We've still got that Fuzzbox somewhere...

Back in the day, big hair and big fun. Fuzzbox soundtracked the second half of the 80s. And now? 

30 years ago, We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Going To Use It were big. They got profile quickly, shooting fast from a bright idea to pop reality. At the height of their punk notoriety, Vix and crew used to sashay round radio and TV stations with ridiculously huge hair – pink, orange, red - bags of attitude, and an Elvis sneer. They kicked off with a silly name and punched out a few punk songs. Then, after three years of punk thrash, bingo! Fuzzbox hit the jackpot with pure late 80s pop.

And now it's 2015. I'm sitting in Yorks coffee bar with survivors Vix and Maggie. Vix is an old pal by now – I've seen most of her post-Fuzzbox incarnations. Then? A snotty kid with a great line in throwing shapes. Now? An accomplished trooper, comfortable on stage, with one very distinct new thing going for her and the band: Radio 2, the biggest station in Europe is paying attention.

Fuzzbox are having another go. 

Terry and Gerry! The reunion! The tour! It's only been 27 years.....

They're back. Just don't gob on them this time round, if you wouldn't mind.

Skiffle Punk? This one might have passed you by, especially if you're not of a certain age. When word trickled out that a much loved band might just be reforming, there was a muted but marked explosion of joy in certain quarters. 

Who are the band? Terry and Gerry, that's who. The guys who did skiffle punk. Who would show up on gigs with Hank Wangford. Or the Nightingales. The guys who scored Peel sessions, to the joy of many (but remember, Peel fans: we did them first at BRMB, and there's a feature length Terry and Gerry video at the bottom of this post, with lots of BRMB studio and 80s Brum footage). 

Picture the scene; it'll come back to you. You're at a punk gig in the mid 80s; elaborate mohicans, inventive mascara and piercings are in evidence; not that many tatts, though. Heavy heavy reggae bass vibes pump through the sound system, and indeed through your guts. You could cut the air: it's full of exotic smoke, and the odd whiff of stale sweat. And then - these baby faced wholesome guys walk out on stage, in tuxedos and string ties. Stand-up bass, acoustic guitars, washboard. 

You'd expect them to get slaughtered, right? Pah. Not a chance. 

Terry and Gerry's secret weapon is unstoppable, mountain-moving, ferocious, beaming enthusiasm. Breakneck, super-tight song delivery that makes the Ramones look like blissed-out progrockers. 

Terry and Gerry 2014: Su, Terry, Gerry and Mick      Photo Brian Homer

And now they've re-formed. Pretty much all the original players in one place: Terry and Gerry of course, Su Sonic and Destroyer Mick Howson. Probably no hurdy-gurdy in the set, though. 

So why the reunion? Is this for tax reasons?

Terry: Ha! We're trying to raise some VAT to try and help the Tory Government!

Gerry: To pay for our NHS bills!

There's been a spate of 80s bands, mainly pop,who – suddenly – reappear on tour after years away. I guess the royalties must have dried up.

Terry: Ours dried up a long time ago!

So, back in the day, there you were, doing benefits for the miners, doing Peel sessions. You were a very very big name, out of Birmingham, for a brief period. But all that was more than a generation ago. So why the reunion?

Terry: It's ten years since John Peel died. Obviously yourself, Mike (Davies) and John (Slater) did a lot for us locally. But John Peel got us established nationally. He had that connection. There's an October concert commemorating John Peel in Stockton on Tees, with the Nightingales and a lot of other bands of that ilk. Gerry got in touch; we were all still alive and in the same country – and all playing music.

Gerry: But we thought it was pointless getting together for one concert. So I put some feelers out. People, thankfully, weren't as rude as the promoters. We tried to find some of the original promoters – Dave Travis, in Birmingham – so now we've strung together a John Peel commemorative tour. With an EP, with new songs. It's going to be a good thing. 

So we got together to see it it still works. And it was the most amazing, magical, energetic thing that brought back everything that was good about 80s Brum, and Terry and Gerry! 

Terry: It was amazing.

Gerry: After the first rehearsal, I went home feeling 20 years younger. 

When you're doing something special, you never know at the time, do you? Because you're in the middle of it. And you guys did put your finger on something. But you never know if you can recapture those golden days...

Terry: I'm confident about the music. Whether anyone else will enjoy it as much as we do...

