THE PARTNERS

TONY HENDERSON



Having got a taste for the music industry during his time as Events Secretary while at university in Newcastle, Tony’s planned career path in law never really stood a chance. He did his first tours while still based in the North-East, but was then invited to London to work with leading booking agency Cowbell. After working on the breakthrough tours of acts like Culture Club, Eurythmics and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Tony was head-hunted by ITB, at that time the UK’s biggest agency. They also promoted their own shows, and it was during his time there that Tony realised he preferred the variety and challenges of the road to sitting in an office booking shows. After a period working with artists like Def Leppard, Judas Priest, ZZ Top and Diana Ross, he was offered a job with Iron Maiden’s management company, Sanctuary. Initially the company needed a tour manager to come in and repurpose a travel agency they had purchased to serve the touring industry, but after having helped set that on its’ feet, Tony moved across into the company’s Operations Division. Apart from Maiden, Sanctuary was also home to American artists like Poison and W.A.S.P, plus German rockers Helloween, Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler, UFO / Motorhead spinoff Waysted and rising British band Jagged Edge. Many, many tours  later, it finally came to a stop when Sanctuary was taken over by Zomba Music, and Tony was one of many staff who fell victim to the curse of their “downsizing”. Relocating to Northamptonshire, he set up his own tour and production management company Mission Control, where he toured with artists as diverse as Bomb The Bass, S’Express, Johnny Cash, Sabbat, Spiritualized and The Cramps. In addition to his touring clients, Tony had also built up some strong corporate links, and it was while working with one of these, Yamaha Music, that Tony first came into the orbit of Arthur and his Bedfordshire recording / video studio, Back To Mono. The two worked together on Yamaha’s huge international “ Music Quest” event, after which Tony threw in his lot with Arthur, and Transmedia was born. Since that day over twenty years ago, the two have toured the world, done thousands of shows, filmed innumerable videos and talked about football for hours ! After more than thirty-five years at the “ coal face”, though, Tony’s enthusiasm is as strong as ever, and his mantra remains “ Bring it on …..!”

ARTHUR ANDERSON

young arthur.jpg

Having played in bands in his native Scotland since his teens, it was perhaps inevitable that Arthur, like so many of his contemporaries, headed south to the musical Mecca of London. A talented bass guitarist, Arthur soon landed himself a gig with Neil Christian & The Crusaders, who at various times also included Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Albert Lee and Mick Abrahams in their ranks. When Christian decided to manage his backing band, now renamed Tyger, Arthur remained in the lineup, but he had also begun to be increasingly interested in life on the other side of the studio glass. In order to gain a technical grounding in studio recording, he enrolled at City University for two years, but it was at Pink Floyd’s Britannia Row studios that he really started to learn his craft, working under the legendary Nick Griffiths, engineer of The Wall and producer of Roger Waters’ solo output. From there the logical step was to open his own studio in north-west London, which he did with friend and fellow musician Wes McGhee. Wes was that rare beast, an English singer / songwriter who played American country and Tex-mex. Together Arthur and Wes created several albums on their own Terrapin Records label that put them on the map here and in America. The next stop for Arthur after that was a move into management. Having relocated to Bedfordshire, he joined Valid Management with renowned music writer David Sanderson and John Witherspoon, now with Tori Amos. After seeing chart success in Italy with one of the company’s artists, they signed the band Fire Next Time to one of the first five-figure record deals. Unfortunately record company politics derailed the band’s progress, and a disillusioned Arthur returned to record producing by opening a new studio, Back To Mono. He continued to work with Wes McGhee, both at Back To Mono and Willie Nelson’s Pedernales Studio in Texas, as well as producing albums for many artists including Tex-Mex / Zydeco star Ponty Bone and Grateful Dead alumnus Robert Hunter. In 1990 Arthur came up with the idea of the “ Video Demo”, whereby bands not only recorded a live demo, but  also got a three-camera shoot of their performance, and this proved to be massively popular with over 1,000 artists being filmed, including the late, great Ricky Vallance. Video Demo was the connection that first brought Tony into the studio, and the thing that kick-started the Transmedia adventure.His biggest career achievement was to work with the legendary Peter Green in the Splinter Group band era, the band included Cozy Powell,Neil Murray and Spike Edney. As tour manager and front of house engineer he toured all over the world for the next nine years, produced a live dvd and was asked by eagle rock to produce and engineer Peter's final  album Reaching The Cold 100. There have been many, many other Big Moments …shooting a TV pilot with “ Whispering “ Bob Harris, selling out UK tours and the Royal Albert Hall, sound engineering at Elton John’s wedding, a Christmas show at Buckingham Palace….the list goes on. So what keeps Arthur going ? Easy. It’s creating the NEXT Big Moment !