Caitlin Rose
Academy 3, Manchester
12.3.2011

So, someone didn’t get the memo. Or rather, too many people get the goddamned memo. My private viewing of ‘Live! Tonight! Caitlin Rose!’ was gate-crashed by approximately 332 other people. Not one to be a party pooper, they were allowed to stay. A couple of them insisted on thoroughly ruining Caitlin’s rendition of ‘Own Side’ by singing each line about half a beat ahead, half an octave out and RIGHT IN MY EAR HOLE. But you know. They’d made the trip. I’m not here to judge.

Dubious backing singers aside, the gig was a wondrous one. Onstage, Caitlin is equal parts cocky and vulnerable. A smooth introduction was hampered by the loss of a plectrum. The contents of her leather jacket were scattered across the stage floor. Old hotel room keys, a bunch of shells. Some Fisherman’s Friends. No plectrum. She handled the embarrassment like a pro. With humour and just the right amount of dignity, or a lack thereof.

Seeking to regain confidence from a can of Stella Artois, she transformed when singing. Utterly confident. Thousand yard stare. On record, the songs from her Own Side album are comforting, endearing and cute. Live, she shrouds them in menace; her voice is a missile, whooping and howling. Words take on new meaning whilst cruising to their target. It’s the sound of a young woman getting her own back on a cruel world. Pretty soon, those backing singers learnt their place in the pecking order as she switched the crowd to silent mode.

Laying aside her own guitar, with band-mates Spencer on pedal steel and Jeremy on lead, she crackled and sparked in an intense performance of ‘Coming Up’ and ‘For The Rabbits’. Not wanting to disregard the budding performers in the audience, the congregation was invited to join in the good old knees-up that was ‘Bottles’: a debauched bar room floor sing-a-long; a wry dissection of the art of drunkenness. Finishing off with a cover of J.D. Souther’s ‘Faithless Love’, she regained control of the rowdy pack, before gathering up the contents of her pockets from the stage and slinking, sweetly off.

I didn’t film this, by the way, I like to watch gigs through my eyes. But well done to whoever did.

There’s a real problem when you hang a whole heap of expectation on an album, based on one song. It happened to me with the first album I remember buying. Joyride by Roxette. C’mon join the Joyride. I hadn’t quite grasped that, by buying an album by Roxette, I was opening myself up to the possibility that not ALL of their songs are going to sound like ‘Joyride’. That, even though that one particular song grabbed me and consumed me like all good pop songs should… that maybe, just maybe, they might have some songs on there that don’t sound like ‘Joyride’.

So, I was nine years old when the Roxette album was released. And I was not terribly interested in spending my pocket money on 55 minutes of something that didn’t sound entirely like ‘Joyride’. Twenty years later and I’ve not learned to dispel that ill-informed anticipation of what an album might sound like, after getting hooked on a single song. But what I have learned, is to persevere. And I am a better person for it, I’m sure. And if Caitlin Rose’s ‘Own Side’ album was here with me, in cassette form, I would not wear out Side A, rewinding the title track a thousand times, whilst Side B remained clean as a whistle, hours of studio time ignored and unappreciated.

The lead single and title track from the album has, in recent weeks, served itself as a wake-up call, a break-up song, a personal anthem and a host of other very important, yet slightly spurious titles. The rest of the album had a lot to live up to. I’ll be honest: it took a few listens to forgive the opening track, ‘Learning to Ride’ for all of its overriding jollity and naivety, its jaunty guitar lines.
I didn’t want songs about bicycles.

Luckily, a few more listen revealed the painful truth: This isn’t a song about bicycles! It’s about heartache! Thank fuck for that.
In fact, the entirety of Own Side is imbued with a heavy heart, drenched in the blood of the Southern States. Beautifully crafted songs, marched through a country tradition and tarted up once they’ve come out the other side. Showing all the signs of being a post-break up album, this is therapy in musical form: an acute dissection of the ugly lure of relationships and all the damage they can do.

Fall back into my desperate arms / fall back into this old disaster / ‘cause it’s better than spending all your nights alone.

There is never a dull moment here, no songs to skip through. The heart may weigh down heavy, but there’s a wry smile in every line. Caitlin’s voice is sparky, full of life, yet doused with knowing. Emotion is tempered with humour; sadness levelled with joy. Truly, it’s a wonder. Each and every song is a Joyride, in its own way. Thank God for perseverance.

For the Rabbits…

hopefully an album review to come soon… in the meantime, feast your grey matter on this. And persevere beyond the opening moments. She starts deliberately off-kilter; grating, even… give it a moment and she locks into the rhythm.

And it’s mindblowing.

And I’ve a sneaking suspicion we’re just scratching the surface here…

Sometimes, you don’t even realise you’ve died. You don’t realise you’ve disappeared and you don’t realise there’s a blank, scratchy sheet where your personality used to be.

Before you know it you’re someone that used to do stuff and all your stories are 5 years old. Even the embarrassing ones. Especially the embarrassing ones.

Sometimes, it takes a single song to wake you up.

I can breathe this song in, like calorific air, and feel instantly human. The morning after I first heard it, I couldn’t drag my bones from my bed before I’d watched its gloriously downbeat, Vincent Gallo-esque video on the phone I’d had stuffed under my pillow all night.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m too old to listen to music and think ‘aaah, they’re singing my life… they’re playing out my thoughts…’ Like, I’m supposed to have it all figured out by now. Well, I never figured it out. And she’s singing my life.

