Eighth Day Magazine Issue Twenty-four

EIGHTH DAY Nils Lofgren / The Four Tops / The Temptations / Yes / Jethro Tull / Steve Hackett / The Beat / Neil Fox / The Bookends / The Magic Numbers / Gretchen’s Wheel / The Harveys / Duncan Reid and the Big Heads / Melt-Banana and much more!

ISSUE TWENTY-FOUR. SEPTEMBER. £5.00

SECOND ANNIVERSARY BUMPER BOOK OF COOL!

www.eighthdaycommunications.co.uk/magazine / Facebook: eighthdaymagazine /

EDITORIAL

EIGHTH DAY

Top: Alice Jones-Rodgers Editor-in-Chief Scott Rodgers Photographer and Chicken Herder Bottom, from left to right: Kevin Burke Staff Writer Martin Hutchinson Staff Writer Paul Foden Staff Writer

Peter Dennis Staff Writer Wayne Reid Staff Writer Dan Webster Wasted World German Shepherd Records “Different Noises for Your Ears” Frenchy Rants Could you be an Eighth Day writer? Please feel free to email us samples of your work!

Twitter: @EighthDayMag / Instagram: @eighthdaymagazine / eighthdaymagazine@outlook.com

“A wee slice of rock ‘n’ roll history!”

CONTENTS

4. The Four Tops & The Temptations Interview by Martin Hutchinson.

76. Steve Hackett Interview by Martin Hutchinson.

8. The Beat Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

80. Neil Fox Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

27. Eye Scream Men Alice Jones-Rodgers introduces Blackpool’s hottest new band.

100. Frenchy’s Rants This month: Online Radio Rules, OK!

28. Nils Lofgren Interview by Kevin Burke.

104. German Shepherd Records Presents: The Harveys Interview by Bob Osborne.

38. Jethro Tull Interview by Martin Hutchinson.

108. Yes Interview by Martin Hutchinson.

42. The Magic Numbers Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

112. Melt-Banana Interview by Peter Dennis.

57. Blue Öyster Cult A Visual Biography Review by Martin Hutchinson.

116. Gretchen’s Wheel Interview by Kevin Burke.

58. The Bookends Interview by Kevin Burke.

64. Wasted World A Special four page edition of Dan Webster’s legendary comic strip.

68. Duncan Reid and The Big Heads Interview by Kevin Burke.

123. Tenet Review by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

124. Pussycat and the Dirty Johnsons Alice Jones-Rodgers reviews ‘Beast’.

129. Bill & Ted Face the Music Review by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

75. 666 Songs to Make You Bang Your Head Until You Die Review by Martin Hutchinson.

Issue Twenty-four. September 2020.

The Four Tops & The Temptations

Otis is Tempted Interview by Martin Hutchinson.

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The legendary double whammy of The Temptations and The Four Tops, with Special Guests Odyssey (except Liverpool) is set to return to British shores in Autumn 2021 for what appears to be an annual event.

and also, in Otis Williams, has an original member in today’s line up.

With hits like ‘My Girl’ (1964); ‘Get Ready’ (1965), ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’ (1972), The Temptations were one of the biggest bands in the world.

The word ‘legendary’ is all too easily banded about these days, but there is no doubt they the word definitely applies to the two giants of Motown.

Four of their hits are in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s ‘500 Songs that shaped Rock and Roll’, and they have enjoyed no less than 53 Billboard Hot 100 Hit singles.

The Four Tops were among the first wave of Tamla Motown artists to make an impact in the UK with their infectious R&B and soul influenced brand of pop.

Formed in 1953 as the Four Aims, they changed their name to the Four Tops in 1956 and their classic line-up of Levi Stubbs, ‘Duke’ Fakir, Obie Benson and Lawrence Payton (whose son is in the current line up) struck it big in the sixties with hits like ‘Baby I Need Your Loving’ (1964); ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)’ (1965) and the immortal ‘Reach Out, I’ll Be There’ (1966).

The band returned to the Top Ten in 1988 with ‘Loco in Acapulco’ from the film ‘Buster’ and were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

‘Duke’ Fakir, now 85, still leads the band and is the only remaining founder member.

The Temptations were formed in 1960

Recently a musical, ‘Ain’t Too Proud’, adapted from Otis Williams’ autobiography was performed on Broadway, winning a Tony Award in 2019 for best choreography and the Broadway Cast Album is nominated for a Grammy Award in 2020.

Touring the UK as part of their 60th anniversary celebrations, Otis Williams is looking forward to coming back to Britain. “We love coming to the UK”, he tells me from his home. “It’s our second home as we’ve been coming over since 1964. And I’m happy that Britain has been in love with us too.”

The fans are a big part of how The Temptations have managed to remain so popular: “Oh yes, that’s right. The fans stand by us and I’m thankful that I’m able to still perform for them. We do what we’ve been doing all these years. It’s the process of what has made The Temptations who we are, despite of all the challenges we’ve faced.”

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The Four Tops

Otis, nicknamed ‘Big Daddy’, is a sprightly 78-years-old and is still in wonder of the group’s success. “I’m still trying to get used to it”, he laughs.

“None of us expected it to last so long.

It’s been a wonderful ride.”

As for what we’ll hear on the night, the final set list is far from complete, as Otis explains: “We still have to work things out. Some songs of course will never come out of the set and we’ll build it around those.”

The Temptations have been touring in tandem with The Four Tops for many years: “Yes, we’re brothers from the same city. We’ve been joined together

since the sixties’ Motown Revue shows. Then in 1983 we were together for a Motown special and we’ve travelled together since then.”

Before the COVID-19 pandemic put an end to the tour taking place this year, Otis was all set to celebrate his 79th birthday on stage in Nottingham on 30th October this year. The rescheduled tour will now take place just before his 80th birthday next year.

Will he be doing anything special?

“Well, funnily enough, a few years ago we were in Nottingham on my birthday and they gave me a surprise birthday party. To be honest, I’m just thankful to be able to celebrate.”

He also tells us that as well as the tour, we can expect some new songs from the group: “That’s right, to celebrate 60 years of being in The Temptations we’re doing a 60th Birthday album with brand new material. No covers.”

Both bands are looking forward to the

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The Temptations

autumn 2021 tour. ‘Duke’ Fakir says, “We’re thrilled to be coming back to the UK. We always have such a great reception from our fans here, it makes us feel at home. It makes it so special to perform for the folks in Britain.”

Liverpool) will be touring the UK from the 1st to the 11th October 2021.

Tickets are available from all the usual agencies.

This sentiment is echoed by Otis: “We want to thank our British fans for supporting and inspiring us over the last 60 years. I’ve had such memorable trips to Britain. We want to pay special tribute to the fans in the UK. We invite everyone to join us in celebrating this special milestone.”

02/10/21: M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool

The Temptations and The Four Tops, plus Special Guests Odyssey (except

09/10/21: Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham

01/10/21: Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff

04/10/21: First Direct Arena, Leeds 05/10/21: Manchester Arena, Manchester 06/10/21: Utilita Arena, Birmingham

10/10/21: The O2, London 11/10/21: Bournemouth International Centre, Bournemouth. www.facebook.com/FourTops www.facebook.com/thetemptations

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Just Can’t Stop

The Beat Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers Photography (this page) by Jackie Butler.

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When we conducted the following interview with Dave Wakeling, the charismatic vocalist, guitarist and songwriter with legendary Birmingham 2 Tone band The Beat, the world had just been forced into lockdown by the coronavirus.

At this point in time, Dave was still hopeful about returning to the UK from California, where he has resided for over thirty years, to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of The Beat’s all-conquering UK number 3, hit-packed (‘Hands Off ...

She’s Mine’ / ‘Mirror in the Bathroom’; ‘Twist and Crawl’; ‘Best Friend’ / ‘Stand Down Margaret’), genre-blending (ska, reggae, soul, pop, punk, new wave, etc) and Thatcher-era social commentating, politically aware debut album ‘I Just Can’t Stop It’ with a UK tour.

The ill-fated tour was to be the first time Dave would have worked under the name The Beat, as opposed to The English Beat or The English Beat starring Dave Wakeling, in over twenty-five years, a change brought about by the sad passing of his one-time toasting co-vocalist Ranking Roger on 26th March 2019.

After the initial break-up of The Beat in 1983 following two more studio albums, 1981’s ‘Wha’ppen?’ and 1982’s ‘Special Beat Service’, Roger had joined Dave in the supergroup General Public, which also featured former members of The Clash, Dexys

Midnight Runners and 2 Tone labelmates The Specials.

The world may have seemed like it was going to hell in a handcart, but we found Dave, still basking in the glory of releasing his latest album, the ciritically acclaimed ‘Here We Go Love!’ in 2018 and as enthusiastic about the unifying power of music as ever, to be his usual charming, funny and knowledgable self.

Firstly, hello Dave and thank you for agreeing to our interview. Could you start by telling us a bit about your upbringing, how you first became interested in music as a listener?

Well, I was brought up in Birmingham, in the inner city, just down the road from UB40, although we didn’t know that at the time. It wasn’t a very musical household. My Dad liked Frank Sinatra but he didn’t play music, he whistled it. My mum sang Scottish and Irish songs to me as a baby. She told me that that’s where I got lots of my melodies from. This might be true! My first musical memory was a plastic record player with a plastic record of ‘Little Brown Jug’ [published in 1869, popularised by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra in 1939] - ‘Ha, ha, ha, you and me, Little brown jug, don’t I love thee’! That was my first record and I loved it! I would have played it to death but it was unbreakable, you know. It was about half an inch thick plastic with a plastic needle on the

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The Beat, 1980

record player. That was my first record and that was perhaps the start of it for me. I liked singles, I liked one song on a piece of plastic and I ended up with a record player with one of those singles autochangers and I just put ten of my favourite songs on and they’d just drop down one after the other and play. And I’ve always fancied singles more than albums and I’d probably even prefer to listen to CDs on shuffle so’s I’m not quite sure what’s coming next but it’s something I like and I enjoy the immediacy of a single, the statement of it, more than listening to one person having twelve goes at saying more or less the same thing from a different angle, including me.

What motivated you to pursue a career in music and how did you come to form The Beat in 1978?

Well, it was that pile of singles that motivated me. It was that three minute dream into another world. When you were listening to one of your favourite songs, time seemed to stand still. All of the problems of the day seemed to

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disappear, all of your own personal problems or turmoils or whatever, all that disappeared and it was just the song and you felt connected to it and my love of that led me into trying to do my own songs the same way, getting ideas and writing poems and figuring out what the melodies were and trying to find out how would you present this set of ideas in a way that would make it attractive and accessible to other people, as a way of connecting I suppose, a way of trying to put into words my dissatisfaction about what I could see going on in our society at the time.

This was the middle to late ‘70s, you know and in some ways, it’s odd that this new virus crisis is pointing out a lot of those same inequalities. Same here in America. The people who are now being called heroes and the most essential parts of our society, the people who help keep society going are the people who always get paid the least and get damaged first. That’s what bothered me as a young man and I wrote songs about it and it bothers me even more now because this sort of dislocation we’re seeing currently is a

direct result of marginalising more and more people. It’s like a pyramid that’s got too heavy on the top and it’s going to fall over. So, it bothers me. Of course, as a songwriter and singer, you know, you sang about these things and expected everybody to go, ‘Oh, Dave’s got a good point, we’ll stop doing that then!’ [laughs] It doesn’t quite work like that, sadly! But they’re the same sort of issues and it’s always been clear that you’re only as strong as your weakest link and if you make loads and loads of links in your own chain really, really weak, then the next time a big crisis comes, you’re going to have to be prepared for loads of broken chains and that’s not what society needs, is it?

You know. So, I think there will be a lot of rethinking as we re-shape society about who are the essential people?

Apart from DJs, old singers living in California with too much to say! We’re vital, I understand [laughs]. But the other ones, you know, people risking their necks working in shops or delivering the food that everybody needs and loads of people who kept the economy going, working from week to

week who have suddenly got no work, we suddenly realise how vital those people are, you know. So, it’s interesting and hopefully most of us will survive and see some new ways to go about things, you know, a lot clearer for the people who it turns out who are essential, you know. But it was that sort of thing that made me want to sing about stuff. It wasn’t like it was anything special, it was only what everybody in every pub in Birmingham, or every bus stop in Birmingham in the rain was talking about, but it wasn’t in pop songs at that moment, at that time, you know. There had been some in the ‘60s, hadn’t there? And then punk had had a lot to say politically and we sort of wanted that same sort of feeling but to be in the pop world. We liked pop music. We liked The Four Tops, we liked Desmond Dekker, we liked Petula Clark, the Buzzcocks, The Undertones, Elvis Costello and The Clash and we wanted to get all of that in a really bright, optimistic pop song and talk about some of the things that were bothering everybody in the pubs in

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Birmingham and see if we could get away with it [laughs] and we did!

Of course, the most obvious example of The Beat’s political stance was ‘Stand Down Margaret’ (‘I Just Can’t Stop It’, 1980), which you even got to perform on national television on ITV’s ‘OTT’ (essentially a late night version of ‘Tiswas’ that ran for one series in 1982). What was this experience like?

Well, at the time, Margaret Thatcher was acting sort of high and mighty and we knew that she was a midland girl, from Nottingham, and that she could turn that acccent on and off and do an Oxford accent when she needed a ‘standard British accent’ and she seemed to be talking down to people.

It didn’t seem like it was the truth, because of the way it was being delivered. The notion that trickle-down economics was going to work defied human nature. It’s proven not to work, it trickles about a third of the way down, if you’re lucky, and the people at the bottom suffer greatly from it and

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austerity causes people to become more extreme in their lives, more extreme in their politics, more extreme in their desperation. It didn’t seem like it was a workable notion at the time. It was going on here in America too with Ronald Reagan, the idea that you get rid of all the regulations and you set the wheels of industry free and you make so much money that the money just trickles down and everybody makes out very well. It started in a village in Scotland, this idea, and it did actually work quite well in that village in Scotland, but they were all relatives really. But with us, as human beings, it tends to stick to the fingers at the top and less and less of it trickles and not enough of it trickles down to the bottom. It ended up, and the figures are very clear, it’s just an excuse for the rich to get enormously richer and the bottom half, or more, to get more and more marginalised, so that people are living week to week and all it takes is for one virus to come about that no one’s seen before and society could crumble like a pack of cards because people have been left out of the mix.

Performing ‘Stand Down Margaret’ on OTT, 1982

It’s a very profitable world we live in, very profitable society in Britain and America, very profitable, but the money doesn’t go down far enough to the people that actually create the wealth. Because of that, it’s pushing your luck, it’s like staying on the tables in Las Vegas a bit too long [laughs], you know, when your missus is saying, ‘Well, you’ve already won, let’s go home’ and you’re going, ‘No, no, no, just one more go! Get a couple of drinks in, we’ll have one more go! ... Oh no, I’ve lost the lot!’ [laughs].

And I think it seemed like easy money or something. People were suddenly becoming investors in things and seeing your earnings double in a year.

Of course, that money was coming from somewhere and it was coming from the hard work of what are called ‘essential workers’ now and they were being underpaid and abused at the time to expect that extra money. And that’s all that happened. There’s no good people or bad people in it, we’re all capable of doing the same thing. If someone offers us something that’s too good to be true, we’re always going

to be tempted. We’re human beings, we should take that into account. It’s not as if there’s any villains here, we just that we get sold on different ways of running society that doesn’t take into account that we’re all born liars [laughs] and that we’ll do anything under pressure. So we ought to set up systems that take into account that if we’re going to call people essential workers when they’re going to risk their lives for us, they ought to be compensated. My mum was a nurse, so I take all this seriously, you know [laughs]. We did indeed perform that song on ‘OTT’ and we got on ‘Cheggers Plays Pop’ [BBC] as well.

There had been lots of shouting during punk, you know, everybody was complaining about everything, you know, ‘No future!’, but after about four years of being mad at everything and shouting, you just got a headache and a sore throat, you know. So, we thought, these things are still true, it’s not like much has changed but if you end up just screaming and shouting, you end sounding as bad as the people you’re complaining aganst, you know, so if

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Performing ‘Stand Down Margaret’ on OTT, 1982

society or the world’s worth saving, it’s worth having an optimistic dance to it. That was our brief on it, so ‘Stand Down Margaret’ is the only protest song that said ‘please’ in it over twenty times. It’s the politest protest song and it didn’t just mean ‘stand down’ as in resign, it was more stand down, get off your soapbox, you know, stop pretending you’re better than everybody and using that as what is obviously just a scheme to make the richer by putting some flowery words behind it, you know! So, it was as much that really, ‘stand down’ as in be level with people, because she clearly wasn’t, you know. It’s easy I think to use her as the image of it, to blame everything on her, but people gave her a lot of opportunities because before she got in, the unions were very powerful and seemed to be taking advantage even of their own, so it didn’t make it appear as if the workers were able to control themselves ... It was terribly sad to see miners lining up and being beaten by rows of policemen and horse, you know. It was like, are you kidding me? But it was kind of a

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set up in a way. It was a set up to destroy the unions, which I think it did quite effectively, it’s not really ever been the same since. But it’s a shame that an opening was provided because it did appear as though the unions, once they were in power, were no more efficient and just as corrupt as the government themselves. So, that was disppointing and you had a sense that maybe power corrupts and anybody who gets a bit of power gets a bit selfish with it because we’re human beings. Whatever political party it is or what political system, it never really takes into account that the only thing we’ve really got in common is human foible. We’re never quite sure when it’s going to happen but the one thing we can guarantee is that most of us are going to end up doing exactly the opposite of what we said. It’s part of the human condition but instead, we ll just end up arguing from one side of the political spectrum to the other. The right hates the left, the left hates the right and everybody says that everybody else is a liar but no one’s got the balls to put their hands up and go,

‘Well, actually, I’m a bit of a liar, I’ve told you some real porky-pies [laughs], you know! I think if we were to do that, we would move forward much better as a society. And I do know, in the songs if we can, I don’t try and sing about individual strengths, I try and sing up on the funny side of our common weaknesses, because I think that’s what draws us together more.

But we’ve got ever such a lot more in common than our differences. Most of the time, the effort is put on playing up those differences rather than nurturing the things we have in common.

The Beat’s debut single, a cover of Smokey Robinson’s hit ‘Tears of a Clown’ was released on 23rd of November 1979 and reached number six on the UK singles chart. What are your memories of learning of this chart position and did this very quick success come as a surprise to the band?

Well, on one hand, it came as a surprise; on another hand, we were so cocky and cock-sure about ourselves

that we kind of acted like, ‘Well, yeah, I knew that was going to happen of course!’ But, I think we were all a bit gobsmacked really, we were in shock. It was very exciting at the time because I didn’t have a telephone and so, on a Tuesday morning, which is when the BBC chart was announced and the record companies got copies of it, nine o’clock tuesday morning, I’d have to go down to the bottom of the road with some two-pence bits and some ten-pence bits just in case you got put on hold and phone up the record company and find out if we were in the charts and what position. It was only about ten houses down to the corner where the telephone box was but it was an amazing difference of experience depending on what you heard over the phone, so number six, the first time it happened, you know, your first top ten and Christmas Top of the Pops just been confirmed ... well, I don’t think my feet touched the floor for that week, you know! Whistling ‘Tears of a Clown’! But, I remember one of them, ‘Mirror in the Bathroom’ [‘I Just Can’t Stop It’] was number three. That was

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a great walk back from the phone box!

Then the following week, it was number three [April 1980] as well, which was a bit frustrating, then the following week it was number three again and to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever been more disappointed in my life! Johnny Logan had won the Eurovision Song Contest that year for Ireland [‘What’s Another Year’] and he’s come from nowhere and got to number one! Straight in that week, bang! And so, the one that was number one, went to number two and we stayed at number three. But, you knew that if you were number three for three weeks that Johnny Logan had just stole your thunder! They tried to make it better by saying, ‘Well, you’ll probably have more chances at a number one Dave, this is probably the only chance that he’s going to get! Don’t be so mean!’

But it wasn’t to be and the next chance we got was when they brought out a best of [‘What is Beat?’, 1983] and they released ‘Can’t Get Used to Losing You’ [remixed version, April 1983, original version featured on ‘I Just Can’t Stop It’] as the single and

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that went to number three as well, so ... and funnily enough, three is my lucky number, but not as lucky as ‘one’ is it? [laughs]. I still never got my number one! I got a number one Billboard Dance hit in America, that’s the dance chart, but I wanted a number one English single, but I’m still working at it, it’s not over yet!

We hear that you actually met Smokey Robinson a few years later.

Was was it like to meet him and was he aware of your version of ‘Tears of a Clown’?

I did! Only for a few minutes, at a Grammy [Awards] party and it was funny because somebody introduced me to Christopher Cross. What a lovely voice, but very tall man, he’s about seven foot tall. And so they introduced me to him and he said, ‘Oh, you sang that ‘Tear of a Clown’, didn’t you? And I saud, ‘Yes, that’s right’ and he said, ‘Have you ever met Smokey?’

And I said, ‘No, I haven’t. Well, that’d be a dream come true’ and he grabbed hold of me and dragged me through

the crowd and went, ‘Hey, Smokey!’ and he introduced us. Well, I was a bit shocked and I said, ‘Well, I started in the business by covering one of your songs’ and he said he knew and I said, ‘I used to sing that song when I was a kid because I thought you had the voice of an angel and if I could sing like you, then I’d be an angel too’ and he gave me such a big hug. I was really touched, really moved but then the hug seemed to go on for quite a long time and I started sweating behind the ears a bit and Christopher Cross had to jump in like a boxing referee, like ‘Step back! Thanks very much!’ What an honour and I was just in shock that he knew my version of the song, that he was that nice and somebody who had been in the business gosh knows how many years was still really kind and friendly. And still singing great as well, or was at the time anyway.

As you were just saying, the success of ‘Tears of a Clown’ was of course followed by four other top ten hits over the course of The Beat’s initial run, ‘Mirror in the Bathroom’ /

‘Ranking Full Stop’ (number 3 in 1980); ‘Hands Off ... She’s Mine’ / ‘Twist and Crawl’ (number 9 in 1980); ‘Nice to Talk to you’ (number 7 in 1980) and ‘Can’t Get Used to Losing You’ (number 3 in 1983).

This leads me to ask, did every successive high chart placing come with increased pressure to follow it up?

Well, you have a lifetime to make your first record and then, if it does any good, you have about a year to make your second one and it’s a very different process and I think with most bands, it throws them a bit because the first songs you were writing to yourself in the bedroom and nobody was going to like take the mickey out of it because there was only you and if you did, you were only kidding and you’d forgive yourself, but now all of a sudden, you’d have some songs out and most people had liked them, that’s why they were hits and you’d got a chance to make some more, but you’d also notice that some people who didn’t like that style of music or your song particularly

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seemed to take particular delight in being vile about you in newspapers. It wasn’t just a bad song, you were like a bad person almost for it, you know, and that sticks in the back of your mind then as you’re doing the songs that are going to come out. You never had any idea of who your fans were because you didn’t have any when you were writing the first album, now you know who your fans are and do you write the songs as though you were writing it to them? Or do you do it like you did in the beginning and just write the songs to yourself and the world in general?

