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Hey Paula (Paul and Paula)

 

One of the media’s most tragic figures from the period when I worked in it, was Paula Yates. I used to see Paula at just about every record company reception I went to; sometimes with future husband and  head Boomtown Rat, Bob Geldof, but often without. She would frequently hang out at these events with Thin Lizzy mainman Phil Lynott, who was always trying to chat up my girlfriend but without success! At this stage I wasn’t particularly struck on Paula, who was always over made-up and pretty bad mannered, but that may have just been a post-punk pose.

 

In 1981 she brought out one of those coffee table books called Rock Stars in their Underpants which was rather unsurprisingly, a collection of so-called rock stars photographed in their skivvies by Paula. It was described by Andy Warhol as the greatest work of Art of the last decade. Interestingly and rather absurdly the photo concerning Bob Geldof was not of him at all, but was just a photo of his jockeys hanging on the bedpost.

 

I booked Paula for the evening ‘6.55’ show. Obviously the subject matter was not that substantial so we were really just using it as an excuse to chat to a B list celebrity. As well as being Bob’s belle, Paula also had her own News of the World column at the time, called The Natural Blonde.

I must be honest and say I really wasn’t looking forward to meeting her based on my previous experiences, but one had a job to do! I met her at reception, showed her to her dressing room and was surprised to discover that she was very personable and a lot more articulate than I had anticipated. The other thing which struck me was just how beautiful she was without ANY make-up. Why, I wondered did she choose to hide such natural beauty behind a severe paint job! I introduced her to presenter Duncan Gibbins, who would be doing the piece and left them to discuss the nature of things. After about ten minutes Duncan came out and told me he thought I had better go into the dressing room and talk to Paula. I knocked and went in to find Paula literally sobbing in her dressing room chair. I turned back to ask Duncan what had happened but he’d legged it. I sat on the chair next to Paula and asked her what was wrong. She explained that Duncan had laid into her like some tabloid journalist and told her he was only going to gloss over the book, as he really wanted to grill her about her private life and in particular, her parents. Paula, it was thought at the time was the issue of mother Hellen, a former Bluebell girl and husband Jess Yates, who presented Stars on Sunday for Yorkshire TV. Jess Yates had been fired from Stars on Sunday, a god-slot variety show when it was discovered that he had been having an affair with a young ‘actress’. He was actually separated at the time so it wouldn’t have been such a big deal if it hadn’t been for the fact that those were more innocent times and he was, after all, the presenter of a religious programme. Paula said that Duncan had told her, in a rather unpleasant manner that he was going to rake over her past, as there had been some tabloid speculation that Jess Yates wasn’t really Paula’s father at all. Paula had raised the objection that she was there to talk about her book and herself, but Duncan had continued to savage her. It later transpired that she was actually the result of an affair between her mother, whose stage name was Helene Thornton and Opportunity Knocks star, Hughie Green. Paula said she was pulling out of the show and going back to London!

 

I told Paula not to worry and said that I would speak to Duncan and re-brief him. Duncan was young and extremely ambitious and saw an opportunity to be a sort of John Humphrys of the entertainment world. I went out and found Duncan and told him to stop behaving like a prat and to just speak to her about HER. I told him that the story about Jess was dead and buried in any case and as she didn’t even know the truth about the rumours, the story was hardly going to go anywhere as a result of him approaching the interview in that manner. I told him that the long and short of it was that it would be crap journalism and we weren’t a news programme in any case. I went back to Paula’s dressing room and spent about twenty minutes being nice to her and assuring her that we would stick to the expected territory in the interview. I was still worried that Duncan may attempt to try for a ‘scoop’ but as the programme was live there was little I could do about it, if he chose to ignore my position. In the end she perked up a lot. The interview went ahead and Duncan Gibbins didn’t even mention her parents. So you see I can be scary when I want to be! 

After the show Paula didn’t go back to the Green Room as she was still very upset about her initial  meeting with Mr Gibbins and didn’t really want to socialize with him. She went instead, back to her dressing room where I ordered some tea and light refreshments to be sent. We chatted a while longer and she thanked me for sorting out the problem and ‘looking after’ her. She told me that at least that night’s events would provide her with the material for her next News of the World column. I read her next column with a degree of apprehension but I needn’t have worried. She said some extremely nice things about me, but I can’t say the same for Duncan. 

