Eighth Day Magazine Issue Twenty-three

EIGHTH DAY CRASSIFIED INFORMATION

Wendy James / Michael Des Barres / Kimberley Rew / Emma Swift / Spygenius / Can’t Swim / The Brothers Steve

ISSUE TWENTY-THREE. AUGUST. £4.50

STEVE IGNORANT

EDITORIAL

Alice Jones-Rodgers Editor-in-Chief Scott Rodgers Photographer and Intelligence Officer Thank you to all this month’s contributors.

If you would like to contribute to future issues, please Email samples of your work to: eighthdaymagazine@outlook.com

Facebook: eighthdaymagazine / Twitter: @EighthDayMag ... #2020inthebag

CONTENTS 4. Emma Swift Interview by Kevin Burke.

10. Spygenius Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

21 / 77 / 83. Wasted World Another instalment of Dan Webster’s legendary comic strip.

24. Kimberley Rew & Lee Cave-Berry Interview by Kevin Burke.

30. German Shepherd Records Presents: Matthew Hopkins.

Different noises for your ears.

34. Michael Les Barres Interview by Kevin Burke.

78. Straight Edge Peter Dennis reports on how a 45-second blast of fury spawned a whole subculture.

84. The Brothers Steve Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

90. Can’t Swim Interview by Peter Dennis.

94. The Holloway Echoes Alice Jones-Rodgers reviews ‘Stack ‘Em Up’.

100. Hung Like Hanratty Alice Jones-Rodgers reviews ‘Dragged Up’.

42. Wendy James Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

104. How to Build a Girl Alice Jones-Rodgers reviews the Caitlin Moran written and Coky Geidroyc directed coming of age film.

54. Steve Ignorant Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

106. 2020 Mercury Prize This year’s nominees revealed.

74. Frenchy’s Rants This month: Money, Money, That’s What I Want.

Emma Swift Under A Nashville Skyline Interview by Kevin Burke Photography by Autumn Dozier.

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The Australian born Emma Swift has a voice which can break a heart and soothe your emotions. Living and working in Nashville, Tennessee, the lady is starting to shine brightly amongst the surroundings of her influence. However, on August 14th, she releases an album of divine virtue. The album was announced on May 24th, the birthday of Bob Dylan.

Her upcoming ‘Blonde on the Tracks’, as the name suggests, is an eight track celebration of Emma’s favourite Bob Dylan tracks, including ‘Queen Jane Approximately’, ‘One of Must Know (Sooner or Later)’ and even one of Bob’s most recent, ‘I Contain Multitudes’. The collection is hauntingly beautiful, uplifting, though at times stark and painful.

Together with partner Robyn Hitchcock (The Soft Boys) and Wilco’s Patrick Sanon, Emma’s ‘Blonde on the Tracks’ is a creation of great depth and creates a passionate warfare of emotions.

This year sees Emma Swift as an artist on the precipice of acclaim.

The seeds for this were planted since the 2014 release of her acclaimed, self-titled EP release and the music world was awakened to her song craft and talent. So, as Bob Dylan’s ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’ rode high in the charts, I spoke with Emma about her tribute to Bob and the influence that she soaks up from

Nashville.

Growing up, when did you decide music was for you?

Ever since I saw the tear roll down Sinead O’Connor’s incredible face in the ‘Nothing Compares 2U’ [‘I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got’, 1990] clip as a kid, I thought that’s what I want to do. I wanted to grow up and sing beautiful, sad, desperate songs. I started out singing in school choirs and then joined bands as a teenager, but I’m sorry to say my 20s were pretty unmusical, despite how much I loved singing. I was very focussed on my career, which at that point was in news journalism, though I did host a weekly folk and indie radio show on a Sydney community station. Music was my first love though. Then poetry. Then visual art. Then cats.

When did you move to Nashville?

I moved to Nashville in 2012. I was very naive about what it would actually be like to pack up my life in Australia and go and live in Tennessee, but also wildly determined. I was at a point in my life where I didn’t have anything to lose and I had this urgent feeling that if I didn’t move I would be stuck in an office forever. I hadn’t been writing songs very long and I also knew almost no one, which is kind of crazy now that I think about it. Sometimes you just have to act on an impulse and worry about the details later.

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Giving the history of Nashville, do you find great influence from its musical history?

Oh, yes! Absolutely, absolutely. I could talk forever about this stuff. When I first moved, I would walk by Woodland Street Studios every day on my way to the coffee shop. In the ‘70s, Neil Young recorded part of ‘Comes a Time’ [1978] there and Tammy Wynette recorded there as well, though these days it is home to Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, who just make this exceptionally good, intelligent, heartbreaking music. They’re indie people in a way, but very schooled in bluegrass and country and Welch’s voice has this gentle but devastating quality. I just love that building and all the magic stored up in it. Of course Bob Dylan recorded in Nashville too, and Jimi Hendrix lived here a short while after serving in the army. There’s a lot more to Music City than country music, though it’s definitely part of the city’s DNA. One of my all-time go-to songwriters for many years has been David Berman from The Silver Jews,

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who sadly died last year. I think he was the first to plant in my head the idea that Nashville was more than honky tonks.

When did you become connected with Robyn Hitchcock?

I met Robyn Hitchcock at the SXSW Music conference in Austin, TX in March 2013. I don’t want to sound like an insufferable hippy type here, but it was more or less love at first sight. He’s a surrealist and an incredible guitar player and he’s been doing that since before I was born. But he’s also incredibly kind, gentle and so supportive of my creative pursuits. He believed in me before I believed in myself, which is a huge undertaking for a partner. We’re equals. It’s not without the usual ups and downs any relationship has, especially when it is a working relationship as well as a romantic one. But I’m incredibly lucky to have him in my life.

When did the idea of doing a covers album come from?

I went through an overwhelming period of depression in 2017, the kind where it is difficult to get out of bed and brush your hair and function in the world, let alone attempt to make any kind of art.

It was pretty scary and even talking about it now, I can feel a huge rush of sadness pulse in my veins. The Dylan project became something to focus on and to motivate me to keep moving.

My own songs at this time were just not working and like every other time in my life I’ve ever been upset, I turned to my record collection for guidance.

At the time, Dylan himself was releasing ‘Triplicate’, his Frank Sinatra collection, so I kind of slipstreamed him there as well.

You managed to do something very unique, and make the songs of another songwriter sound like your own. Even though ‘Blonde on the Tracks’ is a covers album, would I be right that’s it also a very personal album?

You are right, it is very personal. I’ve never been good at singing songs that

don’t resonate with me and I think you can hear when a singer really loves the song they’re singing, whether they wrote it or not. Every time I listen to Sandy Denny sing ‘Ballad of Easy Rider’, I think about how much the song must have meant to her to give such a beautiful performance. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that song and not burst into tears.

When, or how did Patrick Sansone of Wilco become involved in the project?

Patrick is my friend and neighbour and has been involved with the album from the get-go. He’s a phenomenally talented multi-intrumentalist and all-round great human being. He’s been so patient with me. I’m very much a slow mover in the studio and am also quite skilled in the art of procrastination. He didn’t give up on the project, even during the times I almost did. He also never took offence to my near-constant requests for extra reverb. We both love glass harmonica, jangle rock and Joni Mitchell.

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Have any of Bob’s people get in touch or give feedback surrounding the album?

The only people I have been in touch with from the Dylan camp are his publishing company, because to release covers, you have to request permission from the publisher. I did get a nice email about ‘I Contain Multitudes’ from Joan Baez’s manager though, so that was pretty damn special.

Dylan is hailed again for his latest release ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’.

You recorded ‘I Contain Multitudes’ from it. I take it that song stuck out for you, what is your impression of the album?

I’m obviously a huge Dylan fan, so pandemic or not, I would have been excited about this record coming out.

I’ve been in lockdown for more than three months now and haven’t walked further than the mailbox, so all this time at home has heightened my senses and it is lovely to treat the ears to new Bob Dylan material. At the time of

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finalising ‘Blonde on the Tracks’ in April this year, Dylan released ‘I Contain Multitudes’ as a single. To me, It’s just this divine love song to words and poetry and music and art, so I felt compelled to record it, even if it had to be on a Zoom recorder in the lounge room rather than in a proper recording studio. But every track on ‘Rough and Rowdy’ is a gift.

You have another album in the works, ‘Slow Dancing With Ghosts’.

Is that similarly a personal album?

Aside from music, I’m very influenced by poetry and the ‘Slow Dancing’ record might be as close to confessional as I ever get, though I don’t want to predict what kind of songs I might write later down the road. The main themes on this album are sex, death, late-stage capitalism, depression and radical self-acceptance. It’s coming out in January 2022.

I agree with you and your advocating for fairness when it comes to streaming services. In some respects,

are your views similar to mine that devaluing music through streaming is devaluing the art created?

I don’t know if it’s all the Billy Bragg records I listened to as a kid, or if it’s the pandemic creating mass unemployment for musicians as we continue to not be able to tour, but I truly believe that musicians are workers and should be paid fairly for that work.

How do you find the streaming sessions with Robyn compared to the live performance?

It’s a very fun, live on the internet, low budget version of what Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner did back in the ‘70s. If you had told me a year ago that this would be something I enjoy, I would have doubted it because I just love touring so much and connecting in a real life venue, with real people who have gathered together to enjoy music.

That life, going to shows, playing shows is about as close I get to a spiritual community. But these internet gigs are enjoyable in a different way.

We can take requests on the fly, there’s a fun chat room for the audience that I go and hang out in and we chat as the gig goes live. It’s also much more of a me-and-Robyn show, whereas in the past I have been the opening act or a guest act for the encores.

Finally, what are your hopes for the future in a post-pandemic world?

Peace, love, equal rights for all, the death of trickle down economics in favour of a more just system, a walk through Paris at dusk, to see my favourite performers play live again. www.facebook.com/emmaswiftsings

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Spygenius

Set Adrift on Musical Bliss

Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

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Despite the many trials and tribulations that 2020 has brought us, it is difficult to believe (but quite a relief) that we are already half way through the year. COVID-19 aside, it is generally at this point of the year that we start to think about which of the many brilliant albums we have heard this year might be named as our favourite as we head into a hopefully much less turbulent 2021.

One of the very best albums we have heard so far this year came to our attention in early July when the lovely Rex Broome and Christina Bulbenko of the ever-wonderful Burbank, California based Big Stir Records got in touch to sing the praises of the latest release on their label, ‘Man on the Sea’ by Canterbury and South London based four-piece Spygenius.

The excitement with which Rex and Christina spoke of ‘Man on the Sea’, Spygenius’ fifth album, wasn’t unjustified. A double, seventeen track odyssey, ‘Man on the Sea’ refreshingly disregards the modern age’s obsession with download and streaming-induced single track picking, being an album very much designed to bask in the glory of for its entire 75-minutes. And speaking of old-fashioned album values, ‘Man on the Sea’ is accompanied by some equally sublime artwork courtesy of Joseph Champniss, an artist and animator friend of the band.

Champniss also provides Spygenius

with the highly entertaining animated videos which accompany their singles, such as that for ‘Cafe Emery Hill’, the deliriously joyous and far too addictive lead-up single to ‘Man on the Sea’.

Many of you won’t have been introduced to the wonderful world of Spygenius, nor will you know about the four excellent albums, ‘Songs from the Devil’s Typist’ (2008), ‘Red Lounge’ (2010), ‘The Comforting Suture’ (2012) and ‘Pacéphale’ (2016) that led up to the band absolutely realising their full potential on ‘Man on the Sea’, or indeed the interesting history of the band, such as how prior to bringing together bassist Ruth Rogers; keyboardist Matt Byrne and drummer Alan Cannings for this fantastic power-pop soaked voyage, guitarist and vocalist Peter Watts was the lead vocalist in the band Murrumbidgee Whalers, whose classic 1988 jangle-pop single ‘Giving Way to Trains’ has recently been featured on the Cherry Red ‘C88’ compilation. So, without further ado, here is our recent interview with quite possibly your new favourite band.

Firstly, hello Spygenius and thank you for agreeing to our interview.

Could we start by asking how Spygenius got together and could you introduce us to your members and tell us a bit about your respective backgrounds in music?

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Spygenius proper formed in 2006, which was when Alan [Cannings, Drums and vocals] joined – but the proto-spygeniants first crawled out of the primordial soup a couple of years before that, in a beer garden in Carshalton in Surrey. Peter [Watts, guitar and vocals] and Ruth [Rogers, bass and vocals] were in a band that was starting to fall apart, and Matt [Byrne, keyboards and vocals] was in a band that was starting to fall apart, and Peter and Matt had been in a band that had already fallen apart a couple of years before that… and what we all wanted to do was to write and record and play original music of the sort that we’d want to listen to for as long as we could get away with it… and thus Spygenius was born. We thought we probably ought to have a fourth member and we went through a lot of short-lived experimental line-ups before we finally persuaded Alan into the fold. We kept sort of breaking would be collaborators… there was a guy called Toby (well, he wasn’t really called Toby) who wanted to play the drums for us and was really, really

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enthusiastic… so we invited him to a rehearsal and had a proper Spygenius style work-out, and he seemed happy enough… and then he phoned us up a week later to say that he’d decided to give up music forever and was going to sell his kit… oops… anyway, Alan and Matt had once been in a band together that had fallen apart so we said ‘look here, Alan, you’re unbreakable…’ and that was that. This was all happening in and around South West London – Croydonish… which is where Matt, Alan and Peter all grew up. Ruth grew up in Cardiff and then ran away to High Wycombe…

Who or what would you cite as your influences and inspirations upon forming?

Inspirations for forming? Erm… desperation! Nobody ever asks you what your desperations are… seriously, though, more and more of our contemporaries had given up playing music or drastically reined in their ambitions as they got older and day jobs and families and stuff started

to take their toll, but we just didn’t want to stop – we’d been in so many groups that had never quite realised their promise… we had unfinished business… and as it looked like no-one was champing at the bit to scoop us up for megastardom we knew we had to make the thing happen ourselves.

As for influences, it’s really hard to say… there are so many of them. One key influence might be the ‘album’ era of rock music – from about 1966 to the late ‘70s – when bands would be able to explore a wide musical palette over a range of songs that all somehow fitted together – hopefully! We’ve always thought of our tunes in terms of collections… but beyond that, loads of stuff – Peter brings the sixties influences but also the new wave ones, Matt loves bombastic rock like Queen and Muse, Alan is Mr Disco, and Ruth loves punk and cheese. But actually, throw that list out of the window… we all love harmony singing… we’re fond of a bit of blues but would never play it (can blue men sing the whites?), we trawl for cod jazz… Occasionally,

we’ll even hey nonny if we’re a bit short of sleep… Mario Kart is also another major influence… in short, anything and everything… got a song guv’nor? Let’s ‘ear it then…

How did you come by the name ‘Spygenius’ and how did it inform your vision for the band?

To paraphrase Grandpa Simpson, this is a story that is not so much interesting as it is long… the name informed Peter’s vision of the band quite literally, though, because it came from a pair of his spectacles… he’d found a pair of his granddad’s specs that looked a lot like the glasses worn by the man in the control room in ‘The Prisoner’, ‘60s TV Spy drama, and he was trying to describe them to someone who’d never seen the show – he thought they looked like something a spy or evil genius might wear – or they were Spy/ Genius glasses… or spygenius glasses… and the word just stuck, so when we were looking for a name that no-one else has used… more seriously, though, John Barry, Henry Mancini,

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Lalo Schifrin, Jerry Goldsmith… they’re all hidden under the false bottom of the booby-trapped attaché case of influences which is handcuffed to our arm… and who knows, our next album might be a collection of tunes to brainwash Michael Caine by…

Before we look deeper into your brand new fifth album, ‘Man on the Sea’, could you give us an overview of your four albums to date and how you feel the band has evolved over these releases?

Ooh, it’s hard to review your own work… I suppose the first thing to say is that all four of the earlier albums are works of unparalleled (spy)genius and are available now from spygenius.co.uk and of course the Big Stir website… no? OK… when we decided to do our own thing musically, we first of all had to figure out what this band was going to be, how would we work together and so on… so album number one [‘Songs from the Devil’s Typist’] was really all about that – trying to establish for ourselves as much as for an audience

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who exactly Spygenius was… it came out pretty well, got some good reviews, and we’re still very proud of the music … in fact, the B side of ‘Café Emery Hill’ [the band’s latest digital single, from the new album ‘Man On The Sea’] is a track called ‘13 Years (May Song)’ from that first album. Album number two [‘Red Lounge’] is more confident, we knew each other better as musicians, and we were exploring the ideas that we came up with but didn’t have space for on our debut. We did some bold things on that one – like the CSNish song ‘First Do No Harm’… lots of harmonies on that one… by album number three [‘The Comforting Suture’], we knew each other really well as musicians and had played a lot more gigs – and although it’s not at all a ‘live in the studio’ recording, it does maybe capture something of that feel… album our [‘Pacéphale’] was a sea-change, though – partly because we had a lot of stuff going on in our personal lives when we started making it (kid stuff mainly), and partly because it coincided with when we met and started working with Champniss, which

injected a new creative vector into what we were doing.

We have been really enjoying ‘Man on the Sea’, which is already an early contender for our Album of the Year.

The first thing is that it is a double album. Did you set out to make a double album, is there a theme holding the seventeen tracks spanning the four sides together and could you give us an insight into the writing and recording process of the album?

Delighted to hear that you’re liking our new rekkid! Thank you kindly!

So… did we set out to make a double album… erm, yes and no. The earliest sessions for ‘Man on the Sea’ actually coincided with the sessions for ‘Pacéphale’ – we had a whole bunch of songs, some of them were brand new, some of them had been around for a while but the time hadn’t been right to revisit them, and we just started recording the ones we felt most like doing… and then after a while ‘Pacéphale started to take shape, and a

load of the songs we were working on fitted on there but others didn’t… we didn’t have enough for a second album straight away so we started writing and / or revisiting older contenders… and the number of songs grew, the but the album still didn’t feel complete… so we recorded another one and another one… and then suddenly it started to feel done, but by that point it was seventeen songs long. The thing is, from the get-go we always wanted to make albums like the classic albums that we (well, Peter at least) loved when we first got into music – albums that take you on a bit of a musical journey, that draw on different styles and so on… but they have to hang together, have an arc of some sort, even if they don’t have an actual theme or storyline. We pretended that ‘Pacéphale’ was a concept album with a definite story (thank you Phil May for ‘S.F. Sorrow’!! thank you Small Faces!! thank you Professor Unwin!!)

– but actually, the tracks were recorded separately, sequenced to sound good, and then we made the story up afterwards… ‘Man on the Sea’ doesn’t

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have a narrative as such, but it does have a number of thematic unities, that reflect where we are in life – ageing, mortality, revisiting your younger self, finding joy in the face of everything – and then there’s all them nautical metaphors… the eternal struggle to pilot through the maelstrom of life and all that malarkey… but as long as no-one reviews the album by saying ‘Arr! She blows!’, we’ll be happy…

Where did the title of the album come from and did the title come first informing the nautical theme on the album or vice-versa?

