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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left's podcast. My

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Speaker 1: guest today it's Dave, Robin's photographer, me anager co FOUNDERSTFF Records. Dave,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast, Bob. It's great to be here. Okay, Dave,

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Speaker 1: you started out as a photographer. I started my career

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Speaker 1: as a photographer in Dublin, Ireland and did a lot

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Speaker 1: of different photographs of various magazines. But eventually I've finished

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Speaker 1: up taking photographs of poor musicians who had no money

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Speaker 1: but who needed photographs, and I dug out my wide

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Speaker 1: angle lens and started taking pictures of bands. How did

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Speaker 1: you learn how to shoot photos? An old friend of

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Speaker 1: my father's who showed me pretty much how it worked,

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Speaker 1: and I practiced on a load of children and people

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Speaker 1: in Irish pubs, which is uh is an education in itself.

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Speaker 1: And at what age did you start? I started at

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Speaker 1: about sixteen sixteen, Okay. What kind of family did you

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Speaker 1: grow up and what did your parents do for a living?

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Speaker 1: My father was a signwriter, my mother was a housewife

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Speaker 1: and it was a very normal Irish Catholic family, two sisters,

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Speaker 1: and the only difference was my father decided that he

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Speaker 1: could afford to send me to boarding school. So that

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Speaker 1: was the difference between me and all my peers at

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Speaker 1: the time. So where are you in the hierarchy of

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Speaker 1: the three kids. I'm in the middle. And you went

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Speaker 1: to boarding school at what age? What was that experience like?

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Speaker 1: I went to boarding school when I was six six six,

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Speaker 1: and that was a novel experience. Obviously it's the only

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Speaker 1: one I had, so I didn't have a way to

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Speaker 1: compare it. But Ireland, as you can imagine, in early

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Speaker 1: years Catholic nuns to begin with, until I was eleven,

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Speaker 1: and then from eleven I went to secondary school and

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Speaker 1: I had the priest to look after me. Obviously, they've

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Speaker 1: had a bad press, inevitably, and I thought I can

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Speaker 1: say about them, but I had no problems, and I

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Speaker 1: was a very experienced born in school boy, so I

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Speaker 1: knew what was happening and that I could avoid stuff

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Speaker 1: and help my friends to avoid things that were going on.

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Speaker 1: The Irish priests have had a terrible battering, quite rightly,

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Speaker 1: and it's not obviously an area where in the music

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Speaker 1: business you you think about. But it was a very

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Speaker 1: good education. It was a very good from the academic

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Speaker 1: point of view. It was an excellent education, and it's

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Speaker 1: been the kind of confidence of my life to be

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Speaker 1: able to use that education to my advantage. Who usually

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Speaker 1: boarding school kids go to university, What about you? I

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Speaker 1: didn't because I'd had enough for boarding school. When I

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Speaker 1: got to seventeen, there was a The school I went

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Speaker 1: to was a very big rugby college. The rugby was

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Speaker 1: was a huge impetus to that school. And I played

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Speaker 1: on the rugby team and I was good, I think,

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Speaker 1: and uh it moved mountains, you know. I got a

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Speaker 1: very good status into school for being on the team.

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Speaker 1: But I fell out with the coach for various behavioral

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Speaker 1: reasons and decided that there wasn't a future in me

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Speaker 1: finishing the last two years before I might go to university.

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Speaker 1: But my father, in any event, had told me that

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Speaker 1: he had spent um, he'd spent money on my education,

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Speaker 1: but it was unlikely to be able to afford to

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Speaker 1: send me to university. He thought a should get a job.

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Speaker 1: But you skipped the last two years of what we

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Speaker 1: call high school or secondary school. That's right, that's right. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so you stopped going to school. What do you do? Well?

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Speaker 1: You get a job as a photographer in my In

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Speaker 1: my case, I had a hobby for photography, and I

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Speaker 1: wondered whether I could make a living at it, whether

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Speaker 1: I could please my father that I would have a

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Speaker 1: living and that I could show him what I could do.

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Speaker 1: So I went and took pictures of everything that moved

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Speaker 1: and eventually got a very good living and moved to

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Speaker 1: England when I was eighteen to be a beach photographer

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Speaker 1: for a company which is very well known called but Lands,

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Speaker 1: which is a holiday camp type environment, and I was

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Speaker 1: a beach photographer, also called a smudger. A smudger is

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Speaker 1: a beach photographer who takes pictures of people, gets money

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Speaker 1: off them, and they don't get the pictures till the

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Speaker 1: following day. So it's it's an art in itself. Why

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Speaker 1: is it called smudger, I'm not entirely sure. I think

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Speaker 1: because you're not great, because you smudge it, you blur it.

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Speaker 1: You're not you're not a you know, a fashion photographer

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Speaker 1: or whatever else. I think it's a slightly derogatory term.

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Speaker 1: So you're a beach photographer to holiday camp. Holiday camps

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Speaker 1: don't have a good reputation since Tommy and the reference there. However,

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Speaker 1: at a young age. One would think it was fun.

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Speaker 1: But when you work in a place like that in

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Speaker 1: the United States, you can have an existence, You can

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Speaker 1: have fun, but you really can only keep your head

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Speaker 1: barely above water. So was this something to kill time

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Speaker 1: or were you making any money? I was making money

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Speaker 1: because I got a commission from the photography that I did.

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Speaker 1: In other words, I got a commission for everybody who

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Speaker 1: paid to have their photograph the following day, So you

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Speaker 1: could make a lot by working very hard. It was

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Speaker 1: definitely um income from work. H view an example of

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Speaker 1: something that that I was just a young guy from Ireland.

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Speaker 1: I should have been nineteen. They only took nineteen year old,

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Speaker 1: so I was having to lower my voice and try

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Speaker 1: and be try and be good. Um. But a lady,

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Speaker 1: a middle aged lady, kept coming back to me for photographs,

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Speaker 1: and I thought it was because I'm so good at

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Speaker 1: what I did. It turned out that her husband was

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Speaker 1: a wrestler who worked at the camp, and he told

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Speaker 1: me he would kill me if I took another picture

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Speaker 1: of his wife, so I had to jump into the

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Speaker 1: bushes every time this woman came by. She obviously figured

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Speaker 1: I was a good looking Irish lad, but it was

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Speaker 1: very dangerous. So I made good income for a season

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Speaker 1: by the seaside in England at a at a holiday

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Speaker 1: camp which had a high proportion of young unaccompanied females,

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Speaker 1: And so it was a revelation to me in a

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Speaker 1: lot of different ways. Ireland is very um, you know, conservative.

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Speaker 1: So one good thing about it, Bob, was that I

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Speaker 1: met a lot of other photographers who did the season

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Speaker 1: at the camp. So they would just come down for

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Speaker 1: the three months, three or four months, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of them had contacts with agencies and other magazines photography wise,

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Speaker 1: So I'm I networked quite a lot of very good

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Speaker 1: jobs out of that particular um situation. So how did

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Speaker 1: you get from there into music? From there, I worked

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Speaker 1: for a couple of agencies. I was introduced to a

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Speaker 1: couple of agencies which would use a photographer like a

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Speaker 1: freelance operator. In other words, they would send me on

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Speaker 1: a job, they would tell me what they wanted out

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Speaker 1: of it. Their main interest in life was to make

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Speaker 1: sure that they had the correct names left to right

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Speaker 1: was one of their main features. And by my point

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Speaker 1: of it was good because I didn't have to I

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Speaker 1: didn't have to develop the film. I just sent it

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Speaker 1: back to them and they used it as they wish,

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Speaker 1: and I got a paid pair job and that could

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Speaker 1: be quite that, it could be quite a good week. Um.

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Speaker 1: As it happened, I worked for several magazines, music magazines

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Speaker 1: that they obviously were attached to, and Pop magazine and

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Speaker 1: the Rave magazine. I ended up doing pictures of quite

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Speaker 1: a lot of the up and coming musicians on the

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Speaker 1: British scene. Is that how you ended up shooting the Beatles? Yes,

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Speaker 1: it is, Yeah I did. I did a job where

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Speaker 1: I went to Liverpool to film twelve groups for for

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Speaker 1: some situation they had, and I ended up filming the

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Speaker 1: Beatles that lunchtime in the cavern without really realizing how

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Speaker 1: wonderful that was. Most of the bands were playing I did,

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Speaker 1: I've shots and most of them, and most of them

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Speaker 1: were playing the same song. So you had a situation

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Speaker 1: where they were playing a lot of Louisiana tracks and

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Speaker 1: most of the band, including the Beatles, played long Tall

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Speaker 1: Sally for example. I think about sick of them play

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Speaker 1: that song and several other covers that they were all

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Speaker 1: involved in. So the scene in Liverpool was was musically

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Speaker 1: a kind of Louisiana rhythm and blues area, and I

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Speaker 1: don't remember the Beatles being that much better. I do

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Speaker 1: remember Paul McCartney only insofar as he was very friendly.

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Speaker 1: He was very chatty. He he knew a photographer was

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Speaker 1: going to be useful. John Lennon was pretty nondescript. He

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Speaker 1: didn't relate to me in any way. Paul did chat

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Speaker 1: me up, and subsequently, over my career I have met

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Speaker 1: him several times and we have a relationship. So so

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Speaker 1: it wasn't because of that time. It was something we

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Speaker 1: could go back to and remind each other that we

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Speaker 1: had connected at that time. Okay, so you're being a

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Speaker 1: freelance guy, you're shooting these jobs. How do you move

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Speaker 1: on beyond photography? Well, I went back to Ireland to

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Speaker 1: show off to my parents that I was a happening

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Speaker 1: event I had. There was a there was a tailor

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Speaker 1: in London called sam Arcus, and sam Arcus was the

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Speaker 1: Hippus Taylor in London. So as I went to Sam

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Speaker 1: and had him make two suits for me before I

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Speaker 1: went back to impress my parents with the whole idea.

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Speaker 1: I got back to UH. I got back to Dublin

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Speaker 1: and there was a space music Congress going on. And

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Speaker 1: my agency said, could you cover it even though you're

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Speaker 1: on holiday, could you go in and cover that because

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Speaker 1: we're short. Uh. That space medicine was a very early

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Speaker 1: part of the space program. And I got on very

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Speaker 1: well with the American guy eyes doctors who had me

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Speaker 1: film all the Russians, and I got on very well

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Speaker 1: with the Russians who had me film all the American

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Speaker 1: so so so I did very well out of that

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Speaker 1: A week a week's conference in Dublin, and I started

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Speaker 1: to get a lot of Irish work, and because I

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Speaker 1: had come from London, which in those days very impressive

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Speaker 1: to Irish people, I was. I quickly got into the

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Speaker 1: top layer of photography in Dublin. I also had a

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Speaker 1: motorized camera, which the Irish had not actually discovered. So

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Speaker 1: the the the Union complained about me because I was

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Speaker 1: using this camera and taking more pictures than anybody else.

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Speaker 1: But that's a that's another story. So I became quite

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Speaker 1: a good photographer in Dublin. I made quite a lot

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Speaker 1: of money, and I decided to open a club because

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Speaker 1: Dublin did not have any kind of beat club like

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Speaker 1: London had. The Two Eyes and the Marquee and various

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Speaker 1: other things like that. I opened the club in Dublin,

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Speaker 1: and of course through the door came loads of groups

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Speaker 1: whose equipment didn't work, who just like you and I

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Speaker 1: early on in this interview where nothing worked too well,

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Speaker 1: and so uh in through my door came Van Morrison

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Speaker 1: one day when he it turned out he had got

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Speaker 1: rid of his manager, Phil Solomon's, and because he found

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Speaker 1: that his band was getting income from his publishing and

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Speaker 1: he didn't like that. And he came through the door.

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Speaker 1: I had taken pictures of them way back in the

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Speaker 1: kind of rave days, and so we knew each other,

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Speaker 1: and he came and stayed at my flat because he

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Speaker 1: wanted a manager, he wanted somebody to he had no

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Speaker 1: idea who else would handle him. And Van was, I've

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Speaker 1: got to say, was throughout his life he's been a

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Speaker 1: cont He's grumpy, he doesn't do things that you want

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Speaker 1: him to do, and he was a terrible flatmate. He

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Speaker 1: ruined my social life almost completely singlehandedly. But every now

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Speaker 1: and then he would get up with a local band

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Speaker 1: at the club and you would with his harmonica and

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Speaker 1: you would see extraordinary things. The band would lift up

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Speaker 1: two gears and be somebody that they couldn't do on

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Speaker 1: their own. He was remarkable in that way. Bert Burns

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Speaker 1: started calling and saying, you know, if you're looking after Van,

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Speaker 1: I really need him to be in America. I said,

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Speaker 1: I don't really look after him. I didn't feel I

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Speaker 1: was a manager. I felt it was kind of a mate.

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Speaker 1: So I persuaded Van to go to America and joined

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Speaker 1: Bert Burns and I could get my flat back. Okay,

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Speaker 1: Usually a club is a money pit. I mean now

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Speaker 1: everything is computerized. Everybody uses credit cards, even harder a

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Speaker 1: big money in a club. We get the money to

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Speaker 1: open a club, and how is business financially in Ireland?

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Speaker 1: It was very primitive, very primitive. I had a seller

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Speaker 1: that's probably if I had, if I had a fire license,

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Speaker 1: which I didn't have, would probably have held about a

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty on a good night, Saturday night, we

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Speaker 1: had nine hundred people in that seller. And we didn't

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Speaker 1: have a liquor license. But we had a We had coke,

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Speaker 1: had just cocon Fanta had just discovered the serum serum

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Speaker 1: that you added with water and and with a gun

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Speaker 1: you could fill a glass. I think it costs so

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Speaker 1: little that you couldn't even calculated and we were selling

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Speaker 1: it for obviously because of the club was running with

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Speaker 1: condensation and very very hot. We were selling. We were

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Speaker 1: selling out with all the cocon fanta we could imagine.

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Speaker 1: We we did so well out of that club. That

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Speaker 1: as remark, because Ireland was very primitive about licensing. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't you know, it wasn't American, it was in London.

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Speaker 1: It was. It was you have a club, that's all right,

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Speaker 1: as long as there's no problems where we're happy with it.

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Speaker 1: So it ran for about two years and it was

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Speaker 1: it was magic. It was a magic thing. We had

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Speaker 1: Englishman's come over. We could afford have Alex RV and

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Speaker 1: various other bands come over, which was unique in Ireland.

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Speaker 1: Nobody had that class of music coming to the club.

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Speaker 1: So we had queues around the block and very good

246
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Speaker 1: and I didn't take any photographs at all for for

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Speaker 1: that period. Okay, then takes off to talk to Burns.

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Speaker 1: What does that leave you? He said, To give him credit,

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Speaker 1: He said, come with me. And I knew Van by

250
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Speaker 1: this time, and I knew he's not a fan of passengers,

251
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Speaker 1: and I knew I'd be a passenger. I would have

252
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Speaker 1: no idea how to do anything of the kind of

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Speaker 1: stuff that he was going to get up to. So

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Speaker 1: I passed, quite honestly, So I passed, and I wasn't

255
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Speaker 1: unhappy with that arrangement. Van paid me back and and

256
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Speaker 1: maybe we'll cover that many years later at the Fillmore East,

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Speaker 1: when Bill Graham had Quicksilver messenger service, Van Morrison and

258
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Speaker 1: my group and Irish group that I looked after called

259
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Speaker 1: the Heir Apparent, and that's another story we'll just telling.

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Speaker 1: The music business, from my point of view, has always

261
00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:31,720
Speaker 1: had a problem. You find a good songwriters, you find

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Speaker 1: people who can play, You find people who are motivated,

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Speaker 1: but they do not have a record company, a major

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Speaker 1: record company with the major promotion income. The record company

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Speaker 1: doesn't want you if you haven't got an agent, and

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Speaker 1: the agent doesn't want you if you haven't got a

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Speaker 1: record company. And that has is as sound today as

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Speaker 1: it was then. So I had a brief after the Club.

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Speaker 1: I managed this group who were then called The People.

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Speaker 1: The lead guitar player was Henry McCulloch, who went on

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Speaker 1: to be in the Grease Band, Joe Cocker, Wings and

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Speaker 1: various other people, but he started off with a little

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Speaker 1: Irish band called The People, which I looked after I

274
00:17:18,280 --> 00:17:22,640
Speaker 1: could see they were good. I could not. I took

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Speaker 1: him to London, but I could not get anywhere with them.

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Speaker 1: And my backer was a gentleman for Canadian gentleman who

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Speaker 1: who had five grand that was his that was his investment,

278
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Speaker 1: which didn't last very long. So I didn't have a

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Speaker 1: I didn't have a large I didn't have a large

280
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Speaker 1: chance of making things happen. So I hired a plane

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Speaker 1: and aer Lingus plane Irish Airlines, and I got a

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Speaker 1: media friend to get a hundred and fifty of the

283
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Speaker 1: key media journalists music and otherwise to board that plane

284
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Speaker 1: uh and to go. A convinced Bill Graham by flying

285
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Speaker 1: out to see him one one morning and being in

286
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Speaker 1: his office. I had met him on a on a

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00:18:15,560 --> 00:18:20,080
Speaker 1: earlier American tours with Jimi Hendrix, and convinced him to

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00:18:20,119 --> 00:18:23,720
Speaker 1: put my band onto open for Van Morrison and Quicksilver

289
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Speaker 1: messenger service at the Fillmore East UM inevitably, inevitably um

290
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Speaker 1: the band where the band the American Embassy would not

291
00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:41,080
Speaker 1: give them a visa because there was a various inter

292
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Speaker 1: union situations which didn't occur. The plane aer Lingus seven

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Speaker 1: oh seven UM crash landed at Shannon Airport in a

294
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Speaker 1: sea of foam because their hydraulics had gone out over

295
00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:03,320
Speaker 1: the British Channel. Uh. The journalists who saw the whole

296
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Speaker 1: thing as a bit of a jolly, as they call it.

297
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Speaker 1: And of course we had put an awful lot of

298
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Speaker 1: substances on the plane, alcohol and others, and they had

299
00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:18,199
Speaker 1: indulged quite heavily. They quite enjoyed the panic of the

300
00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:24,119
Speaker 1: landing and aer lingus because that's their way. UM to

301
00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:26,760
Speaker 1: get another plane out would take three or four hours,

302
00:19:26,840 --> 00:19:30,520
Speaker 1: so they opened the bar for the journalists, and so

303
00:19:31,119 --> 00:19:34,919
Speaker 1: by the time that plane got back it was a

304
00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:39,000
Speaker 1: very very crashed out group of journalists who got on

305
00:19:39,119 --> 00:19:43,000
Speaker 1: it and took off from New York. So the visas

306
00:19:43,080 --> 00:19:47,960
Speaker 1: I managed to um sort out through a Canadian gentleman.

307
00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:52,320
Speaker 1: So we flew to Toronto, and although the although the

308
00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:58,919
Speaker 1: empathy there saw sauce As as non bona fide visa

309
00:19:59,080 --> 00:20:04,200
Speaker 1: applicator is because of the London London thing, I managed

310
00:20:04,240 --> 00:20:10,879
Speaker 1: to convince immigration lawyer to do me a favor and

311
00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:16,040
Speaker 1: in the meantime I hard a small plane to take

312
00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:19,080
Speaker 1: us over the Canadian border and landed Buffalo, New York.