Duncan Gibbins died in a wildfire in Southern California on November 3rd 1993. Duncan had escaped his blazing home, but perished when he went back to rescue his cat. 

Paula went on to present ground-breaking music show The Tube on Channel 4 with Jools Holland and I have often wondered if its producer may have got the idea of using her, based on her appearance on ‘6.55’ 

After marriage and then a much publicized break-up with Geldof, Paula entered the strange world of Inxs Aussie-rocker Michael Hutchence, where she hit the slippery slope towards an oblivion fuelled by drugs and drink. After Hutchence’s suicide in 1997 Paula slept on a pillow which contained some of his ashes. She continued along the path of self-destruction which would eventually lead to her death at an obscenely young age. Paula died on 16 September 2000 from what was eventually attributed to heroin abuse, after an autopsy had been performed. On hearing the news I shed more than one tear for that poor little girl lost I can tell you.

Zorba the Greek (Mikis Theodorakis)

I first met Julian Littman when he appeared with ace songstress/actress Charlie Dore on the lunchtime show. Just like Charlie, Julian is an actor as well as a musician or so he tells me LOL. He was acting as Charlie’s Musical Director and I know for sure he is a great musician. He is one of those amazingly talented people, who can squeeze a tune from just about anything they pick up. (I hate him really!)

 

A year or so after the above, Julian came back to Pebble Mill to MD a musical play for English Regions Drama. The play was directed by a talented Irishman called John Davies and his production assistant was my then girlfriend, Jane. John was a first-time TV drama director but he had directed an excellent short, autobiographical film called ‘John, Love’. The TV musical was called ‘The Amazing Miss Stella Estelle’ and starred Elaine Lordan, later of Eastenders notoriety. Elaine was only 16 and I think that may well have been her first TV role. I socialised with the production staff and cast of the drama on numerous occasions and I think I remember my girlfriend and I taking Elaine to see Leo Sayer, at Birmingham cabaret venue The Night Out. I had loved Leo’s first album Silverbird which contained the brilliant single The Show Must Go On, but I’d got less and less keen on him as his career had progressed more and more down the Easy Listening avenue. I’d been using Leo on the lunchtime show and was rather surprised when he turned out to have a very deep knowledge of some of the more obscure musical artistes I liked. I was particularly struck when he started talking about Tom Waits whom I have always admired and so it turned out had Leo.

 

I think The Leo Sayer Show was still running at the time and Leo had arrived with its director Stanley Appel, who had also directed Top of the Pops for a considerable time. It later transpired that my girlfriend knew Stan’s wife and we socialised together on several subsequent occasions. Talking to Leo had made me curious as to what his live show may be like so I arranged for tickets for myself, Jane and Elaine (I think her co-star Ricky Hayter may have also come along). Leo was a complete revelation and turned in a wonderful R&B set, which was dominated by his harmonica playing. It is not that well-known a fact that Leo Sayer is one of this country’s great harmonica players. Leo always came across as a nice guy so I was very surprised when he appeared on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and behaved like a complete pillock.

 

I think The Amazing Miss Stella may have been a live drama but I can’t remember; anyway once it was recorded or had gone out live, there was the traditional wrap party at a Greek restaurant in central Birmingham, which was called Zorba’s. The party was attended by cast and crew and a few partners like me. I was sat opposite one of the cast whose other job was working as an exotic dancer . She had brought the other half of her act to the party, a ten-foot long python, which she proceeded to pass around the table! It was the first time I had ever held a snake and I must be honest I developed a certain fondness for Monty that evening. At some point during in the evening director, John Davies came and thanked this lady, whom I think was called Sandra, for her part in the drama to which she replied “Don’t be daft John, I know you only wanted me for me tits!”

 

I must be honest and say that she had extremely impressive upholstery, most of which was exposed and in my direct eyeline.

