An engineer who worked on the Oasis albums Be Here Now and (What’s The Story) Morning Glory has been telling his own story; specifically, of how he ended up with the Takamine acoustic Noel Gallagher recorded WonderWall with.
It’s a tale Nick Brine has probably been dining out on for decades (well you would, wouldn’t you?) and has now been related to BBC News. It seems it all started when Liam Gallagher kicked off one time at Abbey Road when the band were attempting to record Be Here Now.
“It was the morning after a heavy night and Liam was worse for wear,” recalls Brine. “Noel had said something about him in the papers and Liam kicked off. I’m in Abbey Road’s famous Studio Two setting up equipment and hungover myself, then looking up I saw a guitar come flying over from the control room.
“It was Noel’s Fender Jag and it was smashed to bits. I run to the control room and Liam also made a big dent in Abbey Road’s mixing desk. Then I see another acoustic guitar flying over the top and in a thousand pieces on the floor – and realise that’s my guitar.”
It was his 1970s Japanese Fender and it was in smithereens.
“I thought it best if I didn’t say anything. Noel came in and said ‘what the hell is going on?’. It kicked off. Noel saw his guitar smashed up, then points to my smashed guitar and says ‘whose is that?’ Liam replies ‘that’s your guitar too’, to which Noel replied ‘it ain’t mine.'”
Cue an argument about who was going to buy Nick a new one. Liam offered to take the engineer up to Denmark Street where he could have his pick of any he wanted. “Noel replied to Liam ‘what the hell do you know about guitars?’,” recalls Nick. “He said ‘I’m going to get him a guitar’. There was another kick off about who was going to buy me a new one.”
Gallagher Senior also insisted Liam call Nick’s mother to apologise for breaking the guitar she had once gifted her son. “It was like: ‘Hello Mrs Brine, Liam Gallagher here, I’m ringing to apologise…’, he told her what he’d done and was sorry. That typified Liam, angry one minute then angelic the next, I’ve always enjoyed his company.”
Feeling embarrassed of his younger bro, it seems Noel gave Nick the Takamine acoustic he had used at Knebworth and for the MTV Unplugged performance. “I was gobsmacked,” he said. “I said ‘it’s OK, it’s fine’, but Noel insisted I take it. It more than made up for the smashed guitar, I couldn’t believe it.”
He’s still got it today. Should he ever wish to part company with it, it could be expected to go for anything up to £100,000.
The Be Here Now sessions were chaotic, Brine recalls. “We had press hounding us all the time to hear the songs, get any info because in 1997 Oasis were headline news virtually every day.”
“I was in charge of locking the tapes away every night so if anyone snuck or broke in, no-one could get to the tapes. Keeping them secret was almost a military operation which was made difficult as Liam used to bring people back to the studio from the pub to hear the recordings.”
