Graham
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Ticket to Ride by Graham Sclater
Male
62 years old
United Kingdom
Last Login: 3/26/2007
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Graham's Interests
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| General | Music, writing, speedway, gardening, films | | Music | Anything with a melody - Red i and many more | | Movies | Don't look back and mn ay more | | Television | Documentaries | | Books | Most | | Heroes | Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Tarbuck |
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Graham's Details
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| Status: | Single | | Zodiac Sign: | Sagittarius |
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Graham's Latest Blog Entry
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Ticket to Ride - the latest novel set in Hamburg Germany during the 60's
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Graham's Blurbs |
About me:
Graham Sclater
Graham Sclater studied at the Phoenix Arts Centre in Exeter, where he concentrated on creative writing for the screen and television. His key interests are teleplays and screenplays as well as developing and writing original drama series’ for television. Those recently completed include “Street life “– Buskers” “Love Shack” and a pilot “The Other Side of the Tracks.”
David Penn, Adam Faith, John Altman and a number of actors, directors and producers have favourably reviewed his work and several television companies including Central Television have taken options on other television series.
Born in Exeter in 1947, he spent several years living and playing Hammond organ in various groups in Germany and Scandinavia during the sixties. He returned to England full time in the early seventies where he worked as a session musician in many of the London studios.
An accomplished songwriter and musician, Graham has been featured in a number of arts and musical programmes and has performed and recorded with artists including Jimi Hendrix, Fats Domino, Ritchie Blackmore, James Taylor, Elton John and numerous name musicians. Many of his songs have won competitions in France, Spain, Gibraltar and Japan as well as being recorded by well-known artists.
Tabitha Music Limited, the independent music publishing company formed by Graham in 1975, has a catalogue of more than five hundred songs and has published hit records in much of Europe and the Far East including Japan. The Company’s songs have been featured in films, television programmes, documentaries and have been released on major record labels including EMI, CBS and Phonogram.
Keen on artist management he successfully signed groups to CBS, EMI and other worldwide labels. He has spent many years combining his production and publishing work with the management of his artists. A recent signing to the company is EYE SPY a four-piece girl group from the north of England and songwriters Toni Leo and Andy Littlewood from Doncaster, The Meteors from Manchester and Red i, a four piece band from Exeter.
Graham has produced records in varying styles as diverse as punk, folk, country, heavy rock and MOR in studios as far afield as Trinidad and Jamaica. Many of these productions were released on the Tabitha Record label in the Benelux and Spain and major or independent labels around the World. Graham’s production credits have resulted in a number of hit records by many artists.
Graham recently completed his first novel “Ticket to Ride” set in Hamburg during the 1960’s, and is now working on his second novel “Love Shack” based in the east end of London and the red light district of Amsterdam.
Active in developing a number of projects at any one time, Graham is a prolific writer who carefully researches his subject before reaching for the PC. Many of his projects involve music and his background enables him to combine a mix of original music and script.
Graham enjoys working in many arenas, using first hand experience of as many subjects as possible, often spending time researching overseas.
He is at home writing and developing any concept. He has an understanding of budgeting, the logistics of production, location and direction.
Graham, having recently completed the screenplay Hatred is the Key - optioned with a New York Film Company, and World Turning. He and is currently working on the titles: I Put a Spell on you and his first children’s novel. He has recently been signed by agent Jef Peace to represent him in the USA and "Ticket to Ride" will be commercially available in the spring of 2006 published by Flame Books -www.flamebooks.com
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Who I'd like to meet:
Book Review - Ticket To Ride by Graham Sclater
Graham Sclater spent much of the sixties playing in beat groups in and around Britain, and more importantly, in Beat Central, Hamburg. Of course, we all know that The Beatles set the beat boom off over in Deutschland, and literally hundreds of English groups went over chasing the same dream. Ticket to Ride, Sclater’s first novel, sees him charting the insane rock & roll life of The Cheetahs, a group of young lads finding their feet (both in music and in their life) slap bang in the middle of the Reeperbahn, the infamous red light district made so famous by the Fab Four.
The book is a cracking little kitchen sink drama, littered with all the hopes and dreams that any young kid with an interest in music has. As opposed to being a wordy effort, that many books of this ilk suffer from, Sclater has kept it simple and straight forward, which allows Sclater to show the reader that he’s still a fan, and the enthusiasm he has is shared quickly. From the tales of uppers, backroom sex and teenage fumblings, to name checking vintage gear and records, the whole tone of the book is one shot through Super 8. Obviously, with any book dealing with The Dream, it occasionally gets a little dewy eyed, but this again underlines how much the subject means to Sclater, rather than being someone writing about something from borrowed nostalgia. As Sclater lived it, the devil of the book is in the detail. Ticket to Ride perfectly captures that youthful optimism that was prevalent during the mid sixties, and that feeling that any young Englishman with a guitar or a Vox Continental, could take over the world. Thankfully, Sclater has kept the warts in, with the lads getting ‘a dose’ and the constant shivering that seems to prevail through the tour.
The innocence that is now lost in teens is alive and well with The Cheetahs. The post war fall out has not given birth to a Cosmopolitan bunch; if we now have backpackers and worldly teens, Ticket to Ride shows a bunch of lads almost unable to look after themselves in what might as well be an alien planet. A lot of music books have the ‘us against the world’ attitude in the band featured, but Sclater is smart enough to sidestep it. The fractions that appear throughout the shifting hierarchy expertly show how bands operated back then, when rock music was in its infancy, and without a five year plan, and thankfully, an absence of spin and PR.
The book itself is a breeze to read, and difficult to put down. Just about anyone with an interest in music (and not just sixties music) will be able to buy into the ride detailed by Sclater. Ticket to Ride has it all. Prostitution, deceit, drugs, alienation, violence, camaraderie, and most of all, good time rock and roll. Available to buy from www.flamebooks.com.
Ticket To Ride by Graham Sclater ****
Mof Gimmers
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