313
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Speaker 1: The lead guitar player of the band suitably called Brindsley Shorts,

314
00:20:25,119 --> 00:20:29,640
Speaker 1: the bass player being Nick low Lost. He had never

315
00:20:29,760 --> 00:20:33,560
Speaker 1: flown in a small plane before his ear drums went out.

316
00:20:33,680 --> 00:20:37,719
Speaker 1: His ears completely clogged up. He couldn't hear anything, and

317
00:20:37,800 --> 00:20:41,200
Speaker 1: so the show in New York wasn't everything I had

318
00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:47,040
Speaker 1: hoped for, So it was a huge chaos. Most of

319
00:20:47,080 --> 00:20:50,320
Speaker 1: the journalists didn't go to the show. Bill Graham in

320
00:20:50,359 --> 00:20:53,160
Speaker 1: those days twenty minutes before the show. If you're press

321
00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:58,160
Speaker 1: didn't show up, he would sell the tickets. You remember him,

322
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Speaker 1: So it was a pretty much a disaster. Van Morrison

323
00:21:02,040 --> 00:21:04,280
Speaker 1: was very friendly because I hadn't seen him for quite

324
00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:09,160
Speaker 1: a few years. But ten, ten or fifteen people from

325
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:13,199
Speaker 1: the plane actually saw the show. But everybody panned it

326
00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:17,119
Speaker 1: big time. I have column inches that you have never

327
00:21:17,160 --> 00:21:20,800
Speaker 1: seen before in your life, all saying death and damnation,

328
00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:26,560
Speaker 1: and but everybody was talking about Brindsey Schwartz and United

329
00:21:26,680 --> 00:21:29,520
Speaker 1: Artists did a big record deal with me, and I

330
00:21:29,600 --> 00:21:31,480
Speaker 1: managed to do a publishing deal while I was in

331
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Speaker 1: the States. So that was my entree into being a

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00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:42,080
Speaker 1: kind of a manager stroke disaster arranger, and out of

333
00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:53,200
Speaker 1: that came Stiff Records at a later stage. Okay, let's

334
00:21:53,240 --> 00:21:55,439
Speaker 1: go back a couple of years there and goes to

335
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:59,320
Speaker 1: New York. Ultimately the club closes. What's your next step?

336
00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:04,880
Speaker 1: The next step was take the group the People to London.

337
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:08,920
Speaker 1: We had reached the kind of top of Ireland. Ireland

338
00:22:09,200 --> 00:22:12,280
Speaker 1: had a low ceiling in terms of groups. There wasn't

339
00:22:12,359 --> 00:22:15,840
Speaker 1: there wasn't a big recorded scene or anything else. So

340
00:22:16,040 --> 00:22:19,040
Speaker 1: you had to go to London. That was it. I

341
00:22:19,119 --> 00:22:23,880
Speaker 1: took the band to London and I got them three gigs.

342
00:22:24,760 --> 00:22:28,840
Speaker 1: I've an agent friend got them three gigs. The second

343
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:33,240
Speaker 1: one was a London had just discovered the San Francisco

344
00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:39,520
Speaker 1: happening affairs. Um, you know, an acid The acid idea

345
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:42,639
Speaker 1: was happening, but nobody was taking it in London. But

346
00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:45,320
Speaker 1: they were putting on like they were in it. There

347
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:49,560
Speaker 1: was bubbles on the wall, there was psychedelia, procol harm

348
00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:53,320
Speaker 1: We're playing that night that we got a gig at.

349
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:56,639
Speaker 1: It was called the Blarney Club in London and the

350
00:22:56,920 --> 00:23:00,399
Speaker 1: Bonds A Dog Boot Do Da band. My band, The

351
00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:04,280
Speaker 1: People came on at four o'clock in the morning. Everyone

352
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,400
Speaker 1: was asleep. A hundred and fifty people were passed out

353
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:10,720
Speaker 1: on the floor. Everyone else had gone home, and they

354
00:23:10,760 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 1: got up and did their thing. They were very good.

355
00:23:13,119 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 1: They were very good rock and roll band, and the

356
00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 1: crowd of a hundred and fifty people woke up and

357
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:22,159
Speaker 1: really had a good time. At the end of it,

358
00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 1: I've got several university bookers trying to book the band,

359
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 1: and they were offering me money. And this is what

360
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:33,439
Speaker 1: it was all about. We had. Here was a few gigs,

361
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:36,600
Speaker 1: and here was a chance to break through. A gentleman

362
00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:42,600
Speaker 1: in the corner with small John Lennon glasses Um said

363
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:45,400
Speaker 1: before you do everything else, you should talk to me,

364
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:48,320
Speaker 1: and I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, I

365
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:50,119
Speaker 1: just talked to this guy. I'll get I'll get you

366
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:52,359
Speaker 1: in a minute. The promoter passed me by and he

367
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:54,760
Speaker 1: said I would talk to him if I was you.

368
00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:58,960
Speaker 1: I said why. He said, that's Mike Jeffreys, Jimmy Hendricks manager,

369
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:04,440
Speaker 1: And thought, Mike, Mike, He hello, how are you? And

370
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 1: it turned out that Mike Jefferies had three clubs in

371
00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 1: Miyorca Island off the coast of Spain. The British and

372
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:19,160
Speaker 1: the Spanish. We're having an argument about Gibraltar, another argument,

373
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 1: and so the Spanish had banned all English people from

374
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:27,920
Speaker 1: getting work permits in Spain in order to negotiate. Mike

375
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 1: Jefferies had three clubs and no bands, so he had

376
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:34,400
Speaker 1: stayed all night because he heard that we were an

377
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:37,919
Speaker 1: Irish band. Now what I didn't tell him, what I

378
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 1: didn't tell him was that we weren't. We were a

379
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:43,679
Speaker 1: Northern Irish band. We were essentially a British fan. They

380
00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: had British passport. He said, you are Irish, it's it's Irish.

381
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:50,720
Speaker 1: Of course I'm Irish. Oh you know I'm Irish. So

382
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:53,679
Speaker 1: he booked us for his three clubs. I had to

383
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 1: rush to Ireland and managed to get Irish passports and

384
00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:00,040
Speaker 1: the group didn't want them. The group did not on

385
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,239
Speaker 1: them because they were Northern Irish and if you had

386
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:05,399
Speaker 1: an Irish passport you'd be killed. That's what they told me.

387
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:07,679
Speaker 1: I said, well, don't show them to anybody. Put them

388
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: you don't need you get them to go to ma Yorker.

389
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 1: You're not going to Belfast. So off we took to

390
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:22,119
Speaker 1: ne Yorker. Fantastic, great club, great apartment, everybody getting money

391
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:27,159
Speaker 1: every week, loads of girls on holiday, I mean heaven

392
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 1: to a degree, great weather. And then Chas Chandler turned

393
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:36,159
Speaker 1: up chairs As, as we know, had formed a partnership

394
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: with Mike Jefferies to manage Jimmi Hendrix, and he came

395
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 1: out on holiday and of course he saw the band.

396
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 1: Now Chads was just Chads, a great bab you know,

397
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 1: a really nice guy, a real musician, not a great

398
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 1: bass player. He don't of himself, but but he liked

399
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 1: looking and feeling with musicians. So he met my bunch

400
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 1: who were playing pretty good. Now they're doing three sets

401
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 1: a night. It's like Hamburg I have three sets denied.

402
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 1: They're putting in new covers, the writing of bitter materials

403
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 1: all happening. He likes them. He told me he wanted

404
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: to sign them up. I mean I could hardly. I

405
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:18,960
Speaker 1: could hardly hear how wonderful that was. Chas Chandler signed

406
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:24,000
Speaker 1: the people to his management company with Mike Jeffries, and

407
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:27,640
Speaker 1: I would be a third partner in the equation. They

408
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: would own the major part. I would have a little part.

409
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:34,720
Speaker 1: So it was perfect and uh he would record us.

410
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 1: He wanted to produce. It was just heaven. So back

411
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 1: we go to London. Everything is really good and the

412
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 1: first gig we've got is with Jimmy Hendrix. We're supporting

413
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: Jimmy Hendrix. And again it's unbelievable. It's not a script

414
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: you could you could write down. So then, um, we've

415
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:58,920
Speaker 1: got on the tour with Jimmy the Aim and Corner,

416
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:04,919
Speaker 1: the Move of the Nice the Pink Floyd on a

417
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:08,119
Speaker 1: package tour. In those days, England had package tours where

418
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 1: each if you had a hit, you had one hit,

419
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:15,680
Speaker 1: you'd get on a package tour. And and that group

420
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 1: the was led by a group called the Outer Limits,

421
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 1: who are the cousin of the promoter. They had no

422
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 1: hits I had Now the people were now named by

423
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 1: Mike Jeffrey's girlfriend, the Heir Apparent with E I or

424
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 1: e as the kind of as A as the hook right.

425
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,640
Speaker 1: The group didn't like it because they were not Irish,

426
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: but they put up with it. So we went on

427
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 1: tour for the Each show was two and a half hours.

428
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:50,399
Speaker 1: We did Mattnee's did Mattnee in the afternoon. Jimi Hendrix

429
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: had twenty minutes to play. The Pink Floyd had twelve

430
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:57,879
Speaker 1: and a half minutes to play and they hated it.

431
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: Everybody else got jolly that around and had a great time,

432
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 1: you know, the move, spend a long time talking about

433
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 1: Venereal Warts mainly, but but the Pink Floyd hated every

434
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: moment of it, and you got their manager to get

435
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 1: them a car so they wouldn't have to travel with

436
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:17,480
Speaker 1: the riff raff, you know, the other people. Jimmy was fine,

437
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 1: he was quite happy to get on the bus with everybody,

438
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: and it was. It was a lot of fun, a

439
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: great experience and a lot of fun. Then we got

440
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: we got on other Jimmy Hendry shows and the next

441
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 1: thing Chad says, how do you feel about going to America?

442
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 1: And how do I feel? I feel fantastic. Chas just

443
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:41,239
Speaker 1: point me at it. So off we went with the

444
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: Soft Machine and Jimmy Hendricks experience to America again like

445
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: opening a door of the unbelievable. You could not imagine.

446
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: I thought, this is success, this is success. They're also

447
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 1: paying us very good money. I was getting a hundred

448
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars a week, which in those days night

449
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: was was was very good money. When all your expenses

450
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: were paid, you know, we were doing well. So that

451
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 1: was the tour. Jerry Stickles, who is the uh Jerry

452
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: Jerry was the tour manager and a rare. We were.

453
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 1: We were in a very interesting thing. I didn't realize

454
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 1: that at the time, but the animals them Harriman's Hermits

455
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 1: and the Beatles had been to America. No other group

456
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 1: from England really had been there, and we were. They're

457
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: making our own name. Jerry Stickles, a scaffolder from Folkeston

458
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: in England who got the job with an experience because

459
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: he had a van and they needed one at the time,

460
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:50,479
Speaker 1: turned out to be one of the great touring guys.

461
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: He turned out to be a real happening and a

462
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 1: real resourceful guy because you had to be because of

463
00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: no security. There was no criteria, there was no template

464
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: that made the tour work. There was no anything. Most

465
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: of the gigs had the local police chief who knew

466
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 1: the promoter. He was the security and he wasn't really

467
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: out for the band, and particularly not Jimi Hendrix, who

468
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: was slightly the wrong color for that. For a lot

469
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 1: of the gigs that we were doing, it was amazing experience.

470
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: The girls were extraordinary good looking. I mean it was

471
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 1: and and everywhere, and they were everywhere. So the air partent,

472
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,920
Speaker 1: we're having a good time. Um, the group was going well.

473
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: Jerry stick has had to go back to England for

474
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: a month for um for a medical for a medical

475
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 1: procedure that that he had, and I got a briefcase

476
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 1: and a baretta, and I was told on the tour manager.

477
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 1: So I became for about six weeks the tour manager

478
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 1: for the Jimmy Hendris experience on the road in America,

479
00:30:55,560 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 1: with no idea at all. How really it went great

480
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 1: experience and I had a great time. Jimmy was a

481
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 1: very nice guy. Um. You know, he was always trying

482
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: to find out what's happening to the money, and I

483
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 1: had to tell him that I didn't know what was happening.

484
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: I put it into various banks in a company called

485
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: you Amita, and you know, sometimes I would go into

486
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: a bank with three or four hundred thousand dollars and

487
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 1: the guards would draw their guns when I opened my briefcase.

488
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: There was no credit cards. Nobody had a credit card.

489
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 1: It was all cash. And nobody had a flight case.

490
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 1: A lot of these martial equipment had no flight case.

491
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 1: They had plastic covers. They were ripped to shreds by

492
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: going down the luggage ramps. I mean, it was total

493
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 1: amateur land. And I thought, but there must be you

494
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: know there these people obviously know what they're doing and

495
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 1: there must be something going on here that makes sense.

496
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: And the answer was there wasn't. The tour. The tour

497
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: zig zagged all over the road, all over the country. Um.

498
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:05,360
Speaker 1: I think around that time it was a fifty five

499
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: and our speed limit because of the because of the

500
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: gash problems, and you know, everybody was on the CB

501
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 1: trying to beat the you know and get to the

502
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:20,000
Speaker 1: next gig. It was an extraordinary time. And the band

503
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 1: where Mitch was, you know, great drummer that he was,

504
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 1: he was also a pain in the arts because he

505
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: wanted to be like Jimmy. I mean, Jimmy was so

506
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 1: miles ahead of everything around him in terms of his

507
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:40,080
Speaker 1: playing ability. Noel was very pragmatic and he just got

508
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:42,920
Speaker 1: on with stuff. He pulled me out of a swimming pool.

509
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: I can't swim, and my band threw me into the

510
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: swimming pool in I think Tampa, Florida. Noel tripping saw

511
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 1: me at the bottom of the pool, you know, trying

512
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: to trying to memorize any swimming manual that I'd ever

513
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: seen in my life. And when he's six, he's very

514
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 1: light man and he got jumped in and pulled me out.

515
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: That was a That was a lifesaver. Anyway, we did

516
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 1: well and we toured and Jimmy produced the air Parents album. Okay,

517
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: before you get there, you know you're talking about the

518
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 1: old days. People don't realize where it was when it

519
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: was all in cash and it was also difficult to

520
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 1: get paid and difficult to get paid a hundred cents

521
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 1: on the dollar. Did you ever have to use the BARRETTA?

522
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 1: I never did. I was very anti guns, very anti guns.

523
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 1: It was in the bottom of my briefcase for ages.

524
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 1: And I did from time to time hang out with

525
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 1: some other tour managers. There was a tour manager who

526
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 1: looked after the animals and he was a very fancy dresser.

527
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 1: He was very sharp. He had a waistcoat and he

528
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 1: carried a baretta in his waistcoat, right, and he showed

529
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 1: every everyone would show the gun you had. They all

530
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 1: had different guns. And uh so he was in Atlanta,

531
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 1: Flora and Black Geezer. Unfortunately, you know, alcohold Up said

532
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 1: give me that briefcase after the show. So he he

533
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 1: pulled out the baretta to show, to show whatever, and

534
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 1: fired miles away from the guy. He fired it when

535
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: it ricocheted off the wall and hit the guy in

536
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:25,759
Speaker 1: the lake. Right, So the guy is down bleeding profusely.

537
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:30,840
Speaker 1: Black and white pulls up and they're congratulating. They're congratulating

538
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: my tour manager on his acumen and killing or trying

539
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 1: to kill, you know, locals. I mean, It's America. Was

540
00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:44,319
Speaker 1: very odd, Bob. You you've obviously been there forever. But

541
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: the bottom line is it was so racid. I I didn't.

542
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 1: I came from a racist country where where Protestants and

543
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 1: Catholics resented each other big time, and here I was

544
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: in America. I thought John F. Kennedy, in my naivety,

545
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 1: had solved all these kind of racial problems. I was

546
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 1: totally astonished by the racism, you know, I was amazed.

547
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: I could not understand why somebody wasn't doing something. But

548
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: it was everywhere. And Jimmy Hendrix was a black guy

549
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:20,240
Speaker 1: in a white in a white world to a degree,

550
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: because we were playing white gigs everywhere, and there wasn't

551
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 1: really an awful lot of our color Breton in the shows.

552
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 1: So it was very very interesting. The Vanilla Fared a

553
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:37,040
Speaker 1: good example of guns is the Vanilla Fudge did a

554
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:39,799
Speaker 1: week or ten days on the tour. They joined the

555
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:44,800
Speaker 1: tour and I was told it was during my time touring.

556
00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 1: I was told that they would come and it would

557
00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 1: you know, they'd go on third and what would happen,

558
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: et cetera. I was on the stage in I think Jackson, Mississippi,

559
00:35:56,160 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 1: and uh, this young dark guy in a silver suit

560
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 1: in a in a shiny suit, and a very big

561
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 1: man that was with him came came up and said,

562
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:11,720
Speaker 1: I'm the manager of the Vanilla Fudge. Our gear hasn't

563
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:17,759
Speaker 1: turned up um, so we'll have to use yours. And

564
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:21,200
Speaker 1: I said, well, I'll ask the band. It should be okay,

565
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 1: but I'll ask. I'll ask the group whatever, at which

566
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: point the guy, the big guy, pulled the front of

567
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:31,320
Speaker 1: my shirt down and nearly knocked me over, but he

568
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: literally pulled the front off, and when I looked up,

569
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 1: I had a very big gun in my mouth. Right.

570
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: So I'm mumbling to whom you can use enter your rooric,

571
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 1: you know, take good all. The following day they gave

572
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 1: me a small envelope with about five grand in it,

573
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: which is more than I had seen for a while.

574
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:53,719
Speaker 1: I was asked to look after the band and he'd

575
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 1: been a little bit over what was it zealous? I

576
00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:59,920
Speaker 1: think what's the word? He said, And that was another

577
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 1: part of Americans history. From my point of view, it

578
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 1: was it was what it's the wild West really and

579
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 1: being in the music business with Jimmy Hendrix at that

580
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,320
Speaker 1: stage was was a great introduction. Okay, So Jimmy agrees

581
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:20,760
Speaker 1: to produce the Air Appearent album, Yes he did. He

582
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 1: He said to me, I'd like to produce them. What

583
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 1: do you think? And I said, oh, no problem, Jimmy,

584
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:30,240
Speaker 1: no problem. Uh, they will love it. He said fine.

585
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:32,839
Speaker 1: He said, look, Dave, I want to tell you this.

586
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:36,280
Speaker 1: You know, you know I'm I'm not great at time keeping.

587
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 1: He was. At this moment, we were in l A.

588
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: And the tour had had slowed off for a week

589
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 1: or two. It had just they've been doing far too much.

590
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 1: And he was in this house up on mum Holland

591
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:52,200
Speaker 1: and it had I remember the bedroom had nothing but mirrors.