What about the audience? When Miles and Erica played the Hare and Hounds, there were chairs at the front for old crocks like me. When Steve Gibbons played, there were chairs all the way back...

Gerry: I don't know... we've got a few younger followers. We do get emails from younger bands who have been influenced by us – The United Stoats of America, who do some of our tracks. McCavity's Cat, a Canterbury rockabilly band. Because I've been playing in the folky world, I've heard lots of our songs as floor spots. Wait a minute? That's my song! 

That must feel great.

Gerry: Oh, it's brilliant! It's really nice. 

Of course, as is the way these days, everyone is in different bands as well – Terry is running Forro Social, and Gerry has the Gerry Colvin Band. 

Terry: I'm in three bands at the moment. And Mick Howson is in the Destroyers, who are fantastic. 

And here's an exclusive cut, live in the back room, recorded Monday 18th August

So at the gig, are we in for a Brum nostalgiafest? I get the feeling there will be a lot of faces there. 

Gerry: We are not resting on our laurels. There'll be an EP, with five new songs and a Yeah Yeah No song. And vintage T-shirts. But Su will play the same washboard we used twenty seven years ago. 

But it is a different climate for you guys now. That's why I kicked of with that gag about reforming for tax reasons. You won't make a lot of money off the record – although it won't cost as much to record. But you do stand a chance of making more money off the gig and merchandising.

Terry: For us, music was first. We wanted to live from our music. It was lovely to be a musician. 

I'm not for a minute saying that that's why you did it in the first place. But the other side of the coin is, as working musicians, the challenge is how you can make a living from your work. 

Gerry: It is. With records – I still call them records – somebody else is making money out of them. But live performances are different. And we never really managed to get the energy of the live performances on record.

There was a huge political impetus to the scene you were part of. I think it was largely driven by opposition to Margaret Thatcher. 

Terry. Yes. I do wonder what's happened to the kids today. What aren't they more angry?

Some of them are....

Links:

Terry and Gerry's facebook page
Terry and Gerry play the Hare and Hounds on Sunday 2 November. Tickets here

See also
The Stuff Of Wonder
Neon Hearts

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70s heroes: Jim Hickman and Little Acre. Bostin.

The day after Glastonbury wound up, I went to Lower Gornal to meet Jim Hickman. 40 years ago, Hickman was the lynchpin of a killer band that came so, so close to getting there: Little Acre. They had impeccable credentials and terrific Black Country and Birmingham connections. As is so often the case, success and ultimate failure was driven by factors well out of the band's control. Little Acre had a rotating personnel of up to ten, which lead to crowded stages and small returns from gigs. But they were one of the UK's very first successful blue-eyed soul bands. Working in that chronological gap between Rock and Punk, they had a lot of room to move.

Jim was a bass player and powerhouse singer. He's getting on now, could be healthier, but the voice is still there. We met up, caught up... and talked for hours. 

I think you were the first band we pulled into the old BRMB to do a session. All of you, in one tiny studio, recording backing tracks live to stereo, bouncing down if we had to, and then adding vocals. 

I remember the night very well, it was fabulous. We put the tracks on a private album, just for old friends. Mostly it was a cassette of a reunion gig at the Coach and Horses, Willenhall. Roy Williams did a fabulous job on it, on reel to reel. And the BRMB session tracks.

I'm glad they survived! Very little BRMB stuff did. Tell me how the band came together.

I'd just come back from Italy – we'd gone out as a band called State Express, to do 15 days. We stayed three years. We were based in Turin. Three of us came back, two stayed, I did a normal job for a year and when the other two came back, we got together with a few other people in a cellar in Upper Gornal. It went from there, other people came in, some left... 

Tell me something. I remember UK soul bands in the 60s. Mostly they were, frankly, embarrassing. Guys trying to sound like Otis, and failing miserably. Same with the blues bands. If you dig out very early Stones R'n'B cuts, they're pretty awful. But by the 70s, things seemed to have sorted themselves out. You weren't the only ones... but you were one of the bands that hit that spot. Can you explain why?

Influences. Little Acre, as a band of people, enjoyed each other's company. We liked each other. We liked what we were doing. And State Express, the first band, used to back all the soul acts that came over – James and Bobby Purify, Edwin Starr, Sam and Dave... loads of them. And that's where I learned a lot. One of my favourite ladies was Inez Foxx. We did a fabulous tour with her. She was a fantastic Hammond player. Really, really nice. And we did Mocking Bird, and I sang Charlie's part. It used to change on the night, and she insisted that it changed. Experiment with it!