The album title came from a Ladybird Book! (Actually, at the start of lock down, lovely, lovely CJ from the Fast Camels and his wife Anita found a copy of the book and posted it to us!

They are such sweethearts!) It was also the title of a cassette song collection that one of Peter’s old bands made so long ago that no-one can remember anything about it. Apart from the title.

To be honest, it was a working title that stuck. It seemed to fit the record once it

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was done, so it stayed. At least people can pronounce it… and anyhow, Peter’s been kind of obsessed with nautical motifs throughout his song writing career so… you know…

One thing that strikes us about your work is the incredibly high quality of the lyrics. Are the lyrics written by one member or is it a collective effort; to you, what makes a great song and what makes you tick as songwriters?

Thank you, that’s very kind. But we do work hard on the lyrics. They are generally written by whoever the main songwriter is – so mainly Peter, sometimes Ruth. We were certainly influenced by that whole post-Dylan tradition in rock music where lyrics are complex and important and make you think and stuff – and also the post-punk or new wave moment – Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Chris Difford, even Robert Smith a little bit… oh and classic lyrics of people like Sondheim and – who was it wrote the words for Goldfinger?

Anthony Newly? Peter, in particular,

loves word-play and how you can use lyrical ambiguity, words which are evocative rather than explicable, to invite the listener into the creative space of the song… they have to find their own meanings… but then again it’s all too easy to overdo it and get too clever… a wop bop a loo bop a wop bam boom is probably the perfect lyric after all... as for music, well… a great song is any song that uses whatever approach the writer has decided to take to good effect – it can be some massively complex thing with chords that no-one (apart from Matt!!) knows the names of, or the simplest little ditty you ever heard, it doesn’t matter as long as it works (if it sounds right it is right! Meek Meek!) – and it’s got to find a balance between intellect and feeling – there’s nothing wrong with a song that makes you think, but it’s got to move you as well. Actually, that’s more important, probably.

From your 2017 album ‘Pacéphale’ onwards, you have worked closely with animator and graphic designer Joseph Champniss. How did

Champniss come to be involved with Spygenius, what do you feel he has added to the band’s artistic vision during the time you have been associated with him and could you tell us a bit about his work for ‘Man on the Sea’?

Well, here’s another long story... back in the last millennium Peter was in a band called the Murrumbidgee Whalers, who recorded a song… a track called ‘Giving Way to Trains’… which was pressed onto small plastic discs and then instantly forgotten… well almost… it seems that these discs started circulating amongst folk who like that sort of thing and about ten or twelve years ago one of them found its way to the ears of Mr Chamniss… who searched in vain for the Murrumbidgee Whalers who had long since joined the annals of bands that had fallen apart… but then maybe six or seven years ago Champniss happened to tweet the lyrics of that tune at just the moment that Ruth was Googling Peter’s old band… she spotted the tweet and said hello… then art started appearing… cartoons of

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us which we liked much better than the grim reality of band photos… so we kept saying hello and art kept appearing … including animated videos!… and it turned out that we had a proper affinity (and a mutual love of the Bonzos)… we’d always liked the idea of working with a sympathetic visual artist and he seemed to like the idea of having a band to draw for… and we went through a whole process of getting to know each other artistically – Peter and Champniss actually produced a complete illustrated lyric book (‘The Spygenius Book of Forbidden Fruit Cocktails’), each sort of daring the other to get more and more absurdist and surreal… then Peter tried to persuade Champniss to do a feature length animation of Spygenius – which was clearly way too ambitious – but it sort of morphed into the story book in ‘Pacéphale’, and that was when Satchmo paNDa was born, who’s now very much our logo… so there was never any question really whether Champniss would do the art for ‘Man on the Sea’ – it’s wonderful to see the images our music conjures for him…

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(And, incidentally, that obscure song from long ago is not so obscure any more – it got included on Cherry Red’s C88 compilation!)

You release your music through Big Stir Records. How did you come to be involved with Big Stir Records, in the modern age when many bands are self-releasing and self-promoting, what do you feel that the advantages of releasing through a label are and what are your general thoughts about the current state of the music industry?

We got involved with Big Stir Records because we were mates with Christina Bulbenko and Rex Broome! We became mates with them after we met them at David Bash’s International Pop Overthrow festival in Liverpool a few years back. We were on stage in the Cavern Pub and Peter was wittering on about Nelson Bragg for some reason when Christina and Rex walked in – and Rex at the time bore a passing resemblance to Nelson… so from the awkward humour of that moment,

friendships were born… and cemented the following year when there was a Big Stir tour of the UK – we set up and played some gigs with them and they told us all about Big Stir, which wasn’t a record label then, it was a regular gig night and an idea – an idea of a mutually supportive artistic community doing the kind of music that we were trying to do as well – so we were all ears at that point because it was so like our own ethos… and they are much, much better at promotion than we are… so when the label took off it was a no-brainer to come on board – and we’re very glad we did! Christina and Rex have achieved amazing things over the past couple of years, and we’ve met a lot of other lovely people through that connection – we’re good buddies with Steven Wilson (Plasticsoul) and Blake Jones and all the Amoeba Teen crowd – all on Big Stir. As for more general thoughts about the music industry, we don’t really have any! It doesn’t seem relevant to what we want to do. There’s loads of great new music out there, small labels, independent radio shows and so on – it’s a vibrant scene, but it

doesn’t really have anything to do with the music ‘industry’ as such… which is liberating artistically, for sure!

The music industry obviously currently has the COVID-19 pandemic to contend with, so how have the band been affected during all of this, have you managed to undertake any music activities in spite of it and what plans do you have for afterwards?

Well, we had a whole load of gigs set up for this year to support the release of ‘Man on the Sea’ – including some in California - which have all had to be cancelled. And we can’t rehearse either – Matt and Alan still live in South London so it’s been impossible to get together. We’ve been working on a collection of cover recordings, though, to keep us busy, because, well… we don’t do covers, so we thought we would, just to spite ourselves… or something like that… well, actually, we’d recorded a cover of ‘Paper Sun’ [Traffic, 1967] for the ‘Band For All Seasons’ collection on Fruit de Mer

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records, and that was kind of fun, so we thought we’d try a few more… just to keep our hands in until happier times… which will hopefully be soon. We were really worried that one of our favourite venues – the Oval Tavern in Croydon – might not re-open after lock down, but it was actually on Channel 4 news last night as an example of a responsible, socially distanced, properly re-opened pub! Yay!

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Thank you for a wonderful interview, we wish you all the best with ‘Man on the Sea’ and for the future.

Our pleasure! Thank you very much! www.spygenius.co.uk bigstirrecords.com/spygenius www.facebook.com/spygeniusband

Kimberley Rew & Lee Cave-Berry The Sunshine Walkers Interview by Kevin Burke.

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The chemistry and love that oozes from Kimberley Rew and Lee Cave-Berry is a pleasure to behold.

Two musicians joined through creativity and mutual admiration, they are, astonishingly, not household names, but they should be.

However, a new compilation titled Sunshine Walkers will hopefully rectify this.

To explain the importance of both people, it is best to start with Kimberley. His first band, The Soft Boys, along with Robyn Hitchcock and the late Matthew Seligman, created two of the most interesting and enduring albums of the postpunk era. When The Soft Boys ran their course, Kimberley linked in with a new outfit, Katrina and The Waves. It was with this band that he penned their breakthrough hit ‘Walking On Sunshine’ (1985) and the 1997 Eurovision winner ‘Love Shine a Light’.

Although both Celine Dion and The Bangles have also covered songs written by Kimberley Rew (‘That’s Just the Woman in Me’ (2007) and ‘Going Down to Liverpool’ (1984), respectively), amongst all of this, Kimberley and partner Lee Cave-Berry have forged a plethora of quality albums together which have somehow skimmed beneath the surface of the mainstream music scene. Mixing standard rock, Americana, power pop and even

blues, in truth there is a lot to discover and to enjoy.

As daylight dawned from the lockdown, I chatted with both Kimberley and Lee from their home in Cambridge. It was the perfect, upbeat conversation and one of the things I took away from it was how genuinely happy these people are with a carefree and refreshing attitude that made an interview turn into a pleasurable conversation.

I have to say, thank you very much for your contribution to music over the last four decades, you have always been there making music and writing such wonderful songs.

Kimberley: You’re most welcome, it’s been an absolute destiny of what we were born to do.

I’m actually an hour outside Dublin.

Dublin itself must hold fond memories for you guys?

Kimberley: The Soft Boys actually played Dublin in 2003. On that occasion, Lee was with me. She came to all the sound checks jumping up and down with enthusiasm. Also, Katrina and the Waves were there in 1997, Dublin, the home of the Eurovision song contest as it almost became.

Yeah, that’s until we got rid of Johnny Logan, we sold him to Germany and we started losing and

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have kept losing ever since.

Kimberley: They had to go really, you can only have so much Eurovision [laughs].

How long have you guys been together, as a couple and making music?

Kimberley: Well, we’ve been together for 22 years, we’ve known each other for 42 years, and we’ve been making records for 22 years, which is the pretext for it’s about time we put together a ‘best of’ Kimberly and Lee. I’ve been making records and Lee made a few solo records and we started making records together.

Lee: I’ve been on all of his solo records.

A lot of people know you (Kim) from Katrina and the Waves and The Soft Boys, but you have released some 13 solo albums at least.

Lee: There aren’t many people who’ve

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actually heard anything of Kimberley’s solo work, or are stuff together. I just think it’s worth trying to get people to hear it.

There is a vibe certainly from the records you make together that is upbeat, that you guys enjoy making the music together. That comes through when you hear it.

Kimberley: Oh good, I am rubbish at writing serious songs, I just can not do it, God knows I have tried. The only thing that seems to work is the upbeat stuff. I don’t know what it is.

I thought about it and I think it’s a reflection of you both as a couple that comes through in the music?

Lee: I’m very glad you said that, it is there all of the time. We do love each other’s company and we do love the music. When we are together there is this relaxed, happiness between the two of us. And I’m glad it’s coming out in the music, because we do enjoy doing it, don’t we? (Kim: Yes).

How did you actually decide what went on ‘Sunshine Walkers’ from your back catalogue? Was it a case of songs that mean something to you or fan favorites?

Kimberley: It’s difficult, there’s always going to be someone that says ‘Why didn’t you put whatever song it was on there’. I think there’s one song called ‘Stomping All Over the World’ featuring members of The Soft Boys.

There’s one called ‘My Baby Does Her Hairdo Long’ featuring members of the Sneakers, and there’s one called ‘Hey War Pig’ featuring members of Katrina and the Waves. But the other 18, they basically feature the two of us.

And we’ve got Ian Gibbons on piano, he was a member of The Kinks. He actually died last year quite suddenly, he was actually the same age as me. We went back and realised he’d actually played on 12 of these albums and we’d always taken in for granted. We’d give him a call and say ‘It’s time to make an album’ and he’d turn up all smiles playing away. So it’s almost a sort of memorial in a way.

Lee: Yeah, when it came to choosing the tracks, I mean, we kind of selected the ones that we like the most, and then we also asked some friends what they like the most and then we kind of made up from there really.

I know one of my favorite tracks by you guys, ‘Simple Pleasures’ features at the end, you couldn’t leave that off there I guess?

Lee: That’s a favourite of a lot of people. It was that our team actually suggested it be the focus track, so we did that.

Kimberley: I think it’s the jangly guitar, I have got this reputation for playing jangly guitar. But it only works under certain conditions like a scientific experiment, you gotta have other things in place.

Lee: Kimberley is very song based, we don’t have a particular style, it’s like how the song comes out is the style, we have all sorts of styles, fast, slow, country, folk, and it becomes very

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difficult to put us in a genre, we do reggae, we do rock, whatever comes along.

Kimberley: Yeah there’s variations, when you get down to our level, there is a lot of boxes we tick. (Such as Blues, Folk, Jazz, Americana, but (Americana) that’s a huge box for this country which is not American. I mean power pop, that’s quite a little one, that seems to be in America and Americana seems to be over here. You can go to one of those areas, and then you are stuck in a box, and for some reason we are not in a box.

Lee: I’d very much like people to hear Kimberley’s songs, I think they’ve been hidden away and they are so good.

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real stage in our development. I had made a couple of Kimberley Rew albums at that point, and Lee had made one album. There’s a thing in Cambridge called the Wednesday Sessions, we are almost the house band for that. And we realised we could do a certain amount of classic entertainment songs, and we could back up visiting singers. A bit like in my career there’s a grounding in the classics.

I did see Lee’s album ‘Spring Forward’ (2003) recently, a remastered version by John Verity of The Zombies. Is that going to become available again?

I guess your two albums ‘Lend Me Your Comb’ and ‘Return Of The Comb’ (both 2018) showed a lot of your influences but also styles. Where did you get the idea for them?

Lee: It will probably be re-released at some time as you said it’s been remastered. But we are concentrating on two new Kimberley and Lee albums due out after ‘Sunshine Walkers’, but I’m not quite sure when it will be. But, Kimberley is on that (‘Spring Forward’). I love that album.

Kimberley: I don’t think anyone has picked them out before. That was a

I guess the aim of ‘Sunshine Walkers’ is for people to go back to ‘The Bible

of Bop’ (1981) and discover all these great tracks and separate the name Kimberley Rew from Katrina and the Waves?

Lee: That’s exactly right. There’s always been a slight struggle. Mostly, we have been concentrating on music for the 22 years we’ve been together, so we decided we want people to hear this material if we can, as the only thing people will listen to is Katrina and the Waves and The Soft Boys, as that’s what Kimberley is known for. But actually, his contribution to Katrina and the Waves where he wrote the two biggest hits, you would’ve thought there would have been some kind of interest from that.

When the lockdown is over do you intend to tour the album?

Kimberley: Absolutely, it depends though. If we hadn’t had the lockdown, it would have depended on the level of interest, and also the level of live music. We don’t quite know what it’s going to be like. Today, we know the

pubs are opening on the fourth of July, but that doesn’t include the music. That might be a step too far for the pubs. We don’t have a date for the pubs and that will be our starting point.

Lee: I think we were originally going to launch the album at the Slaughtered Lamb in London and obviously that’s not going to happen now.

The Soft Boys’ album ‘Underwater Moonlight’ is 40 years old this year.

I put the album firmly alongside The Doors ‘LA. Woman’ (1971). What was your approach to the album?

Kimberley: I mean, you’ve got Robyn Hitchcock who is intensely creative and I’ve never known anyone like him. It’s a little bit like, for example Lou Reed.

He had a very long career and a lot of very great consistent songs, but I mean right at the beginning there was The Velvet Underground. And they had a very distinctive sound which Lou Reed didn’t have later on although he did some great stuff. I like the fact we had Robyn’s creativity there, but we also

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have our own sounds. The band was together for about three years and we made two albums in that time, the second and last one was ‘Underwater Moonlight’ [the first being ‘A Can of Bees’, 1979]. We weren’t setting out to nail a distinctive sound or buzz, it’s just the people we were.

At the time when ‘Underwater Moonlight’ came out, I don’t think it sounded like anything else at the time?

Kimberley: I’m so relieved you said that, it would have been terrible to sound like all the other punk bands, the things that were popular at the time.

And I’m so relieved that ‘Walking On Sunshine’, when it came out in 1985, didn’t sound like all the other synthesizer bands of the 1980s. I think we avoided that, although not consciously. I think people would not love that song the way they do now if it had been more typical of the music of it’s time.

I feel ‘Walking on Sunshine’ has a

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beat from the ‘60s. Thirty-five years later people still love the track and it fills dance floors everywhere. How does that make you feel?

Lee: I went to this gig once and there was a band playing inside, it was a beautiful day and everyone was outside enjoying themselves except for me and another guy. The were playing and playing and everyone was outside listening but there was no clapping or anything, and then they started ‘Walking on Sunshine’. Just the drum beat happened and everyone came in and shook around for three minutes, then went back our again. [Laughs] We all did.

Kimberley: It was like a scientific experiment. The audience were observed until ‘Walking On Sunshine’ was played, which resulted in a 99% increase in groovy.

When mentioning The Soft Boys of course, I’m sorry about the loss of Matthew Seligman who died of COVID-19 on April 17th. That must

have been difficult?

Kimberley: He did, yes.

Lee: We both played in a local band called Jack. I’ve been in it for 22 years, Kim has been in it for 16 and our lead singer Roger Smith died at the beginning of COVID. Our everyday lives have completely changed.

Kimberley: I mentioned earlier the Wednesday Sessions, well that audience now goes onto Facebook and they actually send comments to each other. It’s actually preserving some of that social glue. We are very lucky

there is the two of us, most musicians are stuck in their homes on their own.

It’s been lovely to talk to you both, I wish you all the best for the future.

Both: Thank you so much.

‘Sunshine Walkers’ is available now through Kimberley and Lee’s website. kimandlee.co.uk www.facebook.com/ kimandleemusic

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German Shepherd Records Presents:

Matthew Hopkins 30

With politically and socially astute lyrics coupled with stunning melodies, Matthew Hopkins are a new three-piece band from Chorley who have been quietly building a reputation on the north west England music scene. Comprised of Julia Nelson and Anne and Max Calderbank, the band offers a different and fresh sound, which was one of the key factors which drew the attention of German Shepherd Records. With one single already released and two new due in summer 2020 the trio are required live experience once gigging starts again.

Guitarist Julia and Bassist Anne met in primary school when they were five in 1974, over a scabby knee, and sang in the playground and at assembly. Aged 14 or so, punk, The Fall, and many similar gems were to be discovered at Malcolm’s Musicland on Chapel Street when they had some money to spend from their Saturday job, selling fruit and veg on Chorley market. A big day out would be a trip to Manchester, to the Oasis market and Affleck’s Palace. The punk scene, although small, was thriving in Chorley in the 80’s …. and they were part of it.

Gothic sounds and images also played into the punk thing with Release The Bats and The Reckoning being key influences. Teenage years brought travelling to some classic gigs in Manchester and at Clouds in Preston, with Nico, The Chameleons and The Cult being three examples. After

college, Julia moved to St Anne’s to study drama and Anne headed to Cardiff to study design, but their friendship and love of music continued.

Julia sang with the ongoing party that was The Tingletones, before moving to Manchester and singing with the short lived Arthur Badfrown Band. Around this time, Julia met German Shepherds’ Ian Moss through Craig Scanlon, both of whom she would later work with on Craig’s solo recordings, which were unfortunately never released. A move to London at the turn of the century prompted her to pick up a guitar and start writing songs. Missing the North, she returned a couple of years later and after a random conversation in a field at Beatherder, ended up playing guitar for Government Death Epidemic for a few years, gigging around Manchester and recording an EP. Anne returned to Chorley just before the millennium, with a newborn son Max in tow, after a four year stint of living in New Zealand and before that, Amsterdam with Max’s dad. Another old school friend in Chorley, Delia, was recently married to the inimitable Paul aka Conway Castle from the newly formed ‘60s garage outfit, The Stags.