592
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:57,359
Speaker 1: The bedroom was a mirrored room. So he said to me,

593
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 1: I want to do this, Dave. I want so you're

594
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 1: you're I'll give you permission to come in my bedroom

595
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 1: and get me out. Every day. I want to go

596
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 1: to the studio, and I want to be there at

597
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 1: ten o'clock, okay, and it doesn't matter where I've been,

598
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:18,400
Speaker 1: you come and get me. I'll give you full permission

599
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:22,480
Speaker 1: to do this. So the very first night, very very

600
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 1: first morning, you know, ac quarter to ten, I'm tapping

601
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:29,240
Speaker 1: on his door, knowing that he got in at seven

602
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 1: or something. And eventually I'll go in, Jimmy, Jimmy, and

603
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:37,920
Speaker 1: Jimmy is is in his bed in the mirrored room.

604
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:40,440
Speaker 1: And I did I didn't have my camera, a mirrored

605
00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:44,800
Speaker 1: room with black sheets, black satin sheets, and a blonde

606
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 1: girl on each side of him. They looked like twins,

607
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 1: and they were a Scandinavian kind of couple who had

608
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 1: he had adopted. He loved. He loved blonde women. We

609
00:38:56,360 --> 00:39:00,480
Speaker 1: all do. So I'm going Jimmy, Jimmy, you me and

610
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 1: kind of shaking him and there's no movement. So eventually,

611
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: you know, I remembered what he told me, and I get,

612
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 1: you know, tough and getting him out there. So getting

613
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: him out, giving him coffee and getting him to the

614
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:14,920
Speaker 1: studio became my job. And he did a remarkable He

615
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 1: was there every pretty much every day, and and it's

616
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:22,799
Speaker 1: the guitar player, and an awful lot of the he

617
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: played down. He played down so he would sound like

618
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: the guitar thing. It was fairly extraordinary. And my Facebook

619
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:35,600
Speaker 1: page has a lovely picture of me and Jimmy Hendrix

620
00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 1: in the studio making the air parent outing. But a

621
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 1: lovely guy like that, a lovely a lovely, genuine Geezer.

622
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 1: Aside from the extraordinary guitar playing, he got fed up

623
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:51,400
Speaker 1: with the with the kind of chitling circuit stuff that

624
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:54,720
Speaker 1: made his name. I mean, people just wanted the big stuff.

625
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: They wanted the fancy by the guitar player behind your back,

626
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 1: you know, you use it as a phallic symbol, you know,

627
00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: and do all of that thing. And and eventually he

628
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 1: got a little cheese with that, as you would. But

629
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 1: that was what made him happen in England and that

630
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:23,440
Speaker 1: transferred to America. So the album was made. What are

631
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 1: the next steps for you? Well, I would think at

632
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 1: that point we were on Buddha Records. There was a

633
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:34,879
Speaker 1: guy called Artie rip whatever, and Artie was was good

634
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:37,919
Speaker 1: value for money talking, but he didn't do very much

635
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 1: with the record. And eventually the band decided that they

636
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:46,359
Speaker 1: would get back to England and expose the album too

637
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:50,319
Speaker 1: in England. So a few decisions were made and we

638
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: got back to England, at which point the band broke up.

639
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 1: Henry McCulloch had got busted in Canada for marijuana possession

640
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 1: and had been told that he would possibly he would

641
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 1: possibly go to jail because they wanted to get musicians.

642
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 1: At that time, getting somebody close to Hendricks was was

643
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:18,520
Speaker 1: a media thing, so he jumped bail. Henry Henry was

644
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:25,239
Speaker 1: advised by Mike Jeffrey's people to jump bail and and

645
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:28,080
Speaker 1: we got another guitar player out there. It wasn't half

646
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: of talent, and when they got back to England they

647
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: broke up. That's when I got found the five thousand

648
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:40,280
Speaker 1: pounds investor to start a management company with Brindley Swartz.

649
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:44,919
Speaker 1: So that connects to that story. When I would try

650
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:48,879
Speaker 1: and use all my experience that I gained in two

651
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 1: years in America and and would and would finally, you know,

652
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:56,839
Speaker 1: use it to to find an English band and find

653
00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 1: a group that could conquer the world. Meat putting that

654
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 1: in the Melody Maker. Band wanted must have own equipment

655
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: and van, and they didn't. They lied to me. They

656
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 1: didn't own the van. And they didn't own the gear.

657
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:16,240
Speaker 1: But I saw in Nick Low. I have to say

658
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:18,279
Speaker 1: I did see Nick Low. He had a couple of

659
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 1: songs that were a bit crossis into the Nash at

660
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 1: the time, but he um he had something and the

661
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 1: band were good. The band were unusually good, and I

662
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,719
Speaker 1: thought I could make something of them. The trip to

663
00:42:35,760 --> 00:42:39,439
Speaker 1: America turned out not too well, but I had got

664
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 1: an ongoing deal with two albums firm from United Artists,

665
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 1: and so that income the band um joined together to

666
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 1: live in one house together like a commune. Yeah. So

667
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 1: the group proceeded to do three hundred gigs a year

668
00:42:56,840 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 1: for four years and form a very big name for

669
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 1: themselves in a low level kind of music musical area.

670
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:07,960
Speaker 1: Their second album was called Despite It All, which is

671
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 1: an apt title, and it was very very good for

672
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:16,799
Speaker 1: four years, which is long enough for any group if

673
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 1: they don't make it. That's when the seeds of descent

674
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 1: set in and I left Tom to put a studio

675
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 1: together at the Hope and Anchor in Islington, the famous

676
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:32,920
Speaker 1: public house, and the band broke up. What was your

677
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 1: thought in terms of building a studio, Well, I wanted

678
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: a vowel studio. I bought two from Abbey Road. I

679
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 1: bought to J fifty four. I think they were called

680
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:48,120
Speaker 1: studio machines, which I was told where a part of

681
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:52,600
Speaker 1: the Abbey Road UM machines that the Beatles possibly had

682
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 1: played on. I got the I got the desk out

683
00:43:56,560 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: of Decca that I was told what had produced Nights

684
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:05,479
Speaker 1: in White Sason Satin and I set up a Vale

685
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 1: studio eight track with two of the two machines together

686
00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: with one head and started recording at the Hope and

687
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 1: Anchor I put it. It obviously went to the stage,

688
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:20,759
Speaker 1: so any music played on the stage was recordable by me.

689
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:26,600
Speaker 1: So the studio was going quite well, and um I

690
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:29,839
Speaker 1: also booked. I booked the venue so it was full

691
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: all the time. Again I did my favorite thing of

692
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:39,360
Speaker 1: having a very small hundred hundred licensed club and putting

693
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 1: four hundred people in it. I had an alcohol license

694
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 1: at this point as well, so that was good. Uh.

695
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 1: And a group called Flipped City wanted to play and

696
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 1: their manager was hustling me and I put them on

697
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 1: our support with a band called Kokomo and they were terrible,

698
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:04,880
Speaker 1: but they had a guy lead singer who did a

699
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:10,759
Speaker 1: song called third Rate Romance, Low Rench Rendezvous and he

700
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: turned out his name was Declan mcmallus. So I said

701
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:17,359
Speaker 1: to him, you've got any original songs, and he said, yeah,

702
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 1: I've got a few. I said, well, I've got a

703
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:23,279
Speaker 1: studio upstairs. I've just set it up, so I'll do

704
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:26,359
Speaker 1: some demos for you if you fancy doing a few.

705
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 1: So he did thirty eight songs in the night. We

706
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: finished at five in the morning, and I gave him

707
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:36,920
Speaker 1: a tape of his thirty eight songs and I thought

708
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:39,960
Speaker 1: he could be good. This guy could be useful. But

709
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 1: I put the band on again a month or two

710
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 1: later and they were still terrible. He was good, but

711
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:50,600
Speaker 1: they were really rubbish. So while I was there, I

712
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,480
Speaker 1: put on a lot of music. All the London music

713
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 1: traveled through the Hope and Anchor Pub recorded by me,

714
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:03,720
Speaker 1: and out of that I got the idea of Stiff Records. Also,

715
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:09,480
Speaker 1: Stiff Records was empty major record label because they didn't

716
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 1: care about anything except their their money, the ideas that

717
00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:16,880
Speaker 1: they liked, the kind of music that they sponsored, the

718
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 1: kind of satin trousers and the high heeled boots and

719
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 1: the pink hair dues. I wasn't a big fan of

720
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:26,960
Speaker 1: and it wasn't very good. That prog rock area wasn't

721
00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 1: my favorite, and because the pubs were now my interests,

722
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:35,359
Speaker 1: and bands playing three minute numbers with no solos, with

723
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:38,360
Speaker 1: with happening with a couple of covers in there from

724
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 1: some really decent people became my interests and they were

725
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 1: the I got the idea from there. I managed it

726
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,960
Speaker 1: wasn't his name was now, but I managed Declin, I

727
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:55,400
Speaker 1: managed Geane Drury, I managed Nick Lowe who come came

728
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:58,640
Speaker 1: to me with my partner at the time, Jake Vieira,

729
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:03,320
Speaker 1: and we started the tapes from the Hope and Anchor

730
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:08,080
Speaker 1: became stuff we could release because it was all Graham

731
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: Parker I found at that time. He came to me

732
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:14,440
Speaker 1: with a couple of songs that somebody said, Dave's got

733
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:17,799
Speaker 1: a studio, why don't you go down there. I got

734
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:21,440
Speaker 1: him a deal with Phonogram, which was it's the quickest

735
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:26,600
Speaker 1: deal I've ever ever made. I did the demo on Monday.

736
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,760
Speaker 1: On Friday, I gave it to a gentleman called Charlie Gillett,

737
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 1: who was a great Unfortunately he's passed on. He was

738
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:38,440
Speaker 1: a marvelous spotter and really nice guy and helpful, but

739
00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:42,360
Speaker 1: also he could spot things. He discovered Dark Straights me

740
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:46,399
Speaker 1: a load of bands and I gave it to him.

741
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:49,759
Speaker 1: He had a radio show on a Sunday on he

742
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:53,759
Speaker 1: played the track between You and Me. On Monday I

743
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 1: got a call from Nigel Grange, the head of A

744
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:59,239
Speaker 1: and R at Phonogram, and on Tuesday I had a

745
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:02,880
Speaker 1: deal sorted out and we were doing the paperwork. Okay,

746
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 1: let's low down a couple of steps. Hey, who owns

747
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:07,919
Speaker 1: the Hope and Anchor. The Hope and Anchor is owned

748
00:48:07,920 --> 00:48:13,600
Speaker 1: by a pub now called Green King. It's owned by

749
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 1: by a brewery. I mean when you were there who

750
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:19,279
Speaker 1: owned it? Was owned by a brewery called Watney's. And

751
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:21,879
Speaker 1: it was right. It was run by a landlord who

752
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:27,480
Speaker 1: had a tendency in those days the the breweries owned

753
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:31,840
Speaker 1: all the pubs in different configurations, and they had tenants

754
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 1: in to run them. And obviously, if you if you

755
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:37,680
Speaker 1: haven't got a big crowd in your pub, getting a

756
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:41,719
Speaker 1: music license and getting music into was a way for

757
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:45,560
Speaker 1: you to sell more booze. So there was a landlord

758
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 1: there called Fred Granger at the Hope and Anchor. He

759
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:50,960
Speaker 1: and I became partners in the studio. And where did

760
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: the money come from across the bar Okay, and you

761
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 1: have a studio who's doing the engineering and producing and

762
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:00,479
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Me me, I built it. It took

763
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:03,400
Speaker 1: me a year to build it. I learned all about

764
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:05,879
Speaker 1: elect I had a couple of electronic guys come down

765
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:09,240
Speaker 1: and give me chores. They give me like your list,

766
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:12,799
Speaker 1: like your list of how to get this recording guy.

767
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:15,400
Speaker 1: They give me chores. And during the week I would

768
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 1: solder and do what they told me, and they'd come

769
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:21,040
Speaker 1: the following week and give me more. I could only

770
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:23,239
Speaker 1: afford to get them one day a week, not to

771
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:25,280
Speaker 1: do any work, just to tell me what to do.

772
00:49:25,680 --> 00:49:30,880
Speaker 1: I had a very good sound. I had Willie Mitchell, right,

773
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:33,880
Speaker 1: I loved I loved the sound of Willie Mitchell. I

774
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 1: thought that was one of the great England didn't have

775
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:40,280
Speaker 1: that sound. They had like a blank ye snare drum.

776
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 1: English bands were more theatrical than musical. I always thought,

777
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 1: you know, I always thought the English liked the theater

778
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:52,920
Speaker 1: and they liked the theatricals, and so I started a

779
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:55,200
Speaker 1: lot of other people. But but that was the main

780
00:49:55,280 --> 00:50:00,719
Speaker 1: thing in in David Bowie h Pete Towns and I

781
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 1: mean Freddie our Freddie a queen. I mean, you know,

782
00:50:05,239 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 1: I always thought he was a man chasing around looking

783
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 1: for the other end of his mic stand by and large,

784
00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 1: but that was the English thing. I love the the

785
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:18,520
Speaker 1: R and B, the rhythm and blues. And Willie Mitchell

786
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:22,440
Speaker 1: I had every drummer who came to the Hope and

787
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:27,279
Speaker 1: Anchor for any reason, I would kidnap take him upstairs

788
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 1: and I had a drum kit set up, and I

789
00:50:30,040 --> 00:50:32,120
Speaker 1: would get him to play the drum kit for as

790
00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 1: long as I could. I'd give him drink, I'd give

791
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 1: him anything. So he kept playing on the drum kit

792
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:40,560
Speaker 1: while I fiddled to try and make the sound that

793
00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:44,320
Speaker 1: was in my head, which was like high records al Green.

794
00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:48,399
Speaker 1: That that sound. So I I thought, buggering, I can't.

795
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:52,319
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it. Nobody seemed to be able to.

796
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:55,239
Speaker 1: I wrote to Willie Mitchell. I wrote to him, I said,

797
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:58,600
Speaker 1: of the studio, I love the sound, blah blah. He

798
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:01,879
Speaker 1: wrote back to me with a mic set up right

799
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:05,120
Speaker 1: from Willie Mitchell. He wrote back, and all the mics

800
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:08,759
Speaker 1: were incredibly cheap. I had been going and trying to

801
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 1: get expensive stuff and trying to make and it was

802
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:15,960
Speaker 1: a vow sound. The early days. The tamlot was all

803
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:21,200
Speaker 1: valve I mean, obviously, So I went out and got

804
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:23,279
Speaker 1: all his microphones and put him in the in the

805
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:27,880
Speaker 1: place that he said they should go, all the same mics.

806
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:32,320
Speaker 1: The next drummer who came in downstairs turned into Al Jackson.

807
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 1: He sat at the drum kit, he played the drum

808
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:39,240
Speaker 1: kid and he sounded like Al Jackson, My favorite drummer.

809
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:41,960
Speaker 1: And that was the Willie Mitchell drum set. I've been

810
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:45,760
Speaker 1: using it ever since. And it came automatically. I didn't,

811
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: you know. He told me a couple of e q s,

812
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:52,880
Speaker 1: but nothing dramatic. He just showed me the positioning of

813
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 1: the mics, and that was pretty much what Stiff Records

814
00:51:57,200 --> 00:52:00,239
Speaker 1: had based around that kind of drum set. I ordered

815
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:04,520
Speaker 1: to Nick Lowe then and we made a whole career

816
00:52:04,520 --> 00:52:06,840
Speaker 1: out of it. Okay, why did you get involved with

817
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:10,359
Speaker 1: Jake Riviera? Was that good or bad? Jake Rivieira was

818
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:14,680
Speaker 1: quite a smart geither now I'm not I'm not blowing

819
00:52:14,719 --> 00:52:18,239
Speaker 1: my own trumpet by saying that I was doing more

820
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 1: things around the place in the Hope and Anchor than

821
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:25,320
Speaker 1: Jake was. Jake saw me in his in his front

822
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:28,520
Speaker 1: vision he could see me, and he was following me

823
00:52:28,600 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 1: around a little bit. He was stalking me a fraction

824
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 1: and one of but it was very smart geezer, very

825
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:39,000
Speaker 1: very witty, very sharp talker. And he got a job

826
00:52:39,080 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 1: as tour manager on the very first dr Feel Good

827
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 1: Tour of America, and he went around there, and he

828
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:51,840
Speaker 1: was very interested in record labels. It always had a

829
00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:54,799
Speaker 1: he always had a fascination of recording more than me.

830
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:59,360
Speaker 1: I mean, I was thinking of Warner Brothers and others.

831
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 1: He was thinking of modern and all the Brunswick and whatever.

832
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:06,360
Speaker 1: So he went around America would feel Goods and the

833
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:10,200
Speaker 1: field Goods loved small record labels and alcohol, two things

834
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:13,000
Speaker 1: they loved. So they went around all these small record

835
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:15,760
Speaker 1: labels in every town in America. Who were the owners

836
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:20,280
Speaker 1: were dying off, you know, they've lost their money or whatever. Anyway,

837
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:23,000
Speaker 1: all these things were becoming bankrupt, but they all had

838
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:27,319
Speaker 1: stocks of singles in the warehouse that the wife of

839
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:30,359
Speaker 1: the owner who died of a heart attack still had.

840
00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:33,439
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do with. Jake came back

841
00:53:33,440 --> 00:53:38,160
Speaker 1: from that tour and said to me. He said to me, Dave,

842
00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:41,520
Speaker 1: I've got an idea. Let's start a small record label,

843
00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:44,839
Speaker 1: your tapes from the Hope and anchor right, and my

844
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:47,560
Speaker 1: ideas about what we'll do. He used to work for

845
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:51,760
Speaker 1: in that agency. He was very very good, uh clib

846
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:57,080
Speaker 1: geither so fine. We got together, the two of us.

847
00:53:57,360 --> 00:54:02,719
Speaker 1: I had the management company, I managed declan Acmanus Injury,

848
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:08,440
Speaker 1: various other people, Graham Parker and we joined together and

849
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 1: the money came from the management company to start the

850
00:54:11,760 --> 00:54:15,520
Speaker 1: record label and Nick Low. We pressed ten thousand, We

851
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:19,839
Speaker 1: did it in five hundred, five hundreds and sold them

852
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:22,879
Speaker 1: and then went on. There's a guy in England who

853
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 1: was the genius of the independent record thing, John Peel.

854
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:32,080
Speaker 1: John Peel was the most extraordinary guy. God knows how

855
00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:34,279
Speaker 1: he came up with his ideas, but he was a

856
00:54:34,320 --> 00:54:38,319
Speaker 1: lovely guy and he really liked Stiff. So from our

857
00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 1: first record, So it Goes by Nick Low, he played

858
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:45,040
Speaker 1: it on the radio and we became something. And we

859
00:54:45,120 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 1: hated major record companies with such a passion that we

860
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 1: loved making them look bad. We loved doing it. There

861
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:57,320
Speaker 1: were five newspapers, five music papers on the street every

862
00:54:57,400 --> 00:55:02,840
Speaker 1: week who needed input. They needed stuff is like the internet.

