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Beyond the fringe – the Roger McGuinn interview

Posted on August 22, 2014 by writewyattuk

Guitar Hero: Roger McGuinn is all set for his latest UK tour

I feel those of us who spent our teenage years watching guitar bands owe something of a debt to Roger McGuinn.

My arrival on the London gig circuit properly came in the mid-’80s, amid a plethora (or a plectra, maybe?) of ‘jingle-jangle’ indie bands. Some stood the test of time, others soon foundered, but it was a healthy scene all the same.

There were a host of influences offered up, and alongside those frequent Velvet Underground mentions there was also a nod to The Byrds.

The Long Ryders were part of the stateside variation on the theme – on the so-called Paisley Underground scene – that caught my imagination, and pretty soon Sid Griffin’s band led me to investigate further the work of McGuinn’s outfit.

I already liked radio staple Mr Tambourine Man, but there were many more great songs I was soon switched on to.

The inspiration behind the band was even-name-checked in Orange Juice’s Consolation Prize, Edwyn Collins’ glorious take on unrequited love informing us:

“I wore my fringe like Roger McGuinn’s, I was hoping to impress.

So frightfully camp, it made you laugh, tomorrow I’ll buy myself a dress (how ludicrous)”

I soon shelled out for the 1985 CBS vinyl reissue of their 1967 11-track Greatest Hits, comprising some of the bigger numbers from those first four albums, and was hooked.

A 20-track Columbia CD compilation followed that into my collection in the early ’90s, culled from a new boxed set.

And in more recent times came the shabbily-packaged original album classics five-CD box featured material up to the country-tinged The Notorious Byrd Brothers.

From that you’ll gather I’m no completist, but this is still a band that mean a lot to me, from those glorious harmonies to the Rickenbacker sound that triumphantly announced the arrival of folk-rock.

And although I value Bob Dylan as a songwriter and have a great love for the albums he made when he went electric – notably 1965/66 offerings Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde – The Byrds’ covers spoke more to me.

Now you know where I’m coming from I’ll carry on, and while – admittedly – I haven’t studied Roger’s solo output greatly, he remains something of a musical hero.

And I’m pleased to say he’s still hard at it all these years on, not least through his work with the Folk Den project these past 20 years, recording a different folk song each month.

Of course, he was plain Jim McGuinn before he was Roger, his adopted name coming out of a flirtation with Subud spiritualism.

Word has it that he changed his name in 1967 after Subud’s founder told him it would better ‘vibrate with the universe’.

Apparently, he was given an ‘R’ and asked to send back 10 names starting with that letter. A fascination with airplanes, gadgets and all things science fiction ensured his list included names like Rocket, Retro and Ramjet, but it was the term used during two-way radio conversations in aviation that won out. Roger that. By the late ’70s, Roger and his new wife Camilla had turned to Christianity, something that still looms large in his life. But the name stuck.

Sea Fare: Roger’s 2011 collection of sea shanties, CCD, a further twist on his folk appreciation

And this American guitar icon who fused folk and 1960s beat music with the help of his trusty 12-string is now back visiting the UK, giving me an excuse to catch up with him while publicising two North-West dates this November.

I was still on my holiday at the time of his press commitments, and accordingly had to make the call to his temporary London base from my big sister’s house down on the Surrey/Hants border. But it was worth the diversion.

As it turned out, the 72-year-old was not a big talker. At least it seemed that way. Perhaps he felt uncomfortable having someone talk so fervently about those mid-’60s glory days. It’s all a long time ago now, after all.

But while succinct and rarely opening the door to introspection, he was nothing short of polite, courteous, helpful and honest.

Chicago-born Roger – who along with Gene Clark, Michael Clarke, David Crosby and Chris Hillman helped open up a new world of musical possibilities with The Byrds – was no doubt a busy man when I caught up with him.

With just a short time-frame available, it proved something of a whistle-stop Q&A. But we covered a fair bit of ground, and a learned a little more along the way.

I started at the beginning, back to his Illinois roots, asking if writing – music and words – was always a passion, not least as his parents had journalism backgrounds.

Furthermore, to this day he contributes to literacy charities – something he clearly feels strongly about.

“Yes, I tour with the Rock Bottom Remainders sometimes, doing charity work for literacy. They’re award-winning authors who’ve always wanted to be in a rock band.

“They get their dream come true, and I get to play with them and hang out. And it’s a pleasure to be with them and be in their company – they’re all so bright and witty.”

Incidentally, it’s quite a line-up too, past and present members including Stephen King, Amy Tan, Scott Turow, Matt Groening, Greg Iles and Maya Angelou, while fellow guests have included Bruce Springsteen and Warren Zevon.

So was that enjoyment of books and music around you while you grew up in Chicago?

“Yes, my parents were very much into that, and all their friends were in the arts and theatre. When I decided to become a professional musician they were all for it.”

I gather you heard Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel when it came out, and something clicked.

Lightbulb Moment: Roger heard Elvis, and everything changed

“Exactly. I had a transistor radio – like the smart-phone of its day back in the ’50s – and heard Elvis come over on that. It was what made me want to play music.”

In fact, Elvis returned the compliment between songs on his NBC TV Comeback Special in 1968, talking about the modern bands he appreciated, name-checking ‘The Beatles and The Beards’. And who am I to correct The King?

Has Roger ever contemplated what he might done with his life if it wasn’t for your music?

“Well, I was interested in broadcasting, so I might have become a broadcaster or technician, something like that.”

Having grown up with country music and rock ‘n’roll, then discovering folk music, Roger perfected his guitar skills and played five-string banjo in the late ‘50s.

In fact, when one of his folk heroes passed away at the turn of the year, Roger remarked: “Pete Seeger was the person who inspired me to play five-string banjo, 12-string guitar and to achieve my life long dream of becoming a troubadour.

“It was his guitar and banjo style that I carried over into the instrumental sound of the Byrds.”

Roger – then known as Jim – made his name on the folk circuit and moved to California, where his big break soon followed.

First Footing: The Byrds’ debut album

So was that West Coast move what you needed? It was certainly an exciting era. And was meeting fellow Byrd Gene Clark a big turning point?

“Yeah, it was serendipitous. I was living in Greenwich Village and working in the Brill Building, a studio musician at night. Once I got the gig in California, everything kind of fell together.”

It was work with singer, songwriter and actor Bobby Darin that opened that door, with Roger taken on as a writer alongside the likes of Gerry Goffin and Carole King.

Something of that story was told a while ago in a BBC 4 documentary, Troubadours: The Rise of the Singer-Songwriter, concentrating on Carole King and James Taylor but also including contributions from Roger McGuinn and David Crosby.

As it was, Roger soon discovered the music of a certain Liverpool band – and applied this new spin on all he’d learned from the folk circuit, with the help of his fellow band-mates.

How important do you think it was that you had that ‘apprenticeship’, playing in bands and writing for people like Bobby Darin?

“The Brill Building was a great foundation, for having the discipline to know how to write songs properly.”

You paid your dues too. It didn’t just happen overnight. Did that competitive atmosphere help you raise your game, creatively?

“I think so – there’s a saying that as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another, and that was definitely true in the Brill Building.”

It’s now 50 years since The Byrds formed. Are those early band days still fresh? Only the music certainly remains so.

“It is still fresh, and I have fond memories of getting The Byrds together. It was sort of organically grown, with Gene Clark and David Crosby then Michael Clarke and Chris Hillman joining.

“Then we got a record deal, and it was all sort of magical. We went from literally starving on the streets to number one in the charts.”

Before I called Roger, I was playing The Byrds’ She Don’t Care About Time, something written two years before I was born but a track that really resonates.

For me, it works in the same way that perhaps The Beatles’ Rain – released a year later – does. Both were mere b-sides, yet so evocative of that special mid-‘60s era. And I think Roger agrees.

“I always loved She Don’t Care About Time, I thought that was one of Gene’s best compositions. I have fond memories of recording it too – because George Harrison was in the studio when we put that together.”

That was new to me at the time, although when I looked back at the sleevenotes for second Byrds LP Turn! Turn! Turn! I saw that George Harrison and Paul McCartney’s visit to the recording studio was mentioned.

You have such a wealth of material you worked on over the years. Is there an album or track you’re most proud of?

“Well, I always liked Turn! Turn! Turn! I love the melody and it’s sort of a reassuring text.”

That was a Pete Seeger cover of course, The Byrds’ powerful version of his inspirational take on words from the Book of Ecclesiastes, serving as another nod to Roger’s religious beliefs.

The original band, after a few fall-outs over the years in between, put aside their differences to appear together at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City for their induction into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 – what turned out o be their first outing as a five-piece in 18 years.

They performed Turn! Turn! Turn! then Mr Tambourine Man and I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better. But as it turned out, Gene Clark and Michael Clarke had both died by the time 1993 was out.

Does Roger see anything of fellow surviving band-mates David Crosby or Chris Hillman these days?

“No, but you’re calling on David’s 73rd birthday, and I plan to email him, wish him a happy birthday.”

This coming UK tour includes dates in Liverpool and Manchester – my excuse for speaking to Roger – and I put it to him that he’d already hinted that North-West England’s musical legacy was important to his work.

“Absolutely, and the Mersey Beat prompted The Byrds to make Mr Tambourine Man what it was. Before that it was in folky two-four time – so we borrowed that beat!”

America may have shown the way as a nation with the Blues, Elvis and all that, but the UK then took the initiative on through bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Did that drive you on?

“Oh yeah! You could see the influences of Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers in The Beatles, and all kinds of influences. But they blended them together in such a unique way, and we just loved it.”

I always felt you made Bob Dylan’s songs sound even better – from Mr Tambourine Man through to My Back Pages. Are you proud of that legacy?

“Well, yeah. It was definitely a time to experiment, and mixing Bob Dylan’s lyrics with a rock’n’roll beat was a real pleasure to do.

“I don’t know if it’s better or worse, but it’s certainly different! It also made it more commercial, I guess.”

Are you still in touch with the former Robert Zimmerman?

“I haven’t seen Bob in a long time. He’s always on the road, and …”

Roger tails off at that point, and after a brief lull I move on to how I felt various indie guitar bands from the ’80s onwards still acknowledge a debt to him. So is it nice to still be properly appreciated?

“It’s a very nice feeling.”

Talent goes with hard work though, and I’m sure you spend a lot of unsocial hours perfecting your guitar craft. Do you still have to keep your hand in?

“I do. I practise an hour a day.”

The Byrds, by then with Gram Parsons on board, also opened the door to country rock and that whole new strain of alt country still with us today.

“Yes, outlaw country came up after The Byrds and it was fun to do and be pioneers. When we did it, people didn’t really appreciate it, but years later it became very well appreciated.”

Moving on to today, you’ve been critical of downloads and contractual loopholes over royalties etc. Yet you’ve also embraced the internet through your Folk Den project and even blogging.

“I’ve always liked the internet, and I wasn’t really against downloads so much as the business of streaming, not paying people whose work was recorded prior to 1971. We came out against that.

“But I think the internet is wonderful and a levelling thing. It’s great for all kinds, and when I want to hear something I just go to YouTube – it’s always there.”

Can you properly switch off from music after all these years? And have these past seven decades flown?

“I play music every day, and that’s a definite part of my life. As for being 72, that’s like being 17. It’s just an age. I don’t feel any different really.

“The thing about time is it progresses at a very steady rate. The earth revolves on its axis and goes around the sun, there’s the atomic clock and decay of the caesium atom.

“There’s a very specific science about it. It doesn’t go faster or slower, but our perception of time changes as we get older.

“I can go back 70 years in a flash, so it seems like those seven decades took a flash … but it’s an illusion.”

It seems that Roger really opens up on this theme, and I put it to him that he clearly remains spiritual in the way he looks at life. So how important is his Christian faith and the love of his wife – and fellow blogger – Camilla?

“Camilla and I read the bible every morning, and that’s a good foundation for the rest of the day.”

You have a healthy family life as well, don’t you?

“Oh yes. Camilla and I travel a lot together, but I’m in touch with my kids, and everything’s cool.”

Solo Debut: 1973’s Roger McGuinn, post-Byrds

Does that reach to grand-children as well now?

“It does. I’ve got three grandchildren, aged 18, 14 and then seven.”

Any of those looking to follow in your footsteps as a musician?

“Well, they play music, yeah.”

It can’t be easy to get a set-list together these days, with such a vast back-catalogue. Is your Stories, Songs & Friends live format your way of addressing that?

“Yes. It’s kind of a one-man auto-biographical play. I do that in concert, although the set-list might vary.

“The formula is to feature some Byrds hits, songs from my solo career, and some of the Folk Den tunes as well.”

Is that what we can expect on this tour? I take it that you make the most of having that luxury of changing things as you go?

The Fringe: Roger’s early look

“That’s exactly what I’ll be doing, although I can’t say what songs. I go by how the audience is reacting. For instance, if I do a country song and they really love it, I’ll do a couple more. If they don’t, I won’t. It’s variable.”

And I’m guessing that when you get all these interviews done, you’re looking forward to getting going and back out there again?

“Absolutely … chomping at the bit!”

Roger McGuinn’s latest UK tour starts with four dates in late September at Bristol St George’s Hall (25th), London Cadogan Hall (26th), Leeds City Varieties (28th) and Gateshead The Sage (29th).

He’s then back for eight more in early November at Milton Keynes The Stables (1st), Birmingham Glee Club (2nd), Cardiff Glee Club (4th), Brighton St George’s Church (5th), Manchester Royal Northern College of Music (7th), Liverpool Capstone Theatre (8th), Nottingham Glee Club (10th) and Cheltenham Town Hall (11th).

All shows are on sale now through the venues or Ticketmaster (0844 847 1616).

* With thanks to Andy Kettle at CMP Entertainment

Posted in Books Films, TV & Radio, Music | Tagged Bob Dylan, Chris Hillman, Dave Crosby, Elvis Presley, Folk Den, Gene Clark, George Harrison, Michael Clarke, Mr Tambourine Man, Rock Bottom Remainders, Roger McGuinn, The Byrds, Turn! Turn! Turn! | 3 Comments

Back to basics with UB40 – the Brian Travers interview

Posted on August 21, 2014 by writewyattuk

Present Army: And then there were six … the current UB40 line-up, further augmented by Martin Meredith, Tony Mullings and Laurence Parry

Picture the scene. It’s another hot, sunny afternoon and the back garden beckons. But it’s my turn to make tea. Oddly enough, I can’t cook without some good sounds for company, and today I’ve chosen an old favourite, in honour of the fella I’m interviewing the next day.

The man in question is Brian Travers, sax player and songwriter with UB40, and the album I have in mind – soon blasting out of my kitchen, with the back door wide open – is that band’s 1980 debut, Signing Off.

It’s so evocative, and all these years on has certainly stood the test of time. A good honest, homegrown reggae blend. And while I was still two months off reaching teen-dom when it came out, it’s appeal remains three and a half decades later.

And I’m pleased to report from that next day’s conversation that Brian still has youth on his side too, enjoying a new lease of life in the latest incarnation of this Birmingham outfit, having recently rediscovered the joy of the smaller gig – at least by UB40 mega-standards.

Following a sell-out UK spring tour, the band are embarking on a second leg later this year, and Brian is understandably keen to put to one side some of the murkier aspects of UB40’s public and often caustic fall-out, one that has led to an ongoing legal dispute with former vocalist and front-man Ali Campbell.

Ali quit in 2008 in order to pursue a solo career, and was replaced by brother Duncan Campbell, a brewing situation coming to a head when the original singer reunited with Mickey Virtue and Astro and looked to tour under the UB40 name.

But while clearly upset by the feud and unable to say much during those proceedings, Brian is more than happy to talk about the past, present and future of the band – 34 years after their first hit.

Eight Mates: The original UB40 line-up

And with fellow founding members Jimmy Brown, Ali’s older brother Robin Campbell, Earl Falconer and Norman Hassan also still on board, he feels he’s still at the heart of it all.

I put it to Brian that few of us would have lasted quite so long living in the pockets of old school-mates. The fact that five of the original eight still play together is quite something.

“Well, not all of us made it, but funnily enough all the songwriters made it. We split everything though – you won’t see a credit other than ‘UB40’ on all our records.

“All those royalties were shared, and guys who never wrote a single note or word earned exactly the same.”

Do you foresee a time when you can pick up the phone to Ali, chat about the good days and start again?

“I’m not so sure really. We’ve just carried on what we’re doing amid some very underhand stuff.

“I forgive them though, if you’re asking me, in a hippy sense – yeah. As for trust and some of the terrible stuff that’s gone down …

“Good luck to them though – I wish them No.1s and so much success they won’t have time to think about us, and we can just get on with it. I’d love that.”

The issue at the heart of the dispute is brand ownership, not least with the departed trio announcing their intention to ‘reform’, record a new album and perform live under the old band-name, something the original five-piece see as an attempted ‘hijack’ of their 35-year career.

Meanwhile, Brian’s more than happy with how things are going on the recording and live front, not least as they’re playing smaller venues – re-discovering a little intimacy.

They played 14 sell-out gigs earlier this year, and have another 22 planned, and it’s proved to be something of an eye-opener.

“Yep, venues on the street, where you can get a cab from your house or a local bus to the gig, rather than have to drive to the outskirts of town to some arena then get a bus from the car park and get past 75 lines of security.