Do you pull your punches and if there’s anything similar to what some snotty journalist hated the last time round, do you get rid of it or if it’s still okay, do you still do it and risk the criticism pouring in? It’s hard to tell. But, the first thing as you can guess what I’ve just said is that you’ll have the tendency to start double-guessing yourself, which in the first place, you never did. It was just everything you did that felt right, that made the hairs go up on your neck, you’d say, ‘Right, that good, that’s staying. Next bit!’ and

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then all of a sudden, you’ve got all these extra thoughts about, well, what should the band represent? What’s the fashion now? Has the fashion changed since the last album? What are kids into now? All these things that you didn’t give a toss about before and then you’ve got record companies telling you this, that and the other as well! ‘Now, without changing your sound’, they’d say, ‘Is there any chance you could do something that’s a bit like ... Well, not like Dexys Midnight Runners, but a bit like that’! [laughs].

Whatever was in the charts that week, our company would be trying to edge us in that direction! So, you’d have all sorts of different pressures on you and you could either ignore them and carry on regardless, or think you were, but to be honest, I think the first album being so fast and loud and a year or so of touring that came before it and after it was such a frantic period, no sleep ‘til Birmingham, that the second record [‘Wha’ppen?’, 1981] was slower and more reflective, almost like the comfort of being in your hotel room to get away from it a bit. But, it was a bit more

introspective and people who like all The Beat records like the second record the best. They say it sounds the best with their headphones on because there’s all sorts of things going on from one side to another and, you know, different layers of things because we’d started to learn what you could do in the studio after the first record, you know. So, I think that was the difference between the two and the first album was like the red hot fury of 2 Tone. Everything was 2 Tone and by the second album, that was already diminishing a bit and so we were sort of more reggae, soul and world-beat by that time I think and then by the third record [‘Special Beat Service’, 1982], really, the first record had caught on in America after a few years of banging around. We’d become quite a big deal in America and the third record, I think, was like a response to that. It was bigger, poppier - American radio sounds, you know, sort of a more expansive sound and sort of more radio confident I suppose. I think everybody in England had kind of had enough of 2 Tone by then and they’d moved on to,

you know, Boy George and all that lot, New Romantics and compared to Boy George, we looked like plumbers!

The New Romantics took advantage, I think, of the fact that immediately prior to them, you could have had The Jam, The Specials, Elvis Costello and The Beat on the radio, all with a song about unemployment and all the music papers were full of instructions for how to join in on unemployment marches and there wasn’t any jobs anyway, so it all became a bit dour. You know, you’ve got to be careful about it; it’s a stage, not a soapbox. You can’t make it too boring, you’ve got to have some element of fantasy and hope that music has always brought, so you try and bear that in mind as well.

During your early career, you were associated with Birmingham cartoonist Hunt Emerson, who designed your Go Feet ‘beat girl’ icon and also painted the mural which was used on the front cover of your second album, 1981’s ‘Wha’ppen?’ How did the ‘beat girl’ logo come about?

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Photograph by Eugenio Iglesias

Photograph by Eugenio Iglesias

Well, when we first got signed to 2 Tone, we got asked to do some shows.

We were very grateful but we noticed they had quite a lot of scraps, a lot of fights. Some of the people in the other bands seemed quite surprised by it and I said, ‘Well, you’ve obviously never been to a skinhead dance then, have you? You’ve got four-hundred skinheads in a room with beer and no birds’. I was like, ‘What were you expecting? The skinhead girls run the parties because they used to stand in the middle dancing round their handbags and you had to go up and dare to ask for a dance and see if you got a dance or a punch in the nose, you know. And I said, ‘When the skinhead girls were there, then the skinhead boys wouldn’t misbehave so much, because you’re not really going to get a date that night by breaking somebody’s nose’. It would go down that well ...

‘Ooh, you’re the one I’d pick!’ So, we were worried about it and carrying on that conversation, we said, ‘Well, the skinheads need some birds there to make them behave’ and so we got the ‘beat girl’ and the fights all stopped at

our gigs, although they carried on at some of the others. And the skinheads, instead of wearing the battle dress, you know, demin and Doctor Martens and that, they started turning up at our gigs in dress attire, you know, their evening wear, you know, crombies and stay-presseds and a bit of extra Brut and looking nice and they’d come to try to impress the beat girls, who were up the front, at the stage. And so it worked fantastically and we had a lot less trouble than any other 2 Tone bands, some of whom had to stop doing gigs altogether because it had just turned into a ruck. Once it took over, then people would be following up on a grudge from the last gig. Like, some gang would be having bother with another gang and so they would be using a 2 Tone gig as a venue to sort it out, you know, like a big return match.

So, they used to have all sorts of trouble. Us and The Specials did a fabulous tour in Ireland in 1980, so Belfast was still a very dangerous place. Not very many groups were going but we went. We were nervous and then we were all in the dressing

Photograph by Eugenio Iglesias

Photograph by Eugenio Iglesias

room at Ulster Hall in Belfast and they went, ‘Oh, you’ve got some visitors.

Is it alright if they come up and have a word?’ And it was the leaders of two obviously different skinhead gangs, one with tartan around the bottom of their trousers and one with green. It was catholic and protestant skinheads of Belfast and they said, ‘We’re so pleased that you decided to come, because all the other groups weren’t bothering’ and they’d decided that the Catholic skins would stay downstairs and the protestant skins would stay upstairs and there would be no fights on the night and they should take care of that some other time. We were so grateful, you know. We used to alternate who would be the finishing band and we’d all go on for the last song with either ‘Enjoy Yourself [It’s Later Than You Think’, ‘More Specials’, 1980] for The Specials or ‘Jackpot’ [‘I Just Can’t Stop It’] for The Beat. So, we were all on stage for the last song and you could see the crowd and see some people jumping and you’d be like, ‘Oh, what’s going on back there then’ and there were loads of skinheads standing on the

balcony pissing into the crowd [laughs] on the last tune! That was at least a humorous interlude, but in Dublin on that same tour, there had been a huge fight. Some skinheads had got on stage, two different sets of skinheads and they’d had a fight on stage and they broke up some of The Specials’ gear as I remember and the fight got backstage and there was all glass on the floor and all blood up the walls and everything and we’d tried to do a runner and found that all the doors round the back where we were had all got chains round them and padlocks and we couldn’t get out of any of the fire exits. And it was only two weeks later that that very same club burnt down and about fifty people got killed because they couldn’t get out the back. Exactly the same spot where we’d been trapped just two weeks before. It’s all there on the road, it is. So, That was the idea of the ‘beat girl’. It was meant as an antedote. It was meant to make the skinhead boys behave and it kind of worked. And then it came to mean something a bit more, which was fantastic and it even got used in the forward of a sociology

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Photograph by Eugenio Iglesias

Photograph by Eugenio Iglesias

textbook in British universities talking about the growing emancipation and empowerment of women in various businesses and they’d used the ‘beat girl’ as an example of that. I didn’t say, well, her job was actually just to make the boys behave [laughs] ... That’s empowerment, isn’t it?!

dream come true really and we got to do quite a lot of tours because they thought we warmed up the crowd best for them, better than most of the other groups they’d had. They were a funny group live, and I got to see them hundreds of times, I suppose ... If they all got on it in the first couple of songs, it could turn into one of the most magical nights of your life. The songs would come alive like 3D cartoons and you were really felt like you were part of a changing world and this revolution and all of this. But, if they didn’t quite get it on or any one of them was not fully on their game that night then it could be one of the longest nights you’d ever had. I used to joke and say they were like The Grateful Dead of punk. Because The Grateful Dead were the same, if they nailed it early on, they were magic and if they didn’t, it was hours of them being out of tune and shouting and ... But, playing with The Clash was a dream come true and even odder, they lived up to their mystique and their charisma. They could be standing round the back of the club having a cup of tea and a cigarette

During your initial run, you toured with the likes of David Bowie, The Clash, The Police, R.E.M., The Pretenders and Talking Heads.

Which of these experiences were the most enjoyable and do you have any favourite memories from these tours?

Well, The Clash was a dream really because there was something about them, a mystique about that I’d really enjoyed before I was in a group and I liked the way they blended punk, reggae and politics and managed to do it in a stylish looking way. It was kind of a bit rocking but I didn’t mind that when it was combined with the rest of it. At least it was punk rocking. So, to get to tour with them was a like a

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Photograph by Jackie Butler

General Public

and just standing there talking about football, but when you looked at them, it looked like one of those Pennie Smith photographs and you expected them to be stood there discussing, you know, Lenin or the role of the proletariat, you know. Of course they were just talking football results, but everything they did and every move they made looked like they were just about to say something really important. So, I tried to join in. You know, I stood there and I rolled my sleeves up and turned my collar up and I spat on the floor a couple of times, you know, and it was fanstatic, even with just a cup of tea and a cigarette and it felt like, oh, I wish Pennie Smith was here right now. It would look like a summit meeting, you know, but with rock Gods! There was something splendid about them but they were very kind to me and they were really nice.

Topper [Headon] and Mick Jones were particularly nice and I got to stay friends with both of them after The Clash broke up for a while until I moved to America. So, that was fantastic. David Bowie was a dream

dream come true. I had every record and I could do a pretty good David Bowie. I could sing every word to every song and sound pretty convincing. So, I’d had a million imaginary conversations with him over the years and then I finally got to meet him and he said how good the band was and he said from the first song on his ‘Serious Moonlight’ tour [May December 1983], the crowd were all up and it was fantastic to be able to start a show that way and that was the spirit we’d helped the crowd build up before he went on. And I thought about all of those conversations that I’d had in my head but all of a sudden, I felt like I’d got a tennis ball stuck in my throat and I just went [speaks nonsensically] ‘Mer-mer-mer-mer-mer!’ and that was as much as I managed to say to David Bowie.

Following the break-up of The Beat, you went on to form the supergroup General Public with Ranking Roger, Mick Jones of The Clash, Horace Panter of The Specials and former Dexys Midnight Runners members

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Mickey Bilingham and Stoker. How did this incredible line-up come together and could you tell us a bit about this period of your career?

Well, it was an odd period because The Beat had broken up and some people wanted to take a year or two off, but me and Roger couldn’t really afford to because we’d just had our first kid and two years off was not on the cards, especially now our missuses weren’t working because they’d just had kids.

So, funnily enough, The Specials had split up, Dexys had split up and reformed with a new line-up and all of a sudden, quite a few people ... oh, and The Clash had split up too ... and all of a sudden, quite a few people who had become friends were looking for something to do and Horace from The Specials and Mickey and Stoker from Dexys lived basically just round the corner basically and so it ended up in America being seen as something of a supergroup, it was mates of ours from round the corner [laughs] who’s groups had split up as well! It was like a refugee camp for split up groups! So,

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we didn’t have a lead guitarist, so I asked Mick Jones if he’d play on the record and he said that he was starting his own group. Big Audio Dynamite.

He said that he had lots of lyrics but he’d only got a few vocal melodies and he kept using the same ones over and over again and if he gave me some tapes, could I ‘la-la-la’ different melodies that I heard and that might give him some ideas for a different way to put his poems to his songs and I was pleased that, not many but a few made it and I can hear them on the first record [‘This is Big Audio Dynamite’, 1985] and in exchange, he played fantastic guitar on the first General Public record [‘All the Rage’, 1984], which I think was one of the things maybe that cemented it being such a big hit in America because his blend of sort of modern rock guitar was the bees knees in America. So, ‘Tenderness’ became sort of what you call a big hit and ‘Never You Done That’ became a big hit, in America at least. We play most of those songs in America and they go down fantastic because they were big radio hits. They still are all

Photograph by Eugenio Iglesias

over the radio, but we hardly play them in England. We just play ‘Tenderness’ in a few different places because who are fans demanded it [laughs], so we play it in a few different places. It’s funny because quite a lot of songs in America that are the biggest hits, it’s a different set of songs that are the biggest songs in England.

This year, you are celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the ‘I Just Can’t Stop It’ album but you have also recently started using the name The Beat for the first time in over twenty-five years. How did you come to start working under the name The Beat after all these years?

Well, for the last three or four years, I had been calling it ‘The Beat starring Dave Wakeling’ and Roger had been calling his ‘The Beat featuring Ranking Roger’ and that sort of worked out alright and most people knew which band was which anyway. People would always say, ‘Oh, is it going to be confusing?’ and it was like, ‘Well, no, not with people who like the groups,

they know exactly what’s going on.

So, that worked quite well but then sadly, a year ago nearly exactly, Roger died and so now I’m the only band called The Beat, so it seemed a bit silly having the ‘Dave Wakeling’ bit. In a way, it was nice though. I have a 1972 copy of Roget’s Thesaurus, still got it in my office, and in 1978, that was the book I found the name ‘The Beat’ in and I still look at it at the top of the page. I looked up music and it had two headings, ‘harmony’ and ‘discord’ on opposite sides of the page and I looked at the discord side and the first word I saw was ‘clash’, so I thought wow, this looks like a good name to find group names! So, I looked over on the other side of the page, harmony, that’s what we wanted to do, a kind of post-punk harmony and there was the word ‘beat’.

I thought, wow, why has no one called themselves The Beat before and it was probably because of The Beatles, wasn’t it? It’s too close to The Beatles, you know. So, we called ourselves The Beat. I told the rest of the band and they all loved it and that was it. So, going back to just being The Beat was

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Photograph by Jay Gilbert

sad, but it was a circle being completed.

Are there any plans to follow up your very well received 2018 album ‘Here We Go Love!’ with new music any time soon and what else can we expect from The Beat in the future?

Well, I’ve got some new songs on the go, simmering. There was one that I could have put on the last album but there was a song about a bit like it.

There’s a ballad called ‘Never Die’ on the album and I’ve got a pretty slow waltz called ‘Love Making Fools’ that I still really like, but I didn’t think there was a place on the record for both of them. So, there’s that and maybe three or four other tunes like that and some new ones that have been started that are just simmering. But I’m thinking that I might just record them and release them one at a time. Just do them one at a time, because I like to tour and when you bring out an album, for about three months, you’ve never worked so hard in your life doing interviews talking about the album and at the end of that

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three months, it’s all done. I think it might be better, in this new world that we live in, to have a song out about every two or three months, so you’ve always got something that is new and current and it’s a way of keeping a connection with your fans, otherwise they’d have to wait for another thirty years for me to bring out another album!

Thank you for a wonderful interview and we wish you all the best for the future. www.thebeatofficial.com www.facebook.com/TheBeat

Photograph by Jay Gilbert

Eye Scream Men Pet Sounds

By Alice Jones-Rodgers.

They may only just be getting their brand of fuzzy, three-chord, acid-drenched psychedelic garage punk noticed in the wider world, but to fans of the local music scene in their hometown of Blackpool, Eye Scream Men are the very definition of a supergroup.

Formed in the early stages of 2019, the band is made up of bassist and vocalist Ligzig ‘Liggy Scream’ Liggett, previously the frontman of fun punkers The Awkwards (who sadly split as this issue was going to press) and former throat with hardcore noise merchants CSOD and two members of acid punk scene stalwarts The Drop Out Wives, guitarist and vocalist Stormy ‘Stormy Scream’ Weathers and keyboardist and electronics wizard Vincent ‘Vinny Scream’ Cornwall, also the one-time sidekick of Ratfink in gothic rock multi-media outift Vince Ripper and the Rodent Show.

Taking this vast musical heritage, along with an even vaster amount of musical and cultural knowledge, the three-piece have so far issued a number of excellent tracks. The latest is ‘Veronica’, a more headbangs per second than should technically be possible, two and a half minute punk and noise rock homage to Archie comic book heroine Veronica Lodge.

The cooler than cool lo-fi video for ‘Veronica’, shot outside Vinny’s home Rippersville by Bobby Pook of Sumo Crucial Video with set design by Vinny and production by Stormy is available to view (probably repeatedly) on the band’s social media pages now.

‘Veronica’ follows hot on the tail of July’s hardcore and garage punk with a scoop of Sonic Youth-style experimentation mind-melter ‘Satan Was an Acid Head’, which came complete with a video paying tribute to the 1970 American hippiesploitation cult classic ‘I Drink Your Blood’.

Later this year, Eye Scream Men are set to release their debut album ‘The Return to Gynn Video’, which, judging by what we have heard so far is likely to be a strong contender for our Album of the Year. Remember where you heard of this band first because very soon, you will be screaming out for more! www.facebook.com/ eyescreammen

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Nils Lofgren Weathering the Storm Interview by Kevin Burke Photography (this page) by Carl Schultz.

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After more than five decades in the music industry, Nils Lofgren is still a force to reckon with. In the midst of this pandemic storm, Nils has released a new live album titled ‘Weathered’. A double live set, recorded in 2019 in support of Nils’ ‘Blue With Lou’ tribute to Lou Reed album. Featuring Nils’ brother Tom, Kevin McCormick, Cindy Mizelle and legendary drummer Andy Newmark, across 16 tracks, the band work as an energetic, improvising machine, re-imagining classics from Nils’ solo career such as ‘I Came to Dance’, right up to more recent tracks such as ‘Too Blue to Play’. It is a reminder of the live shows music fans are yearning for.

Truthfully, Nils Lofgren is integral to music, and spent time at the creative forefront of some of the most important albums of our generation, from Neil Young’s ‘After the Goldrush’ (1970) and ‘Tonight’s the Night’ (1975) to albums by Crazy Horse and Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Tunnel of Love’ (1987) and with the E Street Band on ‘The Rising’ (2002).

In between all these appearances, tours, and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction with the E Street Band in 2014, Nils carved his own respectful solo career. From his original outfit Grin through to his latest incarnation with the ‘Weathered’ band.

At the start of August, I caught up

with this iconic figure. A charming man with a streak of honesty and sincerity that is comforting, if not humbling. Speaking about the pandemic, and the depleting American Dream, I asked Nils about his latest album and it’s creation, along with some of the illustrious highlights from his 52 year career.

Your new album came out on August 21st, a live album called ‘Weathered’.

Did you release it as a tribute to the live shows that the fans are missing at present?

Yeah, I did. The short version is, I hadn’t played with my own band in 15-16 years, and of course I’d be over touring acoustically, but I hadn’t played with an electric band of my own. I toured with E Street, and Neil Young’s Crazy Horse. It was such a freeing experience, I didn’t originally want to record it. The idea came up but I just wanted it to be free, go from town to town, be reckless, and fun. But it was really at the last minute before we shoved off on the tour, my wife Amy insisted that we record the shows.

She knows the characters, my dear old friends and she knows my history.

Even though the plan was not to make a record, we decided to record them [the shows]. Which was good because, I wasn’t in that headspace, sometimes you pay that extra bit of attention and focus when you’re making a live ,record, so it doesn’t help to stay free and loose. When the tour was done, I

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Photograph by Barry Schneier

started listening to rough mixes, and there was some good versions, so I said, ‘Let’s mix them up and see if it feels like a good album to share’. I started to feel like there was a real great vibe to this band. Once we realized we were gonna have it, I pushed to get it out a bit early, because one of the things about the pandemic, and I speak to a lot of musician friends of mine, and we have to admit it’s 52, 55 years since we were planning for a tour, practicing for a tour, talking about a tour, debating when to go out on tour, and that’s all gone away. So I felt, more than ever, it would be good to have something out that fans can listen to that smacks of that rare thing for me, and a lot of others that doesn’t happen without a live audience in front of you.

Certainly the sound of ‘Weathered’ is like a group of friends getting together, jamming and enjoying themselves. Was that what you wanted to achieve on this record?

Yeah, I’ve worked with all these people for so long. My wife Amy [Joan Aiello]

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and I became good friends with Cindy on the ‘Wrecking Ball’ Tour [2012-13].

With this cast of characters, and something I always try to do, I really embrace the idea of not having to do any coaching, it’s really hands off.

They just jam and do what they feel, none of these people are people I want to be telling what to play [laughs].

They all come with much more beautiful ideas that are always surprising each other, and a lot of smiles on stage, with a different riff or going down a different road jamming.

Because they know me, not only do they have that freedom to play what they felt but I encourage them. I say ‘Look, if you feel or hear something in the heat of the moment, just play it, don’t think about it’. And that’s the template we took out and we did have a ball.

I got that from the sound. It was like a jazz approach, almost like a Miles Davis, John Coltrane ‘play what you feel’ style?

Yeah, and when you have people that

‘can’ improvise like that, and brilliantly, it’s a shame not to let them.

I’ve never done those shows, I was a classical accordion player who fell in love with the blues, The Beatles and The Stones, then discovered Stax and Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Richard ... all of it within a few months. Thanks to the British invasion as we called it, and I’ve never looked back. One of the great, freeing things about blues guitar is just play what you feel, improvise and get down in it. And if you have some skill at it, it always works out. It can be a surprise every night, every night can be different. I’ve been doing these acoustic shows, and you’re constantly on, constantly playing rhythm, melody, singing.

There’s a lot of times [on stage], I would just stand and look at the band play. At moments I was just an audience member being on stage with them. That’s a luxury you don’t have when you’re playing acoustic shows.

Yes, a few years back (2009), you did a Neil Young acoustic tribute album ‘The Loner’. Is it wrong to say your

version of ‘Mr. Soul’ is better than Neil’s on his unplugged album?

Yeah, that’s wrong to say [laughs].

Look, Neil is one of my heroes, fortunately and blessedly since I was seventeen, he’s one of my mentors.

I got to hook up with him and David Briggs [producer] at a very young age, and when I was eighteen years-of-age, I was making the ‘After the Goldrush’ album. And thanks to Neil, and David, and that trusting spirit of musicians, they put me on a piano which I never played professionally. That was my first professional piano session, that was scary but it worked out. But on the ‘Trans’ tour in ‘83 I believe it was, we did this great version of ‘Mr Soul’ with this funky synth part, and we slowed it down a little bit. I wish it was on the ‘Berlin’ video but it didn’t make it.

That’s what I’m always looking for on YouTube, that was one of my favourite treatments of that song. But hey, Neil’s got this fabulous archive site, which I go to regularly, he’s always putting out great footage, working on movies and films. That record was a great

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adventure for me. I sang thirty of my favourite Neil Young songs to my dogs and cats for 3 or 4 weeks, and Kevin, for a few weeks they sounded like decent karaoke, and then all of a sudden about the fourth week some of them started having a vibe to them with me as a singer.

Absolutely. I mean, the intro you did on ‘World on a String’ with the bottleneck (slide) guitar is just mind blowing.

Thanks so much, I was looking at that song because I love that song and the ‘Tonight’s the Night’ album. That whole album was such a crazy chapter.

We did a live album, [we were] warned in advance by Neil and David: ‘Guys stay down in it, we’re not going to let you learn the songs too well, you’re going to be playing and singing live, and as soon as Neil gets a vocal, you’re done, you not going to be able to change a single note’. It was an anti-production, kind of awake album.