 

Whilst the partygoers were still concentrating on getting pie-eyed, Julian Littman pointed out to me that in a room off to the side of the one we were in, there was a room with a stage and a guitar on a stand. He suggested we should investigate. We went in to discover that it was a much bigger part of the restaurant than the room we were in and the owner explained it was where they put on entertainment at the weekends. Julian asked if the owner, whom we shall henceforward refer to as Zorba, minded him having a play on the guitar, so Zorba plugged it into the house PA for him. It was only a cheap Les Paul copy but Julian made it sound most impressive. Julian knew I played a bit so invited me to have a tonk, which I duly did. The partygoers then suggested that we might like to do a few songs for their entertainment, so Julian asked Zorba if he had another guitar. He explained that sadly he didn’t, but they did have a bouzouki. Julian said that’s fine it’s just a big mandolin! Julian asked me what tunes I knew, but the only ones we had in common were some old country songs like Tennessee Stud and I Saw the Light and some Everly Brothers stuff, so we did them. The audience enjoyed it but Zorba absolutely loved it. We found the whole thing rather bizarre; country and western on a bouzouki!

Zorba asked us what we were doing on the Saturday following, to which we answered nothing in particular. He asked if he could book us to do an entire set and offered us the princely sum of thirty quid plus a meal and drinks. Ever game for a laugh, we duly accepted.

 

The next day we borrowed some cowboy gear from the wardrobe department at Pebble Mill and Julian taught me some chords on his mandolin, which I could easily translate to the bouzouki. Saturday came and with it the one and only performance of The Bouzouki Brothers. There we were up on stage, bedecked in cowboy boots, kerchiefs and stetson hats and playing not one, but two bouzoukis! We played about a ninety minute set featuring a one-off bouzouki duet, which could only be known as Duelling Bouzoukis. It went down an absolute treat and we had several encores. I must contact Julian and see if he’s up for a reunion!

You Angel You (Bob Dylan)

 

For almost a year I had been trying to arrange an interview with Peter Gabriel, late of the group Genesis. His manager Gail Colson had asked him on numerous occasions but the answer was always no.

 

About three weeks after I interviewed Robert Fripp, who was also managed by Gail, she rang me and told me that Peter had agreed to the interview. Apparently Robert had given me a glowing reference and this is what had persuaded Peter. We arranged for the interview to take place in a self-op at Broadcasting House. A self-op as the name implies is a studio that is completely operable by the interviewer and at this time of my life I practically lived in them. Autonomy was a good way to make sure that your interviews and features were interfered with as little as possible. If you delivered an edited piece to the producer, which was bang on time, he or she was only going to start fiddling with it if there was something seriously wrong with the piece. Towards the end of my period in radio I was delivering entire programmes which I had put together in a self-op. This, one might consider to be the very essence of DIY, a concept in which I knew Peter Gabriel was very interested and it was also the name of a track on his second solo album, which like all his first four albums was called simply Peter Gabriel. Twenty minutes before I was due to interview Peter he called me. I was waiting for the worst, but it turned out he was stuck in traffic and was just ringing to let me know he was running late. That was the first call I ever received from a mobile phone!

 

When he arrived he looked rather harassed and explained that he couldn’t stay more than 15 minutes as he was in the middle of interviewing producers for what would be his third solo album. His next stop was with Steve Lillywhite, who eventually got the job and helped Peter to his first ever number one single with Games Without Frontiers.

 

The first thing I had noticed about Peter was that he had an appalling stammer. He explained this was why he had shied away from broadcast media interviews in the past. It transpired that this was the first ever broadcast interview he had done. He told me he wasn’t that worried about people knowing he had a speech impediment and was more worried that people would simply get bored and switch off when the interview subject took a minute to answer a question which should have taken 10 seconds! I told him that wasn’t a problem as I could easily edit out his stammer. He was very emphatic that he didn’t want it to disappear completely, which would have been difficult in any case; he simply wished to reduce the delay effect to a minimal period in view of his long-held fears. We started chatting and it was just like Robert all over again, although Peter didn’t invite me to join his backing band! We discussed the concept of DIY in the record industry, which at the time was quite revolutionary. Peter’s intention was to take over every aspect of the production process of making records. He wanted them made in his studio with musicians and technicians he had selected and he wanted the final product released on his own record label. In other words he wanted to ensure quality control from start to finish.