I’m through with asking you if you knew love

Firstly, an apology to those who have worn out their refresh button waiting for Part Three. Life got in the way… And yes, that is a picture of John Perry. Sobriety got in the way…

We left part two with Alan & Peter discussing the demise of the Only Ones. Alan mentions an offer that he had to join The Pretenders…

A:… and Xena very smartly said ‘Alan, if you do that, if anybody announces what they’re doing or if the band split up then that debt stays with each member, we need to carry on like we’re still together’. And we did. We did Dingwalls and few others…

P: We did one up in Leeds University or something…

A: Then we kidded on we were getting ready for the fourth album. John said ‘well, let’s just do some covers.’ And they said ‘oh, we really like them’ There was a Small Faces one…

P: ‘My Way Of Giving’

A: We thought they’d go ‘oh, we hate that, we’re dropping you…’

P: And Dingwalls, that was just ‘cause we were bored after a few months and Xena was asked if we’d play there but it was a mistake, ‘cause there were people that had travelled over from Europe that couldn’t get in. Silly doing a little place…

A: But then, we were supposed to start the new album the next day and we had a meeting at Peter and Xena’s and Xena said, ‘we’re going to have to phone them an tell them that we’ve split up’. Then, literally, the phone went and it was (the label) saying ‘sorry, but we’re going to have to drop the band… without prejudice, we’re going to drop the band’. Because, you know, we were getting paid the next day. And that was it. It was a fantastic moment.

P: Robert Stigwood was one of the people that wanted to buy out my contract, EMI as well, there was a couple of companies that approached me, asking if they could buy out the contract. I just wasn’t together enough.

Is Xena still involved in the management (of the band)?

P: No. She just looks after me. Dyes my hair for me.

The important stuff!

P: Yeah (laughs)

A: Xena comes with us everywhere. That’s way it has always been.

Do the rest of you have partners that go on tour?

A: No, no. If I was married, my wife wouldn’t come. Xena is a part of the band. If it wasn’t for Xena, the band wouldn’t exist. Apart from Peter’s songwriting. Xena made it happen.

P: She put a lot of money into the band, before we actually signed. And that was when I was living with other girls. She had a real passion for the music.

A: Xena’s like the fifth member, really. If anyone else said ‘can I bring my wife?’ I’d be, like ‘no’.

Have you guys got any memories of playing Leeds in the past at all?

A: I don’t actually, Peter’s got a better memory for gigs than I have.

P: We played the University. I remember when we were really late, we got stopped by the police for speeding. We were really late for it and there were people leaving already, ‘cause they had to get their trains home.

A: But I can’t remember the venue…

P: It was always Leeds and York were big for music. The universities were the cutting edge for that sort of level. Universities were great, because they had all the great bands.

Yeah, now it’s basically the opposite. Well, I think Leeds is anyway. All you really seem to get is the big touring bands.

P: Like Take That.

Well, maybe not that big.

P: Yeah, but you know, that sort of stuff.

A: We played here the first year we got back together, for the O2 Wireless Festival. It almost got rained out and cancelled. The fields were flooded. It was really very near to being cancelled.

P: I commented about the rain, didn’t I? Because the White Stripes were headlining and when they played Glastonbury, he said ‘I apologise for the rain and I apologise for being American’. And so I quoted that at that festival, I said ‘I apologise for the rain and I apologise for being America’s best ally’.

In the ‘70s, one of the promoters that put on a lot of New Wave bands in Leeds – a guy called John Keenan, did all the Futurama gigs, do you remember him at all? He’s still promoting.

P: I know the name John Keenan. Did he do the Sci-fi festival that we played? Did he do that?

A: Yeah, I think it was.

P: It was in about ‘79

A: Yeah

P: Echo and the Bunnymen were lower on the bill. We headlined it, us and Hawkwind . Hawkwind were gonna go on after us, ‘cause I suppose they were bigger than us, I dunno. But ‘cause we were late, we had to go on after them.

A: They were furious.

What’s your best memory from being in The Only Ones?

P: Oh, God. The best memory? Unfortunately, I think a lot of them will be sexual, ‘cause that’s the one thing about when you’re young. Sex is too important. You know what I mean? When you get older, it gets put into perspective. There’s lots of things I did for the wrong reasons.

A: I think, for me, kind of doing the first album, I absolutely loved every moment of it. To be back in the studio and making an album, that was very exciting, I found that very exciting. Basing Street (studio) This fantastic big church, really exciting to hear the album finished, which I thought was great. Still do.

P: Doing live TV was really exciting. The Old Grey Whistle Test , was that live?

A: Very live, yeah.

What was it like for you all when Nina Antoniawas writing and researching the book? What was it like having a book written about you? Were you happy with the results?

P: Some of the things, I thought… some of the things other people said weren’t true. I didn’t have any control over it, it was her book. And the things that I said were true, but some of the things other people said weren’t true, I wish I could correct them.

A: Well, it’s been updated.

Oh, ok…

P: I don’t know how she’s got enough time to do it now, she’s got a partner now, hasn’t she? A young toy-boy…

It must be frustrating having something written about you – especially a whole book and see it in print and think…

P: Well, people see it in print and think it’s gospel, don’t they?

A: I got an email this morning from a guy that’s writing a book about Queen , saying ‘Alan, is that right, you were asked to join Queen?’ because she wrote that as well. I’m like, I never said that, Nina, I was never asked. When Freddie came to work for me, John Deacon was already in the band. So that’s a good example of, I’m having to write an email this morning saying ‘no, I was never asked’, Freddie didn’t even know I played bass. ‘Cause when I came to market, I wasn’t thinking about music at all, I was just on a mission… so that’s just one thing. But obviously, for Pete, there’ll be loads of stuff. But I get a lot of emails asking me about Queen and that. It just was never like that.

(To Peter): You’ll have to correct all the things you don’t like. Send her a long email!

So, is it right that you’ve got a tour of India coming up?

(long silence…)

P: No, I think that was… was it Marc Zermati that said about it?

Oh, I thought I’d heard it in an interview…

P & A: Probably one of John’s interviews…

P: John does interviews all over the place that we don’t know about. He did one with someone in Greece, didn’t he, he said all sorts of things that were a bit outlandish, I thought.