All our friends were dying, and we felt we wanted to capture something that

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raw and immediate. Let people see how it is before you learn the songs too well, go in and fix the harmonies.

Me and Ralph Molina, the great singer/ drummer would always say ‘let us re-sing our harmonies again’ ‘cos we barely knew the songs. ‘Nah, you guys were in it, we don’t want to change a note’. Kind of like a painting to Neil and David, they didn’t want to change a stroke. On that tour, I fell in love with that song and I tried it in different ways. On piano which I play on the original, and on guitar, and I just couldn’t find something that worked, so I tried a Dobro bottleneck, which I taught myself on the off days in hotels on ‘The Rising’ Tour [2002-2003].

But it came out, and I caught a good version of it.

When you go to do a tour, such as that for ‘Weathered’, you’ve got such an extensive catalogue, so how do you pick what to play on a night?

One of the things I had to realize as the leader of the band, just by the nature of assembling a full electric band, a crew

One of the things I had to realize as the leader of the band, just by the nature of assembling a full electric band, a crew and moving them all into our home [laughs]. We didn’t have the normal rehearsal time, I would have like two-and-a-half weeks to put a show together but we only had six days!

Right off the bat I realized I had to be careful, to get 30 things sounding okay, you know we wanted 20 things to sound great. So that’s part of my job, I paired it down with songs not only I know work but love playing live.

The main goal is I wanted to have fun, I want to have a great time with my friends. I jammed so crazily with Andy and Tommy and Kevin on the ‘Wonderland’ [1983] tours. Tommy’s been playing with me since the Grin days on and off. And then with Cindy, we spent countless times singing in hotels together, working out parts. Then it would be four o’clock in the afternoon and Bruce [Springsteen] texts me three songs we never heard before, and he wants to do them in an hourand-a-half at the sound check. I’d call all the singers and they’d be running in

my room, with carry-out food or make-up kits, sitting there trying to put parts together. So I had a long history of doing that with Cindy. Everybody embraced it, and knew the obvious thing to do, say ‘Here’s the songs, get a basic understanding’ and some of them already knew the songs, so let’s have fun and let’s ‘let it fly’, improv and have a ball. To go out every night and get off as a band. We were able to do that.

The first time I came across you was back in ‘87, after hearing the Springsteen track ‘Tunnel of Love’.

That solo made me want to investigate you as a guitarist further.

Is that something you find happens a lot?

Yeah, I mean I’m playing clubs for 52 years, and I’ve toured England, the Hammersmith Odeon and some of the great theatres you have over there. But a lot of times, almost every night if I can, I go out and sign merchandise. My wife Amy designs the merch. She loves coming to England because we don’t

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On stage with The Boss

have to fly, we just get on a bus from town to town and then over to Ireland, Scotland. Usually, traditionally, I’d warn people, ‘Keep the pub open, I’ll be out to sign anything people like’ and traditionally people come up with an album or something to sign. There’s always one person every night that says, ‘You know something, I just knew you as a guitar player for Bruce or a piano player for Neil, and I thought I’d come and give it a try, I had no idea you wrote or sang’ and then they’d say ‘I picked up one of your albums could you sign it?’ That’s always gratifying, cos no matter what way people come to it, that’s the point, to make music to share. It does help, I get a kick out of it when people do take a chance on me ‘cos I happen to be in Neil’s band or Bruce’s band.

You started with Bruce back in ‘84, you were playing these four hour shows. Is there a regime to get fit to stay in shape to do those shows?

Yes, everyone has their own routine. Of course, I’ve been on the road most of

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my life, since I was a teenager. I love the live environment more than anything else I do as a musician. It depends on the day, usually as you get older you’ve to get to the gym and do something, wake up early, work out a kink, do some stretches trying to fire everything to get back up after being exhausted from the night before. Then there’s homework involved, some songs I want to throw some work at.

When I’m working with other bands like Ringo Starr’s band or Bruce or Neil, or when I’ve gone on the road with Patti’s [Scialfa] band, I always like to go to the venue at least two hours before the band, to have time with myself, the crew, my foot pedals, whatever it is, I just kind of ease into the excitement of the night. So everyone has a routine, but Kevin, sometimes you wake up and go, ‘Man, I did over a four hour show last night, I’m pretty beat up let me take it a little bit easy today’. But you learn the hard way if you just lay around and rest, you just can’t go from rest to 110 miles an hour either [laughs] so at some point you might just sleep in another few

Photograph by Jan M. Lundahl

hours, go to do light weights at the gym, get some espresso or coffee and get over to the gig early, that always wakes me right up. Been around the crowd, the buzz in the air, the crew, people running around getting ready for the show that night, which they’ll never be another like it, always unique. But even in the night clubs too, and being a band leader, it’s singing, when you’re the lead singer and singing all night long it takes an extra amount of energy.

For example, this ‘Weathered’ tour and the band, we put so much into the shows, even at the sound sets we did enough to get loose and let the sound man dial in the room, and time for anything anyone wants to go over. So a lot of those times were waking up and even 20 minutes at the gym. It’s funny there’s a line in a song I wrote called ‘A Child Could Tell’ [‘Crooked Line’, 1992] and it goes something like ‘it’s nice to wake up with a reason to wash your face’. Being on the road kinda fires you up, I might be a little tired but now’s the time to get up and get going.

Every night is magic, walk out there with a good band and there’s people

cheering for you.

You started in ‘68 and you played on these classic albums. I can imagine that’s an overwhelming thought that the music you were involved in will live forever?

Yeah, look man, I’ve never taken the time to look at it that way, but there certainly is some truth to that. I was very blessed at a young age to hook up with Neil and David, I was just sneaking backstage asking for advice really ‘cos I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but I know I had a great band in Grin and some good songs and we wanted to share them. And the next you know we were in California, though we were heading there anyway.

But under the tutelage of David Briggs and Neil, they were the best mentors I ever had, and I’ve had quite a few.

But you’re right, it’s pretty heavy stuff.

Look like I said, I think The Beatles had the greatest body of music in recorded history. Go figure, I met Ringo on the ‘Born In The USA tour in ‘84/85. I lived in LA, we stayed in

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Photograph by Cristina Arrigoni

touch, and in ‘89, he gave me a call to be in his All-Starr Band, and again in ‘92. You can imagine me as a kid, to help one of the Beatles, to get out there and play, and enjoy it. To this day we remain friends, and I value his insight and friendship so dearly, because he was smart enough. Even to realise with musicians it’s a blessing, for him to say ‘Hey! I’ve got money, I’m famous, and I’m getting sick inside by not playing my instrument, I need to go play with musicians in front of an audience, how do you do that?’. You can’t follow the Beatles, how do you do that? So he did it with the All-Starr Band. But we always had to cancel tours. I had three tours in front of me and I had to leave, I know he had a couple of runs, he was coming to town.

I know I was planning to see him. But, things like that, much more than how you will be remembered have imprinted me in a positive way. These heroes I grew up with, and getting to play with them in front of an audience is a real joy and honor.

Even last year, there’s no sign of you

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slowing down, releasing ‘Blue With Lou’, then touring that with the ‘Weathered’ band, and then you worked on the Neil Young and Crazy Horse album ‘Colorado’. You really are not taking it easy?

Well, look, I’ve been blessed with a fabulous wife Amy, who is a partner in the business with me, loves music, does the merch. She advises me brilliantly.

It’s interesting, for the first time in 10, 15 years I found myself with a pretty serious homesickness, missing home.

It became really hard to say goodbye.

But once I got out there I got a deeper level of gratitude to play in front of an audience, and it actually makes me take the day more seriously in the sense of getting ready. Because once I walk out there, I tend to turn my mind off and trust the musical instincts I have, [instincts] that I didn’t ask for, I was given them as a gift from my parents or some higher power. I know if I prepare properly, and I’m in a good frame mentally, spiritually, I can go out there, turn off my mind, trust my gifts and it always seems to work out. I spent a lot

Photograph by Cristina Arrigoni

of time at home, but it is always good to get out and have something to focus on. Getting out playing or singing, and for the first time in my professional career, that’s gone away. So a new live album to share and talk about, get ready to release, just every aspect of it has been an adventure for me. Now I have to figure out what the hell to do with my life and stop waiting. People in charge of the planet don’t have their shit together to say the least, so I gotta figure out what’s next, probably start writing some songs, figure out what I want to do next. But, the main goal for us all is to stay alive, stay healthy.

Speaking from my country, get some real caring, smart people in charge who take things seriously here. We got a bad case of daily, moral treason in my view, and we can’t get rid of them fast enough as far as I’m concerned. It’s a startling development, we never quite went through before, the whole world is watching. I know Ireland has it’s pandemic too, but all of us need to step up, take it seriously, get a handle on it, so we can all get back to doing what we’re doing.

On that note Nils, it has been a great pleasure talking to you, and we all look forward to seeing you live again.

Thank you Kevin, Amy and I were hoping to be over there later this year.

One of the great moments of our touring life was, and she’s been on a lot of tours with me, in Ireland and the UK, England, Scotland. We were in Ireland at Vicar Street [Dublin], and I had the accordion, and I broke out ‘The Fields Of Athenry’, and we were so shocked, the entire staff, the waiters, the cooks, everyone stopped doing what they were doing and came out and sang with the audience, it was one of my favourite moments from my career, but I’ve been blessed with many.

The live album, ‘Weathered’ is available now through Cattle Track Road Records. www.nilslofgren.com www.facebook.com/nilslofgrenfans

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Jethro Tull

Ian Celebrates Tull’s Prog Years Interview by Martin Hutchinson.

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For years, Jethro Tull’s co-founder, frontman and writer has tended to deny that the band is a Progressive Rock band, despite albums such as ‘Aqualung’ (1971) and ‘Thick as a Brick’ (1972), which are always featured in lists of the best ever Prog rock albums. But these days, it seems as if he has had a change of heart and is now celebrating the band’s Prog Years in a UK tour which, having been rescheduled from this September, is now due to take place in September 2021.

Ian begins by telling me: “I’ve always liked the idea of Jethro Tull being a ‘Progressive Rock’ band.

The first time I heard the phrase, I thought ‘Yeah, I’ll have a bit of that’.

In 1972 it became ‘Prog’ rather than ‘Progressive’ and the term became derogatory, the music being arrogant and pompous. This was in my mind when I wrote ‘Thick as a Brick’. Over the top and a surreal view of society, and a strong willingness to parody.

Nowadays, Progressive Rock is accepted, and it’s never really gone away. Today there is a multitude of Progressive bands.”

As with the vast majority of us, Ian has been hit by the lockdown.

“We attempted to do a show in Finland. We took off from Britain, but by the time we arrived all concerts were cancelled. It took us 12 hours to

be able to arrange to get home again.”

But he is keeping busy.

“Yes, it takes double the time to undo and rearrange concerts than it does to set them up. On the positive side, it keeps me occupied. I play the flute and sing every day and take the dogs for a walk. Everything is on hold at the moment, even my Cathedral show in December. I’m also supposed to be doing a show at The Vatican in December, but I’m not sure it’ll go ahead.”

But let’s look on the bright side and the Prog Years tour has been rescheduled, so what can we expect?

“Well, first of all, we are celebrating not just the ‘Prog Years’ of the early seventies. It’s making reference that the Prog Years are all 52 years the band has been in existence. Even a couple of tracks on the very first album ‘This Was’, which was thought to be a ‘Blues’ album were not ‘Blues’, In fact most of the albums have progressive rock tracks.”

Ian already has some idea of the set list for the tour.

“I’ve been working on a set-list and concentrating on the keynote songs. We did perform the list in March before the world went mad. We had rehearsed it, but will have to rehearse it all again before going back on the road.”

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Set lists are a bit of a minefield as Ian explains:

Does Ian himself have any favourites?

“That’s right. In a typical year there can be four different set lists. One for the festivals, the Christmas one, the solo shows I do and the Jethro Tull dates.

There are some songs that are always in the set list like ‘Aqualung’, ‘My God’ and ‘Locomotive Breath’. And some others that I consider to be progressive, like ‘Hunt By Numbers’, ‘Black Sunday’ and ‘Clasp’ from the ‘[J-Tull] Dot Com’ [1999], ‘A’ [1980] and ‘Broadsword and the Beast’ [1982] albums.”

“Well, you have favourites that come and go. Like if you play a song you haven’t played for a long time, it’s like meeting up with an old friend. It becomes a new favourite for a while.”

And there are some that haven’t been played for a while.

“Yes, there’s a few. We haven’t played them because they were too difficult, but because we didn’t usually play every track off an album. They’ve been fun to do. They aren’t difficult for me to remember as I’ve worked on the tracks, but it’s a big learning task for the rest of the band as there are tracks they might have never even heard before.”

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And there’s new material in the pipeline, as Ian explains: “There’s an album in the works, but it’s been in the works for a while due to touring, so I might be able to get some more of it done. It was originally scheduled for release in September.

Four songs are finished and mixed and I have five others that I will record.”

We can only hope that Ian has more luck with the Prog Years tour next autumn.

Jethro Tull’s rescheduled Prog Years tour runs from the 17th to the 30th September 2021. Tickets are available from all the usual agencies.

17/09/21: Bath Forum, Bath

27/09/21: Concert Hall, Perth

18/09/21: Reading Hexagon, Reading

28/09/21: Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow

20/09/21: Aylesbury Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury

29/09/21: Victoria Hall, Stoke on Trent

21/09/21: De Montfort Hall, Leicester 22/09/21: Brighton Dome, Brighton 24/09/21: O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, London

30/09/21: King George’s Hall, Blackburn. jethrotull.com www.facebook.com/officialjethrotull

25/09/21: Lighthouse, Poole

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The Magic Numbers

Fifteen Years of Happiness and Heartbreak Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

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This month, The Magic Numbers were all set to head out on an twelve date tour to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of their classic, double platinum selling, Mercury Prize nominated self-titled debut album. COVID-19 may have halted these plans until next April but fans of the four-piece, who uniquely consist of two sets of brother and sister, Romeo (vocals and guitar) and Michelle Stodart (bass and vocals) and Angela (keyboards and vocals) and Sean Gannon (drums), will be pleased to know that the album has just been reissued, complete with bonus tracks for Record Store Day (29th August), which itself had been postponed due to the pandemic.

We recently caught up with Michelle to discuss the origins of the band, the label bidding war between Rough Trade and Heavenly Records which ultimately saw them signing to the latter and embarking on a whirlwind of press and fan adulation, sell-out shows (both headlining and playing alongside the biggest names in the industry such as Neil Young and Brian Wilson) and, of course, that album and what we can expect from the forthcoming anniversary tour.

Firstly, hello Michelle and thank you for agreeing to our interview. This year marks the fifteenth anniversary of The Magic Numbers’ self-titled debut album and to celebrate, next April, you will be heading out on the

road for a twelve date anniversary tour. So, could we start by asking how the band first starting performing together and the writing and recording process of the album?

Yeah, it’s fifteen years this year since the record came out and it’s a strange sort of thing to look back on really because it was kind of a whirlwind of, a snowballing effect of amazing things happening for us. We started playing together ... Well, Romeo and Sean, the drummer in the band, were playing for about ten years prior to me and Angela joining and they would play with different members and the band wasn’t called The Magic Numbers until we later joined [in late 2002]. And they were playing with different bass players and different singers and Romeo had a bunch of different kinds of songs as well and they were working the circuit for all that time. And when Romeo and I moved from New York to London, we met Sean and Angela in London and we all went to the same school together and we sort of started playing music and you know, inevitably, they stopped themselves from thinking they were going to have their sisters in the band really because no one ever thinks that’s going to be the end result! So, yeah, we were like their biggest fans. We would go and watch them, you know, all the time when they played at the pubs and stuff and they were working the circuit, sending out demos to record labels and, you know, getting very different things lined up. And then band

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In 2005. L/R: Sean, Angela, Romeo and Michelle

members kept leaving really. You know, they left because it was taking too long. Some of them had other work commitments and life things and then one day, Romeo asked me to step in and play the bass, which I’d never played before. I was playing the guitar, you know, I’d kind of been writing songs by myself playing the guitar and we had kind of taken over the front room and turned it into like a makeshift studio where we could like record. Our mum and dad gave us the front room and we put mattresses up over the window and stuff, proper DIY, egg boxes we were collecting and, yeah ... And, yeah, it just kind of grew really from there and then we kind of started writing different kind of songs, you know, with harmonies and Angela and Sean then joined the band and the four of us just kept playing music really. So yeah, and then the sound of the band was kind of born, in a way. So, the writing and recording of this record, Romeo had pretty much written a lot of the songs already or was writing a lot of the songs for ... because we had started this line-up, you know, and it

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two girls singing, me and Angela, and a lot of the songs were written with that in mind, with like harmonies and duets and sort of conversational sort of things. But also, he had just gotten out of a really serious relationship with Angela and Sean’s sister, which complicates things again! So, he was going out with their sister for years and so a lot of those songs were kind of based around that. We didn’t really want to ask, but yeah, it was there in the songs really. And we wrote a lot of our songs together too. Me and Romeo, we wrote ‘Mornings Eleven’, ‘Wheels on Fire’ and a few other ones on there as well and we would, you know, because we were playing music a lot in the house together and recording, working on things and I was learning the bass and, you know, I taught myself how to play and sing at the same time and we then started demoing little things in the house, but also, when we came to recording it, we did our first gig in The Water Rats [London] and one of the labels that we’d loved and Romeo had sort of wanted to be with was Heavenly

Records. Yeah, Heavenly Records or Rough Trade and it was either one of those two that we really loved. And we had a total moment when they came to our gig and they both were standing there at the front of the stage and they were sort of elbowing each other saying ‘This is my band! And yeah, so Heavenly Records came to Water Rats and said, ‘Hey, do you want to make a record?’ and that’s when we started the process of recording really, which was crazy because I think I was nineteen at the time and we’d never been in a studio, like a STUDIO studio before and it was the first time we were recording a record with a label. Yeah, and we knew what we wanted. We knew the sound that we wanted and we were working with this producer [Chris Silvey] who managed to keep us sounding like we did live and that was really important, I think.

What are your favourite memories of being in the studio recording your debut album and do you have a personal favourite song from it and why?

Aaw, good questions! Personal favourite moments being in the studio ... There’s so many recording this record but if I was to look back on one of them, it would be - We were asked to pick what the first single would be for the album and we’d released a 7” already, ‘Hymn for Her’ [November 2004], you know, which was amazing and sort of wanted to do a video for the next one. So, when we decided that it was going to be ‘Forever Lost’ [released in May 2005, a month before the album], I had this, I don’t know, epiphany or something and I had the whole video in mind. So, I came up with that one and when we were recording, I remember being at the back of the room on my laptop and I was writing the whole sort of storyboard. And I don’t know, I love videos and I think at the time, I was really into that. So, that was a favourite memory of mine because it sort of reminds me of being in the studio and I was doing that alongside recording our record and it was kind of fun. And, I also remember just having fun nights just like staying up late and recording

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percussion and hand claps and, you know, just hanging out really. Me and Sean had got really good at playing pool and we had loads of moments where we would get together and record vocals as a three-piece, which we still do, just to keep that live element and we sort of look at each other and sing around a mic and stuff.

Yeah, just those magic moments that you can’t kind of get all the time, but, yeah, when they come along, it’s amazing. And personal favourite song?

It kind of changes. I mean, it changes all the time. Even playing it live, the songs become their own beast, of sorts.

But, yeah, I think one of my favourites on that record though is one that we play least live and that’s probably ‘This Love’. It’s not really a festival song and, you know, if we have our own gig, we’ll play it and yeah, we played it a lot on the acoustic tour. But yeah, we rarely play that song and I think there’s sort of a specialness to it.

The overall sound of the album represented a band with musical tastes extending far beyond the

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standard indie fare of the time (Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs, et al), certainly containing a lot of strong folk elements, so what music influenced you and the other members as musicians and songwriters?

Yeah, well, me and Romeo grew up as kids with a lot of country music.

I mean, I love country music on a personal level, just the songwriting element and just kind of the direct, raw truth of it, you know. And yeah, we grew up on that and we love Burt Bacharach and then later on, you know, The Beach Boys, but we never thought about it as a thing. People always kind of want to know your influences but I think subconsciously, it’s there but when we get together, it’s weird, we have our own kind of sound really that we didn’t even really know ourselves.

And it came down to how we would play as well. You know, it’s not sort of technically right and we’re all sort of self-taught musicians and we’re doing what we can with what we’ve got! And there’s that sort of truth there, that

honesty. But we love all types of music really. You know, we love Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac and ... you can hear all that in there, yeah.

To set the scene of the era in which the album was released, which other then new acts attracting attention at that time did you have the most admiration for and why?

The new acts that were around at the same time as we were? Aah! Well, it’s mad because we didn’t fit in at all really. Like, we really didn’t fit in. we were hanging out with Kings of Leon and [The] Killers and you know, backstage, we kind of like the only harmony-ish kind of group as well. It’s funny, because I kind of look back on that time and there were so many bands that were around that aren’t still going now as well. Yeah, so many, which is sort of mad as well to think. And we always said that we were in it for the long run, you know, the longevity of it and our things was to make records and keep making albums and to change and grow. So, I don’t know for the time

that we were out. I remember touring with Bright Eyes and that was an amazing tour for us and we toured with [The] Flaming Lips as well, which was an incredible tour around that time and some of our first tours, even like Travis as well, but I know that they were going for a long time too. So, for me, I think Bright Eyes I learned a lot from in the sense of I think Conor [Oberst] is an amazing songwriter and as a songwriter as well and doing my solo stuff, he is like an inspiration. So, when I remember that tour and just seeing how hard he worked, and we were on like a twenty date tour with no days off, and we were travelling around America, so the drives were like insanely long, and he would party every night and hang out with us and, for me, I just sort of got a lot from that. You know, sort of growing up on the road in some ways and just sort of soaking up a way of life through these bands that I admired. And Flaming Lips as well. They would set up the stage themselves and these guys were huge as well, they were like selling out huge sort of state fayres that we were

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on, you know, like outdoor kind of venues, and they would be like so meticulous and detailed about what their stage would look like and then there was Wayne Coyne sweeping up confetti every night. And for me, that is like the bands that are in it and they love what they do, not the ones that kind of go straight off from singing and go straight onto their laptop to post something and go ‘oh yeah, we did this and ...’ You know, they’re the ones that are living it. They’re living the highs and the lows and the dirt and the grime and that dread of packing up the van and travelling for like six hours. And they’re the ones that are going to last, you know. Even like Neil Young, when we got to support him later on with our fourth record [‘Alias’, 2014], you see him and watch him and you think, this guy, he’s doing it and he doesn’t care, you know. If there’s anyone who I say to anyone who’s an influence, someone I admire and look up to, it’s him, because he like starts a set on like a twelve minute song, you know, a twelve minute jam. And he’s still out there doing it after all this time and

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staying true to what he does.