 

I was completely in favour of this idea and we discussed at some length how the whole thing might become reality and how at some point in the future this would become the norm rather than the exception.

 

Peter ended up staying for about an hour and said he had found our conversation really interesting. He said it would be good to meet up again for a further chat. I sent him a copy of the edited interview and Gail called me to say he was really pleased with the result.

 

Peter Gabriel went on to put his plans into action by putting together the WOMAD festival and the Realworld record label. Just like he was predicting back in the late seventies, the role of record companies has steadily diminished and now a large percentage of music is produced following the DIY principle. Peter got an awful lot out of music but unlike many such people he put an awful lot back too. Realworld is a fine label which produces records because they are great or culturally challenging and not simply to make money. Bearing in mind the catalogue, I would doubt the label makes any money at all in real terms (No pun etc.) but what it has done is furthered the interest in world music, like no other label before it. I am full of admiration for Peter Gabriel and all he has done and I hope that our conversation back in the early days of all that, gave him some food for thought.

 

As is common in this business we never did get to meet up again.

Hello This is Joanie (Paul Evans)

 

Sometime before I went to work at the BBC, I had met a girl called Liz at a party. We started going out and I really loved her unpredictability until that is, it became tiresomely predictable. Not long after we met, she got a job working as a nanny for Joan Collins. I would occasionally pick Liz up from Joan’s Mayfair home on Park Street where she lived with then husband Ron Kass who worked for The Beatles’ company Apple.  I met Joan on several occasions and the thing that struck me when I first met her was how tiny she was. People who’ve never seen her in the flesh may imagine, like I did that she is quite tall, but she falls significantly short of 5 feet. I can remember once she gave us some free tickets to go and see her latest movie The Stud, sequel to The Bitch. Both were based on bestsellers written by Joan’s sister Jackie and were your basic sex and shopping fodder. I must admit to the fact that seeing my girlfriend’s employer cavorting on the screen stark naked, made me feel somewhat uneasy and I never felt quite as comfortable with Joan, on my occasional visits, after I had seen the film. I must add though that contrary to what I had imagined would be the case, Joan was always very nice to me. She could at times be a little aloof but all in all she was nothing like The Bitch in the film, which is often how she’s been portrayed by the press.

 

My relationship with Liz came to a very abrupt end when she went off with someone else. We had been invited to a party and Liz had asked if she could borrow my white suit to go in and I had said yes. She was coming in on the tube from Marble Arch and was chatted up by someone who admired her suit or rather MY suit. I was left on my own at the party, feeling like a lemon, whilst she leapt off with Mr my suit fancier; the bloody cheek of it! I blew her out as soon as she told me, although the fact that she had done what she did rather suggests she beat me to the punch. C’est la vie. I think I was more pissed off about the fact that it meant the end of my trips to Park Steet and my occasional brushes with celebrity, than I was about the loss of Liz..

 

I met Joan again when she was on PM@1 and we had a little chat but when I stopped working there, I imagined I would never see her again.

 

