WEBVTT - Dave Robinson 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.840 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left's podcast. My 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:19.680 guest today it's Dave, Robin's photographer, me anager co FOUNDERSTFF Records. Dave, 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.239 Welcome to the podcast, Bob. It's great to be here. Okay, Dave, 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:26.480 you started out as a photographer. I started my career 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.120 as a photographer in Dublin, Ireland and did a lot 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:36.839 of different photographs of various magazines. But eventually I've finished 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.879 up taking photographs of poor musicians who had no money 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:44.200 but who needed photographs, and I dug out my wide 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:48.680 angle lens and started taking pictures of bands. How did 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:50.720 you learn how to shoot photos? An old friend of 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:54.680 my father's who showed me pretty much how it worked, 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.080 and I practiced on a load of children and people 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:02.240 in Irish pubs, which is uh is an education in itself. 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:05.039 And at what age did you start? I started at 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.600 about sixteen sixteen, Okay. What kind of family did you 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:10.960 grow up and what did your parents do for a living? 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.600 My father was a signwriter, my mother was a housewife 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:22.959 and it was a very normal Irish Catholic family, two sisters, 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:28.320 and the only difference was my father decided that he 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.679 could afford to send me to boarding school. So that 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.640 was the difference between me and all my peers at 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.000 the time. So where are you in the hierarchy of 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.399 the three kids. I'm in the middle. And you went 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:42.640 to boarding school at what age? What was that experience like? 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:47.559 I went to boarding school when I was six six six, 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.840 and that was a novel experience. Obviously it's the only 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.840 one I had, so I didn't have a way to 0:01:55.160 --> 0:02:00.680 compare it. But Ireland, as you can imagine, in early 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:05.480 years Catholic nuns to begin with, until I was eleven, 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.200 and then from eleven I went to secondary school and 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:15.000 I had the priest to look after me. Obviously, they've 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:19.480 had a bad press, inevitably, and I thought I can 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.160 say about them, but I had no problems, and I 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:25.760 was a very experienced born in school boy, so I 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.240 knew what was happening and that I could avoid stuff 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.360 and help my friends to avoid things that were going on. 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.680 The Irish priests have had a terrible battering, quite rightly, 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.880 and it's not obviously an area where in the music 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:45.679 business you you think about. But it was a very 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:48.960 good education. It was a very good from the academic 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.200 point of view. It was an excellent education, and it's 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:56.240 been the kind of confidence of my life to be 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:00.840 able to use that education to my advantage. Who usually 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:04.520 boarding school kids go to university, What about you? I 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.200 didn't because I'd had enough for boarding school. When I 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:12.200 got to seventeen, there was a The school I went 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:16.279 to was a very big rugby college. The rugby was 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:21.120 was a huge impetus to that school. And I played 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.519 on the rugby team and I was good, I think, 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.760 and uh it moved mountains, you know. I got a 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.959 very good status into school for being on the team. 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.840 But I fell out with the coach for various behavioral 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.800 reasons and decided that there wasn't a future in me 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:44.960 finishing the last two years before I might go to university. 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:48.000 But my father, in any event, had told me that 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:52.000 he had spent um, he'd spent money on my education, 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.160 but it was unlikely to be able to afford to 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:57.720 send me to university. He thought a should get a job. 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:00.840 But you skipped the last two years of what we 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.600 call high school or secondary school. That's right, that's right. Okay, 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:06.920 so you stopped going to school. What do you do? Well? 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:10.040 You get a job as a photographer in my In 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:14.440 my case, I had a hobby for photography, and I 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.200 wondered whether I could make a living at it, whether 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.280 I could please my father that I would have a 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:24.560 living and that I could show him what I could do. 