Touring in support of the early singles and the debut album was a bit of a whirlwind for the band, with you selling out The Forum in London despite having only released one commercially available single (‘Forever Lost’), touring all over the world and supporting U2 on two dates just a month after the debut album was released and also playing alongside Brian Wilson on his UK dates in the same year. What are your favourite memories of being on the road in the early days and do you still get the same buzz out of touring fifteen years later?

Aah, these are nice questions, they’re good! Yeah, I think, I mean, like I say, I got so much from the road. It was kind of like a slow build to life, I think, in general, in myself and I think I still maintain that pace. I don’t know, it’s so quick these days and I feel like I’m very much on the back foot of everything, but I feel like the road taught me a lot about just living and

doing what you do and getting the most from it and trying to remember those moments. I mean, we had a lot of amazing memories that sometimes when we get back to our bunk on the tour bus and lay back and everything’s quiet, there’s that flickering in our mind of just like, what?! This just happened?! I’ve just been on stage with Brian Wilson and like, Brian Wilson’s standing at the side of stage, singing along to our songs and he’s saying that we’re one of the best bands and, you know, it’s crazy! And then, you know, we support U2 and we stand out on this stage in this stadium and there’s so many people and there’s a whole other kind of like world that you’re introduced, like backstage and with all the preparations that go into show. And, you know, living so kind of close to each other and there’s a lot of heartbreak and quiet, lonely nights and failed relationships and, you know, all because of the road. But it’s the journey, you know, and I feel like some of my favourite moments sometimes are sitting on the bus and, you know, staring out the window and just

thinking about all the things that have happened that I’ve been so kind of fortunate really to experience and to still be doing it, yeah? And to still be enjoying it. And every gig is different, you know, from the bigger gigs to the really small gigs to the gigs where you’re backstage and you just don’t feel like playing or you’re in a mood or you feel like no one gets it and you go on stage and your whole thing just shifts, you know, and there’s sort of like ... There’s no feeling like it to stand up on a stage and play, there really isn’t and I miss it massively. It’s a huge part that’s just been taken away from us. You know, I can barely complain with all sort of the stuff that’s been going on out there but yeah, from a sort of point of view where playing live is such a huge part of us, yeah, it’s been strange not to know what to do with it. But yeah, I mean, the journey and the playing live of that record, it’s been incredible, sort of like the memories we’ve had with it, you know. Yeah.

Having released four albums since then (‘Those the Brakes’ (2006); ‘The

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Runaway’ (2010); ‘Alias’ (2014) and ‘Outsiders’ (2018)), how do you feel the band have evolved musically since then and how does the debut album rank amongst your personal favourites?

Oh, well, I think the band has evolved like a lot with every record. It’s something that we’ve wanted to do, you know, because music for me is learning. You know, I do not claim to know everything about music, you know, and I’m learning every time and I’m learning from other musicians that I play with and learning from songwriters and that’s the actual joy of it for me. Yeah, if I feel like I’ve sort of done that, I know it. Well, you know, I don’t think like that in life anyway. So, for me, our records have always been a place where we can express and go and sort of listen to the songs and what it’s needing and for us, as a band, we’ve always kind of pushed ourselves and challenged our kind of natural default as well. So maybe we’ll go, ‘This song is needing this’ and, you know, we’ve kind of always tried out different ways

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in which the song could kind of go and what kind of speaks and what kind of sings out more really. And so, making records is the perfect way of doing that, you know, and I think sometimes, if I was being honest, I wouldn’t say to our detriment, but it also means ... sometimes people want to go to a band and know what to expect. Or, a band just wants to create the same kind of sound throughout and that’s cool too.

And I think there is that in our band, there’s that kind of thread. There’s a thread of our singing and our playing and musicality and also, you know, the songwriting is still like indepth, very honest, but I think we’ve just kind of tried to evolve our sound and kind of find our sound in the studio really, which is quite hard to do, you know, especially if you are quite a live band.

But, you know, I feel like we have done that on record and create that space where we feel like we’re having fun on the album, you know, and we’re in it, you know. Like, our last record, ‘Outsiders’ was a real kind of back to the four of us playing in a room like jamming, with the energy and having

a really good time, you know. And, yeah, I think albums like ‘The Runaway’ were where we sort of tried out different things. It wasn’t as much a guitar record. Romeo started playing the piano more and all different kind of synths and we wanted different sounds and that was healthy for us, you know.

You know, it’s healthy for us to kind to do that and again, those songs, they wouldn’t have existed without that change and that shift. Yeah, so, I think looking back to this record, where we kind of, like I said, played in a room as best we could and we captured that energy and that nervousness of being in a studio and also the youth, and heartbreak as well, I listen back and I listen back fondly. You know, I don’t listen back and go, oh, I wish we’d done this, because I think each album has it’s own place, you know, of what we were at that time.

It’s like a snapshot of that era, isn’t it?

Exactly. That’s a good way of putting it! And it is. It is a snapshot of, you

know, us and the songs as well really.

In the fifteen years since the album was released, how do you feel the music industry has changed and what is your opinion of it in 2020 compared to how it was in 2005?

Oh God! Well, it kind of riles me up this because it has changed so massively and in many ways, I feel like it has changed in many ways, I wouldn’t say ... well ... This is what happens, I start having these conversations in my head and I just ruin myself! So, to be honest, there’s a lot of good that’s changed but then there’s a lot of things that need to be remembered. We just need to just consider the fact that with music now, it feels like no one’s investing any time in anything. It’s just time, you know, no one has any time anymore and I think that’s the sad thing about now. And, you know, I think we could complain about money and we could complain about the sort of history of bands not getting any money and God, we could go into that! That’s a huge, huge part

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Schmoozing with Robert Smith

of it that’s dispicable really. I think a lot of people consider art as this thing that, I don’t know, because there’s so much that is kind of free now, there’s no kind of physical thing. So, if everything’s free and you can kind of just have it on your phone, then you don’t understand the amount of work and love and the process that’s gone into it. And, you know, my daughter is twelve and the introduction to music and what she knows about it and how she listens to it is a lot different to how we grew up with it. Yeah, and it’s either you’re doing it now to sort of ‘be cool’ or there’s an element of, again, you sort of need to have to have all the different sort of medias, all the different things, but the quality time that goes into putting on a record, putting the needle on, you know and just sitting with it and just listening to it, it’s not there anymore. And, I mean, even if it wasn’t vinyl or CD, even if the only thing that had changed was online, people just kind of like sifting through, you know. They just want the next thing. It’s like having the remote control and flicking through channels.

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A lot of people these days don’t even listen to a full album. Like Spotify is cool in a way because it can make you find new things, like records that you may not have heard or like older records as well that are a surprise that they’re on there really. They’ve got a lot of old stuff on there, which is really cool, seeing as record shops aren’t really alive anymore. It’s good that you can still access those old records. But yeah, from that sort of sense, God, the industry has massively changed from when we were like a band and I think we just about, before the whole world kind of changed in that way, we managed to get out with our record.

And yeah, I mean, we could have come out a bit earlier, I guess {laughs] and have a bit more of that time! It’s a shame. If you look back on the ‘90s and you just see all those bands and you think, God, the time was so different! It was so different when we first came out and that’s why I don’t envy new bands coming out. It’s difficult.. I’ve been doing my solo thing as well and it’s difficult. You have to be savvy in a whole other way,

The Magic Numbers in Lockdown, June 2020

I think. No one understands the way things are now. The labels don’t understand it. That’s why everyone’s putting their own records out! That’s basically it, that everyone’s going out and sitting down having a meal with their record companies and they’ve all got their hands up in the air going, ‘Aah, I don’t know what to do with this album!’ So, you might as well own all of it yourself, put it out yourself and then you stand to get a little bit more money maybe, you know, as well.

[Referring to the lack of money generated for artists, groans:] Oh God! I mean, it’s not what we do it for, but when you realise the amount of musicians who are out there that aren’t getting paid and you see them still doing it, you’ve just got to go, no one’s doing it for the money, you know. You know, but we still need to be able to survive and make the next record, you know, that’s the thing. So, when you put a record out, you know you’re putting it out because you love making music and creating something, but also to be able to make the next record, hopefully, you know. We released our

last record ourselves on our own label and we’ve been thinking about doing the same again because it was just so much better and also because we know what’s going on. The weird thing is, everything’s changed but, still, there’s a question mark over where everything’s going when you’re with a major label.

It’s just these kind of secrets and weird kind of ... so, this way, the plus of putting out your own thing, yes, it’s harder and there’s a lot more work involved but at least you know what’s happening with your music. You know where it’s going, you know what’s happening. That’s a conversation with a wine! We need to be leaning on a bar, having a nice drink!

In the last few months, the music industry has had the COVID-19 pandemic to contend with. How have the members of The Magic Numbers been coping during the lockdown and have you managed to undertake any band activities in this time?

I wish we had been able to do more

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band stuff but we all kind of live fairly far away from each other in London and also, we’re each kind of with our families, you know, our mum and dad and stuff, and we’re all trying not to see as many people basically and keep in a very small circle of people that we see.

But weirdly, I mean, I think we all kind of have a slight kind of ... Underneath the surface of being out and being social, there’s also, if you give us the moment to sort of recluse and be ... It’s sort of dangerous, I think, you know, in a way. You can really kind of keep to yourself and that sort of becomes like a safe place and I think it’s invited a lot of that with people and I’m talking about myself there too, definitely. And on a sort of a seperate note, I’m kind of scared about, nervous about going back into, you know, ‘the real world’.

If there is such a thing as that anymore.

Yeah, I wish we were able to do a bit more as a band but we’ve been trying to do ... I know that Romeo has been writing a lot and playing the piano.

He’s really gotten into playing the piano, which is good. He was always really good at it but it’s just taken on

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a whole new level with it and I think he might be hoping to do like a piano record or something like that on his own, which I think would be really nice actually. And I know that he was doing some solo dates before this kind of thing happened and so, you know, maybe it’s given him some time to kind of focus on stuff like that for himself really, which is all he can do really in this time. So, yeah, then I’d also been doing stuff. Just before the lockdown, I was like, annoyingly, right at the end stages of my next solo record and I was planning to release it and put it out and so I went into a bit of a crash with that, like serious kind of depression with it, because it had so much momentum and then it was kind of just ... So, I’m just kind of finding my way with that and I might sort of finish it myself and put it out somehow and yeah, I’ve been writing as well and I’ve a little set up now at home, which has given me the time to be able to learn a few new things. A lot of YouTube tutorials!

[Laughs] And the occasional kind of online gig. But it’s been a strange one.

And I’ve been spending a lot time with

my daughter as well, which has been really kind of great and at such a sensitive age as well. We had a kind of pre-high school moment together.

So, yeah, that’s been like the pluses.

Family is always there to remind us, you know, of what matters really. And yeah, just being a bit insular, I guess.

There’s a lot more time to reflect and read and write and, you know, soak up a lot of things.

As we mentioned previously, you are set to head out on a twelve date tour in April next year. Are there any venues that you are particularly looking forward to playing and why and what can audiences expect from your performances on this tour?

Aah, well, on the tour, we’ll be playing the record, the first album, in it’s entirety, like from the beginning to the end, which we’ve never done before. We did it once recently for an online show. So, yeah, that will be quite mad because it starts with ‘Mornings Eleven’ and that’s usually the song that we finish our set with and

then the album kind of starts off like a lot faster and then gets slower, so it will be a whole other pace to those gigs and I think it’s quite good in that way because we’ll be taking the audience on like a journey and we’ll be talking through the songs and just going a bit indepth with it, you know. But yeah, I’m trying to think of the venues now that we’re playing. I’ll have a quick look at the tour ... I think we’re absolutely looking forward to The Forum in London because that venue has been a special one for us over the years and we’ve always sort of gone back to it as a momentous thing. I’m really, really, really looking forward to Leeds, The Brudenell Social Club.

That’s two dates. The first one sold out in like an hour or so! It’s a really great venue. I’ve played there a few times.

And I think there’s a few venues which we haven’t played, like we haven’t played the Stroud venue, The Subscription Rooms. I know Newcastle will be an amazing one as well. We’ve got some friends there and have always had great gigs there as well. Manchester ... So, yeah, we’ve

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tried to find places that we’ve had special memories at as well with that album in those places, like Glasgow, for one, on our first tour supporting Travis was a big one. We got a lot of friends out of that tour and fans who have kind of stayed with us throughout.

So really looking forward to that.

Thank you for a wonderful interview and we wish you all the best for the future. www.facebook.com/ TheMagicNumbers The rescheduled tour to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of The Magic Numbers’ self-titled debut album runs from 21st April to 8th May 2021. Tickets are available from all the usual agencies.

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21/04/21:Riverside, Newcastle 22/04/21:Rescue Rooms, Nottingham 23/04/21: The Subscription Rooms, Stroud 24/04/21: The Globe, Cardiff 28/04/21: Arts Club, Liverpool 29/04/21: Brudenell Social Club, Leeds (sold out) 30/04/21: Brudenell Social Club, Leeds 01/05/21: Thekla, Bristol 05/05/21: The Caves, Edinburgh 06/05/21: Òran Mór, Glasgow 07/05/21: Academy, Manchester 08/05/21: O2 Forum Kentish Town, London

paragraphs by the author, before settling into the ‘diary-style’ entries.

The word count of 15,000 has been deliberately curtailed for two reasons: Firstly, to make more room for photos and secondly, to encourage those who have had their curiosity about the band stimulated to but the author’s more detailed biography ‘Angels of Fortune’.

Blue Öyster Cult – A Visual Biography

By Martin Popoff

Review by Martin Hutchinson.

A sumptuous coffee-table book which is limited to 1,000 copies in hardback, dedicated to the US music giants Blue Öyster Cult.

The band, which is most famous in the UK for their 1976 hit ‘(Don’t Fear) The Reaper’ have had their career dissected and put together in a diary-style format,

by Canadian author Martin Popoff.

It is essentially a photographic history of the band from it’s origins in the late-sixties, and is so up to date that the latest entry is from 6th March of this year and hints at a new studio album (‘The Symbol Remains’, which has just been officially announced).

The photos are not just of the band, but includes memorabilia, newspaper cuttings, adverts and record sleeves.

I consider my curiosity well and truly stimulated as the information is basically the bare bones and leaves you craving a more in-depth read.

However, it’s the photo content of the book that’s the main thing here. There are hundreds with at least one on each of the 240 pages, and the pages are all high-quality art paper.

But I personally feel that there are far too many photos of the gig at BB King’s Jazz Club in January 2005 and The Robin 2, Bilston in June 2008 pages and pages of them.

Having said that, it is a must-have item for any self-respecting fan of the band, and a very interesting read for all those with an interest in music history.

Wymer Publishing 240 Pages Hardback RRP: £59.99 ISBN: 978-1-912782-37-6 www.martinpopoff.com

Each section has a few introductory

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The Bookends and the Sound of ‘Calliope’:

A Pop Art, Garage Rock Adventure Interview by Kevin Burke.

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The Bookends return with a new album. The duo, consisting of cousins Karen Lynn and Sharon Lee, released a blistering debut, ‘Far Away But Around’ in 2018. The album is a combination of melodic, thundering, garage rock, wrapped in heavenly harmonies and presented in a graceful sixties glamour.

Now, two years later and that sophomore release lands on September 18th. Titled ‘Calliope’, it is the perfect uplifting and artistic statement in a time of uncertainty.

Already, the blistering and addictive ‘She’s Got It’ has peaked the attention of the music world.

Released in May, ‘She’s Got It’ (No.1 Radio Expo Chart) proved the ladies have lost none of their midas touch for creating energetic work that lodges in the enjoyment part of the brain. With further tracks ‘Face The Facts’ and ‘Have It All’ receiving steady airplay in the States and the UK, this is certainly an outfit to watch, and ‘Calliope’ is an album worthy of investigation.

With that in mind, I put a number of questions to Karen and Sharon surrounding the creation of their latest album, an example of how quality music can still be created across distances. More importantly however, it is an example of how, in this surreal world of hostility and pandemic anxiety, music can still uplift us.

Did you both have the same taste in music growing up?

Karen: I think that because we were inseparable as kids, and lived only blocks away from each other, we both were influenced and surrounded by the same music growing up. From rock and roll to mod, soul and everything in between. We absorbed a lot of music from our homes and the radio that made an impression on us and helped to form our sound. I’ve always been obsessed with music from the sixties and still find myself gravitating back to that era for inspiration and enjoyment.

The Beatles are everything musically to me as are so many other bands from the sixties like The Kinks, The Byrds, The Who and so many more.

Sharon: We spent nearly everyday together as children and were very lucky to grow up in music loving households, as a matter of fact, music was on the stereo or radio more than the television was ever on . We were exposed to a great variety of genres and styles and our parents encouraged us to get into the music, to sing and dance to it and to appreciate the joy and expression it brought. We loved the sixties music best and well, clearly still do. That era of music changed popular and rock music and its influence on songwriting, performance and production is still evident and going strong. I too am a huge Beatles fan and love bands like The Zombies, The Moody Blues and The Yardbirds, to

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name a few!

How old were you both when you decided that music was going to be your path in life?

Karen: We’ve wanted to be musicians since we were little kids. We used to put on shows for our parents and have been writing songs since we were in our teens. I think music was always a passion for us and being able to record and put out albums together was always a goal we strived for.

Sharon: The Bookends has been a lifelong dream for us realised. We were always making some kind of music.

We would write out lyrics to songs we loved so we could learn them by heart as kids, that eventually led to writing our own material. I don’t think we ever made a decision to make music our path, it was just always that way, we were always passionate about it, music was an important part of life, more than a dream, as necessary as water or shelter, as far back as I can recall.

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What was the inspiration or influence for that ‘60s style and image?

Karen: I think we’ve always been inspired by music from the sixties, I personally will always identify and cherish the sounds from that decade.

From the beginning, we always planned to make music that had that sixties vibe ... it was the music we fell in love with when we were kids and we wanted to make music that reflected that. We love both the mod and psychedelic style and atmosphere of that time and hope we replicated that sound in our music.

Sharon: What Karen said! You can’t beat that style or that sound!

How does the writing process work in The Bookends? Is it a joint effort on everything?

Karen: We both contribute equally in the songwriting process. Sharon and I write all of our songs and share files back and forth of our demos.

Sharon: Thank the technology Gods for file sharing! It’s how we get to make this groovy music. I’ll write a song and share the files with Karen and she’ll add her guitar work and vocals and vice-versa.

You are both related (first cousins), and grew up together. Does that add to the chemistry on the recordings and indeed for creativity in general?

Karen: We’re super related (our mothers are sisters and our fathers were also related to each other) so there is definitely a strong family bond and chemistry. We think a lot alike and also sound similar when we’re singing so that helps in the creative process for sure.

Sharon: It certainly helps! As Karen said, we’re super related, matter of fact our DNA samples matched us as half sisters. We have very similar tastes in lots and lots of random things, in high school we both designed identical class rings without knowing it until the day we got our rings! That’s something

that still happens a lot, despite the miles between us, whether it’s an idea for art, fashion or sound.

The Bookends debut, ‘Far Away But Around’ achieved praise, radio play and laid the groundwork for your career. Did that make you guys eager to capitalize and record a follow-up?

Karen: Absolutely! We were so thrilled that our debut album got such a great response that we couldn’t wait to work on another album together.

Our first label is no longer active so we knew we had to find another label to work with and luckily JEM Records reached out to us. We know how hard it is to get signed by any label so we feel grateful that we got another opportunity to put out a second album .. especially on vinyl. I’m a huge vinyl collector so having our music on vinyl means a lot to me!

Congratulations on the upcoming sophomore release ‘Calliope’. Did you have the majority of it done pre-pandemic?

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Karen: Thank you so much ... We really are so grateful for a second release and are very pleased with how it all came out. We did have the majority of the music completely recorded before the pandemic hit with just a bit of recording left and then Sharon completed the mixing and mastering.

Sharon: Yes, we had the album almost completely written pre-pandemic. I was glad to have more time to work on mixing and mastering it. We’re both elated with the way it turned out.

I think it encompasses our love for all things ‘60s.

Where did the title ‘Calliope’ come from?

Karen: The title of the album was suggested by Jem Records owner Marty Scott’s wife, Toni. We thought it fit our songs perfectly and also gave us great artwork ideas for the cover.

Sharon: When we released the single, ‘Sing This Song’, I said to Marty Scott, owner of Jem Records, a good single should be like a good amusement park ride, you should want to get right back on as soon as it ends! He then mentioned that to his lovely wife, Toni, and she said maybe the girls could call the album ‘Calliope’? We were both instantly sold!

Do you feel on ‘Calliope’ that you have matured as musicians from the

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learning experience of ‘Far Away But Around’?

Karen: I think we have progressed with our songwriting and that the album follows up on our first album with a psychedelic twist and some heavier undertones.

Sharon: What I loved most about making ‘Calliope’ was that it offered me the opportunity to create music in a genre I’ve had a lifelong love for.

What made this record different from our debut album was having had the time to really concentrate on the songs, the opportunity to sit with them a bit, to really hear and develop them. I love our first album and feel it led us to creating ‘Calliope’.

Using session drummers such as Buck Ellis, Ward Reeder and Larry Alvarez, did it take the pressure off in the studio?

Karen: Since we live thousands of miles apart, the process is always a bit tricky. Having a variety of drummers to suit all the different songs was a bonus for sure, as was having ace guitar player, Frank Labor [Sharon’s husband] contributing some fabulous leads. It’s always amazing to hear the final production come together so nicely.

Sharon: I’ve worked with these drummers extensively in bands as well as my studio so it was so great to be able to tap them to play on this record!

Are you itching to play these songs on a live stage?

Karen: Because Sharon is in Arizona and I live in Pennsylvania, we really don’t have the ability to get together to jam and prepare for live shows. I think with the pandemic, so many bands are trying to sort out live shows ... it’s a strange and uncharted world right now.

Sharon: Playing live is a very real challenge for The Bookends. The distance between us does not lend itself well to regular rehearsals.

What does the future hold for The Bookends post-pandemic?

Karen: Right now, we’re just hoping that everyone enjoys our new album and that it provides an escape from the stress and worries of the world today.

We are so grateful that we had the ability to release two albums in such a short time. We want to enjoy how far we’ve gotten and see what the future holds from there!

Sharon: Our focus now is releasing ‘Calliope’. We are so thrilled to have this record coming out and we hope it can offer our friends and fans a little shelter from our noisy and uncertain world. www.facebook.com/thebookends2

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Duncan Reid and the Big Heads Don’t Blame Yourself, Blame Rock ‘n’ Roll!

Interview by Kevin Burke.

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“... we put on a show and I just love it!”

The name Duncan ‘Kid’ Reid is synonymous with British music.

As part of the punk scene in the mid-seventies, Duncan joined the first band of the era to gain a record deal and release an album.

That band of course was The Boys.

Duncan shared lead vocal duties with Matt Dangerfield across that debut album’s 14 tracks (and indeed all output from ‘76 - ‘81) and that highly influential album became the catalyst for the punk scene not only in the UK, but in the States.