After leaving the BBC I returned to London and picked up where I left off socially. I met Yvonne de Valera, a raven haired beauty and a descendant of the Irish politician Eamon de Valera, through a mutual friend. Yvonne worked for Rogers and Cowan, the famous publicists and who had as one of their clients a certain Joan Collins. One night a whole group of us arranged to meet in The Spanish Pub, just off Oxford Street. Its real name is The Hanway Arms but it is Spanish owned and has been famous in the entertainment business for years as one of the few pubs where you could get a decent glass of wine. A most palatable Spanish red was kept in a huge round decanter on the bar and many’s the night when I attempted to empty it! Yvonne had brought along Joan’s American PA Cindy, but I didn’t really get a chance to talk to her because, as usual The Spanish was packed and very noisy. When the pub closed we headed off to a club around the corner which was owned by the same people. It was one of the few civilised places which stayed open to the early hours and we settled down for a long night of more wine, great Spanish food and live flamenco. I just happened to be sitting next to Cindy and so we started chatting. I must say that the main reason I had come along was because I had my eye on Yvonne and was hoping to ease my way into her affections. She was visually striking, extremely cultured and intelligent and seriously foxy to boot. My attention started to wander though the more I talked to Cindy. She was nothing like the oft-spikey Yvonne, just very nice, very soft and very gentle. I was into my man of mystery mode so I didn’t tell her I had met her employer on more than one occasion. To cut a long story short we started seeing each other, but the nature of her job was such that she rarely had any spare time. She told Joan about me and Joan apparently said I sounded very familiar. One day I rang Cindy and Joan answered. She asked who was calling and I said Richard. She demanded to know if it was the same Richard who was currently seeing her PA and if it was also the same Richard who had been seeing her nanny several years before. I told her it was and she made several derisory jokes about bad pennies and my seeming fascination with members of her staff before passing me over to Cindy. Cindy later told me that Joan had said she thought I was very nice really.

 

At the time Joan was in a well publicized relationship with Swedish businessman Peter Holm, which had just gone tits up. Cindy rang me to tell me that Joan, frantic with being hounded by the tabloid press over the ruptured affaire, had decided to get out of the country until the heat died down. Obviously this meant that Cindy would have to go with her. I asked if I could have the phone number where she was going to be but she told me that Joan had given her strict instructions not to give the number to anybody. I asked her how long she was going to be away but she didn’t know. Just when we were getting to know one another!!!!

 

About half an hour after I had put the phone down, Cindy rang back and said that Joan wanted to speak to me. Joan came on and told me she had decided to let me have their phone number. She even told me where they were going in case they were away for longer than expected and I wanted to see Cindy. She also told me, in no uncertain terms, what she would do to me if I passed the information on to anyone. The tabloid press spent thousands of pounds trying to locate Joan on the off-chance of an update story, but they didn’t find her. All the time they were running their arses raw searching here, there and everywhere, I could have spoken to or visited their target whenever I liked. I felt extremely flattered and a little bit smug that Joan, who didn’t know me well at all, had obviously picked up something about me that convinced her I would not betray her trust. I was not doing well financially at the time and could have sold that information for a lot of money but I didn’t. I wouldn’t.

 

The relationship with Cindy went nowhere, mainly due to the fact that she was never available and eventually we just fell out of contact but hey that’s rock and roll.

UPDATE

As most people have realised, the majority of chapter headings are song titles. As not all of them will be well-known to everyone, i am now including the performers in brackets.

Wear You To the Ball (The Paragons)

 

 

One of the biggest disappointments I suffered during my sojourn in the world of entertainment, was not going to the Grand Ball in Monte Carlo.

 

The Pointer Sisters had been booked to play the said ball and I was having them on the lunchtime show, whilst they were in Europe. Head of Promotion at RCA, Stuart Grey, had managed to wangle me a couple of tickets to one of THE big events in the social calendar. I was really looking forward to it, not just because of the occasion but also because I was a big fan of The Pointer Sisters. I had seen the original Pointer Sisters play in the mid-seventies at The Rainbow Rooms, which was above the fabulous Biba store in Kensington. That was when there were four of them and Bonnie was the lead singer and they were in their black Andrews Sisters incarnation. That gig was brilliant and its setting made me feel like I really was in the right place at exactly the right time.

 

Sadly the ball in 1982 was cancelled, out of respect to Princess Grace of Monaco who died in a car accident on September the 13th. I had met Princess Grace earlier in that year when she had come to do an interview for Radio 2 at the Pebble Mill production centre. She was a beautiful and very approachable woman, who was charming, elegant and graceful, so whichever of her parents named her must have been very intuitive. As I said, we chatted briefly, but I found myself developing an immediate crush on her, even though she was twice my age. I knew such a crush couldn’t possibly lead anywhere, but I completely understood why Prince Rainier had fought so hard to steal her from Hollywood.