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:29.080 So I went and took pictures of everything that moved 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.359 and eventually got a very good living and moved to 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.680 England when I was eighteen to be a beach photographer 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.720 for a company which is very well known called but Lands, 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:45.040 which is a holiday camp type environment, and I was 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:49.240 a beach photographer, also called a smudger. A smudger is 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:53.479 a beach photographer who takes pictures of people, gets money 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:55.839 off them, and they don't get the pictures till the 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.839 following day. So it's it's an art in itself. Why 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.040 is it called smudger, I'm not entirely sure. I think 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:06.919 because you're not great, because you smudge it, you blur it. 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:11.960 You're not you're not a you know, a fashion photographer 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.920 or whatever else. I think it's a slightly derogatory term. 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.760 So you're a beach photographer to holiday camp. Holiday camps 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:24.600 don't have a good reputation since Tommy and the reference there. However, 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.240 at a young age. One would think it was fun. 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:29.880 But when you work in a place like that in 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.280 the United States, you can have an existence, You can 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:34.400 have fun, but you really can only keep your head 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.200 barely above water. So was this something to kill time 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:39.839 or were you making any money? I was making money 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:45.400 because I got a commission from the photography that I did. 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.839 In other words, I got a commission for everybody who 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.520 paid to have their photograph the following day, So you 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.080 could make a lot by working very hard. It was 0:05:55.120 --> 0:06:00.960 definitely um income from work. H view an example of 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:05.720 something that that I was just a young guy from Ireland. 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.400 I should have been nineteen. They only took nineteen year old, 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.200 so I was having to lower my voice and try 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:18.599 and be try and be good. Um. But a lady, 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.800 a middle aged lady, kept coming back to me for photographs, 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.040 and I thought it was because I'm so good at 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:26.240 what I did. It turned out that her husband was 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:29.240 a wrestler who worked at the camp, and he told 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.760 me he would kill me if I took another picture 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.159 of his wife, so I had to jump into the 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:38.200 bushes every time this woman came by. She obviously figured 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.200 I was a good looking Irish lad, but it was 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:45.480 very dangerous. So I made good income for a season 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:50.320 by the seaside in England at a at a holiday 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:55.760 camp which had a high proportion of young unaccompanied females, 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:58.120 And so it was a revelation to me in a 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:03.960 lot of different ways. Ireland is very um, you know, conservative. 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.880 So one good thing about it, Bob, was that I 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:10.880 met a lot of other photographers who did the season 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.480 at the camp. So they would just come down for 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.160 the three months, three or four months, and a lot 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:23.320 of them had contacts with agencies and other magazines photography wise, 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.480 So I'm I networked quite a lot of very good 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:31.600 jobs out of that particular um situation. So how did 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:35.080 you get from there into music? From there, I worked 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.560 for a couple of agencies. I was introduced to a 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:43.200 couple of agencies which would use a photographer like a 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.920 freelance operator. In other words, they would send me on 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.000 a job, they would tell me what they wanted out 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.000 of it. Their main interest in life was to make 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.680 sure that they had the correct names left to right 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.800 was one of their main features. And by my point 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:02.760 of it was good because I didn't have to I 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.440 didn't have to develop the film. I just sent it 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.200 back to them and they used it as they wish, 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:13.400 and I got a paid pair job and that could 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.280 be quite that, it could be quite a good week. Um. 