In 2001 Anne joined the band as singer and ‘gogo girl with a tambourine’, uniquely named as ‘Topsy Stag’. They have had many adventures together, and are well-known on the scene, gigging around the UK and a few excursions into Europe. They released

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Anne Calderbank

an album under Soundflat records in Germany and worked closely with Frank Sidebottom back in the day.

Max is currently a music student at Salford University and he is an ex-pillar of the Chorley music scene himself, playing in The Commoners, Aching Limbs and Girlpants in his teens. He has played many gigs in the last couple of years with bands Bang Up to the Elephant, Fibs, Slap Rash, Rosa, and Piledriver. His most recent project is on guitar with The English Disease, composed of Ian Moss and Max’s trusty mate and collaborator Max Hodge on the drums.

It was Max who ignited the spark that led to the formation of Matthew Hopkins in 2016 when the trio came together to rehearse in the garage loft at Anne and Max’s house in Chorley.

Anne picked up a bass and began to write songs. Alongside Julia’s songwriting and rhythm guitar and Max’s arrangements and fierce drumming, Matthew Hopkins was born, mostly on Sunday afternoon. Ian Moss

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Max Calderbank

went to see their first gig at Manchester’s Retro Bar in 2017 and, although a hair-raising experience, he liked the band and offered them a gig at Manchester Meltdown. Three tracks were recorded and shared with German Shepherd as part of the radio promotion for the Meltdown event. On hearing them it was agreed that the group were perfect German Shepherd records artists.

The group have appeared at two Manchester Meltdown events at the Peer Hat, the last one curated by Julia. They have played at the Eagle Inn in Salford, one gig being part of a fundraiser event for the Salford Star magazine. They admit they have lost count but estimate they performed a total of 8 gigs before lockdown kicked in. One highlight was supporting TV Smith of The Adverts alongside another German Shepherd band The Harveys. They were due to support the legendary Cravats at this years’ Easter Meltdown at The Peer Hat., but alas the pandemic put paid to that.

Julia Nelson

Songs are written individually by Anne and Julia. Ideas are shared with Max who weaves his magic. Many of Julia’s songs are a back catalogue of acoustic work from over the years. New songs from Julia include the lead track of the first single released in November 2018.

‘Something’, which is a perfect example of the band’s mix of dual vocals attack. Powerful poetic words and calls to action run through her lyrics, constructed around a driving guitar. ‘Hey Joe’ is also featured and was recorded and produced by Simon “Ding” Archer at 6db Recording Studios in Salford as was ‘Lachrymose’, written by Anne. ‘Hey Joe’ is a call to wake up to ‘the many’ … to gather and rise and is not the song made famous by Jimi Hendrix.

The first single is available at : germanshepherdrecords.bandcamp. com/album/something Anne’s song writing came in a flurry of discovering the joys of bass and releasing ideas and feelings in song

amidst a home with two other younger children. Speaking of love, the bible, the overseas sex trade, the Tories and Girlhood. Written pieces and singing into a phone are unravelled by right hand man Max who weaves basslines and beats around all the creations of both women.

Why are they called Matthew Hopkins?’ ‘Who is Matthew Hopkins?’

Well ... He was the Witchfinder General in the 17th century, mass murderer, psychopath and gaslighter extraordinaire. The trio found him a fitting metaphor for those that control the world and still run riot today… they are bringing women’s voices to this battlefield.

Luckily, just before lockdown,they recorded two singles for release, both produced by Ding. ‘Love Don’t Do Logic’ will be the first release this summer, which will be followed by ‘Girl’ later in the year. germanshepherdrecords.com/ artists/matthew-hopkins

33

The Importance of Being

Michael Des Barres Interview by Kevin Burke.

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“Everyone wants to be a star, but it’s not top of my list”.

There are very few artists who can claim to have accomplished what the Sussex born Michael Des Barres has.

He survived it all, did it all, and lived to tell a very wild and honest tale.

One which can be viewed first hand on Amazon Prime, in the documentary. “What Do You Want Me to Be?”. Directed by J. Elvis Weinstein, it is an absorbing story of a man driven to succeed against all the odds. It lifts the lid off our perceptions of the sex, drugs and rock and roll lifestyle with equal amounts of humour, humanity, and compassion.

However, the rise of Michael Des Barres into the realms of pop culture began in the sixties, appearing on cinema screens, most notably in ‘To Sir, with Love’ (1967) alongside Sidney Poitier. From there he appeared as the rock star Rose in the musical stage show ‘The Dirtiest Show in Town’ (Robert Stigwood).

This led to Michael’s natural progression into music, forming and fronting glam rockers Silverhead in 1971, before moving to the legendary Swan Song label outfit Detective.

After his fight for recovery and at the dawn of his sobriety, Michael fronted super group Chequered Past, a band also consisting of the Sex Pistols’

Steve Jones and Blondie’s Clem Burke and Nigel Harrison. In between all of this, he penned a hit song with Holly Night (‘Obsession’, 1980) and enjoyed a stint fronting The Power Station, whilst keeping a steady stream of acting roles in both television and cinema, notching up an impressive 100 television show appearances and some 40 movies.

The truth is, this guy has done so much over the past six decades it is astounding, if not overwhelming.

Now, still making music and spinning to five million listeners on Steve Van Zandt’s Little Steven’s Underground Garage on SiriusXM, there is virtually no stopping him. There is an importance to him, right down to his inherited title of Marquis. So, in mid-July, I caught up with Michael and had an endearing talk about the documentary, his past accomplishments, his survival and how much he values his present.

Where did the idea to do ‘What Do You Want Me to Be?’ come from?

Well, I was doing a show as an actor and one of the writers/producers Josh Weinstein, who directed the thing had followed my music career and acting career closely. And it occurred to him, ‘how could this guy have eye-liner and

35

leopard skin here, and a machine gun here? Well that’s pretty fuckin’ interesting, who’s done that?’. He felt the duality of my career was something he wanted to explore. Which he did, and it took eight years. And I didn’t look at a frame of it until it was done.

Which is important because I wanted him to tell my story and not me.

There is a sense watching ‘What Do You Want Me to Be?’, you managed to integrate the life of being a rock star into reality. Was that your original intention going into the project?

Yes, of course! It’s called the truth. The reason I lasted so long was because I’ve told the truth. And I’ve been honest in how I feel. The success of the documentary, and it’s huge over here, is because people think ‘if this guy can do this, I can do this’, you know. I don’t care who you are, you’ve got problems.

Perhaps your kids are junkies, your wife betrays you or your money is stolen, you’ve got problems, it’s just humanity. My thing is we are all the

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same, we all share the same secrets. It doesn’t matter if you are in the middle of a stage and the lights are shining on you or you’re driving a cab, it’s the same fuckin thing. You just got to be truthful, loving, kind, courageous and cool.

In the documentary, you didn’t hold back did you?

I never will, I never have.

‘What Do You Want Me to Be?’ was originally released in 2015, but now has this second lease of life on Amazon Prime. How did that come about?

What happened was, Josh is one of those filmmakers, and it was the first movie he laboured over for years. I had actually forgotten about it. That version was great but the version they have up now is since I joined Little Steven’s Underground Garage and there was nothing of that, and I reach 5 million people a day so it’s tremendously important. I went through all of this

As Williams in ‘To Sir, With Love’ (1967)

Reunited with Sidney Poitier

stuff and now I’m sharing other peoples music. So we had to have Stevie [Steve Van Zandt] in there. My mentor as a broadcaster and an amazing man, and his bit at the end is priceless. About being the greatest frontman? It’s funny, the whole thing is I don’t give a shit about the glitz, I just wanted to enjoy myself and get laid, and write great songs, and act, and breathe, and have people believe me. There’s no quotes of me anywhere that say ‘I just wanna be a star’. Everyone wants to be a star, but it’s not top of my list.

don’t give a shit about what they’re saying. All they’re worrying about is the angle of the lighting and their hair.

It’s such an egocentric and narcissistic gig. When I was a kid I worked with Sidney Poitier, and I’m sixteen and there he is the most humble, noble, enigmatic teacher I ever had (‘Til I met Steve Van Zandt). With Sidney, we had three months to do it [‘To Sir, with Love’], and let’s not forget he’s a black American actor, the biggest movie star in the world in 1966. And that allowed me the fame to go to every club in London, and see The Yardbirds, The Animals, The Nashville Teens, Cream, and see Stevie Winwood, The Stones, all of it. It’s the double life, I’d spend all night in the clubs then at 6am I’d be throwing a brick through a window for some BBC, bullshit series. Or go on the road with the Young Shakespeare Company, doing Macbeth and King Lear, I did that for two years before I became a ‘glam rock’ star.

Is it the same getting into a role on stage as when you get into character on the screen?

That question comes up a lot, the duality of things. For me, I really like to sing my own songs, when I’m an actor I’m speaking someone else’s words, so that’s the only differential between these two. As an actor I learn the lines seconds before I work, sometimes I don’t learn them at all, and use cue cards. I believe in truth as an actor, you can see 99% of the stuff they

You were one of the first to highlight the dangers of drugs in the early eighties with Rock Against Drugs.

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Silverhead

Was there a backlash from those in the music world when you did that?

Tremendously so, but I didn’t give a fuck. I got sober in 1981, the beginning of the cocaine decade. So one was considered a pariah, a leper.

Therefore I was ostracized to a degree. I have always spent my life in a singular way, I don’t go to parties, I don’t now, I didn’t then. My party was me and an ounce of coke for a couple of years. I only used drugs for seven years, for the last two I was owned by the drug. When I got sober it was unbearable for me to listen to some bass player explaining his childhood to me ... while on cocaine. The repetition and the idiocy of the thing underscored that I was doing the right thing. The notion of being a leper was a lesson, because this is what it’s doing to them and I had no respect for them. If I was still doing it I would have no respect, not that I ever sought it. I saw the silliness, the adolescence, the fear, because after an hour of doing blow you’re terrified ... that’s why you do more.

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Do you think you started a chain reaction then, as others such as Lou Reed, Steve Tyler all wanted to get clean?

To be honest with you, yes! I think I was the flagship of sobriety. And I think that’s where I earned my stripes for my own soul. Sobriety wasn’t something that got you on the cover of People Magazine. In my day there was no rehabs, there was nothing like it. Drugs had not hit the mainstream in terms of the awfulness of it all. In the midsixties, before cocaine became psychotic and created psychosis, it was still fun. It was also a symbol of Rock and Roll, as symbolic as Keith Richards’ earring. The right boots, the right guitar, and I wanted everything to be wrong. This drug, you thought would make you hipper. There’s two things you had to be in rock and roll, really thin and really high ... and it was like child’s play to me.

Like in Silverhead? (Michael’s first rock band, 1971-1974).

Detective

Silverhead were amazing, we were a kick ass rock and roll band with no dreams of stardom at all. Other bands, they would kick us off the tour, but the promoters loved us. This was pre-Dolls [New York Dolls]. We were in L.A. before any of the ‘glam rock’ bands, we thought the word was funny, we were as glamorous as rats in the gutter.

The funny thing is, my ex-wife, Wendy [the late Wendy Hamilton], we would wear the same make up, and have our hair the same. We would walk around London, these creatures in velvet with make up, bangs, boots and beads, it was fun you know, before I was into rock and roll.

Your energy is unbelievable. Did you ever think “I’ve done it all now, time to relax” and just slow down?

No, I’ve so much more to do. I write songs every day and do the radio for three hours every day, where I do quite a lot of research. I mean, I know enough, but I want to intrigue my listeners. And now someone wants me to do a movie, and go out on the road

and do it live, tell stories, and play songs that are key to my life. When we get back to that, if we ever do, that’s what I’m going to do, go out and talk to people.

Back to your radio show on Little Steven’s Underground Garage, that must be such a joy for you?

I adore it, you know why? Because I’m not being me, saying “Here’s my new effort!” It’s ‘Here’s The Temptations, Leadbelly’. Over the years, we have brought a thousand bands onto the station. New, young, unsigned bands, although the majority of it is exploring the classics of R&B, soul, rock and roll, rockabilly, punk you name it. We cover all the bases from all the great artists.

Just recently we celebrated 35 years since Live Aid, which you played fronting The Power Station. How did it feel to be a part of all that?

How did it feel? It was a natural extension of my own imagination. I didn’t feel any different. If you do,

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Chequered Past

The Power Station

you’re going to forget the words, and I only had three days to learn all the songs. I just felt fantastic that day, I always do. The thing was, that day Andy Taylor’s amp blew up and we couldn’t play, and time was ticking, two-billion people watching, and Bill Graham was going bonkers. If you look at me in the video I’m laughing my ass off, now how come I could laugh my ass off at the biggest gig of all time? there was no way I was going to be nervous, I transcended fear because it was so incredibly huge. It was so magnificent, I was talking to Bob Dylan before he went on, it was madness, it was crazy.

Ten Commandments’ parting the Red Sea. Literally the audience parted, one over to Andy’s side and one over to John’s side and an alleyway in front of me [laughs]. And then some idiot in the front, god bless him, with a Robert Palmer record cover and he was holding it up! You know the guy I replaced. But I taught myself metaphysically over the years to enjoy the audience as there’s always going to be somebody that’s not going to like you, and give you the finger. When I was in the band [Chequered Past] with Jonesy [Steve Jones] we had a punk audience, that was a real metaphysical lesson in humility, these punks taught me a lot of self control. But after a couple of weeks and people had seen me at Live Aid and on telly it was fine for the rest of the tour, but those first couple of weeks was pretty shaky because they are not there to see you, they are there to see Duran Duran.

That tour with The Power Station must have been an amazing experience for you?

It was humbling to do, because at the beginning, John and Andy Taylor were the Beatles, literally, Duran were the Beatles in America. The first gig I did with them after Live Aid, I think it was New Orleans. But I came out on stage, and I felt like Charlton Heston in ‘The

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It is inspiring to see, especially in the documentary, after this incredible life you lived, it hasn’t changed you, you are still the same person?

Oh yeah! I got lucky, because I was so into the coke thing, but getting rid of that early on, I became enlightened if you like. En-spotlightment [laughs].

I had great women in my life, my three wives [Wendy Hamilton, Pamela Des Barres, and more recently Britta Hayertz], they are amazing people and taught me so much. I like being married, I don’t like cheating, I did that and I hate myself for it. The relationships replaced the drugs for the first couple of years of my sobriety, it was awful, I regret it deeply but I learnt my lessons, and I abide by the outcome.

That’s the thing I noticed. You accept things, move on, and don’t dwell on them.

No, acceptance is the key, acceptance is what is. I wrote a song recently called ‘Life Is Always Right’ and I believe that to be true. You can’t fight the pandemic, COVID-19, you can’t fight it but you can do what you can not to give it to somebody. Wear a mask, distance yourself, do the things that

people are not doing, and that’s why America is crumbling. It’s the same in everything, go by the rules. There are certain rules that are made not to be broken, rock and roll will sometimes teach you the other version of that.

There are certain rules that will make you a better person and one of them is acceptance and the other forgiveness.

I’ve learned a lot and I’m still capable of learning - keep learning, keep yourself open to new experiences.

Stay curious.

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

michaeldesbarres.com www.facebook.com/MDesBarres

41

Wendy James

A Life in Pop Art

Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

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Back in the late ‘80s, her first band, Transvision Vamp made Wendy James a worldwide star. However, it wasn’t just the band’s music that attracted attention. At a time when sexism was much more prominent in the music industry and The Sun thought nothing of featuring naked women on Page 3, Wendy’s blondehaired, blue-eyed good looks also gave the band a huge male following, some of whom we suspect were more interested in their singer than the wonderfully-crafted pop music that they made and, for better or worse, much coverage in the national press.

Sales-wise, of course, this didn’t do Transvision Vamp any harm. 1988 saw the band crash into both the UK singles and album charts, with the single ‘I Want Your Love’ reaching number five and debut album, ‘Pop Art’ peaking at number four.

Proving they weren’t just another ‘80s flash in the pan, the following year, their second album ‘Velveteen’, bolstered by a string of top twenty singles including the iconic number three hit ‘Baby I Don’t Care’, topped the UK album chart. During this period, they also enjoyed considerable success in Europe and Australia. However, when it came time to release their third album, the mellower and altogether more progressive ‘Little Magnets Versus the Bubble of Babble’ two years later, they found that their record company was at first unwilling to put

it out. It was eventually released in the US to little fanfare, but never in the UK and managed to scrape a number 25 placing in Australia.

The bubble may have burst for Transvision vamp, but Wendy was only just limbering up. By the time the band had imploded in early 1992, she had already written a letter to Elvis Costello, with whom the band toured in mid-1991, to ask him for his guidance. Costello obliged by writing ten brand new songs for her and the result became Wendy’s debut solo album ‘Now Ain’t the Time for Your Tears’, released in 1993.

Following the release of ‘Now Ain’t the Time for Your Tears’, Wendy went back to the drawing board and began planning out the next phase of her career in earnest. Whereas Transvision Vamp had relied largely on songs written by guitarist and backing vocalist Nick Christian Sayer and her early foray into being a solo artist was informed by the musings of Costello, when Wendy finally returned to the spotlight with the brand new band Racine in 2004, she had come into her own as not only a songwriter but also a producer.

Perhaps Racine was a test-bed for Wendy, a time for her to assess whether she could stand on her own as a solo artist because after two albums, ‘Number One’ (2004) and ‘2’

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(2007), Racine were no more and Wendy had returned to being simply ‘Wendy James’. Her second solo album, ‘I Came Here to Blow Minds’ was released in 2010 to positive reception. However, it was its follow up, 2016’s ‘The Price of a Ticket’, with its ‘dream band’ line-up, including Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye, Sex Pistols / Rich Kids bassist Glen Matlock, Stooges guitarist James Williamson, Nick Cave and the Band Seeds / Grinderman drummer Jim Sclavunos and saxophonist Steve Mackay, best known for his work on The Stooges 1970 album ‘Fun House’, eleven self-penned songs, many of which took a much more autobiographical tact and its evocative artwork, which absolutely asserted that she now a force to be reckoned with more than ever before.

How to follow this up? Well, Wendy has just returned with her third solo album ‘Queen High Straight’ and this time, she has achieved the incredible feat of writing, producing

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and mixing a twenty-track, 81-minute double album that three decades into an extraordinary career is quite possibly her finest and most creative work so far. To get the lowdown on this pop masterpiece, all that came before and what we can expect from her in the future, as well as to see how she has been coping during the pandemic, we recently called Wendy at home in the South of France for a chat.

Firstly, hello Wendy and thank you for agreeing to our interview.

Congratulations on your latest album ‘Queen High Straight’. We have been really enjoying it since it was released and have been impressed with its scope and vision, containing as it does a mammoth twenty tracks in 81-minutes. Was it your intention to release a double album from the outset and could we ask about its writing and recording process?