Storm Breakers: UB40 today – Norman Hassan, Earl Falconer, Jimmy Brown, Robin Campbell, Brian Travers and Duncan Campbell

“In towns, with a chip shop next door and a local bar, so you can have a beer before and after the gig. That for me is what I find exciting!

“We wouldn’t have got those gigs for the last 25 years. Promoters simply wouldn’t be able to resist the lure of filthy lucre, saying ‘I can sell 20,000 tickets rather than 2,000’.

“That forgot completely what it was really about, and we were trapped in that for many years. As a result a lot of little venues disappeared – lots of little clubs you could play.

“Now we’re on to the 02s and Academy venues – not the greatest places to work in, but better for the audiences I think.”

What’s more, Brian is proud of his recent creative output, not least latest LP Getting over the Storm – a reggae-tinged tribute to country music roots, its name no doubt a nod to those court battles.

After selling a phenomenal 70 million records, becoming one of the most commercially–successful reggae acts ever, which album or tracks are you most proud of from the last three and a half decades?

“Probably the latest stuff, because by the time you’ve recorded songs, smashed them to bits mixing them, rehearsing them into the ground and taking them out on the road, you’re ready to make a new record.

“So I’m most proud of Getting over the Storm, and we’ve always had a soft spot for country.

“That’s not only from touring in the States, where the radio stations change as you head up the highway, genres change and you know you’re somewhere new. But reggae’s always had a tight relationship with country.”

I suppose you’re right, thinking of records in my older sister’s collection when I was growing up, like those covers by Ken Boothe and John Holt.

“Absolutely – they all covered proper country songs, a lot of Jim Reeves songs as well.

“I wrote five original songs for this album, which was a great experience – writing country songs, bringing them to the band and them changing them into reggae tunes.

“We all stretch out a bit and find ourselves a bit more. And as you can imagine, it’s impossible for us to grow up. There are guys in the band who still think they’re 14 and I’m 13!”

So is that the key to a long and successful career – being in UB40?

“Maybe. A couple of the guys have gone over the years, and Ali wanted to start a solo career, so he’s gone off and done that. Maybe he had to grow a bit.”

Brian says this without any malice, but then laughs when he realises how it came out. A cue for me to move on.

Does it surprise you when people like me talk about it being 34 years and counting?

“It surprises me how fast that time’s gone and how quick the time is that we have, all of us, and to do what we aim to do.

“But then, if I start thinking about it, we’ve done such a lot, so it makes sense.”

It’s a mighty back-catalogue too, with the first 12 albums – up to 1998 – going either silver, gold or platinum, and 34 top-40 hits in their first two decades. Of those, 15 made the top 10 and three got to number one. And that’s just in the UK.

Heading back to the beginning though, I tell Brian how I equate that debut album, Signing Off, with so many good memories. Does that LP reflect a happy time in your life?

“Absolutely! Everything was starting to go right for us. We’d left school and there was no work in Birmingham or anywhere from around 1976 onwards, so we were at the tail-end of all that. It was a nightmare.

“But it was a happy time for us, and we were travelling for the first time in our lives. We were all school-friends, and we’d never really been anywhere or done anything.

“These were the only songs we could play, all coming together by virtue of the fact that we’d all been in a room and that’s what we’d learned to play.”

Maybe that’s why it works, because it still sounds so fresh after all these years.

“I think you’ve got it there. We didn’t know the keys, what the right passing chords were, what a bridge was … there’s a lot to be said for knowing nothing about pop music!”

Thinking back – for a lad like me, born in the late ’60s – it was bands like UB40, The Beat, Madness and The Specials that opened up a love of ska, regaae, lovers rock and all that.

They also made me realise it could be home-grown, rather than just an overseas music from artists like Bob Marley and others from Jamaica. So how did this white boy from Birmingham get introduced to reggae?

“Good question! I’m 55 now, so have about 10 years on you, and in my early teens we’d already had the original Blue Beat thing going on. Not on the radio, but because we lived in a neighbourhood called Balsall Heath.

“We were right in the middle of Birmingham, by Moseley, with Handsworth over the other side of the city centre.

“It was a car city – with all those factories in Birmingham and a lot of West Indian people, so our youth club music was generally the records my mates had, their big brothers had brought over, or their Mums and Dads owned, or had sent over from Jamaica.

“We got the Blue Beat rock-steady thing, the original skinhead thing. It wasn’t fascist – it was about fashion and youth culture. We were part of that first wave.

“By the time The Specials – and those guys are my mates, I play in bands with most of them now – were doing that kind of punky, rock-steady Blue Beat thing, which everybody called ska, we were into reggae.

“We had Bob Marley, Dennis Brown and Gregory Isaacs, and thought we were a bit ahead of the curve.

“We weren’t in the black and white check outfits. We were just into youth culture and the clothes that were in fashion then.”

It’s fair to say bands like UB40 gave this lad from the South-East a positive understanding of how multi-culturalism was a positive thing, despite the general Thatcher era ‘I’m all right, Jack’ ethos. And the band were ambassadors for their home city’s diversity too.

“We were just teenagers and all a bit political, and had to be unless there was something wrong with us. We were all socialist.

“We thought we could change the world and put to right what was wrong. It was exciting, it was cool.

“I think it was more by luck that people caught on to what we were doing. We were only the same as every other kid at that time.

“It just so happened that we were in a pop group, talking to the NME and on the telly. We were probably among the more normal pop stars that had ever been out there.

“There were no aspirations for Ferraris and all that. We had more interest in girls!”

Well yeah, and in many respects you were the lads next door really.

“I suppose so, and now we’ve had a really long musical career. We were very proud of all that, and still are.

“I’m still living in Birmingham and still take part in the life of the city, playing in half a dozen bands here. Some of those can hardly play, being innocent, naive and groovy, but that’s nice too.”

Are you a gun for hire in that sense?

“I suppose in some ways, because I’m old … but I try not to be. And I try to let them find their feet. And let’s face it, there’s only 12 notes.”

That’s one thing that clearly comes over with Brian. He’s down-to earth to a point of being self-deprecating. And that’s a breath of fresh air.

When I say about his band being the boys next door though, I don’t reckon I would have got much sleep if UB40 really were my neighbours, what with all that stonking reggae bass.

“Well, we were the polite ones as well, to be honest. We weren’t bad lads, we were making music, we weren’t making hell for anyone.”

Thinking back to those original jam sessions and that first-ever gig in King’s Heath …

“That’s right, in a place called the Hare and Hounds, which is my local pub now.”

Well, there you go. And I believe there’s a plaque outside now.

“There is, thanks to the Performing Rights Society, an initiative which recognises where bands first played. I imagine they’re still doing that, and I hope so.

“I think that could be encouraging for young musicians in that environment where we are now, and it’s the hardest business to get into.

“If you’re not prepared to be an X-Factor guinea pig, and get humiliated – and there’s no winners in all that, are there.

“It’s about encouraging kids to have belief in their own self-expression. It’s an odd time for music. I feel for young kids trying to get into it now.”

The days where the record company might have bank-rolled you, seem to have gone.

“You’re right. You have one chance. You have a hit with your first record, and you might not get a second chance.

“If Bob Marley had needed to have a hit with his first record, we would never have heard of him. He made four albums before he ever got on the radio.

“That was the power of Chris Blackwell and Island Records. There were great labels and great music men and great promoters helping make music, and it’s all going by the wayside now.

“I can see music becoming a kind of hobby, and the people who have hits have got to have dresses made of sausages.”

That stopped me in my tracks, until I realised Brian was talking about a certain controversial New Yorker born Stefani Germanotta. He hadn’t finished yet though.

“I’m not putting down Lady Gaga or anyone else. Music’s not about putting people down. It’s led by freedom of choice, and the most abstract of all the art forms.

“You can’t see it and you’ can’t touch it, but it touches us and can make us feel powerful, sad or sexy. But it seems you’ve got to make a dress made out of sausages now.”

Sax Appeal: Brian Travers (Photo: Martin Porter)

Sax Appeal: Brian Travers, centre (Photo: Martin Porter)

Well put, Brian. So did you have a clear goal of what you wanted to achieve when you started out?

“Me and Earl (Falconer) lived in a bed-sit in Trafalgar Road in Moseley, and it had a cellar which you could get to from outside, full of leaves and rubbish.

“We claimed it as our rehearsal room and lived over the top. We wrote all over the walls, and because we were on the dole we were in there every day rehearsing.

“If we weren’t there on time you got in trouble from the rest of us, for not taking it seriously. And we figured we had more chance of having a hit record than a proper job.

“Many years after we moved out, ITV’s World in Action made a programme about us and asked if we could get back in this cellar.

“We went down and got it all opened up, where it was boarded up. We’d written on the walls, practising our autographs, and had written this list of goals – to have a hit record, go on Top of the Pops, go on The Johnny Carson Show, which I guess was seen as the biggest show in the world at that point, and play Madison Square Gardens.

“When we went back, we’d done all that. I think they were our impossible dreams, things that were never likely to happen. As it turned out, we only really needed to have a hit record, and the rest fell into place.

“Now all those things are done, we really couldn’t care about having a hit record, going on a TV show or playing an ‘enormodome’ where you’re 47ft away from the audience and can’t see the whites of their eyes.

“That’s why when we come back this October and November we’re playing what I call real venues, for a couple of thousand people at most.”

Ever calculated just how many gigs you might have played over the years?

“I don’t know, but it’s more than The Rolling Stones, because I remember Bill Wyman being a bit anal about all that. When they’d played 2,000 or so gigs, some fans of our band who collect such facts calculated our own rolling figure.

“We’ve never stopped playing, and we’ve always seen it as an enormous privilege to play a gig. People get baby-sitters before they get tickets, buy them for birthday presents or spend their wages to come to see you.

“It’s such a great thing to be part of, and music never hurt anyone. If you don’t like it, turn it off. It’s really that simple.”

Roxy Brass: Andy Mackay

When I think of my love of the humble sax, there might be a little nod to Roxy Music’s Andy Mackay and the E-Street Band’s Clarence Clemons ….

“Well, of course. Hey listen – you’re talking to a guy who plays in a Roxy Music covers band for the soul purpose of playing Andy Mackay licks!”

Well, there you go! But what I was going to say was that it’s yourself, The Beat’s Saxa and Madness’ Lee Thompson I think of first. So who were Brian’s sax heroes (and now I already know Andy Mackay’s one!)?

“Well … I had pretensions of being a jazz player, listening to the likes of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, because I thought that’s what you were supposed to say …”

Sonny Rollins would probably sit comfortably on that list too?

“Oh yeah … Sonny’s great! But I like melodies and tunes you can whistle in your head. Bebop’s great … but it’s not something you can sing down the pub!”

Did you pick up any other instrument before the saxophone?

“No. Saxophone was my first instrument. We never had classes. We picked instruments before we formed the band, believe it or not.

“It was a great luxury of course, and it took us a year to get the instruments together.

“These days I play a bit of guitar and piano for composing, but only for chords and stuff. I can’t really express myself on anything else but a saxophone.”

Did you hear a certain Blue Beat track or single and think, ‘That’s what I want to play!’?

“A million of them! I used to love Earl Bostik and Tommy McCook, the old reggae guys. But I only know their names now, because they weren’t on those white label pre-releases. No names were on them.

“Also, I always liked the idea of an instrument which didn’t need any electricity! You just take it out of the box and it works!”

Talking of electricity, ever think you could have stuck it out as an electrician, after your early days as an electical apprentice?

“Not in a million years. I wasn’t made for that kind of toil and hardship. The building site is a brutal environment. If you showed a millionth of an ounce of sensitivity, you were fucked!”

So where is home these days? Do you spend much time back among the old haunts around Birmingham?

“We lived in the countryside for many years, mostly to protect our kids. It can’t be easy to be the kids of people you see on Top of the Pops.

“They’d often get told, ‘It’s alright for you, your Dad’s a millionaire!’ It was unfair on them, so we moved out to the country.

“But now the chickens have come home to roost. We live back in the city, and we’re happier.”

What age are your children now?

“They’re in their 30s. We were Dads in our teens, like a lot of inner city kids. Not because of some kind of deprivation, but if you’re living in a little two-up two-down with six of you there, move out and are left to your own devices, you soon become Mummies and Daddies.”

There have been money issues in recent years, bankruptcy proceedings and all that, but that’s not why you keep playing live and bringing out new material, is it?

Live Renaissance: UB40 in concert, with Duncan Campbell out front (Photo: Martin Porter)

Live Renaissance: UB40 in concert, with Duncan and Robin Campbell out front (Photo: Martin Porter)

“I’ll be honest with you – we all made millions of pounds, and did incredibly well for ourselves.

“But it seems to be a tradition in the music business – you never get ripped off when you’re a kid, because you haven’t made any money. But when you get to our level where you’re earning money all around the world …

“That happened to us. I lost my house, a 10 million quid house in the country. Maybe it’s just karma and the way it should be. But it wasn’t easy.”

In a perverse way, do you think all the court battles (and I realise there’s not a lot you can say about all that) have brought the rest of you closer?

“I suppose it has in a way. It’s made us look a little closer to evaluate what it is that we do.”

On a more positive front, you’ve generally had a good reaction to Getting Over the Storm.

“We have, and I couldn’t be happier. That’s what gets me up in the morning.”

Will you be playing quite a few of the new songs on this leg of the tour, or is it a greatest hits package?

“Maybe three or four from the latest album, but we’ve had around 40 top-20 hits. If we just played them we could be on stage three hours!

“We’ll be playing new stuff, old stuff, stuff people aren’t expecting, keeping it a little eclectic, trying to take people as far as we think they can go.

“We have a lot of unspoken stuff on stage, because we’ve been together for so long. We use our ears when we’re playing – listening for each other.”

You must be very tight on stage after all these years.

“Oh God, yeah. Devastatingly handsome as well. Put that in your article. Lock up your daughters – put that in too. We’re musical geniuses, basically. That’s what we are!”

For ticket details for the autumn leg of the UB40 tour, and all the latest from the band, head here.

With thanks to Dave Clarke of Planet Earth Publicity for helping me get in touch with Brian and talking over some of the legal issues.

This is a revised and expanded version of a Malcolm Wyatt feature for the Lancashire Evening Post. For the online version of that, head here.

Posted in Music | Tagged Ali Campbell, Andy Mackay, Astro, Birmingham, Blue Beat, Brian Travers, Duncan Campbell, Earl Falconer, Jimmy Brown, Lee Thompson, Madness, Mickey Virtue, Norman Hassan, Reggae, Robin Campbell, Saxa, Signing Off, The Beat, UB40 | 1 Comment

A whole lot of Everlasting Yeah! The Raymond Gorman interview – part three

Posted on August 20, 2014 by writewyattuk

OK, so it’s time for the last instalment of this blog’s epic Raymond Gorman interview, in which The Everlasting Yeah guitarist, vocalist and co-writer talks about new album Anima Rising, the Wavewalkers era and full story since That Petrol Emotion’s initial split, TPE’s reunion, the joy of communal singing, and his Derry musical roots.

Oh, and if you’ve just walked into this room, you might first want to sneak back down the corridor and look at part one and part two. Right, that’s the housekeeping down, now fasten your seatbelts and we’ll be away again …

Uh Huh: From the left, Damian O’Neill, Brendan Kelly and Raymond Gorman get down to partially-obscured Ciaran McLaughlin’s beat (Photo: Lucia Hrda/ http://www.luciahrda.com)

As I’ve mentioned before, it was only early days with The Everlasting Yeah’s debut album when I first interviewed Raymond, and I’ve still only heard a few minutes here and there. But so far … so good! There’s a little more about that at the foot of this piece, and I’ll start this final section of our three-part feature by putting to the man himself that I can imagine plenty of long drives ahead listening to Anima Rising.

As well as that good old-fashioned guitar rock and joyous waves of vocals, it seems perfect soundtrack material, even if they do stray over the three-minute pop mark now and again.

“Well, when we were first told the timing of the songs we were really shocked, because I thought it was about half that! But there’s no fat on there.

“We’re so self-critical, so if anything seems to be going on someone will say ‘Cut that bit out’ and there will be endless to-ings and fro’ings about it.

“There’s one song, The Grind, which was a jam that came out of something else. I kept playing and everybody kept following me, then I just started singing.

“We didn’t even think anything of it. In fact, the night we did it the first time we were in this horrible rehearsal room that we hated, and we weren’t in the best of moods.

“When we first listened back we couldn’t believe it. I remember thinking my guitar sounded shit at the time. It was a Tuesday night and we just wanted to get home.

Latest Flame: Elvis has a hunk of love for Anima Rising, apparently

“Yet it was just magical. I’ll put that version up eventually, so everyone can hear it. The more we played, we came up with this other section. It really flowed together so well and everyone was getting really excited.

“So getting back to your question ….”

(which out of interest I’d forgotten by that point!)

“… the reason why we never really had those longer songs with the Petrols was because there was more tension there.

“When you’re not thinking about stuff, that’s when you start pushing the boat out a bit more. And there’s no pressure this time to have a hit single.

“In fact, I think we’ll probably get something a bit more commercial because of that. And we don’t write difficult music.”

So who’s penning the new material?