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:21.760 As it happened, I worked for several magazines, music magazines 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:26.880 that they obviously were attached to, and Pop magazine and 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:31.240 the Rave magazine. I ended up doing pictures of quite 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.000 a lot of the up and coming musicians on the 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:37.319 British scene. Is that how you ended up shooting the Beatles? Yes, 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.880 it is, Yeah I did. I did a job where 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:45.920 I went to Liverpool to film twelve groups for for 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:50.320 some situation they had, and I ended up filming the 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:55.319 Beatles that lunchtime in the cavern without really realizing how 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:59.760 wonderful that was. Most of the bands were playing I did, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.480 I've shots and most of them, and most of them 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.560 were playing the same song. So you had a situation 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:10.280 where they were playing a lot of Louisiana tracks and 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.480 most of the band, including the Beatles, played long Tall 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.199 Sally for example. I think about sick of them play 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.040 that song and several other covers that they were all 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.720 involved in. So the scene in Liverpool was was musically 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:29.040 a kind of Louisiana rhythm and blues area, and I 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:33.560 don't remember the Beatles being that much better. I do 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.199 remember Paul McCartney only insofar as he was very friendly. 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:40.560 He was very chatty. He he knew a photographer was 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:45.480 going to be useful. John Lennon was pretty nondescript. He 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:49.680 didn't relate to me in any way. Paul did chat 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.800 me up, and subsequently, over my career I have met 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.400 him several times and we have a relationship. So so 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:01.040 it wasn't because of that time. It was something we 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:04.160 could go back to and remind each other that we 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:07.040 had connected at that time. Okay, so you're being a 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:10.679 freelance guy, you're shooting these jobs. How do you move 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.680 on beyond photography? Well, I went back to Ireland to 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:18.200 show off to my parents that I was a happening 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.200 event I had. There was a there was a tailor 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:25.680 in London called sam Arcus, and sam Arcus was the 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:30.800 Hippus Taylor in London. So as I went to Sam 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.800 and had him make two suits for me before I 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.720 went back to impress my parents with the whole idea. 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.640 I got back to UH. I got back to Dublin 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:43.400 and there was a space music Congress going on. And 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:45.800 my agency said, could you cover it even though you're 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.319 on holiday, could you go in and cover that because 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:53.480 we're short. Uh. That space medicine was a very early 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:57.280 part of the space program. And I got on very 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:02.560 well with the American guy eyes doctors who had me 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.760 film all the Russians, and I got on very well 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.000 with the Russians who had me film all the American 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:13.640 so so so I did very well out of that 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:18.600 A week a week's conference in Dublin, and I started 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:20.600 to get a lot of Irish work, and because I 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:24.119 had come from London, which in those days very impressive 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.840 to Irish people, I was. I quickly got into the 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:32.960 top layer of photography in Dublin. I also had a 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:37.680 motorized camera, which the Irish had not actually discovered. So 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:43.360 the the the Union complained about me because I was 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.840 using this camera and taking more pictures than anybody else. 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.640 But that's a that's another story. So I became quite 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.640 a good photographer in Dublin. I made quite a lot 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:56.680 of money, and I decided to open a club because 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:00.680 Dublin did not have any kind of beat club like 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:05.000 London had. The Two Eyes and the Marquee and various 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.760 other things like that. I opened the club in Dublin, 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.000 and of course through the door came loads of groups 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:15.079 whose equipment didn't work, who just like you and I 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:19.040 early on in this interview where nothing worked too well, 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:24.280 and so uh in through my door came Van Morrison 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:28.360 one day when he it turned out he had got 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:32.480 rid of his manager, Phil Solomon's, and because he found 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:36.040 that his band was getting income from his publishing and 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.600 he didn't like that. And he came through the door. 