Absolutely and yes, it was. I set out to write many songs with the express intention of releasing them on a double

vinyl where you would have five cuts a side. You know, and it took me about three and a half years all in all. Oh, there’s a lizard in the house! Because I’m in the South of France and there’s these tiny little lizards. They’re completely harmless and he’s meant to be outside but he’s obviously got in through the crack in the kitchen door. I’ll have to catch him in a minute because he won’t find any food in here.

Anyway ... the poor little thing! I’ll take a photo for you! So, what was I saying? It took three and a half years; it took a year and two months to write and then, you know, in fits and starts, incrementally, record ... because, you know, there’s so much instrumentation on this album. It’s not just a simple, straight-forward one, two, three, four punk sounding album, there are horn sections and accordions and tons of backing vocals and lots of guitar layers, loads of piano, so it required quite a few recording sessions and I feel as though I haven’t stopped working for a hundred years! But, by now, I would have done the tour and have been on to another one, I guess but now I’m

hoping that July is going to continue being very busy for me, because I am promoting ‘Queen High Straight’ every single day in some shape or form, but I’m hoping that in August, I can get to shut up a bit and, you know, lie in the sun, hopefully.

How have you found releasing and promoting ‘Queen High Straight’ during the pandemic?

Well, I think Zoom [video conferencing software] is a great invention ... Oh, I have to take a photo of the lizard for you! He’s climbing up the wall! So, I’ve been doing Zoom chats with my band, because of course, not just with me, but they playing in other bands and they rely on cash-in-hand payments, right? From gigs. So, they’ve had to scramble to find either the universal health care or other jobs, so we have a band Zoom and we tell each other that we miss each other and we’ll see each other soon and of course I’ve been doing tons of promo using Zoom. It’s been quite useful. So, you know, the only thing that’s different is that I

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haven’t been able to do face-to-faces and I suppose radio promotion is more tricky because pluggers aren’t allowed to go into the BBC or radio stations and drop CDs off in DJs’ and producers’ offices. But, you know, it is what it is.

You’ve had to adapt, I’ve had to adapt, everyone’s had to adapt. It was a bit touch and go with the manufacturing during the pandemic because even though I commissioned all the stuff to be manufactured through an English company, the pressing plant is actually in Poland and because I pledged to the fans that every copy would have my autograph on it, the pressing plant in the middle of the pandemic had to ship thousands of covers to me where I am now in France. I had to sign them and then send them back to Poland to then send to London to then either distribute to UK and European fans and also over to America for the rest of the world. So, that was quite difficult with the logistics when you’ve got closed borders and health concerns, but we did manage to do it and you’ve seen the response, it’s been amazing. And I think from a musical point of view, it’s

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actually worked in my favour perhaps because it is a twenty track album and, you know, it’s one hour twenty minutes out of a day to listen to it and when everybody’s doing their jobs, people might struggle to find the time but because everyone’s been at home, they’ve got more chance to actually listen to it.

Having been in the music industry for over three decades, how do you find the experience of releasing and promoting an album in the digital age and have you been pleased with the reaction to ‘Queen High Straight’?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, I mean, yes, it’s changed and like I said, I haven’t been able to do the face-to-face and radio promoters haven’t been allowed into the radio stations but, for the most part, the good thing is that the digital age has given us many new ways to do remote interviewing, so there’s Skype, there’s WhatsApp, there’s Zoom, you know, there’s just so much. Instagram Live, Facebook Live, there’s so many

ways to communicate. I mean, it’s great! Oh, and have I been pleased with the reaction? Yeah! I mean, from the national newspapers and magazines right through to the fans’ individual reviews on Amazon or on my Facebook page. You know, it’s just so rewarding to ... It’s really quite something else to know that I originated these songs and now they are affecting people in a significant way. Yeah, really amazing.

Going back to those early days, what bands and artists or defining moments in music inspired you to want to pursue a career in music yourself?

Well, definitely Blondie, definitely ... I mean, my first gig at the age of fourteen was The Clash, so seeing Joe Strummer had a big impact on me as far as, you know, a guy at the front of a band that I very much wanted to ...

That’s when the lightbulb went off in my head and I said that’s what I wanted to do. Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, you know, all the new wave period. There’s just so much. You know, constantly I

hear music and it just spurs me on to create more and more.

And you still feel that way about music all these years later as well?

Oh yeah, totally! I mean, it’s my life. Regardless of whether there’s a pandemic or whether I’m rich or poor or whether I’m single or with someone, the one thing that remains constant is me and music.

In 1986, you of course became part of Transvision Vamp. How did Transvision Vamp come together and what are your favourite memories of the time you spent in the band?

We came together through myself and Nick Sayer meeting in a bar in Brighton and him asking if I wanted to go on from the bar on to a house party and during the walk over to this house party, he said that he was in a band and I told him that I could sing and he said he was looking for a singer and I said, ‘Well, I’ll do it then!’ And then, maybe the following week, I came back to

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where he lived and we started to write a demo for ‘Pop Art’, I suppose. And that’s how Transvision Vamp began.

And I’ve got so many amazing memories because of course it’s a real privilege to be in your first band and become so successful. And I travelled the world and to this day, I’ve got friends all over the world that I met all those years ago and to a large part, the fans have stayed with me as well. And whilst some of them remain staunch Transvision Vamp fans, a lot of them have evolved into where I’m at now. In my opinion, ‘Queen High Straight’ is the best album I’ve ever done, including Transvision Vamp. It’s very rewarding when there’s fans who first discovered me through ‘I Want Your Love’ or ‘Baby I Don’t Care’ that are now so enthusiastic about this latest album. That’s quite an achievement.

During the Transvision Vamp days, you became something of a pin-up, which included gaining something of a male following. How comfortable did you feel with this sort of attention and do you feel that it ever took the

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focus away from the music itself?

It definitely took away focus from the music, certainly in terms of the press anyway. I mean, the world was more sexist back in those days anyway, right?

And so, if I’m to pinpoint two things ... Well, the kind of laddish chanting in gigs is not that pleasant. You have to put on a brave face, you know, have some attitude and shout them down, but that’s just deeply fucking sexist. I don’t know if it would happen now actually, but you just don’t get people chanting at male pop stars. I mean, no one shouts ‘get your tits out’ to Mick Jagger! So, that’s definitely a double standard. And also, the way that male AND female journalists wrote. Some female journalists kind of were quite harsh towards me on different occasions in their reviews. I can’t say it actually hurt me or affected me and I don’t know what the rest of Transvision Vamp felt about it. Out on the road, we were very much, you know, a touring band and all for one and one for all and so on, so that didn’t particularly get interrupted, but yeah ... Is there Page 3

in The Sun anymore? I don’t know.

Can you imagine having a topless woman each day? But even to this day, magazines will ... If you read something like the fucking Daily Mail, they’re always going on about, say, Winona Ryder showing off her leggy limbs. It’s always limbs, right?! And they don’t say that about men. They don’t go, oh, look, it’s Julian Clary showing off his limbs! So, there’s still a lot of sexism going on out there, of course there is. And in the workplace. There’s far more men in positions of power and they are still earning more than women in the same job are earning. It’s still very much an acceptable thing, which it should not be. Women should be on equal footing to men in any work place. I’m not saying ... If you’re working on a building site, obviously women and men are built differently physically. A man is probably more capable of lifting blocks of concrete than a woman is.

Nevertheless, if it’s a job that both male and female can do equally competently, then there should be equal pay. Oh my God, the lizard is on the carpet! Oh,

poor little thing! Should I catch it? I’ll have to hang up soon and rescue him!

Poor little thing! I’ve seen them eat flies though. They’re quite fussy when it comes to their food! Anyway, do you have another question?

Something that I have always found amazing is that after Transvision Vamp officially split in February 1992, you began work on your 1993 debut solo album ‘Now Ain’t the Time for Your Tears’, which was written in its entirety by Elvis Costello. How did this come about and how was the experience of working on the album with Elvis Costello?

Well, it came about because Transvision Vamp were on their final tour of America and I bumped into the drummer from Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Pete Thomas and I told him that we were going to be ending the band in San Diego in a few weeks time and I wondered if Elvis would do something that would help me make that kind of bridging gap between being

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in Transvision Vamp and then becoming my own artist. And Pete said why don’t you write to Elvis and see what he says and that’s what I did that night from the hotel. I wrote to Elvis and said I don’t have enough skills and I’m not quite ready to write my own songs and be my own artist, could you help me to get out of Transvision Vamp and be the bridge? And I didn’t hear anything from him and then when I got back to London, I opened the front door of my house and there on the doorstep was a cassette that he had written of a whole album. And although he didn’t represent the songs in the studio, he did send Pete Thomas, the drummer from the Attractions to be the drummer on the project and kind of be the envoy to Elvis and report back what was going on. And it really was a pivotal moment in my life because after the Elvis Costello album, then I knew that I was ready to record my own material and take on my own life.

In 2004, you became part of a band again by forming Racine, with whom you released two albums, ‘Number

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One’ (2004) and ‘Racine 2’ (2007).

Having been working as a solo artist for some twelve years between the split of Transvision Vamp and forming Racine, was being part of a band something you missed during that time and how did being part of Racine compare to being a part of Transvision Vamp?

Oh, well, I mean, basically, I started writing all of my own songs, but because I didn’t want to be called a solo singer-songwriter, I thought up a name for us, but actually there’s no difference between whether it’s Racine or The Wendy James Band, which is what we are now, because I do write all of the songs and whoever is in the band is in the band with me and my only reason for calling it Racine was because I didn’t want to just be, you know, like a cliché of female singersongwriters, which I kind of narrow mindedly related to just being girls singing love songs with acoustic guitars. I wanted to be in a rock ‘n’ roll band. But, in actual fact, Racine ‘Number One’ and ‘2’ are as much solo

albums as the rest of them are, in as much as I wrote everything.

Having released three solo albums since then and having really come into your own as not just a songwriter but also a producer, would you say that you feel more comfortable being a solo artist these days?

Yeah. I mean, I’m surrounded by a wonderful band and they are my family, they’re my team, they’re my co-musicians on stage, we all trust and relate to each other and enjoy each other’s talents. So much so that I’m a solo artist but no, I’m not, because I’m a band that I absolutely love, but we just happen to be called The Wendy James Band and I’m just in a really, really good place at the moment. I’m really confident in my songwriting abilities, I’m enjoying my production abilities and more than anything at the moment, you know, it’s like basking in sunshine, feeling everyone’s love and admiration of the new album, which took so long to make and to which I

gave everything. You know, three and half years’ worth of eighteen-hour days.

It’s a big, big undertaking.

Your 2016 album ‘The Price of a Ticket’ featured Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye, former Sex Pistols / Rich Kids bassist Glen Matlock, Stooges guitarist James Williamson, Nick Cave and the Band Seeds / Grinderman drummer Jim Sclavunos and saxophonist Steve Mackay, best known for his work on The Stooges’ ‘Fun House’ (1970).

The star-studded cast of musicians featured on that album leads us to ask, is there anybody currently in the music world that you are particularly interested in working with on future projects?

Hhhhmmmm! Well, I know that if I was asked to do a guest spot on a live tour, I’d really like to get up with The Rolling Stones. In terms of collaborating for the next album, I’ve got no idea. I haven’t even begun to think about ... I have actually begun to think about it but I haven’t begun the

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process of writing more songs yet. All of the guys that are playing with me now, I hope they’re available to play on the album and who knows what other instrumentation I may need, I’ve just got no idea. But I do know that if there was a live band I could guest for, it would be the Stones. And, of course, it was pretty amazing to have those guys in the studio, Glen, from the Pistols and Lenny from The Patti Smith Group ... all those guys. But I have to say, I think ‘Queen High Straight’ is better than ‘The Price of the Ticket’. It just goes to show, you don’t have to be famous to be great because my band aren’t as famous as those guys but I think we’ve delivered something really special.

I agree and at this point, Wendy turns interviewer to ask, ‘Do you have any particular favourites?’ I reply that I really like the album’s opening title track, that following track ‘Perilous Beauty’ is my favourite of all of the songs because it is just a really well written pop song that would make a good single and

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that I think the album is very well sequenced.

Well, thank you! Well, the interesting thing is that that’s the order in which I wrote them. So, to me, that seems like the most natural running order you can possibly have. And ‘Perilous Beauty’, I love that one. ‘It’s all in the hips, the lips and the eyes and the thighs’!

The last question and I will let you go and sort your lizard out!

[Wendy laughs] He’s disappeared now!

He’s ran away from our photo op! He’s gone the crack of some wall. Anyway ...

As we said earlier, we presently have the COVID-19 pandemic to contend with, but have you been managing to work on anything music-related during it and what are your plans for after it is over?

Well, the tour had to be rescheduled to April of next year, so I’m hoping that all of that gets to go ahead and

musically speaking, I’ve just been promoting ‘Queen High Straight’ throughout the whole pandemic and, like we discussed earlier, that hasn’t changed; whether there was a pandemic or not, that’s what I would be doing. I’m hoping to have a bit of a break sometime in August and then I’ve got a couple of plans for the end of the year to please my fans and then at the beginning of next year, in time to promote the year, I’m going to produce a box-set of 7” singles from the album, which I think will be really nice. Say, five singles with all their artwork and their covers and everything in a lovely box and that can help to re-energise ‘Queen High Straight’ for another year

and also help promote the tour. And all the ticket links and all the VIP passes and everything, they’re on my website as well, just click on the live page. So, please let your people know that it’s going ahead and the tickets are on sale and I imagine the tour will sell out because it is such a long time ahead, so get your tickets now!

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

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STEVE IGNORANT CRASSIFIED INFORMATION Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers Cover shoot by Simon Balaam.

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It is January 1983 and whilst Britain is still revelling in its defeat of the Argentineans in The Falklands War (2nd April - 14th June 1982) and is a mere five months away from a general election, on the desk of a newspaper office in Holland, a tape has just surfaced containing a phone conversation between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The conversation, supposedly picked up as a result of crossed lines, seems to include the British Prime Minister and the US President talking about nuclear weapons, the sinking of the HMS Sheffield being a deliberate attempt to escalate the conflict in the Falklands and the Belgrano being sunk in order that there would be no chance of an agreement with the Argentinean government. In one part of the two-minute-long tape, Reagan tells Thatcher, “If there is a conflict, we shall fire missiles at our allies to see to it that the Soviet Union stays within its borders.” Thatcher asks, “You mean Germany?”

Reagan replies, “Mrs. Thatcher, if any country endangers our position, we can decide to bomb the problem area and so remove the instability.”

The tape is initially thought to be propaganda produced by the Soviet KGB and is reported as being so in both the US newspaper the San Francisco Chronicle and the British tabloid The Sunday Times.

Eventually, it is revealed in the UK broadsheet The Observer in

January 1984 that the perpetrators had in fact been British anarchopunk band Crass and the tape had been spliced together using snippets of the two leaders speaking during a number of speeches and interviews up in a bedroom in Dial House, a 16th Century cottage in south-west Essex which since 1967 had been run as a self-sustaining anarchist-pacifist open house by artist, writer and philosopher Penny Rimbaud.

In January 2014, it was revealed through official government documents released to the National Archive stating the concerns of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) that Thatcher was more than aware of Crass and say them as a serious threat to the British establishment. One Foreign Office advisor’s letter to Thatcher read, “This looks like a rather clumsy operation. We have no evidence so far about who is responsible. ... SIS doubt whether this is a Soviet operation. It is possible that one of the Argentine intelligence services might have been behind it; or alternatively it might be the work of left-wing groups in this country.”

This wasn’t the first time that Crass had courted controversy. In fact, since their inception in 1977 when Dagenham-born Steven Williams, who, having been so taken by the punk movement that he had already renamed himself Steve Ignorant,

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visited his friend Penny (born Jeremy Ratter) with the view to starting a band, there had been nothing but.

Steve took on vocal duties and Penny would be the band’s drummer. They quickly found original guitarist Steve Herman (who left after the first gig), rhythm guitarist Andy “N.A.” Palmer, guitarist Phil Free; bassist Phil Wright (credited as “Phil Wrong”) and vocalist Eve Libertine, whilst Penny’s creative partner Gee Vaucher took on artwork and radio duties as well as playing piano and Mick Duffield took care of the films that enhanced their live performances. When it came time to release their debut album, 1978’s ‘The Feeding of the 5000’, workers at the pressing plant refused to handle it due to the blasphemous content of its opening track ‘Asylum’. The track was removed, but in its place, the band opted for two minutes of silence, calling it ‘The Sound of Free Speech’.

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This was just the start of Crass’ seven-year reign of terror against the establishment, which would go on to include advocating direct action, animal rights, feminism, anti-fascism and environmentalism.

They spray-painted their message on the London Underground and on billboard advertisements, co-ordinated squats rallying against corporate industry and organised political action, whilst during their wholly DIY stage shows, their ideals were forcefully expressed by dressing in black, military style clothing whilst Duffield’s film creations shot up an amalgamation of icons of perceived authority such as the Christian cross, the swastika, the Union Jack and the ouroboros. Punk may have given them the means by which to express themselves but Crass were quite simply a revolution all of their own.

Earlier this year, as the UK was forced into lockdown by COVID-19, we rang Steve Ignorant for a chat.

Steve now lives in Sea Palling,

Norfolk, where he enjoys frequenting his local pub (so much so that due to the lockdown started and in true DIY style, he has built his own pub in his garage) and for several years served as a lifeboatman. When in true Crass style, his former band imploded in 1984, he went on to work with Conflict, Schwartzeneggar, Stratford Mercenaries, Current 93, Thought Crime and Paranoid Visions. More recently, he formed a band who couldn’t sound further away from Crass, Slice of Life, with whom he has released two well received albums but also still performs the Crass song catalogue, despite having asserted on many tours that it would be the last time he would be playing them.

Firstly, hello Steve and thank you for agreeing to our interview. Could you start by telling us a bit about your early life, what sparked your passion for music and how you came to want to pursue music as a career?

I was born in Stoke-on-Trent, but only

lived there for two years and then I grew up in ... I lived with my grandparents and my mother because she divorced my dad, so I grew up in Dagenham. It was very normal, nothing wonky about it, just a very boring, sterile existence. It was great, I really liked it, there was always food on the table, so it wasn’t a hard life, but, you know, obviously I reached an age in my teens and I started thinking, well, is this it? Then I started getting dissatisfied with it and I first really took notice of music ... Well, obviously, up until that point, I’d just been listening to whatever was on the radio, or the radiogram as it was called in those days, which tended to be ... My grandad liked military music, like brass bands and my nan liked fucking Frank Ifield, but then we would sit around and The Beatles would come on and that sort of thing, so that was starting to appear, but it wasn’t until I was in the friend’s garden and this guy from next door came down wearing this amazing suit on which sort of changed colour as he walked and of course now we know it as two-tone. It was the first time I’d

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seen it. I remember it was petrol blue and yellow and it shimmered and he had this very short haircut that was shaved and parted and obviously it was the first skinhead I’d ever seen and he walked in and some music came out of his kitchen window and it was Toots and the Maytals. Yeah, I’d never heard anything like that before and for the first time in my life I thought, I want to look like that and I want to listen to that music and it was the first time I realised there was something called personal identity and that’s really what first threw me into it really. And I didn’t really take it up as a career, I mean I’d always had that boyhood dream of becoming a popstar like everyone does, like Adam Faith or something, but I mean, I didn’t have a clue how you bloody did it. I mean, in Dagenham, where the fuck do you buy a guitar from? What do you do with it when you’ve got it? What do you plug it into? I don’t know what you do and well, how do you get a concert? It was all this mysterious thing and of course when punk came along, that sort of blew it out of the water. And even

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then, when we started Crass, me and Pen and all the rest of us, I wasn’t thinking sort of oh, this is going to be my career, I don’t know, we were just doing it and it when it ended, that would be it. But of course, when it ended, I wanted to continue, so I did and, you know, I’ve never sort of stopped. I don’t suppose I’d know what the fuck else I would do.