After a reunion run with The Boys from 1999-2011, Duncan re-emerged with a new band, a fresh sound but the same mission statement. Hence came Duncan Reid and the Big Heads, and a thrilling, acclaimed 2012 debut ‘Little Big Head’. From there the outfit evolved, building a cult, a legacy, if you will, on the touring circuit. Overnight, they became the unmissable powerhouse outfit and released further albums of sublime, melodic punk, ‘The Difficult Second Album” (2014), ‘Bombs Away’ (2017) and their latest ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’ released this year in the depths of pandemic lockdown (May 15th). The current line-up of Sophie Powers (guitar, keyboards), Nick Hughes (guitar) and Karen Jones (drums) make up the Big

Heads and they have all been integral in the creation of this latest, stunning creation, becoming a live band who are incendiary.

In early August, I caught up with Duncan as he relaxed, awaiting news of tours and life on the road for a conversation which could have easily centred around his past, but the future is where he has set his sights.

This is a punk from the old-school era, who is still interested in pushing forward, driven by a hunger to create.

Congratulations on ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’. Even though you released it during a pandemic, it hasn’t affected its popularity. Was not touring straight away to promote it something you were mindful of?

Do you know what, I thought there’s nothing you can do about it. Firstly because we crowdfunded it, and the fans have been waiting two years for it, and we can’t let them down. Secondly, you sit with it on the shelf looking at it and it goes off, a bit like a tin of food [laughs]. And thirdly I thought, ‘When are we going to be able to play, who knows?’ I don’t know when that will happen and nobody knows when that will be. So I thought, ‘Bugger it, let’s put it out’. If we’d been playing like

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we normally do I don’t think I would have had the time to promote it, speak to fellas like yourself and give it a good push. That’s what I did, I emailed the whole bloody world ... and then we learned to do video editing, so we’ve been putting out videos every now and again. Today, I videoed myself walking up and down on the beach to ‘Oh What A Lovely Day’, so that’s another one to work on.

My view is it came out at the right time, as people needed their spirits lifted and new music to listen to, would you agree?

That’s a very nice thought. I haven’t thought about it but it would be great if that’s the case.

I see ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’ as the band skipping through genres, ‘Motherfucker’ sounds ‘70s and ‘Welcome to My World’ is ‘90s Britpop. Was that your intention and was it the influence of the members within the band?

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I mean, I think the best albums over the past few decades are varied albums, albums that go up and down. I think there are very few bands like the Ramones, for example, who can go bang bang bang all the way through and not be boring. And a lot of people have fallen into that trap. I deliberately set out to write different kinds of songs, ‘cos for me, putting the album together in a way people want to sit through it and listen to it, is an art. To do that you got to have some slow ones, some medium ones. But you are also right, the variety on the album comes from the band as well. They obviously come from a very different decade than me, and they have different influences. I think that shows in the style of the album, it’s not just a 1977 chug, which it might have been if it was solely me or my generation doing it. There is other stuff going on which comes from the nineties and the noughties, and that’s their influences.

There are so many artists out there who are willing to sit on past accomplishments, but you are

different in the respect you want to try new things and make new music.

Is that your drive to keep pushing forward?

Regarding the recording, was much of the album recorded live in the studio? It seems to come across like that on the title track?

Yes, yes I am, very much so. As much as anything by the fact that I think we are so bloody good. When we play these bills like Rebellion or North West Calling, and I enjoy watching the other bands and it’s quite rare to see another band as good as we are. I think, ‘why are we playing at five o’clock in the afternoon and that bunch of idiots are playing at ten o’clock at night?’ I just want to get up there at ten at night and play as well.

Well here’s the thing, none of it was recorded live! It was recorded - drums first, then the bass, then guitars, then vocals and so on. So far the process is, I got a little studio at home and I make demos of the songs there. Then I send them out to the band so they can add their bits. But it starts with Karen [Jones] drumming along to the demo, and then we add everything on, bit by bit. I do the vocals and the keyboards at home as well, it allows me the time to do the harmonies.

Personally, I feel there is a thing that has crept into music where bands paint-by-numbers and play tracks from their back catalogue, but you guys want to entertain.

That’s true, we put on a show, and I just love it. I love being up there with a bunch of people who are as big a show off as I am.

In the future, are you going to go in the direction of doing a live album?

Yes, there is a difference, we are much more raw live, and rightly so, the two things [studio and live], are two very different things. It would be good to have a record of what we sound like live done properly. God knows when we will be able to do it, but it’s the next

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thing on the agenda.

songs on stage before the lockdown?

Do you try to replicate the keyboards from ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’ live on stage?

Yes, there are tracks I am itching to play live like ‘Your Future Ex-Wife’ and ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’. But we already played ‘Motherfucker’, ‘Welcome to My World’, there’s about four that we played quite a lot, and one or two others like ‘Little Miss Understood’ that we played once or twice. So we’ve given them a good run out already.

Sophie [Powers] plays the keyboards live, there’s one song from the first album I play the keyboards on, we just try and do the important stuff. For example, when we play ‘Baby Doll’ [‘The Difficult Second Album’] live, Sophie will be playing but there are four or five songs we actually use keyboards on. But the live ones tend to be a more raw, and faster affair we do tend to pick songs that have less keyboards on them. A song like ‘The Grim Reaper’ [‘Don’t Blame Yourself’] is really difficult to do live, not just because there’s so many keyboards on them, but there’s 4 million backing vocals as well. Which makes the track on the album one we won’t be able to do properly live until we are as big as Coldplay and can afford some of those good looking backing singers [laughs].

Did you get a chance to test drive the

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Is the writing and arrangement becoming more of a group effort than on the previous albums?

I think the arrangement has, but the writing across all four albums has been myself. But having done that for four albums it’s time for a change, and going forward I would like to be more collaborative with anyone who’ll have me. I’ve already written a great song with Nick (Hughes), a really good one that I’m very excited about ... So in general I’m going to be casting around for more people to write with.

With your obvious connection to The Boys, do you still get requests to do songs from back then, are you happy to play them?

We play about four Boys songs in the set, for no better reason than I love playing them. Playing a song like ‘First Time’ in the set is such a joy and Nick sings ‘Brickfield Nights’, which gives me a song to get my breath back. And they are great songs to play live. It’s funny the reaction of the audience, it’s 50/50. I mean 50 percent of the audience are saying ‘It’s great to hear those songs live’ and then 50 percent are saying ‘What did you play those songs for? why don’t you play more of your own songs?’ I’m just playing those songs because I like to.

One thing that’s noticeable is your voice hasn’t changed. You still sound like you did four decades ago. Is that difficult to keep in tact?

It’s a great source of paranoia for me, it’s quite a fragile thing, and it’ll go quite easily. But every cloud has a

silver lining, because one of the things that affects it is alcohol, so I if have a bit to drink I’ll notice it the next night when I sing. If I have too much to drink it might go all together, which means on a tour I have to stay sober, until the last night. Then I drink enough on the last night to make up for staying sober on the rest of the tour [laughs].

I keep seeing the name Joey Ramone associated with you, and The Boys, you guys toured with the Ramones back in the day?

There’s an article, you will see reproduced on Facebook, I think it’s on our own site, where he [Joey] wrote about how we [The Boys] were one of his favourite bands. Of course, I had the honour of singing backing vocals on ‘Baby, I Love You’ on the tour The Boys did with the Ramones [‘End of the Century’ tour, 1980]. We had to teach them how to play ‘Baby, I Love You’ ‘cos they didn’t know how to play it.

Are you happier now, than at any

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other point of your career?

Yes and no, I mean it’s chalk and cheese. Back then the record companies did everything. All you had to do was turn up, play, and get drunk, that was it. Now, you have to know how to do everything. You can’t be the happy idiot musicians used to be. You have to know how to do Photoshop, you have to know how advertising on Facebook works, you have to sort everything out for yourself. And in a way that’s more work but I like it. It keeps me out of trouble, it gives me something to do and it’s interesting. I’m happier being the master of my own destiny, instead of a pawn in everything going on around me.

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It has been an absolute pleasure talking to you Duncan, and congrats again on ‘Don’t Blame Yourself’. I speak for many when I say we look forward to your next album.

And you! I don’t suffer from too much pressure, but that’s the pressure, you have to keep the standards up, and you have to keep moving forward.

The band are due to make an annoucement regarding future live plans via their website in October. duncanreidandthebigheads.com www.facebook.com/ DuncanReidTheBigHeads

of, such as Norwegian rockers Dimmu Borgir and Dir En Grey from Japan, and loads of other American and European bands that only the die hard metal fans will have heard of.

666 Songs to Make You Bang Your Head Until You Die

By Bruno MacDonald

Review by Martin Hutchinson.

An interesting book this. Bruno also co-wrote ‘1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die’ (2005) and ‘Rock: The Rough Guide’ (1996), so he knows what he’s talking about.

Here, he picks 666 of what he considers the best metal songs from 1958 to the present day. And yes, it goes all the way back to ‘Rumble’ by Link Wray & His Ray Men in 1958 up to 2019’s ‘Deutschland’ by Rammstein.

For all the songs, we get the nationality of the band, writers, producers, parent album (if appropriate) and label, as well as sleeve image and a few paragraphs about the track and reviews of the particular song.

Naturally, the ‘classic’ metal bands get more than just one mention, for instance, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Rush, Judas Priest and Led Zeppelin have 10 entries, Metallica gets 12, but the champions with 13 mentions each are: Slayer, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath.

There are also a few surprises with Slade and The Sweet getting a mention and, get this ... The Osmonds’ ‘Crazy Horses’!

It’s all laid out chronologically and the paragraphs that Bruno has written for each entry are all informative and, in many places, amusing.

Music buffs in general will find the book fascinating, and it’s one you can just dip into as and when the feeling strikes.

207 pages, Hardback.

Fully illustrated.

Laurence King Publishing RRP: £20.00 ISBN: 978 1 78627 652 0 www.brunomacdonald.com

There are some bands I’ve never heard

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Steve Hackett Steve is Revisited Interview by Martin Hutchinson.

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Former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett was lined up to have a very busy year until the coronavirus struck, with a tour and the publication of his autobiography.

With the tour now on hold until September 2021, he is spending time at home, but still keeping his hand in by performing acoustic versions of some of his songs and posting them on social media. He tells me: “It was my wife’s idea. Jo said to me, ‘how do you feel about sitting down and playing some music? The thing is, most of my stuff is either at the studio or on the road, so I just had a couple of instruments to play with. But it is keeping me busy and I also practise a lot, keeping my fingers nice and leathery.”

And the tour went down well it seems.

“Yes, you’re right. It packed people in.

We went to Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the States. So then I thought it would be nice to do a ‘Best of Genesis’. ’Seconds Out’ cherry picked the best of the band at that point. Tracks like ‘Carpet Crawlers’, ‘Firth of Fifth’, which have become crowd favourites, and instead of the shorter versions that I do as part of my shows, I can now do the full versions.”

And Steve hopes to play ‘Seconds Out’ exactly as we first heard it 43 years ago.

“Yes, it worked well then, so we will probably do it I the same order – it all depends on the rehearsals.”

The tour, which now starts at Leicester De Monfort Hall on 10th September 2021, is titled ‘Genesis Revisited – ‘Seconds Out’ + More!’ and Steve’s plan is to perform all of Genesis’ 1977 live album ‘Seconds Out’ as well as choice songs from his solo output. Steve explains how it came about:

Steve also picked out some of his personal highlights.

“Well, I had the idea of playing the Genesis album ‘Selling England By The Pound’ [1973] and my solo album ‘Spectral Mornings’ [1979] and we did 150 shows with that last year. With the days in-between shows, much of the year was spent on the road.”

There’s even the possibility of Steve playing some new songs.

“Yes, well ‘Firth of Fifth’ has a famous solo, and there’s ‘Dance on the Volcano’ and ‘Los Endos’ with it’s drum solo, and ‘Squonk’. Phil [Collins] sounded great on the album and it has more power live.”

“I’m hoping to record and premiere new things.”

The tour takes place in the same year

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Steve on stage with Genesis in 1977

that Genesis head out on the road on their ‘The Last Domino?’ reunion tour. Is there the possibility of Steve joining his former bandmates onstage at any of the shows?

“Probably not. My tour was booked three months before theirs and because I’ve got my own commitments it would be difficult, so I’d have to say that it’s unlikely.”

Before the tour, there is the little matter of Steve’s autobiography ‘A Genesis In My Bed’, which, in spite of the coronavirus, was published in July by Wymer Publishing.

“Yes, it was out in July and it covers all of my life. I started it years ago but never really knuckled own to it as I was building up my solo career. But I’m now at the point where the solo career has an audience and I felt secure enough to take the time out to do it. It’s been a real labour of love.”

And how did Steve put it all together?

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“Once I had done a chronology, I worked on the anecdotes. I didn’t want it to be all sex, drugs and rock and roll so I’ve talked about travel, spirituality and philosophy as well. I’ve tried to make it humorous and revealing, and above all honest. I’m praiseworthy about my one-time colleagues.”

The book covers all of Steve’s life thus far.

“Yes, it goes back all the way to the early ‘50s. There’s description of the décor; things were pretty bleak for young couples like my parents.”

Will there be any more books?

“Well, as this one brings the story right up to date, there’s no ‘Volume Two’ at the moment, but funnily enough my wife Jo and I enjoyed the process and we have been discussing things. I might do one which could be more anecdotal.”

Ever optimistic, Steve is looking forward to getting back on the road.

Photograph by Rick Pauline

“We’ve got to keep our spirits up, and things will get back to some sort of normality. But we can’t afford to put profits over people.”

Steve’s autobiography, ‘A Genesis In My Bed’ is out now. The UK leg of his 30-date ‘Genesis Revisited - ‘Seconds Out’ + More!’ tour is currently scheduled for 10th September to 22nd October 2021. Tickets are available from all the usual agencies.

10/09/21: De Montfort Hall, Leicester 11/09/21: Philharmonic, Liverpool 12/09/21: Victoria Hall, Stoke 14/09/21: Symphony Hall, Birmingham 15/09/21: Corn Exchange, Cambridge 17/09/21: St David’s Hall, Cardiff 18/09/21: The Anvil, Basingstoke 20/09/21: Palladium, London 21/09/21: Palladium, London 22/09/21: Palladium, London 24/09/21: O2 Apollo, Manchester 25/09/21: Playhouse, Edinburgh 27/09/21: Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow 28/09/21: Caird Hall, Dundee 30/09/21: The Baths Hall, Scunthorpe

01/10/21: St George’s Hall, Bradford 02/10/21: Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham 04/10/21: Fairfield Halls, Croydon 05/10/21: G Live, Guildford 07/10/21: Dome, Brighton 08/10/21: Lighthouse, Poole 09/10/21: De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill 11/10/21: Mayflower, Southampton 12/10/21: Pavilions, Plymouth 14/10/21: The Sands Centre, Carlisle 16/10/21: O2 City Hall, Newcastle 18/10/21: Waterside, Aylesbury 19/10/21: New Theatre, Oxford 21/10/21: Cresset, Peterborough 22/10/21: Royal Hall, Harrogate

www.hackettsongs.com www.facebook.com/ stevehackettofficial

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Neil Fox Doctor in the House!

Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

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Neil Fox, commonly known as ‘Dr. Fox’ or sometimes even just ‘Foxy’, answers the phone in the most radio voices of all radio voices. It is a voice absolutely befitting of a broadcasting legend who, having cut his teeth at regional radio station Radio Wyvern between 1984 and 1986 and spending nine months of 1987 transmitting across Europe on Radio Luxembourg, landed his dream job with Capital Radio {later Capital FM) in October 1987.

At Capital, armed with a self-made jingle that would become as famous as him, Neil truly became a household name, not least due to the eleven years he spent hosting the revolutionary, Radio 1 UK Top 40 rivalling Pepsi Chart between 1993 and 2004.

His public profile was boosted even further when in 2002, he became one of the four judges on ITV’s ‘Pop Idol’. The show became such a phenomenon that during the infamous showdown between Will Young and Gareth Gates in the final of the first series, more people cast their votes (a staggering 17million, in fact) to crown their favourite as Pop Idol than had voted in the previous year’s UK general election!

Following a decade at Magic 105.4 and a brief stint at Thames Radio between 2016 and 2017, Neil took a well-earned break to concentrate on

other ventures such as building an app called ‘Beat the Intro’, a music game for Alexa. Now, with his passion for radio broadcasting seemingly stronger than ever, we are delighted to say that the Doctor is back in the house, having recently joined the fast-growing United DJs. At United DJs, Neil began hosting a brand new chart show called The Heritage Chart on 26th July and broadcasts alongside many other superstars from radio’s illustrious past, such as the station’s founders Tony Prince (formerly of Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg and interviewed in Eighth Day Magazine Issue Twenty-two) and Mike Read (formerly of Radio 1).

I donned my own best radio voice to conduct the following interview in which Neil talks about all about his incredible career so far, his triumphant return to the airwaves and much more.

Firstly, hello Neil and thank you for agreeing to our interview. Could we start by asking a bit about your early life, how you first became interested in radio broadcasting and how you got started as a DJ? Sure! I think my main interesting in radio came when I was, probably, in America in 1982 as part of my degree.

I was doing a business degree and I was working in the states getting some

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working experience and I was in Atlanta in Georgia and there were some amazing radio stations around there.

So, at that time, I think British radio was pretty dull. A lot of local commercial radio had become a bit like women’s magazine programmes during the day, it was a bit safe, it was a bit dull and radio 1 was probably getting a bit tired at those times. The original team, they seemed ... they hadn’t got any new blood in it. Yeah, so, it all seemed a bit dull and in comparison, what I was listening to bursting out of my speakers as a twenty-one-year-old guy in America was like a breath of fresh air, it really was. Yeah, it was amazing! Well marketed and they really well targeted at their audiences.

There were loads of them and they had a great energy and it was like a lightbulb moment, like this is what I want to do when I get back. So, that’s what I did. I did a load of shows on University Radio Bath and got some tapes together and sent them off. I sent three tapes off. I sent one off to Radio 1 straight away and I sent one off to Capital [Radio] and I sent one off to ...

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No, just those two actually and Capital got back and said, ‘You have no experience’, but the people from Radio 1 said, ‘This is really good, but you haven’t got any experience and only the people with lots of experience are going to get on Radio 1, but we’re going to watch you because this is really good’. So, that was good. I kept that letter actually, that was a good one.

But then, actually what I did was I had to get a normal job. I’d just graduated from university, so I ended up in Worcester doing what I call a normal job, but there was a little radio station there called Radio Wyvern, who I sent a tape into and got friendly with the sort of head DJ, a guy called Sam and he said if I wanted to, I could go and help on his show, learn about how radio studios work, learn about the business of radio and he also, like me, was really interested in American radio and the sound of it, the business side of it. So, that’s how I started and then I got my own Friday night show and I used to help him on a Saturday morning and do a double-header show ... actually, a triple-header show, with a girl called

Eleanor Oldroyd, who ended up becoming a really brilliant sports presenter for the BBC. And then they offered me to go full-time and I started full-time in 1985, so here we are thirty-five years later and I still find going in and doing a live radio show unbelievably exciting.

Thirty-five years! Wow! Yeah, it’s amazing! I can’t imagine how many records I’ve played in that time, how many links I’ve done, how many shows I’ve done, it’s thousands!

But, you know, we worked out the other day how many people I’d played just doing live gigs and presenting live gigs, you know. And we worked out I must have done near-on three million people live, just doing big gigs like Wembley Stadium and stuff like that, introducing bands or doing stuff that we did. But it’s been an insane, brilliant rollercoaster ride!

In your early broadcasting career, you used the pseudonym ‘Andrew Howe’, Andrew Howe being your two

middle names. This surprised us considering Neil Fox is such a good DJ name (or maybe we have just associated it with being a DJ name).

Was there a reason for this?

I did, Andrew Howe when I was on Radio Wyvern, that’s right. Well. Why did I call myself Andy Howe? I think in the very early days, Andy Howe felt like a real DJ name. Well, lots of DJs used their middle names or their first name and used their middle name as a surname and if you look back over history, a lot of them have done that. And I suppose my name is Neil Andrew Howe Fox, that is my name, so they were just my middle names and Andy Howe, I don’t know why but I suppose I never really thought Neil was a particularly entertaining name and I suppose why I was quite happy when the nickname ‘Doctor’ stuck when I was doing the late night surgeries [Capital Radio]. So, ‘Foxy’ became ‘Dr. Fox’ and ever since, in a way, I’ve just been Dr. Fox. I made that jingle, that ‘Doctor Doctor’ jingle, and the rest was history, you know!

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‘Beat the Intro’, Foxy’s music game for Alexa

With wife Vicky

The classic jingle!

Yeah, it was amazing, literally all the DJs on Capital at the time, it was like ‘Alright Doctor!’ It became a nickname that stuck and then, literally, I guarantee there will not be a day goes by that I don’t walk down the street and someone goes, ‘Doctor, Doctor Fox!’ It’s one of those things that sticks!

Do you still get that?

All the time! Literally every day! And it’s nice, you know. I mean, if you were on station, as I was, that literally reached millions of people every day and you’re in peoples’ lives every day ... If you think about it, you’re part of their lives every day and their routine every day and then you get on TV and people know what you look like and you start doing ‘Pop Idol’ and you get on their TV screen in a lounge on a Saturday night, at a time when people didn’t watch TV on computers, you only watched it on a TV, you suddenly became ... Wow, it was enormous! And it’s not just doing it once or twice ...

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You have to remember I was doing six shows a week on the radio and I’ve been doing that for decades and people ... We all have routines, so everyone gets up at a normal time, they do certain things, they drive home at the same time or they go to work, so when I when I was doing, you know, ‘Dr. Fox’s Evening Surgery’, that was part of a lot of teenagers’ and young people in London lives. It was their evening.

When they should have been doing their homework, they were listening to my show and then when you start doing drive-time and you’re part of everyone’s lives, literally every day when they’re coming out of work and they’re going home or they’re making dinner. You’re on, you’re part of their life every day and it’s very powerful radio because of that. And they get to know you and they get to know your life and they get to know all the little things that you say about this, that and the other and yeah, it’s amazing! Yeah, you become their friend on the radio and I think that’s the lovely thing about radio. It’s intimate because of that.

At Radio Wyvern, circa 1984

Going back a bit, a bigger break as a DJ came in 1984, when you joined Radio Wyvern presenting a show called Mellow Yellow on Friday nights from 9pm to 11pm. A year later, you took over the weekday evening show from 6pm to 9pm, before moving to the weekday afternoon show between 2pm and 6pm, as well as presenting a Saturday morning show from 10am to 1pm. What are your favourite memories of working for Radio Wyvern and what did you learn from this experience?

Well, look, I loved working for Radio Wyvern because it was the first time I’d worked in radio and it had become my full-time job. My father didn’t really want me to become a DJ, he thought it was a ridiculous career. I’d gone to a really good, I’d got a really good degree in business and he thought I should go and be a really good businessman, right? And that’s what he had been. But I wanted to do this thing. And memories of Wyvern? Lots of laughs. Honestly, we earned no

no money at Wyvern, it was a very poor radio station in terms of money.