So you’ll be correcting John and Nina…!

A: Marc Zermati is a guy, who, from the ‘70s, his record label…what’s his label called again?

P: Skydog.

A: Skydog. And he met up with us and he was very enthusiastic, saying what he was going to do, not going to do. And that was one of the things he said. And some people took at that as gospel. I think John got quite…

P: I think it’s interesting, that there are all these weird countries that, you know, I’ve got a friend who was talking about an unknown Russian band who went to China and they were playing to audiences of 150,000. Because they’re playing places that, people from the age of two to 92, everyone from the surrounding area came to see something that never, ever happened in their lifetimes.

A: It’d be fantastic if we went. Very exciting. Maybe not as exciting as Japan, but just to go to a different country, see how people react to the music.

P: That’s the thing I really enjoy. First time around with the Only Ones, when we used to go abroad, I used to enjoy the hour onstage but the rest of the time I just couldn’t wait to get home to England and proper drugs, you know. When we were abroad usually I would go without drugs. But now, I really appreciate other cultures and living on a planet with a lot of very interesting people.

A: Yeah, you enjoy every aspect of it, rather than just…

P: Yeah, like, going to Japan, it was really like Blade Runner , because it had those big giant screens. Now, they’ve gone out of fashion now in Japan, haven’t they? They’ve taken the big screens down, since the recession’s hit. Have you been to Japan?

No, I’d love to…

A: When we were waiting for the train to go to Osaka, and the bullet train came through the station and…

Wow. I’d love to go to India, too, my granddad’s from India.

A: Yeah, me too, a friend’s gone to India a couple of times and you know, I’ll go with her next time.

So what have you got planned for the future?

A: Nothing.

Nothing!? Heh!

P: Well, the main thing is to finish the album. These three gigs we’re doing now, I was only convinced to do them because everybody said ‘oh, we’re bound to have finished the album by then. Everywhere we go, everyone says, ‘oh, when’s the album coming out?’ I got fed up with making excuses, so I said a few months ago, I don’t wanna do any more gigs. I don’t mind going abroad, ‘cos it’s like a holiday… and now they’ve come round and we haven’t finished it…

A: We thought we’d be ready. And everybody said they fancied doing something before Christmas. You, John…

P: Yeah but I just wanna get this album finished. I want a new product. And also, we’ve been playing six new songs every gig…

A: Yeah.

P: By the time the album comes out, everyone’ll know them ‘cause it’ll go on YouTube.

A: That’s the one thing… but then, the recorded versions’ll be different. And we’ll do a tour of France, in March.

P: If we haven’t done the album by then, I’m going on strike.

Have you found it hard negotiating the changes in the music industry, the way that people consume music, I mean, a lot of people don’t bother buying albums anymore. Has that affected the way that you’ve worked since you got back together?

A: I think it will just affect the album. So far, it hasn’t really, because we’re not a new product out from us. But how the industry is going to survive, I’ve no idea. I mean, I know downloads have got bigger recently but it’s still hard to know where the industry’s gonna go. We need another Scottish inventor to bring out a music format that can’t be copied. If that ever happened then we would jump on it.

P: I don’t like paying for music now, do I?

That’s bad karma, Peter!

A: I mean, when bigger bands give away their CDs free, oh great, it’s fine for them, but smaller bands, what do they do with their product? How do they survive? How do they get any finance?

I guess you guys have got a big enough fan base of people that are used to buying records and want a physical product…

A: I don’t think the CD will disappear, but obviously, the shops’ll disappear.

I mean one person that’s done something pretty interesting is Kristin Hersh (yeah, yeah, I know, you’ve heard it all from me before), she’s pretty much bypassed the record industry, she set up a subscription service, which I do – you pay about $25 every quarter and she’ll post a new song online that only subscribers have access to and every time she releases a physical album, you get it for free, you get free guest list to her gigs, so then she’s got a steady income. But then, the difference is, again that she’s an established artist… and also, you couldn’t do that for everyone. If I did that for every band I liked, I’d be bankrupt pretty quick.

P: She’s your favourite, is she?

One of my favourites, yeah.

P: The ‘90s, wasn’t it?

Yeah, yeah they (Throwing Muses) were on 4AD . I think there’s a lot of opportunity out there, but it can seem quite daunting. Even as a writer, the print magazines have just gone under, you know, there’s no advertising revenue, because independent labels are struggling, it’s all just sort of fallen in on itself.

A: The great thing is that new bands don’t have to go through the A&R man. They can go straight online and if it appeals to people then hopefully you can start to get a following. But I don’t know how you can exist financially. Until they can go out and cover their expenses to play.

Sometimes, I think ‘well, great, because it is so hard to make money out of it, it’s gonna sort the wheat from the chaff, only the people that are really passionate about it are gonna carry on’. But, I think there’s still a lot of shit out there!

A: I think there’s a lot of changes to be made still… the main record companies are gonna keep disappearing as well, it’s only their other interests that have kept them going.

P: And the amount of the market that Simon Cowell and all that…

Well, all the labels seem to merging into one anyway, you’ll only have one label soon.

A: And the Sony offices, Simon Cowell’s office, it’s the one that got the opaque glass and he’s at the top, you know, more important than anybody else.

(to Peter) Your sons are both involved in music, aren’t they? Do you ever give them any advice?

P: Well, the one thing they’ve learned from me is don’t get a drug habit, you know. But as far as business advice, no.

A: They’re great, great musicians, both of them.

P: Have you heard any of their music?

I was listening to Strange Fruit , Jamie’s band, because a friend of mine, Sarah, pointed them out to me. I think Jamie’s been dog-sitting for her!?

P: Oh, yeah, she’s in a band called Screaming Ballerinas, is she?