863
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:07,879
Speaker 1: They needed loads and loads. We invented. We we we

864
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:11,879
Speaker 1: would sit late at night thinking up schemes. I mean,

865
00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:14,840
Speaker 1: we love the record. We love the major record is

866
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:20,400
Speaker 1: being embarrassed. Dar Straits had had their manager went to

867
00:55:20,440 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 1: a marketing meeting at Phonogram and he was complaining that

868
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 1: they were in a house bag. They were in a

869
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:31,960
Speaker 1: Phonogram house bag. Their new big head and reckless Eric,

870
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:34,399
Speaker 1: a guy that nobody'd ever heard of, had a four

871
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:38,719
Speaker 1: color bag. And it brought that all of that was

872
00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:41,240
Speaker 1: made to measure because they had no sense of humor,

873
00:55:41,719 --> 00:55:44,640
Speaker 1: they had no anything. They weren't very smart or talented.

874
00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:50,000
Speaker 1: They were all pompous, black, black, bloody bmg w's and

875
00:55:50,560 --> 00:55:54,080
Speaker 1: it wasn't you know. They couldn't keep up. So that's

876
00:55:54,080 --> 00:55:57,600
Speaker 1: what our slogans. We lead, others follow and can't keep

877
00:55:57,719 --> 00:56:01,640
Speaker 1: up surfing on the new wave, you know, Tomorrow's sound

878
00:56:01,719 --> 00:56:05,560
Speaker 1: today where the sun never sets. That we became the

879
00:56:05,600 --> 00:56:10,319
Speaker 1: slogan company of things, and our groups loved it. The

880
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:13,440
Speaker 1: groups loved it. It was like a family affair with

881
00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:17,840
Speaker 1: everybody in it, everybody laughing. The newspapers every week, everyone

882
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:20,680
Speaker 1: bought all the music papers and read all of them.

883
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 1: So all the you know, we had journalists on the road,

884
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:28,480
Speaker 1: but we called Elvis Costello, declar McManus. You know. We

885
00:56:28,600 --> 00:56:30,799
Speaker 1: said to him, we had a meeting with him and said, look,

886
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:34,000
Speaker 1: we're getting nowhere with this great album you've just made, right,

887
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:38,000
Speaker 1: and we're gonna have to change your name. And he said, yeah,

888
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:41,040
Speaker 1: so what so we're gonna call you Elvis. And he

889
00:56:41,080 --> 00:56:45,959
Speaker 1: didn't blink. The man did not blink. And Costello came

890
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:53,040
Speaker 1: from his um, his wife's name, her her name, and

891
00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:57,319
Speaker 1: he was great. Elvis was ready to promote. He'd come

892
00:56:57,440 --> 00:57:01,520
Speaker 1: from a hard life working the computer programmer, which is

893
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:06,200
Speaker 1: putting putting the cards into the computer, and he um,

894
00:57:06,200 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 1: he was great, and he pulled a lot of other

895
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:11,200
Speaker 1: people on as well. Okay, let's slow down and start

896
00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:14,560
Speaker 1: with Elvis. You make the record. A couple of questions here,

897
00:57:14,920 --> 00:57:17,440
Speaker 1: how does he end up making the record with Clover,

898
00:57:17,680 --> 00:57:20,600
Speaker 1: a band from San Francisco though in England at the time,

899
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:24,800
Speaker 1: and he ends up with CBS Records. Tell me the

900
00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 1: story there. Clover banned from Marin County. The pub music

901
00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:35,640
Speaker 1: was was focused on a band who came from Maron

902
00:57:35,680 --> 00:57:40,280
Speaker 1: County called Eggs over Easy. I went to a pub

903
00:57:40,600 --> 00:57:43,760
Speaker 1: in town to do a do a deal with the

904
00:57:43,880 --> 00:57:47,919
Speaker 1: landlord to get some of my bands in and there

905
00:57:47,960 --> 00:57:50,840
Speaker 1: was a group playing. There was only ten people in

906
00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:53,200
Speaker 1: the room. There was nobody in the room. I'm talking

907
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:55,840
Speaker 1: to the landlord and this group is playing, and I'm

908
00:57:55,880 --> 00:57:59,280
Speaker 1: listening in the back of my mind and thinking, what's that.

909
00:57:59,280 --> 00:58:03,920
Speaker 1: That's an interesting turnaround in This four piece band is playing, right.

910
00:58:05,480 --> 00:58:08,520
Speaker 1: I talked to them, I said, what, who? What? It

911
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:11,800
Speaker 1: turns out that Chas Chandler had been going to make

912
00:58:11,840 --> 00:58:17,640
Speaker 1: an album of them for Polydor, but Polydor had had

913
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:22,880
Speaker 1: changed their mind, so they come from Marin County. I

914
00:58:23,080 --> 00:58:27,120
Speaker 1: based all these bands playing the short numbers and doing

915
00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:31,680
Speaker 1: this kind of slightly um rhythm and blues. The kind

916
00:58:31,720 --> 00:58:38,000
Speaker 1: of songwriters they've vibe off them. I stole their idea.

917
00:58:38,200 --> 00:58:40,480
Speaker 1: I still in touch with them. I'm I'm good friends

918
00:58:40,600 --> 00:58:44,080
Speaker 1: with them to this day. I got a whole lot

919
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:48,680
Speaker 1: of English bands two play that kind of style, to

920
00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:52,000
Speaker 1: do three sets, To do three sets in a pub,

921
00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:55,160
Speaker 1: to learn the game, to know what they're about, to

922
00:58:55,280 --> 00:58:58,240
Speaker 1: put your songs in, put a cover in, keep the

923
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:02,200
Speaker 1: audience happy. It's a ub The majors didn't want to know.

924
00:59:02,400 --> 00:59:04,280
Speaker 1: They sent a few people down to look at it

925
00:59:04,280 --> 00:59:06,280
Speaker 1: because there was quite a lot of people starting to

926
00:59:06,320 --> 00:59:09,040
Speaker 1: go and said, Oh, there's nothing happening here. It's just

927
00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:13,480
Speaker 1: it's just pub rock, right, that's a that's what they said.

928
00:59:14,120 --> 00:59:22,040
Speaker 1: So Clover had been a favorite of Brindsley Schwartz when

929
00:59:22,080 --> 00:59:25,200
Speaker 1: they lived together in the house. I had found this

930
00:59:25,600 --> 00:59:29,479
Speaker 1: uh album by Clover. I'd given it to Nick Lowe

931
00:59:29,800 --> 00:59:33,400
Speaker 1: who loved the music on it, and he was a

932
00:59:33,400 --> 00:59:38,600
Speaker 1: big Clover fan. When we decided to have a management company,

933
00:59:38,680 --> 00:59:42,200
Speaker 1: Jake and I and start the record company, we thought,

934
00:59:42,440 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 1: who is there in America that we could get some

935
00:59:45,880 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 1: use out of? And we thought, what about that band Clover?

936
00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:53,000
Speaker 1: So I went over. He and I went over and

937
00:59:53,040 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 1: we chatted up Clover. Harmonica player Huey Lewis, but nobody

938
00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:01,360
Speaker 1: was paying any attention to the harmonica player. John McPhee

939
01:00:01,440 --> 01:00:04,480
Speaker 1: was the guitar player. And they had long hair, and

940
01:00:04,520 --> 01:00:07,760
Speaker 1: they wore belts with conscios, and they had black leather

941
01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:12,520
Speaker 1: waistcoats and they looked fantastic cowboy boots. They had to

942
01:00:12,600 --> 01:00:16,360
Speaker 1: look long hair. They looked like Tin Lizzie to a degree.

943
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:20,120
Speaker 1: You know. Girls really liked them in Marin County and

944
01:00:20,160 --> 01:00:25,600
Speaker 1: I said, come to England, Come to England. They vacillated.

945
01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:29,520
Speaker 1: They never came. We talked to them, they never came.

946
01:00:29,880 --> 01:00:32,680
Speaker 1: Come on, come over, you'll have a good time. The

947
01:00:32,840 --> 01:00:35,959
Speaker 1: day they got on the plane by themselves to come

948
01:00:35,960 --> 01:00:39,640
Speaker 1: to England was the day that Johnny Rotten said fuck

949
01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:44,440
Speaker 1: you to a Geezer on primetime television in England. Right

950
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:48,959
Speaker 1: punk came roaring out of the shed as the day

951
01:00:49,280 --> 01:00:56,320
Speaker 1: this wild bunch of of of Wyant Earth Gunfighter, the

952
01:00:56,400 --> 01:01:02,480
Speaker 1: Okay Canal looking group turned up in in England. Bad timing.

953
01:01:03,240 --> 01:01:05,479
Speaker 1: We did everything with it. We got them a record deal,

954
01:01:06,040 --> 01:01:08,840
Speaker 1: we did everything. They've toured us in Lizzie. That was

955
01:01:08,840 --> 01:01:11,680
Speaker 1: a very big part of it. We got everything going

956
01:01:11,720 --> 01:01:15,240
Speaker 1: for the nothing worked. They were having a good time.

957
01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:18,240
Speaker 1: They were hanging out with musicians, they were playing, they

958
01:01:18,280 --> 01:01:21,760
Speaker 1: were going to the key clubs. Girls loved them. They

959
01:01:21,760 --> 01:01:23,880
Speaker 1: were on every tour we could get them onto, and

960
01:01:23,960 --> 01:01:28,280
Speaker 1: Jake and I were very persuasive and nothing happened. So

961
01:01:28,320 --> 01:01:33,160
Speaker 1: eventually Elvis had these songs and there was nobody around

962
01:01:33,560 --> 01:01:36,120
Speaker 1: with his kind of little style. He had a little

963
01:01:36,160 --> 01:01:41,240
Speaker 1: guitar style except Clover, so Clover playing not Hugh. He didn't.

964
01:01:41,280 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 1: There's no harmonica on the album, but Clover played John

965
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:52,200
Speaker 1: McPhee playing that great solo on Allison. But but the

966
01:01:52,240 --> 01:01:55,160
Speaker 1: British public didn't take to them. They didn't take to this.

967
01:01:55,600 --> 01:02:00,320
Speaker 1: So we change Elves's name and I got him to

968
01:02:00,440 --> 01:02:04,280
Speaker 1: play at the CBS convention, which was in a hotel

969
01:02:04,760 --> 01:02:07,120
Speaker 1: on Park Lane, right in the middle of London, in

970
01:02:07,160 --> 01:02:12,160
Speaker 1: the hotspot, and there was a convention in the hotel.

971
01:02:12,240 --> 01:02:14,400
Speaker 1: So I got Elvis down there with a little lamp,

972
01:02:15,040 --> 01:02:18,680
Speaker 1: playing in his funny clothes from his album cover sleeve,

973
01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:23,760
Speaker 1: and I said, whatever happens, don't stop playing, a right L.

974
01:02:23,920 --> 01:02:27,000
Speaker 1: We called him L at this point, L. Don't stop playing.

975
01:02:27,400 --> 01:02:30,120
Speaker 1: They'll notice you, they'll notice your song, they will know

976
01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:33,520
Speaker 1: who the fund is that they're excusing my language. But

977
01:02:33,520 --> 01:02:37,280
Speaker 1: but um, so he's playing away and I said, no,

978
01:02:37,320 --> 01:02:41,000
Speaker 1: matter what happens, police while you'll get the police, keep playing.

979
01:02:41,560 --> 01:02:44,720
Speaker 1: So he's there playing and he wouldn't stop. And they said,

980
01:02:44,760 --> 01:02:46,760
Speaker 1: move along, move along, Will you stop that? If you

981
01:02:46,800 --> 01:02:49,760
Speaker 1: don't stop that, I'll ar rescue blah blah blah blah blah.

982
01:02:50,040 --> 01:02:52,000
Speaker 1: So they arrest him. He's still playing as they put

983
01:02:52,080 --> 01:02:55,280
Speaker 1: him into the back of their wagon. Right, so he

984
01:02:55,480 --> 01:02:59,320
Speaker 1: goes to he doesn't know what to do now? He

985
01:02:59,480 --> 01:03:02,320
Speaker 1: gets the at least to call Stiff Records, and I

986
01:03:02,440 --> 01:03:04,920
Speaker 1: answered the phone. We've only got a staff of three,

987
01:03:05,320 --> 01:03:08,520
Speaker 1: so one of us and to the phone and they said,

988
01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:11,600
Speaker 1: we've got a We've got a guy here called Elvis Costello.

989
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:14,240
Speaker 1: He says he works for you. I said, I've never

990
01:03:14,280 --> 01:03:22,600
Speaker 1: heard him. So I have a friend on I TV News,

991
01:03:22,680 --> 01:03:26,400
Speaker 1: which is the commercial news station, and I say, look,

992
01:03:26,440 --> 01:03:29,400
Speaker 1: I've got this guy. He's been he's been arrested. They

993
01:03:29,480 --> 01:03:32,520
Speaker 1: keep him in right. I said, he's been arrested. Is

994
01:03:32,560 --> 01:03:34,600
Speaker 1: it a really good story? And he said, now it's

995
01:03:34,640 --> 01:03:37,200
Speaker 1: not enough of an angle, Dave. You know I can't.

996
01:03:37,280 --> 01:03:39,880
Speaker 1: You know, there's no way you can get this on

997
01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:43,240
Speaker 1: news the following day. What happens in England if you're

998
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:46,200
Speaker 1: if you're overnight in the cells, you go to both

999
01:03:46,240 --> 01:03:51,000
Speaker 1: street Magistrates, Straights Court and both street magitates. Is the

1000
01:03:51,040 --> 01:03:54,720
Speaker 1: old Bailey. It's it's a traditional English how they dealt

1001
01:03:54,760 --> 01:03:59,280
Speaker 1: with an English miscreate. And he gets fined twenty pounds

1002
01:04:00,160 --> 01:04:02,919
Speaker 1: and bound over to keep the piece. That's the term,

1003
01:04:03,280 --> 01:04:06,600
Speaker 1: you're bound over to keep the peace twenty quid. My

1004
01:04:06,760 --> 01:04:10,000
Speaker 1: I TV man is now outside. This is a story

1005
01:04:10,120 --> 01:04:14,120
Speaker 1: twenty quid, Elvis Costello whatever it was on the news

1006
01:04:14,160 --> 01:04:17,680
Speaker 1: twice that day and the following day. We've shipped about

1007
01:04:17,720 --> 01:04:21,520
Speaker 1: five thousand albums. There was record shops on the phone saying,

1008
01:04:21,560 --> 01:04:24,960
Speaker 1: who is this guy Helvis blah blah blah clover as

1009
01:04:25,000 --> 01:04:28,480
Speaker 1: a background band. That was the start of my aim

1010
01:04:28,640 --> 01:04:32,360
Speaker 1: is true. And that was the story of Elvis Costello. Okay,

1011
01:04:32,480 --> 01:04:34,520
Speaker 1: I only know in the US when it came out

1012
01:04:34,560 --> 01:04:38,360
Speaker 1: on Columbia Columbia in the UK, was it out on Stiff?

1013
01:04:38,440 --> 01:04:42,520
Speaker 1: Of course, of course it was stiff. Stiff designed it all.

1014
01:04:42,680 --> 01:04:45,920
Speaker 1: But we were in the middle, Jake Rivieria and Dave

1015
01:04:46,040 --> 01:04:49,280
Speaker 1: Robinson were in the middle of doing a stiff deal

1016
01:04:50,480 --> 01:04:56,720
Speaker 1: for CBS for Columbia to sign the whole label. Now

1017
01:04:57,040 --> 01:05:00,240
Speaker 1: we were going to get what we deserved all its time.

1018
01:05:00,640 --> 01:05:02,720
Speaker 1: We were now going to get a big machine in

1019
01:05:02,760 --> 01:05:09,560
Speaker 1: America behind us. To that's when Jake jumped ship. Everyone said,

1020
01:05:09,600 --> 01:05:12,600
Speaker 1: what did Jake jump ship? Well, that's the reason Jake

1021
01:05:12,680 --> 01:05:15,840
Speaker 1: jumped ship is there was a big income. There was

1022
01:05:15,880 --> 01:05:18,880
Speaker 1: half a million dollars on the table and they had

1023
01:05:18,920 --> 01:05:22,760
Speaker 1: to have Elvis. They loved able to why From from

1024
01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:27,000
Speaker 1: the story of the Park, Layne hotel. They had all

1025
01:05:27,080 --> 01:05:30,280
Speaker 1: seen him. That the story, that the legend of that

1026
01:05:30,440 --> 01:05:34,360
Speaker 1: predicted thing and the album that he just made became

1027
01:05:34,840 --> 01:05:39,200
Speaker 1: the fulcrum of the whole situation. And Jake left. Jake

1028
01:05:39,280 --> 01:05:42,200
Speaker 1: saw his chance to get out from under my shadow

1029
01:05:42,400 --> 01:05:46,120
Speaker 1: or whatever and left. And it was a very on you.

1030
01:05:46,440 --> 01:05:56,560
Speaker 1: I had not foreseen any second of it. Okay, you

1031
01:05:56,600 --> 01:06:00,800
Speaker 1: know what's that seventy eight? Did my seven agent? Right?

1032
01:06:00,920 --> 01:06:03,560
Speaker 1: My name is true? Comes out? So just when you

1033
01:06:03,600 --> 01:06:06,720
Speaker 1: make the deal with CBS, is just when Jake leaves? Yes,

1034
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:10,000
Speaker 1: so at this point because in America everything is delayed.

1035
01:06:10,360 --> 01:06:13,360
Speaker 1: But that was the first hit stiff record, and everything

1036
01:06:13,440 --> 01:06:16,840
Speaker 1: came after that. He and Dry etcetera. Oh yeah, Oh,

1037
01:06:16,960 --> 01:06:22,240
Speaker 1: Elvis was the business. Elvis was the business. And that

1038
01:06:22,560 --> 01:06:25,520
Speaker 1: all culminated in all that kind of effort and that

1039
01:06:25,640 --> 01:06:28,800
Speaker 1: kind of promotion and that kind of snappy you know

1040
01:06:29,120 --> 01:06:32,880
Speaker 1: who gives a fun kind of attitude. All culminated then

1041
01:06:33,280 --> 01:06:35,880
Speaker 1: in that Jake leaves. Do you give him half of

1042
01:06:35,920 --> 01:06:38,200
Speaker 1: the five hundred thousand? No, he has all of it.

1043
01:06:38,480 --> 01:06:41,600
Speaker 1: I gave him Elvis Costello. I said, Jake, you'll need

1044
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:46,960
Speaker 1: some income. Take Elvis gone. But it's Friday. I want

1045
01:06:47,000 --> 01:06:52,600
Speaker 1: a settlement complete, signed by you by Monday morning, first thing.