Like a lot of local radio stations, we were struggling to make ends meet, so I certainly wasn’t going to get rich doing that. I could just about pay my rent from doing it but honestly, it was so much fun and, you know, I have friends from those days today that were around then, that I met then, but I cut my teeth, you know and Radio Wyvern got me to Radio Luxembourg, which got me to Capital. And actually, when I was at Wyvern, I sent three tapes out.

I thought I’d got to a point where I was going to learn as much as I could and think, right, I’ve got this plan and my plan was ... Well, I’d said to my father ... He’d said to me at twenty-four, he said to me, ‘Please tell me you’ve got a plan?’ Okay? And I said, I have got a plan. I said, ‘If I’m not on a really big radio station making good money by the time I’m thirty, I’ll quit’. And I worked out that was six years and if I hadn’t done it in six years, I wasn’t going to do it. Okay, so I thought, right, I’ll work my nuts off for six years and let’s see what we can do. So, I sent

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three tapes out at Wyvern. I sent one to Capital again, one to Radio 1 and one to Luxembourg and the Radio 1 guys came back and said, ‘Okay, this is getting really good, we are watching you now, but you need to go off and get some more experience’, at that time.

They take them now with no experience really, it’s a very different station now, but at the time it was Radio 1, it was national Radio 1. And then Capital, there was a lady called Jo Sandilands, who’s a very nice lady, but it was being run very much like a woman’s magazine still at the time.

She had been the editor of Woman’s Own magazine, so she said I was bit too young and loud and crazy for them, at that time. Then, there was a guy called Phil Ward-Large, who was the programme director for Radio Luxembourg. He phoned me up and said, ‘Come and have a chat’ and then he offered me a job. And so I went out to Luxembourg for nine months from February 1987 to September 1987 and then actually, while I was there, Capital had changed, a new guy arrived at Capital, Richard Park, who’s job it was

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to try to transform the radio station and change it into an amazing pop music station and part of that was recruiting some young, fun DJs and luckily, I was one of them. So, I went there in September ‘87 and spent seventeen amazing years there.

You remained at Radio Wyvern until 1986 and, as you just said, joined Radio Luxembourg in February 1987. How did you find the experience of living in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and broadcasting on a national station as opposed to local station?

Well, being in Luxy was great fun. I sort of set off in my Volkswagen Beetle and drove over there, turned up one night and the next day I was going to be on the radio. I think they were a really friendly bunch of jocks over there. It was a really small team, good fun team. You know, Luxy in its day had been the biggest radio station, enormous, but when I was there, it wasn’t. It was past it’s sell-by-date but still really good, do you know what I

With Mike Hollis at Radio Luxembourg, 1987

Photograph courtesy of Honey Bee Benson

mean? It was still a really good platform but it wasn’t what it was.

We’d now got really great pop radio stations and lots of local radio that had filled the hole up and we had Radio 1.

So, there were lots of other radio stations that people were listening to now, not Luxy. But it was a great platform. It was a big platform; it was national and it felt big. It still felt like a big station, to be on Luxy and it was great being on the great 208 and being part of its history, but I only spent nine months there. But it was fun. I mean, honestly, it was like being on a big holiday really. I arrived in February, met some great friends, springtime was beautiful, then it became summer and the weather was gorgeous, lots of tourists around, lovely summer over there. Literally, there was nothing to do during the day because the radio station wasn’t on during the day, it only started at seven at night, which was eight o’clock European time, so we all had the days off and so we’d go swimming or running or chilling out.

Honestly, it was like being on holiday really! We’d have a laugh, we’d do our

shows, it was really good fun and summer ended and I left and came back to London. I mean, for a month, I was commuting because of contract problems, so I’d jump on a plane on Saturday morning, fly to London and do two shows at Capital and then fly back on a Monday morning and do my shows. For a month I did that at Luxembourg. But that was easy really and then, it was just great fun, so I look back with very fond memories of Luxembourg, great memories of being part of 208’s history. And, I guess Tony Prince, obviously, he was there during its heyday, but if you look back at the broadcasters who had been at Luxy, it was a who’s who, it was amazing! The history of that place was incredible, so it’s very, very nice to be in that history.

That was really cool and that sort of bought me up to Capital and that obviously transformed my life.

You were only at Radio Luxembourg briefly, joining Captial Radio (later Capital FM) in October of the same year. You remained there for eighteen years presenting a number

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of different shows, most notably Dr. Fox’s Midnight Surgery, the evening show on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the Pepsi Network Chart Show (later simply the Pepsi Chart and then Hit40UK) on Sundays from August 1993 to May 2004. You were invited to join Capital Radio by newly appointed controller Richard Park in his bid to update the station.

What are your memories of that first meeting with Richard and how did you find working under his leadership and being part of that revamp?

Well, look, I remember the meeting very well actually because he’s a tough guy Parky, he’s a tough man and he knew what he wanted and he had a job on his hands to transform that radio station, he really did. So, I do remember sitting down in his office and the first thing he said to me, it wasn’t like ‘Hello’, there wasn’t any niceties really, he said, ‘You do say some really stupid things on the radio, don’t you?’

That was like his opening line and it really took me aback and I went, ‘Well,

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like what?’ And he went, ‘Like this’ and he pushed play on a cassette and he’d air-checked one of my shows and done a link and it was a little bit OTT and a bit crazy, but I thought it was funny. It was funny [laughs] and I laughed! I went, ‘That’s pretty good!’ and he went [adopts Scottish accent], ‘You think that’s funny?’ And he gave me this really stern look. Really broad Scots guy: ‘You think that’s funny?’ and I went ‘That is quite funny, come on!’ And he said, ‘That’s not funny’ and I went, ‘That is funny, come on, how ...?’ And he said, ‘When you came to work here, I think we’d have to sort a few things out, alright?’ And I went, ‘Well, hang on a minute, when I come to work here?’ I said, ‘Are you giving me a job?’ And he said, ‘Why do you think you’re here?’ And I went, ‘For a chat’ and he went, ‘Yeah, because you’re going to come and work here’.

And then I just remember leaping up and going ‘YES!’ Yeah, I was super-chuffed! Look, Parky was a tough taskmaster. In football terms, he was Sir Alex Ferguson, okay? So, he was like that, okay? It’s Parky’s way

or get out the door. And I sort of get that because he had this real vision and most of the vision was bang on and it was working and he transformed Capital into what was probably, well, what was recognised in radio, right? It was seen as the greatest radio station in the world. In the late ‘80s and through the ‘90s, it was the number one radio station in the world. It dominated, it really did and the people in America, who we used to look up to would come and listen to our station and go ‘Wow! This is how modern urban radio should be done, this is brilliant’.

So, it was nice to know we were doing something good and listening figures were huge and, you know, in London, no one listened to the BBC, this was what it was all about. If you wanted pop music radio, it was Capital, right?

And then towards the end of it, other stations started, like Heart started and Kiss started and what have you, of course they did and then the radio map changed but we did have an amazing decade. Incredible.

Richard Park has done the same for

quite a few radio stations, hasn’t he?

Yeah, he has. Richard Park left Capital and then he was doing some freelance work and he ended up with EMAP Radio and he was there at Magic [105.4], weirdly, so I’ve been really good mates with Parky, I’ve known Parky for a long time. His wife is godmother to our son and my wife and his wife are best mates now, still are.

So, I had this really good relationship with Parky, but it was always based around he was sort of boss and I sort of worked for him, even when I didn’t work for him, it was weird. But him and I had been talking and there was always this sort of idea that there was room in London for a really good adult radio station. So, when those people who had all listened to Capital had now grown up a bit and they were now all in their thirties with kids, or forties, they were still listening to Capital because they always had. So, we were going ‘They need to have a choice’ and the choice is going to be Magic, okay? So, he started working there, weirdly with a former managing director of mine

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called Andria Vidler from Capital as well and she was brilliant. And she’d assembled a really great team of all-female bosses. The whole of the top team at Magic were all females and they were superb, right? They were a great bunch of ladies. Really smart, really knowledgeable, really nice and Parky somehow was in the midst of this as adviser to Magic. So, him and I had been talking and I left Capital and had a few months off, which was heaven and then went back and worked for Magic. We were like, okay, let’s start with Magic and see what we can do and with the work we did, it became the number one radio station and I ended up with the number one breakfast show in London. So, it was an amazing turnaround and we took Capital’s crown back and went, ‘We’ll have that, thank you!’ And it took a few years, but we did it and that was exciting. I can’t say that my days at Magic were in any way as exciting or good though as Capital because it just wasn’t such an exciting radio station to be on. Radio had changed by then. I guess being at a station that was aimed slightly at being

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younger and more energetic, where it was just about being fun and crazy, was amazing and then being able to do the Pepsi Chart for those twelve years on a Sunday and in a way, it was just like ‘Okay, Foxy, if you were doing a chart, how would you do it?’ And it was like, well, Mark Goodier and Radio 1, they do it that way and they count down the numbers, 40, 39 ... Let’s do a crazy show where the numbers just happen to be in the same order and then end up at number one. So, we did something really different and obviously, people liked it and it worked well. So, I remember coming up to Blackpool [where Eighth Day Magazine is based] and we opened up the Pepsi Max Big One rollercoaster [now known as ‘The Big One’, Blackpool Pleasure Beach].

Yeah, I remember coming on and having to do my radio show. I did a couple of links doing the Pepsi Max Big One on that Sunday afternoon, it was nuts! That first big drop! Jeez!

Anyway, it’s still a great rollercoaster!

Fun times!

So that must have been about, God,

what was that? Was that about 1994, I’m guessing? (I guessed correctly, by the way, fact pickers!)

I was going to say, it must have been about mid-’90s! Yeah, we started the show in August ‘93 and it went on until 2004, so ...

As we just mentioned, one of the shows you are best known for is Capital FM’s Pepsi Chart. Over the time you presented the show, you saw some major changes in the music industry, not least the advent of downloading and streaming. What is your opinion of the way in which downloading and streaming have changed the UK singles chart and how relevant do you feel the Top 40 has been since their inclusion?

Right, well, I think the way that people have consumed or have got hold of music has obviously changed. You know, when I was a kid, I bought 7” singles, then when I had just started doing radio, we had cass-singles, like a cassette single that you could buy, then

we had CDs, then we had, wow! You could download a track and now we’re streaming. So, what’s interesting is, whether we’re buying records or streaming records, it’s all about popularity. If a song is more popular, more people are going to stream it, in the same way that if a song was really popular, more people would buy it. To a certain extent I think that the radio networks now, Radio 1 and the commercial radio networks, say Global, particularly, they don’t pay such big attention to the top 40 anymore and it doesn’t have anywhere near the listenership. I mean, when me and Mark Goodier, he was doing the Radio 1 chart and we were like mates and I was doing the Pepsi Chart, you know, between us we had about nine or ten million people every Sunday afternoon listening to us. It was incredible, you know, but now I think if they probably got a third of that, they’d be lucky. I think it’s interesting that you can make people think something’s important by you telling them it’s important, if that makes sense. So, I think people love hearing pop songs and people love

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countdowns and if you make it exciting and a great radio show, people will listen to it. I think they slightly ...Yeah, I would slightly say they’ve taken their ... they don’t think it’s as important as it was. For the music business, it’s not as important as it was to see who’s number one unless you’re the artist and you’ve got a number one, then it’s the greatest thing in the world, okay, because everyone still wants to be number one. When we started doing the chart, that’s why I always wanted to phone up whoever was number one because even if they’d had loads of number ones, they were still excited to be number one and if they’d never had one, it was literally like they will never forget that moment when they heard their song at number one on the radio.

So, I wanted to know what it was like, I wanted to talk to them and go, ‘Okay, whoever you are ... Bros, you’re number one!’; ‘Westlife ...’; ‘Whoever you are, you’re number one!’ Trust me, even when U2, who were one of the biggest bands in the world at the time, and still are ... I remember in the late ‘90s, they’d got ‘All That You Can’t

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Leave Behind’ [2000], that album out and it was the first time they’d ever had a number one album and single [‘Beautiful Day’] at the same time. I can’t tell you how excited they were!

They’d sold out every stadium in the world and they were like, ‘No, this is cool, this is good!’ It meant they were relevant again. They were relevant on the charts and they were relevant on the album chart and the singles chart and that is exciting, you know. And that’s why The Heritage Chart is important now because there are lots of acts that we’ve grown up with and loved and have had massive songs over the years that don’t get any airplay from anyone at the moment, probably because they’re not relevant or they’re too old and you think, actually, my top ten this week was Paul Weller; Michael Stipe from R.E.M.; Limahl; Howard Jones; Right Said Fred; Nik Kershaw; John Coughlan, the drummer from Status Quo; Dion, who had million sellers with ‘The Wanderer’ [1961] and ‘Runaround Sue’ [1961] and he was 81 last week and yet, he’s just done an album [‘Blues with Friends’] with Paul

With the Spice Girls, Pepsi Chart Show, Channel 5, 10th November 1998 (Picture via YouTube)

Simon and Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top and Van Morrison and loads of legendary names and it’s absolutely brilliant and the bloke is a grandfather and he’s 81! He doesn’t look it and he certainly doesn’t sound it, hence the beauty of music. If you’ve got it, you’ve still got it. Elton John, legend, right? The Rolling Stones, amazing!

These guys have been around since the ‘60s and they’re still as relevant today.

Yeah.

During your tenure at Capital Radio, it is reported that you were asked to join Radio 1 as the host of the Breakfast Show following the departure of Chris Evans in 1997 but turned it down. How true is this?

I did have lots of talks with Radio 1 at the time about going over there and it was probably to succeed Chris Evans.

I was doing the chart [on Capital FM] and they wanted me to do the breakfast show and the chart. Unbelievable, they’re like two of the biggest gigs you can have in radio. It was almost like greedy potentially being able to do both

and I wanted to go and do it. I mean, I would like to have gone and done it but, you know, I was also at Capital and doing the Pepsi Chart and I was getting paid good money and we had big contracts and contracts work both ways, you know, and that means it’s partly to protect them and me as well.

I did speak to Richard Park about it. I said, ‘Look, Parky, I’ve got to have a word with you’ and I was completely upfront, we sat down, we chatted but in the end he went, ‘You know I can’t let you go. I just can’t let you go. You’re contracted, right and you can’t go. The whole point of a contract is ... you can’t go. Otherwise you’ll go over there and you’ll take the audience over there.

I can’t let you go’. And it was fair enough but him and I did come to an interesting agreement, which was between him and I, but you know what?

It all worked out. It worked out and do you know what? It was really interesting and I was having these conversations with them, but some things are just not meant to be.

Between 2001 and 2003, you were a

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The ‘Pop Idol’ judges (L/R: Neil, Simon Cowell, Nicki Chapman, Pete Waterman)

judge on the ITV talent show ‘Pop Idol’. Although the television talent show was by no means a new thing, ‘Pop Idol’ was quite a phenomenon which has given rise to many similar series and was syndicated in many other countries. What are your favourite memories of being a judge on the series and what is your opinion of how, for better or worse, such shows as ‘Pop Idol’ have very much shaped the pop charts since the early 2000s?

Well, okay, the first question, we did have a lot of fun doing ‘Pop Idol’ and we have lots of fun for lots of reasons the crew were a great crew, I’d known Simon [Cowell] a long time, I’d known Nicki Chapman a long time and Pete Waterman. We all knew each other, right, so we all got on and I think we all respected each other because we all worked in different parts of the music business and the entertainment business. It was amazing being on a show that you just knew as soon as it started that you were part of something really big and that show was as big as

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Auditioning ‘Pop Idol’ hopefuls

it got really, it was nuts. And they were debating it in parliament, you know, like that first series where they had the battle buses going round with Will [Young] and obviously the brilliant Gareth Gates, you know. It was nuts!

And I do remember at the end of that first final, we were standing around and there was me, Simon, Nicki, Pete and Ant and Dec just having a chat before we came back on live, just standing around near the audience at the front of the stage and we’d just got this message through. We didn’t know who had won at that point but, you know, Simon and Nicki were for Gareth, me and Pete were for Will and we just heard that 17million people had voted.

We were there going, ‘Oh my God!’ and someone just went, ‘That’s more than voted at the last election’. We were there going ‘Oh my God, that’s insane!’ Then Will won and between him and Gareth ... I mean, God, I remember doing the Pepsi Chart and literally for the next year, they had eight number ones between them and then Darius had a hit [‘Colourblind’, number one, August 2002] and other

The judges with presenters Ant and Dec

The ‘Pop Idol’ series one contestants

people had hits and it became all a bit nuts. It’s interesting because when I was doing ‘Idol’, I had to go and debate at the very prestigious Oxford Union and the motion was that this house believes that TV talent shows are ruining the music industry and I obviously had to speak against the motion because I didn’t believe that they were ruining the music industry.

We have to all put in perspective, but those show, the shows themselves have been huge, but how many acts have been in the chart really since? Even at its absolute height, the most that’s ever been in there was when Will Young and Gareth went head-to-head. They had eight number ones between them in a year, but there are 52 weeks in a year and there are 40 acts in every chart.

So, you do have to remember that and do they dominate? Not at all. Other big bands that have come out of it, you can name them on one hand really.

You go, okay, One Direction have been globally massive but really ... They didn’t win ‘ The X Factor’ [2010], you have to remember that but they were put together by Simon because he

realised that there was a hole in the market out in the world for a new boyband and he saw those five kids at the audition and put them together and then they created One Direction and then it was a great vehicle for them. They didn’t win but they made some amazing songs and have just been uber-successful since. But, like all great boybands put together, there comes a time when you just can’t stand people telling you what to do, where to go, what to say, what to wear and they break up. And that happens, there’s an inevitability about that. I’ve seen that too many times during my career, whether it’s the Spice Girls or Take That or any other band. So, they’ve created some great stars, they’ve created some great pop songs, but they haven’t dominated music in any way, shape or form. In fact, the record companies will go ‘Thank God for ‘Idol’ and ‘X Factor’ because TV has done the entire marketing budget for them and off the back of them, they’ve sold millions of records, made an absolute fortune and the good news is, with that fortune ... You know, making

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records and putting records out is really expensive and it’s very hit and miss, right? So, the normal hit rate for a record only about 10% of records released might get played on the radio and out of those records, only about 3% will ever be hits. So, that means probably about 97% of all the money you spend making music, making records, making videos, literally you could burn it. And that’s expensive, so the ones that do make money, have to make good money. So, things like Will, Gareth, yeah, they made a fortune, One Direction, gazillions.

They made good money but so did the record company and the songwriters.

That money goes back into record labels and management so they can put it into other what I call more normal artists that are being developed in the normal way. So, I think it’s done a good thing. Look, it creates records that people go out and buy and you can’t make anybody go out and buy a song, you can’t. If people didn’t want to go out and buy a One Direction record, they ain’t going to buy it, simple as that. I still remember the day

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and I still actually have the CD [‘Anything is Possible’ / ‘Evergreen’, March 2002] that I played, but the day that Will Young came on to the Pepsi Chart and he knew he was going to be number one, clearly, because just the amount he had sold was insane. But I do remember saying, ‘Right, I’m going to reveal to you now the number of records, or CDs, that you have sold in the last week’ and it was something like 1.2million physical CDs that he had sold and to still, to this day, it’s the most amount of records that have EVER been sold in a week, apart from Band Aid [‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’, 1984] and ‘Candle in the Wind’ [Elton John, 1997], which was when Diana died. So, those two charity records for different reasons, but in terms of like what I call a ‘normal’ record being released, it by far holds the record. And you can’t make people buy it, people wanted to do it because they felt they were part of the journey with him. They’d watched him, they’d voted for him. they’d loved him. Was I Will? Was I Gareth? But then Gareth sold a shitload as well and, in that year,

At Magic 105.4, 2015

As presenter of The Heritage Chart on United DJs

he had four number ones himself, so, you know what, he was very happy too.

doing something, I was building an app called ‘Beat the Intro’ that I was really into at that time, working really hard.

I’m doing something now, building another thing that’s to do with music and entertainment that’ll be out next year, that I really enjoy, but there’s part of me that had missed being on the radio, but I didn’t want to go back and do what I call normal mainstream radio straight away. These guys had been talking to me, they’re a really nice bunch of guys, as you’ll know from Tony and they’re passionate about radio. There definitely was an energy and a feel and an excitement and an entertainment to radio in slightly days gone by that doesn’t exist anymore.

Today it is very much like a giant playlist, you hear the same thing every day and they say pretty much the same things every day. It has lost something.

And that’s not because I’m 59 and being all ‘oh, it’s not as good today’, but it has changed a lot, it’s very corporate and I would say centralised and very bland really. You still get good numbers because that’s just what’s there, you know. You know, it’s

Following you leaving Capital FM in 2005 for Magic 105.4, where you remained for the next decade and a brief tenure at Thames Radio between 2016 and 2017, you were recently invited to join United DJs by Tony Prince and became the host of The Heritage Chart. The first edition of the weekly show was broadcast on Sunday 26th July between 5pm and 7pm. Having interviewed Tony for Eighth Day Magazine Issue Twenty-two and read his posts on Facebook, it seems like United DJs have been chasing you for some time, but how did you eventually come to join, have you been enjoying your new position so far and could you tell us a bit about the show?

Sure! Well, look, okay, this has been going for two years now, United DJs and I know Tony and I know a lot of the other DJs on the station, they’re mates and you know what, I was busy

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there and you listen and it’s easy but what’s interesting is that technology has allowed other smaller radio stations to blossom and emerge that people are finding and listening and still it’s very much people’s habit to get in the car and turn the radio on FM, now we’re used to DAB and now more and more are getting used to internet stations, like United DJs and most stations are creating a great app so you can download the app and listen and that’s it. So, they have been asking me for quite a time. Well, we’ve been chatting for a long time, we’ve been friends, I’ve popped in lots of times to see mates there when I was passing by and had a cup of tea with Princey and what have you and Peter Antony, who does the Drive Time show, who used to crash on my floor in Luxembourg.

So, we’ve hung out a lot with these guys and then Mike Read phoned me up about a month ago and said, ‘Foxy, Foxy, I’ve got a great idea for you!’

And we started talking about The Heritage Chart and I really liked the idea of it, so me and Tony and Mike met up, talked it through and came up with it and we started it last Sunday and it got an amazing reaction amongst the listeners and amongst the artists as well, who were going, ‘Oh my God, this is great! Thank you for playing our song because no one else will’. And also, just talking about them. Although I’ve done lots of great things in the past, I’m not a nostalgia freak, I kind of rather like now and the future more than the past, do you know what I

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mean? That’s always just been me.

And yeah, although it’s great that Dion, aged 81, who did ‘Runaround Sue’ in 1961, the year I was born, that’s part of his history but it doesn’t make any difference if his current record was crap. So, if all these artists were making dreadful songs, it doesn’t matter what his past is, a crap song is a crap song and you’re only as good as your last song. I think that’s the whole point of this is going, actually, these people are making good songs now.