What was it about punk that attracted you?

I think it was the tunes up to absolutely everything. It just made sense to me. If you can’t afford clothes, then put a bin-liner on; if you’ve got ripped clothes, which I always had as a child, then, you know, hold it together with safety pins and it was like practical, it was like recycling if you like. And, you know, don’t buy new clothes, go to the Oxfam shop and that sort of made sense. And, with the music, don’t go to music college, just get a biscuit tin and a couple of knitting needles and if your mate’s got an old guitar and he can play one chord on it

on the one string that it’s got, then that’s your band. You know, it’s what you’re saying and it’s the reason behind it why you’re doing. It wasn’t necessarily the look, although that was a part of it. I remember it being very exciting seeing the original punk rockers and things, you know, but, yeah, that was the main thing for me, the accessibility of it.

How did you get the name ‘Steve Ignorant’?

Haha, that was my choice! I thought, well, everybody had these punk names like Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten and I thought I want a name like that and I thought, well, I’m pretty ignorant about politics and that sort of thing and the first songs I wrote weren’t politically minded, so I’ll call myself Steve Ignorant because I’m pretty ignorant about politics. And I was at the time because growing up with my grandparents and my mum and my step-dad who came along ... and he was a prick. Sorry about that. Freudian slip there! But, you know, politics were

never spoken of and I think my grandparents, if they had voted, which I don’t think they ever did, but I think they were probably Conservatives, believe it or not in a working-class area like Dagenham. But the trade unionists were a load of robbing bastards and people who were striking were just being selfish and, you know, not even looking into the background of it, so unlike people like Gary Bushell or, I don’t know, a lot of people who, I have to say this, lived in the north who were more aware of unions, which passed on to the children ... and I keep meeting people who come from mining families and they’re really clued up on unions and the political side of it ... I never had a fucking clue about that because it just wasn’t there, it wasn’t spoken about.

And I did run into trouble at gigs and things because obviously there I was when Crass were going full-tilt and I’m sort of shouting all this political stuff and people came and said, ‘What do you think about the union Steve?’ and I went, ‘I don’t know what it is!’ But it was true! And it was only through meeting people at gigs that I got that

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Dial House

I got that sort of education.

Where, when and how did Crass come and to form and could you talk us through how the very organic DIY ethic worked?

Right, well, I’d been living in Bristol with my brother and I was working at a hospital there and I was putting plaster of Paris on peoples’ arms and legs and one day, this girl came in and she had to have a plaster cast put on her wrist, she’d sprained her wrist or something.

She looked weird and I said, ‘What’s with all the strange gear then?’ And she went, ‘Haven’t you heard of punk rock?’ And I went, ‘Well, yeah, vaguely, it’s that bunch of the Sex something’ and she went, ‘Yeah, the Sex Pistols’, so I went, ‘Yeah, yeah, I quite like some of their stuff’ and she went, ‘Well, if you’re interested, there’s a great band playing on Friday night down at the Coulston Hall, it’s a band called The Clash’. So I went, ‘Oh right, will you be there?’ and she went ‘Yeah’, so I went, ‘Well, is it a date?’

So I thought, cool! So, I wasn’t

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thinking about the fucking band at all, I was just thinking about getting her into some phone box and having a knee-trembler or something! So, anyway, I went along and I think it was Richard Hell and the Voivoids supporting, but anyway, I walked into this Clash gig and fucking hell, my chin hit the floor. I mean, I couldn’t believe it, it was just absolutely mind-blowing.

So, I’ve got to say, that was just one of the best gigs I’ve seen or one of the most inspiring. Yeah, I’ll say that. And anyway, I thought, right, I’ve got to get into this, this is for me, so I packed my bags and went to visit people in Dagenham. You know, I’d meet my old drinking buddies and we’d start this band. I didn’t have a clue how to do it and of course, they’d all got girlfriends and or had got married in the two years I’d been away. So, I went over to see an old friend of mine called Jerry [Jeremy Ratter], who was later to become Penny Rimbaud and he said, you know, ‘What you up to?’ and I said, ‘Well, I’m going to start a punk band’ and he said, ‘I’m into it, I’ll play drums for you if you want? I’ve got a

drum kit’. So, I went, ‘Oh, alright!’

So, we started fiddling about and I went, ‘Well, where do we get guitars and things?’ And he went, ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, we’ll just be a drums and vocals unit Steve. I mean, who else is doing it?’ and I thought, fair point, so that’s what we were going to be. We had a few songs, about four I think and then this bloke called Steve Herman arrived. He’d been involved with Penny Rimbaud when Pen was writing his Wally Hope book. So, anyway, this bloke looked nothing like a punk rocker! Oh God almighty! You know, I’m bald now but this bloke had a balding head but with long hair around the sides, you know and then he was wearing a rainbow tank top, he had Jesus creepers on and I thought, oh my God! And Pen goes, ‘Oh, you play guitar, don’t you?’ And I was like, oh no, please Pen, don’t! Anyway, Steve Herman is now in the band as the guitarist and I thought, oh fucking hell!

And then the next day, another guy appears and it was like, ‘Oh, how are you?’ And it’s Andy Palmer [rhythm guitarist]. He says, ‘What are you up

to?’ ‘Oh, we’re starting a band’, ‘Oh, I’ll join?’ ‘Can you play anything?’

‘No’ And goes and nicks a guitar, comes back and we have to tune it to an open guitar so we can just put his fat finger across it up and down the fretboard. Right, do you know what?

Andy Palmer never ever learnt to play a guitar properly in all those years he was in the band. And then Pete Wright [bassist and vocalist], he was rehearsing at Crass house [Dial House] with a folk band and one day, he came out of rehearsal, whatever they were doing and he went, ‘I don’t think I can do this much more’, so I went ‘Why don’t you join us lot then’ and he went, ‘Do you know what, I think I will’.

And that was literally the start of it.

We looked nothing like what a punk band should look like because it was a real mish-mash, but somehow it bloody well worked.

The first Crass album, ‘The Feeding of the 5000’ was released in October 1978. Could you tell us a bit about the writing and recording process of the album and how relevant do you

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you feel the songs featured on it still are in this day and age?

Well, we all separately wrote songs.

I’d written songs like ‘Do They Owe Us a Living?’, ‘End Result’, ‘Reject Society’ and ‘So What’; Pen had written ‘Banned from the Roxy’, ‘Angels’, ‘Asylum’, that sort of stuff.

We’d all contributed songs and so when we got offered, you know ... We got a phone call from this guy called Pete Stennett from Small Wonder Records in Walthamstow and he went, ‘I’d like to do a record with you. What would you like to do?’ And we went, ‘Well, we’d like to do our set’ and he went, ‘Well, it won’t fit on a 7”’, so we went, ‘We’ll do a 12” then. So what’s on ‘The Feeding ...’ was the set we used to do live from the very beginning. And recording-wise, John Loder [engineer] was an old friend of Penny Rimbaud from college days or something like that, I think and we played the bed hours, which was from say eleven o’clock at night or something like that right through until five o’clock in the morning and I think ‘... Feeding ...’ was

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all done in one hit. Yeah, we might have gone back to do a couple of drop ins, as it was in those days because it was on tape, but it was recorded in about two days. Yeah, but that absolutely killed me doing those songs over and over again, like if you make a mistake, that’s it, you’ve got to do the whole fucking song again. And, you know, are those songs still relevant?

Well, at the moment, if it weren’t for this bloody virus thing, I’d feel very confident in saying yeah, they are still relevant. But at the moment, I just feel they’re overshadowed by what’s going on, if you know what I mean. So, in a funny way, I’m quite relieved that we’ve had to postpone gigs because in the middle of this, with people dying, is it right for me to be standing up there shouting and screaming about Securicor or something? Do you know what I mean? It would just be weird.

But once this is over, then yes, of course they’re still relevant because regardless of this virus or not, we’ve still got wars going on, we’ve still got homelessness, people being exploited, the rich getting richer, the poor getting

poorer, the poor are dying left, right and centre, so ... you know, yeah, of course it is still relevant.

It goes without saying that Crass caused much controversy over the seven-year period the band was together, but one of the most controversial incidents was the Thatchergate Tape hoax in the aftermath of the Falklands War in 1982, for which you were investigated by the F.B.I. [Steve laughs at this point]. What are your memories of this incident?

[Still laughing] I just remember not really taking much notice of it to tell you the truth! You know, the tape was made up in a bedroom at Dial House and then it was sent somewhere, sent to Europe and it wasn’t until something like, I don’t know, four months later and something appeared in The Washington Post or whichever paper it was that some tape which was a conversation between [Ronald] Reagan and [Margaret] Thatcher and they were taking it seriously. And then it all went

quiet and we were all giggling because it was just a joke. You know, who the fuck is going to take it seriously?

You know. But anyway, then out of the blue, we got this phone call from a reporter from The Observer and he went, ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ And we went, ‘What?’ And he went, ‘You know, it’s you, isn’t it? It’s you!’ So, we said, ‘Why don’t you come over and have a cup of tea mate?’ So he did and we let him know what it was. Well, fuck me, boom! And the funny thing is, one day, we found ourselves doing an interview with an American newspaper and a Russian newspaper and it was in the same building in London, alright? So we had to go in one room and answer the Russians’ questions and then we’d have to go down the corridor to the Americans’ office and answer their questions. Well, the Russians had vodka with them! So, yeah, we hit the vodka and, in the end, we went, ‘Look, this is stupid, why don’t we all sit in the same fucking room and sort it out?’

So, we all sat in the same room and of course everyone got pissed on vodka ...

We ended up not answering questions

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because the journalists were talking between themselves, you know, the Russians and the Americans. I got fed up and went down the pub anyway and we woke up to find it was this fucking storm that was hitting! Oh my God, you know! If that was happening today, we’d have been termed terrorists I reckon, we’d be in prison. But it was all just a joke, you know. We didn’t think anyone would take it seriously at all. Honestly. We honestly didn’t.

As a member of Crass, you toured all over the world, but are there any gigs that you would consider standout moments from your time in the band and could you share with us some of your favourite memories of being on the road?

Well, one gig in particular that always sticks out in my mind is when we played Exeter. We’d had a pretty rough tour. I mean, we were playing the west country, Cornwall and places, Wiltshire, Bristol and those sort of places and every night there had been these fucking fights. You know, they

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weren’t really sort of full on fights, but Little Birching versus Pucklechurchie, you know, whatever punks and it was like for fuck’s sake, it just kept happening and I got so pissed off with it and I thought, right, that’s it, bollocks to the pacifist stance, anything tonight, if it kicks off, I’m wading in there. And we walk into this St. George’s Hall in Exeter, right, and there’s these three fucking skinheads in the little bar bit looking at me and I’m like, right-ho lads. I mean, I didn’t say anything but I thought, right, if anything kicks off, I’m going for those three. So, I actually took the ... this is an exclusive ... I actually unscrewed one of the feet off a microphone stand and put it down my waistband and I thought, right, now, they’re definitely going to get it.

Anyway, it all seems to be going really nice and all of a sudden, boom! The doors open and in rushed twenty down syndrome kids and they’re all dancing around to the music, ‘Raaaa!’ and they’re rushing into the bar thing and they’re coming up to us and they’re going, ‘We like you! We like you!’

And we’re going, ‘Yeah, we like you

too mate!’ And one of them goes, ‘Alright Steve, we’re Crass fans!’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know!’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, that’s the problem we always get because of the way we look.’ And he said, ‘We can’t wear Crass patches because the other boneheads will have us’. And, anyway, I talked to the bloke who was brought all the young kids down. He worked at the centre for them and he’d got them out because he was into Crass and he’d said that he was taking the kids out to see a concert, but of course the people who ran the centre assumed it was a classical concert or something. And in the end, they were all on stage, all dancing and it was just the most punk rockiest of nights ever, it was absolutely brilliant and I will never forget that. But memories from being on the road? I don’t know if I’ve got favourites from being on the road but I always remember the driving never seemed to stop. You know, to go from Leeds to Newcastle and it seemed to take all fucking day in those days. I don’t know why. And I remember, you know, the diet that we had was

basically a loaf of sliced bread and chips. You know, literally eating chip sandwiches because, you know, all we used to charge was petrol money.

All the rest of it went on the benefit or whatever, so of course we were all always starving fucking hungry. And I remember saying to Pen, ‘Look, when are we going to get paid Pen?’ And he went, ‘We’re not doing it for that Steve’. And I went, ‘Well, look, what about that chip shop that I want?’ and he went ‘Oh, behave!’ I still haven’t got my fucking chip shop! It’s a good job, because if I had, it would have been fucking shut down, wouldn’t it?!

Crass came to an end in 1984. How did the decision to break up come about?

Right, now, I’ve read interviews with Penny Rimbaud and he said that we did this countdown and we were going to stop in 1984. That’s not how I remember it and I’ll tell you straight.

No, because I remember saying to Pen ... You know, how we used to do on our records, it was like 721984, 621 ...

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like a countdown? I said to Pen, ‘This is all good and well, but what happens when we do get to 1984 and we go past it? I said, ‘What do we do? Minus sort of thing?’ and he went, ‘Oh, we’ll think about that when we come to it’. And I thought, oh, alright. So there wasn’t a decision to stop in 1984. What actually happened was that we played a gig in Aberdare in Wales and it was a benefit for the miners. So, we’d been through the Falklands War, we’d been through Battle of the Beanfield, duh, duh, duh, duh, and now it was the miners’ strike and another five years of Tory fucking rule, you know, and we were all very, very tired and I remember we were driving back from the gig and all of a sudden Andy Palmer said ‘I want to leave the band’. And of course, there was this chorus of ‘Oh no, Andy, don’t.

Why on earth do you want to do that?’

And he went, ‘Look, I’ve just had enough and I want to get on with my relationship with my partner’. And it all went quiet and I think it might have been me or it might have been Eve Libertine [vocalist] about ten minutes later who went, ‘Do you know what

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Andy? I think if it hadn’t been you, I think it would have been me’. And we drove back and we spoke about it and Andy said ‘No, I’ve made my decision, I’m off’. So we all said, ‘Okay, should we carry on without him?’ ‘No’. And from him saying it, I think everyone breathed a sigh of relief and went ‘At last somebody’s said it’, because I think we were all really burnt out by it. I mean, how long had it been? What was it, seven years? Something like that.

But it had been full on twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It had just never stopped in all that time.

Whereas other bands could get out of the van and go in and shut the front door and have time off, we didn’t do that because we had the open door. It was the Crass house and people were always visiting, so we couldn’t turn them away, we were putting them up. So, even after the band finished, we still had that for a couple of years.

And that’s really how it happened, you know. And of course, like three weeks later, I was at a gig and, oh, it was awful, I remember it, someone went, ‘Hey, aren’t you the geezer who used to

be in that band Crass?’ and I was like ‘Yeah’. And I thought, oh God, that’s it, fucking hell! And then I was sat at home and looked in the local paper to see if I could get a job, course I fucking couldn’t! So, I was already on the scrapheap then. So then I went and joined Conflict, hah! For my sins!

In 2007, you performed ‘The Feeding of the 5000’ in its entirety at Shepherd’s Bush Empire with guest musicians. Penny seemed quite insulted by it, saying that you had betrayed the Crass ethic. Did this reaction surprise you?

Oh yeah, that was a funny thing. I think was just his initial reaction really.

I think he just thought I was going to make into a rock ‘n’ roll circus and in inverted commas, ‘sell out’. But I think once I’d sort of spoken to him ... I mean, he did say ... He phoned up about a fucking week before I was going to do the gigs and said ‘I don’t want you to use any of my material’ and I was like, oh, for fuck’s sake! And I thought, well, I’m just going to have

to do it anyway because I can’t do anything else and he’ll have to sue me, you know, what’s he going to do?! And I sort of spoke to him on the phone and I said, ‘Look Pen, you know, these songs aren’t just ours, they’re everybody’s and, you know, I’m just performing them. How come there’s a lot of bands out there who are doing Crass covers and yet I was in the band and I’m not allowed to perform those songs? What’s going on there?’ And he went, ‘Well, it’s a corporate place’, so I went, ‘You name me a place that isn’t corporate, there are jazz places that you play at that are charging really expensive prices for drinks and stuff’.

The Shepherd’s Bush Empire wasn’t bad prices in those days, so, you know, decent PA and all that stuff and plus it was an old music hall where working class people used to go and perform or used to go and watch and all that, so ... and the next day, I got a lovely phone call from him and he said, you know, ‘Yep, go on Steve, you’ve got my blessing, go ahead and do it’. So, of course when I did ‘The Last Supper’ [Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 2011], him

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Paranoid Visions (Photograph by Simon Balaam)

One of Steve’s sculptures at Dial House

and Eve Libertine came and performed on stage, which was really nice, so ... yeah.

forget that. In fact, that one is the one that sticks out for me. So, yeah, there it is. It’s very difficult for me to, you know, pick one out. They’re all unique in their own way.

In the period after Crass broke up, you went on to perform with Conflict, Schwartzeneggar, Stratford Mercenaries, Current 93, Thought Crime and more recently, Paranoid Visions. Out of all these bands you have worked with, which have been the most fulfilling experiences and why?

All of them really. I mean, apart from Current 93. I mean, there was nothing wrong with that but I just realised it wasn’t my scene. It was too industrial, too ... I don’t know, it was a bit too avantgarde for me. But I loved the people who were involved in it. But Conflict, I mean, I’ve got some great memories of some of the gigs we did as Conflict, I mean, really, really great ones and the same with the Stratfords, and Schwartzeneggar as well. Paranoid Visions, I shall always remember that, the first time we did that sort of Crass-y set at Rebellion [Festival], I shall never

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You have had a very varied career in the arts over the years and at various times, you have worked as a sculptor and a Punch and Judy performer under the name Professor Ignorant as well as various other activities.

You are obviously somebody who enjoys learning new skills, so what area of the arts aside from music are you currently involved in?