1046
01:06:52,960 --> 01:06:56,520
Speaker 1: Otherwise you don't get elvis. I wanted. Now, we're going

1047
01:06:56,560 --> 01:06:58,880
Speaker 1: to go to the house of my lawyer, your lawyer

1048
01:06:58,920 --> 01:07:01,760
Speaker 1: as well our lawyer, and we are going to have

1049
01:07:01,840 --> 01:07:05,480
Speaker 1: a settlement. Because I realized that if we didn't settle quickly,

1050
01:07:05,480 --> 01:07:10,360
Speaker 1: we're both very very opedy geezers. Right, we would never settle,

1051
01:07:10,800 --> 01:07:12,640
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, we would never get said. Also,

1052
01:07:13,160 --> 01:07:17,560
Speaker 1: I spent the weekend looking through our accounts. The accountant

1053
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:23,240
Speaker 1: of the company, the bookkeeper, was a Jake appointee. I

1054
01:07:23,280 --> 01:07:26,600
Speaker 1: went downstairs when Jake said he was leaving. I looked

1055
01:07:26,600 --> 01:07:32,040
Speaker 1: in this man's desk. I found drawers upon drawers of receipts,

1056
01:07:32,200 --> 01:07:38,120
Speaker 1: untouched receipts, unformulated receipts. Right. I spent the weekend finding

1057
01:07:38,160 --> 01:07:42,160
Speaker 1: we owed a hundred fifty grand, right, which we didn't

1058
01:07:42,200 --> 01:07:48,720
Speaker 1: have a hundred fifty thousand we owed that hadn't been paid, right,

1059
01:07:48,840 --> 01:07:52,480
Speaker 1: But but we had forty grand in the bank. We

1060
01:07:52,480 --> 01:07:58,120
Speaker 1: were cash rich if if creditor large. Right, So I've

1061
01:07:58,160 --> 01:08:01,680
Speaker 1: decided to spend the forty grand on injury. I thought,

1062
01:08:01,960 --> 01:08:04,360
Speaker 1: my aim, it is true, great, but the day is

1063
01:08:04,400 --> 01:08:07,600
Speaker 1: gone Elvis is probably going to go with Jake. He

1064
01:08:07,760 --> 01:08:10,520
Speaker 1: was a Jake. Jake went out of his way to

1065
01:08:10,560 --> 01:08:13,080
Speaker 1: be friendly to Elvis, and that was a good bloke.

1066
01:08:13,440 --> 01:08:15,280
Speaker 1: You know. I still talk to him. We have a

1067
01:08:15,320 --> 01:08:18,960
Speaker 1: really good time with whatever. But I thought Ian Dury's

1068
01:08:19,000 --> 01:08:23,200
Speaker 1: New Boots and Panties was the record that would really

1069
01:08:23,320 --> 01:08:27,160
Speaker 1: set up Stiff at the time. Okay, let's look down listen. Yeah, okay,

1070
01:08:27,280 --> 01:08:29,680
Speaker 1: so you have all this, you make the deal with

1071
01:08:29,840 --> 01:08:35,080
Speaker 1: CBS Redistribution five hundred k. They're gonna distribute all Stiff

1072
01:08:35,120 --> 01:08:38,360
Speaker 1: product around the world in England too. No, No, it

1073
01:08:38,520 --> 01:08:42,160
Speaker 1: was just the USA and Canada, North America. So you

1074
01:08:42,200 --> 01:08:45,880
Speaker 1: have UK right, Stiff had it everywhere else. Okay, And

1075
01:08:46,479 --> 01:08:50,080
Speaker 1: Jake walks with Elvis, Yes, who only has one album

1076
01:08:50,160 --> 01:08:53,040
Speaker 1: at this point in time, and you also give him

1077
01:08:53,080 --> 01:08:57,040
Speaker 1: the five k to go away, Yes, because you thought

1078
01:08:57,080 --> 01:08:59,639
Speaker 1: that what you had left was worth more than that.

1079
01:08:59,800 --> 01:09:03,200
Speaker 1: I thought that we could survive. We had more artists.

1080
01:09:03,520 --> 01:09:06,719
Speaker 1: Jacob Jake at this point. It also started game quite

1081
01:09:06,840 --> 01:09:10,960
Speaker 1: argumentative about what bands he liked and what bands I liked.

1082
01:09:11,000 --> 01:09:15,120
Speaker 1: We we had there was a schism that had started.

1083
01:09:15,400 --> 01:09:19,120
Speaker 1: It wasn't a big number, but I was aware that

1084
01:09:19,160 --> 01:09:21,800
Speaker 1: it was going to come to a fruition, come to

1085
01:09:21,840 --> 01:09:24,800
Speaker 1: a head at some point, but I didn't think he

1086
01:09:24,920 --> 01:09:27,600
Speaker 1: was just gonna skip. That half a million would have

1087
01:09:27,600 --> 01:09:30,720
Speaker 1: set us up in America. We might have done a chrysalis.

1088
01:09:30,760 --> 01:09:33,479
Speaker 1: We might have, you know, one person in America, one

1089
01:09:33,479 --> 01:09:37,479
Speaker 1: person in England. But I had belief in the label

1090
01:09:37,560 --> 01:09:41,600
Speaker 1: to survive, and he he thought by him leaving, it

1091
01:09:41,640 --> 01:09:44,960
Speaker 1: wouldn't survive. Was that always his goal to leave or

1092
01:09:45,080 --> 01:09:47,120
Speaker 1: was he trying to say I will leave so that

1093
01:09:47,120 --> 01:09:50,439
Speaker 1: you give him the business. No, we weren't. We weren't, Bob,

1094
01:09:50,520 --> 01:09:54,560
Speaker 1: you you have a great eye for the business, etcetera.

1095
01:09:55,040 --> 01:09:58,120
Speaker 1: We were too kind of quite idealistic. Although there was

1096
01:09:58,200 --> 01:10:03,400
Speaker 1: money lying around, we were we were not moved. I

1097
01:10:03,439 --> 01:10:06,720
Speaker 1: think Jake saw that that half a mill was going

1098
01:10:06,760 --> 01:10:10,400
Speaker 1: to set him up separately, and I could see that right,

1099
01:10:11,560 --> 01:10:15,800
Speaker 1: But our attitude was not primarily money. We did talk

1100
01:10:16,000 --> 01:10:20,360
Speaker 1: music and we got an agreement between us by Monday

1101
01:10:20,880 --> 01:10:24,280
Speaker 1: to settle. He went and I had a paperwork with

1102
01:10:24,320 --> 01:10:27,800
Speaker 1: all the shares and all the business. If I could

1103
01:10:27,840 --> 01:10:31,960
Speaker 1: make it work for myself, I got everything and he

1104
01:10:32,000 --> 01:10:34,439
Speaker 1: went off to do whatever you want to do. He

1105
01:10:34,520 --> 01:10:38,360
Speaker 1: had money, but The other thing about Jake is he

1106
01:10:38,920 --> 01:10:43,200
Speaker 1: has excessive tastes, and I was quite happy that he

1107
01:10:43,240 --> 01:10:46,400
Speaker 1: should go and I paid for it. Okay, So he

1108
01:10:46,479 --> 01:10:49,400
Speaker 1: goes and the next step is the in Dury album.

1109
01:10:49,640 --> 01:10:52,000
Speaker 1: It is okay at this point, how many acts are

1110
01:10:52,080 --> 01:10:56,400
Speaker 1: signed to Stiff when Jake leaves? Probably about five? Okay.

1111
01:10:56,439 --> 01:10:59,679
Speaker 1: So you're the one who builds this big roster. Okay.

1112
01:10:59,680 --> 01:11:01,800
Speaker 1: So in Dury comes out, you know, hit me with

1113
01:11:01,840 --> 01:11:05,080
Speaker 1: your rhythm stick, wake Up, make love to Me? Does

1114
01:11:05,120 --> 01:11:10,080
Speaker 1: that meet your expectations? What a waste? Great single? Yes? Yes,

1115
01:11:10,400 --> 01:11:13,200
Speaker 1: I thought In Dury I had managed the Injury. He

1116
01:11:13,200 --> 01:11:16,960
Speaker 1: had been signed to my management company before Jake entered

1117
01:11:16,960 --> 01:11:22,120
Speaker 1: the picture right. In Dury was signed to Advancedale with

1118
01:11:22,520 --> 01:11:27,120
Speaker 1: Decla McManus, with Graham Parker and with a few other

1119
01:11:27,600 --> 01:11:32,559
Speaker 1: people at that time. So I thought the Injury album

1120
01:11:33,040 --> 01:11:40,240
Speaker 1: was ripe? Was ripe for your and and if if

1121
01:11:40,280 --> 01:11:43,840
Speaker 1: nothing else down the road, possibly America, but it would

1122
01:11:43,840 --> 01:11:45,960
Speaker 1: have to be it would have to come from England.

1123
01:11:45,960 --> 01:11:49,520
Speaker 1: It would have to be a swell because he incoherent.

1124
01:11:49,840 --> 01:11:52,120
Speaker 1: A lot of his stuff was very incoherent to the

1125
01:11:52,160 --> 01:11:54,800
Speaker 1: American market. What happens to the hundred odd k that

1126
01:11:54,880 --> 01:11:57,840
Speaker 1: you won't. We had forty grand in cash. I spent

1127
01:11:57,920 --> 01:12:01,559
Speaker 1: it on ads for Dury. Right in Drury. We had

1128
01:12:01,600 --> 01:12:04,280
Speaker 1: some great ads, give up smoking, give us your money.

1129
01:12:04,880 --> 01:12:08,120
Speaker 1: We had done fart before your ars is ready. I mean,

1130
01:12:08,160 --> 01:12:11,719
Speaker 1: we had some ads that really, you know, double page

1131
01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:15,600
Speaker 1: ads in everyone's face, and people had to hear this album.

1132
01:12:15,680 --> 01:12:17,880
Speaker 1: And then he came up with the singles. Him and

1133
01:12:17,960 --> 01:12:21,640
Speaker 1: Charles Jankl came up with the singles on top of

1134
01:12:21,680 --> 01:12:26,040
Speaker 1: the album incredible stuff. And I was a thirty three

1135
01:12:26,080 --> 01:12:30,559
Speaker 1: year old cripple who who had never kind of got out,

1136
01:12:30,760 --> 01:12:34,000
Speaker 1: he never really got going, and I thought he had

1137
01:12:34,040 --> 01:12:39,080
Speaker 1: the business. Uh So, as it proved, he sold records

1138
01:12:39,200 --> 01:12:43,320
Speaker 1: right across Europe, my aim is true, did well. Uh

1139
01:12:43,800 --> 01:12:47,200
Speaker 1: but he was bigger than America. Elvis was made for America,

1140
01:12:47,280 --> 01:12:49,880
Speaker 1: and he was bigger in America. Now, we had an

1141
01:12:49,920 --> 01:12:53,040
Speaker 1: attitude about the US market. Jake and I had an

1142
01:12:53,080 --> 01:12:56,400
Speaker 1: attitude which is, no matter how what you think you're

1143
01:12:56,400 --> 01:12:59,040
Speaker 1: gonna get, you're gonna get ten percent if you're lucky.

1144
01:12:59,600 --> 01:13:04,280
Speaker 1: That was the attitude because record companies, by their very nature,

1145
01:13:04,880 --> 01:13:07,360
Speaker 1: want to give you something to get you, but once

1146
01:13:07,400 --> 01:13:10,040
Speaker 1: they have you, they want to crawl it all back

1147
01:13:10,080 --> 01:13:14,120
Speaker 1: as much as possible. That's what the major did, Claude

1148
01:13:14,160 --> 01:13:18,880
Speaker 1: all back. We we wanted back packaging, in deductions, all

1149
01:13:18,960 --> 01:13:22,840
Speaker 1: the things that they can get. So we buided our

1150
01:13:22,880 --> 01:13:27,920
Speaker 1: time and eventually we did a deal for Stiff with Arista.

1151
01:13:29,760 --> 01:13:33,439
Speaker 1: Clive and I got on well. I thought he was

1152
01:13:33,560 --> 01:13:37,400
Speaker 1: very much a pop guy. He had total control of

1153
01:13:37,479 --> 01:13:41,400
Speaker 1: his company, and that was where we headed for once

1154
01:13:41,439 --> 01:13:46,599
Speaker 1: we got in going in the UK. Ian certainly, I mean,

1155
01:13:46,640 --> 01:13:48,880
Speaker 1: I'm in Los Angeles, he gets played on k Rock,

1156
01:13:49,479 --> 01:13:51,920
Speaker 1: but you would get Ian on the way and then

1157
01:13:51,960 --> 01:13:56,000
Speaker 1: where do you go from there? Well, Ian and Lana Lovitch.

1158
01:13:56,439 --> 01:14:01,800
Speaker 1: Lana Lovitch was an unheralded young lady and her lucky

1159
01:14:01,920 --> 01:14:06,800
Speaker 1: number which went to number two in the UK UM

1160
01:14:07,200 --> 01:14:09,960
Speaker 1: At a certain time, we could have done a deal

1161
01:14:10,080 --> 01:14:14,880
Speaker 1: with Epic or Columbia, mainly Epic because Elvis was on

1162
01:14:15,000 --> 01:14:20,639
Speaker 1: Columbia and uh, but aristall looked good and they did

1163
01:14:20,680 --> 01:14:24,280
Speaker 1: pay us a big events and they look good because

1164
01:14:25,120 --> 01:14:29,200
Speaker 1: Clive wanted some kind of credibility. He wanted to be

1165
01:14:29,400 --> 01:14:32,519
Speaker 1: seen that he had an edgy He liked the edginess

1166
01:14:32,640 --> 01:14:37,000
Speaker 1: of Stiff, and he was going to he was going

1167
01:14:37,040 --> 01:14:39,599
Speaker 1: to do the business he was going to make it

1168
01:14:39,680 --> 01:14:43,240
Speaker 1: all happened big time, so he paid to put Ian

1169
01:14:43,320 --> 01:14:48,120
Speaker 1: on tour with Now there's for Alzheimer's is setting in

1170
01:14:48,680 --> 01:14:55,000
Speaker 1: um the vanilla? No, anyway, he will come back to me.

1171
01:14:55,840 --> 01:14:59,160
Speaker 1: He went on tour in America. Ian and Lena went

1172
01:14:59,240 --> 01:15:03,920
Speaker 1: on touring America and their two singles, hit Me with

1173
01:15:03,960 --> 01:15:07,200
Speaker 1: Your Rhythm Stick and Lucky Number, We're going up the

1174
01:15:07,280 --> 01:15:10,880
Speaker 1: chart with the bullets required, we were starting to look

1175
01:15:10,960 --> 01:15:16,799
Speaker 1: like we could turn out hits right stiff. So Clive

1176
01:15:16,960 --> 01:15:21,559
Speaker 1: came down to the bottom line. Uh Ian Jury played

1177
01:15:21,600 --> 01:15:23,640
Speaker 1: three nights at the bottom line at the end of

1178
01:15:23,680 --> 01:15:27,439
Speaker 1: this big club tour, you know the whiskey that kind

1179
01:15:27,439 --> 01:15:30,960
Speaker 1: of you know, hip club tour. The single was seventy

1180
01:15:31,880 --> 01:15:33,800
Speaker 1: hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick, and I think Lucky

1181
01:15:33,880 --> 01:15:39,639
Speaker 1: Number was eighty five or looking very good. So Clive

1182
01:15:39,720 --> 01:15:42,240
Speaker 1: came down at the end of the show with a

1183
01:15:42,320 --> 01:15:47,479
Speaker 1: boyfriend and a cameraman and said, look, Dave, I'm just

1184
01:15:47,520 --> 01:15:50,519
Speaker 1: going to I'm just gonna go in. I've been doing

1185
01:15:50,560 --> 01:15:52,200
Speaker 1: something else, but I'm just going to go in and

1186
01:15:52,200 --> 01:15:54,840
Speaker 1: do the Caught in the Act picture. Do you remember

1187
01:15:54,840 --> 01:15:58,519
Speaker 1: that picture in Billboard every week? Remember the Yeah? So

1188
01:15:59,520 --> 01:16:04,120
Speaker 1: he was going to be executive Meats group at bottom Line.

1189
01:16:04,760 --> 01:16:08,080
Speaker 1: Now I said to him, I said, Clive, you won't

1190
01:16:08,080 --> 01:16:11,320
Speaker 1: be able to rush in there. The band occasionally have

1191
01:16:11,360 --> 01:16:13,519
Speaker 1: a bit of a row and it's a very small

1192
01:16:13,600 --> 01:16:16,479
Speaker 1: dressing room and E will be very sweaty. He's very,

1193
01:16:16,600 --> 01:16:19,880
Speaker 1: very disabled and it takes him a while to get

1194
01:16:19,960 --> 01:16:23,120
Speaker 1: dressed and get him brain together. After I said, or

1195
01:16:23,240 --> 01:16:25,519
Speaker 1: they might have a row, I've been going. I went

1196
01:16:25,560 --> 01:16:28,240
Speaker 1: in there once where they were punching each other out anyway.

1197
01:16:28,760 --> 01:16:32,000
Speaker 1: Clive said, no, no, Dave, I do this all the time.

1198
01:16:32,120 --> 01:16:34,800
Speaker 1: Don't worry about it. You know I know how to

1199
01:16:34,880 --> 01:16:40,080
Speaker 1: do it. Ian had a guy called Cosmo Vinyl who

1200
01:16:40,160 --> 01:16:44,920
Speaker 1: is his mouthpiece. Cosmo went on to look after the clash.

1201
01:16:45,040 --> 01:16:49,480
Speaker 1: He was the mouthpiece and he was fascinated by Clive Davis.

1202
01:16:50,600 --> 01:16:55,400
Speaker 1: He taught Clive Davis his clothes were interesting. He was fascinated.

1203
01:16:55,560 --> 01:16:58,160
Speaker 1: He was in the dressing room. I'm saying to Clive,

1204
01:16:58,240 --> 01:17:00,920
Speaker 1: don't do it. Clive, I'm against the door, or don't

1205
01:17:00,960 --> 01:17:03,960
Speaker 1: do it. He's saying, Dave, it's easy. I do this

1206
01:17:04,040 --> 01:17:07,320
Speaker 1: all the time. So I said, okay, and you go. Clive.

1207
01:17:07,520 --> 01:17:11,920
Speaker 1: Clive hates been touched Cosmo was down his jacket looking

1208
01:17:11,960 --> 01:17:15,280
Speaker 1: at the label of his clothes. Cosmo was all over him,

1209
01:17:15,320 --> 01:17:21,760
Speaker 1: handling him right, not not not violently, but but you know,

1210
01:17:22,960 --> 01:17:26,120
Speaker 1: in his space, completely in his space. Clive, if you

1211
01:17:26,120 --> 01:17:28,880
Speaker 1: ever see the picture, he didn't look too well. The

1212
01:17:28,960 --> 01:17:34,360
Speaker 1: following day, Elliott Goldman, Elliot Goldman, Clive's business partner, calls

1213
01:17:34,439 --> 01:17:39,720
Speaker 1: me in to the office in New York and he says, so,

1214
01:17:39,800 --> 01:17:42,760
Speaker 1: I think it's a romance. I think it's you know,

1215
01:17:42,840 --> 01:17:44,759
Speaker 1: he's going to talk to me about how the records

1216
01:17:44,760 --> 01:17:48,280
Speaker 1: are doing and what needs to be done and whatever.