So you got some groove right from the source.

They'd explain things. You'd get this rhythm... 'think of it this way: one foot on the pavement, one foot in the gutter'. Boom–tschk, boom-tschk. They'd use these analogies and you'd get it. 

Now it's gone worldwide

That's the web. Here's a story about the web....I played with Ricky Cool and the Rialtos after Little Acre. Ricky's still going; lovely man. We did a reunion with the Rialtos a couple of years back, at the Robin Hood in Bilston. There was Ricky Cool with the Rialtos, the Big Town Playboys and the Hoola Boola Boys. A night for Ricky, fabulous guys. We were sat in the dressing room having a drink. And all of a sudden the door bursts open and Robert - Robert Plant - walks in, cursing us. 

'You didn't tell me you were bloody playing tonight!' 

Cos the Rialtos were the Honeydrippers for one tour, you see. 

'We didn't know you were in the country!'

'Well, I gotta get up and do something!' 

Which he did; he played for an hour. Anyway, I went to the bar to get a drink, and the place was rammed. There were people there I hadn't seen for years. And I asked a few of them how they knew this was going on... and it was on the net. Great night, and we all got a good wedge. 

Little Acre came to an end – and we'll come to that – but along the way, they recorded with Bob Lamb, in the same King's Heath bedsit studio he used for the first UB40 album. So in a way, they bridged from the soulful sixties right up to the stroppy late seventies; as they were winding down, UB40 were winding up. And their paths crossed in the same studio. 

We recorded some really good stuff. We used to go over, and get him out of bed...

So what happened with Little Acre? You should have made it. You were plenty good enough. 

We were playing the right places in London, we were lined up with a manager, he'd got Atlantic Records nicely warmed up. And then, punk hit. And everybody wanted a punk band. And of course, just before us, there'd been a band called Kokomo. They'd made it hard for other bands like us. A couple of them were a bit starry. So nobody wanted big line-ups.

I think that the industry always wants new kids, not only so they can present the next big thing, but being very cynical, because they can sign them cheap on dodgy contracts. You guys had been knocking around for ten years or so. 

But kids today aren't that stupid.

I've heard a few stories... But that was basically it?

It was sad at the time. We were talking to Mercury Records as well; Chris Rea, bless him, had introduced us. And it all went Pete Tong too. 

To cut a long story short, two members of the band were detained at her Majesty's pleasure for three months, just as punk came in, and that was enough to lose the impetus.

So you carried on working?

Yes. I was with Ricky Cool and the Rialtos, and then Zoo-Q, and then I started writing my own material. And I went off and did other things. The music's not a career. I just write the songs. Now we (Jim and Dave Lowe) work on a laptop, with a time signature, an acoustic guitar, and vocals - I very rarely do retakes. Dave Lowe does the rest.

Its not for everyone, to stay performing or to carry on writing. 

No, I don't think it is. You're part of a jigsaw puzzle, and you don't have control over most of the pieces. So at the end of the day, it's luck. If they out there doh like it, it doh matter how much work you put in to it. 

The conversation wound on. We'd both been watching bits of Glastonbury on the beeb. Robert Plant and Dolly Parton were the subjects – the topics were of survival and craft. Jim was and is a fine musician. He's worked with Plant, and a host of others who went on to great success. 

So do you feel bad about Little Acre getting that close and not making it?

No, no I don't. I have fabulous memories. We did these gigs... some gigs, we only did three numbers. We'd start on a funk groove and stick there. The crowd went with it. I feel very privileged to have been there. It was a fabulous time. But you, know, some of the young bands now... it's such a pleasure to see them too.

It's interesting to look back at the 70s. The early years were a bit... vague. Progrock and Psychedelia had had a good run; Heavy metal was splintering to sub genres; the British Blues Boom had run its course too. The Beatles were over; the Stones were faltering again. Glamrock was big. Image started to really matter. In the middle of all this, a host of bands tried out different grooves, before punk upset the apple cart. Little Acre had their day in the sun, but it should have gone on for longer.

 

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Old Punks don't die. They go big in Japan.

Start a band. You'll be amazed what happens. 70s punk veterans Neon Hearts are.

 Neon Hearts 2014 and 1977

35 years ago, Punk was front, centre and huge. Bands who couldn't play, snotty and sneering, drenched in audience gob.