There’s some really good music being made now by these people. They might be older and the age thing is quite extreme with Dion but whether they are Howard Jones or Limahl or Nik Kershaw and these guys are in their fifties and they’re still great, some are in their sixties or seventies, you know.

And so, anyone who is what we call ‘heritage’, it’s a loose term is heritage, is basically someone who’s had an interesting past, who’s made lots of hits before and maybe who we think is still current. Liam Gallagher would be in The Heritage Chart, right? He’s been around for twenty-five years; Robbie Williams would be in there, you know.

His records could easily be in The Heritage Chart. Those guys, of course they could. And then you get certain acts like Michael Bublé, who you could you say, maybe because his feel is nostalgic, of course he could appear in our Heritage Chart, because you feel he has been around all our lives [laughs].

But there’s certain music made even by younger stars now that also has an

appeal to slightly older listeners and fits the mix of it really well and you go, ‘Actually, this is great!’ It’s like certain Ed Sheeran’s songs, you go, ‘This is great! Some Adele songs sound like they could have been written fifty years ago and you go, wow, she’s got a voice that’s timeless and similarly whether it’s young artists making stuff that could have made a long time ago, there are old artists who are making relevant music now as well that should be played now and that’s what we’re doing, giving them a platform. We compile the chart, Mike and me, it’s a very collaborative thing and then we talk to all the jocks on United DJs. There’s now centralized playlist here, it’s just like ‘What do you guys think of these songs?’ And more importantly, ‘What do your listeners make of them?

Tell me, what songs that you play are they going ‘I love this song, this is great’ or ‘This is crap, don’t play it again’, ‘Play that one again’’. Because it’s really important. The feedback is so important. And they give us all their feedback, so it’s airplay on United DJs, the feedback from the jocks, and me, Mike and Tony work out what is the chart. And so, our first number one was Limahl [‘Still in Love’] and it was a very popular number one. Number two, amazingly, was Right Said Fred with their record ‘Tide’; number three was Dion, 81 years old, with one of the best songs that I’ve heard for years called ‘A Song for Sam’ about his mate Sam Cooke and when they toured America in the early sixties when Dion

was just a young, teenage heartthrob and Sam Cooke was this absolute superstar and Dion couldn’t believe the racism that he [Cooke] experienced in his own country. He couldn’t believe it was happening in his own country and yet, here we are today with Black Lives Matter and nothing’s changed. And that’s really sad. But music has a wonderful way of talking about and vocalising stuff that people are thinking and it can really tap into ... I mean, if you look at the ‘60s and the peace movement and the ‘70s. Great songwriters and performers can talk about pretty tough emotive subjects sometimes in song in a way that is really powerful and actually gets through to people and that can be played on this mass medium called radio.

Thank you for a wonderful interview and we wish you all the best for the future.

Neil can be heard on United DJs presenting The Heritage Chart every Sunday from 5-7pm. You can listen to the station worldwide via the United DJs website, like the Facebook page to stay updated and interact with all of the DJs on the Facebook group. www.uniteddj.com www.facebook.com/uniteddjsradio www.facebook.com/groups/ uniteddjsthestationofthestars

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Frenchy’s Rants This Month: Online Radio Rules, OK!

The eighteenth part in an exclusive series by Flicknife Records co-founder Marco ‘Frenchy’ Gloder.

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Hello geezers and geezerettes!

Another rant, another thorny subject. The story that follows is 100% true, happened to me and it went something like this: DJ: ’And for the next hour, we’ll play only tunes requested by our awesome listeners’ Me: ‘Hallo … yeah … can you play ‘All or Nothing’ please?’

DJ: ‘Who is this by?’

Me: ‘The Small Faces!’

DJ: ‘Are they a new band?’

Me: ‘… er ... right. Night all’ And there you have it. Back in the glorious days of John Peel and Tommy Vance (to name just two), major radios DJs knew their stuff. Nowadays, they are hired for their voices or maybe because they shagged the right people (OK, OK, PC brigade can sod right off!) So, are major radio stations going to give way to online digital ones?

Let’s see.

Many, many moons ago, there was only the ‘big’ radios: BBC1, Capital, etc and a bit later, Virgin, Heart and so on. They all more or less followed the same formula: chart music (Top 40 only), ads (not on the Beeb obviously), news slot, the occasional chat show and start all over again. The music was

selected by the execs in the form of two playlists: A and B. If you were on A, you had hit the big time. On B, you were on your way but not quite there (like Man City, hey Ken!). Each show had a producer who chose what his DJ was going to play from the playlists: This was done so that each show had a ‘personality’ (stop laughing at the back! Spizz, I know it’s you!) but what you got was boredom. If you listened to any station throughout your working day, you wouldn’t hear more than 15 different songs the whole day. Once, Kenny Everett (what a man!) played only ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ through the whole show ... and it wasn’t even on the playlists! That tells you one thing: There were mavericks, rebels, real music lovers as DJs and they played pretty much what they wanted. I’m talking John Peel, Tommy Vance, Kenny Everett and a few more. But their programmes were late night, tucked away. Despite that, they were hugely popular: You had to listen to the John Peel show, there was no way round it. It was like mass used to be 300 years ago. You had to be there. I can’t tell you the thrill I got when he played our first single. I wept with pride! Tommy Vance was another but he was to heavy rock what Peel was to Indie music: He did us a lot of favours.

Both of them did. But on the whole, radio was controlled by the majors through ‘pluggers’ and it was almost impossible to get sustained play without paying, one way or the other, even though radio bigwigs always said

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it wasn’t true, that you couldn’t ‘buy’ plays. Bollox, you could.

Happily, there were always people that were willing to go round the system, to fight the status-quo (not the band), to make good things happen. A perfect example is Radio Caroline. Radio Caroline was actually three ships and they started broadcasting in 1964 to circumvent the control the major record companies had on popular music broadcasting. Tommy Vance, Dave Lee Travis, Tony Prince and many more started on Radio Caroline and were pinched by the Beeb so Auntie would get street cred! Another notable radio (more important for someone like me who grew up in France/Italy), was Radio Luxembourg, aka RTL, who also found ways to bypass the all-powerful BBC and broadcast non-playlisted music in the UK and all of Europe.

RTL boasted the most powerful privately owned transmitter in the world: utcha! Those were the ‘pirate radios’ (honourable mention for Radio London and Kiss FM) and they were life-savers! I remember spending hours on my small radio, built by my cousin Johnny, to hit the right spot to get RTL. Hours of fun for free! You might think I’m just ranting about pirate radios for the sake of it, for a trip down memory lane but you couldn’t be more ... right … and wrong too as we reached the ‘80’s when playlisted music was not only shite but it was also bent. The big DJs got so famous that they could get away with anything and very nearly

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did. Something had to change and the change when it came, wasn’t as rebellious as you might think or far-fetched. It was very simple in fact.

By the mid-’80s, technology came into play. Like vinyl turned into CD, a new genre of radio stations started to grow: the digital radio, a.k.a the online radio shows (not the BBC and its DAB comfort zone). The concept was dead simple: labels or musicians would give DJs the right to play a track for free without all the legal bullshit, without MCPS and PRS involved and the DJ would play your track as many times as he liked. Anyone can do a radio show coz there are dozens of platforms where you can just sign up, download the software, put an hour show of your favourite music and off you go! You’re a DJ on your own radio station: kushty!

Some DJs caught on very early on the possibilities that online digital broadcasting offered. Garry Lee of Starship Overflow FM was a real pirate radio DJ, on a ship and all that, worked for the Beeb and others and the Starship Overflow is 34 years old this year! Deuce, a promotion company, will take one of your tracks and for £45.00 will get you at least 20 plays on various online radios WORLDWIDE, reviews, etc. What’s not to like for 45 quid? OK, you don’t get paid for your track being played on an online radio but what’s best? Reaching 500 000 people and sell 200 CDs as a result or being ignored by the big radio stations that pay you a fee (£18.00 per minute)

and sell sweet F.A? I think it is a pretty easy choice. And now, these online radios are getting organised: they play each other’s shows, alliances are made, deals are struck and even ex-BBC radio DJs are creating their own online digital stations. In a word: IT’S GROWING FAST. If I were the BBC CEO or whatever he is called, the fat controller, I’d be scared right now. All the big stations are all losing listeners.

In his prime, Peel would get 3 million listeners for each of his nightly shows.

Now, BBC Radio gets 14 million a WEEK! See what I mean? Meanwhile, my mate Gaz’s show grows every year with an average of 6000 listeners per show. Some online radios have 100k listeners. I’d rather have one of our tracks played to 6000 music lovers than a million casual listeners. Because if your track gets played on 10, 20, 30 online radios, you make up a million listeners pretty quick: there are hundreds of digital radio shows so you make up the numbers pretty quick. I

know we benefit and any band will too if they do it properly.

You don’t have to believe me: keep listening to the Beeb or Absolute. But I bet you a gold coin to a chocolate one that in 10 years’ time, online radios would have seen off the BBC or that the BBC would have lost its total control over broadcasting rights. There is plenty of evidence not least the way kids listen to music now. Cock a deaf’un to the online radios and you might never hear again. At least, nothing worth listening to ... www.flickniferecords.co.uk Page 100: Frenchy with wife Michelle at the Marquee Club, London in 1987 Below: Stations such as the fast-growing United DJs are very much the future of radio.

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German Shepherd Records Presents:

Re-introducing

The Harveys Without the Rabbit Interview by Bob Osborne.

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Previously known as Harvey’s Rabbit, The Harveys are a band from Manchester with an ear for melody.

The original Harvey’s Rabbit were a five-piece with Tim Lyons (vocals), Mick Pullan (guitar), Dave Thom (guitar/keyboards), David Chorlton (bass) and Andy Bell (drums). Tim and Mick remain from the original line-up now as part of the newly re-named The Harveys.

Guitarist Mick Pullan reveals some of the group history: “We were around for most of the 1990’s and based in Manchester. I think we first got together in 1992 and played our last gig as Harvey’s Rabbit at the Night and Day Cafe on Oldham Street, Manchester in the Autumn of 1998”.

The group were never really part of a specific scene in Manchester. They had a style and approach which set them apart from what was perceived as hip, which when coupled with a good DIY work ethic, served them well in maximising opportunities for promotion.

The end of 1993 and most of 1994 was their busiest period. Tired of the process of recording demos, sending them off and being rejected, they decided to take matters into their own hands and record an album. Called ‘A Place For Beginners’, it was recorded

at Studio Studio near Rochdale. They released it, in cassette format only, on their own Rain Soaked label. Releasing it meant getting a few copies on the shelves of Piccadilly Records, selling some at gigs and giving a load away.

During this period, they managed to get some dates supporting The Fall – two at the Roadhouse in Manchester, followed by Penzance, Exeter, Basingstoke and Oldham. There were more Fall support slots with a memorable three days in January spent commuting to Liverpool to play at the Lomax Club.

One thing led to another and no doubt it was The Fall connection which led to them coming to John Peel’s attention and getting a radio session.

Pullan says, “I can’t remember much about how the session came about, I think it was a result of hopeful phone calls and sending of tapes. We didn’t actually have any personal contact with John Peel during the set up of the session or it’s recording but we were aware everything we were doing was ‘in the name of Peel’“.

All the songs performed at the session were band compositions apart from ‘Is This What You Call Change?’, which was a song by The Go-Betweens Robert Forster from the 1990 solo album ‘Danger in the Past’. Pullan admits, “We’d actually been playing the Forster song for a while and I thought Tim had written it until he came clean at the Peel Session and admitted it wasn’t his after all!”

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The Peel Session had an impact, Pullan explains: “... later in 1994 we signed to a new Oxford based label Rotator. I’ve no doubt that the Peel Session played a big part in persuading Rotator’s Richard Cotton in taking a chance with us. In 1995, we released the 7” vinyl single ‘Is This What You Call Change?’ with ‘Room At The Top’ on the B side.

To our surprise, it got great reviews and radio airplay, particularly from Mark Radcliffe, Steve Lamacq, and Jo Whiley. Peel also played it but, to be honest, I never got the impression he was ever that into us. The session was a great thrill, but an even greater one was finding out that we had reached number 42 in Peel’s Festive 50 of 1995. Now that really did feel like making it”.

A few line up changes and other radio sessions came along and further singles followed on Rotator - ‘Windowdresser’ (1995), ‘Happy Town’ (1995) and ‘Love is the Law’ (1996) were followed by an album ‘The New Spiritual Vacuum’ (1998). Ex-New Fast Automatic Daffodils drummer Pez Saunders and bassist Andrew Gott

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Gott joined the band for the recording of the album and remain in the current line-up. Then the band decided to take a break for what turned out to be quite a few years.

The band recently reformed and shortened their name to The Harveys, and were back to gigging regularly and releasing newly recorded material with German Shepherd Records until lockdown kicked in. Two singles, ‘Skeleton Dance’ / ‘Laugh at the Stars’ and “Frank Got Married/Shadow of the Wind” were released in the latter half of 2019. Gigs with Richard Strange, TV Smith and fellow German Shepherd artists Four Candles and Matthew Hopkins saw the group back doing what they do best.

Often described as the English Go-Betweens the band have a unique melodic pop sound with elements of klezmer and other european folk oriented genres folding into the mix.

Influences are pretty eclectic with the likes of Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, and punk being key shapers

of the group’s sound.

The current line-up of the band is Pullan, Lyons, Saunders, Gott and relative newcomer Damian Lyons.

For an up to date position on the band, Pullen says: “As things stand, I would say we were pretty pleased with our ‘relaunch’ and the two singles we put out on German Shepherd last year and also, were enjoying the gigs we were doing. We had more time in the studio booked and gigs lined up but, like everyone else, we had our plans knocked back by COVID-19. In particular, we were looking forward to a support slot with the Monochrome Set at The Deaf Institute and a gig in Berlin in memory of Manchester punk legend Jon The Postman. The Monochrome Set gig has been rearranged for next year I am pleased to say, we wait to see about Berlin. So as things are easing a bit, we are planning more time in the studio, with a view to completing an album and when live music starts up again, playing as many gigs as we can.

Live music is probably one of the few things I have really missed over these last few months. We have tried to keep things going a bit by doing a couple of videos with Paul Forshaw (who has done a really good job with them), and working on writing, but we are looking forward to hopefully being able to step things up a bit. I have enjoyed watching and listening to how other bands / artists have carried on being creative recently.”

Lovers of melodic popular music with a punk edge and smart lyrics will appreciate the craft and effort that the Harveys put into their music. germanshepherdrecords.com/ artists/the-harveys

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Yes

Geoff Relays the News Interview by Martin Hutchinson Photography (this page) by Gottlieb Bros.

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Legendary Prog Rock pioneers Yes will be touring the UK in May 2021, continuing their policy of performing at least one of their classic albums.

This time, it’s the turn of the 1974 album ‘Relayer’ which was recorded by the line-up of Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Alan White and Patrick Moraz.

This was Patrick’s sole Yes album (unless you count two tracks off their 1980 live album ‘Yesshows’) and he had come into the band as the replacement for Rick Wakeman, who had left for a solo career - Rick would return for the next album, 1977’s ‘Going for the One’.

The line-up of the band today still contains guitarist Howe and drummer White, but the vocals are now handled

by Jon Davidson and the bass guitarist is Billy Sherwood following the death of Squire. The band’s keyboard player, and the man charged with recreating Moraz’s parts is Geoff Downes.

Geoff originally joined Yes in 1980 along with Trevor Horn after the departure of Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman (again). The band split after one album (‘Drama’) but, after a few changes due to Geoff’s commitment to Asia and Wakeman popping in and out, the line-up was settled.

The band’s contribution to rock music is immeasurable and the body of work is unparalleled with albums such as

‘Fragile’ (1971); ‘Close To The Edge’ (1972); ‘Tales From Topographic Oceans’ (1973); the aforementioned ‘Going for the One’ and even a number one single in America in 1983 with ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’, the lead single from eleventh studio album ‘90125’.

The ‘Relayer’ album was released in December 1974 and got to number four in the UK album charts – their sixth consecutive Top Ten album. It consists of just three tracks: the classic opus ‘The Gates Of Delirium’, which took up the entire first side of the album, and two nine-minute tracks ‘Sound Chaser’ and ‘To Be Over’.

“We’ve chosen to do this album because it’s the most significant album we haven’t done of those up to ‘90125’”, Geoff tells me. “We did ‘The Gates Of Delirium’ last year in America and it went down well.”

When asked about his opinion of the album, Geoff says, “It’s on its’ own as a Yes album because of Patrick Moraz’s influence. It was a radical change for the band yet all the Yes elements are there. It’s certainly one of the most innovative albums. We’ve been working very hard on it as it’s a very complex piece of music. There are themes and motifs which come and go, just like in classical music and of course different keys and tempos. It certainly showed off Yes’ incredible musicianship. The original band toured

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Geoff (far left) joined Yes in 1980

it off the back of recording it so they were very fresh.”

The tracks from the second side of the album haven’t really been played live since the seventies and ‘Sound Chaser’ in particular has always been one of my personal favourite Yes tracks. It’s a very intricate piece of music with some blisteringly fast guitar parts from the nimble fingers of Steve Howe.

Geoff laughs and says, “It’s very difficult for everyone, but Steve is very diligent and almost mathematical in his approach. We got ‘The Gates Of Delirium’ down really well and we’ve all been learning the other two at home before we all get together for full rehearsals, and to be honest even though ‘To Be Over’ is a slower, quiet piece it’s a fairly complicated piece as well.”

So the concert will have the band performing ‘Relayer’ in it’s entirety, as Geoff explains: “Yes, the two halves will be very

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different with ‘Relayer’ in one half and a number of ‘classic’ tracks in the other.

It’s going to be a mixture of the older stuff with maybe a track off each of the albums up to ‘90125’.”

And the Yes story will not end there, as Geoff tells me: “It’s a busy year for Yes, after the UK dates, we have a European tour and the States in the autumn. And also later this year we ant to concentrate on putting together a new album.”

In recent years there has been talk of a reunion with Geoff and his former bandmate in The Buggles (‘Video Killed The Radio Star’, 1979), Trevor Horn. Geoff explains: “It’s always on the cards. I did some work with him a few months ago and he’s keeping his bass fingers in in a Dire Straits tribute band. We’ll collide again at some point.”

And of course there’s Asia, the band formed by Geoff, Steve Howe, Carl

Palmer and John Wetton.

17/05/21: Symphony Hall, Birmingham

“Well, Asia’s still open. We toured last summer and Carl’s very keen to keep the flag flying.”

20/05/21: Sage, Gateshead

But I’ll leave the final words about Yes to Geoff:

22/05/21: Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

“Yeah, everything’s good in the band and we’re looking forward to touring ‘Relayer’. If we can pull it off, the fans will love it.”

23/05/21: Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham

19/05/21: Barbican, York

24/05/21: Royal Albert Hall, London

Yes will be performing the album ‘Relayer’ and other classic tracks at venues around the country in May 2021. Tickets are available from all the usual agencies.

28/05/21: Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow

16/05/21: Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

www.facebook.com/yestheband

yesworld.com

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Getting Fruity with

Melt-Banana Interview by Peter Dennis.

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Having met in 1991 while studying at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, vocalist Yasuko started a band called Mizu and recruited guitarist Agata before adopting the name Melt-Banana in 1992. For almost three decades, they’ve been terrorising audiences with their mixture of fast grindcore and electronic pop. As the band approach their 30th anniversary, I put the following questions to the pair.

Soon, Melt-Banana will be thirty years old. Did you ever think you’d still be performing?

Agata: No, not at all. But I feel very happy I can still play music. I never imagined my life would be like this when I started playing music.

Yasuko: It doesn’t feel like almost 30 years since we started the band. Yes, we are happy and lucky doing what we like.

How hard is it to survive as an independent artist?

Agata: I think we are very lucky because we’ve met many good people who’ve helped us. We learned, and still learn, most of the lessons from these people. There are some books about how to tour or how to publish music but we always learned the most important lessons from other people who we’ve worked with or who’ve met through music.

Yasuko: The hard part is that every decision we make affects us, sometimes it is a good thing but sometimes bad, although we can make our own decisions, but it is OK because it’s what we want to do.

Your sound is a mixture of hardcore, punk and electronics. How do you bring these different genres together in a cohesive whole?

Yasuko: I don’t think we consciously try to mix genres, it’s just a result of what we listen to and what we enjoy and like.

In what direction will your music move in the future?

Agata: Honestly, I have no idea. We both are not too good with music theory, so when I write music, I just enjoy playing some ideas using guitar, pedals and computer software to record ideas. Usually those ideas are about a minute and if I record something that I want to develop, I try to develop it and ask Yasuko to add vocals.

It’s been seven years since your last studio album. Why the long gap?

Agata: That’s because we are just slow.

We keep writing music but it takes us very long time to finish one song these days.

Yasuko: And also maybe we are too picky. I think that it’s not an easy thing

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to write music that satisfies both of us.

On your records and at your shows you play some eclectic cover versions.

How do you choose which songs to cover?

Agata: Mostly it’s songs that our friends played or have recommended.

If we like it, we do it. I think we started playing cover songs after we toured with Mr. Bungle. They were playing several cover songs and we thought it was fun thing to do not only for audience but also for ourselves. I don’t remember too well but I think our first cover song was The Beach Boys ‘Surfin’ USA’ or The Damned’s ‘Neat Neat Neat’.

Yasuko: Do you think so? Wasn’t it ‘Paint It Black’? Anyway I prefer to pick a song that I am familiar with.

You seem to have a special relationship with the UK and always put it on your tour itinerary.

Yasuko: Actually when we first toured in UK, I didn’t get a good vibe but the more we tour the UK, the more I like it. I like seeing towns with old houses and that whole atmosphere and I like the countryside full of green fields and sheep. Also I like hearing the sound of British accents. Sometimes I can’t understand people who have very strong accent but still it’s still congenial to my ears.

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Agata: I always like touring UK. When we first came to UK, we could only play in London, but now we can tour the whole UK playing more shows which I think is great. When we play in Japan, we mostly see young people, but in UK, and also in USA, we see both young and old people. I think that’s good.

Do you have any strange or funny tour experiences you’d like to share?

Yasuko: Two dogs were running around on the stage during we were playing a show, which was fun.

Agata: We have played with a Mariachi band, which was actually fun.

Yasuko: I once fell off stage because I drank too much!

Agata: When we’ve eaten something and it tasted great we said to our tour manager ‘You want some?’ He understood what we meant but he told us that sometimes people in UK use this expression when they want to have a fight.

You have toured with some legendary bands. Do you have a favourite? Is there any band you’d really like to tour with?

Agata: Every band we’ve toured with were very good and nice people including their crews. We had never played in a large stadium, so when we

supported Tool, it was very different experience and actually we enjoyed it very much.

Yasuko: I think it means that music doesn’t have a border.