1217
01:17:48,439 --> 01:17:52,519
Speaker 1: You know, Elliot's going to talk business. And Elliot said

1218
01:17:52,520 --> 01:17:58,080
Speaker 1: to me, we're withdrawing all the promotion on your records.

1219
01:17:59,160 --> 01:18:01,720
Speaker 1: And I said, sorry, sorry, I thought it was a joke.

1220
01:18:02,000 --> 01:18:06,599
Speaker 1: Don't joke. I said, what's what's happening? He said, Clive

1221
01:18:06,760 --> 01:18:10,719
Speaker 1: was manhandled by your staff last night, and I'm pulling

1222
01:18:11,120 --> 01:18:15,160
Speaker 1: the whole deal. There's no promotion going on. I said,

1223
01:18:15,160 --> 01:18:18,400
Speaker 1: don't be ridiculous, you know, Elliott, you know it's just

1224
01:18:18,800 --> 01:18:20,479
Speaker 1: rock and roll, a little bit of rock and roll.

1225
01:18:20,720 --> 01:18:22,920
Speaker 1: I told Clive not to go in, but he wanted

1226
01:18:22,920 --> 01:18:25,040
Speaker 1: to do it. He's an adult. It's up to him,

1227
01:18:25,160 --> 01:18:27,719
Speaker 1: you know it's not my problem. They're not my staff.

1228
01:18:28,000 --> 01:18:30,200
Speaker 1: If you're going to go in groups dressing rooms, you

1229
01:18:30,320 --> 01:18:32,760
Speaker 1: better know that the group can bite, you know, so

1230
01:18:32,800 --> 01:18:35,679
Speaker 1: you're better go and do that. He said, it's not happening, Dave,

1231
01:18:35,760 --> 01:18:38,640
Speaker 1: where I said, well, then I want to leave. I

1232
01:18:38,680 --> 01:18:40,879
Speaker 1: want to leave now. I want to leave this instant.

1233
01:18:41,360 --> 01:18:44,559
Speaker 1: You know you're breaking You're breaking the contract. It's a

1234
01:18:44,560 --> 01:18:48,080
Speaker 1: big breach. Anyone, any lawyer will tell you, any judge

1235
01:18:48,120 --> 01:18:50,599
Speaker 1: will tell you. You You can't just pull out of this

1236
01:18:51,000 --> 01:18:54,360
Speaker 1: because of a little contra toempts over your bloody jacket.

1237
01:18:56,000 --> 01:19:00,400
Speaker 1: So he said, I'm doing some figures. Let you have

1238
01:19:00,479 --> 01:19:03,680
Speaker 1: them tomorrow, but if you want out, you'll have to

1239
01:19:03,720 --> 01:19:06,400
Speaker 1: buy your way out. And the following day he gave

1240
01:19:06,439 --> 01:19:10,880
Speaker 1: me a bill for nine hundred thousand dollars. Right, And

1241
01:19:10,920 --> 01:19:13,080
Speaker 1: the other thing he said to me with Bob, which

1242
01:19:13,200 --> 01:19:16,880
Speaker 1: is an interesting comment, he said, what you what you

1243
01:19:16,920 --> 01:19:21,920
Speaker 1: need to discover about the American industry record business is this.

1244
01:19:22,600 --> 01:19:26,360
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fuck you now, and if you survive, you

1245
01:19:26,439 --> 01:19:33,479
Speaker 1: might get to fuck me later. So that was it.

1246
01:19:33,760 --> 01:19:37,000
Speaker 1: Now I was totally stuck. I was totally stuck. I

1247
01:19:37,040 --> 01:19:39,559
Speaker 1: didn't have that money. I didn't have anything. That money

1248
01:19:39,560 --> 01:19:42,559
Speaker 1: had been spent on various other quite a bit of

1249
01:19:42,560 --> 01:19:45,760
Speaker 1: it on various other things that were going on. So

1250
01:19:45,840 --> 01:19:50,639
Speaker 1: I had to go to Bruce Lumville at Epic and say, Bruce,

1251
01:19:51,040 --> 01:19:53,840
Speaker 1: I should have taken your deal. Those fucking idiots that

1252
01:19:54,000 --> 01:19:57,040
Speaker 1: Aristyle I can't understand them, but I need to take

1253
01:19:57,080 --> 01:19:59,759
Speaker 1: your deal, and I need an advance of nine hundred

1254
01:20:00,000 --> 01:20:04,240
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and he gave it to me. Bruce Lumbo

1255
01:20:04,360 --> 01:20:07,360
Speaker 1: was a lovely fucking geither in more ways than one.

1256
01:20:07,600 --> 01:20:12,719
Speaker 1: So now you're on Epic. We moved along very swiftly there. Yeah, gone,

1257
01:20:12,880 --> 01:20:16,040
Speaker 1: but were good sailing after that? Yeah, it was pretty

1258
01:20:16,080 --> 01:20:19,680
Speaker 1: good if you think about it. It was They decided,

1259
01:20:19,720 --> 01:20:21,599
Speaker 1: which was rather nice, that they would put it on

1260
01:20:22,040 --> 01:20:25,559
Speaker 1: Epic Stiff. So there was a label called Epic Stiff

1261
01:20:25,600 --> 01:20:27,640
Speaker 1: and we put a lot of stuff out, but the

1262
01:20:27,720 --> 01:20:31,120
Speaker 1: momentum for the two biggest records that we had was gone.

1263
01:20:32,120 --> 01:20:35,000
Speaker 1: By the time we got all the parts and other

1264
01:20:35,040 --> 01:20:37,680
Speaker 1: bits from Arista. It was a couple of months and

1265
01:20:37,720 --> 01:20:41,040
Speaker 1: the records had had long gone, unfortunately, and they were

1266
01:20:41,160 --> 01:20:43,840
Speaker 1: two biggest shots. So we put out quite a bit

1267
01:20:44,040 --> 01:20:47,160
Speaker 1: on on Epic and we had a very good relationship

1268
01:20:47,200 --> 01:20:49,960
Speaker 1: with him, and Bruce Lumbo was really nice guind of

1269
01:20:50,080 --> 01:20:52,519
Speaker 1: a lot of really good staff there who I'm still

1270
01:20:52,520 --> 01:20:56,200
Speaker 1: in touch with. But are are we? We had we

1271
01:20:56,240 --> 01:20:59,360
Speaker 1: had missed the boat. We had missed the boat with

1272
01:20:59,400 --> 01:21:03,600
Speaker 1: that situation Asian and and that was that was the

1273
01:21:03,640 --> 01:21:07,920
Speaker 1: way that went. I mean in England. I signed Madness

1274
01:21:08,080 --> 01:21:11,240
Speaker 1: very soon after, right, and that was one of the

1275
01:21:11,280 --> 01:21:14,120
Speaker 1: biggest That was one of the biggest things around the

1276
01:21:14,160 --> 01:21:19,040
Speaker 1: world except for America, although our House with a Big

1277
01:21:19,120 --> 01:21:24,040
Speaker 1: Hit in on Sire in the US. Sire had them

1278
01:21:24,320 --> 01:21:27,479
Speaker 1: for the US. Anyway, the deal we made was Seymour

1279
01:21:27,520 --> 01:21:32,040
Speaker 1: and I got persuaded the band wanted to sign. I

1280
01:21:32,360 --> 01:21:35,080
Speaker 1: auditioned the band at my wedding, so my wife has

1281
01:21:35,120 --> 01:21:40,720
Speaker 1: never quite given me. And Seymour got them for America

1282
01:21:40,880 --> 01:21:43,559
Speaker 1: and our House with a Big Hit, but he didn't

1283
01:21:43,640 --> 01:21:45,799
Speaker 1: quite know what to do with them, their rowdy bunch

1284
01:21:46,479 --> 01:21:49,519
Speaker 1: and they're still going now and probably bigger now they've

1285
01:21:49,560 --> 01:21:53,240
Speaker 1: ever been. It's extraordinary the success of Madness. And what

1286
01:21:53,320 --> 01:21:56,519
Speaker 1: about all the other acts you signed, well, all the

1287
01:21:56,560 --> 01:22:00,920
Speaker 1: acts that I signed, Lana, the Pokes, Shane McGown and

1288
01:22:00,960 --> 01:22:04,920
Speaker 1: the Poles, they're all they all did well. About seventy

1289
01:22:06,200 --> 01:22:11,320
Speaker 1: of Stiff's signings broke even at least of my money.

1290
01:22:11,520 --> 01:22:16,080
Speaker 1: Because also the label taught them a culture of not

1291
01:22:16,200 --> 01:22:19,280
Speaker 1: spending their money, of looking after it, a bit of

1292
01:22:19,320 --> 01:22:21,880
Speaker 1: being a little bit sensible when it came to the money.

1293
01:22:21,960 --> 01:22:24,960
Speaker 1: We had. Devo, I mean, Devo was great fun We

1294
01:22:25,160 --> 01:22:28,559
Speaker 1: put out Devo's big records at the time. They were

1295
01:22:28,640 --> 01:22:34,120
Speaker 1: very funny because they they Jerry Casals was so he's

1296
01:22:34,160 --> 01:22:37,320
Speaker 1: such a winder, you know, he winge and wine and

1297
01:22:37,400 --> 01:22:40,360
Speaker 1: which he hated. We put him in a small hotel.

1298
01:22:40,520 --> 01:22:46,120
Speaker 1: He'd winge, winge, winge. People think that the record industry

1299
01:22:46,240 --> 01:22:49,040
Speaker 1: is not just a job. Here the things that it's

1300
01:22:49,080 --> 01:22:52,040
Speaker 1: some kind of romance, and you have to say to people, look,

1301
01:22:52,320 --> 01:22:55,000
Speaker 1: this is how it works. This is what it's about.

1302
01:22:55,080 --> 01:22:57,840
Speaker 1: The will come a day when did you did you

1303
01:22:57,880 --> 01:23:01,120
Speaker 1: put your money in the bank? Did you buyers ever house?

1304
01:23:01,560 --> 01:23:04,519
Speaker 1: And you've got something for it, you know, a pub?

1305
01:23:05,320 --> 01:23:09,160
Speaker 1: So uh that that was the essence. My mistake, Bob

1306
01:23:09,320 --> 01:23:12,439
Speaker 1: was Ireland before you get thail and I have to

1307
01:23:12,439 --> 01:23:15,120
Speaker 1: ask you about a couple of these records. One and

1308
01:23:15,160 --> 01:23:18,559
Speaker 1: I saw the act at the Whiskey. How does Rachel Sweet,

1309
01:23:19,240 --> 01:23:25,360
Speaker 1: end Up It's stiff. Rachel's Sweet came from a Devo situation.

1310
01:23:26,439 --> 01:23:30,160
Speaker 1: I was in New York and I played Chris Blackwell

1311
01:23:31,360 --> 01:23:36,839
Speaker 1: Satisfaction by Divo, and he almost exploded. He couldn't believe,

1312
01:23:36,920 --> 01:23:39,760
Speaker 1: like I couldn't, that they had come up with this

1313
01:23:39,960 --> 01:23:43,519
Speaker 1: version of this song. I mean, it was extraordinary. I

1314
01:23:43,560 --> 01:23:46,360
Speaker 1: loved I loved all the rest of their song, but

1315
01:23:46,479 --> 01:23:50,200
Speaker 1: that was extraordinary. And he said to me, We're in

1316
01:23:50,240 --> 01:23:53,439
Speaker 1: New York, and I think New York was quite warm.

1317
01:23:53,840 --> 01:23:56,120
Speaker 1: I remember being in a T shirt and he said

1318
01:23:56,160 --> 01:23:58,400
Speaker 1: to me, so, so what are you doing Nowaday, What's

1319
01:23:58,479 --> 01:24:01,920
Speaker 1: what's happening. I said, I'm into Akron. I've got to Acron,

1320
01:24:01,960 --> 01:24:05,760
Speaker 1: Ohio to sign Devo. He said, what he said, I'll

1321
01:24:05,800 --> 01:24:10,000
Speaker 1: come with you. We we we had a friendship at

1322
01:24:10,040 --> 01:24:12,720
Speaker 1: that point, you know, such a but we didn't have

1323
01:24:12,800 --> 01:24:16,080
Speaker 1: a business arrangement. So he and I went to Akron

1324
01:24:16,320 --> 01:24:19,960
Speaker 1: and it was the biggest blizzard in the history of Acron, right,

1325
01:24:20,240 --> 01:24:22,800
Speaker 1: and we were both in T shirts. We just got

1326
01:24:22,800 --> 01:24:26,639
Speaker 1: on a plane. He was in sandals. So we we

1327
01:24:26,720 --> 01:24:31,439
Speaker 1: tied ourselves up in a motel and the bands and

1328
01:24:31,479 --> 01:24:33,960
Speaker 1: all the the word went out of the Chris Blackwell

1329
01:24:34,000 --> 01:24:37,800
Speaker 1: and Dave Robinson. Probably Chris Blackwell was in town and

1330
01:24:37,920 --> 01:24:42,240
Speaker 1: all the bands to bogging to this motel. They all came,

1331
01:24:42,600 --> 01:24:45,080
Speaker 1: none of them great, none of them. A guy called

1332
01:24:45,160 --> 01:24:52,519
Speaker 1: Lean Sternberg, who wrote Walk like an Egyptian came from

1333
01:24:52,560 --> 01:24:58,639
Speaker 1: out of the blue. He came and he had various connections,

1334
01:24:58,840 --> 01:25:02,360
Speaker 1: and I got the idea. I got devoted. They wouldn't

1335
01:25:02,360 --> 01:25:05,200
Speaker 1: sign a deal with me, but they signed the three

1336
01:25:05,240 --> 01:25:09,240
Speaker 1: singles with me because they were They had Virgin and

1337
01:25:09,280 --> 01:25:12,200
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers on tap and Jerry Gasels is going to

1338
01:25:12,320 --> 01:25:14,120
Speaker 1: make a fortune. So I left him to it. I said,

1339
01:25:14,160 --> 01:25:16,760
Speaker 1: I'll put out your singles and then that will make

1340
01:25:16,840 --> 01:25:20,599
Speaker 1: him want to have you. Blah blah blah. Blackwell went

1341
01:25:20,640 --> 01:25:26,679
Speaker 1: back to town and Jerry Lee Sternberg brought all these bands,

1342
01:25:26,720 --> 01:25:31,040
Speaker 1: one of which was Rachel Sweet, Jane eyre various, and

1343
01:25:31,320 --> 01:25:36,760
Speaker 1: I got the idea of Acron was kind of going downhill.

1344
01:25:37,000 --> 01:25:40,680
Speaker 1: It had been the tire factory that that it had

1345
01:25:40,800 --> 01:25:44,280
Speaker 1: been a huge place. It also smelt of rubber. It

1346
01:25:44,439 --> 01:25:48,040
Speaker 1: smelt of really a lot of rubber. So I came

1347
01:25:48,160 --> 01:25:53,160
Speaker 1: up and maybe maybe in an alcohol driven evening, with

1348
01:25:53,240 --> 01:25:56,439
Speaker 1: the idea that I would put out an Acron album.

1349
01:25:56,680 --> 01:26:00,320
Speaker 1: Right of these bands, whatever thing I said this, remember

1350
01:26:00,360 --> 01:26:02,320
Speaker 1: you get a track by each of them, put it

1351
01:26:02,320 --> 01:26:04,680
Speaker 1: on the album. I want to try out a thing

1352
01:26:04,720 --> 01:26:08,640
Speaker 1: called scratch and sniff, so we'll put the smell of

1353
01:26:08,760 --> 01:26:12,719
Speaker 1: rubber that you scratched on on thing. And it gave

1354
01:26:12,760 --> 01:26:14,839
Speaker 1: you that kind of thing, and that was the essence

1355
01:26:14,920 --> 01:26:18,479
Speaker 1: of Acron. So I got that idea there, and then

1356
01:26:18,600 --> 01:26:21,960
Speaker 1: in a blizzard in Akron and we put out with

1357
01:26:22,120 --> 01:26:25,200
Speaker 1: album and Rachel Sweet came with it. And she was

1358
01:26:25,600 --> 01:26:28,960
Speaker 1: a very interesting little fifteen year old. She was very

1359
01:26:30,000 --> 01:26:34,519
Speaker 1: her mother had just died and and she but she

1360
01:26:34,680 --> 01:26:37,920
Speaker 1: was very driven and very very interesting. And I had

1361
01:26:37,920 --> 01:26:42,519
Speaker 1: this song Baby. I had that song Baby was hanging

1362
01:26:42,560 --> 01:26:45,160
Speaker 1: around somewhere in my things that we did it with her.

1363
01:26:45,560 --> 01:26:48,920
Speaker 1: Her father, Dick Sweet, was you know, a nice man

1364
01:26:49,240 --> 01:26:54,880
Speaker 1: bathroom bathroom, salesman bathroom, and the mother had just died,

1365
01:26:54,920 --> 01:26:57,720
Speaker 1: so he was kind of clinging to his fifteen year

1366
01:26:57,760 --> 01:27:02,720
Speaker 1: old daughter and her sister who was seventeen, so it

1367
01:27:02,800 --> 01:27:05,559
Speaker 1: was it was kind of a very odd emotional thing.

1368
01:27:05,600 --> 01:27:07,800
Speaker 1: I felt for them, but there's nothing I could do.

1369
01:27:07,880 --> 01:27:11,680
Speaker 1: I'm just running a record company. So we put her

1370
01:27:11,680 --> 01:27:13,760
Speaker 1: on I decided to put her on the next tour.

1371
01:27:14,680 --> 01:27:17,519
Speaker 1: Um Dick. Dick thought that rock and roll was where

1372
01:27:17,560 --> 01:27:20,400
Speaker 1: you you sang louder at the microphone. That was that

1373
01:27:20,560 --> 01:27:24,759
Speaker 1: was That was his essence of things down the road.

1374
01:27:25,160 --> 01:27:27,720
Speaker 1: After a couple of tours, and she did very well.

1375
01:27:27,800 --> 01:27:32,280
Speaker 1: She's very articulate. She's now, I believe, a TV producer.

1376
01:27:32,560 --> 01:27:39,720
Speaker 1: She she's got a career in that area. Arma and

1377
01:27:40,560 --> 01:27:45,240
Speaker 1: at one of the Sony companies really liked Rachel Sweet

1378
01:27:46,600 --> 01:27:50,360
Speaker 1: and he was hustling me to get a license for America.

1379
01:27:52,560 --> 01:27:55,240
Speaker 1: And I said, look, Arma, I had now had an

1380
01:27:55,280 --> 01:27:59,240
Speaker 1: experience of Dick Sweet close up for several months and

1381
01:27:59,320 --> 01:28:02,400
Speaker 1: it was doing right. And he's the father and you came.