Um, she’s in a band called Wet Dog

P: Right, right, Sarah. I was thinking of Laura…

A: But yeah, they’re a great band.

And they play with you guys, yeah?

A: Yeah, we’re trying to get them to play Leamington Spa tomorrow night.

P: My kids have played in the place we’re playing tonight, what is it, Bru…

A: Brudenell Social .

P: They told me it’s like a working men’s club, but they said it’s quite good?

It’s really good. My favourite venue in Leeds, by far.

P: It’s got a tiny stage, is that right?

Um, I dunno, I guess, if you’re used to playing on bigger stages.

A: When I first got it (the offer), I was like, Brudenell Social Club!? You know, we played social clubs the first time round, so I quickly was checking it out. It’s probably a bit like the Dublin Castle, in a sense, and that’s why it’s still so popular.

I like that fact that, a while ago, it was mainly DIY promoters that put gigs on and it was considered a bit quirky and now, it’s become one of the more popular venues. It’s big enough that you can see quite popular bands there but without all the corporate bullshit you wade through at most bigger venues.

A: Yeah, That’s what he was saying, John (John Paul, promoter of the gig), sounds spot on, really. And, apart from the O2 Wireless Festival, we haven’t played here this time round.

P: We’re gonna do some songs that we haven’t played for 30 years. (to Alan) Are we gonna play ‘Watch You Drown’?

A: Yeah

P: Have you got the lyrics yet? He’s downloading the lyrics off the internet. But they’re never the same (as the actual lyrics).

A: We’re doing five new old ones, that we haven’t played. There’s one lyric site, the guy’s got really, everything.

I must admit, I was reading the lyrics for ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’ and there was one line, I was like, oh, shit, I didn’t think he said that.

A: Ah, yeah, was that Blink 182? The guy from Blink 182 did it, he misquoted you and that’s what everyone quotes. That line, ‘I always flirt with death,…’

P: Yeah, he said ‘I’ll get killed’.

That’s what I thought! I thought it was ‘I get ill?’

P: Yeah.

Wooh! I win!

At this point, I recall a rather long-winded anecdote about doing a cover of ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ by Blondie , when I thought the opening lines were ‘I’m in the phone booth if you wanna call a whore’. Oh, how we laughed…

A: When we got back together, I printed off all the lyrics, because I realised that Peter wasn’t using a computer and even after all this gap, I knew that lots of them were wrong. But there’s one site where the guy’s got everything more or less nailed now. I’ve told him before, Rod Liddle’s offered to do it with him, just write a book about the lyrics and how some of the songs were written and why they were written. (to Peter) You should still do it.

P: I haven’t got time.

A: Just do it into a Dictaphone.

Right, I’ll ask my last question now – sounds like you’ve got lyrics to download and stuff! What scares you and why?

A: Death. Death has always scared me. And why? Just ‘cause I don’t like… I’ve always been like that since I was young. It’s not dying, or the pain, it’s just the blankness. It used to scare me as a kid. I can live with it now, but in life, that’s the one thing that’s always scared me. You know, I’d think about it, and go to this blackness and every time, the blackness would… the not existing, it’s very scary.

Peter?

P: Well, it’s not death, but living without Xena. If Xena died before me, that would be pretty scary. And also, you know, health. When your health gets that bad that you haven’t got your mind anymore or you’re in pain. Because as you get older, mortality becomes a real prospect. When you’re young, you can talk about flirting with death and that, because you’re invincible. When you get to our age, the reality is your body starts fucking up and I just don’t want to live without Xena, really. That’s the only thing that scares me. Oh, and watching her in so much pain, that… you know. That’s one thing I believe in, euthanasia. People shouldn’t be made to suffer at the end of their lives. There should be a bit of dignity in death. People are forced to go to Holland, or Switzerland or whatever and then you’re forced to do it before you need to because you’ve still got to be able to make that journey and you’d do it earlier than you would if you could do it in England.

A: You have to write a living will, say what you want.

Pretty morbid way to end the interview, sorry…

A: Well, that’s what happens when you ask what you’re really scared of when we’re our age! What are you scared of?

What am I scared of? Well, I was scared of being hit by cars, but then I got hit by one last week. Not badly, obviously.

A: So you’ve got that one out the way now?

Yeah, I used to be scared of falling down the stairs at my old work, and I fell down them. I always know, when I’m scared of something, that’s it’s going to happen.

P: Like a premonition?

I guess. I’ve just known for years that I’d get hit by a car at some point.

P: Why, are you quite dozy when you’re walking across the road?

Peter! No! It wasn’t my fucking fault! Ha ha! … and he didn’t even wind the window down to see if I was okay.

P: What, he drove off?… Fucking hell. It’s illegal to just drive off, isn’t it?

(an exchange between me & Alan, can’t make it out, but a reference is made to the incident in which Peter ran over a car park attendant in the ‘70s… )

Yeah, I was gonna say… the car park attendant!?

(long pause)

P: Oh, yeah, right. (everyone laughs). But that was on purpose.

True.

P: He was probably intoxicated.

Maybe. Well, I need to find a new fear. I’ll let you know what it is when I figure it out.

And there it ended. Part of me wishes I’d swallowed my pride and gone to check them out before now. But you know, everything happens for a reason. And that’s the whole of the law.

Now, this thing of bands getting back together. I’m always in two minds about it…

Peter: That’s why I was not sure about it. Because it’s normally not a good idea. Most bands that were once quite good; you see them back together and you think ‘why do they bother?’

Well, I would pretty much refuse to go and see the New York Dolls… you know, I mean, you guys split up the year I was born… the guy that introduced me to you, I’ve got his memories, I’ve got other people’s memories, I’m happy with second-hand memories, I’m happy with Nina’s book, other people’s pictures. I’ve always veered away from seeing bands that reform ‘cause I think… I don’t want to be disappointed. I don’t want the myth ruined…

P: Well, the New York Dolls to me, without Johnny Thunders in it, isn’t the New York Dolls. I mean, they haven’t got Jerry Nolan even, do you know what I mean…

Alan: And I think that’s the other thing as well. I don’t think we’d have done it if one member hadn’t have been around. It had to be the original members, really.