“We all work on stuff and everybody’s going to get credited, but it’s mainly me and Ciaran. I had around 25 songs, and so did he, so between us we had loads of material.

“When we started this band Ciaran said we’ve got to start from scratch again, because some of those songs are quite old. He said it has to be about now.

“I was tearing my hair out about that, having thought we’d have this treasure trove and not have to worry about all that. But he was absolutely right. It was the right aesthetic.”

So there’s nothing surviving from the Petrols’ unrecorded catalogue?

“Correct. I have to say as well that I wrote my best-ever Petrols song after the band broke up, Radio Free Derry. I have a very rough demo of that on myspace. It’s very lo-fi, but you’ll get it.

“I’ve got all these songs. I might even have to put out a solo album. I don’t want them to lie around too long.”

That brings me on to my next question, having missed the Wavewalkers project first time around. So Raymond, you better fill me in on the gap after TPE’s split in 1994.

“Well, first me and Ciaran worked a three-month contract for the dole office, some ridiculously mundane role supposed to take that long, but didn’t! The money was atrocious, but it was just something to do.

“I then ended up going to work for my best friend’s wife, who had a radio PR company, working on these snappy slogans. I was quite good at it but after six months in an office environment I found it quite poisonous. There was a lot of office politics.

“So in December ’94, Damian said ‘what about getting a band together?’ He said I should be writing again, and inspired me to start doing that.

“We started doing stuff with samples, and I found it very liberating. We did this spoken word thing, White Trash Saturday Night, with a Sun Ra sample. People either love it or hate it.

Guitar Hero: Damian O’Neill at the Dirty Water (Photo: Kate Greaves)

“That was ’95, and we also got Brendan back into the fold. He was at a bit of a loose end, travelling between France and here.

“I really wanted Ciaran involved, but he was adamant he wouldn’t. He was playing with this jazz band for a while.

“I think he took the split harder than anyone else – the fact that we were still doing great stuff but less and less people were interested.

“But the three of us got together and were using a drum machine, then a guy called Kevin Sharkey, also from Derry and a bit younger than us, joined us.”

Sharkey? Surely you’ll never get anywhere with a band with a guy called Sharkey involved. I didn’t bother putting this to Raymond though.

“The first Wavewalkers gig was in Paris, playing to 500 people, in this beautiful theatre, and I thought ‘this is it!’

“But it turned out that we only did six gigs. Nude Records were very interested, but then everything went ‘tits up’.

“I think the record company was having problems, and so was Damian, who was going through a divorce at the time. It was all so difficult.

“I was the only one actually working, for a few days a week for BT. The rest of the time I was in the band – all my spare time. I’d just got married, but had a very understanding wife.

“I got a bit burned out by it, and we weren’t really sure which direction to go. We were getting more dance-oriented. It wasn’t really us. I wanted to just record again.

Low Down: Damian and Brendan in action at the Dirty Water (Photo: Kate Greaves)

Low Down: Damian, Brendan and Ciaran in action at the Dirty Water (Photo: Kate Greaves)

“We did a single and it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t going to get everyone’s attention. We stalled on putting it out, then never did.

“We did that one gig in France then a couple here, supporting Arthur Lee and Love, but didn’t have our own sound man, and while on stage the sound was great our friends were saying it was shite. Maybe it was sabotage.

“We also played a couple of times in Ireland, which was good, but it was difficult communicating with Damian at the time. He was trying to get himself sorted.

“I just felt I was putting all this work in but nobody was taking it too seriously. Ciaran was saying ‘keep going’ – he thought it was great, and thought we were expecting too much too soon.”

Time marched on, and still it wasn’t properly coming together, by all accounts, and a further hiatus followed. And it appeared that it was Ciaran’s solo work that inspired the next incarnation of the band.

“When it all fell apart I didn’t really do anything for about a year and a half and hardly even picked up a guitar. I got really into football again, going to lots of (Manchester) United away games.

Mic’d Up: Ciaran McLaughlin at the Dirty Water (Photo: Kate Greaves)

“At that point, Ciaran had started doing a few acoustic things, and one night I saw him play this place The Blue Posts, just off Oxford Street, and it was just fantastic.

“He played about 10 songs, and every one of them was great. It was another lightbulb moment for me!

“Ciaran really inspired me to write again. Just naturally, we gravitated to work together again, and we would go to these acoustic gigs.

“That’s okay when you’re 22, but when you’re working all day then come out, play songs and find people aren’t really listening, with everyone talking, it’s a bit disheartening.

“But we ended up doing a run of solo acoustic gigs at the Blue Posts, off Oxford St in London, playing solo and some songs together, including a Ramones medley.

“I’ve a nice recording actually, which again could see the light of day at some stage. It was very low-key but friends would come along and it was great fun.

“I was just happy to keep doing it, and the fact that it was every two weeks or so would force me to write so I always had new material.

“But it was just the same people coming all the time, and Ciaran started getting disillusioned. He wanted to move on to the next level, but we weren’t really sure how or what to do.”

That was around the year 2000, the same year that Raymond was involved with Damian O’Neill’s curious A Quiet Revolution experimental album. Anyway, on with the tale.

“The following year we got together for a gig to mark my 40th, in this pub in Brixton, and I asked if they’d back me on my new songs.

“We also got these other guys I knew to do some covers, and in the second half it was the four of us back together for the first time, doing a few of my new songs and a different version of Abandon, which is now out there on YouTube.

“That was great, and again I was fired up, thinking ‘we’re back!’ Don’t ask me why, but it all kind of fell apart again then, and we never really got it together.

“We talked about it every other six months or so, but it never happened. My daughter was born in 2002, Brendan had two girls, Damian had a child as well, so everyone had a family, and I was working as well.”

That wasn’t the end of the TPE tale though, in fact it was the point when a certain Seattle singer returned to the fore.

Fond Farewell: That Petrol Emotion say goodbye. From the left, Raymond Gorman, Steve Mack, Ciaran McLaughlin, Brendan Kelly, Damian O’Neill (Photo: Dave Walsh)

“Steve Mack came back on the scene in around 2006 or so and wanted us to reform for South by Southwest in Texas, but a couple of people stalled and said they’d think about it and the moment passed.

“Then everyone decided that they wanted to do it after all. Steve got excited, came over from America and we decided let’s see how it goes – do some gigs!

“We went over for South by South-West in 2008, and that was fantastic, playing this little liberal enclave in Austin, Texas in the middle of this redneck state.

“It was magical for me – just to get away and play again and see all these other bands.”

So that That Petrol Emotion reunion was largely driven by Steve?

“Definitely. The years before I wouldn’t really have been too interested, but that year I’d been thinking very fondly about the band again.

“As it was, if we’d reformed a few years before it might have been different, but by the time we did it was just like ‘oh God, here’s another band reforming’.

“Steve seemed to be up for it, but then his wife became pregnant and he didn’t really want to travel.

“It was understandable, but it was him that got everyone up for it in the first place!

“That’s why the rest of us kept going really, because we really enjoyed it, and all the reformation gigs were brilliant except for the last one, in New York.”

Ray’s Return: The Everlasting Yeah’s Raymond Gorman at the Dirty Water (Photo: Kate Greaves)

It appeared that that the New York episode finished off the band as a five-piece, as Raymond explained.

“The next day we were set to have a meeting about what we were going to do next, but Steve had just heard about the pregnancy. He had a champagne breakfast and was somewhat overly refreshed, shall we say.

“That same day I was reading a newspaper in Brooklyn and read that a girl I knew from back in London who moved out to be a DJ had been killed in an accident in Williamsburg. She was only in her early 30s.

“It was just one of those days, and I remember I’d never seen rain like it. The sky was completely black all day.

“I was disappointed with the way things ended, and just thought next time I won’t be listening quite so intently when there’s talk of any reunion.”

Raymond later recalled the final part of the between-bands jigsaw connecting the Petrols, Wavewalkers and The Everlasting Yeah. And again it seems like fate played a heavy part.

“In 2010, after Steve had departed, when the four of us were working on new material, Ciaran put his back out. He couldn’t play anything for another 10 months, which was again incredibly frustrating.”

It seems like for one reason or other perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be until now – be that down to fate or whatever you’d choose to call it.

“Absolutely, I think so, and I am very fatalistic. That’s why I think the time is right now.

“When we did our first gig at The Roundhouse we were a little apprehensive, as this was the first proper London show. We’d obviously done all the preparation, but I was very nervous, the most nervous I’d been for a very long time.

“Then we walked on stage and there was just such a great reception we got. It was so warm-hearted, and something really special.

“I’ll remember it until the day I die. It lifted us up, and immediately gave us confidence, even though people didn’t really know the songs.

“It was a fantastic feeling, you know, and we really want to keep that going. There was a great communal atmosphere as well.

“We always had a real rapport with our audience, but even more so now, and I think people can sing along more with these songs as well.”

Bass Instinct: Brendan Kelly at the Dirty Water (Kate Greaves)

So this time it’s just yourself, Ciaran, Damian and Brendan. What if someone did come along to add vocals at a later stage?

“If someone was to come in now, they’d have to be really great and we’d really have to like them. It’s the dynamic of the four of us. I kind of like it as it is.

“It’s a bit like with Bernard from New Order – he’s not a brilliant singer, but he’s got soul. It’s the same with us. You can pick holes but …

“Sometimes you hear your voice on tape and you’re not sure, but you just have to get used to that. It’s about personality.

“And the songs are really good and strong, so I don’t have to be a brilliant singer to pull it off.”

It’s about harmonies too, I venture. Going right through – from The Undertones to That Petrol Emotion and now again with The Everlasting Yeah, those complementary voices have always shone.

“Yeah, we’ve got that harmony thing, for sure! And on a couple of slow songs I’ve got a rehearsal tape of our singing, and I have to say, it’s absolutely beautiful.”

Dare I add – here he goes again, I can hear you say – that it was a similar story with Eleven, with the booming baritone of US front-man David Drumgold backed by those characteristic harmonies from Mickey Bradley and Damian O’Neill.

“Well, those backing vocals were important in The Undertones and they were important in the Petrols, and are perhaps even more important now everyone’s chipping in!

“It’s just kind of … I don’t know, a choirboy thing perhaps. Old punk choirboys, you know!”

Everlasting Appeal: Damian, Brendan and Ciaran at the Dirty Water (Kate Greaves)

I can feel Raymond going off subject again, but (not least as a former chorister myself) it’s all part of the story …

“Me and Damian were in the choir at school, and were both in the orchestra as well. We played clarinet, but I hardly remember it. It was only for about a year. If you put one in my hand now, I wouldn’t have a clue.

“This was all part of our musical training all the same. I was classically trained originally as well, playing piano. But my teacher was epileptic and fell over me one day when I was playing. I thought he was dead. I ran away and wouldn’t go back.

“My parents gave me such a hard time when I left the piano. I remember asking for a guitar about a year later and getting told ‘no’ for that very reason.

“Damian was lucky – when he wanted to play, John helped pay for his first axe!”

Again, Raymond veers wildly off at that point, and we tackle Irish heritage, Neil and Tim Finn and much more before we’re on to how he finally got his guitar.

“I don’t remember much music before 1970, when I was nine, although I do remember The Beatles and being confused by them having two singers.

“The first song I really remember hearing was She Loves You. I remember that very vividly. It just sounded very exciting.

“But we didn’t get a record player until 1972, and it was mostly me who bought all the records.

“My mum used to do the Kay’s catalogue and that’s how I got my first guitar and amplifier. It was a hundred quid for this really crap electric guitar.

“I had a paper round, but it was 100 weeks at £1 a week for a six watt amp and this horrible guitar called a Satellite.

“Actually, it wasn’t that bad, but I play it now and wonder how I ever learned to play.”

Thankfully he did though, and to great effect, not just through his playing and song-writing but also the inspirational air he seems to add to the proceedings, one that has helped those gifted musicians around him produce the goods over the years.

Having heard a bit more of the background story I now feel I understand more about That Petrol Emotion from start to finish. And now I’m equally fired up about their natural successors, The Everlasting Yeah.

Take for instance the snippets I’ve heard, starting with The Grind, with those glorious harmonies and raunchy guitars, Ramones-esque rocker All Around the World, and the Beach Boys meets Super Furry Animals wistful splendour of Everything is Beautiful.

Then there’s truly super-catchy part-contagious band anthem A Little Bit of Uh-Huh …, the Stones-like New Beat on Shakin’ Street – something Bobby Gillespie will be pissed off isn’t in his own set – and fellow (to appropriate a fitting Undertones phrase) rocking humdinger Takin’ That Damn Train, plus the guitar and falsetto funk of Whatever Happened To …

To find out more about The Everlasting Yeah and the PledgeMusic campaign, click right here. And who knows, maybe you’ll feel the need to make a pledge there and then to help ensure the release of Anima Rising.

* With big thanks over these three instalments to Raymond Gorman, and also to those whose photos I borrowed, not least Kate Greaves, Lucia Hrda, Simon Bradley and Dave Walsh.

Posted in Music | Tagged Anima Rising, Brendan Kelly, Ciaran McLaughlin, Damian O'Neill, Derry, John O'Neill, PledgeMusic, Raymond Gorman, Steve Mack, That Petrol Emotion, The Everlasting Yeah, The Undertones | 3 Comments

Genius moves and sonic grooves – the Raymond Gorman interview, part two

Posted on August 19, 2014 by writewyattuk

Yeah Yeah: From the left, Brendan Kelly, Ciaran McLaughlin and Raymond Gorman get down and get with it at the Dirty Water Club (Photo: Kate Greaves).

In which the blogger delves further into his recorded exchanges with Raymond Gorman, the former That Petrol Emotion guitarist, backing vocalist and songwriter about to release debut album Anima Rising with The Everlasting Yeah, a happening new combo comprising four-fifths of that final TPE line-up.

You possibly got here after tackling yesterday’s part one epic. If not, perhaps try that first, with a link here. Either way, here’s part two for your reading pleasure.

Where were we when we were so rudely interrupted? Ah, I remember. We’d just got on to talk of front-man Steve Mack’s energy levels at the That Petrol Emotion reunion gigs in 2009. And that brings me nicely on to another singer with plenty of fire about him, a certain Paul McLoone, giving me my next question to Raymond Gorman in this mighty – even if I say so myself – three-part interview.

Getting back on track, Raymond, do you ever see The Undertones now, with Paul McLoone fronting them?

“I went to see them the first time they reformed, at the Mean Fiddler …”

So I recall. That was the last time I nodded at you – I might even have been brazen enough to said hello, actually!

“When they came on it felt a bit weird, not being up there on stage with John and Damian. But when they started Teenage Kicks the hairs on the back of my neck all stood up. It was just like the first time I ever heard them play it.

“It took me back to this little horrible place they used to play in Derry, the Casbah, this little Portacabin.

First Footing: The Undertones – the debut LP

“I looked really young back then, so could never get in and had to wait outside, with my friend inside. But because it was a cabin you could hear perfectly outside. I probably had a better sound out there.

“The first time I ever saw them was at The Rock Club, one of the sleaziest places I’ve ever been. This was the late ’70s, and prostitutes and openly gay people used to hang out there too. It felt like real forbidden fruit. As a 16-year-old sat there having a drink I felt like I was breaking all the rules!

“The Undertones came on, and they were just amazing. They were so loud as well. I always felt their sound got tamed too quickly. The early Undertones were much more like the Petrols, with rough edges that later got smoothed out.”

That must all seem a long time ago now. Besides, you’ve been here in London for the best part of your life now.

“It’ll be 30 years this October.”

Could you ever see yourself moving back?

“At the minute I just couldn’t. I could maybe live back in Derry a couple of months at a time, but not full-time. When I go back it’s all too small. I visit my sister and walk over the bridge and around the town and after about an hour I find there’s nothing to do.

“With my parents getting older, I would love to be going back more often, and it’s a question of money. But not to live. Even when I got my degree I couldn’t find a job there, and I’ve never been able to. And yet all those summers I went to France I got work.

“The year my daughter was born, 2002, I was struggling to get work in London, and Malcolm (Eden), the lead singer of McCarthy, who lives in France, offered a chance to go and teach out there if I wanted it.

“When I first came over here, I had a real chip on my shoulder about being Irish, but this country has given me a home and a living over the last 30 years, and I’m very grateful for that.”

There was a nice quote in a recent interview from you from The Quietus, where you said ‘TPE was like the Undertones after discovering drugs, literature and politics, with a lot more girls in the audience dancing’.

“Yeah – the perfect description. Even Damian agreed with me on that one!”

That said, I wonder if England was ready for you. I took on board all you were saying about rubber bullets, civil rights, discrimination and so on, but wonder if it was that outspoken approach that ensured you didn’t get as big as – for example – Blur.

“I think it definitely was. When we thought about it after, we wondered if we should have shut our mouth until we were in a stronger position. It was a bad time to be saying anything. People just weren’t listening. And because we were speaking out against all that, we were automatically tarred with the same brush as the extremist republicans, although we went out of our way to distance ourselves from all that.

“Ciaran said to me recently we were right about everything, and we were. But people don’t want to keep hearing how bad things are, and we were a bit guilty of that.

“And we slept in a bit. I was usually the one who kept up with everything, but when I got sick I was out of whack for a few months, and it was around then that all that acid house stuff started – and it was at the end of the road where I lived in around 1988!