1382
01:28:02,720 --> 01:28:04,680
Speaker 1: He doesn't know what he's doing, but he wants to

1383
01:28:04,680 --> 01:28:08,280
Speaker 1: be the manager or whatever. She's very nice, Rachel. So

1384
01:28:08,560 --> 01:28:12,080
Speaker 1: armor I said, Arma, I'll tell you what. Let's do

1385
01:28:12,120 --> 01:28:15,200
Speaker 1: a deal. You can buy her whole contract. You can

1386
01:28:15,200 --> 01:28:20,360
Speaker 1: buy the whole contract and um, you know she she

1387
01:28:20,439 --> 01:28:23,559
Speaker 1: wants She and her father want to have an American label.

1388
01:28:24,040 --> 01:28:27,759
Speaker 1: Stiff doesn't suit them. They're very straight and they want

1389
01:28:27,800 --> 01:28:30,280
Speaker 1: to be in an America. So you buy the whole

1390
01:28:30,320 --> 01:28:34,040
Speaker 1: contract forget just America, and so he did. He bought

1391
01:28:34,080 --> 01:28:37,120
Speaker 1: the contract, and I kept Dick Sweet away from him

1392
01:28:37,320 --> 01:28:40,320
Speaker 1: untill he un till the check went through the bank.

1393
01:28:40,800 --> 01:28:44,360
Speaker 1: And then I said, Arma, meet the manager Dick Sweet,

1394
01:28:44,800 --> 01:28:47,880
Speaker 1: and Armor about a year later, said you wanchor, you

1395
01:28:48,040 --> 01:28:52,280
Speaker 1: complete you. You should be banned from this business for

1396
01:28:52,400 --> 01:29:02,000
Speaker 1: doing that to me. We still get on. So okay,

1397
01:29:02,000 --> 01:29:04,800
Speaker 1: there's a full story of Rachel Sweet. So tell us

1398
01:29:04,800 --> 01:29:07,320
Speaker 1: about the mistake of making your deal with Ireland. Chris

1399
01:29:07,360 --> 01:29:09,800
Speaker 1: Blackwell kept hustling me in the back end of a

1400
01:29:09,920 --> 01:29:14,280
Speaker 1: D three. We had Madness really good, we had Tracy

1401
01:29:14,360 --> 01:29:19,479
Speaker 1: Ullman really good. We had the No, we didn't have

1402
01:29:19,520 --> 01:29:22,080
Speaker 1: the Pops at the time, but we had a good

1403
01:29:22,080 --> 01:29:25,360
Speaker 1: business and I had money in the bank and we

1404
01:29:25,400 --> 01:29:28,400
Speaker 1: had a good turnover and we were doing very well.

1405
01:29:29,320 --> 01:29:32,639
Speaker 1: And Blackwell is on the phone saying, why don't you come, Dave.

1406
01:29:32,800 --> 01:29:36,240
Speaker 1: I'll buy half of your company and you come and

1407
01:29:36,360 --> 01:29:41,080
Speaker 1: run Ireland. And I said no, No. I genuinely said no, no, Chris,

1408
01:29:41,120 --> 01:29:43,200
Speaker 1: I don't you know. I don't want to do that.

1409
01:29:43,320 --> 01:29:45,720
Speaker 1: You know, I like things the way they are. We're

1410
01:29:45,760 --> 01:29:48,200
Speaker 1: doing well. I've got some new stuff for next year.

1411
01:29:49,000 --> 01:29:52,519
Speaker 1: Uh and uh. So he kept on and on, and

1412
01:29:52,560 --> 01:29:56,719
Speaker 1: eventually he offered me two million dollars for half of Stiff.

1413
01:29:57,320 --> 01:30:01,439
Speaker 1: He went by half. We had barious discussions. We also

1414
01:30:02,000 --> 01:30:04,920
Speaker 1: he said, I'm going to sell Island in three years.

1415
01:30:05,320 --> 01:30:08,400
Speaker 1: Why don't we put the two companies together, one Pop

1416
01:30:08,600 --> 01:30:14,120
Speaker 1: one pop interesting, one Island traditional with a catalog, and

1417
01:30:14,160 --> 01:30:15,840
Speaker 1: why don't we get rid of it? And he gave

1418
01:30:15,880 --> 01:30:19,240
Speaker 1: me a very very big for the sale. I was

1419
01:30:19,280 --> 01:30:23,000
Speaker 1: going to get a very big override, very big, okay,

1420
01:30:23,000 --> 01:30:26,680
Speaker 1: but I would work both companies. So I talked to

1421
01:30:26,720 --> 01:30:31,000
Speaker 1: the wife and she said, well, Dave, you know how

1422
01:30:31,000 --> 01:30:34,120
Speaker 1: long did these things last. It's an opportunity. You may

1423
01:30:34,160 --> 01:30:36,960
Speaker 1: as well. You're giving away half and you've got the

1424
01:30:36,960 --> 01:30:41,519
Speaker 1: opportunity of building some more and maybe you can make

1425
01:30:41,560 --> 01:30:45,559
Speaker 1: a bigger day down the road. So I did it.

1426
01:30:46,800 --> 01:30:51,160
Speaker 1: And the first month I got in there, they had

1427
01:30:51,200 --> 01:30:57,439
Speaker 1: no money. They were broke. I learned them money A

1428
01:30:57,479 --> 01:31:01,840
Speaker 1: million dollars. Stiff lent Island to pay its salaries for

1429
01:31:01,920 --> 01:31:07,200
Speaker 1: two months. So I looked into Ireland completely from beginning

1430
01:31:07,200 --> 01:31:10,599
Speaker 1: to end right, and I found that a it had

1431
01:31:10,640 --> 01:31:13,680
Speaker 1: a license in America, it hadn't paid any royalties to

1432
01:31:13,760 --> 01:31:17,480
Speaker 1: the UK company for ages and it had a license

1433
01:31:18,280 --> 01:31:22,919
Speaker 1: with Atlantic, and it had seventy staff on a license.

1434
01:31:23,000 --> 01:31:27,439
Speaker 1: The license was not huge, it was decent, but there's

1435
01:31:27,439 --> 01:31:30,559
Speaker 1: no way you run seventy people on a license of

1436
01:31:30,600 --> 01:31:34,120
Speaker 1: a company whose day is kind of done. You're gonna

1437
01:31:34,160 --> 01:31:39,519
Speaker 1: have to revitalize. And because it's financially stuck. The people

1438
01:31:39,560 --> 01:31:45,240
Speaker 1: through the door, Bob usually are artists managers. When when

1439
01:31:45,240 --> 01:31:48,960
Speaker 1: a new person comes in town, the artist manager come

1440
01:31:49,400 --> 01:31:51,439
Speaker 1: because they want to know if you're going to tour them,

1441
01:31:51,479 --> 01:31:53,680
Speaker 1: if you're going to support them, if you that's what

1442
01:31:53,800 --> 01:31:58,920
Speaker 1: normally happens. I had nothing but creditors, right, creditors through

1443
01:31:58,960 --> 01:32:01,800
Speaker 1: the thing. Say David, you're gonna be able to turn

1444
01:32:01,840 --> 01:32:04,639
Speaker 1: this around because my bill is really high. And they're

1445
01:32:04,680 --> 01:32:07,000
Speaker 1: the same people who are manufacturing from me. You know

1446
01:32:07,040 --> 01:32:11,000
Speaker 1: they're they're similar. I said, no, I think we can.

1447
01:32:11,240 --> 01:32:17,920
Speaker 1: So I was in New York December and I saw

1448
01:32:18,040 --> 01:32:21,559
Speaker 1: a twelve inch Now Trevor Horne and I had known

1449
01:32:21,600 --> 01:32:24,200
Speaker 1: each other for a long time, and I was aware

1450
01:32:24,240 --> 01:32:27,080
Speaker 1: of Frankie Goes to Hollywood because they were quite outrageous.

1451
01:32:27,120 --> 01:32:33,080
Speaker 1: It's quite outrageous carry on their record, and I said,

1452
01:32:34,880 --> 01:32:38,440
Speaker 1: I became aware that I was watching them and they

1453
01:32:38,640 --> 01:32:43,360
Speaker 1: stalled in the British chart something like that. But I

1454
01:32:43,400 --> 01:32:45,439
Speaker 1: was in New York and I saw this twelve inch

1455
01:32:45,560 --> 01:32:51,520
Speaker 1: that said sex Mix Frankie goes to Hollywood. I thought, oh,

1456
01:32:51,560 --> 01:32:55,040
Speaker 1: I didn't know about that. That's amazing. So we need

1457
01:32:55,080 --> 01:32:58,519
Speaker 1: to push this band on quickly. They've got a chance.

1458
01:32:58,560 --> 01:33:01,800
Speaker 1: This record is quite good, actually it's quite extraordinary, but

1459
01:33:01,840 --> 01:33:06,040
Speaker 1: it's not going anywhere. So I called somebody in New York.

1460
01:33:06,280 --> 01:33:10,160
Speaker 1: I found out who was the production manager. And I

1461
01:33:10,160 --> 01:33:12,600
Speaker 1: don't want to start like I'm blowing my trumpet, but

1462
01:33:12,600 --> 01:33:15,639
Speaker 1: inevitably you kind of do. And I said to him,

1463
01:33:15,640 --> 01:33:19,280
Speaker 1: I need five thousands of those twelve inches across to

1464
01:33:19,320 --> 01:33:22,880
Speaker 1: the UK in a few days, right, can you can

1465
01:33:22,960 --> 01:33:24,679
Speaker 1: you deliver? And he said who are you? I don't

1466
01:33:24,680 --> 01:33:27,080
Speaker 1: know who you are. No, I don't think I can deliver.

1467
01:33:27,439 --> 01:33:29,920
Speaker 1: Capacity is blah blah blah blah. And they gave me

1468
01:33:29,960 --> 01:33:33,320
Speaker 1: a load of welly. So I called black Bell. I said,

1469
01:33:33,320 --> 01:33:35,600
Speaker 1: Black I'm not going to do this job if I

1470
01:33:35,600 --> 01:33:40,040
Speaker 1: don't get five thousand and those things on on Saturday morning, right,

1471
01:33:40,080 --> 01:33:43,320
Speaker 1: and I want that geezer to fucking deliver to them, right.

1472
01:33:43,439 --> 01:33:47,839
Speaker 1: So I got them and we spread it out over Christmas,

1473
01:33:47,880 --> 01:33:51,559
Speaker 1: the sex mix the twelve inch and the record zoomed

1474
01:33:51,680 --> 01:33:55,280
Speaker 1: from sixty five to thirty two and got on top

1475
01:33:55,320 --> 01:33:57,040
Speaker 1: of the pops. Now you know, top of the pops

1476
01:33:57,360 --> 01:33:59,760
Speaker 1: that is, that is where you want to get in

1477
01:33:59,800 --> 01:34:03,760
Speaker 1: the world. In the UK, we got on top of

1478
01:34:03,760 --> 01:34:09,360
Speaker 1: the pops. The band played with no arts in their trousers.

1479
01:34:09,400 --> 01:34:12,960
Speaker 1: They wore those kind of chaps, those kind of gay chaps.

1480
01:34:13,000 --> 01:34:17,839
Speaker 1: That that whatever they got. The guy the BBC freaked

1481
01:34:17,840 --> 01:34:21,080
Speaker 1: out completely and of course the entire public went miniachel

1482
01:34:21,840 --> 01:34:28,840
Speaker 1: next thing, it goes to number six, thirty two, number six.

1483
01:34:28,880 --> 01:34:30,519
Speaker 1: I know the guy is saying, I'll never have an

1484
01:34:30,520 --> 01:34:34,280
Speaker 1: act on top of the pubs forever. Number six. And

1485
01:34:34,360 --> 01:34:36,720
Speaker 1: that day a guy called Mike Reid, who is the

1486
01:34:36,760 --> 01:34:40,559
Speaker 1: breakfast DJ on Radio one, biggest radio station in the UK,

1487
01:34:42,080 --> 01:34:44,599
Speaker 1: plays a little bit of the record, pulls it off

1488
01:34:44,640 --> 01:34:47,080
Speaker 1: the needle and throws it at the wall. So there's

1489
01:34:47,120 --> 01:34:53,759
Speaker 1: this big splatter let's splatter whatever. Everyone's going, what's happening

1490
01:34:53,800 --> 01:34:57,040
Speaker 1: because everybody listens to that breakfast show. And then I

1491
01:34:57,120 --> 01:34:59,439
Speaker 1: get the head of the BBC said, day, were are

1492
01:35:00,320 --> 01:35:03,720
Speaker 1: we're banning it? I said, how can you? Banny you've

1493
01:35:03,760 --> 01:35:06,040
Speaker 1: been playing it for three months, not a lot, but enough.

1494
01:35:06,520 --> 01:35:10,679
Speaker 1: What's the problem, he said, It's all about ejaculation. I said,

1495
01:35:11,080 --> 01:35:16,120
Speaker 1: I said most of the chart. I could describe ejaculationship

1496
01:35:16,160 --> 01:35:18,559
Speaker 1: most of the chart. What are you talking about? This

1497
01:35:18,640 --> 01:35:21,559
Speaker 1: is the rock and roll business. I said. The least

1498
01:35:21,560 --> 01:35:23,840
Speaker 1: you could do is tell the press while you're banning it,

1499
01:35:24,160 --> 01:35:27,760
Speaker 1: he said, he said, I will. I said, well, I've

1500
01:35:27,800 --> 01:35:31,040
Speaker 1: got to. I could get a pressure reception for this afternoon.

1501
01:35:31,320 --> 01:35:35,479
Speaker 1: He said, okay, I'll address them. He told the assembled press.

1502
01:35:35,560 --> 01:35:38,160
Speaker 1: We had I think seventy eight people in that room,

1503
01:35:38,640 --> 01:35:42,240
Speaker 1: that it was all about ejaculation. We we couldn't press

1504
01:35:42,320 --> 01:35:46,360
Speaker 1: the record, we couldn't get pressing. And then I found

1505
01:35:46,400 --> 01:35:50,080
Speaker 1: that you could change the track two or three times,

1506
01:35:50,680 --> 01:35:54,559
Speaker 1: and and everybody wanted the next version of the ejaculation record.

1507
01:35:54,920 --> 01:35:57,519
Speaker 1: We sold I don't know, three and a half million

1508
01:35:57,600 --> 01:36:00,920
Speaker 1: in the UK. It was number one for ever it was.

1509
01:36:01,160 --> 01:36:03,800
Speaker 1: You know, we had the T shirt. Then relax, don't

1510
01:36:03,840 --> 01:36:06,920
Speaker 1: do it. I mean it was a script you could

1511
01:36:07,000 --> 01:36:11,720
Speaker 1: not write. And ted beston God bless him. The head

1512
01:36:11,760 --> 01:36:14,160
Speaker 1: of the BBC was the man who did it all

1513
01:36:14,160 --> 01:36:19,519
Speaker 1: by himself. So we sorted that out Chris Blackwell now

1514
01:36:19,840 --> 01:36:23,000
Speaker 1: has got a little cash flow. We're cash flowing right,

1515
01:36:23,160 --> 01:36:27,160
Speaker 1: And the next thing is the Bob Marley record. Chris said,

1516
01:36:27,360 --> 01:36:30,679
Speaker 1: I'd like you to do a Bob Marley A Greatest Hits, Dave.

1517
01:36:31,160 --> 01:36:33,800
Speaker 1: We haven't done one before, but I think you're the

1518
01:36:33,880 --> 01:36:38,000
Speaker 1: right man to do it. And I said, well, yeah,

1519
01:36:38,200 --> 01:36:40,479
Speaker 1: I I really like Bob Marley. I've got an idea

1520
01:36:40,520 --> 01:36:42,439
Speaker 1: and how that goes. He said, well, I've got the

1521
01:36:42,479 --> 01:36:46,160
Speaker 1: cover done and I've got the running order. And I said,

1522
01:36:46,200 --> 01:36:48,080
Speaker 1: well then let's have a look. So he had a

1523
01:36:48,080 --> 01:36:50,280
Speaker 1: look at I said I wouldn't use that cover and

1524
01:36:50,320 --> 01:36:53,160
Speaker 1: I wouldn't use that running order. And he said what

1525
01:36:53,200 --> 01:36:57,400
Speaker 1: do you mean? And I said, well, what's the point

1526
01:36:57,439 --> 01:37:01,759
Speaker 1: of the of wasting time? That's not the one, okay,

1527
01:37:02,240 --> 01:37:04,880
Speaker 1: And there's no point in two of us fighting about it.

1528
01:37:04,960 --> 01:37:07,200
Speaker 1: You do it, you do it. You've got the ideas

1529
01:37:07,280 --> 01:37:10,920
Speaker 1: that you do it. So eventually he agreed. I said,

1530
01:37:10,960 --> 01:37:12,240
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do it with you. I'm not

1531
01:37:12,280 --> 01:37:15,800
Speaker 1: gonna do it anybody. I will do it, and I

1532
01:37:15,880 --> 01:37:18,799
Speaker 1: have an idea that that will work. So the idea

1533
01:37:18,840 --> 01:37:21,559
Speaker 1: of bottom line was to sell it to the white people.

1534
01:37:22,680 --> 01:37:26,080
Speaker 1: That's all I said, the man is a genius. The

1535
01:37:26,120 --> 01:37:29,439
Speaker 1: man has got songs that are unbelievable. But the man

1536
01:37:29,640 --> 01:37:32,639
Speaker 1: is provocative. And all the pictures you've used of them,

1537
01:37:32,680 --> 01:37:37,880
Speaker 1: he's wearing camouflage clothes, he's wearing military clothes. People in

1538
01:37:37,960 --> 01:37:41,400
Speaker 1: England and around the world think he doesn't like white people.

1539
01:37:41,840 --> 01:37:45,760
Speaker 1: He does. But the pictures that you've used to describe

1540
01:37:45,760 --> 01:37:50,240
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't have it. So that's where we that's

1541
01:37:50,240 --> 01:37:53,639
Speaker 1: where we drew the line, and you know, the rest

1542
01:37:53,720 --> 01:37:56,000
Speaker 1: is kind of history. So how did it in? That's

1543
01:37:56,000 --> 01:37:58,880
Speaker 1: alves that that's all of the cash flow. That's alved.