Well, I think you played Manchester a while back and I resisted. But now it’s like, ‘aaagh, no, they’re playing on my doorstep, I’m not going to not go’.

A: the main thing is, a lot of people have said. ‘we just never ever thought that we’d get to see you…’

(and yep, hands up, I’m guilty of putting that exact phrase into one of my original emails to Alan…but you know, here’s the dilemma: As much as I’m anti-reformations and anti-revisionism, I’m also very much anti-ageism when it comes to music and I despise the restrictive life-span that the music press put on all but a precious few musicians in this country and actually, The Only Ones aren’t just poodling around the UK churning out the old classics, they are writing new material that is every bit as rousing as anything they wrote before I was thrust upon this planet).

… people that have grown up with the music. Younger people, that just thought ‘I’ll never get to see them’. And so far, it’s been really well received.

Do you get a lot of younger people coming to the gigs?

P: I think it’s a mixture, normally, you can tell there’s the people that have seen us the first time round, tall grey haired…

A: Yeah. You sell quite a lot of Large t-shirts.

P: In Japan, it was nearly all people in their twenties and teenagers. I don’t know why Japan is so different.

A: Yeah, a lot of young people

I think people really do their research out there…

P: They’re really into Western music.

A: Very emotional audiences, a lot of guys just watching in tears.

So how do you find the audiences are now, as compared to 30 years ago?

P: Well, obviously, 30 years ago, it was quite riotous, you know. The audiences… you know…

A: They’d be quite wild and then sometimes we’d get caught in…

P: The spitting was bad.

A: Oh yeah, that was horrible. Especially for Peter, when he’s singing (gestures to an open mouth, a prime gobbing target…)!

Presumably you don’t get spat at much now?

P: No! No…

A: It was really uncomfortable, you know, you’re just thinking…

Was it normally a sign of affection?

P: It was them enjoying themselves. It became this ritual among this certain type of punk. The ones that had read about it in News of the World, do you know what I mean? Some people said it was the The Stranglers (that started it), who weren’t even a punk band, you know.

A: It lasted for too long, anyway.

P: After a while it sort of died down and you wouldn’t get it anywhere until you did a gig in Middlesbrough and there’d be one person who’d only just read about it. When there was only one person spitting, you could take off your guitar and go and sort them out…

A: To be honest, I didn’t start making music to be spat at. It was too bizarre.

P: It only happened, really, at hardcore punk gigs. Our audience, the people that actually came to see us, didn’t spit.

Did you find it frustrating being lumped in with a lot of punk bands?

P: Well, soon after it happened, they invented the term ‘New-Wave’, which meant new music that was exciting, but wasn’t three chords at 90 miles an hour.

Were you a bit more comfortable with that tag, then?

A: Yeah

P: Yeah. I mean, people hate to be labelled because they like to think that any option’s open to them, musically. It was good to be part of something new and exciting.

A: I think it got all of the record executives out of their ivory tower, to come down and see bands. Because they would never even come out of their offices before – they were a bit scared of what was happening. All the super-groups they kept putting together, no one was interested in anymore. So it was really healthy. It definitely changed, shook the industry up.

I think it needed it. When all those bands like Yes and Blind Faith and all these super-groups were around, it was becoming really stale.

P: It was all really self-indulgent, horrible music. I guess the only good thing that happned was like, David Bowie and Roxy Music that was quite interesting in the early ‘70s.

So, for you guys, was forming the band a way of trying to break away from that tedium?

P: I just wanted to get a group together because I had a group in the early ‘70s and that’s to do with what I was talking to you about earlier, you know. Xena went around to record companies and lots of them said ‘sounds a bit like Lou Reed There’s not room in this music business for one Lou Reed, let alone two Lou Reeds.’

It’s funny now… I went through the thing of people with lots of enthusiasm but not much musical ability. So, I’d gone beyond that and wanted to get people that could actually play quite well. So that’s why we were a bit different from the punk bands that had just got together. I suppose I was older… well, I was younger than Joe Strummer, but you know, it had got to the point where I could appreciate the musicianship.

How do you find it, playing songs that you wrote 30-odd years ago?

A: It’s just as much fun. I think we’re trying to have fun with them, trying to add something extra into them as well.

Do you feel like the songs mean the same thing to you, or, as you’ve experienced different things in your lives, have they taken on different meanings?

P: Well, I feel, you know, I still enjoy singing the old songs, you know. I think they’re great songs, lots of them, you know. Obviously, I think the new songs, I feel more for because, as a lyricist, I think I’m better than I was back then. As you get older, you get a lot more experiences, a lot wiser; you get better at your craft. We used to stick to the same old songs for ages, then we’d occasionally resurrect something we hadn’t done for a while. But in Japan, the last time we went, because the guitar that Gibson had supplied me wouldn’t stay in tune, there was lots of time between numbers so we got talking to the audience a lot and they were asking for things that we hadn’t played for 30 years… someone even shouted out for ‘Silent Night’ and John started playing that.

Do you get to meet your fans?

P: Yeah

A: Especially in Japan…

P: Because they have an organised signing after the gig, they let you have half an hour, three quarters of an hour, you know…

A: To meet anyone that’s bought a poster, or CD or whatever

P: They take their photographs with you, you know. They come up, sort of shaking with emotion, you know. It’s sweet. They’re unique, compared to any other, they’re unique as a race. And one of the most attractive things about them is their humility, I think.

How about your British fans? Do you meet a lot of them?

P: Not as much.

