The second show I ever saw was the Ramones on
the end of the century tour. And I was really
keen on them. I looked like a mini Ramone. I
mean, I had all that going on. And then I went
to that. They came and played the local university
in Norwich. Everything went dark. And then the
backdrop rolled down. One, two, three, four.
Hey, we're the Ramones. Bam. And at that point,
I've never, ever experienced anything like it
in my life. And I know it's a cliche now. And
everyone goes, oh, my life changed for the rest
of it. But it suddenly opened my mind. overwhelming
sense of electric power that came off the stage
was just like nothing i'd ever you know everything's
interconnected the hi -hat is doing its thing
and then the bass and the guitar it's all like
that's why you've got all different tonal frequencies
that thing cutting your head off because it's
just like a block of noise you know with joey
sitting on top of it and yeah that and it's not
easy to do that that's why most punk bands sound
shit in hindsight they weren't as good as the
ramones you know Hi, everybody. This is Dennis
Black, and welcome to the Black and Wyatt Records
podcast. This week, host Mike McCarthy talks
with musician and promoter Rupert Orton. Rupert's
life and career revolve around live music. He's
a mover and a shaker within the Take Me to the
River initiative, working with Boo Mitchell,
Carla Thomas, and the High Rhythm Section. in
educating students about the origins of R &B
and soul. Rupert has hosted his own program out
of Great Britain since 2020 called The Pink Lemonade
Radio Show, available at totallywired .com. And
now, here's Rupert Orton. I'd kind of like to
start with the Jim Jones review song because
we know we got that. We know we have that. Okay.
And it lets everybody know that you're in the
game. Yeah. All right. Well, I haven't been in
that game for 11 years. Well, you're a smart
man. Are we rolling? Yeah. Okay. Did we get the
authentic Rupert Orton laugh? Okay, good. Hopefully
there'll be a few more. Maybe not. Maybe there'll
be the Rupert Orton authentic tears. Okay. I'll
be crying by then. Mike, let me finish. Not because
of the podcast, because of being in Memphis for
a few months. Well, yeah, because we're living
under martial law at the moment. Martial law.
Well, that's because the regular law didn't work.
Well, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. I wish we were
living under some sort of pothole law that, you
know, wait till those tanks hit the Memphis potholes
and they'll be turned over. Well, that's it.
Protesters won't have to do it. Yeah, exactly.
But what would be a first good one to come in
with? the first album which is hey hey hey hey
which is a little richard song and the significance
of that is that's the first song we ever played
okay and it was we've gone to this tiny little
rehearsal room and kind of like you know, because
we weren't mates. Do you know what I mean? It's
everyone kind of came together. We were like
on this mission. You didn't meet in design school.
No, no. It's not like, you know, the cliche of
like, well, we're all 13, 14 and let's form a
band. It was like, we had an idea and the idea
was to execute it as well as we could. A few
people came in and out until it got to the final
lineup. But yeah, it was, the idea was what Jim
and I had originally discussed and it was how
do we execute this as hard and as loud and as
strongly as possible. And Jim, was really good
at finding songs that kind of sum that up. And
one of them was this little known Little Richard
song called Hey, Hey, Hey, which I think the
Beatles had done a version of, but we just turbocharged
it. I think about Kansas City. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's it. That's it. It's a medley between Kansas
City. But our one was just Hey, Hey, Hey. Didn't
have any of that Kansas City bollocks. It was
just like full on. Okay. But Jim had suggested
we do this. So we all kind of learned it. and
then we got in the rehearsal room everyone's
like looking at each other and it's like and
off we went and then by the end of it we just
knew we had it I mean not the song I mean we
had what we needed to go through we knew we had
the essence of what that band was going to be
about and it's the only time I've ever experienced
that playing in bands that from the very first
time we played together we knew we had something
A giant in Alabama, oh yeah A people bold and
merry and a good old man Hey, hey, hey, hey Woo
-hoo -hoo! Thanks for being on the show. It's
a pleasure, Mike. It's great to see you again,
mate. Yeah, it's good to see you too. I don't
even know why you're here. Nor do I. Actually,
do you want to know why I'm here? Well, there's
a million segues, but yes, go ahead. I kind of
came here by osmosis because... I was at Americana
Fest in Nashville and I got here Thursday night
and finished there on Sunday. And I thought,
I must go to Memphis. There must be some things
to do. But at that point, I didn't know what
they were. And now I do. They've all kind of
fallen into place very quickly. And how so? It's
just the way things happen. You know, I mean,
one of them is I work with this project called
Take Me to the River. and they're involved in
a celebration of bb king's centenary tomorrow
at bb king's on beale street so i'm going to
that so that that in itself made sense to come
here but then i've got other bits and pieces
that come including what i'm doing right now
because i had no idea i'd be doing this and here
i am doing it so you know well i i Yes. I mean,
we're talking about the here and now, so I can't
even talk about what we just heard, which was
a song by a band called the Jim Jones Review
where you played guitar. Yeah. I just wanted
to get that in there so that the people that
are listening can know that you're mostly in
music management and booking now, but you were
once in a band, maybe more than one. Well, I
mean, it's a little bit more complicated than
that because... I was doing what I'm doing now
before the Jim Jones Review. Ah, okay. And then
the Jim Jones Review was like a 10 -year period
of my life in between doing it and then coming
back to it after it finished. So it all kind
of fitted together, but it isn't like I did this
immediately after the Jim Jones Review. I was
already doing it. When did you leave the review?
I didn't leave it. The band just sort of naturally
finished in October 2014. And how long had you
been with them? well i was a co -founder with
jim um in 2006 i think oh wow so whatever that
is eight years or something right so a good run
yeah yeah longer than we thought it was gonna
be i mean i think when we originally started
i mean the reason it's if you want to talk about
this in a little bit of detail i used to work
i used to work at a club called the spits in
spitfields market in east london and um i was
a promoter there i used to put on shows and um
you know, they're quite a bit of a scene kind
of built up around the night size putting up,
which we're putting on called not same old blues
crap, which I took the name from the fat possum
sampler records. Cause I thought it succinctly
summed up how I felt about traditional blues.
Like I loved the real thing, but you know, white
guys playing trad blues and not adding anything
to it. Didn't really, didn't really do it for
me anyway. And then I got to know. jim from him
coming to my nights but also i used to promote
his old band black moses and then that kind of
ran out of steam and uh of all things we were
at our um launch party for a jazz festival and
um we were just talking and we were wondering
it's like why aren't any bands playing proper
rock and roll anymore and by proper rock and
roll It's quite a unique feel of what that proper
rock and roll meant. You know what I mean? It
wasn't. And we happened to kind of sink in what
we felt that thing was. And it could be the Ramones.
It could be Little Richard. It could be the birthday
party. It could be the cramps. But it could be
Johnny Funders. But it's that kind of full blown
intensity kind of abandon of your emotions, rock
and roll. And it was like a sort of. you know
metaphorical switch dropped at that point and
then it was like let's put this together and
it's what happened and like within a few I mean
our first show was sold out like pretty much
from the get -go it started to pick up a momentum
which was kind of amazing really out of East
London well yeah that's where the club was but
I mean I think I was living in North London at
the time but anyway it came out of London and
it soon built up and you know then we I was in
a position a year or two down the line where
the band was really busy, but I was also running
my promotions business as well. I remember I'd
been in Los Angeles on holiday and I was coming
back on the plane and I just had too much stuff
and I thought, I've got to commit to one or the
other. And so we had a meeting with the band.
I think this was 2009, late 2009. We were in
a crappy wine bar in... central london do you
know i mean like a you know not a rock and roll
place you have the worst luck with you know i
know it's like me and the service industry have
not connected in any shape I mean, I'm not going
to go into details. We probably come to the green
tea later in the hotels, but it's just a problem.
It's just perennial. Do you often not book somewhere
because you know they have lousy service? I'd
like to put this shitty punk band into this place,
but God, they're going to be treated horribly.
But we'll come to that. I think it has come to
that. Yeah, I know. I mean, we're going off on
a service tangent a bit too early. But we had
this meeting in this wine bar and it was like,
we've got the opportunity to go for this if we
all commit to it. Or we just do it as a bit of
fun, as a bit of a hobby. And everyone was agreed
we'd do it and give it our kind of full -blown
commitment, which we all did. And yeah, we did.
I put my promotions to one side. They all put
their bits and pieces to one side, the other
guys. And yeah, it blew up. Well, how many proper
releases did you have? Three albums. Three albums?
Okay, what were they called? The first one was
self -titled. The second one was called Burning
Your House Down. And the third one was called
The Savage Heart. Okay, all right. So they're
out there. You can find those things. Yeah, yeah.
I think, yeah, they're all out there. But I think
when the band finished, everything finished.
So I think the vinyl copies, especially the second
one, quite collectible now because you can't
buy them commercially if we're going to play
jim jones of you song play a song called princess
princess and the frog which is off the first
album and i remember jim came in with that pretty
much fully formed and we couldn't quite play
it right i don't know there was something wasn't
gelling on it and then we came back to it again
a couple of weeks later or a month later and
it just slammed okay it's just that feeling you
get like and there was a lot of that with the
jim jones review where songs would just come
together naturally and you just knew they were
hot straight away Just wait and see What is this?