 

When the ball was cancelled, meaning that The Pointer Sisters European trek was also cancelled, Stuart Grey’s colleague Jimmy Devlin, a brilliant Scotsman, called me to tell me the news. I told him that I understood and there was no problem, but don’t tell Stuart! Stuart Grey was on holiday at the time and would not be back until the beginning of the week, when The Pointer Sisters should have been on the show. Stuart and Jimmy were two of the most wicked practical jokers in the music business and I thought I saw an opportunity to beat Stuart at his own game. I wished Stuart no malice as he was a lovely guy and he was indirectly responsible for me meeting the woman who would become Best Man at my wedding! (confused; you will be!). I told Jimmy to expect a call from me to Stuart on the Tuesday after Stuart got back from holiday and to be in his office. (The Pointer Sisters should have been appearing on the Wednesday)

 

I called Stuart on the Tuesday and told him that I needed ‘the girls’ at the studio for ten on the dot the next day as we had a very tight schedule. Stuart asked me what I was talking about. I told him I was really busy and wasn’t in the mood for messing about and that he should just make sure they were there for ten.

 

He said

 

“But Richard they’re not doing the show”

 

I pretended to go ballistic and asked him what HE was talking about and he said that Jimmy had told him that I’d been informed of the cancellation. I told Stuart that I had heard nothing of the sort and I really was not in the mood for another of his wind ups. I sensed that the man on the other end of the phone was starting to get really desperate, as he tried to explain what had happened and repeated that he thought Jimmy had told me. I told him he had better be joking or I would never book another act from RCA.

 

As arranged Jimmy was in Stuart’s office when I called and Stuart said that I had better have a word with Jimmy. I said I couldn’t see the point but I would anyway. Devlin came on the phone and delivered a performance that should have won him an Oscar. Without me saying a single word he came out with things like:

 

“But Richard I left a message with Elaine telling you exactly what had happened”

 

“But Richard I did want to tell you personally but I rang you about ten times and you’re always busy. I thought you would need time to plug the gap, so I thought I had better let you know sooner rather than later”

 

“But Richard you can hardly blame me if your admin staff, don’t pass on messages”

 

“Richard there is no reason to take that attitude!”

 

I told Jimmy to put Stuart back on and then when I had finished with him to get Stuart to call me back in half an hour; no sooner, no later.

 

Jimmy’s parting comments were along the lines of…..

 

“Well I always thought you were ok, but if you’re gonna be like that then you can go and fuck yourself!”

 

He then passed the phone back to Stuart who apologised for what Jimmy had said, but he still heard the seriously rough-end of my tongue, before I banged the phone down on him.

 

In exactly half an hour he called back. I growled at him and he started apologising again and I said

 

“Stuart”

 

He said

 

“What?”

 

I said

 

“Have you ever been wound up?”

 

I heard him collapse on the end of the phone just like a wobbly jelly. He could not believe how he had taken the bait, hook, line and sinker. He, the merry prankster, had been completely out-pranked and I was honestly in fear for Jimmy’s life.

 

Needless to say that he eventually saw the funny side of it, but that was probably after lots of  heavyweight counselling! I’m not sure he ever completely forgave Jimmy Devlin.

 

As a post-script can I just say that I hope no-one has been offended by the way I led from a very sad event to a completely frivolous one. I meant no disrespect whatsoever to the memory of Princess Grace. Those who know me , are well aware that I am an egalitarian with no regard for title nor status, but that I have the utmost respect for good people. Princess Grace of Monaco was undoubtedly good people.

copyright

© Richard Pearson and ‘Scott Walker or The Man Who Ruined My Life’ 2008/2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Richard Pearson and Scott Walker; or The Man Who Ruined My Life with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Right Place, Wrong Time (Dr John, the Night Tripper)

 

I first met Jackie Leven then of Doll by Doll, when I used to hang out at publicist Judy Totton’s office near London Bridge. I’d known Judy since both of us worked at CBS and she was very helpful to me, when I was starting out in my media career. There were lots of interesting people around there in those days. Alan Edwards who looked after The Stranglers and The Members was there, as was Andrew Czezowski and his partner Sue Carrington. Andrew had been one of the prime movers in the fast fading Punk Rock scene. He had managed several well-known bands including Generation X, with Billy Idol and The Damned, as well as opening the very first Punk club, The Roxy in Covent Garden. Andrew and Sue later went on to open The Fridge in Brixton to which they made a triumphant return in November 2008.