Of course it was choreographed, but it was a great bandwagon for some. The Police, Squeeze, Bob Geldof and even Tom Petty used Punk well to get themselves noticed.

Down the pecking order, Punk really mattered. Local hopefuls? Dansette Damage, Suburban Studs, Spizz, the Killjoys, Dangerous Girls, the Prefects, and more. Most faded away, of course. But this was real and valid to those who were there. The recordings survive, but now they're out of time and context, and there's nothing to hook them to. 

But that lets people pin new meaning to old music. Extraordinary things can happen.

Police Bastard: still angry after all these years, deep in Punk's underground

"I think there have been times when we’ve been in danger of disappearing up our own asses."  

Death, Doom, despair and TERRIFYING NOISE... discussed.

Mister Doom                            Mister Sampson

As a young rock DJ, I covered the decline of progressive and hard rock throughout the 70s. Pub-rock rose and fell, global forces like Springsteen and Fleetwood Mac emerged, and Birmingham moved from Monsters of Metal to cross-cultural mixes, (UB40, Apache Indian, the Beat, Ruby Turner). Oh, and let’s not forget New Romantics. On second thought, let’s.

By the end of the decade, Punk emerged, to be rapidly commoditised as product and fashion trend (Generation X anyone?), and used as a career-launching platform (Police, Squeeze and Boomtown Rats). Then the mainstream lost interest, so Punk went underground, morphing from a bunch of snotty teenagers flipping the bird at the man, into something else altogether. Above all, Punk developed staying power.

Police Bastard were punks once. Now they’re punk/metal/thrash, a set of 40 somethings with a remarkably long history, and a new album, Confined.  The dumb rebellious simplicity of the late 70s has been replaced by something more complex, more considered, even dutiful. The music? Savage as ever, of course – but now, these guys can play. Johnny Doom and Mark Sampson talk it up after the jump.

The Nightingales: sharper, stroppier, older, wiser. Tips and tricks from a survivor

36 years of philosophy, wit, sarcasm and survival: Rob Lloyd shares thoughts on longevity, learning, and sticking to your guns. 

Rob Lloyd nearly smiles. He's a pussycat really

I met Rob Lloyd again, after thirty years or so, at a meeting of the Birmingham Music Network a few years back. We circled each other with pleased fascination, as insect collectors stumbling on rare specimens: a 50 year old working punk muso, and a 20th century rock jock, both now largely seen as endangered, if not extinct, species. I don’t know about Rob, but I get that insect collector thing a lot these days. 

Rob Lloyd has been kicking up an almighty racket since the late 70s. Time has not knocked any of the rough edges off, but there is an increasing depth and wit to his writing, belying the splendid bared-teeth rattle, pulse and crash of his music, which has been a constant. 

He's played in just two bands, as well as solo: the Prefects back in the day, and the Nightingales now. That’s close on four decades of uncompromising music; lots of roadwork, and regular ecstatic reviews along the way.  He’s still hungry. Since that re-acquaintance, we’ve chatted on and off, and this conversation largely took place around the release of the latest Nightingales album, No Love Lost, on Cooking Vinyl.

If you could meet up with the young Rob Lloyd in the Prefects, your first seriously promising band incarnation, what would you say to him? And would he give you the time of day?  

In truth, the Prefects were never seriously promising. This is a hard question - although I have changed in lots of ways over the years, there are some things I still have in common with that young Robert Lloyd, for better or worse. But it is, obviously, hypothetical: that young chap was pretty unconsidered and inconsiderate, and, I think, arrogant without cause. I reckon he almost certainly wouldn't have taken any notice of - and certainly would have shown disrespect towards - a fifty year old "I've been around the block" type. But also the bloke I am today would probably not have the time off day for such a snotty nosed, big headed no-talent.

Nightingales now. Rob on the right...

Forced to say something to the young prick... I'd say: “Your group is shit, don't think you're any cop just because John Peel and Paul Morley say so. Stop posing about and work harder. Be more adventurous and don't copy other artists, and certainly don't align yourself with any 'movement'. Be serious or don't bother - but also have fun. Ignore both born again rockers (Pete Townsend et al) and modern puritans and do try out of few drugs and have lots of sex - don't be shy. 

You’ve notably done South By Southwest. Was it worth it? How can you make things like this work for you?  

