Like so many African Americans before them, twin brothers Charles and Marcus Brown's musical journey began at church. They could be heard singing every week as young kids; their voices and enthusiasm standing out so much that they were asked to join the choir at the age of eight. Every week the twins would wow the congregation at the appropriately named Brown Memorial Church in their native Brooklyn. They got a taste for singing to an audience and spent their teenage years chasing gigs, auditioning for bands and looking for recording deals. It never happened for them though beyond a few local, badly attended club gigs.

Patrick Brown, their older brother by seven years, wasn't a great singer, and was constantly in trouble at home for staying out late, and missing church week after week. Patrick was very musical though; he taught himself piano and guitar at a really young age, and could learn to play almost any instrument within hours of picking it up. His weekends were spent in seedy clubs, playing whatever instrument he could get his hands on. He was fortunate enough to have a well paid job, selling recording equipment, a lot of which he bought for knock down prices from company reps and installed in his basement on Schenck Avenue in Brooklyn.

In the early 1970s he got together some friends and put his recording studio to work, recording some demos which Charles and Marcus sang on. There was no interest from record labels, so Patrick decided to release them on his own. He pressed up a load of 45s, three singles in total, then discovered he knew nothing about distribution or promotion and ended up giving most of the records away! Needless to say these early releases on Real Thing Records are now prized collectors items.

A couple of years later Patrick started going to clubs around New York. He'd excitedly tell Charles and Marcus about some of the amazing music he'd heard the DJs play. He got the disco bug bad and, despite wasting a fortune on his previous recording projects, went out and bought everything he needed to bring his recording studio up to date, everything from a Neve mixing desk to an MSS cutting lathe. Together the brothers produced a lot of material, with Charles & Marcus singing again and Patrick on the other side of the desk, roping in friends to play backing on whatever instruments were available. Once again, the labels showed no interest, but this time, rather than press vinyl, Patrick cut his own acetates on his lathe, giving them out to DJs week after week at the clubs he was visiting. Sadly, very few of these acetates have survived.

When the twins looked old enough to get in they started visiting clubs with Patrick and the three became well known to the DJs as the guys with the acetates. They always found themselves on the guest list, and soon started partying with the DJs back in Patrick's basement. Needless to say, it wasn't long before these parties turned into long recording sessions, with DJs keen to make use of Patrick's equipment. Unbeknown to Patrick's neighbors, the cream of New York's nightlife would sit there splicing tape while the party went on around them, while others would bring musicians and vocalists along in the hope of creating something exclusive for them to play to their crowds. The amount of drugs consumed, and the fact that there were anything up to thirty people crammed into Patrick's studio meant that most of what was recorded was nonsense. But occasionally something good would come of the sessions. Patrick kept everything that was recorded, and the better sessions he would edit and mix in his own time, before pressing up some acetates to give out. He always intended to release 12" vinyl versions of the tracks, but never quite got round to it after getting his fingers burnt with the 45s he pressed all those years ago. And so, the tapes stayed on the shelf with the odd few tracks making it as far as home-cut acetates.

Those acetates may not have survived, but the music certainly did, as Patrick kept all his tapes. His basement is crammed with them, all catalogued by date. We've pressed some of this stuff on vinyl before, and now we've released a CD featuring just a tiny selection of the amazing music that came out of the Real Thing studio between 1973 and 1980. There are so many tapes that we're sure there will be a few more volumes to follow...