Yasuko: I remember touring with Mr. Bungle well. That was a great experience and we learned a lot.

How would you describe a Melt-Banana show to those who’ve never seen you?

Agata: We were once asked to support Lou Reed in Europe for a month but we could not do it because the tour was too hard for us to drive by ourselves. But now I feel we should have done this and found someone who’d drive us and sleep while we were playing shows.

After all, we met him when he invited us to his festival at the Sydney Opera house in Australia, but I still sometimes think about that European tour.

Agata: A bit loud and fast rock music with female singer, distorted guitar and some sound effects.

Yasuko: It was our honour to be invited to his festival. He was very nice to us and it became a special memory in our life.

People in different countries, and from different cultures, really embrace your sound. What makes your music travel so well and cross cultural divides?

Yasuko: It is pretty difficult to explain everything but maybe it’s easier to witness than it is to explain. I hope people who hear about Melt-Banana and come to our shows, enjoy it and smile listening to our music.

Thank you for a great interview and we wish you all the best for the future. www.maroon.dti.ne.jp/ melt-banana www.facebook.com/ Melt-Banana-192954987398661

Agata: I’m not sure about the reason but I think it’s very nice if people from different countries and different cultures enjoy our music. I grew up listening to music mostly from the UK and the USA so I am always curious to how people in UK or USA think about our music.

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Gretchen’s Wheel Shining on Such Open Sky Interview by Kevin Burke.

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Gretchen’s Wheel is one of those acts you cannot believe you have not heard before. An artist project that injects an emotional depth that is naked, stark, honest and utterly addictive. All of this stems from the talent of Lindsay Murray. This Nashville based singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist came to prominence on the first Gretchen’s Wheel release ‘Fragile State’ in 2015.

A haunting piece of work, where Lindsay provided lead, backing vocals, guitar, keyboards, and even programmed drums. All of this builds a respectable background for her voice to soar, and break your heart.

Now, on 2nd October, Gretchen’s Wheel will release ‘such open sky’ via Futureman Records. A brooding work which flourishes under the intense weight of talent injected into it’s creation, it features Matthew Caws (backing vocals), Ira Elliot (drums) and Louie Lino (keyboards), all from alt-rock legends Nada Surf.

Furthermore, Brendan Benson of Jack White’s The Raconteurs appears, while the mixing throughout is split between Lino, Jon Auer (Big Star, The Posies), Larry Crane (Sleater-Kinney, The Go-Betweens) and Nick Bertling (Bertling Noise Laboratories).

Instead of using your own name, where did Gretchen’s Wheel come from?

When I started working on my first album ‘Fragile State’ in 2014, I wasn’t sure if the project would eventually evolve into a band, but having a name already in place seemed like a good plan, just in case. I know now that it’s always going to be a solo plus special guests situation, but I still like using the name! It comes from the 19th-century German song ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’

by Schubert, the text of which comes from Goethe’s Faust. Gretchen sings about her broken heart while working at the spinning wheel, and her emotions along with the circular motion and speed of the wheel are represented in the music. I see Gretchen at the spinning wheel as a sort of metaphor for songwriting itself. I became familiar with the song a long time ago when I was studying classical voice, which is not something I do anymore, but I still have a great appreciation for the music.

I heard you first, and I guess I was blown away immediately by your cover of ‘Skyfall’. How did that come about?

I recorded it in 2016 for a compilation album of James Bond movie songs put together by Andrew Curry who runs the Curry Cuts label. He may have heard of me because I’d recently been a part of another compilation - the Sloan tribute released by Futureman Records (If It Feels Good Do It). I was excited and honored to be asked, but I’d never even seen a Bond movie! ‘Skyfall’ was one of the three unclaimed songs left and it

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felt like a pretty good fit for me, although covering Adele was intimidating. I decided to produce it like I would a Gretchen’s Wheel song rather than try to duplicate the original exactly. I recorded the vocals, guitars and mellotron and asked Donny Brown to play drums. He’d recently done a wonderful job playing drums on a few songs on my second album, ‘Behind the Curtain’. Ken Stringfellow [The Posies], who produced my first album, played bass, synth and tambourine, and mixed it. I think it all came together pretty quickly. Because I’m so used to it by now, sometimes I forget to mention that I record all of my parts at home, and the rest is done by remote collaboration, emailing tracks back and forth. So that’s how ‘Skyfall’ came to be. I’m so glad you enjoyed it!

You have a distinctive folk element that comes across in your vocals. Is it a genre you are influenced by?

Not really, but because I’ve lived in Tennessee my whole life, I’m sure there’s something ‘southern’ coming

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through, whether I’m aware of it or not!

Did last year’s wonderful ‘Moth to Lamplight: A Tribute to Nada Surf’ lead to the involvement of Matthew Caws, and indeed the majority of the band on ‘Such Open Sky’?

He knew of me before that, so I’m not sure if it was solely due to the tribute album, but I think it helped! I’d been lucky enough to work with Ira Elliot, the drummer in Nada Surf, on my first two albums, which was just mind blowing to me. How often does a completely unknown artist get to work with people from their favorite bands right out of the gate? Ken produced, played and sang a ton of parts on ‘Fragile State’, and all of the non-programmed drums on the album were played by Ira. He played most of the drums on my second album, too. So Matthew knew Ira had played drums for me, and I’d also met the band a couple of times at their shows in Nashville. I’m a graphic designer, so I was able to help out with a few things, like the cover art for a single that

Matthew wrote and recorded with John Davis [Superdrag, Lees of Memory] called ‘We Are in the Wild’ and ‘We Are Home’. I never mentioned to anyone in the band that I was working on the tribute - it was just something I wanted to do, with no expectation that they would respond to it at all. Lots of people have covered Nada Surf, and I’m just another superfan! But when Matthew heard about it, he was so incredibly nice and supportive. And in January of this year when they played another show in Nashville, we talked about the possibility of him singing backing vocals on something of mine.

At the time, I was already halfway finished recording ‘Such Open Sky’ but still needed to write and record the other half. So there was plenty of opportunity left!

Is it an album recorded before the pandemic or did you put ‘Such Open Sky’ together during the lockdown?

About half the album was finished before the pandemic, and the rest after it started. The pre-pandemic half was

done like my last two albums - Nick Bertling played drums and mixed everything. I can’t say enough good things about Nick, he’s a fantastic musician and we always work very well together, especially considering we’ve never met in person! The other half includes the songs that feature the guys from Nada Surf [Matthew, Ira, and Louie Lino], ‘Interloper’ [backing vocals by Brendan Benson, mixed by Jon Auer] and the two songs mixed by Larry Crane. The dividing line was that Nada Surf show in January. The roller coaster of making an album had left me feeling pretty low at that time, but the show was like medicine, renewing my energy and inspiration. And then soon after that, the pandemic started, and everything turned upside down, making the process difficult for a whole new set of reasons. I avoided writing any songs about the situation because I wanted the album to be somewhat of an escape from that reality. Everyone I had just started thinking about inviting to participate in the album suddenly became very “available” because of lockdown, but at the same time, being creative and

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productive became nearly impossible.

I would’ve been immensely grateful to everyone on the album under any circumstances, but the fact that they all came through in spite of everything just makes it that much more amazing.

Before recording, do you have an initial vision for what you want to accomplish, or simply work and see what happens?

I follow the “see what happens” philosophy, although I always think I have a pretty clear vision while writing the song. I always write on acoustic guitar but almost never want the final recording to include it - the only acoustic on this album is in the intro to ‘You Should Know’. What I try to do is write songs that feel complete and solid with acoustic guitar only, but they tend to change substantially once I start recording and experimenting with different guitar tones, synths, programmed drum ideas, etc.

Sometimes when I go back and play a song on acoustic again after recording it, it feels like I have to relearn it

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because it’s evolved so much from its original state.

At times there seems to be a thread or a theme running through ‘Such Open Sky’, almost like a concept.

Was that your intention for it, to tell a collective story?

There isn’t an intentional theme, but because all the songs were written during the same window of time, they sort of naturally fit together. Some themes are likely to pop up in my music any time, because I’m always analyzing some psychological trait or other. That’s essentially what ‘Interloper’, ‘Heat Death’ and ‘Infernal Machine’ are about - trying to wrap my mind around some weird quirk of my mind! ‘Land on Zero’ is about social anxiety, and it includes a reference to meditation (counting backwards from ten as a calming exercise), and ‘Sharp Relief’ isn’t explicitly about meditation but is about the peace and clarity that comes from letting go and looking at life as an observer. Another theme is the acceptance of changes that happen

as you get older - ‘Shapeshifters’ was inspired in part by becoming an empty nester in my thirties, and ‘Sleight of Hand’ is about how magic and fantasy gradually leave our lives as we grow up. I wrote ‘You Should Know’ like a letter to a younger version of myself, but it’s also meant as a universal message of hope and reassurance that things will get better. I decided to cover the Guided by Voices song ‘Learning to Hunt’ because in addition to being a stunningly beautiful song, it felt lyrically consistent with the rest of the album. So I guess the oddball is ‘Can’t Shake the Feeling’, which is about climate change!

On ‘Land on Zero’, you play mellotron and celesta, along with every other instrument except drums. How many instruments do you actually play?

I think I’m just an average guitarist, but it’s my main instrument and has been since I first picked it up at the age of 14. I started getting more serious about bass a couple of years ago because I

wanted to become more self-sufficient in recording, and coming up with bass parts is so much fun. I’ve played bass on my last 3 albums and figure I’ll keep it up. I’ve also played keyboards since I was a kid, but when I’m recording, it’s closer to programming than playing.

I’ll play some basic ideas and then build the rest of the part by adding and moving notes around in Logic Pro. Anything keyboard-based that I do is a virtual instrument, so the sound, mellotron, celesta, etc., comes from Logic, though usually with heavy modifications. So I really just play 3 instruments: guitar, bass and keyboard.

And if I were to sit behind a drum kit, I could play something very elementary, but I wouldn’t count that!

In terms of the writing process, do you build up songs gradually or hide yourself away from the world to write?

I gradually accumulate lyrical ideas, saving them in a notes file on my phone. I usually wait until there’s quite a lot there before sitting down and

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trying to mold it into a song. So it can take a while to get a song going, and I can potentially spend weeks tweaking it in various ways. That’s probably why I never “waste” a song - every song I’ve written so far has made it onto an album. I do have discarded ideas, but they never made it far enough to call them songs.

Do you feel your songwriting has evolved since 2015’s ‘Fragile State’?

Yes, I think so! Several of the songs on that album were originally written when I was a lot younger, so the kinds of things that inspired me back then are no longer relevant. I try to leave more mystery in the lyrics now. I’m okay with the meaning not being immediately obvious, and hopefully the listener is too. Also, these days I challenge myself to do more

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unexpected things musically, like incorporating key changes and writing irregular lines that don’t rhyme.

What do you hope to do next?

I definitely need a break from writing and recording my own stuff! I’m interested in doing more collaborations, and I’ve really enjoyed recording backing vocals for other artists, so I hope to do more of that. It was one of the highlights of my musical career to sing backing vocals on Chris Church’s recent album ‘Backwards Compatible’ he’s an astonishingly great songwriter and musician and would be a household name if all was right with the universe. www.gretchenswheel.com www.facebook.com/gretchenswheel

Tenet

“Don’t Try to Understand It”

Review by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

It goes without saying that 2020 has been the most difficult period of cinema’s entire history. Now, as virus restrictions are being lifted and cinefiles all over the world debate whether they wish to exchange germs with other cinefiles in a darkened room for the duration of an entire film, comes a double treat that may just persaude them to take a seat and negotiate eating popcorn whilst wearing a mask: In the same month that director Christopher Nolan’s 2010 science-fiction action classic ‘Inception’ sees a return to cinemas to mark its tenth anniversary comes his latest work, ‘Tenet’.

‘Tenet’ is a classic Nolan movie in every way, not least in terms of being far from straightforward. Whereas ‘Inception’ was a heist thriller that concerned itself with dreams as

opposed to the technicalities of the crime itself, ‘Tenet’ is an espionage thriller based around the concept of time, both how it flows and how it can be manipulated according to world rules. That is that cleared up then?

No, because it never really is. That the words “Don’t try to understand it” are uttered very early into the movie’s 150 minute duration seem to have been placed there as much for the benefit of the audience as the characters.

Speaking of the film’s characters, despite the obvious and highly watchable talents of lead actors John David Washington and Robert Pattison, such lofty conceptual ambitions are often given precidence over giving them any sort of depth (so much so that Washington’s character isn’t even given a name and is refered to throughout as The Protagonist’). This is slightly disappointing given that in 2014’s ‘Interstellar’, we finally caught a glimpse of Nolan’s ability to present more fully realised and relatable characters with real emotion and the greatest action moments in ‘Tenet’, rather than the elaborate car chases or exploding jumbo jets, are acheived when he brings the camera up close to the characters: our particular favourite being when ‘The Protagonist’ is seen fighting hand to hand but the assailant is moving in reverse.

‘Tenet’ isn’t Nolan’s masterpiece, but it is interesting enough to make you want to venture back into the cinema and for that fact alone, it should be applauded.

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Pussycat and the Dirty Johnsons

The Cream of Basingstoke

Alice Jones-Rodgers reviews ‘Beast’.

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“I’ve been looking for some female perspective as all the review requests we’ve had have been men”, says Puss Johnson, vocalist and guitarist with Basingstoke garage rock trio Pussycat and the Dirty Johnsons.

“Which is fine and welcomed obviously”, she continues, “but it would be nice to have a more even balance, especially as some of the songs are about subjects that mainly affect women. And we’d like to champion female voices of course!”

This was obviously an invitation that this writer couldn’t resist pouncing upon.

Having formed eighteen years ago, the band have had something of nine lives where band members are concerned, with Puss, resplendent in full feline attire, being the only constant member.

She is currently accompanied by bequiffed guitarist Dirty Jake and lion-maned drummer Filfy Antz.

‘Beast’ is their fourth album, following 2010’s ‘Exercise Your Demons’; 2013’s ‘Dirty Rock N Roll’ and 2017’s ‘Ain’t No Pussy’ and is their first for Berlin based garage, punk and blues-rock specializing label Hound Gawd!

Records.

‘Beast’ struts into life with ‘Lying in My Bed’, on which Pussycat and the Dirty Johnsons put all their politically and socially aware garage punk credentials to the fore for one of the most urgent album opening tracks you will hear all year, and perhaps in the

next several. Essentially a night sweat put to music, amidst some truly astonishing fuzz-drenched, only just controlled thrash guitar riffing and a rhythm section which threatens to mercilessly pummel the world into full-on down on its knees, bloody submission, Puss tells a tale of existential dread, depression and anxiety brought about by the world taking a noticeable shift to the right.

Here, her ferocious delivery is somewhere between Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs circa their 2001 self-titled debut EP and first full length album, 2003’s ‘Fever to Tell’ and Siousxie Sioux at her most surreally unhinged, whilst interesting lyrical touches such as “The world’s taking the piss and it hangs to the right” cleverly introduce a key theme on ‘Beast’, women fighting to be heard in a world dominated by decision-making men such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.

If ever there was an ultimate theme of female empowerment, it is following track, the blues-inflected and uncompromising ‘Doin’ It’. “Tell me I can’t do it, I’m doin’ it anyway, because I’ll prove you wrong” may be a simple and straightforward ‘fuck you’ to the “green-eyed monster” (jealousy or male oppression, or perhaps both), but rarely has the message been conveyed in such a powerful way.

Vocally, Puss ups the ante yet further, this time effortlessly veering wildly from full-on larynx-shredding to the

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type of falsetto last heard on PJ Harvey’s similarly feminist-natured 1993 album ‘Rid of Me’.

‘Absuser’, which comes complete with one of the greatest lyrical and vocal hooks of recent times, “I let the cat out of the bag”, takes on the weighty subject matter of #metoo and in particular, the victim’s disloyal friends staying in touch the absusive former partner and attempting to silence the victim and minimise what they have been through. “You will not diminish my abuse, Listen to my uncomfortable truth”, intones Puss in a confrontational manner that adds gravitas to the issue raised, whilst the descending guitar riff echoes the victim’s downward spiral into mental anguish for a startlingly forceful two and a half minute piece of music that refuses to be ignored.

Whilst, thankfully, many of us can only sympathise with the narrator of ‘Absuser’, following track ‘Not Your Baby’ presents a scenario we have all been in: the guy who claimed he wanted to be your friend but was in fact just another creep wanting to get into your pants. ‘Not Your Baby’ is the ultimate brush off song, which finds Puss as sassy and streetwise as Debbie Harry at her very best during its verses, particularly on lines such as “We don’t have a connection, You don’t know me at all”, but with a utterly deranged, ear-splitting screamed chorus vocal that will strike fear into even the hardiest of sexual predators.

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Basingstoke, a large but sleepy town in Hampshire, probably the only other musical export of which is the traditional wind band The Basingstoke Concert Band, isn’t the most likely of places for such a band as Pussycat and the Dirty Johnsons to hail from and they make their dissatisfaction known on ‘Stale’. With its crunchy guitar evoking a clock ticking down the seconds until Puss can leave this stifling environment and an overall horror movie style impending sense of doom, the song’s slower groove is no less exciting than the other tracks on the album.

‘Knee Jerk’, our first taste of ‘Beast’ when it was issued as a great social distancing measures adhering YouTube video at the beginning of August, is a four-to-the-floor, good old-time rock ‘n’ roll and rockabillyfuelled attack against keyboard warriors with fun-picking lyrics such as the final sneer, “Caps lock on, feeling strong”. Meanwhile, the pace is taken back down a notch for ‘Meat’, a growling and quite disturbing blues number on which compares the mistreatment of animals to some sort of seedy S&M murder scenario.

‘She’s an Orgasm’ takes a pop at the male gaze and men’s perception of the perfect woman as aided and abetted by the media by taking every cliche and spitting it back as a three-minute furball of a song complete with excitable, climactic final flourish. ‘Shit’ is

similarly snarky, this time blasting phonies who repeatedly lie to others with no one questioning their legitimacy into oblivion with a molotov cocktail of screamed insults, devestatingly huge heavy metal guitars, pounding bass and thunderous drums.

Following track ‘Do Ya Feel Me?’ features some hypnotic Cream-style blues guitar lines and anguished vocals from Puss as she lusts after a lover whom she has been separated from.

Meanwhile, the magnificent ‘Beast Will Out’ is a tension-filled epic rocker about drunken and carnal excesses, which builds and builds into an absolutely thrilling and wholly untethered crescendo, blood-curdling horror movie screams and all, as the beast breaks free of its shackles.

After all the frivolity of ‘Beast Will Out’, closing track ‘Hey Honey’ may seem a little understated in comparison, with Pussycat and the Dirty Johnsons stripping everything back to its bare essentials. Chugging Velvet Underground / Lou Reed solo circa the 1988 album ‘New York’ (in particular, there is a hint of ‘Dirty Blvd.’ in there) guitar chords perfectly compliment Puss’s voice, which in relatively parred-down form is reminiscent of that of Transvision Vamp’s Wendy James, for a glorious epilogue summing up an overarching theme of ‘Beast’: Other people may think they know what is best for you, but you are autonomously functioning human being, so pay them no mind.

Four albums in and Pussycat and the Dirty Johnsons have made their finest to date. As a female journalist, reviewing an album that is in essence a very female album was an absolute joy.

However, I am sure that its all-round brilliance won’t be lost on male listeners. In fact, if we awarded marks out of ten, ‘Beast’ would doubtlessly have achieved a purr-fect ten. It really is the cat’s whiskers. But enough of the cat puns, we guarantee that you will be seeing more of this album when we compile our Albums of the Year list in December.

Photography by Oliver Harris ‘Beast’ is out now on Hound Gawd!

Records. www.thedirtyjohnsons.com www.facebook.com/ thedirtyjohnsons

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Bill & Ted Face the Music Far from “Bogus!”

Review by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

If you are of a certain age, as most of us at Eighth Day Magazine are, then loveable goofball duo William S. “Bill” Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) and Theodore “Ted” Logan (Keanu Reeves) and their time-travelling, rock ‘n’ roll antics in ‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ (1989) and ‘Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey’ (1991) will probably have been an integral part of your childhood. Now, a full 29 years later and after ten years worth of speculation since Reeves first hinted that the franchise’s creators Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon were working on the script for a third instalment, they are finally back! God, how we have missed them and let’s face it, after the year we have all had, who wouldn’t want to step into a phonebooth and be transported to anywhere but 2020?

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Admittedly, we approached ‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ with some tripidation, but in age where Hollywood seems obsessed with creating prequels and reboots for money rather than love that rarely do the original film any justice, this was to be expected. All involved should be highly commended for the fact that this is neither a prequel or a reboot. It is instead a brand new, far from “bogus”, all rockin’ Bill & Ted adventure, which in many respects, might just be their most “excellent” so far!

This time around, Bill and Ted, faced with the realisation dawning that their dreams of rock stardom for them and their band Wyld Stallyns might never come true, are handed the unenviable task of creating a song with the power to save everybody in the world and the entire universe in 78 minutes. They are not alone in this “most unprecidented expedition”, for joining them are the duo’s similarly-named (and in a great piece of casting, very similar looking) daughters, Wilhelmina “Billie” Logan (Brigette Lundy-Payne) and Theodora “Thea” Preston (Samara Weaving).

Both Lundy-Payne and Weaving give performances that are just as heartwarming as those of Winter’s and Reeves’ and are even given their very own seperate time-travel adventure.

This serves to create an interesting sub-plot and perhaps something for the younger generation who might not have been familiar with the previous ‘Bill &

Ted’ movies. Unusually for the third part of a trilogy, such is the love, care and attention to detail that Matheson and Soloman have put into the screenplay, ‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ can easily stand as a movie in its own right and if you haven’t seen the first two, it is certainly not a disadvantage.

If you are a long-term ‘Bill & Ted’ fan and have been on tenterhooks waiting for this film’s release, you certainly won’t be disappointed. You will love the return of familiar faces such as William Sadler’s Grim Reaper, shed a tear at the beautiful tribute to the legendary George Carlin, who died in 2008, when his character Rufus makes an appearance through repurposed archival footage from the first two movies and rejoice at the fact that instead of simply attempting to push the still delightfully dopey pair into the modern world, ‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ connects so wonderfully with the rest of the franchise.

‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ is an altogether slicker and more professional affair than its predecessors, but thankfully, this isn’t to the detriment of the fun to be had whilst watching it. There are just as many entertaining, laugh-out-loud funny gaffs per scene as there were in the first two movies and director Dean Parisot has used the larger production budget ($25million) wisely to make a very busy film (but never overbearingly so) with no dull moments that moves along incredibly well.

Above all, it is wonderful to see Reeves return to humour and just as satisfying to see the much maligned Winter back in an all too rare leading role for a charming, much-needed feel-good movie that cannot fail to lift the spirits of even the sternest of critics in the times we are currently living through. www.facebook.com/BillAndTed3

‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ photography courtesy of Orion Pictures and Patti Perret

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