Reading! Yeah, you know, the sculpting was just something I did. I didn’t intend it to be a career or anything like that, I never really sold anything. It was just something I did and people sort of picked up on it really. And all I was really doing was ... When I was living at Dial House, there was all these telegraph poles lying around. I had two chisels, one was a straight one and one was a crescent shape and I just used to do

As a member of Sea Palling lifeboat crew

very simple Celtic standing figures, so it was very, very basic stuff but I enjoyed it and I just used to go out in the woods and things and just plant them, you know, so when people were walking, they would just come across this sculpture, because that’s the sort of thing I would like to see if I was walking. Of course half of them got nicked and that sort of thing but that’s the way it goes. But yeah, that’s how I came to do that. Yeah, I’m not really doing anything apart from rehearsing for this non-existent tour at the moment and obviously working on the Slice of Life stuff. So yeah, obviously that is what I’m mainly concentrating on.

You have also volunteered as a lifeboatman. How did this come about, how did you find this experience and is the lifeboat something you are still actively involved in?

No, not anymore, I’m too old for it.

Yeah, I’m 61, so it’s too old to go to sea. Basically, what happened was that we moved here to Sea Palling [Norfolk]

On stage at Rebellion Festival, 2017 (Photograph by Simon Balaam)

and down the local pub and one of the blokes who worked behind the bar, Mick Clark, I was chatting away to him and he was on the lifeboat. He still is actually, but he doesn’t go to sea, he’s land crew. And we were sitting there and we were talking about clothes. You know, ‘What sort of shirts do you like?’

‘Well, I like wearing cufflinks’. We’re talking like this and he went, ‘Oh, you should come down and check out the lifeboat’ and I went ‘No, no, it’s not for me mate’, because I thought when you volunteered, it was like being in the fire brigade where you all line up on parade and things and I thought, the thought of anyone telling me what to do, bollocks to that! So, I resisted and I resisted and then it was the ‘Feeding of the 5000’ gig coming up and a lot of money was generated, some of which I wanted to donate to a worthy cause. So, I thought, I’ll tell you what, I’ll donate it to Sea Palling Lifeboat because then I can see where the money goes and then it won’t disappear down someone’s petrol tank or something like that. So I donated them the money and they went out and bought new lifejackets, which I

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Slice of Life (Photograph by Simon Balaam)

used to wear one of, and went on to save people’s lives. So, all those people who came to those gigs have contributed to saving peoples’ lives. I can tell you that straight off. So, after I presented to cheque to them, they said, come out on the boat and we’ll show you what we do. So they got me in a dry suit, took me out, chucked me overboard, drove off, came back, picked me up and went, ‘How’s about it?’ and I went, ‘Yeah, I reckon I can do that!’ And the next thing I knew, there I was plucking people out of the North Sea! Yeah, it was totally like, who’d have thought this spotty oik from Dagenham, one minute he’s standing on stage in Bristol singing ‘Do They Owe Us a Living?’, the next minute, he’s out there saving drowning people. Yeah, very, very strange! But yeah, the five years I spent with them really was the most gratifying times of my life. I still miss it. I still miss going out to sea. Once it bites you, it bites you and that’s it but, you know.

Once that pager goes, woah! And although I’m not active anymore, I still fundraise for them. I make sure there’s

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always something going towards them.

In 2013, you formed Slice of Life, a band who couldn’t sound any more different to Crass [Steve laughs at this point] but still have something to say about the world we live in.

The band have so far released two albums, ‘Love and a Lamp-post’ (2015) and ‘Don’t Turn Away’ (2019).

How did Slice of Life come about and could you give us an insight into the writing and recording of the material that makes up the Slice of Life albums?

Right, well it all started when we were on ‘The Last Supper’ tour and for about fifteen or twenty years, I had been wanting to do an acoustic thing and I didn’t know what form it was going to take and I tried it with various people and it just wasn’t possible. I would get self-conscious or they would get self-conscious and we would speed it up, rather than play the acoustic guitar slowly on stage, which coming from the Crass background and Conflict and things is very different to do. So, I just

Slice of Life (Photograph by Simon Balaam)

left it and we were coming back from Australia and we got stranded in Sydney because of some ash cloud from the volcano or something. We got put up in this very swish hotel and we were sat there drinking beers and I’m sitting there with Carol [Hodge] and Pete [Wilson] ... you know, Pete was the bass player and Carol was obviously doing vocals and this song came over the speaker system and I said, ‘Do you know, I’d like to do stuff like this’ and they said, ‘Really?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve always sort of really, you know, wanted to do something sort of slow and acoustic and ballady’ and they went, ‘Oh right’. So I said, ‘Look, I don’t suppose after this, you two would be interested in trying something out?’ and they said ‘No, no, we’d love to!’ So, then I remember we were playing at Shepherd’s Bush for the last ever gig and I wasn’t actually singing, it must have been Carol and I suddenly thought, fucking hell, you know, if I was a sixteen year old kid walking in off the street to look at this, I would look at this and think there is no way in a million years I could ever possibly do

that because we were so polished and it was so professional and it was so good.

So, when we started with Slice of Life, it was just me, Pete and Carol and we just messed around with some words and some chords and I said really, what I want to do is play very small venues like pubs and things. I know it’s going to be difficult because we’ll only get five people or ten people a night, if we’re lucky. But what I want to do is strip it right down to the basics again so if someone comes in and looks at us doing it, they would think God, I could do that and they could, that’s the whole fucking point and that’s why we keep it simple, you know. Like I’ve got one song in there and it’s two chords, you know, how much simpler could it be?

Because I wanted it to be accessible again.

So really, it is going back to that punk ethic again, isn’t it?

Yeah, it is, because I know there are a lot of people like I was, you know, and I’m sure there are a lot of people who are potential brilliant musicians or

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songwriters but they’re put off by seeing this very professionally promoted thing and they think, I could never do that. You know, you could but it’s going to take a long time mate and don’t sign up for The X-Factor, they’re dreams. You know, some people make it from it and they’re the lucky ones, but a lot of people fall by the wayside.

But, as I said, that’s why I wanted to strip it down to the bare bones of it and expose it. Oh, and you wanted to know about the writing and recording? Well, the writing, what tends to happen is I’ll come up with these chords and I’ll come up with these words and then me and Pete and Carol will get together and we’ll have a little diddle about and then out of that will come something and I’m like ‘Okay, we’ll use that’ and that’s just how it builds up. It’s basically built up from nothing. There was one time we went in the studio and Carol was fiddling about with some chords on the piano and I went, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ and she said, ‘Oh, it’s just a thing I’ve got’, so I went ‘Do it again? Pete, you play this and duh, duh, duh ...’ and then we got this song from it. And I had these old lyrics in a book that I’d got and they just sort of worked. And that was ‘Song for Myself’ off the latest album. And recording-wise, they come down here.

I use this really lovely little studio, Ashwood Studio in Norwich [17 miles from Sea Palling]. The bloke who runs it, he’s a lovely geezer, he’s the best engineer I have ever worked with. He’s so laid back, you know, and he’s so

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supportive and he lets us use it as a rehearsal room as well and the sort of thing he has going through his studios is different from us because usually, he has voice choirs and string quartets and things. The sound of the studio is perfect for us and the piano is just right, so yeah.

Speaking as one of the originators of the DIY ethic as we know it, what are your views on the current state of the music industry and musicians self-releasing via internet platforms and so on?

Well, look, first of all, we never set out to be a DIY band, that’s just what we did, you know. All we did was use what we had available. You can look at old photographs from Crass gigs and there’s always banners and things and it was all bed sheets and bits of wood and Gaffa Tape sticking it together. People picked up on that and I think it was the Americans who came up with the DIY thing, I’m not sure, and it became a scene, you know. But yeah, I suppose we were one of the first ones to do it.

And what do I think of ... I don’t really think of the music industry because it’s one of the most horriblest, cutthroat, shittiest, fucking love-bleeding, bastardised fucking things there is, but as for people releasing stuff, doing on social media and all that sort of thing, bring it on, do it! You know, I really don’t care, get it out there! There’s so much crap ... alright, I know there’s a lot of shit on there and there’s music I

do like and there’s music I don’t like.

I won’t listen to the stuff I don’t like, simple as that. People point me to a band and say, ‘Steve, check this out’ and I might say ‘Oh, I’m not so sure’, but other ones like the Sleaford Mods, I’m like oh fuck, they’re brilliant, you know! It’s bands like the Sleafords who are doing what I should have done when Crass had finished really, but I didn’t know that at the time, you know and I love the way they’re using modern technology to do that. You know, there’s Andrew standing there with his phone basically and Jay stood there doing his mad man thing, leaping around, but fucking brilliant! Why not use what we’ve got? If we’d had this stuff available to us in the ‘70s, how different would it have been? But as far as anyone who’s trying to write or perform music or whatever, just do it, just get it out there and don’t give a fuck about what people think about it because it is always going to be the

case that a lot of people are going to love what you, but on the flipside, there’s going to be a lot of people who fucking hate what you do.

Well, you can’t please everyone can you?

Well, you wouldn’t want to, because 99% of them are fucking arseholes anyway! [laughs] But I hope they stay well and I mean that! And then I can write an album about you!

Thank you for a wonderful interview and we wish you all the best for the future. www.steveignorant.com www.facebook.com/ steveignorantofficial www.facebook.com/ SteveIgnorantSliceoflife

Steve live on The Last Supper Tour at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 2011 (Photograph by Dod Morrison)

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Frenchy’s Rants This Month: Money, Money, That’s What I Want

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

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A couple of weeks ago, or probably longer now depending on when this issue comes out, our government announced a £1.57 billion package to help the arts through the pandemic, which was a relief. But is it really what it looks like? And more to the point, who can get a share of that money?

The money was to help ‘protect’ the future of the U.K’s museums, galleries and theatres but apparently, independent cinemas and music venues were also eligible for, wait for it, emergency grants and loans! So, it’s not a package to rescue the arts, it’s a way for the government to make money even though, and I quote, ‘repayable finance for the loans will be issued on generous terms tailored for cultural institutions to ensure they are affordable’. Many theatres, museums, etc have had to close down and thousands of staff have been made redundant like in most other industries.

It would have been a noble gesture if it wasn’t so mercenary because when all is said and done, whoever gets loans will have to repay more than they borrowed and we all know what the government’s idea of ‘generous terms’ is like: not generous at all. The way they announced it, you would have been forgiven for thinking it was actually £1.57 billion to save the arts, not loans. To go with that, they also announced a schedule to re-open theatres and museums. So, as the arts are ready to re-open and make money

again, our wise government announces that loans and grants are available: isn’t that a bit too late? Like everything regarding the pandemic, it’s too little too late: what is it with BoJo and his mob that they are always acting after the damage is done?

It’s all very well to have a package of millions and millions of pounds but who can apply for a loan or even better, a grant? Well, if you’re the National Theatre or the Science Museum, you’ll be alright old boy. But if you’re in the music industry, you’re well shafted because not a bean will come your way.

I suppose the Royal Albert Hall will get some form of grant but my mate Andy Cavendish, a promoter for various venues in London, a man who does as much if not more than the RHA to promote new talent will get zilch, not a penny. And why is that? Art is art and it’s not up to the government to decide who is entitled and who isn’t: is the art at the National Gallery or at the RHA more worthy than a gig promoted by Andy? Of course, it isn’t. Seeing a new band live is one of the most thrilling of life experiences, certainly more exciting than looking at the Mona Lisa!

I’d have to agree than probably more tourists go to the National Gallery or the RHA than to indie gigs but that’s not the point, it’s a question of fairness.

Small indie promoters, venues, musicians, etc are not asking for millions of pounds in grants and/or loans. Imagine what an indie musician

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could do with £2k right now. Even if 10,000 claim, it is still only £20 million, a drop in the ocean in terms of that £1.57 billion total. And the same for indie promoters: There is not that many around, so £5k a pop might go a long way to keep NiteOut Promotions afloat and it might come to another £10 mill. £30 mill to save the live indie sector. Not worth it? I would argue it’s a bargain because those indie gigs bring in 150/200 people every night, real music lovers who are going to have a few pints (hence keeping breweries busy) and probably buy a CD and t-shirt at the merch stand (hence keeping pressing plants and t-shirt printers in business). It’s easy to see an indie gig as irrelevant, as just 200 people dancing the night away without much consequence. But that’s not the case because every night of the week, from Edinburgh to Exeter, from Blackpool to Brighton, there are indie gigs where thousands of people keep whole related industries in business.

Isn’t that worth something? Isn’t it worth saving considering it wouldn’t require that much money? I know there are millions of people in the world suffering terrible hardships and diseases and you might say that the money would be better spent on those people. But there are organisations doing that already, billions of pounds raised every year for people in Africa, South America, etc. Isn’t Jo Bollox, the lead guitarist of Trumpin’ Girls entitled to some help when he can’t play through no fault of his own? Isn’t

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his family just as deserving of a little love? Of course they are and if you don’t think so, you’re a hard motherfukker. £1.57 billion is a LOT of money. A lot of money that could do a lot of good all round, not only for those who can afford the repayments or those who feel they are entitled.

I know I am raging against the machine, we’ve been there before.

I know that the indie sector, and the music industry as a whole, is not seen as essential to the well-being of the UK but nobody is asking for life-changing amounts of money, just life sustaining, Because when all is said and done, when the pandemic is beaten (hopefully) and we go back to some kind of ‘normal’ life, you might find that your favourite band doesn’t exist anymore and wouldn’t that be a real shame?

www.flickniferecords.co.uk Page 74: Frenchy (left) with label manager Taheg outside the Flicknife Records office.

Straight Edge How a 45 second blast of fury spawned a whole subculture

By Peter Dennis.

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When Minor Threat vocalist Ian MacKaye put pen to paper to vent his frustration at being called a freak for abstaining from alcohol and drugs, he couldn’t have imagined the monster he was creating. In the four decades since he penned those words, the straight edge movement has spread its tentacles worldwide, going through four distinct phases, evolving from its original ‘don’t smoke, don’t drink’ ethos to something more hard line incorporating veganism, religion and radical politics.

As the British punk scene crossed the Atlantic a new breed of bands sprung up in Washington DC, Bad Brains, Teen Idles and State of Alert all took their musical cues from the likes of the Sham 69 and the UK Subs but rejected the self destructive nihilism of that movement for something more positive. They coined the term ‘hardcore’ to differentiate themselves and delivered their brand of punk stripped bare and at blistering speed.

Minor Threat were formed in 1980 from the ashes of Teen Idles and are often seen as the straight edge band, although only four of their songs deal with the topic (‘Straight Edge’, ‘In My Eyes’, ‘Bottled Violence’ and ‘Out of Step’). And while Straight Edge had its roots in songs by The Vibrators (‘Keep it Clean’ (‘Pure Mania’, 1977)) and the Modern Lovers (‘I’m Straight’, recorded in 1973), it was the Minor Threat song that named the scene, gave

it focus and made Ian MacKaye an unwilling figurehead.

While punk originally professed individualism and anarchy, it didn’t take long to become codified with its own set of rules and behaviours involving inhalants and intoxicants.

Therefore being called a ‘freak’ for abstaining was, for a man like Mackaye, a red rag to a bull. In a culture where most people were on ‘something’ (whether from a pub, a pharmacist or a dealer) surely living substance free was a more radical statement? Thinking their stance made them just another set of oddballs in the punk community, the hostility Minor Threat received only made them harden their outlook and the more angry people got, the more they upped the ante.

It was at this time the scene was afforded its most notable symbol: the stark ‘X’. Traced back to a Teen Idles show in 1980 at San Francisco’s Mabuhay Gardens, the promoter discovered the band were all under legal drinking age and wouldn’t be allowed admission. As a compromise an ‘X’ was drawn on the back of each hand so the band could play their own gig, but couldn’t be served alcohol.

Rather liking the look, the Teen Idles used the imagery on their ‘Minor Disturbance’ release, ensuring the ‘X’ was forever associated with the straight edge lifestyle.

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Minor Threat

In a scene as small as the nascent hardcore movement, it didn’t take long for straight edge to spread across America and develop a militancy that would echo through the years. While Minor Threat occasionally touched upon sober living by the time it reached Boston in ’81 bands like DYS and SS Decontrol devoted whole records to the subject (the latter releasing the seminal ‘The Kids Will Have Their Say’ (1982) and ‘83s ‘Get it Away’). Years later, Uniform Choice vocalist Pat Dunbar became a scene enforcer, as he later told Steven Blush: “Back when I was a lot more violent, I had this thing: anytime anybody fucked with me when they were drunk, I would hit ‘em. I felt ‘just because you drink doesn’t give you license to be a fucking asshole’.

Most people think that being drunk is an excuse, but, hey, you’re bringing that reality on me ... I’m not getting in your space and I’m not interfering with your freedom or your path.”

As a reaction to the perceived militancy and aloofness in straight edge circles, there came a counter movement, bent

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edge. Populated by bands like Gang Green and True Sounds of Liberty who revelled in intoxication and threw drug addled gigs, but with the demise of straight edge those of bent persuasion had nothing to rail against. By 1983, the adrenaline charged straight edge movement had burned itself out: DC bands Minor Threat and The Faith had split while over in Boston, DYS and SS Decontrol had “gone metal”. With the intelligentsia focused on other pursuits straight edge, following the curve of the original hardcore movement, started to fizzle out.

1985 found a resurgence, particularly in the Netherlands with bands like Profound and Betray and by the end of the decade a scene even sprang up in Durham, UK, but when most people think about the second wave of straight edge it’s usually the scene coalesced around New York City, largely defined as the ‘Youth Crew’ era. Sporting a clean cut look with bleached hair, sportswear and hooded tops, a new wave of bands were spawned at CBGB matinees. Gorilla Biscuits, Bold and

Youth of Today

Wide Awake all came from this scene but it’s Youth of Today who mostly carried the straight edge flame. Just as Ian Mackaye formed Dischord Records, Youth of Today vocalist Ray Cappo (who also introduced the vegan aspect) co-founded Revelation Records and released many of that eras key albums.

The wave of popularity that swept straight edge to the national conscious in ‘85 crashed hard a few years later.

While most participants moved on just fine, one band decided to confront the hostility that straight edge kids were now facing. Using the perfect reverse-peer-pressure name Judge were the last great band of the second wave.

Their dark and heavy sound (they covered Blitz and Led Zeppelin) signposted how the scene would develop when resurrected in the early 1990s. Darker and brutal music fused with frustrated and confrontational lyrics foreshadowed the hardline nature of the third wave.

1991 is considered the beginning of the

third wave with the New York band Earth Crisis fusing metal to hardcore and defining themselves as vegan straight edge. However the band who most epitomised the hardline era are Vegan Reich. Their ‘Hardline’ release, a 7” and political treatise combination, set a whole new level of political consciousness. And it was mirrored in Umeå, Sweden, where a strong left wing scene spawned a host of bands including Refused, whose classic 1998 album ‘The Shape of Punk to Come’ included its own political manifesto within its liner notes.