“It was between Borough and London Bridge, in Tooley Street – that’s where all the clubs were and also the Stone Roses were coming through. If we hadn’t been quite as pre-occupied with our own troubles we’d have caught that vibe.

“We didn’t have to pretend we were Curtis Mayfield’s backing band, because we were white kids, but the Stone Roses when they came along were such a breath of fresh air. I think Ciaran to this day is very jealous and thought they stole our thunder, and maybe they did. But I think they deserved it.

“People were fed up, but you don’t need to be told everything’s shit! We weren’t doing that with our music, but …”

You made some good points through your soundbites, but perhaps there wasn’t the appetite. We just wanted shut of a Tory Government.

“Maybe. The media certainly never engaged with us. I remember Ciaran and I did an interview with an NME guy, a South African guy – one we’d never heard about before or after – who knew nothing about us and hadn’t heard more than three of our songs from Babble.

“I remember getting a bit angry and after a few drinks all that resentment came out. And it doesn’t look good when it’s written down in print.”

Was there also a danger that these London journalists were being told all about the Troubles by an American ex-pat – Steve Mack, knowledgeable as he was?

This Guitar: Raymond spells it out with his trusty six-string

“Well, Steve had to get hold of the facts himself and did a lot of reading and became very knowledgeable about it all, so probably knew more than they did. I also think Steve tried to lighten things. If it was coming across from a fella from Derry, it might have been even heavier!

“We were very much a united front, and while Steve could talk a lot of shite, it was kind of refreshing! And you need a break from all the politics sometimes.”

When I caught up with Raymond, his new band The Everlasting Yeah – also featuring fellow ex-TPE personnel Brendan Kelly (bass), Ciaran McLaughlin (drums) and Damian O’Neill (guitar) – had recorded six songs for their debut album, at that point unnamed. In fact, they were just ahead of another four days in the studio, then set to mix everything.

There will be more about that PledgeMusic campaign in part three of this interview, although I’ve added a link right at the end if you bear with me. But at that stage they weren’t even sure if they going down that ‘pledge’ line, wondering how easy it might be to reach their release target.

“Our problem seems to be that while we’ve got quite a large fan-base, they don’t seem to know much about what we’re up to. They didn’t even seem to know That Petrol Emotion had reformed last time around.

“Admittedly, there wasn’t too much in the way of press, but we had a bit in Mojo and would have thought they might have seen that. Our promoters at the time didn’t appear to do any work whatsoever when we did that tour, so it was all down to social media.

“But if Manic Pop Thrill sold about 30,000 copies, that’s about our constituency – our level of interest. If we could get that amount of people to pledge I could probably leave my job. It’s just reaching that figure. At present I’m only reaching about 1,000 people.”

Incidentally, that day-job is as a translator, with Raymond working for a friend for the last six years or so.

Star Date: The front cover of this blogger’s Captain Log issue three (Photo: Malcolm Wyatt)

Anyway, as you’ll recall from part one, we were discussing my 1988 interview with Damian’s brother John O’Neill, one of my songwriting and guitar heroes, and now got on to how I’d called it More Songs about Factories and Girls, as there were so many JJ songs seeming to touch upon the factory theme at that time.

“Funnily enough, we had a song called Blatant Factory around that time too.”

Indeed, and John mentioned that. So did that ever see the light of day?

“I don’t think so, but I have it on a tape somewhere. I actually liked the song.”

So did he, I recall.

“Course he did! I don’t think Ciaran and Steve did though, and I can see why. It was kind of … he was trying to write a lot of songs like that. That was part of the problem. We’d be talking in interviews about our influences and all these left-field artists, and then he’d go and right these bloody Al Stewart ballads, you know!

“I was starting to get a bit fed up, and I know Ciaran was too. I think that’s why he wrote Creeping to the Cross. We were talking about artists like Foetus, yet didn’t have any songs like that.

“It was the same for me, writing For What It’s Worth, my go at doing something a bit like Sonic Youth. Me and Ciaran were taking on board all the things John was saying but didn’t appear to be influencing his own songs!

“But although we didn’t do Blatant Factory, he stuck some of the words into something that went on Millennium.”

Raymond’s referring to that album’s sublime opener Sooner or Later – part of a superb introductory salvo of JJ songs that also included Cellophane. But while I stand by the strength of those compositions, Raymond clearly still has a couple of issues here.

“When John got home he sent us a home demo of six songs, but on a point of principle – even if they had been brilliant – we wouldn’t have done them! At the time I thought that was the final insult.

“He wrote me a very apologetic letter years later though, and came to see me. That really cleared the air, but we were never going to be as close again.

“It’s a shame, because when I first came over to England, me and him were really tight. That said, it’s always very nice when we do see each other today, although it’s not very often. There’s no hard feelings, and he remained a big fan of TPE ’til the end.”

And from my point of view, he’ll always be a hero.

“True, although I think the last great song he wrote was Cellophane. I think having me and Ciaran around helped him up his game a bit at the time.”

That was where our first conversation ended, with this blogger having to run off to an appointment at his daughters’ high school. But we re-convened a few nights later, just after Raymond’s own 12-year-old lass had been put to bed. So after a brief chat about the joys of parenthood, poorly-paid jobs and the dreaded property ladder, we got back on to the Petrols.

By that point, Raymond had read my ’88 interview with John, declaring his quotes ‘very pessimistic’. I’ve since re-read it and don’t think they were. Again, I’d prefer the ‘under-stated’ label. It might have been difficult for Raymond to gee himself up in John’s company at that stage, but I’d say that was part of his charm. He’s not convinced though.

“I remember John having a bet with me once about V2, our second single, saying it would only sell about 2,000 copies. I remember thinking, ‘Great! Who am I in a band with here?’

“Damian’s a lot more out-going, and very friendly, but has that pessimistic streak as well. I’ll get very enthusiastic about how I feel, and Ciaran will as well. But then Damian will say, ‘Yeah, but what about this?’

“Sometimes you really have to raise your expectations, otherwise it can be a fait accompli.”

I suggest that maybe you need that dynamic sometimes – someone there to keep it real.

“Yeah, but the whole point of this band is about taking everybody out of their comfort zone!”

Early Days: That Petrol Emotion, with Raymond in the centre

Back in that ’88 interview I’d mentioned how the Petrols – in Raymond’s absence at that stage – were doing an encore with support band Hugo Largo, covering Can epic Mother Sky.

“Yeah, I was quite jealous of that really. I would have loved to have done that and indeed did so a year later on in New York, but there’s no recording of it. And Hahn from Hugo Largo ended up playing electric violin on Chemicrazy.”

Indeed – ‘extreme noise terror violin’ according to the sleeve-notes. And you were going a bit Can-like at that stage, with longer songs like the sublime Under the Sky.

“Under the Sky was one of the few songs I really liked on that album. It was just done live, basically, other than a background crowd sample recorded at a cafe.

“I also think that was perhaps the best guitar playing I’ve done on a record. Ciaran wrote the first half, and I wrote the second, and you can tell when it speeds up.”

I also love Steve’s voice on that track, something that continued across the next two albums as well.

“Yeah. I think it really suited him.”

I explain at that point how while I never lost faith in TPE, I’d move slightly away from the band, my own personal circumstances changing. That Final Flame era passed me by in a sense, but I can listen to it all with fresh ears now, and can definitely say Chemicrazy and Fireproof were great albums.

“I think we got better and better. Maybe the production could have been better by the end. We had one go to do it and kind of blew it. When we were still on Virgin, maybe we just took too much time doing over-dubs and all that.

“It was all a bit too polite, but we salvaged about six of those songs and re-did the others. The second time it worked much better and we captured the energy on songs like Catch a Fire.”

You mention Virgin, and there were earlier issues voiced, like the level of support over Cellophane. Had you reached a stage where you were pissed off with what you were getting from them?

“My experience with Virgin was always very good. The only error they made was to give us too much rope to hang ourselves with!

“With Millennium we had this studio with a swimming pool, and it was the kind of place where if you were younger you could let off steam. I think we’d have been better with more Spartan surroundings – rough and ready, so you just got it done as quick as possible.”

Which brings me nicely on to that in-house spirit – something I can hear from the early demos of the new project.

“I think with the Everlasting Yeah the energy we have is even more than on Manic Pop Thrill. We’ve really managed to capture it. It’s astounding.

“In the first three days we went into the studio everybody was like ready to explode, with a real willingness to get it right. We were enjoying ourselves too, and all these things coalesced.”

At the time we spoke, I’d only heard A Little Bit of Uh Huh A Whole Lot of Oh Yeah, That Damn Train, and Hurricane Nation, but each showed a band with energy-a-plenty. That said, there were some very long tracks there. Was this how things were initially with the Petrols?

“Not really. It was only at the very end that the Petrols started to stretch out. Even then, Damian would be moaning – ha ha!

“There were a couple of long versions of the song Chemicrazy. We recorded that three times, and I still can’t quite understand why we didn’t put it on the original record. I suppose we liked that idea at the time – a title song being left off an album. It had become something of a tradition – like Elvis Costello did with Almost Blue.”

As it was, a superb six and three-quarter minute version of Chemicrazy appears on the Final Flame live album, one that truly captures the band’s late might.

And while I’m on the subject of that live offering, I’m pleased to say John O’Neill put in a guest appearance for those last live shows, as caught on record. But back to the point …

There are those trademark Sympathy for the Devil type backing vocals with The Everlasting Yeah too, taking me back to The Undertones and early days of TPE. ‘Communal singing’, is that how you put it?

“Well, if there’s anyone who sings more than anyone else, it’s probably me. But that’s just the way it’s happened. Everyone’s singing, and I really want that to happen, really get into it and get more into it.

“Brendan’s a good singer, as is Damian. It can only get better. In the Petrols, I don’t think I was ever given a proper go at it. With Steve, it’s almost like he willed himself to be good.”

Big Influence: Tom Verlaine made a big impression on Raymond

I also feel there’s a bit of Television in there as well, although perhaps that’s the case with most guitar bands worth their salt.

“Well, every band with me in it’s going to have some of that! I think it’s my playing rather than Damian’s. There’s a good fit between our styles. Mine’s more an angular Television thing, quite melodic, whereas his is more a smooth style. Sometimes he can play things with a real economy of notes as well.

“The two of us really play well together. I played well with John as well. The thing about the two of us was that our sounds were quite similar, a kind of spiky Telecaster sound, so nobody really knew sometimes who played what.

“It’s a bit like Brian Jones and Keith Richards, something much more defined when Mick Taylor came into the Stones. I think Damian has a lot of Mick Taylor in his playing. He’s a big Stones fan. There’s some Johnny Thunders and maybe a bit of Paul Kossoff there as well.”

At this mention of Free, I suggest Raymond’s a bit of a hippy on the quiet. And with that, he’s off again.

“You know, I’ve been investigating Free recently. I only really knew the singles before, but I’ve been listening to some of their ballads, and they’re more like a soul band.

“There’s very little going on in their songs, but it pays. The drumming’s great, playing behind the beat, while the bass is very funky and melodic, and Paul Kossoff always plays the right thing. It’s really good.”

I suggest that sometimes you need to re-evaluate, get past the pre-conceptions or hype. I mention how that was the case with me and Van Morrison – admitting it took me a while to realise he was a soul singer.

Van Pursuit: Rumour has it that Belfast legend Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks is still lodged in the Gorman glovebox

“Aye. He’s a genius! I grew up listening to him, but when I went to college in ’79 I tended to dismiss Van Morrison as a hippy because I was in a punk mode.

“Yet when I went to university two of my flatmates had all his stuff and there was this song of his, Gypsy on St Dominic’s Preview. That was the one for me – like a lightning rod from God! I ended up going back and buying everything!

“I used to change my music in the car quite regularly, but remember once having a cassette with Astral Weeks and Veedon Fleece on it. I think I listened to that for six months. Nothing else matched up to it.”

Which brings me neatly back to The Everlasting Yeah, and how from what I’d heard at the time, we may well have a perfect album to get down to in the car, and maybe one you’d be happy to carry around with you for the next six months.

But for more of that, and the third and final part of this interview, check out this blog again tomorrow, when Raymond and myself get on to the recording process, his account of the missing years between the initial split of That Petrol Emotion and the emergence of the new band – via Wavewalkers and the TPE reunion gigs – plus the first public appearance of The Everlasting Yeah and the joy of communal singing.

Then there’s a little about those delightful Derry harmonies, Raymond’s first Kay’s catalogue guitar, and much more besides. And while you’re waiting for all that, you might want to check out The Everlasting Yeah’s PledgeMusic campaign – with a link here.

Posted in Music | Tagged Anima Rising, Captains Log, Ciaran McLaughlin, Damian O'Neill, Derry, John O'Neill, London, PledgeMusic, Raymond Gorman, Steve Mack, Television, That Petrol Emotion, The Everlasting Yeah, The Undertones, Van Morrison | 2 Comments

Such a good thing we do – in conversation with The Everlasting Yeah’s Raymond Gorman, part one

Posted on August 18, 2014 by writewyattuk

Rising Rapidly: The Everlasting Yeah, from the left, Damian O’Neill, Brendan Kelly, Ciaran McLaughlin, Raymond Gorman (Photo: Simon Bradley)

A few weeks back, this blogger got in touch with Raymond Gorman and tackled the London-based guitarist on his That Petrol Emotion days and their latest incarnation, The Everlasting Yeah.

It would serve two purposes – so I could wax lyrical about a band that proved a major inspiration in my teenage years and beyond, and also help spread the word about an exciting new venture to help ensure it sees the light of day.

What followed went on to take up more than two hours of digi voice recorder memory, involved two long conversations between Lancashire and London, and took an age to transcribe between paying jobs.

But it was well worth the effort, even when I realised I had to add a lot of back story to fill in the gaps, turning it into an epic read I felt would be best split into three – the first section of which hopefully you’re about to start reading now.

What’s more, it gave me a chance to set down something of the inside story of an outfit that deserve their place in any hall of fame as well as the genesis of an emerging band with similar in-built spirit, comprising four-fifths of that final TPE line-up, while plugging their highly-anticipated first album, Anima Rising. But first …

I feel I should start this feature with a bit of a historic pre-amble, first turning the clock back to June 1985.

As I wrote in my fanzine of the time, Captains Log, it was one night that month in Kings Cross that I ‘found life after The Undertones’, having travelled up from Guildford to see a new band featuring my Northern Irish song-writing heroes John and Damian O’Neill.

That night proved a seminal moment for this starry-eyed 17-year-old, and if anything That Petrol Emotion were even better when I caught them upstairs at the Enterprise in Chalk Farm soon after, caught in awe just behind a front row linking arms to try and keep the rest of us off a stage barely 12 inches high.

A few TPE gigs later, on St Valentine’s Night, 1986, having by then snapped up their first two singles, Keen and V2, and devoured two John Peel radio sessions, I was at the Hammersmith Clarendon for their last date before they headed to South Wales to record debut LP, Manic Pop Thrill.

By then we’d sought out a fair few off-the-beaten-track venues across London and felt we knew American vocalist Steve Mack, guitarist Raymond Gorman and drummer Ciaran McLaughlin almost as well as we did the O’Neill brothers.

Again quoting Captains Log, I added: “The rest should be history, but we’ll never forget the early days’. It’s fair to say I’d become somewhat obsessed.

I’ve hinted at some of this in previous pieces, not least my recent Jo Bartlett feature, her first band Go! Service having supported TPE at the Enterprise and hosted the band the first time I caught them outside London, with The Mighty Lemon Drops in November ’85 at Camberley’s Agincourt.

There had also been my brother’s drunken conversation with Andy Kershaw at the Pindar, up there in our own peculiar folklore with the night our Al turned from the bar and spilled beer on Feargal Sharkey’s suit at the Marquee a year before, while watching Damian’s pre-TPE band Eleven. In fact, I seem to recall Feargal wearing that same whistle on Top of the Pops while performing Listen To Your Father with Madness soon after. Heady days.

From Bay 63, Tufnell Park’s Boston Arms and Camden’s Electric Ballroom to Kennington’s Cricketers and Finsbury Park’s Sir George Robey, we were there. It was a special time, and we’d pogo dementedly to The Deadbeat, V2, It’s A Good Thing, Fleshprint, Can’t Stop, Lifeblood and Tightlipped, then flip out to Cheapskate and inspired covers like Pere Ubu’s Non-Alignment Pact and Captain Beefheart’s Zig-Zag Wanderer.

When Manic Pop Thrill came out, this A-level student lived and breathed the album, and while we felt at the time it never quite captured the essence of those early gigs, in retrospect it wasn’t too far off at all.

I’ve tackled my love for The Undertones elsewhere on this blog, so will leave that to one side for the most part this time, instead quickly trying to summarise the story from there. And I mentioned Eleven before, and think they’re part of this wider tale, so I’ll briefly relay how I twice caught Damian and fellow ex-Undertone Mickey Bradley plus US pair David Drumgold and Fred Ravel at the Marquee in the summer of ‘84.

I was 15 then, and it was just a year after I witnessed The Undertones’ last UK gig at Selhurst Park. They also did a mighty Peel session before giving up the ghost. At least I thought it was. As it turned out Mickey went back home to study then became a Radio Foyle DJ, not far from where his old band-mate John O’Neill – who had already brought so many fantastic songs into my life – was supposedly sticking tails on to sweet mice. John later said: “It was only when I got back there that I really grasped how grim it was and how I just had to get away.”