You're growing in my hand So let me ask you this
then about the Jim Jones review. You say you
were already, what was the name of your booking
company? Well, it is now PRB Presents. Back then,
it was Not the Same Old Blues Crap. Okay, so
it was different names. Well, it's essentially
me doing the same thing. It kind of started as
Not the Same Old Blues Crap. Yeah. Then I kind
of... sort of condensed it down to punk rock
blues yeah but now it's just the anachronym prb
presents because i i promote very little punk
rock blues now and i promote a lot of stuff outside
that genre so it doesn't make any sense to keep
it like a narrow thing but all right i mean i
did my fair share of punk rock blues back in
there i mean my first booking client was um t
model ford yeah the fat possum guy yeah he's
on my list of songs to play later well okay uh
uh And we can do that now. But I just, my point
or my question was, you obviously formed Jim
Jones Review because you said there wasn't enough
what you consider to be rock and roll in England
anyway, right? No, in the world. In the world
at the time. Yet you were booking things already.
Yeah, but I wasn't booking rock and roll. I was
booking blues. Okay. And essentially I was focused
on one particular niche of it, which was music
that was either played by a guy, signed to Fat
Possum or inspired. by Fat Possum recording artists.
And there wasn't very, I mean, if any, there
wasn't anyone else doing that in the UK. And
you were coming here to America then? I did actually
once. Okay. That's actually quite an interesting
story because it's when I first, I think it was
when I first met you. That early? No, maybe I
first met you because in 2014 because I came
over after the band split up. Yeah. And I just
come and hung in Mississippi and Memphis for
a while just to kind of. Yeah, there's a photo
of us all together with the family. And John
seems to be about 10. So that would be 2014.
Yeah, that sounds about right. So the first time
I came, I didn't meet you. Did you come to Memphis?
Yeah. But what actually happened was that I was
working with T -Model Ford. I was working with
some other guys called Black Diamond Heavies
from Chattanooga. And things were starting to
build of what I was doing. and I was working
for this venue called The Spitz, and I started
to put on these festivals called The Spitz Festival
of Blues. And I thought, well, if I'm doing this,
I need to book the bands that are making this
music firsthand, not the people who are copying
them. And so I convinced Alice, my girlfriend,
that we should go for a driving holiday from
Memphis to New Orleans. And that's exactly what
we did. So I think that was around 2005, something
like that. And then I drove down from Memphis
to Clarksdale, through Vicksburg, all the way
down to New Orleans. And this is just after Katrina
as well. So it was pretty shell -shocked. But
yeah, and I just booked acts all the way down.
And then they all came and played the festival.
They flew over. Yeah. But the point I was going
to make, which I felt really kind of illuminating
for me. Well, there's two really big important
points. The first one is that... Up until that
point, Memphis, Mississippi, Louisiana, I'd listened
to music from that area all my life. But I had
an imaginary version of it in my head because
I'd never been here. Do you know what I mean?
It was formed by listening to the music and reading
books and seeing films. And as you know, when
you go somewhere for real, you're confronted
by the reality of it. And then I had to kind
of obviously... reappraise the reality against
my sort of quasi fantasy of it so that was a
really interesting process i mean the music remained
the same but the what what happened in your mind
when you did that the comparison i think you
were prepared to be let down no no it wasn't
it wasn't being let down it was just a it was
just like i'd only ever been in new york and
los angeles up to that point i've never been
into you know i've never been into the heartlands
of america um so that was it was just a really
interesting and educational point of view but
the second point was i'd never ever seen american
poverty before and obviously driving down to
new orleans around katrina time it was absolutely
devastating and so that was you know you grow
up in the uk and you'd like watch tv and it's
starsky and hutch and all the rest of it and
okay yeah the blues guys influenced the stones
and all the rest of it but there was a kind of
like a romanticized glamour to it you know i
mean and the rea the reality was obviously quite
brutal yeah there's still oppression despite
all the help from all corners there's still oppression
yeah and because of oppression something real
comes out of it but doesn't mean that that's
good for all the people that suffer through it
that aren't artists yeah artists seem to come
out of it okay because they've found a way to
cope with it yeah no absolutely i agree but yeah
that was that was my first experience 2005 2006
and then i've come regularly ever since huh 2006
okay hmm so what is that that's nearly 20 years
ago isn't it yeah yeah but you do come over here
quite a bit yeah and so how um okay so before
we get into anything else let's play a t -model
ford song yeah nobody gets me down and in this
this this track i mean i could tell you a short
story about t -model ford is that i'd called
my as i said before i called my um promotions
not the same old blues crap because I just like
the immediacy and the sort of the succinctness
to the statement that you knew exactly what you
were getting and I was just booking friends of
mine up until that point I only did a few shows
but before I did it I emailed Fat Possum and
I said I hope you don't mind but I'm I'd like
to use this as the name of my club nights and
I think Bruce Watson emailed me back and said
yeah sure no worries as long as you keep him
within the spirit of what the label's about and
then A couple of weeks later, and like I'd only,
you know, I'd literally just promoted things
down a pub in Brixton called The Windmill. I
wasn't thinking further ahead than another show,
let alone, you know, doing something completely
left field with it. And then he emailed me or
called me and he said, oh, T -Model Ford's in
London on this date and the show's fallen through.
Do you want to do it? And I just immediately
said yes. Wow. Without looking at it, I just
said, yeah. I'm on. And so I put the phone down
and I called up every venue that I thought might
be interested in it. And then I found this venue
called The Spitz, which I subsequently started
working for. And I said, yep, yep, we're in for
it. And we sold the show out. We got him on local
radio. The show was a great success. And then
suddenly it elevated what I was doing to this
other kind of level that I hadn't expected to
go to. And like within, I think within like six
months or nine months. I jacked in my normal
job when I became a music promoter and T -Model
Ford was my first client. And this song I found
quite inspirational. I mean, he's talking about
being stabbed and beaten up and all the rest
of it. I wasn't quite going through that, but
it's like coming out on top. It's an early night.
Yeah. It's coming out on top against adversity.
And what's it called? Nobody Gets Me Down. I'm
in shock. enough tea yeah no thanks to memphis
no you couldn't find it well and nashville it's
been a struggle i'm sorry it's not your fault
you're not responsible but you have some complaints
i wouldn't say complaints and they're certainly
not directed at tennessee it's just that tennessee
i've just had a run of bad luck for tennessee
well no every time i've gone into a coffee shop
or in the hotel bar or wherever and asked for
green tea there's been issues do you know what
i mean but what's what's happened More than once,
which happened just now when we went into the
coffee shop. It's like, we don't have any green
tea, but we've got this stuff. We don't know
what it is. You're welcome to try it. So it's
like Russian related tea. I don't know what I've
been drinking over the last few days. God knows
what could happen. But are you drinking caffeine
in the tea? Yeah, well, that's a jet lag. I mean,
I got into Nashville Thursday night, so I just
got to keep going. But you don't drink caffeine
in coffee. No, no. So why not just get caffeine
in your coffee and be awake for your jet lag?
It triggers you? I don't know. I just, I'm just
more a tea person. Yeah, yeah. Well, you're English.
I think, well, it's not that. I think if I'm
drinking green tea, then I've got the added bonus
of oxidants or whatever they're called. It's
good for me. I'm glad we didn't have any accidents
coming over here. Yeah. Yeah. Are you driving
on the wrong side of the road? Yeah, well, I
mean, you know. You get in a car with someone
who's like, you know, jet lagged from England,
they're going to go on the wrong side of the
road once in a while, aren't they? I'm like,
you sure you don't want me to drive? No, no,
mate, I'm fine. I just need some green tea. Yeah,
that was it. I've never heard that before. I
blame the Tennessee lack of green tea on my ability
to work out which side of the road I should drive.
Anyway, it was a momentary lapse of concentration.
I wasn't driving up like the wrong side of the
freeway or something. So, okay, so earlier when
we first started talking, you were saying about
how you didn't plan anything. You just knew you
were going to come here and things were going
to happen. Well, I mean, I obviously make things
happen when I'm here, but I didn't. It's like
doing this show. It's like the B .B. King thing.
It's like going to Clarksdale on Wednesday. Stuff
just starts happening. And I've always found,
you know, Memphis and Mississippi to be quite
a magical place for that, you know? Right. Okay,
so, and I got to say, okay, the cover of the
Memphis Flyer this week notes B .B. King's 100th
birthday. Do you feel a vibe or is there an interest,
authentic interest in Memphis for BB Kings 100?
I've no idea. I guess you'll find out tomorrow.
I'll find out tomorrow. I've absolutely no idea.
Because you'll go to Beale Street and what will
happen? I don't know. I've never been to Beale
Street out for a night before. No, I mean, obviously
I know where it is and I've walked down it. I've
never been to one of those shows. So I'm quite
curious to see what it's going to be like. One
of the guys who's hosting it is Boo Mitchell.
And I work with Boo. Yeah, from Royal Studios.
Well, then it'll be good then. And I work with
Boo as part of Take Me to the River. And obviously
he's the musical director of the Memphis part
of it. And we were in Nashville a few days ago
as well. I've asked Boo to come on, but I could
have asked him to call in. That would have been
the thing. That would have freaked me out. That
would have freaked... Well, that's the whole
idea of a call -in is to freak someone. You should
have had someone call in on your Tab Falco interview.