SXSW is a heap of fun and with good planning, especially for new bands, can maybe open a few doors, though I do think that the hyped bands are pretty much hyped before they get there. Austin is a top town, and the SXSW organisers seem enthused and very competent - UK take note - and I would certainly say that any invitees should give it a whirl if they can.

But, and it's a big but, it is an exceedingly expensive thing to do. These days, you definitely need a visa, and to do things legally. That will set you back a couple of grand before flights, accommodation and such. Remuneration is minimal; indeed it'd non-existent if you choose to have SXSW wristbands in lieu. So unless you are super flush or have rich parents and/or a very helpful manager or label, you will need to find funding, or it will be near impossible to make it happen.

The Nightingales were invited again this year but - despite what I thought was a top notch application and proposal - we were turned down by PRS Music Abroad and a couple of other funding sources which made it impossible to carry off, much to our disappointment, and in spite of offers of other U.S shows.  Thankfully it sounds like we will be re-invited next year & we can plan for this well in advance. That means booking a whole tour, coinciding a new album, sorting some funding - but for a lot of artists I guess it would involve getting in to a mass of debt. Is it worth it? That's up to the individual act, and what they think or hope they can achieve. I have no definitive advice.  

The Nightingales - Mutton To Lamb from 'No Love Lost', issued 2012

You’ve had oodles of support from 6music over the years. Granted, in the early days when they had smaller audiences, that might not have meant all that much. Are you noticing anything now they’ve got a million plus listeners?  

I find radio play and press reviews very difficult to quantify. Obviously it means more people get to hear the music or read the group's name, and consequently learn that we are out there and doing stuff. But does it influence sales, etc? I really don't know. I think our live shows maybe do more for that - Mark Sampson's Iron Man mail order store apparently always sells Nightingales gear when we play live: we play Edinburgh one night, and he sees sales in that area the very next day. I'd guess that to some degree this happens from radio play also but there is no way of being certain of the extent. You need Jools Holland's 'Later' for absolute guaranteed sales improvement I reckon. I'm sure Seasick Steve, Joanna Newsom and others would agree. 

But obviously it's great to get radio support, because it gets the music heard by new ears and maybe gets folk interested in the records and gigs. Plus the PRS royalty payments helps keep me afloat.  It's been difficult since Peel, with ever decreasing payments until recently. And of course part of the reason to make records is for them to get played on the radio and heard around the World. 

Some people get success by moving from the dangerous edges to the blander centre. I see you as resolutely still at the dangerous edges. How do you see it?  

I just do what I want to do, whatever others think of it. The band does not have any blueprint or agenda. We certainly do not try to be left field; we would definitely like a bigger audience, and wider appreciation, and to actually earn from our music… but we obviously do not do it for the money. Unless that is your prime motivation, I cannot see the point in making art that is anything other than stuff that allows you to express yourself, and that you like yourself. So the Nightingales plough our own furrow, for better or worse, for richer or poorer. Not dangerous but definitely, er, free. 

'No Love Lost' album cover artwork

I do not seek celebrity. If I were to be acknowledged I would like it to be because of the work. The work is everything and lives on beyond a person's lifetime. So I think it should be something that you think is worthwhile, and hopefully it will bring the creator some permutation of appreciation, money & fun; if not, so be it. I do hope, though, that when I die the group has everyone pretending they always dug it and that the band members can make a few quid. It would be totally depressing to think that even in death the group remained a super minority cult thing.

Nightingales - Born Again In Birmingham, from 'Out Of True', issued 2006

You tell stories. What’s more important – the story or the song? The live music or the creating of it?  

For me the lyrics are important… but I'm in a group, and so the songs and live shows are what is most important. The creating gives vent to my ideas and will hopefully be a fun process - but ultimately this is a rock group, so rock rules apply. Maybe the volumes of poetry and such can come later. 

You don’t hesitate to recommend people – you tipped Poppy and The Jezebels – who are way more  ‘commercial’ than the Nightingales. And you’ve seen other bands do well by adjusting their marketing and style. Ever been tempted to do the same thing?  

I had a solo deal with Virgin Records for a while and had a stab at doing some pop music but generally it is not an area that interests me. I’ve already explained where I am at regarding 'changing style' or whatever you want to call it. But I'm not a snob about it - I like Little Richard as much as Beefheart, the Troggs as much as Faust, etc, and if I see or hear something 'commercial' that I think is great I will plug it, no problem. And there is no jealousy, nor any gloating, if and when my 'recommendations' are a hit. As Roy Walker would advise, "Say what you see".