As it turned out John met up with old friends Mickey Rooney and Raymond Gorman, and they pooled their record collections and started the legendary Left Banke Club. John and Raymond (they were using the gaelicised form of their names, but I’ll stick with these versions, if that’s okay) began writing songs, and with a girl singer and a drum machine they played a couple of local gigs. Ciaran McLaughlin, fresh from college, then took over on drums (history doesn’t relate how the drum machine reacted), and in September 1984 the band relocated to London.

High Octane: That Petrol Emotion, the first London line-up, from the left, Ciaran McLaughlin, John O'Neill, Steve Mack, Damian O'Neill, Raymond Gorman

High Octane: That Petrol Emotion, the early London line-up, from the left, Ciaran McLaughlin, John O’Neill, Steve Mack, Damian O’Neill, Raymond Gorman

Within a couple of months Damian joined on bass, having turned down a chance to join Dexy’s Midnight Runners, and after a little more experimentation they recruited vocalist Steve Mack, at the time set on earning enough to get home to Seattle.

The name they chose told you much about the band, and was described by John as indicative of the ‘frustration you feel when you’re living there (Derry), an anger and frustration about the whole thing’. And while The Undertones tended to steer away or at least tackle more subtly the politics of their homeland, this band were more likely to take on the issues at full throttle.

It wasn’t party-political, but more a willingness to spread the word about day-to-day struggles against discrimination and second-class citizenship, trying to explain – if not condone – what might have driven the extremists to take up arms. If anything, their own world view was socialist, an idealist vision of uniting warring communities behind a common goal of self-governance.

Whether the London-based music press and everyone else was ready for that message was another matter, but this was a band with plenty of passion and lots to say, and it came over in the music. And what a live band they were too. One NME journalist described how the guitarists ‘crouched like road-sweepers’ mid-song, and I could see that. They were a sight to see and hear.

Yet, among the more abrasive and impassioned songs or more off-the-wall moments, there were unadulterated love songs like A Natural Kind of Joy. These were my people, and made up for the fact that I only got to see The Undertones live a handful of times.

That first album went on to sell 30,000 copies, with the band increasingly eager to push further. Steve Mack said: “We’re very ambitious. We want to see the world. We want to play, play, play – we’re not content living on £10 a week and eating chips.’

The beginning of that dream came as these former Pink Label artists – whose former stable-mates included good friends The June Brides, McCarthy and The Wolfhounds – signed to Polydor. Some of the songs on resultant second LP Babble slipped slightly below the bar, but maybe I was just feeling aggrieved that I had to share my band with a growing audience – those earlier gigs giving way to bigger ones like those at the Town & Country Club and Kilburn National.

On the other hand, stand-out tracks like that pop exclamation mark Big Decision or the surging Swamp and Creeping to the Cross ensured appearances on The Tube, and I followed them to Glastonbury ’87 too. They still hadn’t reached the Top of the Pops studio, but success appeared to be around the corner, and that year we were left disappointed by at least one wasted journey, with a ‘sold out’ sign outside the Mean Fiddler.

For all those face-to-face encounters though, we had some peculiar notion that these lads wouldn’t want to talk to us, and kept our distance if we saw them in a bar before. We didn’t want to learn they were arseholes. We’d occasionally nod, but it never came to much more. However, I finally broke away from all that and shared a few words with John as he walked around Glasto with his young child. As I should have expected, he was nothing less than friendly and engaging.

Furthermore, I interviewed the man himself at Guildford Civic Hall in 1988 during the tour for the End of the Millennium Psychosis Blues album, for a feature that appeared in the third issue of my fanzine, Captains Log.

As it turned out, that was John’s penultimate gig with the band before returning home, and while a little tired, pensive and under-stated, he couldn’t have been more helpful. I’d properly met one of my heroes, and while sad at him leaving, I could at least understand his reasons.

What I didn’t pick up on at the time was a major sub-text. I’d stumbled across the band at a far from happy time. And judging by Raymond’s spin on it all, John’s decision to quit – or at least the timing – went down pretty badly within the Petrols camp.

Despite all those underlying problems, I still think Millennium was a cracking album, one that certainly stands the test of time. There was plenty of maturity in those compositions, and the strength of the song-writing is plain to see. It wasn’t just the John O’Neill show either, with Raymond notably chipping in, Ciaran having truly arrived on that front, and Steve and Damian also commendably credited.

The band re-grouped from there, Damian taking on John’s guitar role while John Marchini was drafted in on bass, before Brendan Kelly took his place for the last album. Those final two albums were splendid affairs too, albeit with the last released on their own label after Virgin dropped them.

In fact, the quality of the music was strong right up to the end, the standard continuing to soar. And if anything Steve’s voice was better than ever before. There are some truly searing moments on there.

Yet the appetite didn’t seem to be there outside the camp. The indie market had moved on, and for whatever reason TPE didn’t seem to be in vogue in an era in which the music media seemed obsessed with everything Britpop instead.

Theirs just wasn’t the right vibe for the times, and again luck seemed to be against a band somewhat ahead of their time.

They folded amicably in 1994, after emotional Clapham and Dublin send-offs, fittingly captured on the live splendour of Final Flame, the band seemingly deciding they could no longer afford to take a chance in such a fickle industry.

I still had great affection for them and each album stands up to this day, but I’d moved on in my own life, and my London days were behind me. And while I love the later albums as much as the earlier ones these days, those early gigs remain among my most revered.

I got a sense of all that again with the first Undertones reunion gigs in 2000, particularly at the Mean Fiddler the night before the Fleadh – seeing four of my schoolboy heroes together again, including in their set a wealth of songs I’d only truly experienced on record before.

In the meantime, John had been busy back in Derry with Rare and various community projects, but I missed out big chunks of the other members of the band’s story back in London. Until now.

And where better to start than where I finally caught up with Raymond one weekday morning, strolling around the London borough of … erm, Borough trying to find a quiet place to talk, the area where the TPE story on this side of the Irish Sea properly started.

The reception on Raymond’s mobile phone drifted in and out somewhat, and by his own later admission the fact that he’d had two big cups of coffee that morning made it hard work getting the conversation all down. Add to that the fact that after two decades living in the capital, he still has a pretty strong Slash City accent. But those are just excuses, and this is largely how it all unfolded (with Raymond’s responses in bold) …

“I’ve been walking for a bit trying to find somewhere, and I seem to have come across our old stomping ground of 20 years ago, in Borough.

“I lived here for 21 years and it was our band headquarters as well. I remember doing a photo session where I am now.”

You weren’t wearing that infamous John Francome-style jockey jersey I remember from live shows and press shots, were you?

“My girlfriend at the time bought me that and it was pure silk – it cost a fortune! It was one of those things that when you see it in the flesh it looks different to when you see a photograph of it.

“It didn’t photograph well at all. It looks like a jumper, but was actually a really light shirt. Someone was saying you really have to watch what you wear when you’re in a band, because it might just haunt you for the rest of your life.

Stable Mate: Pete Wylie’s ribbing of Raymond was sinful at times

“Pete Wylie took the piss out of me mercilessly, and used to call me a jump jockey. Around that time we shared the same manager, and he was always hanging around backstage. When we played Liverpool he was there as well.

“He was great fun. I was drinking quite a lot around then, so although I’ve had all these nights with him I just remember laughing my head off but nothing about what actually happened. I’ve got a few stories like that, unfortunately!”

Raymond and I were on nodding terms back in those early days, but I don’t think we ever really came and said hello. There was this fear that your heroes might not turn out how you expected, and that included Damian and John. I wish I had now.

“Well, I think you should have, because the O’Neill brothers were always very approachable. I never really had that problem, having known them so long.”

In fact, Raymond was at school with Damian, and their paths crossed regularly in short trousers.

“There’s a picture somewhere and me and Damian on our first communion day. We were at primary school together for the first four years, this fantastic mixed boys and girls primary school.

“We then got put into different all-boys schools and we really suffered. That first school was kind of special and really encouraged creativity. I loved music and loved everything about going to school back then.

“When I went to this new all-boys school I found it very tough, got bullied on the first day, and it took me a while to acclimatise. But we always talk about this idyllic time we had before.”

Close Ties: Damian O’Neill’s friendship with Raymond goes way back

But Raymond’s friendship with Damian survived, and they kept in touch in later years too, when The Undertones were enjoying success.

“They’d be off to do their thing before coming home again, and Damian was always very frustrated, and realised they should all be living in London really, taking advantage of being in a band.

“But the rest of them were such home-birds, and he couldn’t persuade them. I’d see quite a lot of them around the pubs, and whenever I talked to Damian he was always telling me great stories about their adventures. He really fired up my imagination.

“I’d been travelling as well, and couldn’t wait to get out of Derry. I’d been to France and he was keen to hear about my adventures too.

“Back home if you told people about going away they’d think you were getting a bit uppity and above your station and try and cut you down to size. But that wasn’t the case with the O’Neills. In fact, all The Undertones were refreshingly down to earth.”

That seems to sum up the boys-next-door appeal of The Undertones and why I could equate with them more than Stiff Little Fingers, who seemed more ‘in your face’ than the more subtle approach of The Undertones. Unlikely as it might seem to some, I got the feeling these five lads might as easily have lived on my council estate in rural Surrey.

“Well, for a start, Stiff Little Fingers had their lyrics written by a journalist, Gordon Ogilvie, and he trotted out every cliché under the sun in Barbed Wire Love and stuff like that.

Derry Finery: The Undertones, first time around (Photo courtesy of BBC)

“And I think if The Undertones had talked about politics to the level of That Petrol Emotion, people would have just told them to shut up.

“We needed a release at that time, and wanted to forget about all that shite. If you see any photos of Derry around that time it looks like Warsaw in 1946. I am shocked now, looking back.

“At the time I’d walk through the Bogside to go to school. It was so dangerous. I remember walking to school one day and a policeman had been killed, yet I walked right past, thinking he probably deserved it. That’s so cold-hearted! But that was the environment at the time.”

I guess you created a bit of a shell around you to deal with all those horrors.

“Our school was just overlooking the Bogside, and there was a primary school below it. One time the IRA put a bomb in the grounds of the primary school and it went off, a 200lb bomb, and I was in a classroom 300 yards away.

“It was the most massive explosion I’d ever heard. We were around 12 or 13 and all going crazy, yet the teacher just turned around and said, ‘shut up, calm down, it’s only a bomb”. The caretaker of the school was killed in that explosion.

“If that was to happen now, people would be getting therapy for years after. So I think all of us have got psychic scars, and I know I couldn’t wait to get out.

“I still have a lot of love for the place, but think the problems are still there. Everybody pretends everything’s better, but the things that are wrong keep bubbling up again.

“There are two sets of extreme views and no middle ground at all anymore. I’ve no time for any of the politicians there.

“I was watching Good Vibrations the other day, and there’s a brilliant sequence where you see all these explosions and stuff that was going on at the time. I just started crying, thinking about how all those people died for absolutely nothing.

If you’d said that to me at the time I would have disagreed, but when you look back with the benefit of age, wisdom and hindsight, it was such a waste … and it’s still going on.”

Moving forward to your arrival in London, do you remember the Pindar of Wakefield gig in Kings Cross, in what was my first TPE live experience?

“I do, and it was actually a very good venue.”

I got dewy-eyed mentioning the gigs that followed then, not least the Enterprise, Kennington Cricketers and The Clarendon in Hammersmith, before the band recorded Manic Pop Thrill.

“I think we played The Clarendon a few times. It was a bit more of a goth crowd there. We did get that kind of crowd for a while, not least because Steve’s voice on those first two singles was quite deep and seemed to suit that sound. Some of that crowd stayed on for Manic Pop Thrill, but not so many.”

I’m not sure if Manic Pop Thrill ever really reached the height of that live era for us – but maybe it wasn’t too far off.

“The thing about Manic Pop Thrill is that it’s never been remastered, and I’m sure it could sound a lot better. I remember being disappointed by the vinyl version, with quite a significant loss between the master tape and the vinyl.

“There was a CD version a year or so later and I was speaking to Damian about that the other day, saying we should have held back a few of those songs, because at the time of Babble we didn’t really have that many.

“I find Babble quite hard work. There’s a couple of songs there I’m ashamed of now, that just shouldn’t be there. They’re not good enough. But we didn’t have anything else. We had two or three of the most well-known songs we ever had, but there’s some stinkers on there too. I can’t understand why some people love Babble so much.

“I couldn’t listen to Millennium for quite a long time, but when I could I thought it had better songs on it, even though the making of that album was completely disastrous. It’s a miracle it even sounds as good as it does.”

That gets us on to the touchy subject of the recording of End of the Millennium Psychosis Blues, a period in which John threw a spanner into the works, announcing he was leaving, with Raymond – already in something of a state after a long spell of party excess – taking it all very badly and ending up hospitalised.

“The engineer was caught in the middle of all the stuff that was going on, and told me he used to go in each morning and would just do some kind of primal scream at the roof, to try and get rid of some of the tension.

“There was so much tension, you could cut it with a knife. We were staying in this fancy residential place, while John was holed up with his wife and his child. We only saw him when he came in to do his parts. It was a strange time, and lasted for ages.

“It became very toxic, and that happened on tour as well. We should never have let that happen. But we were young, and we didn’t really talk among ourselves. We do now and wonder how we let that happen.

“It took me years to forgive John for telling us he was leaving when he did. He could have waited until we had everything recorded, and then told us. I don’t know why he did it like that. It killed the vibe and made it very uncomfortable for everybody.”

Just John: The blogger's interview with John O'Neill in his Captains Log days (Photo copyright: Malcolm Wyatt)

Just John: The blogger’s interview with JJ O’Neill in Captains Log (Photo copyright: Malcolm Wyatt)

At this point I recall my interview with John at October 1988 at Guildford Civic, and how the circumstances all make a bit more sense now in retrospect. At the time the official line was that Raymond had a really bad bug, so John Marchini – set to replace John O’Neill at the end of the tour – came in a few weeks earlier than expected, with a few swapped roles within the band accordingly.

The former Undertone was expecting his second child at that time and was set for his final gig the next night, at Cardiff, with gigs ahead of that planned for mainland Europe, Russia, then America.

“Well, we had to cancel a lot of that. I was supposed to go to New York to do some press and was looking forward to it, but then couldn’t go, so I was gutted. But I needed the rest. I was in a very bad way.

“I was gone by then. I was in a really bad state. I remember Ciaran was really frightened. He could see I was going down very quickly. I’d been medicating for some time, but was very fragile.”

So this ‘bug’ was drugs, booze, and a bit of everything, was it?

“Yeah it was. I’d been feeling it for a long time, and it just kind of caught up with me. I was very emotionally fragile and really worried about what was going to happen, thinking we were going to break up, instead of thinking about it positively.

“By that time, Ciaran was really coming into his own as a song-writer, and I was as well, so I should have been pretty positive, thinking we wouldn’t miss John. But because we weren’t talking I wasn’t aware of how anyone felt about anything. Classic sort of men stuff, you know.”

You shouldn’t have been too worried. That was, after all, the album when we realised Ciaran could write great songs too.

“Yeah, and it made me up my game too. I wrote a few songs for the first album but then got a little complacent. I should maybe have had a couple more credits on Babble, ones I didn’t contest, but I don’t think that was anyone‘s fault.

“When they were set to re-release Babble, I was on the phone to John about Big Decision, saying I should get some kind of credit on that this time and he agreed. But it never happened as it was just an iTunes-only release.”

Despite having heard all that and seeing Raymond’s point of view entirely, I can still understand John’s thinking – he wanted to get home and do the best for his family. He wasn’t enjoying it and just wanted out.

“Well yeah, but it was him who wanted us to come to London in the first place. So I just thought it was really weird that he lasted about two years before deciding he wanted to go home again.

“I hadn’t wanted to come over in the first place. It’s funny how your life pans out though. I had a great girlfriend in Derry and was really happy there and thought we should at least try and record something there before coming to England. But he was adamant we needed to go over and was probably right actually.

“That decision chanced my life forever. I hated it that first year. It was pretty miserable. We had no money and we didn’t know anybody. And before playing with John I was in another band and DJ-ing, having one of the best years in my life.”

Was that the Left Banke era?

“Yeah. that was responsible for kicking John up the backside and getting him back into song-writing. He was really adamant he wasn’t going to do anything to do with music. I had bags of enthusiasm and energy and was gee-ing him up, not necessarily to start a band, but getting him back into music.

“Those days were fantastic. There were maybe only 50 people who ever went. We kept the prices really low and were told we needed to charge more and encourage more people to come. But we didn’t want that.

“These were people who didn’t really have a lot. But talk to those who were there and they talk about it like it was a religious experience! It was amazing and I even wrote a manifesto for it!

“Can you believe that? It was basically slagging off all these horrible DJs of the time with their fake American accents, playing shite music. I mean bloody hell – a manifesto for a disco? That’s a bit intense, you know!

“We would meet up on a Tuesday night and come up with a set-list of what we were going to play – the three of us, including my friend Mickey Rooney – all taking turns to play some tunes.