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. That would have been
weird. And we'll get to that. Yeah. So you're
here. You told me you were coming in. You told
Jack you were coming in. I guess you told Andrea.
Yeah. So what all happened yesterday to you?
A day in the life. It was, you know, I drove
him from Nashville, which is like a really boring
four hour drive or whatever it is. I checked
into my hotel and then Jack's moved out to the
country where his family home is. That's very
true. And he wasn't sure whether he was going
to be in Memphis, but he happened to be there
and I'd arranged to meet Andrea. So we all went
out for tacos and had a bit of a catch up. But
yeah, it was lovely to see them. I hadn't seen
Jack for a while. Well, that's really crazy because
you actually played. on a jack and the sheik
song well that was yeah jack just reached out
so this is years ago actually everything is years
ago yeah it is when you get older isn't it but
we're setting this up to play the song which
we don't know if we can find but i don't i can't
remember when it was or where we did it because
i think it would have been i think it was it
was definitely pre -pandemic So it might have
been 2018, 2017, something around that time.
And my band had finished in 2014. So I hadn't
really been playing. I was just been promoting
and stuff like that. And Jack reached out and
said, oh, we're doing a session when you're in
Memphis. Do you want to just swing by and do
something? And I was like, yeah, that'd be fun.
And so I had to try and relearn the guitar a
bit. And yeah, we just did a whole day of playing
with his boys. And then it was a single and then
it was released. It was a single? Yeah. Or an
EP. Okay. I think there was three tracks on it
and I played on two of them. Who put the EP out?
I don't know. Dennis, do you know? Does that
ring a bell? Robert would probably know. Okay,
and I wrote down the info here. Yeah, you wrote
it down. No, it's Jacko and the Sheiks, Every
Little Thing Goes is the name of the EP and the
song's called Losers Take All. Yeah, and also
I did Wanted Dead or Alive. Okay. Yeah. What,
you're saying you played on that too? Yeah, there
were three tracks and I played on two of them.
Oh, okay, okay. So maybe we can... I'm reading
this off Google. To go I thought it would be
time to say goodbye We'll be right back. I haven't
heard those since I recorded them. Seriously?
Yeah. What do you like about Jack? I like a number
of things about him. In terms of him as a musician,
I find him, you know, he's very pure. Do you
know what I mean? There's no compromise there.
You know, he just does what he does. And you
like it or you don't like it, but it is what
it is. So that's kind of very, to me, that's
very inspirational. And when I discovered his
music originally with the various bands he was
working on, it was part of discovering all this
other amazing American music that I didn't know
existed at the time, which started with the Fat
Possum guys and then I just worked deeper into
it. So it's kind of a little bit of a magical
journey and he was part of that. Then I met him
and got... And funny enough, I met him when I
came over here in 2014 because we were... at
um deep blues festival in clarksdale and um he
was playing there um i met him for a mutual friend
this guy called harry grafton who i was there
with and he was like it's like yeah nice to meet
you do you want to step up and we'll just play
And so I got up and played with him and did a
whole set and didn't know any of the song. So
on a personal level, that was just great because
he was just like, yeah, whatever. Just come and
play. Do you know what I mean? And then we've
been friends ever since. So, yeah, it was lovely
to meet him. So in a way of meeting him, you
played with him. Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
I'd literally just met him for a few minutes
and he says, yeah, come on. Isn't that that that
sort of sense of openness and anti gatekeeping
and whatever you want to call it? Isn't that
fantastic? Yeah. I mean, it was complete opposite
of gatekeeping. It wasn't even a gate. It was
just like walks. I know. But I'm just saying
in other fields like filmmaking or any other
like artistic endeavor, you might encounter something
that's completely opposite of that. Yeah. Yeah,
absolutely. I mean, there's a few people that
I've met that have been like that in a creative
sense. Things just multiply. Yeah. You know.
10x 20x so on and it's yeah it's really refreshing
so then by the time that he did ask you to play
with the sheiks on that ep he had already i'd
known him a long time by then well you'd already
played on stage and then i was recording it so
it was yeah it was kind of a fast track but he
didn't know anything about you or jim jones review
i don't think so if it did it was probably minimal
do you know i mean we we had some friends in
common in the 90s you knew nothing of the existence
of uh Oblivions, compulsive gamblers. A little
bit, a little bit. I mean, the 90s, this is one
of the things I was thinking about when you asked
me to do the show earlier is sort of how I got
to this point. But when I first got into music
in the 80s as a kid, I was going, on the one
hand, I was going to see Crass, Do They Owe Us
a Living, which was on my list I sent to you.
And then the next week, I was going to see Lowell
Fulson. So I had this kind of, this kind of sort
of duality at the time of like, Very, very hardcore
punk rock. And then very traditional blues. Because
at that point, some of the original blues guys
were still touring. And so I think I saw Lowell
Folsom one week and then Mississippi Slim the
next. Like two incredible kind of players from
back in the day. But at the same point, I was
going to these punk rock shows. How old were
you? 15, 14, something like that. What year were
you born? 64. Okay, I'm 63. Yeah, so I'm younger
than you. Well, you're the very last year of
the baby boom. So I've been told, but I got none
of the benefits. Well, you can't get social security.
I got none of the benefits and all the negative
financial. Let's play this crass song you're
talking about because I'm completely ignorant
of it. Do you not know about crass? I didn't
need to. Right. Until now. I mean, I wasn't a
huge, just to set the scene, I wasn't a huge
Crass fan. But at the time when this song was
released, which I think was 78 or 79. Crass seemed
to be the most hardcore rejection of The Clash
and all the other punk bands they felt had sold
out. When you say hardcore, I thought 80s, but
you're talking late 70s. No, no, no. This isn't
hardcore, hardcore. If you listen, the sound's
really interesting because you listen to it.
It's quite tinny and unintentionally quite avant
-garde. Unintentionally. But they were all, you
know, a lot of them were these old hippies that
all lived in a kind of commune in this place
called Dial House in Essex countryside. And they
just created, at that point they had this 12
-inch single which had like 15 songs on it called
Feeding of the 5 ,000. And it was like you could
buy it for 50 pence or something. That was like
the hardcore statement in English punk rock at
the time. Do you know what I mean? It's like
if you had crass with the A circled for anarchy
on your back of your leather jacket, then you
would, or probably not because they're all vegetarians,
but on the back of your cotton, whatever. But
they were... Yeah, this is extreme. And I was
aware of them, but not a huge fan. But then they
came to play where I lived in the time place
called Norwich, which is like two hours northeast
of London in a place called Norfolk in East Anglia.
They came to play my local venue and I just went
out of curiosity and it was one of the best shows
I've ever seen in my life. It was amazing. Well,
it's probably one of the first shows you've ever
seen. Uh, no, I've been going to gigs for, I
started going to shows in 79. So I'd been to
quite, I think this was like 81. And how close
was this to London? It's about two hours. Oh,
so you were away from the hub quite a bit. Oh,
yeah, yeah. I was way out of all of that. Do
you know what I mean? I assumed you were more
metropolitan. No, no. I was born in London, but
my parents moved up to this place called Norfolk
when I was a kid. And so I grew up in this place.
Whether you liked it or not. Yeah, but you just
start absorbing what's going on at the time.
And with me, it was partly punk rock and it was
partly blues. I'll come to the blues thing in
a moment. Try it, try it, try it, get up, you
can't be cooked, it fucks your mouth Then your
product's awful, it's bad like muscle pain This
is just a sample, it's up to you and me Do they
own us a living? Cause they do, cause they do,
oh, us a living Cause they do, cause they do,
oh, us a living Cause they fucking do So that
was Crass. What was the name of that song? Do
They Owe Us a Living. And if there's any American
sort of broadcasting standards that you've probably
contravened all of them with their broadcast
of that playing that song, which is brilliant.
Well, so you're growing up then two hours outside
of London, but you continue to go into London.
Yeah. But you're interested. You've always been
interested in music. You knew that was always
going to be what you were doing. I did. I did.
But, you know, I didn't. do it for a living till
a little while later right because i had some
kind of you know epiphany on the tube train i
was i'd been in um i'd been promoting i had a
little band together and stuff like that and
i'd gone on holiday with um alice my partner
to new mexico and this was 2005 and we were in
an earth ship in the middle of uh the mesa in
new mexico you were in a what earth ship okay
which is like um it's completely off grid do
you know what i mean it's got no electricity
it's got no it's got no mains water or whatever
it's all oh wait you're talking about my house
right now yeah but this was this was like this
little community on the outskirts of taos in
new mexico and um when it happened the there
was a big bombing attack on the london underground
system on the tubes and lots of people were killed
and when i came back to london um there was a
real sort of like you know there was a real scary
vibe and everyone was very suspicious and i remember
and it was very hot because it was it was july
and i remember being on the tube just sitting
there and i just remember thinking wow it's like
at any point someone could blow themselves up
or something could happen and you know something
and i wouldn't have done what i wanted to achieve
in my life and at that point like a bolt just
kind of kind of came it's like a lightning bolt
metaphorically came down through the ground through
the top of the tube station train and hit me
on the head And then I resigned from my job and
I got a job in a music venue, took like a pay
cut of like 60%, no benefits. And yeah, it's
been poverty ever since, you know. How old were
you then? I think I was 36 or 37. And at this
point, I guess I'm going back to your family
roots and interest in music. I don't know if
your parents were musically inclined. No, they
weren't. They weren't. Isn't that odd? I mean,
sometimes there's usually a connection there
somehow. I mean, you know, they, you know, they
weren't anti -music. No. But I mean, we were
lucky in some ways. They'd like have the one
Beatles album, which happened to be one, you
know, like we're going to have a Beatles album
and it happened to be Revolver. Okay. So it was
the best one. One of the best ones. So, you know,
like, cause we'd always play that. And then,
but then you're hearing like, I can't remember
12 songs on it or whatever, but you're hearing.