Many in the hardline movement resorted to violence so, perhaps trying to redress the balance, during this era Ray Cappo returned with his new band Shelter. Bringing a focus on Krishna Consciousness added another facet to the burgeoning bag of beliefs and created another musical offshoot: Krishnacore. And like Dischord and Revelation Records had defined previous eras, two labels helped shape the third wave: New Age Records and Victory both released key albums by

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Snapcase, Strife, Outspoken and Unbroken. By the beginning of the 2000s, only small groups of militant straight edge individuals remained in the scene and their confrontational modus operandi drew harassment from US law officials (who saw the movement as gang related) and brought this era to an end.

In the mid 2000s, a renewed interest in straight edge was sparked by reunion tours featuring Youth of Today, Bold and Gorilla Biscuits. The fourth wave is currently a more tolerant scene and in opposition to previous incarnations, the musical styles of bands are more

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varied, ranging from an ‘80s youth crew influenced style to more brutal metalcore inflections. The flame was kept burning brightly in the 2000s by the likes of Embrace Today, Throwdown and Have Heart.

Even in beer soaked Britain as we head into the 2020s, bands like Insist, Payday and xservitudex are mining a healthy seam of straight edge culture and, while staying true to the original DIY ethos, their original spin on the subculture will ensure that this current wave is as equally regarded as its predecessors.

The Brothers Steve

They’ve Got the Hits!

Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

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Contrary to their name, The Brothers Steve only have one member called Steve and you won’t find any sibling rivalry here because none of them are actually brothers.

Instead, this five-piece from Los Angeles, California, who have recently signed to the cooler than cool Big Stir Records, simply make brilliant, harmonious pop music with big, catchy choruses and more deliciously infectious hooks in one song than most bands manage on a career’s worth of albums.

conception and realisation of their pop classic in the making, their plans to follow it up, their fascinating adventures in power-pop past and present and much more.

Last year, The Brothers Steve, whose line-up consists of vocalist and guitarist Jeff Whalen; vocalist Os Tyler, guitarist and vocalist Dylan Champion, drummer Steve Coulter and bassist Jeff Solomon released their debut album ‘#1’. The album quickly gained attention from radio stations in the US, UK and Europe who were unable to resist the charms of its ten British Invasion, indie rock, bubblegum and power pop inspired songs. One year on from the album’s initial release, it has finally been issued in digital form. There is also now a new CD version and the original blue vinyl LP has been made available on both sides of the atlantic at non-import shipping prices for the first time.

Jeff Whalen: Hi! We’re The Brothers Steve. The idea of this band has lived in our brains and hearts as well as in a number of mostly vestigial body parts for some years. But to put it simply, we got together when some friends needed a band to play their rock and roll party on a Saturday night. It was supposed to end there, but we had such a fun time that we decided to record an album. We’re based in Los Angeles, California. We’ve known each other - well, as much as anyone can be said to “know” anyone - since attending UC Santa Barbara together and we’ve played in numerous and somewhat various bands together. We are: Os Tyler (one of our lead singers), Dylan Champion (guitar and also one of our lead singers), Jeff Solomon (bass), and Steve Coulter (drums). And me. I sing and play guitar too.

We recently caught up with The Brothers Steve to conduct the following in-depth interview, in which they tell us all about the

Firstly, hello The Brothers Steve and thank you for agreeing to our interview. Could we start by asking where, when and how the band came together and could you introduce us to your members and give us an insight into your previous musical activities?

Having been enjoying your debut album, last year’s ‘#1’, we can hear

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a fair few different influences at play, but who or what would the band cite as their influences and for the uninitiated, how would you describe the sound that you make?

Atlantic for the first time. The re-release comes courtesy of Big Stir Records. How did The Brothers Steve come to be involved with Big Stir Records?

Whalen: I dunno! In our original band bio, each band member listed one or two favorite bands and I think we ended up with something like: The Monkees, Wings, Nilsson, Guided By Voices, Neil Diamond, MC5, Black Sabbath and the Soft Boys. That actually feels kind of right to me. I wouldn’t really know how to describe it. Hopefully it’s fairly hooky music that’s fun to listen to. I think that’s goal number one. One hopes that it also gives meaningful context to life in a cold, vast, indifferent universe. But that’s goal number two. Goal number one is being fun to listen to.

Steve Coulter: If you’re part of the Los Angeles guitar pop scene, you definitely know Big Stir Records. The positive impact they’ve had locally with their monthly concert series has been tremendous; and their record label has created a tremendous platform for likeminded musicians around the world. They’ve built a strong community in a short amount of time which is particularly impressive given how truly supportive and familyoriented they are. It’s been really great getting to know Christina and Rex as people, and working with them on this re-release.

We just mentioned your debut album ‘#1’. July saw first ever digital release of the album as well as a brand new CD edition and the original blue vinyl edition being made available on both sides of the

In a day and age where many bands are self-releasing, what do you feel the advantages or releasing via a label are and what are your thoughts on the current state of the music industry in general?

Coulter: There’s a lot of temptation (and some pretty compelling reasons) to go it alone these days, but being part of a “scene” has always been important for bands. As I mentioned before, the community that Big Stir Records built is very inviting. Cool people making great music? Sign us up! We put the initial vinyl-only release of #1 out ourselves, but that felt a little more like running a business than playing in a rock and roll band. Too many spreadsheets and mailing labels. You know? So here we are.

Returning to ‘#1’, I am sure we won’t be the only publication putting the album forward as an early contender for the Album of the Year title. Could you tell us a bit about the writing and recording process of the album and since its original release last year, have you been pleased with the reaction to it?

Whalen: Thank you! We’ve been blown away by the reaction, actually!

We had wanted to record the album really fast - like three days or

something - and try not get caught up in months of overdubs and overthinking everything. So we booked three days in the studio. And then two months later, we were done! Which really isn’t too bad, especially for Os and me. We can just re-record and overdub literally for years, so two months is actually pretty good. It’s just that it’s so fun to sing with these guys and come up with new parts and so forth. It’s hard to draw the line and say it’s finished.

All ten tracks really are ten pop classics in the making, which makes the title of the album’s second track ‘We Got the Hits’ seem very apt. This leads us to ask, to you, what makes a great song and what makes you tick as songwriters?

Dylan Champion: Great songs are melodies that you not only can’t get out of your head, but that you love being there, ya know? Melodies you just wanna sing. The words are secondary, but huge. They serve the melody first—the way they “sing” is paramount because nothing can be allowed to

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The GoAllTheWays

disrupt the magic illusion of the melody. As far as how we write, Whalen is the brainchild behind this band in every way, most importantly as a songwriter. He’s a bubble gum aficionado, but also an omnivore and just a killer hooksmith. So he gave the band a great launching off point and he was smart enough to let Os and myself to do our thing within that rich rubric that is Jeff Whalen. I brought a bit of a punk and garage component, with little melodic augmentations on other tracks.

Whoever writes the songs in TBS, there is this cool thing where the writing is truly never finished until the whole gang gets their hands on it.

So, Coulter, last year, you co-edited the book ‘Go All The Way: A Literary Appreciation of Power Pop’ (under the pen name S.W. Lauden), which led to the formation of the power pop supergroup The GoAllTheWays, which featured, among others, yourself, Whalen and Rex Broome of The Armoires. Did the task of co-editing the book teach you anything you didn’t already

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know about the genre and how has the experience of being part of The GoAllTheWays been in comparison to being in The Brothers Steve?

Coulter: It’s all been kind of a big, beautiful blur. Music and writing have always been important to me, so getting to pursue them simultaneously at this point in my life is pretty thrilling and unexpected. Researching and writing about the power pop genre and its twisted roots while also recording and performing in a guitar pop band has been really fun. Looking back, there was no way to predict that The Brothers Steve album and ‘Go All The Way ...’ would arrive together, but the universe can blow your mind like that sometimes. I think, if anything, co-editing the book was yet another renewal of my vows with music in general, and power pop in particular.

I personally came in through the punk door, so I definitely like energetic music, but was always drawn to melodies and hooks - which I suppose is as good (and vague!) a definition of power pop as I can offer at this

moment. And it also let me reconnect with a tribe of music-lovers I’d drifted away from in recent years. That’s definitely true for The Brothers Steve, but also with the possibility of side projects like The GoAllTheWays. In addition to Jeff, Rex and I, that line up also features my old friend Marko DeSantis (Sugarcult) on bass, and Tyson Cornell (from Rare Bird Books, publisher of ‘Go All The Way ...’) on guitar. Talk about bringing it all together!

Champion: I’d be happy to play in a living room!! In fact, we might just do that!

Unfortunately, we are currently in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. How has the experience of releasing an album during this time, how have the band been coping and do you have plans to follow up ‘#1’ once all this is over?

www.facebook.com/ TheBrothersSteve

Thank you for the wonderful interview, we wish you all the best with ‘#1’ and for the future. www.thebrotherssteve.com bigstirrecords.com/ the-brothers-steve

Whalen: It’s made it harder to play shows, that’s for sure. Even to rehearse. We tried to rehearse on Zoom once. It was bizarre. I hope somebody recorded it. It was impossible to get synced up. I think we’re going to try to record more during the quarantine. It’ll be weird getting the songs rehearsed while socially distancing, but the songs are already written and everything, and we’re really excited about the material.

The live music scene is obviously struggling at the moment, but do you have a favourite music venue to play and which are you most looking forward to playing when the gigs resume?

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Can’t Swim

Something in the Water Interview by Peter Dennis.

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Hailing from Keansburg, New Jersey, Can’t Swim are making waves with their crescendo of post-punk and emo. Having just released a surprise EP, ‘When The Dust Settles’, Peter Dennis decided it was high time to speak with vocalist Chris LoPorto.

New Jersey has birthed some great bands. Because of this do you feel a weight of expectation?

Yes, for sure. Growing up it was the centre of music. Every band I like seemed to be from New Jersey. I’m pretty disconnected now because we travel so much. I like to think I’m carrying the torch in some sense [laughs]. We’re from right by Asbury Park so there’s a big Bruce Springsteen influence.

You’ve spent your career on Pure Noise Records. You’re obviously happy. Why? Pure Noise was one of the reasons we started the band. I didn’t have the other guys in the band, they heard my songs and Jake from Pure Noise called me on the phone “I want to help you, I want to make this band a possibility” so Can’t Swim and Pure Noise are one and the same. I would never have been able to get this off the ground and Pure Noise was nice enough to help us out.

It would be interesting to do a Can’t Swim release without them because it’s all I ever known.

Pure Noise currently seem at the vanguard of alternative music. What is it about them?

People seem to be drawn naturally to Jake. He won’t fill your head with illusions of grandeur he just tells it like it is and I think a lot of people in this world respect that, it’s not a suit mentality, he was in a band himself.

He doesn’t butt in, he’ll give his two cents but at the end of the day my job is to write the songs and his job is to put them on a release so he’s very open to what bands want to do.

You’ve described your lyrics as very personal and exploring pain and sadness. Do you worry about constantly visiting the dark side or is it cathartic?

I think about that constantly. I think it’s somewhat therapeutic to sing about things that bother you but retelling those stories every night...I wonder if they’ve done a scientific study to find out if it messes you up even more so?

I think people gravitate to the personal stories about me and I don’t ever feel I could ever fabricate at this point and I wouldn’t want to so it definitely has its pros and its cons! I read an article recently that said you need to be in a dark place to create good art. I don’t know if I’m smart enough to have the answer but all my songs are real life and although I’m at peace with some of the issues I still feel them.

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What are your musical influences? Is there one band that unites you all?

We all love The Cure. I also like heavier bands like Metallica, we all love the techy bands, Meshuggah.

You recently said that three years of touring has changed you in so many ways. How have those three years changed your lyrical output?

Doing this band has made me realise that time is very relative. I remember being in my early twenties and thinking that time is running out and maybe I was too old to start a band. This band has made me live in the moment and it doesn’t matter where it’s going and I think that comes through in the music because I just write what I want to write, I don’t care if it puts us in a certain genre, I enjoy it, I enjoy putting it out and I don’t really look further than that so…it’s more genuine because I don’t care about the trajectory of the band.

Late last year you released the EP

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‘Foreign Language’, which included guest appearances by Frank Carter and Adam Lazzara. How did it feel work with such luminaries?

Not to sound lame but it was a dream come true. I looked up to Frank Carter for many years, even though I’ve been friends with him, I looked after him when he came to the States, I’ve always thought highly of his art and I love the part he wrote for that song. Adam Lazzara from Taking Back Sunday, in high school I was a big fan of his. It was something we’d never experimented with before but it’s nice to have some friends along for the ride.

Were you in awe of these people in the studio? Were you able to tell them if something wasn’t quite right?

Luckily that didn’t happen. I did give Frank completely free reign. I was like ‘I’ll send you the instrumental part and you do what you do’. He sent the first take back and that exceeded my expectations.

How do you walk the fine line between pleasing your fans and challenging yourself?

In 2020 I do think it is quite difficult, especially in rock music where people expect certain things from certain artists. If Metallica came out with a jazz record I don’t think it would go down too well. I think I am guilty of being a bit of a chameleon and alienating some fans but that’s something we’ve never really worried about. The people who like our band will hopefully follow us and adapt to the differences but I would be bored if we kept putting out the same songs, though I am conscious of that I don’t let it dictate how I write songs.

to get one person to like your band, there’s so many artists, to get any kind of fan base, so I think that the fact we’ve captivate different people from different genres is very flattering and in the future it gives me a bigger spectrum to work with.

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions, we wish you all the best for the future. www.cantswimmusic.com www.facebook.com/cantswim

People find it hard to put Can’t Swim into a specific category. Is that flattering and does it afford you a lot of freedom?

Yes, even though it’s not meant as a compliment most of the time. Even if it’s not meant as a compliment I definitely take it like that, it’s hard

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The Holloway Echoes A Resounding Success!

Alice Jones-Rodgers reviews ‘Stack ‘Em Up’ Photography by Russell Dewing.

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“I’ve been listening to Cliff my whole life”, says Pat Winn, a seasoned rock ‘n’ roll and country singer who last year became the vocalist, rhythm guitarist and co-songwriter with supergroup The Holloway Echoes.

“And you have too”, he continues, “probably without realising it because he’s on so many things, so many records. He was in the Top of the Pops band actually and he’s got a thousand stories, but there’s one where he was trying to remember his session that he’d done. ‘I recorded a song with that bloke, you know, you know. A song about ... you know, Jackson ...’ ‘Are you talking about Michael Jackson?’ ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!’”

The Cliff that Winn is talking about is Cliff Hall, a renowned piano maestro who, as well as spending over twenty years as a member of The Shadows, has also played with (to name but a few besides ‘the king of pop’) The Goons, Cliff Richard, Leo Sayer, Lonnie Donegan, The Bay City Rollers and David Essex. Joining Winn and Hall on this adventure, brought to us by the Bristol-based rockabilly, psychobilly and British rock ‘n’ roll recording studio and record label Western Star, are Western Star’s owner and producer Alan Wilson, who was previously the guitarist in late ‘70s / ‘80s neo-rockabilly / psychobilly band The Sharks, multi-instrumentalist and composer Nick McNulty on bass and long-time session drummer Ben Turner.

Their brand new album ‘Stack ‘Em Up’ is the follow up to their debut album, 2019’s ‘Murder in Soho’, which as well as concerning itself with subjects such as the mysterious death of boxer, Soho jazz club owner and presenter of rock ‘n’ roll TV show ‘Six-Five Special’ (BBC, 1957-58) Freddie Mills with a fairground rifle in a Citroën DS behind his Soho club in 1965 on its title track, also featured the much more tender tribute to the band’s hero Chas Hodges of Chas & Dave, ‘There’ll Never Be a World Without Chas Hodges’. In later years, Hodges, who passed away in 2018, recorded on Western Star and the band was in fact started in order to record that very tribute. Hodges is also remembered on ‘Stack ‘Em Up’ not just through the over-all pub rock feel of the material, but also by the band enlisting his daughter Juliet to play piano on ‘The Phantom Flan-Flinger’, a fun track about the masked man who would throw flans at all and sundry during ITV’s anarchic Saturday morning children’s show ‘TISWAS’ between 1974 and 1982. Wilson was in fact the last person to be ‘flanned’ by the Phantom Flan Flinger!

Opening track ‘Snap Crackle & Pop’, a joyous old-time rock ‘n’ roll song about the love of trawling through junk shops to find vinyl and stacking them up on the Dansette, sets the scene perfectly for this nostalgia-soaked album. Hall’s bar-room style piano may now be plugged in and the production techniques may have been brought

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kicking and screaming into the 21st Century with the aid of computer technology but ‘Snap Crackle & Pop’, like the other material on the album, is presented with such conviction that the listener is left in no doubt that they are firmly back in a time long before downloads and streaming ruined the concept of the single and rock ‘n’ roll still had the ability to strike fear into the hearts of parents the world over.

‘Answers On the Back of a Postcard’ finds Winn putting his best ‘rockney’ voice forward for a cleverly written ditty about growing older whilst completely disregarding the changes that have occurred around him. Chas & Dave would be proud of the song’s storytelling prowess and in particular lyrical witticisms such as “A few weeks ago, a police officer, he had cause to stop me, He said, ‘Are you aware sir, that your car’s not been taxed since 1973?’, I said to the copper, ‘Does your mum know you’re out, boy wonder of the Scotland Yard?” Just like the subject matter of the album’s thirteen songs, the more humorous aspects of ‘Stack ‘Em Up’ are in no way aimed at a young audience, more those old enough to remember a particular type of sarcastic and self-depreciating British humour that existed around about the time that the protagonist of ‘Answers On the Back of a Postcard’ last taxed his car. Not that this is at all a negative point. You certainly won’t find those young computer whiz-kids putting a donk on a Holloway Echoes

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song and that can only be a positive!

On an album full of great moments, all-out rocker ‘Johnny Watts’, with its Ray Davies style lyricisms about having admiration for a hometown hero who has been to the smoke and made it big as a rock ‘n’ roll star and giddily up-tempo backing which put us in mind of that featured on a majority of The Housemartins’ 1986 debut album ‘London 0 Hull 4’ (probably the most modern reference point you will find in this review), is an absolute standout.

And just who is the titular character?

Well, Johnny Watts was the pseudonym used by legendary British producer and experimental music pioneer Joe Meek in 1960 for a weekly fifteen-minute commercial broadcast on Radio Luxembourg in support of this record label Triumph Super-fi Sound called ‘It’s A Triumph!’

‘Johnny Watts’ is perfectly complemented by another album standout, the similarly upbeat following track ‘Doin’ My Own Thing’, in which, during the advent of the teenager in late ‘50s, the narrator sees Cliff Richard (then very much marketed as Britain’s equivalent to Elvis Presley) “shaking his quiff” and tells his exasperated parents that he is quitting his nine-tofive job for the life of a rock ‘n’ roll star playing “gigs in other regions, Pubs and British Legions” with the somewhat over-ambitious aim of being “as big as the king”.