“Sometimes I would do the lights as well. We’d go out and have a dance ourselves too. It was just such a brilliant time, and so creative.”

You had a good time before that with Bam Bam and The Calling too.

“Well, that was my first band, I was about 22, just out of university. I’d always wanted to be in a band, but it had never really happened until then. I think I under-estimated my abilities. It was brilliant when I look back now. We were really fresh, and didn’t really sound like anyone else.

“After I left their sound changed, with one less percussionist and the guitar not so loud. We were more like Echo and the Bunnymen or Adam and The Ants. The guitar was much heavier, with me being a loud bastard!

“It was more poppy after I left, more like REM. That came to the fore with the two singles. But with the first, they used all our equipment, and John produced it as well, so there was a bit of a Petrols vibe about it.”

And I believe Bam Bam had a song around that time called That Petrol Emotion.

“We did. They had it when I joined, but never did it. I changed the whole feel of it. I was into John McGeoch at the time and added a really heavy reverby sound.

“John O’Neill obviously saw all this. I was seeing plenty of him as a friend, and we were listening to records all the time. Our focus was all music. It was a great time. We had no responsibilities, no kids, everyone just enjoying themselves.”

Petrols Days: Well, you didn’t think I could resist a shot of Raymond’s jump-jockey top, did you?

Getting a brief word in, I asked if Raymond ever came to England before his move, aiming to ask if he ever saw Eleven. But I only got as far as asking the first part.

“I only came through London once, on the way back from France. I was a real Francophile and was very snobby about England. I had no time for the place.

“I was the same with America, funnily enough. Everybody at our college said about going to America, but I was going to France, working there, going over for three months with £40 and coming back with £40. I was smitten with the place.”

Undeterred, I tried again. Did he ever see Eleven play?

“John and I had just started playing together at that point, and to be honest when we heard their John Peel session we were deeply unimpressed, thinking they’d got it completely wrong!”

I finally got to my point, how Eleven did a song called Love’s a Perpetual Emotion, and how I always wondered if it was that track – rather than the Bam Bam song – that inspired the name – a mis-heard lyric and in-joke that sowed the seed.

Raymond laughs at that, but insists that wasn’t the case.

“No, for the record it was definitely from a Bam Bam song. We tried all these different names. I can’t remember them all now.”

Before you relocated to London, I believe That Petrol Emotion had a girl singer.

“That first singer was actually my girlfriend in Derry. She looked great. She was great looking and really lovely … but she couldn’t sing. But John was convinced at the time she was the next Debbie Harry!

“I remember doing A Natural Kind of Joy with her, but she could never quite come in at the right place. I think maybe I put her under pressure a bit as well.

“After that it was me singing for a while, and then we did a gig over here at the Fire Station, where the Jesus and Mary Chain had their riot.

“We did one there and one in Derry that Christmas with me as the singer, and then we did one at the Mean Fiddler, where Damian sang a couple of songs that I couldn’t sing while playing guitar.

Scream Art: That Petrol Emotion’s first single, Keen

“I remember playing with the June Brides and Jon Hunter said, ‘You’ve got too many songs! We were playing for about 50 minutes, everything we had, and it all lacked cohesion – there was too much for people to take in the first time.

“Around that time Steve came in. He was John’s choice, whereas at the time I felt we should have held on. But it was taking time finding somebody. Every last one was absolutely useless!

“I remember one Scottish guy, dressed head to toe in leather. He had a copy of the Melody Maker and the NME, which he then put down on the floor, as if to say, ‘Here I am, I look good, and I’ve got all the music press’. Yet he couldn’t sing to save his life. I couldn’t quite work out why he’d bothered!

“Perhaps a lot of those who might have been up for the job might have lacked the confidence, but all those turning up hadn’t got a clue.

“And to be honest, I think it took Steve about a year to come good.”

Well, from the first moment we saw you, we were amazed … and Steve did seem to be the perfect front-man.

“I think he definitely became that. When we reformed, we had a gig at Hop Farm where we were on at midday, and I’ve never seen anyone work quite so hard to get the audience going.

“We were in our late 40s by then, yet his energy levels were phenomenal.”

I’ll wrap it up there for now. With part two of this three-parter following tomorrow, starting with Raymond on The Undertones reformation, his memories of that seminal band’s Casbah days, his relocation to London, TPE’s political stance, and the Pledge Music campaign for The Everlasting Yeah debut LP Anima Rising.

In the meantime, to find out more about the new album and how you can play your part in ensuring its release, check out this link.

Posted in Music | Tagged Anima Rising, Ciaran McLaughlin, Damian O'Neill, Derry, John O'Neill, London, Mickey Bradley, Pete Wylie, Raymond Gorman, Steve Mack, That Petrol Emotion, The Everlasting Yeah, The Undertones | 9 Comments

Hunger for the big time – the alt-J interview

Posted on August 14, 2014 by writewyattuk

There’s a real buzz about alt-J at present, with a band that met barely seven years ago set to release their second album, after major success with their debut.

But keyboard player/vocalist Gus Unger-Hamilton seems fairly level-headed about the experience.

Despite a Mercury Prize win in 2012, alt-J remain fairly unrecognisable to the general public. That said, more of us have heard them than we might realise.

In fact, two of their songs will be familiar to anyone who’s switched on BBC 2 this past year or so, and as well as being used for the channel’s idents, there have been several plays on TV series, films and commercials.

If word hasn’t reached you yet, it will soon, and there are plenty out there in the know, judging by the fact that they recently sold all 10,000 tickets for September 24’s London’s Alexandra Palace appearance in just 10 minutes.

Furthermore, debut LP An Awesome Wave was BBC Radio 6’s album of the year in 2012, with tracks like Breezeblocks, Fitzpleasure and Tessellate – the latter also covered by Ellie Goulding – widely aired.

A tour with Wild Beasts and several festivals helped increase their profile, that success not just confined to this nation, with major interest across Europe, America and Australia.

A momentous year ended with UK and US headline tours, the international dates continuing in 2013.

And while this year opened with guitar/bass player Gwil Sainsbury leaving, the remaining trio quickly adapted, with their second album set to follow next month.

Now, the band – formed at Leeds University in 2007 – are set to push on again, the release of This Is All Yours tied in with an eight-date UK tour – including two nights at Manchester Apollo – then 21 shows in North America.

Mercury Win: alt-J, then a four-piece, after success with debut album An Awesome Wave

The Mercury Prize is sometimes perceived as an albatross, with much-vaunted acts seemingly stalling after trumpeted arrivals, as discussed on these very pages recently with another winner, Damon Gough, of Badly Drawn boy fame.

But Gus – joined in alt-J by Joe Newman (guitar/lead vocals) and Thom Green (drums) – doesn’t see it like that.

“I think it’s too early to tell. Lots of successful bands won it, such as Arctic Monkeys. And I know it was just a really nice thing to happen for us. We’re not too concerned about how it affects our career. It was more something that we were really excited about at the time.”

But it’s the new album that’s on his mind at present, with the band eager to get out there and showcase it live.

“We just can’t wait for it to be out now, having finished it at the end of May. It feels like a long time ago, especially as we haven’t been out on tour in the meantime.”

Is the first single from the LP, Hunger of the Pines, a good example of what’s we’re in for?

“I don’t think it sounds like much else on the album, but it’s a good indication of the fact that we’ve matured as a band.

“Maybe our third album will sound more like that. But we thought it had to be the first thing we put out, because it was so new to us.

“We wanted something that would make people sit up and pay attention – making a statement about coming back with a new album.”

Video Still: From the Hunger of the Pines promo

I have to ask – not least as my eldest daughter is something of an obsessive in that respect – is there a Hunger Games link to the single, what with the title, accompanying video with the arrow attack and the lyric. Might you be featured on either of the coming two films?

“Interesting! I hadn’t really thought about that. I haven’t actually read or watched any Hunger Games books or films, other than a couple of trailers. I think it might more be a coincidence.

“We just like that kind of imagery, of death and violence mixed with a romantic idea of it. It’s more half a metaphor for whatever you want and half the literal idea of some guy being shot with loads of arrows!”

Is there a theme running through the album? There seem to be three songs about the Japanese city of Nara for example.

“That’s more a triptych of songs – Arrival in Nara, Nara and Leaving Nara. We were going to put them back-to-back, but the last piece sounded more of a reprise, one which worked nicely at the end.

“There’s not an intentional theme, but the strongest idea is of journeying to far-away lands, invented places or real places like Nara.

“I suppose it’s about travel and being in unfamiliar spaces, but I think we only realised that once we’d finished the album.”

There’s a more rootsy feel on another track already getting airplay, Left Hand Free, like Alabama Shakes meets Beck. Is that more indicative of where you’re at?

“Again, I don’t think that’s a song that sounds very much like the rest of the album. It was a song we wrote very quickly, just having fun.

“None of us expected to write a song like that. The fact it didn’t sound like us didn’t worry us though. We knew it was a good song, one we wanted our fans to hear.

“We quite like to mess around with people’s perceptions and expectations!

“But it’s funny that the album doesn’t sound much like the only songs most people have heard.”

I find you hard to categorise, which might not be a bad thing. You’ve been labelled experimental, electronic or art rock, even folk-infected dub-pop. Fair descriptions?

“We don’t really like any of those. Someone recently called us post-hip-hop, which we all quite liked – like hop-hop without the rapping!

“In an age in which we have an ease in finding new bands, you don’t have to convince people to buy an album without having heard it all.

“You can listen to a whole album on Spotify or wherever before making your mind up.

“The need to put bands in pigeon-holes has diminished, as you no longer have to go into a record shop and go through the indie section or whatever to find new music.”

Perhaps it’s just us writers that struggle to categorise you …

“I think it might be, yeah.”

Mercury Past: Gomez

The closest band I can equate you to is Southport’s Gomez. Were they an influence?

“I can honestly say they weren’t, and I’m pretty sure that’s the case with Thom and Joe too. But we’ve heard that before, so that’s interesting. Maybe I should check them out.

“Am I right in thinking they won the Mercury Prize too?”

They did, in 1999 with debut Bring It On, something I’d forgotten until Gus mentioned it.

So which influences did you share when you started the band at Leeds University?

“It’s been said many times, but I think Radiohead are probably one of the only bands all three of us really like.

Major Influence: Radiohead

“They’re a band whose career we watched very closely. If we emulate anybody’s career path, it would probably be Radiohead.”

You seem ideally suited for extra exposure through incidental music and film and TV soundtracks, not least the BBC 2 link – to the point where there will be many people out there saying ‘Ah, did they do that?’

“Yes! We were on the BBC 2 ident a whole year, and although I was on tour much of that time, when I came home, I put on the telly and heard our music.

“I reckon everyone in the country must have heard our music by now – yet the man in the street and so many people still haven’t heard of us!”

Are you still amazed by the public reaction to An Awesome Wave? I believe it’s sold a million copies and been streamed 200 million times on Spotify alone.

“It’s kind of mental really, with an incredible reaction. On one hand we’re kind of amazed, on the other we think, ‘well, we did work pretty hard’.

“We’re just very grateful, and hope people like our new album too.”

Not a bad result for a bunch of lads who only met while at university seven years ago.

“I know …. exactly!”

I understand your sound’s largely attributable to your days living in student halls.

“Definitely, it was partly down to the fact that we couldn’t make too much noise and partly down to the restrictions in place because of the instruments we had.

“Joe didn’t have an electric guitar, just an acoustic that belonged to his dad, while I had some basic secondary school keyboard, and Tom couldn’t use a full drum kit because of the noise.

“So we developed this quiet, intricate sound where you had to strain to not miss anything. We were musically whispering, so to speak.

“Now we like to make more noise with some of our songs, but I think that approach to song-writing will always be with us.”

After uni came a move to Cambridge, closer to Gus’ family base in Ely, with a spell on the dole while honing the alt-J sound.

“I went to sixth form in Cambridge and knew it pretty well. We wanted to be nearer to London, because by that stage we had a manager, a booking agent and a lawyer all based there, and had to go down quite a lot.

“Leeds was a long way off, not least when we couldn’t afford a train so had to get a coach.

“We thought about Brighton, but picked Cambridge because we perceived it as somewhere which didn’t really have much of a music scene.

“We also thought it would be good for us to get our heads down and work hard. And it proved to be a really good place to be for that year.”

Four Play: The original alt-J line-up

It certainly did, leading in time to a deal with Infectious Records, and that major breakthrough.

Now they’re a three-piece, following Gwil’s departure. What was the story there?

“Gwil wasn’t very happy with the lifestyle of being in a band. He didn’t really like going on tour and didn’t particularly enjoy being part of the music industry.

“He was quite cynical about everything – fair enough, but I think sometimes you just have to suspend that cynicism, be more diplomatic.

“You also want to keep your fans happy by giving them what they want. If that involves big shows, so be it.

“It wasn’t that much of a surprise really. We knew he felt like that for a while. But we didn’t really find it a hard transition into a three-piece.

“Our roles in the bands aren’t too strictly defined. It wasn’t like a string quartet losing a cellist. We found we could cover all the bases just through the three of us.”

I take it you salvaged your friendship accordingly?

“Absolutely. If he’d stayed in the band things would have deteriorated, but luckily he left at a point where we were all still really good friends.

“In fact, we all saw him last week. We hung out, and it was nice.”

Are you disappointed you’re only doing eight UK dates next month?

“It’s a bit of a shame we’re not doing more, but we don’t really have any say, unfortunately. Unless we throw our toys out of the pram and insist on more!

“We’re just one puppet on the string, and it all has to be choreographed. But there will definitely be a more extensive tour next year.”

I guess that added to the buzz about you, as seen with the Alexandra Palace sell-out. Did that seem unreal to you?

“It did really. I was really pleased, not least as it’s our first London headline show in a year and a half and we hadn’t put any UK tickets on sale in that time.

“It was gratifying to know we still had eager fans waiting to buy tickets the minute they were announced.”

Is there a big secret to building that profile and fan-base? Not many bands can do that.

“If there is, I don’t think we know it! I don’t know how it’s happened, but we’re extremely grateful.

“When we knew the ‘Ally Pally’ tickets were going on sale I was waiting to be told it wasn’t going well and we might have to scale back, do Brixton Academy again instead.”

A big North American tour follows, and you’ve already got in a lot of world travel. It’s a good way to see the world.

“It is, although it’s a funny way to see the world. You go to some places and don’t really see a thing other than the dressing room, the stage and a hotel.

“But we tend to do a lot of exploring and touristy stuff when we want to – getting days off built in when we want them.

“It’s amazing really, I’ve been to almost all the states in America. And I must admit I probably never would have gone to Australia if I hadn’t gone there on tour, yet now I’ve been a few times and love it.”

For tour details of alt-J, release dates and their forthcoming tour, head here.

Posted in Music | Tagged alt-J, An Awesome Wave, Breezeblocks, Cambridge, Fitzpleasure, Gus Unger-Hamilton, Gwil Sainsbury, Hunger of the Pines, Joe Newman, Leeds, Mercury Prize, Tessellate, This Is All Yours, Thom Green | 2 Comments

Lynott’s legacy lives on – introducing the Black Star Riders

Posted on August 3, 2014 by writewyattuk

A band formed out of the ashes of Thin Lizzy are currently rocking the UK, with the Black Star Riders on the crest of a wave after the success of their first album.

And according to guitarist Damon Johnson, new and old fans alike are guaranteed a relentless pursuit of 90-minute live perfection and appreciation of the four-minute rock song.

When Phil Lynott died in 1986, it seemed to mark a definite end to Thin Lizzy, arguably one of the most influential hard rock bands of all time.

In barely a dozen years they steadily evolved into world-beaters, splitting three years before the charismatic Dubliner’s death, the 36-year-old by then a solo artist.

But the band re-emerged in 1996, marketed as a tribute to Lynott, that five-piece still including founder member Brian Downey and 1974 recruit Scott Gorham.

That was 22 years after Gorham replaced original member Eric Bell, the Californian immediately proven integral to Thin Lizzy’s guitar sound.

A watershed followed at the end of 2012 as drummer Downey left while Gorham went ahead with a new incarnation of the band, ditching the old name and launching the Black Star Riders.

The new band’s debut album All Hell Breaks Loose was something of a statement of intent, with those off to see the Black Star Riders on their current tour promised a big night from ‘the next step in the evolution of the Thin Lizzy story’.

Gorham is partnered these days by vocalist Ricky Warwick, guitarist Damon Johnson, bass player Robbie Crane and former Megadeth drummer Jimmy DeGrasso.

And while treating with reverence all that came before, the Black Star Riders have plenty of belief in their new direction, as Damon stressed over the phone from a tour date in Leicester.

The 50-year-old Alabama guitarist and song-writer, previously with Brother Cane, Alice Cooper and Whiskey Falls, said: “We’ve been fortunate enough to step out of the shadow of Phil a little bit, and knew we had to if we were to continue to perform.

I’m guessing the name-change reflected the decision to carry on yet remain respectful of that past.

“I think that description is very accurate. We were in a unique situation, having played a part of Thin Lizzy. It was an honour to be asked to participate, and they were a tremendous influence on us.

“We knew the band was very strong, but Scott wanted to write new songs and create new music, yet felt shackled by a split decision by the other band-mates, the fan-base and everyone.