This amazing music is your first experience of
like proper, you know properly recorded and written
music So things like that were were quite good,
but they weren't like they didn't have huge record
collections that we dive into We kind of made
it up as we went along and your parents were
born in the 20s. Probably no 30 30s Okay, my
fault my my adoptive parents were born in the
20s and they didn't have any There was no music
at all in my house the television, of course.
Mm -hmm, and I've always they went to see live
music, but when I came along, they stopped or
they just didn't do that. What about that thing?
You always, I always tell people about that picture
in your kitchen of Elvis, where you've got two
sets of parents in different parts. Yeah. My
mother's in the front row and my adopted parents,
fate would have them in the back row. Yeah. Yeah.
I tell you that, that, that story to go back
to what I was talking about, like the reappraisal
of the reality of coming here for the first time
was like, realizing that people had real lives
that were connected to Elvis playing in the,
you know, in the fairground or Tupelo, wherever
it was, you know, that these were, you know.
It actually happened in real lives as opposed
to this fantasy kind of, you know, imaginary
thing. That's why I enjoyed the Mark Lewisham
book on the Beatles or the only one that's been
allowed to come out. You know, tune in because
I think it does allow that to happen, which is
you still want your mythology in place of what
you think something was because that's sacred.
But you also as an adult or you want something
new to come along, especially if you're. 40 50
60 years old you want to know something else
about them you want to know something that strengthens
the mythology yeah and usually that's reality
yeah yeah because um i was just listening to
some joseph campbell clip on youtube and he's
talking about how mythology arises out of your
own needs as a human being so everybody's take
on revolver or the stones or whatever um is different
and unique, although we tend to lump it all together.
Yeah. We tend for it to be together. And then
your job is to fill a venue with a crowd. Every
single one of those people have a different take
on what they're seeing. Of course, yeah. It's
one thing to come over to America and go, oh,
there's Louisiana, there's Mississippi, but you're
actually hanging out with people. Yeah. What's
that like? It's just normal reality, really,
I guess. I mean, I first met Andrea when I promoted
T -Model Ford. at this venue i was working at
and she came along with um jason from spiritualized
and we met briefly so there was a little bit
of a contact there and then i can't remember
how we connected in we connected in memphis i
just i think i just knew that she i think maybe
we was we were communicating by email and then
i said i'm coming over and then we met and i
think we went to wild bills back in the day had
an amazing has an amazing experience in fact
actually i i can remember now that first trip
before i met you when i came over with alice
we went up to wild bills together and it was
so good we went again a couple of nights later
um i don't even know what's going on there now
i don't know this i mean this was 20 years ago
yeah yeah it's probably changed what roads led
to us meeting just gave me a copy of that is
it the Shangri -La guide to Memphis? There's
a guide to Memphis. Yeah, Creature Conference.
Yes, he gave me a copy. He had a copy of that
and he said, check all of this out. In fact,
I can't remember if that was the second or the
first trip. I've known Joss for a long time.
Yeah. And he said we should meet. How did you
meet Joss? Just putting on shows. He used to
do DJing at some of my shows and so we just connected
for a mutual love of music. So you didn't know
each other when you were teens? No. Teenagers?
No, no, not at all. How old were you when you,
Did your first band? 16, 17. And who were they?
Well... We're not going to cut to one of those
songs, are we? You can't do it because it's virtually
impossible to find any records of them. But there's
a punk band in Norwich called The Pits. And funnily
enough, they released a song on this compilation
called Bullshit Detector. Volume two, I think
it was. They're not here right now. Three volumes,
but you can't find it. It's virtually impossible.
But that was released by Crass. Okay. So Crass
used to do these compilations where people would
send in their demo tapes and they just packaged
them up and put them out. And that was before
I joined the band when that came out. But they
asked me to be in it because they knew I was
a guitarist or I could play guitar. And I did
my first show. I can't remember the date or the
year of it, but we were supporting the punk band
Chelsea. So that's the first gig I ever played
was with Chelsea. Chelsea was the original band
that Billy Idol and Tony James were in before
they formed Generation X. Because they then left
and then created Generation X. And Billy was
the guitarist in Chelsea. And then he became
the singer in Generation X. And what year is
this? 77. So you're really taking advantage of
the punk. explosion as it happened in real time
well i mean i was too young at that point i mean
i just know in retrospect that that's what happened
well when when you were 12 in 1977 did you you
knew punk was happening yeah it was the dominant
exciting thing and for me personally i'd like
been in i've been like interested a little bit
in glam rock, you know, a bit of what I saw on
the local... Really? You were so young. Yeah,
when I was really, really... But it was so dominant
in the UK at that time. I certainly wasn't into
traditional rock music like Led Zeppelin or The
Stones or anything at that point. Right. It wasn't
of interest. But when, I guess... punk came along
it was like a condensed version of glam with
a lot more aggression and that kind of attracted
me to it and then i sort of just dug deeper into
it to your childhood bowie sort of came off like
the beatles i guess on the tube right yeah yeah
i mean you were watching uh old grey whistle
test and more like top of the pop top of the
pops too young to watch oh really i mean because
just not because it was you know that was that
was more prog rock and things like that, even
though Bowie was on it. Do you know what I mean?
I wasn't really aware of it. I remember watching
Roxy music early on and being quite intrigued
by it more than I was by Bowie for some reason.
I don't know why. Obviously in time you come
to appreciate all this, you know, that Bowie
is like an amazing talent and you know, the way
he reinvented himself and all the rest of it.
But you know, I was just a kid. It wasn't like
something I was digging into that deeply, but
punk rock made a definite connection to me. You
were, knowledgeable about all that stuff before
you even knew who elvis was probably no i knew
who elvis was so that was always yeah but the
thing of the thing the interesting thing about
that point was that elvis was obviously a big
figure in the 70s a cultural figure in the 70s
but i couldn't connect with the elvis that i
saw at the time in the mid 70s to the person
i you know i'd look and read about from the late
50s they seemed like so disconnected in the amount
of time between the two as a young person that
how could this be the same person and then when
he died in 77 i was aware of that and it didn't
seem it didn't come as a shock because he looked
like he was quite ill it is weird The period
of time from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, which from
35 to 77, everything that America does is golden.
It's soft culture. It impacts the entire world,
even the East, to whatever degree it was allowed
in. But the West wins by having rock and roll.
We know it's wrong now to think that rock and
roll can change the world because it kind of
already did. But yet there's this need to still
have or want rock and roll. I'd had real... life
experiences of what it could be like the second
show I ever saw was the Ramones on the end of
the century tour and I was really keen on them
I looked like a mini Ramone I mean I had all
that going on and then I went to that they came
and played the local university in Norwich and
I'm sure you saw the same tour but everything
went dark and then the backdrop rolled down one
two three four hey we're the Ramones bam and
at that point I've never ever experienced anything
like it in my life. And I know it's a cliche
now and everyone goes, oh, my life changed and
the rest of it. But it suddenly opened my mind.
And that overwhelming sense of electric power
that came off the stage was just like nothing
I'd ever, you know. Wait, so this is 79? No,
this was early 80. Early, okay. Because the album
was released in 79. Rock and roll high school
era. Yeah, no, this is end of the century. So
it was the album after that, I think. But it's
Phil Spector. Yeah. Yeah, the one where they
played the. You want to play a Ramones song?
Yeah, yeah, play Rockaway Beach. Let's do it.
One, two, three, four. I mean, one of the best
records I heard at the time is It's Alive by
the Ramones. And the whole energy and the sound
of that record, you know, I was just completely
obsessed with. And I've actually learned in hindsight
that it's actually quite hard to be able to make
a band sound that good. You know, everyone goes,
oh, they're a joke band. They're like, you know,
it's all like... But it's to play like that.
is you know to have that power and that excitement
and to go back to what we were talking about
originally one of the things i mentioned when
i was discussing with jim was to have that effect
when we play when the jim jones review to be
that single -minded yeah like that sort of like
you go on and you just like and the ramones are
incredibly single -minded and they're when you
saw them they are blasting an american fucking
message into your brain i mean even beyond america
just new york really yeah um americana message
of limited intellect even but it's so powerful
and and single -minded that it comes across as
avant -garde well i mean you know i don't want
to get too down the sort of like rabbit hole
of like guitar nerdery but one of the things
i used to do i mean like playing in the jim jones
of you was a very physical experience you had
to be at the top of your game physically to do
it you couldn't you couldn't busk it you went
in there and you had to commit it to the fully
and so before we did a tour and we toured hard
most of the time you know i'd go into sort of
training in inverted commas to get myself like
physically fit but also um so i could my playing
was fit enough to be able to my playing was you
mean your diet you're sleeping no no i mean yeah
just partly that just the ability to play like
i needed to play to be able to play that kind
of music needed a certain kind of single mind
and i'd play ramones songs to warm up down strokes
yeah all down strokes and then the thing which
was beautiful about the ramones everything's
interconnected. The hi -hat's doing its thing.