 How do you feel about Spotify, who pay very little for the the music they stream, and pirate downloads and torrent sites, who offer your music to anyone for free? Is there a promotional value?  

I am a bit ignorant about Spotify, indeed the whole web, social networking area. Fliss our drummer does all the 'Gales web 'business'. I guess there is some promotional value with any outlet for your work whether you get paid or not, but obviously getting paid for your work is the accepted ideal whatever the trade.  I know some musicians go ape shit about being ripped off. I have more friends in stand up than in bands, and they are zealous about copyright and payment for jokes. I understand their point of view totally, but I have also never been majorly hung up about bootlegging and piracy myself - Maybe that is one reason why I am always borassic? 

Survival as a working band. You know a lot more now, but times are a lot tougher, is it easier or harder?  

Harder now I think, at least for 'unpopular' bands.

Links: 
Nightingales website 
Nightingales myspace music page
Rob Lloyd's own record label Big Print Records 
If you want back catalogue, Rob would love it it you bought it here

They split. They reformed. Sometimes that works great. Other times...

Revisiting the good old days isn't always the best of ideas. But sometimes it works beyond everyone's wildest dreams. It just depends on what you may be looking for. 

Sometimes people do it for fun and memories; sometimes, there’s unfinished business. Sometimes it’s just the right thing to do, at the right time. And sometimes the results are just not what you might expect.

And it’s never the same. 

This post covers two bands who have split and reformed. One's Punk, one's Folk. And, before you ask - yes, they do have a lot in common.

Johnny Rotten in vintage form in the studio

A transcript of a 1979 show with John Lydon, when BRMB had big audiences and let their DJs do weird stuff on air.

This is a radio story from over thirty years ago. It shows how commercial radio has changed, and it’s funny as hell. Well, I think so, because I’m part of it.

We're at the very end of the punk era. I was doing rock shows on Birmingham’s commercial station, BRMB. I was offered a John Lydon interview. Lydon was on his second band, Public Image Limited, after the dissolution of the Sex Pistols. I approached the interview idea with caution. Punk and post-punk artists famously took pride in being awkward sods on air. I had been exquisitely roasted over a slow fire by the Stranglers a few months earlier, and I wasn’t keen on playing media patsy all over again. But Lydon was too interesting to pass up, so we settled on turning the show's music over to him, as part of an extended interview. The music was great: lots of deep Roots Reggae. But predictably, it was a barbed conversation. Lydon was uncompromising, mildly truculent, and provocative. He also talked a lot of sense. In between the music, the challenges flew. I only lost my temper and swore the once…

The show itself does not survive. BRMB was terrible at archiving its output: see my UB40 post for notes on how and why. But the verbal exchanges and music details have survived, lovingly documented and transcribed by the excellent Fodderstompf, who cover all things PiL. My role here is incidental: the transcript exists because Lydon did a show and Fodderstompf documented it. Merry sniping and tetchy badinage, along with relevant links, awaits you …

You're listening to Robin Valk now through till 11. And in this hour Johnny Rotten is picking the music. John welcome to BRMB Radio. What we are going to hear, over this coming hour or so, is what you're playing at the moment, rather than any other stuff. How much of a collection have you got at the moment?

I don't buy rubbish. So it's not that huge. I suppose it escalates over the years. It's enough to humour me, but not enough really.

Have you been able to buy more recently, or has it just gone at the same rate as before? 

It's slumped lately.

A lot of things you are going to play, as you explained to me, won't exactly be current, they will have been bought from JA, because they came over in limited edition. The first track I Jah Man Levi, the first version of 'Jah Heavy Load', has got a fairly checkered history. There are two different versions. Why do you prefer this one as opposed to the re-recorded version?

Because the re-recorded version is like cocktail jazz, I don't like it. I prefer this. It's just better. I don't see why the original single was never released, officially. Like most reggae.

Do you feel that British record companies who get into reggae, as a corporate decision, are doing it in the right way? Considering the way both Island Records and Virgin Records made deliberate decisions to get into reggae in a big way, and sign up everything they could. Have they gone about it the right way…

[interrupts] It's not true they signed everything they could. There are several records in that little pile there, they could have signed up but didn't. Probably because they had too much talent. You find that, well, Virgin tend to sign up the weakest kind of reggae. The sort they hope will get in the charts and make a bit of money for them. That's the wrong attitude. You should always stick to the real stuff.