1544
01:37:58,880 --> 01:38:02,160
Speaker 1: The cash flow I did so TV on YouTube. But

1545
01:38:02,320 --> 01:38:05,639
Speaker 1: most of Ireland's bands were leaving at that point. Robert

1546
01:38:05,640 --> 01:38:09,679
Speaker 1: Palmer was going, Stevie Winwood was going because they hadn't

1547
01:38:09,680 --> 01:38:12,320
Speaker 1: been paid royalty. So hided end with you in Ireland

1548
01:38:12,520 --> 01:38:16,080
Speaker 1: very badly, very badly because the following I put a

1549
01:38:16,120 --> 01:38:20,360
Speaker 1: lot of effort into Ireland because of the arrangement that

1550
01:38:20,400 --> 01:38:24,760
Speaker 1: were black Wood and I had ah that isn't what

1551
01:38:24,840 --> 01:38:27,880
Speaker 1: he thought was going on or his people. He wasn't

1552
01:38:27,880 --> 01:38:30,759
Speaker 1: going to sell. He now didn't need to sell because

1553
01:38:31,520 --> 01:38:37,120
Speaker 1: I had recovered the position that he had vacated and

1554
01:38:37,200 --> 01:38:39,720
Speaker 1: now he got He then sold a company, if you

1555
01:38:39,800 --> 01:38:45,479
Speaker 1: think about it, to David vine At, a PolyGram who

1556
01:38:45,720 --> 01:38:49,559
Speaker 1: bought A and M and Ireland and paid ridiculous amount

1557
01:38:49,560 --> 01:38:52,280
Speaker 1: of money. He gave the Black World three and eighty

1558
01:38:52,320 --> 01:38:55,720
Speaker 1: million or something. You know, it's probably worth fifty at

1559
01:38:55,720 --> 01:39:00,280
Speaker 1: the time. But we fell out because also his people

1560
01:39:00,280 --> 01:39:04,000
Speaker 1: didn't pay stiff bills. There was a do we were

1561
01:39:04,040 --> 01:39:08,160
Speaker 1: a partnership, the accounts department all moved into Ireland, everything

1562
01:39:08,200 --> 01:39:10,599
Speaker 1: every we cut back and did all the things that

1563
01:39:10,640 --> 01:39:14,240
Speaker 1: people do, and he double cross me. And then what

1564
01:39:14,400 --> 01:39:17,439
Speaker 1: about didn't you have a contract for your percentage? Yeah,

1565
01:39:17,520 --> 01:39:21,000
Speaker 1: we had a contract written on a filefax page and

1566
01:39:21,760 --> 01:39:24,080
Speaker 1: we went to court with it and it was going

1567
01:39:24,080 --> 01:39:26,720
Speaker 1: to cost an awful lot of money. I mean, Blackwell's

1568
01:39:26,840 --> 01:39:29,800
Speaker 1: lawyer called my lawyer and said, look, Chris has just

1569
01:39:29,880 --> 01:39:32,920
Speaker 1: sold a company for two and eight nine million, as

1570
01:39:33,040 --> 01:39:36,120
Speaker 1: Dave got the wherewith all to get into a long

1571
01:39:36,200 --> 01:39:41,240
Speaker 1: drawn out legal litigation. So we fought a bit of

1572
01:39:41,240 --> 01:39:44,000
Speaker 1: a draw. I got a bit out of it, but

1573
01:39:44,120 --> 01:39:47,080
Speaker 1: not what was required. And of course the sale of

1574
01:39:47,120 --> 01:39:52,200
Speaker 1: the companies never took place, and Chris went into the

1575
01:39:52,240 --> 01:39:56,439
Speaker 1: hotel business. Okay, you leave Ireland in where does that

1576
01:39:56,560 --> 01:40:02,800
Speaker 1: leave you? It meant that everybody then a wombed that

1577
01:40:02,800 --> 01:40:05,760
Speaker 1: that Stiff would be hard to keep going. So a

1578
01:40:05,800 --> 01:40:09,080
Speaker 1: lot of people then tried to think about to get

1579
01:40:09,120 --> 01:40:13,000
Speaker 1: their two hundred dollars or whatever they were owned. And

1580
01:40:13,080 --> 01:40:16,160
Speaker 1: in England, the way the way that works, it's snowballs.

1581
01:40:16,160 --> 01:40:21,280
Speaker 1: It's a snowballing situation. So I did a liquidation. I

1582
01:40:21,439 --> 01:40:24,960
Speaker 1: liquidated the company and sold it to mt T so

1583
01:40:25,080 --> 01:40:31,400
Speaker 1: that it was sailable, right, But it wasn't ideal. It

1584
01:40:31,520 --> 01:40:36,000
Speaker 1: wasn't something that you would write down as your script whatever. Okay,

1585
01:40:36,080 --> 01:40:39,800
Speaker 1: you sold it z T T. Was that profitable for you?

1586
01:40:39,960 --> 01:40:43,000
Speaker 1: Did you finally get a check? No? No, it's profitable

1587
01:40:43,080 --> 01:40:46,280
Speaker 1: for the some of the creditors they got a small

1588
01:40:46,320 --> 01:40:50,160
Speaker 1: amount of the company was wound up and they got

1589
01:40:50,160 --> 01:40:53,080
Speaker 1: a small amount of the owing. No, it wasn't profitable.

1590
01:40:53,120 --> 01:40:57,000
Speaker 1: I was the biggest creditor in the company. No, I

1591
01:40:57,000 --> 01:40:59,200
Speaker 1: I lost what I put in. I put a lot

1592
01:40:59,280 --> 01:41:01,519
Speaker 1: into try and of a guy, So what year do

1593
01:41:01,720 --> 01:41:06,080
Speaker 1: you give the assets? And then what do you do personally? Well?

1594
01:41:06,120 --> 01:41:11,160
Speaker 1: I worked for Stiff for a while until the until

1595
01:41:11,240 --> 01:41:14,759
Speaker 1: the Pope single which I signed the Pope, so until

1596
01:41:14,800 --> 01:41:19,479
Speaker 1: the Fairytale in New York, and then I I dropped

1597
01:41:19,479 --> 01:41:23,800
Speaker 1: out because Jill Sinclair, who is Trevor Horne's wife, I

1598
01:41:24,080 --> 01:41:29,080
Speaker 1: was unfortunately she was killed. She was chiseling away at

1599
01:41:29,120 --> 01:41:32,080
Speaker 1: the bits that I had. So I thought, I've had

1600
01:41:32,160 --> 01:41:34,440
Speaker 1: enough of it for a while. My wife and I

1601
01:41:34,439 --> 01:41:36,639
Speaker 1: thought we will take a little time off and gone

1602
01:41:36,680 --> 01:41:39,599
Speaker 1: do something fun. So one has occupied your time in

1603
01:41:39,640 --> 01:41:42,479
Speaker 1: these past years. I put together and I hope to

1604
01:41:42,520 --> 01:41:45,760
Speaker 1: get that out next year. Gregory Isaac's credits hits called

1605
01:41:45,960 --> 01:41:50,439
Speaker 1: Icon and that's I think a great record. He wasn't

1606
01:41:50,520 --> 01:41:53,599
Speaker 1: quite the Bob Marley, but he had some great records,

1607
01:41:53,640 --> 01:41:57,000
Speaker 1: a great voice. And I look after a small band

1608
01:41:57,120 --> 01:42:01,640
Speaker 1: from a young band from Carlisle and called Hardwick Circus,

1609
01:42:01,680 --> 01:42:04,200
Speaker 1: and they're doing things, and they're starting to do things,

1610
01:42:04,240 --> 01:42:07,240
Speaker 1: and we're starting to get somewhere. So I'm still in it.

1611
01:42:07,640 --> 01:42:09,559
Speaker 1: I'm still doing it. I have a lot of fun

1612
01:42:09,640 --> 01:42:14,400
Speaker 1: doing it, and I do um you know, various bits

1613
01:42:14,680 --> 01:42:18,800
Speaker 1: in the industry, and you know, corporate with several projects

1614
01:42:19,160 --> 01:42:21,599
Speaker 1: like the Greatest Hits and things of that nature, which

1615
01:42:21,600 --> 01:42:24,320
Speaker 1: I'm good at. I have to ask because a long career,

1616
01:42:24,360 --> 01:42:25,960
Speaker 1: I know this is not what you're in for it.

1617
01:42:26,400 --> 01:42:29,240
Speaker 1: So with this lead, d did you make enough money

1618
01:42:29,600 --> 01:42:31,760
Speaker 1: or do you have to work to pay the bills? Oh? No,

1619
01:42:31,880 --> 01:42:35,320
Speaker 1: I have to work, Bob. Yeah, and you never retire.

1620
01:42:35,600 --> 01:42:38,960
Speaker 1: It's not you know, what would you do? Paul McCartney

1621
01:42:39,040 --> 01:42:42,400
Speaker 1: when when I got Brinday Schwartz to be their support

1622
01:42:42,439 --> 01:42:47,160
Speaker 1: band on the Wings tour of the UK. You know,

1623
01:42:47,240 --> 01:42:50,000
Speaker 1: I did a big three day debrief with Paul at

1624
01:42:50,040 --> 01:42:54,160
Speaker 1: the back of the coach and I said, so have

1625
01:42:54,320 --> 01:42:56,559
Speaker 1: you done enough? What are you? What are you going

1626
01:42:56,600 --> 01:43:00,320
Speaker 1: to do? What's the plan? What he said, Dave, you

1627
01:43:00,400 --> 01:43:04,280
Speaker 1: never retire because you're as successful as you can be.

1628
01:43:04,439 --> 01:43:06,840
Speaker 1: But what are you? I'm a bass player? What do

1629
01:43:06,920 --> 01:43:09,280
Speaker 1: you do? I said, well, I'm a kind of a manager.

1630
01:43:09,280 --> 01:43:12,559
Speaker 1: He said, well, we'll both be doing that until we die. Okay.

1631
01:43:12,600 --> 01:43:15,559
Speaker 1: Just going back in history one point, how long were

1632
01:43:15,600 --> 01:43:21,440
Speaker 1: you involved with Graham Parker? Graham Parker from UM nineteen

1633
01:43:21,760 --> 01:43:28,080
Speaker 1: seventy five to nineteen seventy eight, maybe seventy nine. Okay,

1634
01:43:28,120 --> 01:43:31,680
Speaker 1: So were you involved with him when he signed ultimately

1635
01:43:31,680 --> 01:43:34,320
Speaker 1: with Arista? Was that after your time? I did the

1636
01:43:34,400 --> 01:43:37,800
Speaker 1: deal for him and left at that point. Okay, So

1637
01:43:37,920 --> 01:43:40,400
Speaker 1: Graham Parker. He had the first two albums made an

1638
01:43:40,439 --> 01:43:44,280
Speaker 1: incredible amount of notice. He blames that our Mercury, which

1639
01:43:44,360 --> 01:43:48,040
Speaker 1: certainly in America, was a terrible label. Do you think

1640
01:43:48,400 --> 01:43:50,360
Speaker 1: it was just luck of the draw it didn't happen

1641
01:43:50,400 --> 01:43:53,160
Speaker 1: for him or really in essence, he didn't have it

1642
01:43:53,200 --> 01:43:55,479
Speaker 1: and it wasn't gonna happen in big time. There was

1643
01:43:55,520 --> 01:43:58,599
Speaker 1: a great momentum for a Graham. There was a great

1644
01:43:58,720 --> 01:44:02,920
Speaker 1: momentum uh at the time when he was playing in

1645
01:44:02,960 --> 01:44:07,400
Speaker 1: New York in the early Palladium period with Bruce Springsteen

1646
01:44:07,479 --> 01:44:11,439
Speaker 1: in the audience and Steve van zandt. He was at

1647
01:44:11,479 --> 01:44:15,439
Speaker 1: the height of his thing. He was he was ready

1648
01:44:15,880 --> 01:44:22,040
Speaker 1: to crack it. Mercury were appalling. They had no real interests.

1649
01:44:22,120 --> 01:44:24,400
Speaker 1: They didn't have any interest in filling it. But that's

1650
01:44:24,840 --> 01:44:30,000
Speaker 1: and that's his story. They just did not understand what

1651
01:44:30,120 --> 01:44:33,439
Speaker 1: it took to break a rock act in America. You

1652
01:44:33,479 --> 01:44:35,760
Speaker 1: had to climb on it, You had to climb on

1653
01:44:35,840 --> 01:44:38,240
Speaker 1: that bus and do it. They had a great guy

1654
01:44:38,240 --> 01:44:41,599
Speaker 1: and Mike Bone was a radio plugger. He was very good.

1655
01:44:42,000 --> 01:44:46,240
Speaker 1: But the marketing and the expenditure was it was non existent.

1656
01:44:46,680 --> 01:44:50,360
Speaker 1: Really it was. It was poor and they had no attitude.

1657
01:44:50,439 --> 01:44:53,160
Speaker 1: It was very much a jazz label, you know. And

1658
01:44:53,160 --> 01:44:55,960
Speaker 1: the guys that ran it. I'll tell you an interesting story.

1659
01:44:56,040 --> 01:45:00,519
Speaker 1: There was a guy called There's a guy from barn In. I.

1660
01:45:00,520 --> 01:45:04,960
Speaker 1: I raised this big time right into polygraph right. I

1661
01:45:05,080 --> 01:45:09,439
Speaker 1: raised it right up to the top of the cheese right.

1662
01:45:09,800 --> 01:45:13,160
Speaker 1: And they sent a guy who remained nameless at this

1663
01:45:13,280 --> 01:45:17,840
Speaker 1: point to Chicago, and they paid my fare to go

1664
01:45:17,920 --> 01:45:22,719
Speaker 1: back to Chicago with him for for me to point

1665
01:45:22,800 --> 01:45:26,200
Speaker 1: out what had happened, what hadn't happened, what should have happened.

1666
01:45:26,200 --> 01:45:30,840
Speaker 1: It's a very delicate situation. It happens in managers careers

1667
01:45:31,160 --> 01:45:34,639
Speaker 1: from time to time when they don't want to they

1668
01:45:34,680 --> 01:45:37,439
Speaker 1: need to get some action and it needs to be quick.

1669
01:45:37,800 --> 01:45:41,880
Speaker 1: And they understood that. When we had a lunch, when

1670
01:45:41,920 --> 01:45:45,400
Speaker 1: we had the dinner that evening, we all arrived, he

1671
01:45:45,600 --> 01:45:49,479
Speaker 1: from Holland, me from whatever. There was a girl, very

1672
01:45:49,520 --> 01:45:55,200
Speaker 1: pretty girl, introduced to me as the head of regional promotion.

1673
01:45:55,360 --> 01:45:58,519
Speaker 1: I had never seen her before. I asked Mike Bone

1674
01:45:58,840 --> 01:46:01,479
Speaker 1: and he kind of his eyes to heaven a little bit.

1675
01:46:02,000 --> 01:46:05,879
Speaker 1: This girl was seated next to my gentleman from Holland,

1676
01:46:06,040 --> 01:46:12,719
Speaker 1: Mr Holland right, and the following day, the Mr Holland

1677
01:46:13,600 --> 01:46:17,040
Speaker 1: went back to Holland and I had checked at the

1678
01:46:17,080 --> 01:46:21,719
Speaker 1: hotel and the girl had been in his room that night,

1679
01:46:22,320 --> 01:46:24,800
Speaker 1: and it was all over. He was moved to Australia

1680
01:46:25,439 --> 01:46:29,439
Speaker 1: thereafter by PolyGram. Right, and it was all over. And

1681
01:46:29,560 --> 01:46:32,840
Speaker 1: Barnes said, we've investigated this. Our man says, there's no

1682
01:46:33,360 --> 01:46:37,559
Speaker 1: one toward you know, it's it's a chancy business, Dave.

1683
01:46:37,760 --> 01:46:41,080
Speaker 1: And we had a chance, and maybe we didn't. But

1684
01:46:41,240 --> 01:46:45,240
Speaker 1: Graham had such a such a very keen wave. He

1685
01:46:45,280 --> 01:46:47,559
Speaker 1: had such a keen wave, and he had some very

1686
01:46:47,680 --> 01:46:52,360
Speaker 1: very good tracks. Right. He had mud Langer, had done

1687
01:46:52,400 --> 01:46:56,920
Speaker 1: the second album Nicklaud, the first mud Langer, and the

1688
01:46:57,040 --> 01:47:02,120
Speaker 1: third was Squeezing Out Spark. I mean, people really love.

1689
01:47:02,520 --> 01:47:07,520
Speaker 1: He had all the ingredients. But unfortunately it's the momentum

1690
01:47:07,600 --> 01:47:11,120
Speaker 1: of the record business is that you seize the opportunities

1691
01:47:11,280 --> 01:47:15,240
Speaker 1: they come and then they can go and like a

1692
01:47:15,280 --> 01:47:18,639
Speaker 1: lot of other things. So mercury poisoning is a very

1693
01:47:18,680 --> 01:47:22,360
Speaker 1: relevant part of why Graham, it turned out, then changed

1694
01:47:22,400 --> 01:47:24,759
Speaker 1: his mind a little bit. He went off into slightly

1695
01:47:24,800 --> 01:47:28,320
Speaker 1: different directions. He also went a lot of a lot

1696
01:47:28,360 --> 01:47:33,599
Speaker 1: of groups. And you know this, they they they always

1697
01:47:33,680 --> 01:47:38,479
Speaker 1: need help and good from the management, and they need

1698
01:47:38,760 --> 01:47:42,559
Speaker 1: they need people who are objective about them. And the

1699
01:47:42,640 --> 01:47:47,040
Speaker 1: day you drop the objectivity is silly. The day that

1700
01:47:47,520 --> 01:47:50,080
Speaker 1: an artist is then asked to be the picker of

1701
01:47:50,160 --> 01:47:53,400
Speaker 1: the singles or the picker of the producer or whatever.

1702
01:47:53,800 --> 01:47:56,200
Speaker 1: I've never been a big fan with that. At the

1703
01:47:56,240 --> 01:48:01,080
Speaker 1: same time, I'm not autocratic. I tell the group why

1704
01:48:01,120 --> 01:48:04,400
Speaker 1: this is the situation, on what could and should happen.

1705
01:48:04,640 --> 01:48:07,639
Speaker 1: I try and be the artist's friend as well as

1706
01:48:07,640 --> 01:48:11,320
Speaker 1: their record company, their partner. Most contracts say we are

1707
01:48:11,320 --> 01:48:14,280
Speaker 1: not partners and we never will be. I always said,

1708
01:48:14,360 --> 01:48:17,880
Speaker 1: I'm your partner. I will try and find the key

1709
01:48:17,920 --> 01:48:21,160
Speaker 1: to the door. If you support me, I will be

1710
01:48:21,240 --> 01:48:25,120
Speaker 1: with you. And Graham, unfortunately, was the back end of that.

1711
01:48:25,400 --> 01:48:28,800
Speaker 1: It's a shame because if you look at some of

1712
01:48:28,840 --> 01:48:31,439
Speaker 1: the stuff he has done and look at some of

1713
01:48:31,439 --> 01:48:33,800
Speaker 1: those early videos, I mean you're looking at a hit

1714
01:48:34,160 --> 01:48:37,000
Speaker 1: at a hit act. Also, you know the wave, the

1715
01:48:37,080 --> 01:48:40,960
Speaker 1: wave moved and the punk kind of started coming up.

1716
01:48:40,960 --> 01:48:44,679
Speaker 1: Elvis Costello came, Bruce Springsteen started getting him seven gear,

1717
01:48:45,280 --> 01:48:50,679
Speaker 1: and Mercury denied Graham when he had a chance. Well, Dave,

1718
01:48:50,760 --> 01:48:54,120
Speaker 1: you're a fount of knowledge, with a lot of great stories.

1719
01:48:54,640 --> 01:48:56,840
Speaker 1: I can listen to them forever. I want to thank

1720
01:48:56,880 --> 01:48:59,400
Speaker 1: you for taking the time with us today. Good bomb,

1721
01:48:59,520 --> 01:49:02,000
Speaker 1: but I've read in going to more until next time.

1722
01:49:02,640 --> 01:49:04,120
Speaker 1: This is bob Blefslin's