And then the bass and the guitar, it's all like,
that's why you've got all different tonal frequencies,
that thing cutting your head off because it's
just like a block of noise, you know, with Joey
sitting on top of it. And yeah, and it's not
easy to do that. That's why most punk bands sound
shit in hindsight. They weren't as good as the
Ramones, you know? And the Ramones knew that.
I think Johnny did, didn't he? Well, yeah. I
mean, all these people wanted to give their,
you know, uh thanks to the ramones and somehow
connect with them and i know it was awkward for
the ramones because they were so judgmental as
they should have been probably well i mean yeah
i mean you know i mean you know those first three
or four albums are just so amazing what year
did you see the ramones 80 in 80 okay but i didn't
get to see them until long long after really
that's interesting but um but to go you know
there's a kind of duality that's happening here
because at the same time I'm starting to hear
blues music and I was I was naturally inquisitive
to sort of listen to the punk rocker the Clash
and the Pistols and then I started listening
to the MC5 and the Stooges and working back but
then I started to dig into you know the early
rock and roll like you know obviously Elvis and
Chuck Berry and Little Richard but then I'm going
into the blues stuff so I kind of fairly quickly
had an understanding of where this music originally
came from But like I said earlier, some of the
original blues guys were still playing and had
an opportunity to see them. And what happened
around this time, which was really interesting,
which we talked about a little bit earlier before
we got here, was that I had a friend who shared
the same interests as me. And we liked the cramps.
And we were reading The Legion of the Damned,
which Lindsay was doing. they'd have these recommendations
of what you should check out if you like the
cramps. And one of it was Panther Burns and one
of them was The Gun Club. And so we'd buy these
records and I think we bought them on Mintport
because we were so desperate to hear them. And
especially with The Fire of Love by The Gun Club,
there was all these cover versions of old blues
songs that we were unaware of. And we were just
like... It was done in such a way that it was
evocative of the original songs, but it was done
in a punk rock way. So it wasn't strictly punk
blues, but it was very beguiling and it was very
attractive to listen to. And we had a friend
of ours who had his father was one of the old
blues guys from the 60s. And we used to call
him the professor because his name was Roger
Greenwood. He had a completely encyclopedic record
collection. of all the original blues players.
So we would then get him to do tapes for us of,
you know, Lightning Hopkins and Robert Johnson
and all of these people. So this blues thing
is going on at the same time as all the punk
rocks. I'm seeing punk rock bands, but I'm also
digging further into the blues. And that came
primarily from the Cramps to the Gun Club through
to this guy who was making these tapes for us.
So all of this thing was going on. Cassette tapes.
Yeah, exactly, cassette tapes. So I don't know
where they are now, but I had lots and lots of
them where we just listened to this original
blues music. And it was completely, it was very,
very, you know, it was very alien sounding to
us. The song I'd like you to play next, if you
can, is called Drink of Water Blues by The Gun
Club. That's from Fire of Love. And that, you
know, it's, I think it's originally a Tommy Johnson
song, but it's, yeah, that's... absolutely evocative
of you know this area but in my imagination at
the time Your attraction to pop culture, I don't
even know if you can recall, punk really isn't
pop culture. And that's the problem, I think,
that developed in Western culture was that corporations
and commercialism of rock and roll could not
readily digest what it was giving people. And
I still love a lot of the corporate rock that
came out at the time. compared to now everything
seems so not nostalgic but or sentimental it
just seems like there were people who knew how
to play and i respect that versus people who
technically quote unquote don't know how to play
because there's emotional fortitude in both styles
well i mean i don't know what it was like here
but one of the things i loved about punk rock
it said that at this point music matters everything
before it doesn't Which is why I'm surprised
you get into the blues because the blues don't
matter with punk rock. No, but I mean, I adhered
quite strictly to the rules. Just like with rap
music, blues doesn't matter. Oh, well, this is
the interesting connection. I wouldn't listen
to Pink Floyd. I still don't. Because Johnny
Rotten wore a t -shirt. I won't have it in the
house. You know what I mean? I didn't listen
to Led Zeppelin. None of that. Certainly none
of the West Coast kind of, you know, whatever
you call it, adult orientated rock and all that.
What, the country rock? The Eagles and things
like that. Oh, Laurel Canyon? I fucking hated
it. Do you know what I mean? Do you still? Yeah.
You don't like the birds? I like the birds. Okay.
But I mean. You got to stop somewhere. Yeah.
So like birds, yes. Eagles, no. But what happened?
What happened? There's a big void there, you
know? Yeah. But what happened for me anyway?
What happened in the 80s is that I started to
get, I got deeper into music and I was listening
to things like the Birthday Party. And, you know,
I was listening quite heavily to the Stooges.
The indie music of the day, and by indie music,
I mean inverted commas like indie as a sort of
like a genre of music. Like Elvis Costello? No,
no, I'm talking about after, I'm talking like
the Smiths and things like that. Yeah. I didn't
really, I mean, I got the Smiths a lot, lot later,
but I didn't get them. I did during the, during
the time they come, but not necessarily them,
but the other bands around at the time, you know,
I just didn't understand anything to do with
it. It didn't mean anything. I was kind of feeling
a little bit lost in terms of wanting high energy
music that connected with me. And eventually,
and funnily enough, there's a, you're probably
aware of it. There's a, there was a, a disc jockey
in uh the uk called john peel who used to have
these shows in the evening and he'd play this
huge different selection different kinds of music
but he was one of the champions of punk earlier
on but um it's kind of a rite of passage at that
time when you were a teenager that you would
listen to john peel and then you know you would
develop your music taste but he started playing
this music from new york um that i became completely
obsessed with like very early hip -hop and you
know mixing chopping together all you know stuff
from the previous 30 or 40 years of um um music
sampling you mean yeah well no but before sampling
when they were like you know like grandmaster
flash had this song called um the adventures
of grandmaster flash in the wheels of steel and
it was him cutting records between the two of
them and that just completely blew me and that
became exciting and then that became the next
punk rock for me and then i got very very deeply
into hip -hop and one of the things that really
excited me was when the hip -hop guys in the
mid 80s started to use rock breaks because i
never listened to any of the rock breaks i never
listened to fin lizzy i never listened to led
zeppelin i never listened to any of that because
the punk rock rule book said it wasn't allowed
right and then obviously led zeppelin were heavily
sampled by the beastie boys and run dmc and all
these other people and then i worked backwards
and then i got into led zeppelin in the mid 80s
Just in time to catch their last tour. Well,
I don't know. I think they were long gone by
then. But then in certain parts, I said, all
right, okay. There is parts of this. It's exciting
punk in a different way. Do you know what I mean?
So I kind of got into Led Zeppelin through the
back door. What amazes me about Jimmy Page is
his all the way back to the Freak Beat stuff.
with the mid -60s Swingin' London stuff, that
I didn't even know about Page. But when he was
a session player. Yes. And when he had all these
connections that he simply built upon to create
Led Zeppelin. Yeah. The most amazing thing I
found, I had on my radio show, I had Chris Salovich
who did his biography and I was reading Chris's
biography of Jimmy Page. And one of the really
remarkable things that came out of that was that
before Led Zeppelin started, Jimmy Page was a
millionaire and he was a millionaire. Was he?
Yeah. Because he not only played on a lot of
the big hits of the time, he owned the publishing
for the B -sides and things like that. So he
accumulated a huge amount of money at an early
age. By playing on Goldfinger, he must have...
Or whatever it was, he played on everything,
didn't he? Well, but he wouldn't have gotten
royalties from Goldfinger. No, no, no, but on
the B -sides, if he wrote it. Anyway, he'd accumulated
a lot of money. So when he put Led Zeppelin together...
He owns the masters and the rights and the publishing
and everything to do with Led Zeppelin right
from the get -go. So in his way, he was like
a forerunner of, you know, the indie sort of
thing of the late 70s, but just on a much, much
bigger scale. As he was doing Uncredited Blues.
We're not going to cue a Led Zeppelin song, are
we? Let me have a look at my list. Oh my God.
I might just add one here just to upset you.
I thought I'd never come to this. Have you ever
played Led Zeppelin on here? We don't usually
for good reason. I did enjoy the recent documentary.
Okay, let's do the two together. Let's play Rhyming
and Stealing by the Beastie Boys, which uses
When the Levee Breaks as the breakbeat. I got
your money and your honey. Alibaba and the 40
Thieves Alibaba and the 40 Thieves She sure gets
it. I don't know what the hell just happened.
That's what happens when you don't give an Englishman
his tea, proper tea. Well, I've had a lot of
tea. I just don't know what kind of tea it is.
Isn't it? He said something about his tea was
gunpowder tea. I mean, what, Guy Fawkes tea?
Gunpowder. He did say gunpowder. He did say gunpowder.