IJAHMAN LEVI - JAH HEAVY LOAD (ORIGINAL)

We're with Johnny Rotten tonight on BRMB, you've just heard 'Jah Heavy Load', the first version, by I Jah Man Levi. Leaving aside what you are doing at the moment, if you wanted to, would you want run a record company simply releasing music you believed in. Would you like to do that, has that ever crossed your mind?

No. Why the hell should I? It's nothing to do with me. I don't want to know about that end of it. I don't see why I should be expected to do it for them. I'm sick of that attitude.

That wasn't quite the angle I was looking at, it's just you are in a position now, where if you wanted to, you could get things done.

Am I? I think you'll find that's not strictly true.

Why?

Well, I still have to scrape and beg for tuppence off the record company. That's the usual story.

The next track Black Uhuru and 'No, No, No.'

That's someone Virgin could have signed but didn't. Sly Dunbar production. They signed Sly, they'll release the rubbish he puts out, but not the good stuff. It's the same with the Gregory Isaacs thing, they could have signed him, they could have signed Ken Boothe, they could have signed a lot of them.

BLACK UHURU - NO, NO, NO

On BRMB talking with Johnny Rotten tonight. Do you recognise there's almost a two tier level of production, whereby Jamaican reggae artists release the real stuff, then the mass-market stuff. Dilute it down a bit for the white market. Do you reckon that happens?

It's not done deliberately in Jamaica. It just so happens that when the masters arrive here the companies tend to cut the bass and lower the treble, and chuck out something that sounds nothing like the original. Something similar happened to our first album. There was a confusion over the masters, I really shouldn't mention all of this, but I can prove it with matrix numbers. The production of our first album mysteriously changed in the cutting of the discs.

As a result it didn't come out the way you wanted?

Ha. It didn't come out the way they wanted. I insisted on the masters we handed in. Otherwise the record would not go out at all.

You've obviously picked up, by virtue of necessity, a fair amount of studio knowledge just to protect what you've got, and what you've done. Do you want to apply that more in the future with Public Image, whatever you wind up doing next?

What do you mean?

Well, just now you're talking about what you've done, and talking about studio techniques, watering things down, and cutting things back, altering it, softening it. And you've had to put that whole side of the business…

[interrupts] I've had to stop it. We've had to stop it. In our personal situation, it is an everyday story, it's no lonely heartbreak. It just means that you should produce your own records, and you should never have anyone tell you how you should sound. You should take your own masters to the cutting rooms. You should make your own acetates. You should deliver them to the record company and make sure that the test pressings that arrive back from the record plants are exactly the same as your acetates. It's simple. If you don't do that you'll never get what you wanted, you won't recognise it.

The next track The Normal 'TVOD'. The Normal - what do you know about them?

I know nothing [laughs]. They seem to be a very discreet bunch. Isn't it something to do with a geezer called Thomas Leer, is that right? [sic: Daniel Miller] He's made a few records, they're alright. I like that sound.

THE NORMAL - T.V.O.D.

The next track is Gregory Isaacs & Christine. This is about a domestic situation, as opposed to…

[interrupts] A situation I didn't create that's for sure! [laughs] I love acting as judge and jury!

Gregory Isaacs is doing stuff nationally, as well as doing his own thing, is this is on his own label from Jamaica or what?

That's stuff that like… Gregory Isaacs is now released through Virgin, but a lot of those songs are old songs or are renditions of somebody else's. They are nowhere near as hard as they could be. And certainly stuff like that single would not normally be released through a nice establishment type record company. They don't like it, it's too heavy.

Lets assume, hypothetically for a moment, an establishment record company, one of the labels, whether it be independent or whatever, decides to issue straight undiluted, unvarnished Jamaican reggae, without cutting it or cleaning it up. Putting it out straight. Wouldn't that in itself be almost seen as a cop-out as be taking it and emasculating it?

How! Surely the reason for making any music is to get the message, that you are trying to get over, to as many people as possible, otherwise you are being a pretentious little snot.

Granted, but at the same time there's a certain tendency for records to be… well, the whole British marketing of the New Wave came about partly through 12" discs and coloured pressings, and exclusive limited editions and all that kind of garbage.

Yes.