“Some were excited by the thought of new music under the Thin Lizzy name, but some were like ‘no, that wouldn’t be right’. So common sense said it wouldn’t be.

True Legacy: Phi Lynott

“Not only was Phil the front-man and the voice of the band, but he wrote all that stuff.

“It’s certainly hard – I won’t kid you. It was a leap of faith to step out of that security blanket. And it’s much easier to get promoters to book you if it’s a name that has history and a fan-base.

“But that brings me full circle and to the fact that we are so appreciative to the Thin Lizzy faithful – they’ve embraced the Black Star Riders in a way we could never have dreamed.

“That reinforced that we did the right thing to change the name, and we also delivered a pretty spectacular debut album that we’re proud of, and the fans are.”

Damon’s impressive CV before being recruited included tours with Van Halen, Aerosmith, Robert Plant and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Were those wild days?

“If you could sit all my kids down and say ‘OK, this is how your Dad lived for five or six years, they would say ‘yeah – that’s pretty wild!’

“They were great days, and I certainly learned a lot about the business, about song-writing and performance, and learned a lot about life.

“I’m very respectful of those times and feel pretty lucky, man, that I got to go through a lot of that stuff.”

Was December 2012’s re-brand an exciting time for this guitarist, who also wrote for Sammy Hagar and Stevie Nicks and worked with Ted Nugent, John Waite, Carlos Santana and Steven Tyler?

“It was incredibly exciting, mainly because we knew we had some great material. We knew we were sitting on some great songs, another thing that made the decision a lot easier.

“To finally get the album released and get out and book dates in the UK as Black Star Riders – that’s something we’ll never forget.

“We’re sat on the back of well over a dozen new songs, so we’re full steam ahead in the process of getting this second album ready.

“In fact, there’s no sitting about here, man – we’re pressing on, excited about the future!”

Nifty Fifty: Damon Johnson (Photo: MIM)

You’ve just turned 50 now, if I did my maths right …

“You’re a math genius, my friend!”

So when did you first hear Thin Lizzy?

“July 16^th, 1979, when I made my way into a Ted Nugent concert at the Von Braun Civic Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with some band called Thin Lizzy opening the show.

“I knew the name and I’d heard The Boys Are Back in Town on the radio a couple of times. You can use whatever adjectives you like, but it changed my life.

“I hit the streets the next day looking for as much Thin Lizzy as I could get my hands on.

“That started a steady 10-year study, starting with the guitar players and those great parts, and getting up close and personal with Phil’s writing, his phrasing and story-telling.

“So, rolling the clock forward to 2011 when I got a phone call saying the guys were interested in having me come and fill the guitar spot, that’s just crazy!

“It’s the stuff of dreams, and would make for a great movie.”

Although brought up in Alabama, Damon was born in Macon, Georgia, a city with plenty of musical heritage, not least its part in the Otis Redding story.

“I equate it with that myself, my friend. I’m really proud to be from there and it’s always nice to speak with people who appreciate the contribution that city made.

“And you certainly have to include Capricorn Records and Phil Walden, The Allman Brothers Band, The Marshall Tucker Band, and Wet Willie.

“I was there about five years. I’ve pretty much lived in Alabama my whole life, but Dad’s family was from Macon, where he and my Mom lived after they married.

“Huntsville, where I first saw Thin Lizzy, is known for its contribution to the space programme. As a younger kid we’d go up there because I was fascinated by all that.

“It was about an hour from where I grew up on a small farm, so anytime there was a concert I was there – for Kiss, Aerosmith, Sammy Hagar, Van Halen, who I saw three times.”

I put it to Damon that his band-mate Ricky Warwick – like Thin Lizzy founder member Eric Bell from Northern Ireland – perhaps has the hardest job as the Black Star Riders’ front-man, and therefore perceived in some circles as a substitute for Lynott, clearly a hard act to follow.

Front Man: Ricky Warwick

But Ricky is hardly a trainee, having also had a busy apprenticeship, fronting Scottish hard rock band The Almighty and also playing key roles with New Model Army, (briefly) Stiff Little Fingers and alongside The Cult’s Billy Duffy in Circus Diablo.

“Ricky is a proper artist in his own right, and an incredible song-writer. And for a guy so influenced by punk and the spirit and essence of everything that stood for, he also studied Phil’s writing.

“I just can’t imagine Scott could have found a better guy to sing those Thin Lizzy songs, giving it more integrity and respectful allegiance.

“I joined Thin Lizzy because I wanted to play those great songs with Scott Gorham and Brian Downey. But let me be clear about this – I’m in the Black Star Riders because of Ricky Warwick.

“I’m honoured and very happy to be in a band with that guy as one of my song-writing partners.

“He’s a great spiritual leader – with his commitment not just to his band but to his family, to putting in a great performance, to staying healthy, and all that.

“He’s a powerful role model for us, and I really don’t know how else to tell you – that’s why I’m here!

“It restored my faith in the belief of starting a new band too. Trust me, man, after all the bands I’ve been in, my initial reaction to starting again was ‘ugh – it’s so hard!’”

First Cut: Where it all started – 1971’s Thin Lizzy

There’s a clear Celtic influence on certain tracks on the first album. I get the impression that while America may be home, there’s plenty of Irish passion and original Lynott spirit.

“Ricky makes it authentic. Everyone has a lot of love and respect for that music in this band, but it wouldn’t be nearly as authentic if it was just a bunch of American guys borrowing from that Celtic musical library. Ricky’s the real thing, man!”

There’s a harder edge to you, musically. Do you think that was the way Thin Lizzy were going before Phil left?

“We’ve planted our flag firmly in the hard rock camp, and the pop music of the day when Phil was still around had more in common with guitars.

“Pop’s completely different now and we’d never even pretend to try to associate ourselves with that.

“Our roots are definitely in classic old school rock music, and we’re proud to carry that flag.”

Does having a former Megadeth drummer involved add to that ‘harder’ aspect?

“You know, some days it’s great and others it drives me crazy! But I love Jimmy DeGrasso so much and he’s absolutely brought the thunder to this band, certainly in the live set but in the studio as well.”

The Black Star Riders name suggests homage to Wild West roots too, not least with four of you coming from the States.

“Yes it does. I think it’s a great name. Coming up with band names is really a drag, but we just kept telling ourselves the music is going to define the name.

“If the music is great, the name will be great. So we’re definitely proud of it.”

One year on from the release of All Hell Breaks Loose, it’s seen a positive reaction. Are you proud of those first recordings?

“Yes, and yes! We made absolutely the right record, have learned so much and certainly had an opportunity to grow as a band.

“It didn’t do anything but help our confidence and let us know we were making the right decision. We’ll always be proud of that record – it’s a great place to start.”

And tracks like Bound for Glory seem to be pure Thin Lizzy.

“Absolutely. It was a lot of fun, but we’re just trying to write great songs. Scott certainly brings that Thin Lizzy guitar sound to the table, but if you strip the song down to just acoustic guitar it’s simple a really good song.

“The fact that our fan-base feels like it’s carrying on the Thin Lizzy spirit – that’s wonderful, and we’re proud of that.

“And we’re excited now to have an opportunity to follow all that up with a second album.”

Is there ever a chance of first Lizzy guitarist Eric Bell guesting one day, or – who knows – maybe even Midge Ure?

“Anytime we could have a chance to see those guys would be fantastic, and they would certainly be welcome.

“They were a part of that story, and it would be great to have a hang, sit down, have a coffee and talk about the old days.”

Drum Major: Brian Downey, way back then

Is Brian Downey still in the loop? Might he join you again at some point?

“We haven’t had a lot of communication with Brian, but it was certainly an honour to be able to play with him.

“And as my sister so fondly tells all our friends and family, you can go to Wikipedia and see my name on the Thin Lizzy page underneath Brian Downey!

“You never know what the future holds. But if it doesn’t happen, the success of the Black Star Riders is a good thing, whatever happens from here with the Thin Lizzy name.”

What do you think Phil Lynott or late Thin Lizzy guitar legend Gary Moore would have made of it all if they came down to see you play?

“I think they would see it and hear it and it would be impossible for them not to recognise the quality. That’s what they would be proud of.

“However this came together and wherever it sprang from, they couldn’t deny the fact that it’s quality stuff.”

Are the Riders properly wild between gigs? Is the candle still burning at both ends? Or have you caught Scott in a relatively ‘pipe and slippers’ era?

“He’s somewhere in between! Let me tell you something, and Ricky and I talk about it often, to go on that stage with that guy every night – he still carries himself with so much swagger and style.

Great Scott: Thin Lizzy veteran rocker Scott Gorham

“It definitely defies his early 60s age. You need look no further than all the females in the front three rows. You know what I’m saying? It’s pretty cool, man – they’re all watching the master do his thing!”

I take it you enjoy the buzz of the live work. Is there a good vibe backstage and on the bus?

“It’s funny you bring that up. I was talking to one of our road crew the other day about that. We had a couple of those positions we needed to fill and he said, ‘Damon, you do know everyone wants to work with the Black Star Riders?’

“I asked him what he meant and he said, ‘The word is out that it’s such a good hang and such a great bunch of guys. There’s no drama, and the band storms it every night on stage’.

“I said, ‘Wow, that’s a tremendous compliment!’ We’re all serious about our business, but at the same time we go to movies together, eat dinners together, and all that.”

At this point I’ll point out that the 1979 Thin Lizzy album, Black Rose – A Rock Legend, was my favourite of the band’s LPs.

As well as the fantastic musicianship and trademark dual guitars – in this case involving Gorham and Moore – there’s Lynott’s lyrical phrasing on tracks like Do Anything You Want To and the retrospectively-poignant Got to Give It Up.

Then there’s Waiting For An Alibi and so much more, right up to a spectacular seven-minute Roisin Dubh finale.

Hardly ‘new man’ material on dodgier numbers like S & M maybe, but along with the previous year’s Live and Dangerous it’s probably the closest this punk and new wave lover got to appreciating hard rock.

So is Damon still playing any of those songs or any other Thin Lizzy tracks live? I’d love to see you tackling Rosin Dubh for a start.

“We do a majority of Black Star Riders material, and the Thin Lizzy catalogue is so vast, but we do play Waiting For An Alibi sometimes.

“Hopefully in the coming years we could kick the tyres on playing the title song. It’s such a great guitar tour de force. We played that for the year and a half I was in Thin Lizzy and it’s an epic, to be sure.

“Again, that’s the cool thing about the place we find ourselves. I just love the fact that our fan-base is very pleased we are playing some of the Thin Lizzy catalogue.

“As we continue it will be great to continue to delve into that. But it’s going to be tough when we finish this second album and have two albums of Black Star Riders songs to choose from and have to decide which songs not to add to the set-list.”

Wild Days: Damon Johnson rocks out with Alice Cooper (Photo: sitorisonics)

Are you close to finishing that second album then?

“The writing’s just marching along, and the plan is to be in pre-production, working all this stuff out in the first week of September, then charge ahead from there.”

Are you all family men away from this?

“Everybody’s husbands and fathers, and that’s probably why our internet connection is so crappy here, Malcolm, because everybody wants to call home and talk to the kids, because in America everyone’s just waking up there.”

It was a poor connection too, to the point that I – not having realised they’d started the UK leg of their tour – thought Damon was talking to be from Alabama rather than Leicester! But that’s another story. Carry on, Damon …

“I think it’s another thing that unites us. We’re always showing each other pictures of our kids and talking about the plans we have when we’re home.”

And what kind of show can we expect from you on this tour?

“I think with anyone who comes, there’s one word those who come are going to say when they leave – ‘relentless’.

“We basically drop the first note and it’s unwavering for the next 90 minutes, man!

“We’re very proud of our performance as a band. It’s not a jam or loose ‘oh hey, let’s stretch this out, man’ thing.

“We’re fans of the four-minute rock song. It started with The Beatles and it was certainly carried on by Thin Lizzy.

“That’s certainly what Scott’s always been passionate about. We experienced that with him in Thin Lizzy and now with the Black Star Riders as well.

“And we’re going to cram 20 songs into that 90 minutes, so just be ready!”

The Black Star Riders are next in action at Tivoli, Helsingborg, Sweden (August 3), Preston’s 53 Degrees (August 5), Buckley’s The Tivoli (August 6), Birmingham’s The Asylum (August 7), and Norway’s Back in the Fields Festival, Alesund (August 9), returning to Europe for the Rock Cruise in Stockholm, Sweden (October 10) and an appearance at Great Yarmouth’s Vauxhall Holiday Park (October 19).

Those are followed by a 14-date UK tour in March, 2015. For further details of all those shows and more about the band, head to their website here.

If you enjoyed this feature, you might want to read this blog’s piece with Saxon’s Biff Byford – A Life in Denim, Leather and Spandex – from February, 2014, with a link here.

Posted in Music | Tagged Alabama, All Hell Breaks Loose, Black Star Riders, Brian Downey, Damon Johnson, Eric Bell, Gary Moore, Jimmy DeGrasso, Phil Lynott, Ricky Warwick, Robbie Crane, Scott Gorham, Thin Lizzy | Leave a comment

From Ultravox and Underpass to overground success – the John Foxx interview

Posted on August 1, 2014 by writewyattuk

The Doctor: John Foxx (Photo: Edge Hill University)

John Foxx has become something of a cult hero in discerning circles over the last four decades, making a big noise in the art and music world.

He has strong associations with the new wave of electronic music that saw us into the 1980s, and oversaw the recording of various happening bands in the following years.

He’s also been cited as a major influence on a diverse range of acts, including Gary Numan, Moby, Depeche Mode and Blur.

Having made his name as the initial front-man of Ultravox – succeeded by Midge Ure – he threw caution to the wind and went solo, a hit with Underpass paving the way for a critically-recognised career.

At one stage John turned his back on the music industry in favour of his first love, art, but later returned with a vengeance, with plenty of peer acknowledgement along the way.

Just one of the latest accolades to come his way arrived from unexpected quarters very recently, as a Lancashire university acknowledged the 65-year-old’s working journey with an honorary doctorate, in recognition of a somewhat pioneering career.

And that gave me the chance to catch up with the man himself – born Dennis Leigh in Chorley, Lancashire, in 1948 – and mull over that impressive CV and music and art career.

After three ground-breaking years and the same number of LPs with Ultravox, John signed as a solo artist with Virgin Records in 1979.

His albums Metamatic (1980), The Garden (1981) and The Golden Section (1983) helped define him, and in 1982 he set up his own recording studio in East London, its more famous clients ranging from Brian Eno and The Cure to Depeche Mode and Tina Turner.

Between 1985 and 1997, John withdrew from music and earned a successful living as a graphic artist under his real name.

He also became a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, a position he retains. But in 1997 he returned to music performance.

In 2006 he released an album to accompany a sequence of films, Tiny Colour Movies, and the following year a showcase of his artwork and music was presented at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.

He went on to tour Europe with his new band John Foxx and The Maths in 2011, and recently with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

That work continues, and in October, John is set to release a new album alongside Steve D’Agostino, Evidence of Time Travel.

Meanwhile, a new box set – The Virgin Years – is now out there, including those four ground-breaking albums released between 1980 and 1985 – from Metamatic through to In Mysterious Ways.

But first, that honorary doctorate in philosophy from Edge Hill University, awarded in the same week the Ormskirk seat of learning also bestowed a similar accolade on past writewyattuk subject Michael Pennington, best known for comic alter ego Johnny Vegas.

So, congratulations, John. I’m guessing you’re very proud of that acknowledgement. Have you had links with Edge Hill for a while?

Very pleased. There was no link at all. Came out of the blue. But we seem to be planning some interesting projects now…

You’ve travelled a fair bit with your work. Do you consider yourself a Lancashire lad all these years on?

You can take the lad out of Lancashire but you can’t take Lancashire out of the lad.

What do you see yourself as, first and foremost – musician, artist, photographer, teacher?

An artist – everything else came from that.

I worked in Chorley for several years, and you were one of the few names recognised as being part of this proud Lancashire market town’s cultural history. Do you keep in touch with your home-town roots? And do you recognise the Chorley of your youth in today’s town?

Chorley seems to have suffered some terrible planning – who decided to put that speedway straight through the centre of town? What happened to Duxbury? How come all the main streets are empty of shoppers and filled with trash shops? What happened to the market? The town has gone from one of the North’s best – a lively interesting place full of good shops, markets and pubs – to exhausted confusion. It can still be rescued, but it urgently needs a sensible rethink.

Cool Contemporary: Foxx’s fellow Chorleian Phil Cool

I believe the comic and impressionist Phil Cool was in the year above you at St Augustine’s (which has now been knocked down, having been incorporated into the present Holy Cross High School). Did you know each other?

We knew each other very well at school and after. He broke my nose on St Mary’s Rec and says it’s one of his greatest achievements! Later on, I sometimes used to go with him to club gigs at Horwich Loco and Wigan Labour Club. He did about 20 years of that. No wonder he’s good.

It sounds like you had a pretty typical North-West working class background. I believe your Dad was a miner and a boxer. Where did he fight?

All over. He had around 110 fights and even fought on fairgrounds for his summer holidays, taking on all-comers. He said it was no trouble at all.

Was there a sense of Catholic identity in those early years, or a religious divide in the town? And was faith important to you or something to break away from?