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:42.760 I had taken pictures of them way back in the 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:46.160 kind of rave days, and so we knew each other, 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.800 and he came and stayed at my flat because he 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.560 wanted a manager, he wanted somebody to he had no 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.680 idea who else would handle him. And Van was, I've 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.640 got to say, was throughout his life he's been a 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:04.200 cont He's grumpy, he doesn't do things that you want 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.360 him to do, and he was a terrible flatmate. He 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:13.000 ruined my social life almost completely singlehandedly. But every now 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.079 and then he would get up with a local band 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:19.040 at the club and you would with his harmonica and 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:22.360 you would see extraordinary things. The band would lift up 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:26.600 two gears and be somebody that they couldn't do on 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:30.400 their own. He was remarkable in that way. Bert Burns 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:34.640 started calling and saying, you know, if you're looking after Van, 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.920 I really need him to be in America. I said, 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.400 I don't really look after him. I didn't feel I 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.320 was a manager. I felt it was kind of a mate. 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.360 So I persuaded Van to go to America and joined 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.880 Bert Burns and I could get my flat back. Okay, 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.760 Usually a club is a money pit. I mean now 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:58.679 everything is computerized. Everybody uses credit cards, even harder a 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:00.760 big money in a club. We get the money to 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.520 open a club, and how is business financially in Ireland? 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.120 It was very primitive, very primitive. I had a seller 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:13.800 that's probably if I had, if I had a fire license, 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.199 which I didn't have, would probably have held about a 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.680 hundred and fifty on a good night, Saturday night, we 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:25.720 had nine hundred people in that seller. And we didn't 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.760 have a liquor license. But we had a We had coke, 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:34.840 had just cocon Fanta had just discovered the serum serum 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.440 that you added with water and and with a gun 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.520 you could fill a glass. I think it costs so 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:45.120 little that you couldn't even calculated and we were selling 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:49.320 it for obviously because of the club was running with 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:53.440 condensation and very very hot. We were selling. We were 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.680 selling out with all the cocon fanta we could imagine. 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.760 We we did so well out of that club. That 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.840 as remark, because Ireland was very primitive about licensing. It 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:06.560 wasn't you know, it wasn't American, it was in London. 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.320 It was. It was you have a club, that's all right, 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.480 as long as there's no problems where we're happy with it. 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.000 So it ran for about two years and it was 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:19.280 it was magic. It was a magic thing. We had 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:22.800 Englishman's come over. We could afford have Alex RV and 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.440 various other bands come over, which was unique in Ireland. 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:31.600 Nobody had that class of music coming to the club. 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:35.320 So we had queues around the block and very good 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:38.640 and I didn't take any photographs at all for for 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.000 that period. Okay, then takes off to talk to Burns. 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:45.080 What does that leave you? He said, To give him credit, 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.320 He said, come with me. And I knew Van by 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.479 this time, and I knew he's not a fan of passengers, 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.480 and I knew I'd be a passenger. I would have 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:57.080 no idea how to do anything of the kind of 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.240 stuff that he was going to get up to. So 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:03.160 I passed, quite honestly, So I passed, and I wasn't 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.920 unhappy with that arrangement. Van paid me back and and 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:12.240 maybe we'll cover that many years later at the Fillmore East, 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:16.840 when Bill Graham had Quicksilver messenger service, Van Morrison and 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.760 my group and Irish group that I looked after called 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.240 the Heir Apparent, and that's another story we'll just telling. 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:28.080 The music business, from my point of view, has always 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.720 had a problem. You find a good songwriters, you find 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.800 people who can play, You find people who are motivated, 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:39.640 but they do not have a record company, a major 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:44.800 record company with the major promotion income. The record company 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.240 doesn't want you if you haven't got an agent, and 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:49.280 the agent doesn't want you if you haven't got a 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:54.600 record company. And that has is as sound today as 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:59.800 it was then. So I had a brief after the Club. 