And then Eric Oblivion was in there and it all
got really confusing. You just met Eric Oblivion
for the first time. I know. I'm like being given
gunpowder tea and meeting Eric Oblivion. The
coffee shop, it's all getting too confusing.
This may be too abstract and we can move on.
I grew up out on a gravel road and I could only
find like certain kinds of rock and roll in Walmart
and certain mass, you know, shops. When I met
George, even then we could go to these record
stores and malls and in the import section, you
would find the Ramones. The ironicness of finding
an American band in an import section because
they didn't know how else to label it. That's
when you knew that corporations were taking over
and we were completely lost. If you're completely
lost in the late 70s, not knowing how to label
your own rock and roll, is it any wonder we're
completely lost as a country now? Well, I think
what you're talking about is the beginning of
the commodification of consumerism. It's the
commodification of America as a concept. And
that is why I've been having problems in hotels
as well as tea. Do you know what I mean? We had
a tea party once, you know? I suppose. I don't
know about that. I still don't understand what
that was about. Taxation, I guess? That commodification
is like you redevelop an old warehouse building
from the industrial age as a kind of hip -happening
place, but nothing works in there. You know what
I mean? No bathroom. There's never a bathtub.
It's always a shower. But that's the least of
your problems. Do you know what I mean? Try getting
breakfast. Have you ever peed in a sink? No.
I guess you never went to Amsterdam then. All
right. We'll leave that there. Why do you have
to turn your back on things at a certain age
to reject a commodity even at an early age? You're
recognizing it. commodity for what it is because
you're going into punk rock I think that's an
anachronism now because A kids really aren't
into rock and roll anyway now and if they are
they're into everything do you know what I mean
we're just like that was just how it was at the
time thanks to the internet now that's Stalinist
revision of whatever but i mean i was never into
those long hair bands to start off with so i
never had that issue i just got into punk rock
because it excited me but i think of rock and
roll as southern rock because rock and roll was
created in the south yeah so all rock and roll
originally is southern rock by default yeah and
and also let me throw this at you mr rupert orton
um rock and roll is progressive it defies genre
when rock and roll is dead everything drifts
back into its rap its country it's uh whatever
the hell you call it rock and roll is a sign
of progression because it unites country blues
pop soul gospel it unites a whole bunch of things
and adds distortion to it and it moves forward
like capitalism like america moves forward and
when it dies america dies that's that's well
then we're dying aren't we because it's on its
way out It's been dead. But it's good that even
in England, you said, hey, we don't have any
rock and roll. When really, that's what we should
be saying in America. But you're saying it in
England. Well, I mean, we said that in 2005.
So that was 20 years ago. I know, I know. And
then what we were doing finished like, you know,
eight years later or whatever. So I don't really
know where things are now. Well, I heard this
interview on NPR of all places. Interview with
Alice Cooper and he said he'd gotten into a disagreement
or friendly argument with Gene Simmons about
Gene was was angry because rock and roll was,
quote unquote, dead. And Alice Cooper said, it's
not dead. It's just not commercial. It's still
happening in garages. It's still happening. But
it seems like if it were happening as a roots
movement, it would still come forth in the commercial
world. But it's not. I just don't think kids
are interested in it. Right. You know. Because
it did what it was supposed to do. I think rock
and roll works best when it's played by teenagers
or people in their early 20s at the very latest.
That's when it really, really works. Right. And
they understand it. Right. And it kind of got
less of appeal when it's played by people in
their 60s, you know. So when you were in Jim
Jones Review, how old were you? Late 30s. So
we were in the Last Chance Saloon. Right. All
right. So when you traveled to America and you
said you hit up Clarksdale. Yeah. Were you familiar
with Rosedale? No. So. I spent some time in Rosedale
over the last couple of years. Rosedale is the
only song that Robert Johnson actually mentions
in a song. He never mentions Clarksdale. He talks
about being on a ride with a rider who's going
to Rosedale. And a friend of mine opened a restaurant,
wanted it to be a juke joint in sort of the way
that a white guy opens a business in a black
community and hopes that it'll catch on. And
this maybe goes back to the disinterest in the
community of not wanting to have it. any affiliation
with Satan because they're Christians and conservative,
you know, in this country and especially in a
place like that. And so what led to me painting
12 murals on the wall depicting Robert Johnson
in Rosedale, discovering a deal with the devil
and what have you, the hellhounds and all that,
the building eventually got burned to the ground
mysteriously. So I'm just saying the next time
you go to Clarksdale, you should go a little
further down. Cut over to the river and go to
Rosedale. Well, I'm going on Wednesday, so I'll
maybe check it out. But did you know, I don't
know if you listened to my interview with Tav.
He came to Memphis because he had to flee Dallas
because he was in a satanic cult. That's called
the Dallas Police Department. Do you know what
they did to Kennedy by any chance? That's the
same satanic cult that Tav encountered. I'm sure
pretty sure. I listened to Tav. No, I did listen
to your entire Au revoir today. And I was actually,
anytime I listened to, you call it a radio show?
It's not a podcast? Yeah, no, it's broadcast
on a radio station. Seriously? Called Totally
Wild Radio. Yeah, that's why I can play music
on it. Did you hear that, Dennis? Well, we play
music here. It's a podcast. What's the difference?
In the UK, they have this thing called PRS. Which
is if you play music on a broadcasted show, then
you have to pay PRS. So you either do it or it's
a podcast if it's just people talking or it's
a radio show if you play music as well. You go
into your radio show heavy with music, like three
or four songs deep. Well, that's intentional
because I play roots music mainly. I play what
I want, but mainly it orientates around country
or blues or rock and roll. and i want to play
the best of what's happening now so it's all
new and that's intriguing to me and that's very
cool that he does that it's just that of all
the podcasts i've listened to over a variety
of spectrums uh we kind of right now we're going
at it differently where we might play one song
going into an interview like we we're doing with
you yeah because i want people to know that you
are a musician who plays in bands but sometimes
we have interviews where the musicians Sometimes
we don't even get to music that much. Frankly,
isn't that weird? Maybe we shouldn't do that.
Maybe we should play more music. You need to
just do what you want. I don't know what I'm
doing. On the station that my show goes out on,
I'm kind of the only person who plays what I
play. Mainly they're kind of record collectors,
and they play vintage soul music or reggae and
stuff like that, and it's all great, but mine's
a little bit different from that. Play the thing
that you, I noticed a new name that came up,
Robert. Finley. Let's play something by him.
Yeah, well, Robert's really interesting. He's
a guy from Louisiana. He's, you know, one of
my booking clients in Europe. And he signed to
Easy Eye Sounds, which is Dan Auerbach's label
from the Black Keys. And Dan produces and co
-writes with Robert. But Robert's, yeah, he's
blown up in Europe really, really good. Let's
play something right now and come back and talk
about it. Okay. What do you want to play? Holy
Ghost Party. Let's do it. What did we just listen
to? We listened to Robert Finlay, Holy Ghost
Party, which has just been released. And he's
got a new record coming out in a couple of weeks.
And yeah, he's a really interesting guy, actually.
He's in his early 70s and plays with a young
UK -based band when he's over in Europe. But
he's much bigger in Europe than he is over here.
It's just one of that. Where's he from? Louisiana.
Okay. Monroe, Louisiana. So, yeah. I started
working with him at the tail end of the pandemic
and then it just came to get once things opened
up again and he released a new record, his career
just exploded. Do you feel sort of like you're
in management sometimes instead of just booking?
Well, I have been in management. Yeah. So do
you consider yourself a manager of some of these
artists? No, no. I mean, I am a manager of certain
artists, but with Robert, I'm just his booking
agent. Who do you manage? Take Me to the River.
which is a project which is based in Memphis
around Carla Thomas, High Rhythm, Boo Mitchell,
Royal Studios, and then also New Orleans, which
is around Cyril Neville, Amari Neville, Robert
Mercurio, Big Chief, Bo Dallas Jr., and things
like that, which is a really exciting thing to
be involved with. Yeah. So do you handle more
the UK side of things? No, I manage them worldwide.
Worldwide. Okay. All right. I started off as
their booking agent, but have just recently taken
over the management of the project. And that's
under the name of? Take Me to the River. Okay.
Which is really interesting. It's essentially
an education initiative, a not -for -profit based
in California that teaches students about the
origins of American R &B and soul. And here you
are from England. I know. Coast to Newcastle.
I'm not doing the teaching. I'm just doing the
facilitation of the management. Well, let's talk
about Pink Lemonade for a bit because I didn't
even know you did Pink Lemonade. Have I missed
out on something you told me? Because it came
up in my feed today and I'm like, well, apropos,
I'm going to be talking. Really? I mean, I'm
not. that shy on promoting things so i just didn't
know or maybe i'm so clueless i skipped it but
i listened to your entire tafalco interview yeah
well thanks for that i mean you shared it as
well which is great but i i was just saying earlier
um you know essentially my work revolves around
live music that's what it is you know and um
it got wiped out obviously quite quickly in the
uh the pandemic I couldn't obviously promote
shows because the venues weren't open and we
weren't allowed to leave our house and all the
rest of it. And you got in the cycle of rescheduling
shows and tours, which looked like they were
never, ever going to happen again. How did you
survive that? Just kind of, just philosophically
kind of just accepted that things had stopped
or paused for a long period of time and not to
get... too anxious about it i started riding
my bike or riding a bike i got into cycling quite
heavily and meditation and that kind of got me
through it really but at that point a good friend
of mine going back to what we were talking about
earlier about people that connect and open things
up and they don't hold back this guy called dean
chalkley contacted me and he was djing um on
this radio station called totally wide radio
and he said you should do it you should do a
radio show and i've never thought about it and
so i did it And then, so that came out of the
pandemic and it was just something to do while
nothing else was going on. So I, you know, I
had a pretty good address book. So I just, and
like I said, the station is about record collectors.