A: They don’t organise it quite as well as the Japanese! I think you meet quite a lot through email as well, but not face to face. If someone asks to come back to the dressing room, we usually say yes, give us 10 minutes or so…

Do you have any obsessive fans?

A: Not so much now.

P: No. You get people that turn up to nearly every gig.

A: There’s a few on email, they have to have everything and know everything about what we’re doing. There’s fans that write to each other. Even some of the Japanese shows have already gone to Canada. Some people just watch what we’re doing all the time, so I guess that’s obsessive. But it’s not ‘obsessive’ meaning ‘scary’.

Not crazy, then?

A: No.

P: We used to though.

What kind of obsessive fans did you use to have then?

P: I particularly remember a girl in Holland that had my name tattooed all over her. She jumped on the bonnet of the car to try and stop us from leaving.

A: It was a bit scary.

In the gap between being in the band in the ‘70s and now, did you all remain in music?

P: In the ‘90s?

Yeah.

P: ’94 – ’96 but that’s ‘cause I got straight then. I hadn’t been totally drug free since the ‘70s. ‘Cause I always told myself, I wanna get totally drug free first and really, that was a horrible trap that I laid for myself. Once I told myself that I want to get drug free, I more or less cut out music from my life, really. Because it took me so long to get drug free, I wasted so much time.

I wish in some ways that I’d just been like Johnny (Thunders) and just carried on doing (music). At least when you’re doing it, you haven’t got that much time to take drugs. Now, music is like therapy for staying away from drugs, I think. ‘Cause they’re the two big passions in my life, you know. One’s totally disruptive and one’s totally enjoyable. It’s a pity they had to compete really, I should have just battled on with music really.

Obviously, the legacy of The Only Ones is massively embroiled with your drug use. A lot of people associate the band with drugs, do you ever regret that…

P: Well, it’s annoying for Alan because he never took them.

…but do you ever feel like the drugs have become more of a legacy than the music?

A: Yeah

P: Well, that’s worrying because lots of people assume that every song is about drugs…

A: It became too much for me… it felt like drug use was pulling the band down… the American tour was degenerating really badly and it just seemed… I remember being at Tropicana with a girlfriend (I recall a story from Nina’s book and believe this is the young lass that looked like Olivia Newton-John..) and just everybody was stoned, everybody that was around the band…

P: People with needles hanging out their arms.

A: That’s right, both John and Peter weren’t interested in needles but there were some girl fans who enjoyed doing that and I just happened to be sharing a room with John… and that’s the problem, you sort of lose your perspective and I was with a girlfriend he walked past me with a needle in his arm, and I was just like ‘oh, for fuck’s sake, John’. That seemed to be one of the points where I thought ‘this has now gone too far’. Not just that incident, but everybody in the road crew and the fans…

P: John had to wear, like, three overcoats onstage ‘cause he…

A: He was withdrawing…

P: No, he wasn’t withdrawing, it was a dirty hit.

A: But, do you know what, it felt like everybody was losing the plot. I was robbed in the hotel room, Peter was robbed outside the hotel room. It just felt like time to go. So I went to Peter and Xena’s room and I just said ‘it’s time to go, I can’t do it anymore’. And Peter said ‘well, if you’re gonna leave then I’m…’, I think he said he was thinking of going on his own as well…

P: I found it hard being in a band with John because I was still trying to keep drugs away from when I was working, you know, sort of, go to America without any drugs, to be straight for the tour. But then, it’s difficult…

I dunno if you’ve seen the film Clint Eastwood did about Charlie Parker? Bird. It’s a good film. And Charlie Parker had the same thing, when he was trying to stop taling heroin, in his band was this guy Red Rodney and Red Rodney was just getting into the heroin when he was trying to stay away from it. That’s the way I felt with John because I still felt that when you’re around heroin all the time, it makes it that much more difficult to stop and that’s the main reason.

A: That hotel room in New York, That was really the end of the band.

P: I wanted to carry on as a solo artist, get a new band together. But when I came back from New York, I got hepatitis and that knocked me, for the ‘80s. I didn’t get proper liver function back, well, I got clean at the end of the ‘80s. Hepatitis B. I mean, now, everybody’s Hepatitis C and I mean, to me, I can’t see the point, ‘cause it ain’t… people don’t even know they’ve got it, the symptoms are so… but Hepatitis B, that really does knock you sideways, that.

A: So, that hotel room in New York was the end of the band, even though we carried on playing a cat and mouse game with CBS.

There’ll be more about that cat ‘n’ mouse game in part 3!

As became apparent in my Mudhoney interview (I am linking back to this very blog here, in an attempt to create an endless internet-feedback loop…), I have serious issues with dead bands getting back together. When I say ‘dead’, I mean ‘split-up’ of course. I am all in favour of actual dead people getting up out the grave and revisiting past glories, it doesn’t happen nearly enough.

Alan surfaced first; tanned and fresh-faced; a contrast to the pallid looking Peter, who joined us a few minutes later. I’m not going to fuel the legend and paint a picture of Perrett as being ravaged by narcotics, though. They may have taken a toll on his physicality but he’s sharp as anything, lucid, bright and engaging…

What qualities did you first see in each other & do you still see those same qualities in each other?

Alan: Well obviously Peter started the band, but for me, it was the recordings, not so much the rehearsals, because I’d seen the rehearsals but couldn’t quite… it was Peter’s songs that brought me into the band, rather than thinking ‘Kellie’s a great drummer’, or ‘John’s a great guitarist’. I went down to their house, after Kellie had said he’d had a spiritual moment when I’d walked into their rehearsal for one reason or another and Kellie said ‘Who’s that guy?’ Obviously I was a bass player and I went and rehearsed with them. My mind was on something else at the time but then I went down to the house and just heard some recordings which were ‘Out There In The Night’ and ‘Watch You Drown’ and in the recordings, I could hear the quality of the songs. That’s definitely what brought me in.

