Fellow scribes

A Word in the Park: July 17th, 2021

I’ve been booked to appear at A WORD IN THE PARK, A SUMMER AFTERNOON OF SOCIALLY DISTANCED STORYTELLING, taking place in London’s Holland Park on SATURDAY July 17th, from 3 pm to 5 pm. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/…/a-word-in-the-park-a…

A word from the event’s gracious hosts Messrs. Ellen & Hepworth: On the afternoon of Saturday, July 17th, and thanks to the kindness of Opera Holland Park (https://operahollandpark.com/), we’ll be talking rock and roll with old pals and friends of the pod, and we’d love you to join us.

GARY CROWLEY – celebrating forty years as everybody’s teenager of choice, broadcasting every Saturday evening on Radio London and celebrating the release of another acclaimed compilation of Lost Favourites from the 80s, coming along to talk about The Jam, The Clash, his enduring love of The Beatles and anything else we feel like asking about.

LESLEY-ANN JONES – author of the Sunday Times best-seller Bohemian Rhapsody: The Definitive Biography pf Freddie Mercury and Who Killed John Lennon? , who will be talking about a professional career which has involved interviewing everyone from Frank Sinatra and Prince to David Bowie and Marc Bolan.

BARNEY HOSKYNS – author of celebrated books on Tom Waits, Led Zeppelin, The Band and Woodstock. He’ll be signing copies of his latest, “God Is In The Radio”, and looking back on a long career interviewing and writing about some of the most colourful names in rock.

DANNY BAKER – raconteur, writer, broadcaster, polymath, larynx on legs and Word In Your Ear stalwart.

Since the auditorium has been re-configured to facilitate social distancing, seating is strictly limited and therefore if you would like to be there please book early. We are also offering a limited allocation of premium seating at tables nearest to the stage. There will be a COVID-safe bar service for your refreshment.The auditorium is located in the beautiful setting of Holland Park, an easy walking distance from Kensington High Street, Holland Park, Shepherd’s Bush and Kensington Olympia tube stations.This event promises to have a vibe all its own, combining the essence of our nights at the Islington with the unique magic of one of London’s loveliest parks on what we hope will be a sunny afternoon. An overdue opportunity to catch up with each other in person.

Recent episodes of the RBP podcast

We’ve had some tremendous guests on the Rock’s Backpages ‘cast these past few weeks, so I thought I’d share a few of them here….

https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Podcast/Episode/e91
https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Podcast/Episode/e90
https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Podcast/Episode/e89
https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Podcast/Episode/e88
https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Podcast/Episode/e87
https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Podcast/Episode/e86

https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Podcast/Episode/e85

Alan McGee on the RBP podcast

In the new episode of the Rock’s Backpages podcast, Barney & Jasper welcome the legendary Alan McGee into RBP’s virtual cupboard. The Creation Records founder talks us through his storied career, from his school days in Glasgow to the Creation 23 label of the 21st century. 

Reminiscing about the early ’80s Living Room gigs he put on in London, Alan describes the signings of Oasis, the Jesus and Mary Chain another great Creation acts. He also explains how Primal Scream got from Sonic Flower Groove to Screamadelica; how he almost signed Teenage Fanclub’s idol Alex Chilton; how My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless did (or didn’t) almost bankrupted his & Dick Green’s baby; and how appalled Sony were by Kevin Rowland’s My Beauty album after the company acquired 49% of Creation’s shares in 1992.

Slightly cheekily, RBP’s co-hosts then force Alan to listen to clips from a 2007 audio interview with Alex James of Oasis’s Britpop nemesis Blur — except it turns out he never really hated those soft southern Sassenachs in the first place: it was all the Gallaghers’ fault. Quel surprise…

After paying their respects to fallen pop heroes Wayne Fontana, Trini Lopez and Seeds guitarist Jan Savage, Barney & Jasper talk through their highlights of the week’s new “library load “. These include Lillian Roxon’s 1966 report on “Music City USA” (i.e. Nashville); Michael Goldberg’s 1983 report on MTV’s exclusion of Black music videos; Joni Mitchell bellyaching in 1981 about being “written out of rock history”; a breathless 2002 review of Scandi garage rockers the Hives live at London’s Astoria, and a riveting Aphex Twin interview from 2003…

Mary Harron on the RBP podcast

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In this episode we welcomed the wonderful Mary Harron, director of cult movies I Shot Andy Warhol and American Psycho. After a brief digression on dating Tony Blair at Oxford, the Canadian relived her memories of the punk rock scene at New York’s CBGB club, including her interviews with the Ramones and Talking Heads for John Holmstrom & Legs McNeil’s pioneering Punk magazine. Mary also talked about her friendship with ZE’s Michael Zilkha and her long fascination with Warhol and the Factory. Along with her hosts, she heard clips from Martin Aston’s 1987 audio interview with Tom Verlaine, prompting her recall of his seminal band Television and a general discussion of 1977’s classic Marquee Moon album.