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.560 I managed this group who were then called The People. 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:07.840 The lead guitar player was Henry McCulloch, who went on 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:12.199 to be in the Grease Band, Joe Cocker, Wings and 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.160 various other people, but he started off with a little 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.200 Irish band called The People, which I looked after I 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:22.640 could see they were good. I could not. I took 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.960 him to London, but I could not get anywhere with them. 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:31.639 And my backer was a gentleman for Canadian gentleman who 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:36.440 who had five grand that was his that was his investment, 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:39.240 which didn't last very long. So I didn't have a 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:44.000 I didn't have a large I didn't have a large 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:47.560 chance of making things happen. So I hired a plane 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:53.320 and aer Lingus plane Irish Airlines, and I got a 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:57.159 media friend to get a hundred and fifty of the 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:03.600 key media journalists music and otherwise to board that plane 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.720 uh and to go. A convinced Bill Graham by flying 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.119 out to see him one one morning and being in 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.560 his office. I had met him on a on a 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:20.080 earlier American tours with Jimi Hendrix, and convinced him to 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:23.720 put my band onto open for Van Morrison and Quicksilver 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:31.680 messenger service at the Fillmore East UM inevitably, inevitably um 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:37.119 the band where the band the American Embassy would not 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:41.080 give them a visa because there was a various inter 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:47.560 union situations which didn't occur. The plane aer Lingus seven 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:54.119 oh seven UM crash landed at Shannon Airport in a 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:58.040 sea of foam because their hydraulics had gone out over 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:03.320 the British Channel. Uh. The journalists who saw the whole 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:07.040 thing as a bit of a jolly, as they call it. 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:09.480 And of course we had put an awful lot of 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:14.200 substances on the plane, alcohol and others, and they had 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:18.199 indulged quite heavily. They quite enjoyed the panic of the 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:24.119 landing and aer lingus because that's their way. UM to 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.760 get another plane out would take three or four hours, 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.520 so they opened the bar for the journalists, and so 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:34.919 by the time that plane got back it was a 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:39.000 very very crashed out group of journalists who got on 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:43.000 it and took off from New York. So the visas 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:47.960 I managed to um sort out through a Canadian gentleman. 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:52.320 So we flew to Toronto, and although the although the 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:58.919 empathy there saw sauce As as non bona fide visa 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:04.200 applicator is because of the London London thing, I managed 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:10.879 to convince immigration lawyer to do me a favor and 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:16.040 in the meantime I hard a small plane to take 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.080 us over the Canadian border and landed Buffalo, New York. 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:24.360 The lead guitar player of the band suitably called Brindsley Shorts, 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:29.640 the bass player being Nick low Lost. He had never 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:33.560 flown in a small plane before his ear drums went out. 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:37.719 His ears completely clogged up. He couldn't hear anything, and 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:41.200 so the show in New York wasn't everything I had 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:47.040 hoped for, So it was a huge chaos. Most of 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:50.320 the journalists didn't go to the show. Bill Graham in 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:53.160 those days twenty minutes before the show. If you're press 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:58.160 didn't show up, he would sell the tickets. You remember him, 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:01.840 So it was a pretty much a disaster. Van Morrison 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:04.280 was very friendly because I hadn't seen him for quite 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:09.160 a few years. But ten, ten or fifteen people from 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:13.199 the plane actually saw the show. But everybody panned it 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:17.119 big time. I have column inches that you have never 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.800 seen before in your life, all saying death and damnation, 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:26.560 and but everybody was talking about Brindsey Schwartz and United 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.520 Artists did a big record deal with me, and I 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:31.480 managed to do a publishing deal while I was in 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:36.480 the States. So that was my entree into being a 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:42.080 kind of a manager stroke disaster arranger, and out of 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:53.200 that came Stiff Records at a later stage. Okay, let's 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:55.439 go back a couple of years there and goes to 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:59.320 New York. Ultimately the club closes. What's your next step? 