 

I used to see Doll by Doll play regularly although I never got to know any other of the band members apart from Jackie. Doll by Doll were like no other band, blending tragedy, mystery and melody in to a richly woven tapestry of sound before slashing it to bits with a chainsaw. The menace and tension in their music, made the manufactured menace thought apparent in The Stranglers, sound like a recital from Playschool. The first two albums Remember and Gypsy Blood contained some brilliant songs like Palace of Love, Teenage Lightning and Stripshow. The latter contained the line

 

‘A plastic baby floating down the old canal’

 

Throwaway it might seem but what does it symbolise? Infant mortality, love, loss, pollution and innocence. I know few songwriters OR poets, who can get so much out of one single metaphor.

 

That Jackie and I got on so well is hardly surprising. We both loved passionate, literate music and the darker side of performance art. Jackie was a devotee of French playwright, poet, actor, director and founder of the Theatre of Cruelty, Antonin Artaud. He used some of his material in the song The Human Face, which was on Gypsy Blood. There was no audio material of Artaud, commercially available at the time. I managed to plunder and copy a large number of Artaud’s recorded works from the BBC archive and i gave them to Jackie. I seem to remember he promised me his birthplace, the Kingdom of Fife in return, but I still await the crown. We had similar characters; old school romantics with a propensity towards excess and adventure. The fact that Jackie played a Burns Splitsound at a time when Stratocasters and  Les Paul’s were de rigeur, only serves to illustrate the fact that he was before, or maybe even after his time. After all, whilst Doll by Doll definitely were cutting edge, they were also extremely old fashioned in many ways. Many exceptionally good ways that is! The failure of both albums to make any significant impression has been blamed on all sorts of things, in particular the failure of their record company, Automatic, to promote the records. I don’t think that is the real reason, they were simply in the right place at the wrong time.

 

They happened at the end of Punk and didn’t fit into the New Wave, whatever that was. Had those albums come out two or three years later and had Jackie not had a physique which was, in his own words, akin to that of a Great White Whale*, then I think they could have occupied the place in the Rock strata, which went on to be occupied by U2. I think the whole thing might have been a more interesting experience too, without meaning any disrespect to U2. I met Jackie in a BBC bar, shortly after the release of the third album which came out on the most unlikely of labels, Magnet. His optimistic romanticism had turned into considered cynicism and from what I remember the then current album and the subsequent one, betrayed that fact. Jackie told me that his idea was to make the two contracted albums as cheaply as possible, without concern for their quality and spend the rest of the advance on a yacht in which he intended to sail away.

 

I don’t think he ever did that, but I know that he did endure some extremely dark times, subsequent to the demise of Doll by Doll. We were even together on that one, because I was dealing with my own demons, pretty much concurrently.

 

We bump into each other now and then and exchange emails etc. and I think Jackie is in a happier place now. He has well over twenty albums under his belt and enjoys a successful solo career, particularly in Scandanavia and Germany. He’s probably still pissing people off the same way as I am. We always did that; neither of us was a great loss to the diplomatic service, but Jackie Leven is one of the most poetic and lyrical songwriters alive and Doll by Doll remain for me, one of the most exciting bands I’ve ever heard.

 

*Quote courtesy of one drink-addled night at the Music Machine, Camden Town, circa 1979.

Pop Goes the Weasel (Anthony Newley)

 

I was a latecomer to the Iggy Pop fold. I completely missed out on the Raw Power and Funhouse period and only picked up on him around Metallic KO.  The only track I remember from that was something called ‘I’ve got my cock in my pocket’ which even as a teenager I found pretty offensive and pointless. I completely wrote Iggy off at that point, as someone who was simply trading on being outrageous, but who had little talent. My friend John Henfrey told me Iggy was great but what did he know?