If you've got that kind of marketing mentality already installed, by the time that something that was available exclusively, simply because the guys couldn't afford to give it a bigger pressing, a bigger run, national distribution, if it does get to the mass audience then…

[interrupts] Look, look, like Virgin have opened up a chain of record supermarkets. The latest one in Oxford Street you can't even hear a record in there. You're not even given the chance, they're just in racks. You're merely shown what it is, and that's it. You either buy it or don't, you certainly can't hear the thing. That attitude is wrong. Records should be available freely, you should be able to hear them constantly. Radio's are wrong for a start. The fact that they only play the Top 30 records that are selling is pointless waste of time. I mean, if your record is selling and people are buying it, they don't want to hear what they've got day after day, after day. Surely you should be able to hear what you haven't got. And so on, and so forth.

I'm not going to disagree with you, because basically I feel that way myself.

And what are you doing about it?

I'm not playing the god damn Top 30, Jesus!

[interrupts] I never said that did I. I'm not attacking you personally. But if you want to take it that way that's fine, I'm sure you can have a very decent intellectual argument.

I doubt the BRMB listeners want to hear me intellectualising on whether I personally am doing the right thing spreading music, what I'd like to do is talk to you, rather than get into the ins and outs of my own stuff.

Well, I mean the marketing, lets go back to the marketing the records at the moment. Different coloured vinyl, all sorts of gimmicks thrown at you. I mean you can only get away with for as long as an audience tolerate it. And the problem of all those situations is the people buying the stuff. They don't complain, they seem to like it. That's why it continues.

GREGORY ISAACS / CHRISTINE - SATURDAY NIGHT

Next one up is Ken Boothe and 'Got To Get Away'. The three versions that you went through, we're going to play the first one, which in a way, is almost the straightest of the three versions.

Well, I think the words in it are really quite good, and I'd like people to hear them. Ken Boothe is a man of talent.

KEN BOOTHE- GOT TO GET AWAY

And finally tonight, from Kraftwerk 'Showroom Dummies', the last track picked out tonight by Johnny Rotten. Kraftwerk, again, getting back to the similarities of electronic synthesisers, we touched on electronic rock earlier with The Normal, Kraftwerk are slightly more easier identifiable, Kraftwerk have changed direction quite radically over the past couple of years, certainly of the 'Showroom Dummies' track.

How do you work that out? They've always been pretty robotic.

They've got shorter and sharper and it's got crisper and…

It's 6 minutes 10 seconds long.

As opposed to 15 minutes of slightly more flowing music…

Well, you're on about very long album tracks then. They can have very short singles at the same time too.

KRAFTWERK - SHOWROOM DUMMIES

On BRMB Radio tonight my guest Johnny Rotten, one of the topics we haven't raised yet is Johnny Rotten's present group. Can you really be worried about lack of airplay if you…

[interrupts] Yes, of course I can. I think it's essential that as many people as possible hear us. That is essential. Otherwise how is anybody gonna be able to discriminate. I mean it's too easy to condemn something without hearing it, and like, lets face it I've faced a lot of that. I get that all the time.

Are you getting tired of being a whipping boy, or has it gone on so long are immune to it?

It's very easy to make me a scapegoat now isn't it.

Exactly.

I mean, look at the competition there really isn't any.

Yeah, but how do you feel about it personally? It seems to happen about every other week, that you wind up in a situation, that someone is going be firing at you. You seem to half relish it and half hate it at the same time.

Well, of course I like it. That's practically what I want. At least its a reaction. I mean it's better than 'Crossroads' is it not? I don't go out of my way to shout and scream blue blooded murder, that would be pointless, I just want a bit of difference in attitude from people. I don't like the way people accept roles. Lets see, the term punk that really did make me ill. The way the whole host of morons freely accepted that tag given to them by the media. That was where that movement went wrong, and that is why I had to get away from it. I will not be put into an army for anyone. [long pause] No uniforms.

Johnny Rotten thank you kindly.

PiL - ANNALISA

Many thanks to Johnny Rotten for the past hour of conversation, and music, and arguments…



My thanks to Fodderstompf for taking the time to transcribe the recording someone made, and to Beshara Muzic: This post is here because Beshara Muzic, inheritors of the mantle of Birmingham Reggae greats Beshara, spotted the Fodderstompf post and tipped me off. I'm really glad they did. My link with Beshara Muzic was forged as a result of working on 'Handsworth Evolution' - blog post here - a 2010 documentary I produced about Reggae in Birmingham.

Links:

Fodderstompf

BRMB inteview page on Fodderstompf

Beshara

Beshara Muzic