And as much as I love music deeply, I'm not really
a record collector. So I couldn't compete with
these guys who were playing really rare sort
of Northern Soul 45s in 1968 and there was only
five of them or whatever. Do you know what I
mean? That wasn't what I was about. But I do
have a good address book. You know, I'm connected
to people through what I do, you know, when I'm
promoting music. So, you know, I just started
calling people up and then doing interviews with
them. I think the first thing I ever did was
with Nick Lowe. And then it was George Vigistica,
The Bad Seeds and so on. And it's just been an
interesting thing to do. Wow, you started out
with Nick Lowe? Yeah. Damn. Yeah. So it's, no,
it's been great. And that's five years ago, believe
it or not. And I had no intention of presenting
a radio show. It was just, it was just something
that kind of came out of adversity. Well, to
what we talked about earlier, do you know what
I mean? But you started in 2020 from the get
go of COVID. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say
presenting a radio show is particularly creative,
but it was an interesting experience. It still
proves to be, you know, just talking to people
about that, people I find stimulating and interesting,
like Tav Falco, like John Spencer, like Reckless
Eric or whoever. you know yeah no no i mean it's
been good i mean but the other thing i did which
isn't really related to music is i became very
fit through cycling so like it was quite bizarre
to be in my my mid -50s and be the fittest i've
ever been in my life so there was this kind of
weird duality again So, no, I listened to Tav
today. We were talking about procedures of how
you go in and edit and how you mechanically structure.
Can you talk about that a bit? Like, what's your
approach to creating the thing that people hear?
I want to keep it live, even though it's pre
-recorded. So I pre -record the interviews by
Zoom. Then I edit them down. And then I drop
that into the main body of the interview. And
I play some music that I like. that's excited
me recently and that's kind of it you know and
i try to keep i try to keep a sort of a kind
of uh an excitement so that how i feel about
playing that music and talking to the people
that i'm talking to sometimes it works and sometimes
it doesn't but like for instance with tav i'd
had someone else um lined up and we were going
to do tav the next month but the other thing
didn't come so i said tav do you want to do it
he said yes so we because i had to come over
to the us I recorded the interview one day, edited
it the next and then finished it in like, you
know, space of two days, which for me was quite
quick because I didn't have any choice because
I had to jump on a plane and go to Nashville.
So that was quite immediate and you don't have
time to hang around. It's not like I'm kind of
carefully editing it and making everything sound
perfect. It's kind of punk rock in its approach
just to keep the vibrancy and excitement. the
conversation, but also in the music that you're
playing. Right. The only thing I can even cite
that it's resembles sort of in a certain way.
And I don't really have a wide, you know, knowledge
of a lot of UK type things, but would be, you
know, the pretty things, ugly things, you know,
podcast where, you know, you're coming across
with some esoteric stuff and, and, and, and older
artists, maybe even, I'm sure you talk to younger
people too, but at this point it seems like everybody's
old. I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but, and
you do, you, try to do very little editing yeah
I do the same I don't want to do a live totally
live literally presentation just because I think
it's more succinct to give people the key moments
yeah yeah yeah I mean yeah and sometimes you
got to edit it because to you got to fit it in
yeah like you know oh you have a certain time
thing you're shooting for yeah I mean my show
is a two -hour slot so I don't think we ever
shoot for any particular Sometimes we go over
two hours. This may be over two hours. Oh, my
God. Poor listeners. All 11 of them. 12, thank
you. They probably all know each other. They're
probably all messaging each other at the moment
going, oh, my God, we've got another hour of
this. It's like, what's this got to do with Memphis
music history? Why is he talking about tea all
the time? Hotel lobbies. Let's talk about the
cramps. Oh yeah, what do you want to know? You
tell me. What do I need to know? Well, to me,
the cramps. I mean, I like the cramps like everyone
else. They're fantastic. Oh, everybody else.
Yeah, I mean, we're all the same, aren't we?
But the cramps to me were like a gateway to this
other music. I mean, I love the cramps, but it's
not like I get up and I listen to the cramps
every day. But the music that I got into via
the cramps, I still do do, yeah. Well, like we
discussed earlier. Yeah, yeah. Like, you go from
the cramps to the gun club to Tommy Johnson.
But wait a minute. Did you hear the Ramones before
the cramps? Yes. Okay. Yeah. But then, you know,
there's that famous picture in New York of Kid
Conco down the front of a Ramones show. So it
all connects, doesn't it? I want to do a new
project with the cramps, even though they're
dead. Yeah. Well, luxes. And I can, the only
people I want to work with are dead people. Right.
At this point. I mean, I'll work with Dennis,
but. Sometimes I look over and I'm like, did
you skip a meal? Did you skip a meal, Dennis?
Or what's going on? Hello, Gail. Gail's trying
to tiptoe through. Gail will confirm what I'm
saying. The cramps, all this stuff came so later
to me and I met them twice and I did want to
work with them while they were active and alive.
Well, look, that's all well and good, but there's
something interesting about the cramps that I
think connects to... go back to Tad Falco and
Panther Burns, is that, you know, the cramps
evolved in New York in the mid -70s or whenever
it was, but they took it to such a degree of,
they were kind of more of like, you know, avant
-garde art statement initially, taking very rare
rockabilly songs that no one knew about and presenting
them in this way with Brian Gregory with, you
know, his spotted flying V and cigarettes stuck
in the strings and Poison Ivy doing her thing.
and Tav was just like you know he came through
his like you know his art statement things of
sawing you know guitars in half and it having
someone like Alex Chilton to teach him you know
that rock and roll could be art as well and I
think that's really interesting because what
purports to be rock and roll now is people have
just grown up on rock and rolls you know i mean
they haven't come from this left field of this
completely separate way and then going oh well
this is an interesting you know like the roxy
music thing it's like let's take this art form
and twist it and change it and come up with this
new thing and i think the cramps did that i think
panther burns did that i don't hear that with
many modern bands now brian gregory similar thing
Everything that he did and grew up on spilled
into science fiction, even in the corniest B
-movie kind of way. And that's what makes his
lead guitar inept and brilliant at the same time.
Brian Gregory is worth discussing about for a
moment. Yeah. Because going back to me and my
mate Ian, when we were... listening to the cramps
and checking them out and those little fragments
of kind of video that you'd get very very occasionally
because obviously you didn't have youtube like
napa valley yeah or whatever it might have been
just like these little you know like the video
for garbage man and things like that We genuinely
found Brian Gregory to be, you know, terrifying
and unsettling. Do you know what I mean? His
acne was that bad. Well, no, he just looked very...
I mean, he had a similar haircut to the guy out
of the Human League. But unlike the guy from
the Human League, he actually looked like, you
know... Wait a minute. In Human League? He looked
like he would come and eat you. Do you know what
I mean? He looked like he would do you damage,
you know. And, yeah, that was like... I mean,
that's quite an achievement, isn't it? To actually
scare your audience properly. I mean, I remember
when I saw the birthday party for the first time
or on a number of occasions, the audience was
genuinely scared of them. And to have that sense
of aggression. And, you know, I don't know what
it was like here. But, I mean, when I first started
going to shows in the 79 onwards, gig violence
was just commonplace. You know, whether it was
the band scaring the audience or the audience
fighting or whatever. And that happened for quite
a few years. Well, that starts with the Stones,
doesn't it? Yeah, but this was on another level.
Oh, really? Yeah. Funnily enough, talking to
the Stones, you know the famous story where they
were playing in Blackpool and the audience were
lobbying stuff at them and all the rest of it.
And the main kind of ringleader had his hands
on the stage and was goading on Keith. And Keith
turned around to him and kicked him straight
in the face and smashed all his teeth out and
the whole place turned into a riot. I went there
a couple of weeks ago to a punk rock festival.
It's a place called the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool.
Same place? Yeah. Same venue? Yeah. Wow. Yeah,
but it's this huge punk rock festival now. Too
many hippies there now, probably. No hippies
at all. Lots of 60 -year -old octogenarian punk
rockers. And you don't have to kick their teeth
out because they don't have any. No. Yeah. No.
You kick their upper plate out. No. I mean, actually,
interestingly, there was a mixture of different
generations there. It wasn't all about it. So
what's your overview of the whole thing then?
I was just curious. I mean, actually, I realized.
I mean, there was a number of things that were
interesting about it. The first reason I was
there, I was with this band I work with called
The Corrects, who are not a punk band, but...
I saw them at Garnerfest. Yeah. Yeah. And they
were great. They went down really, really well.