For the fifth track of ‘Stack ‘Em Up’, ‘Who’d Have Thought?’, The Holloway Echoes dig deep into both the band’s influences and past achievements for another musical homage, this time to Hall’s former band The Shadows. This is one of two instrumentals on the album (the other being the similarly Shadows inspired, spaghetti western-tinged ‘The Dark Horse’), both of which were written by McNulty, who swaps the bass for his main instrument of trade, guitar, and plays most of the other instruments heard.

Following track, ‘Dinner Lady Rock ‘n’ Roll’ is a very silly Lonnie Doneganesque song about (you guessed it) dinner ladies forming a band in the school canteen, which shouldn’t work but inexplicably does, the sound of pans being banged with spoons and all its other trimmings included. If it all sounds a bit wooden chalet and knobbly knees competition fun by the pool, pre-affordable foreign package holiday era Butlin’s Holiday Camp, then it only goes to adding to the late ‘50s / early ‘60s feel of the album as a whole. We suspect Donegan also informed the subject matter of the country and Irish folk inflected ‘Donkey Jacket’, on which the band take the pace down a notch and call on the talents of fiddle player Gemma White whilst Winn with poetic panache akin to the country songwriting masters such as Jimmy Webb tells the tale of a binman attempting to adapt to a

changing world that has seen his job title change to “refuse collector”, whilst his job and pay-packet remain the same. The result is quite moving and makes for another album highlight.

Speaking of highlights, on ‘Lost in London’ Winn gives his finest vocal performance on the entire album for a song about feeling isolated and out of touch (a key theme here it would seem) in a London that has changed beyond all recognition (“All those buildings that survived the war, Well, they ain’t there anymore”). And it isn’t just Winn who excels himself on ‘Lost in London’, with McNulty and Turner’s masterful rhythm section really coming into their own to play alongside the track’s sublime brass section.

Variety was obviously a very important consideration during the making of ‘Stack ‘Em Up’ because after ‘The Phantom Flan-Flinger’ has made his appearance half way through the second side, the band has treated us to a short burst of the ‘TISWAS’ theme tune and McNulty has swapped to guitar for ‘The Dark Horse’, we find ‘Bridego’, a song about Danny Pembroke, the only member of the gang responsible for the 1963 Great Train Robbery at Bridego Railway Bridge in Buckinghamshire who was never caught. With the help of his powerful underworld contacts, Pembroke (referred to for many years by other gang members as “Frank Munroe”) evaded capture by fleeing to Florida for two years before moving

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back to the UK where he led a comfortable life on his £150,000 share of the money. He never spoke of the infamous mail train heist and was only revealed to be one of the robbers when his son, also called Danny Pembroke, took part in the 2019 Channel 4 documentary ‘The Great Train Robbery: The Hidden Tapes’. Danny Pembroke Snr. had died some four years earlier aged 79. Lyrically, the songs featured on both ‘Stack ‘Em Up’ and ‘Murder in Soho’ are at times oddly reminiscent of those of Luke Haines on his post-Auteurs and Black Box Recorder solo albums, but without the acerbic, sneering, tongue-in-cheek undertone that can sometimes render those of Haines’ insincere. As with ‘Murder in Soho’ on The Holloway Echoes’ previous album, ‘Bridego’ is a well-informed and passionately written piece of true crime re-telling.

Meanwhile, musically, listeners will almost definitely hear shades of The Kinks and Roger Miller’s 1965 country standard ‘King of the Road’.

‘Sari With the Fringe on Top’ marks a change in mood once again. The brass section that we so much enjoyed on ‘Lost in London’ is reintroduced whilst Turner’s brushed drums are one of the album’s finest percussion moments.

‘Stack ‘Em Up’ is brought to a close by ‘Calling Buddy’, the second of the two songs on the album about Joe Meek. In complete contrast to the earlier ‘Johnny Watts’, the band this time focus on

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Meek’s later years and his descent into mental illness. From early on in his career, Meek had been so fascinated with the idea of communicating with the dead that he would set up tape machines in graveyards in an attempt to record voices from beyond the grave, once even claiming that he had captured the meows of a cat believed to be speaking in human tones asking for help. He was particularly obsessed with Buddy Holly and told of how the American early rock ‘n’ roll star who died in a plane crash in 1959 regularly communicated with him in his dreams.

As his mental instability worsened, ultimately leading to him murdering his landlady Violet Shenton with a shotgun he had confiscated from one of his protégés, Tornados bassist Heinz Burt, before turning the gun on himself, he became so preoccupied with gaining answers from the great beyond that he would regularly try to contact Holly to ask for help in rectifying his declining career. With ‘Calling Buddy’, Meek’s sad story is treated beautifully. The eery sound of a radio tuning in (presumably to the afterlife); references to Holly, such as the acoustic guitar and knee-slapping percussion mirroring that of his 1958 hit ‘Everyday’ and the song even bearing a passing resemblance to Mike Berry’s Meek-produced 1961 single ‘Tribute to Buddy Holly’ all make for an endlessly intriguing and fitting tribute to the fascinating character who’s unorthodox method of recording drums in the bathroom of his Holloway Road flat for added echo

gave The Holloway Echoes their name.

As you will probably have gathered, The Holloway Echoes take retro to the extreme. Despite the fact that ‘Stack ‘Em Up’ was completed and released during the lockdown, you certainly won’t find much relevant to the modern age here, other than perhaps reminiscing about how much better things once were years ago. However, in these uncertain times where the new material currently being released by many other bands either concerns itself with the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit, the current state of the British government, Trump’s government over in the US and so on or can loosely be related to any of those in some form or another, the material on this album makes for a welcome change. ‘Stack ‘Em Up’ is far more than simply a trip down memory lane for a bit of

whimsical nostalgia though. It is, instead, five musicians who after so many years in the business are absolutely at the top of their game, all bringing their considerable individual past experiences to the table to create thirteen exquisitely written and lovingly recorded songs for a fifty-minute album that it is impossible not to love. More power to The Holloway Echoes and long may they continue to entertain us.

‘Stack ‘Em Up’ is out now on Western Star Records and can be purchased on CD directly from their shop. www.western-star.co.uk www.facebook.com/ The-Holloway-Echoes423530815150336

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Hung Like Hanratty Hang Tidy!

Alice Jones-Rodgers reviews ‘Dragged Up’.

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In January this year, when Hung Like Hanratty assembled at Electric Bear Studios in their hometown of Mansfield to work with Stranglers’ Dave Greenfield on ‘Living for the Weekend’, the final burst of swirling organ arpeggio driven punk-pop energy on what would become their fourth album, the ever-comically titled ‘Dragged Up’, the sometimes controversial punk five-piece could never have envisaged that it would be the keyboard legend’s final recorded appearance.

‘Living for Weekend’ has been billed by the band themselves as a “bonus track”, tagged onto the end of the final track proper, ‘Vets Hate Pets’, almost like an unintentional tribute to Greenfield and The Stranglers’ enduring influence on Hung Like Hanratty and the new generation of punk bands that, despite originally being formed in 1979 with a much different line-up, they are now proudly part of. “Well I say bonus”, rhythm guitarist Ricky ‘Rickettes’ Barsby told us, “It’s actually the last track on the album. That was how it was planned with him originally, so we’ve stuck with it. It is listed as a track on the back still.”

There has been much excitement surrounding ‘Dragged Up’, not least from Barsby and his bandmates, vocalist Al Sation; bassist Tez Tickle; lead guitarist Liam ‘Valiam’ Smith and drummer Kyle ‘Kye Bosh’ Ellis

themselves. We first heard about that a new album was underway exclusively during our first interview with the band, featured in Eighth Day Magazine Issue Nine (June 2019), following which, as well as attempting to represent the UK in the virus cancelled Eurovision 2020 (it was a nice thought, wasn’t it?!), they proudly took to their social media pages to enthuse about the fourteen new songs (fifteen including ‘Living for the Weekend’) featured on their latest creation. We asked Barsby whether with all this in-band excitement, they thought it was their best album so far, to which he replied, “Personally, yes, I think it is. We’ve all really pushed ourselves musically and it came out even better than expected.

Well, hopefully anyway!”

So, having already encouraged dog and cat owners to pick up their beloved pet’s excrement (‘Clean Up Your Dog Sh*t’, ‘Human Pig’, 2014) and (‘Keep Your Cat Off My Garden’, ‘What You See is What You Get’, 2018); dealt with all the delicate issues of the day, such as transphobia (‘Danny Is a Tranny’, ‘Human Pig’) and having had their say about Jimmy Savile (‘The Ghost of Jimmy Savile’, ‘Human Pig’); Oscar Pistorius (‘You’re Taking the Pistorius’, ‘50 Shades of Shit’, 2016), Simon Cowell (‘The Ballad of Simon Cowell’, ‘50 Shades of Shit’) and Harvey Weinstein (‘Harvey Weinstein’, ‘What You See is What You Get’), where was there left to go on ‘Dragged Up’?

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Well, it would seem quite a few places because by the end of monstrously heavy, riff-tastic Anti-Nowhere League-esque two-minute opening track ‘I Hate the World’ alone, they have already taken on teachers traumatising pupils with “lies and propaganda” and “People killing people for their own goal” whilst politicians bury their “heads in a great big fucking hole”. ‘I Hate the World’ may be one of the finest and most explosive album openers of the year so far but it doesn’t quite have the acerbic humour we have come to expect of Hung Like Hanratty.

Instead, it is a forthright and serious message rallying against the wrongs of society.

So, have Hung Like Hanratty grown up and taken on a darker tone? In a way, yes. You will still find downright funny character observations, with songs this time around taking on annoying cyclists (‘Twat on a Bike’); the stoner next door who keeps you awake all night after a hard day’s work (‘Duggie the Druggie’) keyboard warriors (‘Fuck With Me and I’ll Block You on Facebook’), benefit scroungers (‘Mr. Hypochondriac’) and a neighbour ruining the view with his caravan (‘Shift It’), but in a more straight-faced but still witty manner, ‘Dragged Up’ also finds the band addressing class on its title track (“Just because I’m not educated, Doesn’t mean I’ve been dragged up”) and ‘Dr. White’ (“Who cleans your windows, who empties your bins, Well, it’s fucking shit like

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me”; paedophilia (previously touched upon in a very different manner on ‘The Ghost of Jimmy Savile’) on the Prince Andrew and various other accusee referencing ‘Epstein’s Diary’ and the unscrupulous taxman on ‘Inland Revenue’. You will also find a number of songs that straddle a very fine line between being humorous and serious, such as ‘Vets Hate Pets’, about vets who care more about money than the animals they treat.

As well as the greater variation in moods found on ‘Dragged Up’, Hung Like Hanratty have also come of age in terms of production values, with this album being an altogether more glimmering affair than previous albums. With this, comes an even higher of musicianship displayed.

Most notably, Smith’s lead guitar lines have been pushed to the forefront more than ever before and in tandem with Barbsy’s full-pelt punk-thrash rhythm guitar now seem to provide the band with a much fuller sound. This is ably complimented, as always, by the powerhouse rhythm section of Tickle and Ellis who pound their instruments for all they are worth throughout the entirety of the album and, as exemplified by the ska-inflected verses of ‘Marching On’, offer up some inventive results.

‘Dragged Up’ also sees Al Sation grow even more confident as a frontman, his voice more expressive than it was previously and taking on a much larger

variety of tonalities for different songs, even being reminiscent of ‘Parklife’-era Blur’s Damon Albarn on the aforementioned tracks ‘Marching On’, ‘Vets Hate Pets’ and ‘Living for the Weekend’. Meanwhile, the vocal harmonies from his bandmates seem to have been much more thought about, particularly on ‘Living for the Weekend’, which, despite apparently being a bonus track, is Hung Like Hanratty’s shot at a mega-hit if ever we heard one.

We sincerely hope that Greenfield heard ‘Living for the Weekend’ in its finished form before he left us, because as swansongs go, it is a great one. ‘Dragged Up’ is packaged with a sticker informing us that he is featured

on the album, but don’t let this guest appearance detract from the rest of the album because, to use a well-worn term, it is all killer and no filler.

Previous Hung Like Hanratty albums may have all been charmingly (if that is the right word) entertaining but this is an altogether more polished and accomplished affair. To a large extent, despite still containing some of these elements, ‘Dragged Up’ sherks the ‘we’re just a comedy-punk band’ tag of their first three albums and is, without question, their finest and most realised work to date. After last year’s Eurovision attempt, is it a ploy for the mainstream? If so, it might just work. www.facebook.com/ HungLikeHanratty

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How to Build a Girl Positive Spin

Review by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

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It is a sad fact that in journalism, negativity sells. This is particularly true of the music press, where in general, readers are more interested in reading about a band being ripped apart by a writer than them being lauded. Taking a negative approach towards a band can make a star of its writer and shift thousands of copies of a publication, but it can spell instant ruin for the target of the writer’s ire. So, when Johanna Morrigan (played by Beanie Feldstein, last seen in another coming of age comedy, 2019’s ‘Booksmart’), a sixteen-year-old from a Wolverhampton council estate with ambitions of escaping her surroundings to become a writer, applies for a job as a “hip young gun slinger” critic at music paper D&ME, writing a glowing review of the ‘Annie’ soundtrack, staff at the publication assume it is a joke.

Having taken bets on whether it is, they invite Johanna down to their London offices for an interview.

After convincing the patronising staff of her merits as a writer, she is sent to Birmingham to review Manic Street Preachers, a band who racked up considerable hatred in the music press in the early ‘90s era in which the film it set.

Directed by Coky Geidroyc (best known for 1999’s ‘Women Talking Dirty’), the screenplay for ‘How to Build a Girl’ was written by awardwinning former Melody Maker

journalist Caitlin Moran, based on her 2014 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Having enjoyed Moran’s tale of life working for the music press in print, we were eager to see just how it would transfer onto the big screen. And it didn’t disappoint.

The Californian Feldstein surprisingly manages to get the black country accent down to a tee and absolutely wins over the audience with her portrayal of Morrigan, who, eager to impress D&ME, reinvents herself as the flamehaired, hat-wearing Dolly Wilde, but learns the hard way that enthusiastic reviews of the gigs that she has been sent to cover is not what the music paper wants when she is fired. Still in the guise of Dolly, she begins writing scathingly negative reviews and is rehired, going on to become a popular critic who is able to support her penniless family back home. However, she begins to question whether she can face a lifetime of writing reviews so nasty about the music she at heart loves that she receives the “Arsehole of the Year” award at a music industry event.

‘How to Build a Girl’ questions why, in journalism, it is easier to be celebrated for being negative than for being positive and due to Feldman’s stellar performance, a great supporting cast that includes Emma Thompson, Alfie Allen and Chris O’Dowd, Moran’s thought-provoking script and Geidroyc’s part-realism, part-fantasy direction, the result is write (sic) on.

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Nostalgia’ in comparison to her self-titled UK number 3 debut album suggests that we are only just starting to see her full creative ability flourish.

2020 Mercury Prize And the Nominees Are ...

By Alice Jones-Rodgers.

With a date set for 24th September, two weeks later than planned in order to increase the chances of there being a live show, the 2020 Mercury Prize is just around the corner.

For the first time in the competition’s twenty-eight year history, women make up a majority of the twelve-strong shortlist. Whereas five female solo artists or frontwomen competed last year, all of which were pipped to the post by rapper Dave’s ‘Psychodrama’, this year there are seven, all hoping to take away the £25,000 cheque.

Dua Lipa’s second album ‘Future Nostalgia’, with its influence from ‘70s disco, ‘80s pop and ‘90s club music may have one foot in the past, but she may be about to be recognised as the future of British music at this year’s prize. Dua is very much the pop star of the moment but the complete change of direction exhibited on ‘Future

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Meanwhile, another pop artist hoping to hit the jackpot is Charli XCX with her fourth album ‘How I’m Feeling Now’, recorded at home over a six week period during lockdown. Using Zoom, Cambridge-born Charli rather innovatively collaborated on the album with her fans, who shared demos and song ideas with her and even had their say about the artwork and which of the songs should be released as singles.

Could this cutting-edge method of making music to create a snapshot of these strange times be enough to persaude judges that it is the best album of the last twelve months?

Growing up, the bedroom of third female pop nominee Georgia, who is the daughter of producer Neil Barnes, doubled as a recording studio for two time Mercury nominees Leftfield. She started her own career playing drums for artists such as Kwes and two-time Mercury nominee Kate Tempest, before turning her attention to singing and making her own music. Her dancefloor-friendly second album, ‘Seeking Thrills’ might just be the first pop album to win since M People’s ‘Elegant Slumming’ way back in 1994.

Compared to first time nominees Dua, Charli and Georgia, folk singersongwriter Laura Marling is an old pro,

this year making her third appearance on the shortlist with her seventh album ‘Song for Our Daughter’. If 2020 is to truly be the year that the prize celebrates women in music, then there would be no better recipient than Laura for this album, which was inspired by Maya Angelou’s book ‘Letter to My Daughter’, a wisdom-filled collection of essays written for a younger generation of women teaching of compassion and fortitude.

Also nominated is Scottish composer Anna Meredith for her second album, the electronica-based ‘Fibs’. A former composer-in-residence with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Anna was last year awarded an MBE for her services to music. As well as opening the first night of the 2018 Proms and providing orchestral arrangements for Sigur Ros and Laura Marling, her debut album ‘Varmints’ won the 2016 Scottish Album of the Year Award Could ‘Fibs’ also be about to acheive award-winning status?

Elsewhere, British indie is also strongly represented. First up are the Britpop and post-punk channeling Sports Team, who’s debut album ‘Deep Down Happy’ last month narrowly missed out on the UK number one to Lady Gaga’s sixth album ‘Chromatica’. Sports Team may have met at Cambridge University, but their music sneers at the upper echelons of society in a manner similar to former Mercury winners Pulp on their 1995 classic ‘Different Class’.

Brighton indie band Porridge Radio, led by Dana Margolin, are lesser known but have been putting out music for five years. Their refreshingly different major label debut ‘Every Bad’, released in March, reached number 11 on the UK Indie Chart.

Lesser known still are third indie band, Newcastle’s Lanterns on the Lake with their atmospheric fourth album ‘Spook the Herd’. Despite the band having been together for thirteen years, vocalist Hazel Wilde still works in an office to help fund it.

This year’s jazz hopeful is Moses Boyd, who having won two MOBO awards with free-jazz duo Binker and Moses, returns with his debut solo album ‘Dark Matter’, a danceable reaction to subjects such as Grenfall, Windrush and Brexit.

Michael Kiwunuka is only the third act in the competition’s history to be nominated for each of his first three albums (the others being Coldplay and Anna Calvi). His 13-track odyssey ‘Kiwanuka’ contains elements of gospel, soul and psychedelia and has already attracted considerable acclaim since its release last November.

Meanwhile, UK rap artists Kano, with his meditation on social and racial injustice ‘Hoodies All Summer’, and Stormzy, with his eclectic number one album ‘Heavy is the Head’, both hope to follow Dave’s success last year.

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