 

I first heard ‘The Idiot’ when my neighbour Rob bought it. Rob and I had similar taste in everything and spent quite a bit of time in each other’s flats listening to music and getting high. ‘The Idiot’ was a brilliant record which in hindsight was probably a lot more to do with David Bowie’s handling of the project than Iggy’s talent. A lot of the music was out-takes from the ‘Low’ sessions and that which wasn’t, was still of a very similar quality. What was different about Iggy’s contribution was the mellowing of his delivery. Gone was the frantic and quite frankly tacky quality of Metallic KO and this had been replaced by a laid-back punk style, if that doesn’t qualify as an oxymoron.

 

In the follow up ‘Lust for Life’ the frantic Iggy was back in the driving seat, but the mellow tone was still in the background making the whole thing a much richer offering. I’d love to break the mould but just like everyone else, my favourite tracks from ‘Lust for Life’ are The Passenger and the title track. I still play that album frequently.

 

My neighbour Rob and I were a similar age and like I said before we liked the same music and the same drugs. We also liked pretty girls even though we were both pretty, rather than macho, boys ourselves. I would have to admit that Rob was even prettier than me. I as a bit thinner in those days and I can distinctly remember that both Rob and I could squeeze into the same pair of 30” waist leather jeans, although not at the same time! We both got a lot of flack from bully boys because we were fond of eyeliner and a sort of bouffanty take on a punky hairstyle. We were frequently the target of homophobic morons, which was ironic because the thing that seemed to wind them up most, was the fact that our girlfriends were always far better looking than theirs! Even though both of us were pretty sure we were 100% hetero, this was the androgenous age and we wondered if we were maybe suppressing  elements of our sexuality.

 

We decided to find out once and for all by going to bed together. We stripped nervously to our skivvies and climbed into bed together. We spent about half an hour shifting uneasily beneath the covers, not touching, before I turned to Rob and asked him if it was doing anything for him. He answered in the negative. I said “Same here, that’s sorted, let’s go pull some women!”. On reflection I think we both confused everyone, including maybe ourselves, because we were definitely in touch with our feminine side. I’ve always preferred female company to male company and that often sends out the wrong signals. When I went to work at Pebble Mill, I was soon invited on the Friday lads’ night out, but the thought of spending an evening in the company of a dozen or so hairy-arsed males did little for me. I asked Elaine, one of the production secretaries if the girls had a ‘night out’ she told me they did, on Thursdays. I asked if I could tag along, she said yes and I’m glad she did because it was a lot more fun.

 

Meanwhile back to Iggy! When he released the album New Values, I arranged an interview. It was to take place in his temporary London home, a luxury Chelsea flat in Three Kings Yard. I was met at the door by Iggy and his beautiful Japanese girlfriend. He showed me through to the drawing room where we sat at an exquisite polished antique, mahogany, oval dining table. We engaged in chit-chat and then I asked Iggy if he would like me to address him as Iggy, Mr Pop or what. He said call me Jimmy, because that is my real name, so I commenced referring to him as Jimmy. About half-way through the interview, I lapsed and called him Iggy. He went ballistic, jumped up and started to chase me around the table! He was ranting and raving , screaming “Why did you call me Iggy? Iggy Pop is a character which I created. My name is Jimmy. Who the fuck do you think you are calling me some cartoon character?”

 

I eventually placated him and explained it was simply a slip of the tongue. I was really a fan and had always thought of him as Iggy, but I understood that I was really talking to Jimmy. Things went pretty well after that, but after the interview was concluded he told me that he was learning guitar and would I like to hear him play. I had no desire to hear him play at all but thought it would be churlish to refuse and was worried that he may kick-off again. He guided me into the bedroom where he had a fender strat set up through a pignose. He commenced ‘playing’ and it was dreadful. He was actually worse than me and I think that even Robert Fripp would have baulked at the idea of him joining King Crimson, even if he had the ‘right attitude’, which I doubted very much. After about 15 minute he got bored and we said our goodbyes.

 

Iggy Pop is a strange one. All in all I think he is a cult figure who way outgrew his talent. Having said that he has kept his body in amazing condition, bearing in mind the abuse it has suffered over the years. In the final analysis I suppose I see Iggy as a phenomenon; a sort of Warholian living work of art, rather than someone who has made that much of a musical contribution to the canon.