And what about personalities, when you actually met them?

A: Well, the other thing is that it was always to do with the passion for the music. Nothing was to do with how much money was involved, or, how every other musician I met at the time was like, ‘oh, I’m getting £200 a week for this…’ With the Only Ones, it was nothing to do with the money, it was the passion for the music. So, for that reason alone, I loved it.

I know that in a recent interview, you said that the music business is just a business

A: I never said that.

Peter: I might have said that. ‘Cause, you know, we were lucky back then, it was like a minor revolution. You felt that it was really a moment of change, from ’76 onwards, mainly to with Malcolm (McLaren) and the way that he handled record companies. You know, the record companies were in turmoil because it was a boom time, they were selling lots of records but they didn’t really have control over what was going on.

There were lots of journalists that were going out and discovering music for themselves. You’d get a band forming, playing in a little pub and the next week being on the front cover of NME. It really felt like the power was with the musicians… the only time… whereas now, it’s really business-orientated. You can’t even get in the NME unless you’ve got a high-powered PR guy working for you. It’s really difficult for the new bands that are starting off.

Back then, you put out your records yourself. We put out ‘Lovers of Today’ ourselves and just sent it to the papers and they all made it Single of The Week and I just can’t see that happening now.

A: Yeah, you mean the industry’s more money, now. I thought you were meaning us…

Oh, no, I didn’t mean that…

I think it is still possible for bands to do stuff for themselves but I think a lot of bands are lazy and have got used to the idea of a record deal being an amazing thing that they covet and chase. You hear loads of young, new bands, saying ‘we really wanna get a manager, can you recommend anyone’. Well, what do you want a manager for at that stage that you can’t do yourself?

P: I think it’s good ‘cause a manager can take all the knock-backs, you know. It’s disheartening when you go with something you’re really excited about and you play it to an A&R guy and you know he’s not even listening, 10 seconds of one song, then 10 seconds of another and then he says ‘oh come back in a year…’ You know what I mean? When musicians have to do that themselves, it can be really disheartening. I think it’s good to have a manager as a buffer against the hardness of the business and the passion of creating music. There’s a few musicians that are good businessmen, but normally they’re not.

So, do you have management now?

A: No

P: No (laughter)

I was going to say, it sort of seems like you’re taking control of things yourselves?

A: Yeah, we’re looking after things ourselves.

P: I mean, really, we’re like, old-aged pensioners, who retired a long time ago and we’ve just got a hobby that’s enjoyable. There’s enough people still left alive from our fans around the world to pay for us to go to Tokyo, to go to Stockholm, to Madrid, and we’re seeing the world. You know, at the end of people’s lives, quite often they retire and go on a world cruise. Well…

A: We’re seeing the world with The Only Ones. Very fortunate.

P: It makes it a bit more difficult making a record, ‘cos we haven’t got a big budget, so we’re having to be very careful about spending money in studios.

A: We’ve actually set up Peter’s house as the studio now. We did some recordings before, but we didn’t get all the tracks down. Peter’s house was originally a recording studio…

P: Pathway Studio , Elvis Costello’s first album was done there, Sultans of Swing was recorded there, Stiff used it a lot, Nick Lowe …

A: But you didn’t know that when you rented it…

P: No, it was just a nice little detached house and we rented it and then found out the history of it and it has actually got the sound-proofing…

A: And that’s how we’re making an album – doing everything there in pieces.

Was it hard approaching writing new material?

A: Well, Peter writes, he’s the main writer.

P: Lots of stuff is things that have been part-written before and then I get inspired to finish it. Things that, you know, old tunes that didn’t have proper words and I get inspired to write words for them and fall in love with the tune again. Things, you know, there’s one song called ‘Magic Tablet’, which is, you know, our drummer had a nervous breakdown about a year ago …

A: It didn’t take us long…

P: And that inspired me to write a song. At my age, there’s enough experiences to always have subject matters to write about… once we’ve got the album recorded then I might be able to think ‘oh, if I write another album, maybe it’ll see the light of day. Do you what I mean? When you’re not really recording, you reach a point where you think ‘well, it’s not really worth writing’ ‘cause no one will ever get to hear them. Otherwise I think it’s a bit of a waste, if you’re writing great songs and no one will ever hear them.

Was it ever a daunting prospect, going back to writing?

P: No, no. I mean, there’s loads of stuff from the first time round, in our set, that never got recorded, that I wouldn’t mid recording, and words are something that I’ll always write. I’ve got notebooks and notebooks of lyrics ‘cause I just can’t help writing lyrics. It’s only when I got a guitar that they got turned into songs. That’s one thing I’ll never stop doing is writing lyrics. It does need the impetus of a group to…

A: Well, it inspires…

P: An artist does need an audience, really. There’s not many artists that are totally satisfied just creating and nobody ever appreciating it and it did inspire me to finish off some songs.

So what was the catalyst behind you guys getting back together?

A: Weeeeeeelll….

P: You had the idea, didn’t you? Well, you thought it might happen and then…

A: Well, I’d been out with The Beatstalkers and every time I was out doing interviews, everybody kept asking me about The Only Ones… people would always say sorry to The Beatstalkers, ‘but we need to ask if there’s any chance The Only Ones will reform’. I think ‘cause I was playing bass again, it inspired me to want to play with The Only Ones again. So, I did start saying stuff behind the scenes, you know, ‘would you do it?’ and Kellie said ‘well, I’d do it if you’ll do it’ and John said the same thing. I think Peter at the time was actually being kind to me and said …

P: No, no one actually asked me about it until… did Warren Ellis ask you first?

