for years in my new business.

Entrepreneur in Development

From the meagre beginnings of that ‘first’ gig in the garage of August 1978, I’d spent the rest of the year plotting on how I could develop my project further. That first taste of doing something that had made a difference to others gave me hunger for more. To take my ideas on further I needed to expand, money may have been an issue, but I worked around it. If I was to have a more professional stance I needed a double deck, lights, etc!
The double deck was something that would have been financially out of my grasp, you would be talking about hundreds of pounds that would not have been feasible, so it got me thinking.... how I could get around this, I did. A school friend of mine, David Voden, who was a bit like a professor come hippy was delving into all sorts of things, some were not legal. It’s not a place I wanted to go but at the same time he did have something I wanted.
David had dabbled in playing the bass guitar also he had helped at various discos and I’m not sure how he came about it but he had a chassis for a double deck unit. It was very basic, not even painted but to me it was something I could do a lot with. I don’t think it even cost me any money it was just taking up space in David’s parents home and quite clearly for David the good idea it had once been was now just gathering dust and I was the perfect solution to get rid!
So, I now had a double deck chassis and only one deck. The deck I had used for my first gig had been removed from its original casing and was now in its rightful place as one half of the unit. Forgot to mention I’d given the chassis a generous coat of matt black paint, cut out some star stencils and sprayed them with silver aerosol, things were coming together.
The second deck I am unsure where it came from, may be from one of my friends who took pity on me and had some sort of bizarre interest in what I was doing, I’m not sure. It didn’t even match up to the other deck, but that didn’t matter, I’d got a double deck and was proud of it.
The next bits of the jigsaw were going to cost a bit of money, being the amplification. Being the ever resourceful I’d managed to buy a guitar amp and speaker, the other speaker I’d build from scraps of wood lying about (my Father was a carpenter and joiner) and for a grand sum of £8 purchased another speaker to fit. The money I had used to buy the guitar amp/speaker was borrowed from my parents and I had agreed through chores and money from birthday and Christmas to pay it back (which I did).
The last part of the jigsaw was the lighting, I shouldn’t say but the circuitry for this was gained from one of those road side flashing lights. I looked at it as a long term borrow. The light boxes once again were built by me, my brother also worked for an electronics company and managed to provide some switches and a relay which were fitted into the chassis so that I could operate everything from one place.
So I was ready to roll! Over that period my music collection had grown further, still most was bought through second hand shops or cheap out of chart records, hours were spent ferreting through literally thousands of records, but it was/is my passion. My focus was still on developing Dr Hall into a marketable product.
You see many people tend to put money as the obstacle of why they don’t do things. I would be the first to admit a little money always helps but, if you are resourceful enough, determined and single minded it doesn’t matter what people put in your way, you will find a way around it, just think out of the box.