There was absolutely no religious divide, the kids then never thought about that. I got a lot from Catholicism – a decent education, a love of ancient music from the sung masses in Latin and an intro to Renaissance painting – as well as the usual guilt and shame stuff. But that evaporated quickly, leaving all the rest.

You went on to art college in Preston. Were those important days for you?

Absolutely the best thing I ever did was go to art school – it changed everything. Beautiful women, great friends and a future. Psychedelia was happening, the 1960s were happening all around and it all seemed to be coming from art schools – that was where you went if you didn’t quite know what you wanted to do. Then you met your generation and realised that everyone else wanted to make things happen too.

What was your first band, Woolly Fish, like, and where did you play?

Good on a good day. We only lasted a few gigs. One was at Preston Top Rank. It had a circular stage, so all the guitar leads came out as it turned around. You could only hear the drummer.

The other gig was at a cricket club. We borrowed an early but powerful smoke machine. Couldn’t see a thing. Then this fireman in full respirator kit appeared through the fog looking like Darth Vader. Everybody else had gone home. That was the last gig.

You got a scholarship to the Royal College of Art – did getting to London change the way you saw the world?

Completely.

Tiger Lily: The short-lived glam band that gave rise to Ultravox

Tiger Lily: The short-lived glam rock band that gave rise to Ultravox, with John Foxx in the middle

Did punk make a big impression, not least as you were among that whole scene?

Well – I think we made an impression on punk – we were in at the beginning and the only band with a synthesizer – but we could make it scream like nothing you’d ever heard before – and it delivered trouser-flapping bass too. Altogether we could make a beautifully filthy noise. Nobody else was doing that sort of thing.

What was it that clicked about electronic music and experimentation for you – and was there a defining moment?

Hearing Tony Bassett’s homemade Theremin – he made it from a trannie radio in Chorley 1966. It howled like hell when you came near it. Great fun. I realised electronics could make sounds you’d never heard before.

Exclamation Era: That first Ultravox album, from 1977

You quickly carved your own reputation as a solo artist, but did you ever regret stepping away from Ultravox as their biggest success followed?

No – I signed with Virgin when it was a tiny company in a backyard off Portobello Road. (Richard) Branson was brilliant. This meant I was free to do what I wanted, had the first drum machines and synths and knew how to use them – then I got my own studio. It was all much more fun than being in a band.

You had a lot of success with the recording studio in Shoreditch, with lots of great artists passing through. Were those good years initially?

Very exciting. A great band in every week, making seminal singles and albums by the truckload – Depeche Mode, Heaven 17, The The, Eno, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nick Cave, Boy George, The Cure, Yazoo, and dozens of others. Plus, we could experiment with new sounds and methods and carry on all night. What more could you want?

You said you felt increasingly removed from the music scene though, hence the decision to sell up and return to graphic art – moving away from this John Foxx character you’d created.

Things change, scenes fade – the energy went by the mid-’80s so I legged it for a while to get back to art. I was lucky again, because that also succeeded. Then Acid happened about 1987/8, so I was right back into it all again, as a video-maker and part of Bomb the Bass and Nation 12. Then I started putting out my own records again.

By the late ‘90s you were back on the music scene again, and have remained busy since, with lots of acclaimed output and collaborative work. What changed?

Everything got interesting again – The acid scene happened in London, then Warp kicked off in Sheffield, and Manchester happened. Imaginative music was back again. We had a studio just by Tony Wilson’s headquarters in the Sankeys building. Very lively.

It must be nice to hear other artists acknowledge your influence on their work?

That’s the best, most satisfying thing, moving into other generations. It’s hard enough to be successful in one generation, but if you can move beyond that, you live a lot longer.

Finally, what advice might 65-year-old Dennis Leigh offer his teenage name-sake, 50 years younger, bound for art college in Preston in 1964?

Go for it, my son. This is a very good time.

With thanks to Jennifer Morgan at Edge Hill University for arranging this interview, and John Foxx for his time and thoughts and giving such great answers.

This is a revised edition of a Malcolm Wyatt interview initially published in the Lancashire Evening Post on Thursday, July 31, 2014. For the original online version, head here.

For all the latest on John Foxx, head to his official website here.

And there’s also Phil Cool’s version of the broken nose incident here.

Posted in Books Films, TV & Radio, Music | Tagged chorley, Edge Hill University, Institute of Contemporary Arts, John Foxx, lancashire, Metamatic, Phil Cool, Preston, Royal College of Art, Shoreditch, Ultravox, Underpass, Virgin | 8 Comments

The Wedding Present / The Treated – Hebden Bridge – July 26, 2014

Posted on July 28, 2014 by writewyattuk

Valley Venue: Hebden Bridge’s Trades Club (Photo: Malcolm Wyatt)

What a night. One of those memorable summer gigs at an intimate venue where you’re sweating like hell and being jolted around anyway, so might as well dance.

Did I mention how hot it was? David Gedge certainly did, and loanee guitarist Sam – in for Patrick – was staring at his tortured fingers, seemingly in shock, by the end. Playing guitar so passionately can’t be good for your health.

Yet bass player Katharine’s approach suggested it was all just par for the course. Imagine the girls in the Robert Palmer videos actually being able to play, and you’re not far off. Cool, seemingly effortless at times, yet shit-hot. Yep, back to that heat again.

As for Charlie on drums, well, there was no respite all night, but he was clearly up for the cause.

There was a fifth member too, Danielle quietly sneaking on and off to add keyboard and sublime harmonies, looking embarrassed as she returned from behind the curtain to take the applause at the end.

Hot Spot: Hebden Bridge’s Trades Club (Photo: Malcolm Wyatt)

The Man Gedge might have employed more than 20 gigging members of his troupe over the years, but The Wedding Present have never been anything less than a proper band. And here was the proof.

Earlier on, we were treated to erm … The Treated, another band with Leeds roots, not far from home in this relatively small yet pretty much perfect venue.

The trio’s main strength was female bassist Stephanie’s counter-vocals to the main-man, while their infectious drummer couldn’t sit down for the excitement of it all.

I was going to say they reminded me of The Pixies, and that was before they gave us a fine rendition of Doolittle’s Tame.

They played us single Platinum and Pearl and plenty more, while raving about their first airplay that night, via the BBC Introducing service.

Meanwhile, the light show and noise levels suggested the walls were actually throbbing visually as well as sonically. Just the right side of heavy, I’d say.

The Weddoes struggled with the sound as well as the heat early on, the levels a little out on El Rey’s The Thing I Like Best About Him is His Girlfriend.

But a little tweaking does wonders, and we were properly away for Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm, the first time I’d heard that old Salowka-era favourite live for many moons.

It was something of an alternative hits package from there, Seamonsters’ blistering Suck followed by 2012’s Meet Cute, David and Danielle’s vocals complementing that sheer guitar power.

Those searing six-strings shone on Two Bridges, complete with hand-claps, and then came Take Fountain’s Ringway to SeaTac and Valentina’s 524 Fidelio, the harmonies again spot-on.

There was a hint of what was to come later this year with the Watusi 20^th anniversary tour on Gedge’s hymn to optimism Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah, and a glimpse of what I was going to miss the next night at the same venue with Mini’s Convertible.

I’d been singing along to Click Click on the way over the Pennines, and a few hours later got the real live deal, one of many TWP moments that have provided a living soundtrack for this boy.

The Watusi theme continued with Swimming Pools and Movie Stars, before 1990’s hypnotic Crawl and crowd favourite Brassneck, a few further technical glitches seeing the song properly split in two.

Big Rat and Let Him Have It were further reminders if needed as to what a fine album Watusi was, and then came the Fall-esque genius move that was 1995’s Sucker, the penultimate 7” Weddoes vinyl I shelled out for, bringing back memories of days running for the train after the last song at Manchester’s Hop and Grape.

Talking of classic singles, we were motoring now, the sublime Blue Eyes from three years before, then – never sullied by age – My Favourite Dress taking nostalgia to the extreme.

The sweat was pouring as we moved on to Bizarro’s Granadaland and Bewitched, before being sent home on a further high with one from the mists of time, the pre-social-messaging era anthem You Should Always Keep in Touch with Your Friends.

So another night of Wedded bliss came to a close, transporting me back home in one piece after a perfect night in Yorkshire’s Happy Valley.

* With thanks to Mal Campbell and Mike Middleton, always in the know at Hebden Bridge Trades Club.

* Look out for an interview with David Gedge, from Saturday’s Hebden Bridge visit, on this blog very soon.

* For the writewyattuk verdict on 2012’s Valentina and all things Weddoes, head here.

Posted in Music | Tagged Bizarro, David Gedge, Hebden Bridge Trades Club, Pixies, Seamonsters, The Treated, The Wedding Present, Valentina, Watusi, Yorkshire | 2 Comments

Kick it like Dick, Kerr’s – the story behind No Man’s Land

Posted on July 25, 2014 by writewyattuk

History Makers: The Dick, Kerr’s Ladies in 1921

In a year of widespread First World War centenary commemorations, a Lancashire theatre company is focusing on another aspect of that defining era – the rise of women’s football.

And Northern Irish actor/playwright Stephanie McKervill is just the latest to tackle the Dick, Kerr Ladies FC story in her new production, No Man’s Land.

Preston, Lancashire, played a major role in the development of professional football, as anyone who knows the timeline of the Beautiful Game will tell you.

What’s more, the history of the women’s game also had key links with this North-West heartland.

Dick, Kerr’s Ladies FC was one of the earliest women’s football teams, founded in 1917 and soon attracting huge crowds in their home town.

This isn’t the place to read that story in detail, but thankfully there are plenty of publications and online spaces dedicated to this remarkable tale.

For now I’ll just add something of a potted history, revealing that within three years, what started as a works team ended up representing England in the first of four internationals on home soil against a French side, played in front of 25,000 people at Preston North End’s Deepdale home.

A French tour followed, but despite widespread fame and popularity, the Football Association banned the club from using its pitches in 1921, in what turned out to be a 50-year ruling.

However, the Dick, Kerr’s Ladies’ continued, with Canadian and US visits following. And their legacy lives on, not least thanks to writers like Gail Newsham and Barbara Jacobs, a number of theatrical productions, and a BBC documentary.

It was the latter that first turned Clitheroe-based Steph on to the story. So what was it about the Dick, Kerr’s Ladies story that appealed to her?

“I first heard the story on a TV programme in 2011, and it was something that just stuck with me. As a writer I’m very interested in true stories.

“It’s those interesting snippets of information about people you can really draw on, trying to find out what those characters were like and what their individual stories might be.

“With this team of women at that time, I just thought ‘my goodness, what kind of lives did they lead, and how does nobody seem to know about this?’”

The initial Dick, Kerr’s team comprised of female workers at the Preston loco and tram manufacturer in 1914, taking time out from producing munitions for the war effort.

It was felt that such organised sporting activity would be good for morale and ultimately aid production.

And what started as informal matches during breaks led to much more thanks to Dick, Kerr’s office worker Alfred Frankland, who organised public matches.

That venture soon proved a major success, and one early clash on Christmas Day in 1917 pulled in 10,000 spectators to Deepdale.

Three Christmases later, a Boxing Day clash with a French tourist side drew 53,000 spectators to Everton’s Goodison Park.

Furthermore, regular Pathe News footage shown at UK cinemas ensured drafted-in talents like Lily Parr and Alice Woods – both originally from St Helens – became big names.

Those two leading lights are at the heart of Stephanie’s play, but No Man’s Land doesn’t just try to interpret their roles in the Dick, Kerr’s success story.

“It’s a mixture of truth and fiction. There were three books I read, but the main one for me was Gail Newsham’s In A League of their Own!

“There are characters I know lots about thanks to research from people like Gail, such as Lily and Alice.

“Their stories were really interesting to read about, as it was to hear about the other characters. But there’s still not that much available about some of the others.

“I’ve used real names in there, and all the surnames who played are there, but for a lot the only thing we know is that they were in the starting team.

“That allowed me to use a little artistic licence, putting them in situations I believed they would have been in at that time.”

An FA ban at the end of 1921 largely curtailed the team’s success, the game’s authorities feeling – at least privately – that the Dick, Kerr’s Ladies’ popularity threatened the men’s game.

That too was something that made an impression on Stephanie.

“I personally connected with this as I once played cricket for Ulster. So while I wasn’t a footballer, I had a hard time at school training with the boys, getting bullied a little.

“As it turned out I gave that up, because I had more love for theatre than sport.

“But hearing this story and learning that women had gone through all this 100 years before, I wondered why we were still going through it all. That resonated with me.

Football Legacy: Stephanie McKervill

“No Man’s Land is about the journey of the Dick, Kerr’s Ladies from creation until the FA banned women’s teams from playing in their stadia.

“It’s a journey over four years, from the mid-point of the war to when the men returned home, looking at how life changed and how the team grew and became more and more popular.

“In effect they became the England national team, and we follow the story until the time when the FA turned around and told them they didn’t want them anymore.

“These women were playing at an important time, around a year before women got the vote, so it’s all hand-in-hand with the suffrage movement.”

It seems somewhat ironic that in a period which opened up the world to women, and at least led to them gaining the vote, the FA seemed to be swimming against the tide.

“Very much so. I think at first it was felt we needed the entertainment, the chance to have something light-hearted and sporting going on while the men were away.

“But later they wanted women back to where they were. One other problem was that the women’s league was set up for charitable causes and was raising money for hospitals and returning soldiers. The FA wasn’t making money in the way they were with the men’s game.”

The poster publicising No Man’s Land depicts two actors recreating an evocative 1920 photograph of opposing international captains shaking hands and kissing before a match at Preston, one that might suggest a gay sub-plot.

“Well … society now looks at that and might think it suggests a lesbian story, and there is a hint of that within the play, which includes a lesbian character.”

In fact, I could add at this point that Lily Parr, who settled in Goosnargh and nursed at Whittingham Hospital after the FA ban, was openly lesbian.

“It was an iconic photo from that period, and again maybe shows a difference between then and now.

“There’s something very different from today’s men’s game – not least the relationship between the teams and camaraderie of the game.”

For her part, Steph’s early interest in drama led to stage management roles with the National Youth Theatre in London as a teenager.

After studying a BA in acting in Carmarthen, a six-month exchange at California State University and work all over, including a year in Germany, she re-settled in the North-West.

So how did this Ballymena girl become a creative director with the rural Lancashire-based Ribcaged Productions theatre company?

“Ribcaged was started by Owen Phillips in Ribchester in 2005, and I became involved in 2010, having met Owen at the National Youth Theatre.”

Company Founder: Ribcaged Productions’ artistic director Owen Phillips

Steph ended up getting called up to Edinburgh to help Owen with a few shows, and after that moved to Manchester, then to Clitheroe.

“The company’s really pushing forward now, and we’re becoming quite successful, which is fantastic. It’s been a real adventure.”

Ribcaged has so far been commissioned for six performances of No Man’s Land, starting at the Cloudspotting Festival in Gisburn Forest on August 2.

That’s followed by further Lancashire shows at Lowther Pavilion, Lytham on August 14, at Blackburn Empire on September 25, 26 and 27, then The Grand at Clitheroe on November 11.

“There’s a cast of 13, and it’s very much an ensemble show. There are leading characters, but hopefully when people come and watch it they’ll see every person has a deep and interesting story.

“The reason I fell in love with this story and doing this as a play was related to my own story as a struggling actress, trying to find work and interesting roles.

“There wasn’t really anything for women, so I wanted to write something that was meaty and had something interesting for women to get their teeth into.

“We have 11 women in this show, and they’re all really excited about performing, which is fantastic.

“We start with Cloudspotting in Stephen Park, Slaidburn, where the organisers are really keen to get theatre involved as well as music.”

Fellow Creative: Ribcaged creative director Richard Hoyle is one of just two ,ales in the 13-strong cast

You held auditions in Clitheroe at the end of May – did many locals come forward to try out for roles?

“We had a really good response, and the majority of the actors are local, which is fantastic, because everyone in acting thinks that if they’re going to be taken seriously they need to head down to London.

“We’ve got actors from Blackpool and Manchester as well. Above all, they’re all from Lancashire!”

“It’s really nice to be able to help create jobs and have locally-based actors ready to work.”

Through her involvement with Ribcaged, Stephanie has clearly clicked with her new surroundings.

“I stayed in Manchester a few years, but never ended up getting a lot of acting work there – it was always down in London or elsewhere.

“When a full-time opportunity arose to push Ribcaged further, that brought me here. I’m from a town where the theatre scene isn’t great, and I’m very interested in rural touring.

“It’s about trying to engage with people who wouldn’t normally come to the theatre – trying to reach out to those people.

“This is a historical play, with a sporting theme, so hopefully will engage more people than a Shakespeare play might. It’s just something a bit different to come and see.”

Ballymena Belle: Steph McKervill

For performance details of No Man’s Land and Ribcaged Productions, head to the company’s Facebook page here.

This is a revised version of a Malcolm Wyatt feature first published in the Lancashire Evening Post on July 24, 2014. For the original online version, head here.

Posted in Books Films, TV & Radio, Comedy & Theatre | Tagged Alice Woods, Ballymena, Clitheroe, Dick Kerr's Ladies, Gail Newsham, lancashire, Lily Parr, Preston, Ribcaged Productions, Stephanie McKervill, women's football | Leave a comment

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