Oh, they're really great. Really, really, really
good. So I was interested. My first thing is
just to see how that audience would react to
them and they loved them, which was great. That
was really, really good. The second thing was
I realised in my life, this is the first time
I've been surrounded by 10 ,000 punk rockers,
even at the height of punk rock in... my experience
in the late 70s and early 80s and the third thing
was to be i don't know if you have this over
here you must do but blackpool used to be a very
where this place is this festival is um takes
place it's called rebellion blackpool used to
be a a real kind of victorian successful seaside
town as a resort yeah yeah like the beatles would
play there yeah exactly this place the empress
ballroom which i'm talking about yeah everybody
would play there obviously the stones when they
weren't i'm just impressed it's still there oh
yeah and it's a beautiful building it's like
this old victorian it's like lots of different
ballrooms all in what part of england is this
it's the northwest okay um but outside of this
ballroom and a few other like bits and pieces
in this town it's in a very bad way financially
you know there's a lot of shut down buildings
there's not a lot going on there the hotels are
empty and it's just you know it's tragic but
it's interesting to see how that seems to be
failing but other areas of the UK seem to be
doing okay it's just a very weird time at the
moment so where did all these punk rockers come
from all over the world So it wasn't just England?
No. All around the world. It's like, you know,
all different ages. Did you book some of the
bands? Oh, no. I mean, I'm not a promoter. You
just went to have fun. I booked the Carets as
a booking agent, but I wasn't booking the festival.
I actually gave the lady in the Carets a... Slavia.
a sore losers blu -ray all right okay well i'm
seeing that one of the reasons i'm here is that
they're um playing in new york next week so i'm
going to go and see them to go back to the cramps
again real quick tell me about your i guess it
would be your teenage years where uh the cramps
caught your attention and and how did that reflect
on you learning those first two records were
recorded in memphis do you have any thoughts
on that or how that you came to know that or
did that influence you i think that's the first
time i've heard you know, that's the first time
I became aware of Alex Chilton. Okay. Because
I knew nothing about the box tops or, you know,
any of the other stuff that he was doing. So
that, I just thought of him as the cramps producer.
Isn't that weird that you would find out about
Alex Chilton through something as marginal as
the cramps instead of something mainstream as
box tops? It's a bit, yeah, it's a bit similar.
I guess, to finding out Led Zeppelin through
the Beastie Boys. You know, it's just a weird
entry. But you wouldn't have found out about
Chilton through the replacements? No. No, I was
never a huge replacements fan. Okay. I mean,
it was, yeah. I didn't, yeah. I mean, I know
Paul Westerberg's incredible, but I mean, it
was not something that really connected me. In
fact, I, again, I mean, I guess it's my perverse
roundabout way of doing things. I got really
into Paul Westerberg when he did Grandpa Boy,
which was released on Fat Possum. And I loved
his guitar playing. Well, funny enough, during
the 80s, a lot of the music that I listened to,
I only found on import because you couldn't buy
it regularly. I mean, it got released eventually
as a regular release. But I remember one album.
It was a compilation of the first two New York
Dolls albums. And it was a Japanese import that
cost like £30. So it was way beyond what I could
afford. And I'd go into the local record shop
in Norwich. And I knew exactly where it was.
And no one could afford to buy it. It would always
be sitting there in the kind of racks. And I'd
take it out and just look at it. And it was like...
It was when Johnny Funders was... And this was
before Sid Vicious. He was wearing a swastika
armband over a leather jacket. And I think David
Johansson had a kind of top hat and tails, but
kind of with a twist on it. And the explosion
of colour and all the rest of it. And I was...
I knew some of the music already because I bought
the other album. But I just wanted that album.
I never bought it. I could never afford it. I
never, ever got it. But I remember, I think it'd
be hard to understand what that's like now when
you can get everything immediately, that you'd
just go to a record shop and pick up this cover.
I mean, literally, I'd be just looking at it
going, oh my God. But yeah, so when I could afford
it, I'd buy imports of stuff that was available.
And come the mid -80s, then all the hip -hop
stuff was coming over. They'd come into the local
record shop. on a thursday and i knew the guys
that worked there and we just go through everything
and that i remember hearing public enemy for
the first time the first ever public enemy 12
inch this is way before anything no one knew
anything about them and it just had that droney
jb's thing this actual song public enemy and
we were just freaking out we're just going this
is just taking it to another level and that idea
of buying something you don't know where it's
come from how it was made what's based on and
loving it you know which just doesn't happen
now everyone knows everything about everything
don't they i suppose and and even in 1982 when
i was listening to the punk rock cassette that
george had given me i would have to say that
the majority of the bands that were on the thing
were european so you could tell it in the in
the vocal uh but then again sometimes the vocals
are so affected that you know americans are trying
to sound a little bit english or whatever well
it makes a change from the other way around isn't
it yeah but but like with generation x and you
talking about chelsea earlier i mean i haven't
dug very far deep into that because the whole
presence of Billy Idol as a solo act kind of
kills your interest in something. Yeah, but that's
an interesting point, just to go off on a slight
tangent. Generation X were hated at the time.
Were they? Yeah, like being a sort of teeny bot
band or whatever. Huh. But the first Generation
X album is a proper punk rock album. I would
think so. It's worth checking out again. It's
worth revisiting. Like, Derwood, who's the guitarist
on this, ended up becoming a friend of mine.
He, like... My guitar heroes, the punk rock,
obviously Johnny Ramone, Steve Jones, Mick Jones,
but the other one is Derwood. And Brian James,
obviously, from The Dam. But Derwood is a remarkable
guitar. It's like that condensing, the beauty
of punk rock is where you condense the best of
everything into that sort of two to three minute
song. And his playing is economical, but like
straight to the point. Right, and everything's
very much like a buzzsaw set to rhythm. And there's
a clip that just came up that I shared on my
Facebook page for just some random impulsive
reason where Billy Idol has red hair. I mean,
it looks like a bunch of David Bowie haircuts,
basically. I mean, that's the whole punk rock
thing. It's a bunch of failed Ziggy Stardust
haircuts. Yeah, but they had the back cut off,
didn't they? Right. They defeated the mullet.
That's the point. And so I shared this clip and
it was rather magnetic because Billy Idol, maybe
he's on speed or something, but I think he's
just in love with the sound of this pure distortion.
And it's so primitive, like it's like a single
distortion pedal that's driving the entire thing
and the beat, of course. But he's waiting for
his moment to come in and he's bursting at the
seams. to sing, but he can't sing. He has to
wait for his moment to sing. And you can just
see that in his persona and his charisma. And
that is so exciting. Yeah, there's a great clip,
which might even be the one you're talking about,
but there's a great clip. It's a marquee club.
No, no, this is different. Mark Bolan used to
have this TV show. Yes, yes. And they were the
last band to play on there. Right. And it's when
Bowie... is playing with Bolan at the end. Right.
And I spoke to Mark Laff about it, the drummer
in Generation X, and he said that there was a
mix -up when they came to the studio because
they didn't have any of the gear to play. So
they played Mark Bolan's equipment when they
recorded it, and Derwood is playing Bolan's Les
Paul. Say that again? Derwood, the guitarist
of Generation X, is playing Bolan's Les Paul
on it. Wow, and you can see that on YouTube?
Yeah, yeah, it's all there. Well, you were speaking
earlier to how Top of the Pops was more your
speed because... Well, only because it was the...
I mean, the first time I ever saw the Sex Pistols
was on Top of the Pops because they're pretty
vacant. They did a video which was broadcast
on Top of the Pops. And by then, the whole of
the UK was in absolute uproar about punk rock.
And so as a little kid, you're curious and intrigued
about this thing. And then you see it. And it
is as good and as bad and as scary as you think
it's going to be. It didn't let you down. But
I see a direct relation to that in the Mark show,
Mark Boland show, because he had the jam. He
had Generation X. To be fair, the Mark show was
more underground than Top of the Pops. Top of
the Pops was a mainstream pop music show that
would occasionally feature some of the punk stuff.
Boland was very switched on and you know he toured
with these people you know I think he toured
he had the Damned on tour with them he had he
had some great acts playing on his show if I
remember correctly when it was broadcast it was
like you'd come back from school And that's when
it went on at five o 'clock. So you'd walk in
through the door and put your school and then
you turn on and there would be Generation X or
there would be the Damned or whoever. All we
had was Bugs Bunny. There you go. In America,
I don't know when we discovered that Mark Bolan
had a show. Thanks to the Internet, we discovered
it. You know, he dies one month to the day after
Elvis dies. And, of course, that performance
he does with Bowie where he screws up and falls
off the stage. I don't know what the reason for
that was. But there's obviously a lot of excitement
with the Mark show. Yeah. He's coming from John's
children, you know, up through playing electric
guitar. Yeah. And then, of course, I find out
about a band called Radio Stars. Yeah. And that
band. Andy Ellison, yeah. A good friend of mine
from the UK, this guy called Andrew Hackett.
We were going out, this is a long time ago, we
went out for the night and ended up with another
friend of ours, Boz Borer, who played with Morrissey
and various other things and was in a band called
The Polecats. And we ended up at his studio having
a jam with Andy Ellison and the drummer of John's
Children, whose name I can't remember off the
top of my head, and we played Anarchy in the
UK together. So that's probably a good way to
end the interview and play Anarchy in the UK.
Cause I wanna be anarchy No jobs, money, anarchy
for the UK It's coming sometime, maybe I'll give
her on time, stop her traffic The best high is
the rest