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:04.880 The next step was take the group the People to London. 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:08.920 We had reached the kind of top of Ireland. Ireland 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:12.280 had a low ceiling in terms of groups. There wasn't 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.840 there wasn't a big recorded scene or anything else. So 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:19.040 you had to go to London. That was it. I 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:23.880 took the band to London and I got them three gigs. 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:28.840 I've an agent friend got them three gigs. The second 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:33.240 one was a London had just discovered the San Francisco 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:39.520 happening affairs. Um, you know, an acid The acid idea 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:42.639 was happening, but nobody was taking it in London. But 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:45.320 they were putting on like they were in it. There 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:49.560 was bubbles on the wall, there was psychedelia, procol harm 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:53.320 We're playing that night that we got a gig at. 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:56.639 It was called the Blarney Club in London and the 0:22:56.920 --> 0:23:00.399 Bonds A Dog Boot Do Da band. My band, The 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:04.280 People came on at four o'clock in the morning. Everyone 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:07.400 was asleep. A hundred and fifty people were passed out 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.720 on the floor. Everyone else had gone home, and they 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:13.080 got up and did their thing. They were very good. 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:15.080 They were very good rock and roll band, and the 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:19.560 crowd of a hundred and fifty people woke up and 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:22.159 really had a good time. At the end of it, 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:27.840 I've got several university bookers trying to book the band, 0:23:28.000 --> 0:23:30.879 and they were offering me money. And this is what 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:33.439 it was all about. We had. Here was a few gigs, 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:36.600 and here was a chance to break through. A gentleman 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:42.600 in the corner with small John Lennon glasses Um said 0:23:43.119 --> 0:23:45.400 before you do everything else, you should talk to me, 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:48.320 and I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, I 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:50.119 just talked to this guy. I'll get I'll get you 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:52.359 in a minute. The promoter passed me by and he 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:54.760 said I would talk to him if I was you. 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:58.960 I said why. He said, that's Mike Jeffreys, Jimmy Hendricks manager, 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:04.440 And thought, Mike, Mike, He hello, how are you? And 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:08.600 it turned out that Mike Jefferies had three clubs in 0:24:08.760 --> 0:24:13.760 Miyorca Island off the coast of Spain. The British and 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:19.160 the Spanish. We're having an argument about Gibraltar, another argument, 0:24:19.680 --> 0:24:23.560 and so the Spanish had banned all English people from 0:24:23.600 --> 0:24:27.920 getting work permits in Spain in order to negotiate. Mike 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:31.560 Jefferies had three clubs and no bands, so he had 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:34.400 stayed all night because he heard that we were an 0:24:34.400 --> 0:24:37.919 Irish band. Now what I didn't tell him, what I 0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:39.960 didn't tell him was that we weren't. We were a 0:24:40.040 --> 0:24:43.679 Northern Irish band. We were essentially a British fan. They 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:47.040 had British passport. He said, you are Irish, it's it's Irish. 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:50.720 Of course I'm Irish. Oh you know I'm Irish. So 0:24:50.840 --> 0:24:53.679 he booked us for his three clubs. I had to 0:24:53.760 --> 0:24:57.359 rush to Ireland and managed to get Irish passports and 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:00.040 the group didn't want them. The group did not on 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:02.239 them because they were Northern Irish and if you had 0:25:02.280 --> 0:25:05.399 an Irish passport you'd be killed. That's what they told me. 0:25:05.480 --> 0:25:07.679 I said, well, don't show them to anybody. Put them 0:25:08.280 --> 0:25:10.760 you don't need you get them to go to ma Yorker. 0:25:11.119 --> 0:25:15.000 You're not going to Belfast. So off we took to 0:25:15.160 --> 0:25:22.119 ne Yorker. Fantastic, great club, great apartment, everybody getting money 0:25:22.119 --> 0:25:27.159 every week, loads of girls on holiday, I mean heaven 0:25:27.520 --> 0:25:31.679 to a degree, great weather. And then Chas Chandler turned 0:25:31.760 --> 0:25:36.159 up chairs As, as we know, had formed a partnership 0:25:36.200 --> 0:25:39.480 with Mike Jefferies to manage Jimmi Hendrix, and he came 0:25:39.480 --> 0:25:42.240 out on holiday and of course he saw the band. 0:25:42.680 --> 0:25:45.800 Now Chads was just Chads, a great bab you know, 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:49.440 a really nice guy, a real musician, not a great 0:25:49.440 --> 0:25:52.639 bass player. He don't of himself, but but he liked 0:25:52.680 --> 0:25:56.359 looking and feeling with musicians. So he met my bunch 0:25:56.600 --> 0:25:59.520 who were playing pretty good. Now they're doing three sets 0:25:59.520 --> 0:26:02.560