Mark & Barney paid heartfelt tribute to tragic blues-guitar hero Peter Green, ruminating on what made the Fleetwood Mac man so much more emotional a player then his UK blues-boom peers. They also said goodbye to the hilarious CP Lee, former frontman with Mancunian satirists Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias. After bringing Mary’s directorial career up to date – with an aside on the American Psycho soundtrack that afforded Jasper a chance to wax lyrical about Huey Lewis & the News – Mark selected his library highlights, including notable pieces about Brian Jones, Labelle, the Bush Tetras and, erm, the Knack. Jasper rounded things up – and brings matters back down to earth – with remarks on pieces about “superstar DJs” and Stock Aitken Waterman teaboy Rick Astley…

Loyd Grossman on the RBP podcast

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In this episode we were joined by self-professed “failed musician” and pasta-sauce mogul Loyd Grossman, OBE, to wax nostalgic about the most important years of his illustrious career: those he spent as a contributor to Fusion, Rolling Stone and other American music papers. Loyd reminisced very amusingly about seminal late ’60s shows at the Boston Tea Party, before explaining how he moved to London and reinvented himself as a British national treasure on TV and in every kitchen in the country. He also recounted how he came to play guitar, three times a year, with Jethro Tull.

After a digression on the sad passing of Fairport Convention’s original singer Judy Dyble, Loyd joined us in hearing clips from a 1982 audio interview with Queen’s Brian May in which that poodle-headed plank-spanker describes, among other things , working with David Bowie on the classic ‘Under Pressure’. I dragged Loyd into a discussion of the wrath heaped upon his compatriots the (Dixie) Chicks, whose new album Gaslighter afforded the opportunity to examine the close links between country music and hyper-patriotism. Loyd turned out to be a country fan and gives a special thumbs-up to the Chicks’ defiant 2006 song ‘Not Ready To Make Nice’.

Mark Pringle brought the episode to the boil with remarks on new library pieces such as Lillian Roxon’s 1966 review of James Brown at Madison Square Garden, Roy Carr’s day out in Hyde Park in summer 1970 watching Pink Floyd and Kevin Ayers, and David Keeps meeting Madonna at the Hard Rock Café. Jasper Murison-Bowie’s chosen pieces included Ian Penman on hip hop and John Calvert on OK Go…

The RBP Podcast

In last week’s episode of the Rock’s Backpages podcast, we welcomed special guest James Fox, author of 1982’s bestselling White Mischief and the man who, 10 years ago, made Keith Richards’ Life one of rock’s outstanding autobiographies. James talked us through his long and distinguished career as a journalist in Africa, and as a features writer during the golden era of The Sunday Times Magazine. He described how his friendship with “Keef” was cemented by the pieces he wrote for that publication about the Rolling Stones in 1973 and 1976, answering his hosts’ questions about the great man’s rhythm guitar playing.

The fantastic Mr. Fox also offered his perspective on Little Richard, whose death last week prompted discussion of the gay black southerner’s explosive role in the birth of rock & roll. We heard a clip of the sometime Mr. Penniman speaking in 1985 – as well as one of the late Betty (‘Clean Up Woman’) Wright owning up to being a shameless show-off in 1978. James was on hand, too, to reminisce about the importance of Moe Asch’s legendary Folkways label – as revisited in the week’s new audio interview, a conversation with folk elder Pete Seeger conducted by Tony Scherman in 1987. Clips followed of Seeger talking about Asch and recalling Folkways legends Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie…

It was a hoot.

Living for the City: Remembering Charlie Gillett, 10 years on

The Sound Of The CityMaking TracksCharlie GillettRock Files

 

 

 

 

50 YEARS AFTER his landmark Sound of the City was first published (and a decade since his death), Rock’s Backpages remembers the great Charlie Gillett: listen to Bill Brewster’s 1999 audio interview with the writer, broadcaster and label-owner, and read Alex Ogg’s long conversation with him from 2008. Plus RBP writers pay heartfelt tribute after Charlie’s passing in March 2010… mine was as follows:

NO ONE COULD overstate the importance of The Sound of the City, the first significant attempt to make sense of the tangled genealogy of American popular music. Acquired in a Pan paperback edition circa 1974, the book was my portal to the history of myriad music genres, record companies, and assorted behind-the-scenes protagonists.

I never imagined I would one day meet The Sound of the City‘s author, let alone play football with him – along with a motley band of Africans and Latin Americans – on Clapham Common. I shan’t ever forget Charlie’s lithe 60-year-old frame in those games. Though he rarely crossed the halfway line, he patrolled his defensive beat like a man half that age. Which makes it that much harder to comprehend how he has now gone: he should have lived into his nineties.

Charlie was one of the elders, a man of true integrity and unceasing curiosity. His love of soul and swamp music laid tracks for me and many others. He was so helpful and encouraging when I set to work on my first book, a study of “country soul” (the term came, ironically, from The Sound of the City). The love of southern singers and storytellers was a passion we shared for years, culminating for me in the night he brought Dan Penn, Allen Toussaint, Joe South, Guy Clark and the late Vic Chesnutt together on the same South Bank stage. When I strayed outside of that orbit he sometimes seemed nonplussed. I’m not sure he ever forgave me for sullying his “Radio Ping Pong” show with what I’m sure he heard as the antiseptic jazz-funk of Steely Dan’s ‘Babylon Sisters’.

Though Charlie’s evangelising for world music prodded me to invest in sublime albums by everyone from Youssou N’Dour to Salif Keita, I always felt slightly guilty that I hadn’t – through sheer laziness – wholly converted to the world music cause. Typically the last communication I had from him was a testy email about the long list for RBP’s best albums of the Noughties. “What an embarrassing, disgracefully white and inbred list this is,” he fulminated. “Reminds me of the NME Top 100 albums back around 1972 when only two black albums made the list. Have we really not moved on even by an inch to embrace the rest of the world?”

Thanks to you, Charlie, we have.