A: Well, I got an email about it from them…

P: It was when they came down with that offer…

A: Well, no ‘cause before that…

P: You know Warren Ellis, he plays with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds … they were curating ATP …

A: Yeah, but before that… I got the email and negotiated the offer…

P: No one had mentioned it before that to me…

A: You remember I told you that Sony had offered to put up some money if we did a secret gig? And you said ‘really?’ And I went ‘Aaaaaah!’

P: The first time I remember it being broached was when that offer came down…

A: No, I’d come to your house a few times before that, ‘cause Sony were bringing out a Best Of, ‘cause of the Vodafone advert and then the offer came in from ATP.

P: I think if Ellis hadn’t instigated it, we wouldn’t have got back together.

A: No. If there’d been no offer…
P: It was the ATP festival that appealed to me, you know, going up with the family, it was a really sunny weekend…

A: There’s no pressure, you know, to a gig like that, there’s already an audience there.

P: When I agreed to do ATP, I said ‘as long as it’s just that.’ It was only once we’d done it that he told me (that there were other gigs).

A: Well, I had been sending him emails, I didn’t realise that he never checked his emails.

P: Well, I didn’t know how to do that then. Now, Zena’s learnt how to do it and she’s shown me. So all that time, you thought I was reading the emails?

A: Yeah!

P: Right, right.

A: ‘Cause, even the time, well, we’ll talk about it later, but you remember the time when I said to you, let’s get back together and you went out the room and never answered me and I said, Zena, what do you think and she said, ‘I think you should do it. I think you should get back together’.

I recently attended a round table talk, as part of Yorkshire’s Digital Week. It was chaired by John Robb of Goldblade and focused mainly on how artists / labels / journalists can actually make a living out of their art, or business, in this ever-evolving digital age.

My thoughts on the issue have been (and still are, really), fairly jumbled. I won’t download music for free, unless the artist has put it there purposefully for my taking. Yet, I’ll quite happily accept a copied CD off of someone. I’m utterly precious about the importance of print media. Yet, since the magazines that I used to write for turned to dust, I stopped buying magazines full stop. I can’t remember the last time I bought a fanzine, yet I will extol their virtues until the sacred cows come home.

Facebook depresses me and I baulk at the idea of using it to share my writing with others (OK, that’s largely because I do a lot of swearing and I already use Facebook for the Day Job) but I’ll happily use Twitter to do just that. Maybe it all just got too complicated. When I started writing about music, about 8 years ago, it was simple: Send article to editor of cool magazine. Hear nothing. Send editor mildly abusive reminder. Land job. And from there, it went on.

Now, it’s as though someone’s ripped down the stage curtain and shoved us all on stage, butt naked, with the house lights up and nobody to hold our hands. Last (wo)man standing. May the strongest artist/writer/critic/label survive… you’re your own editor now. And your harshest critics are a mere click away.

These musings are, however, a mere backdrop to the meat of this piece. During the round table chat, I gravitated towards talking about Kristin Hersh and the way that she has adapted to the change in the way that we consume and produce music, in a really positive and inspiring way.

Recognising the origins of folk music – and harking back to a time before record labels existed, before cats got fat off other people’s hard work and creative output – Kristin joined forces with Cash Music music and started giving her music away for free, for people to enjoy, share, pass on, download, remix, mess around with and re-post their own versions online for other folk to enjoy share, pass on… and on it goes. There’s an online tip jar for those visitors that recognise the need for an artist to eat, feed and clothe her children and keep a roof over her head.

Kristin didn’t stop there. She (with the aid of her manager-husband Billy) carried on figuring out innovative ways to connect to her audience, without a record contract either facilitating, or obstructing that mass conversation. Strange Angels is Kristin Hersh’s subscription service. For $30 a quarter, her strange angels get a new song every month (no writer’s block allowed, I guess!), a guest list to any of her gigs that you want to go to, a free copy of any physical releases and access to extra online material (videos, photos). Oh, and she’ll give you the phone number to her studio, in case you fancy a chat.

It’s real encouragement for anybody looking to harness the benefits of this new digital age that we live in, or striving to connect with people and fight off the isolation that comes with staring at a laptop screen for 23 hours a day.

Look here for her music: http://kristinhersh.cashmusic.org/speedbath/

Search the rest of Cash Music for similar like-minded artists: http://cashmusic.org/

Well, they timed this one well. Just as the autumn is caving under the weight of impending winter, as the icy gin and tonics give way to a full-bodied bottle of red, and just as walking around the flat with no socks on slowly ceases to be a viable option.
A.A. Bondy’s songs encourage the kind of semi-nihilistic amateur harmonising that I have not offered up since I first listened to John Doe’s solo work. He’s got the spirit of Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, but his work is more considered; sounding like it was conceived in a coffee house rather than a crack den (sorry, MBAR, it’s a compliment, of sorts). His voice sounds heavy with tweed and leather-bound books and I shall happily pay heed to his advice not to “go round when the devil’s loose.” He sounds like a man that has encountered the devil on a dark night, even if it was in his local branch of Starbucks.
If ever a religion was formed around my shaky beliefs regarding my existence on this planet, I’d have Bondy as a regular in the church on a Sunday. I say ‘church’, I mean ‘pub’, obviously… I say ‘Sunday’, I reckon Thursday’s usually a better day for most folks to meet up. We can iron out the details later. But he’s on the list.

This an extract of an interview that I did with Mudhoney a few weeks back, over a tasty curry at Hansa’s in Leeds.

All of the band were present and to sum them each up in a pointlessly reductive manner, Mark was playful, like a puppy that would tear your leg off if you gave him the wrong dog food. Steve seemed more studious (though maybe it was just the glasses… gee, that really is reductive). Guy was passionate and keen to chat, just as keen to eat (and the grub is mighty fine here). Dan was quiet – he seems like a speak-when-he’s-got-something-important-to-say kinda chap. Which is possibly why he doesn’t feature too heavily in this section.

I wanted to talk to the band about the rising culture of revisionism in music. When I used that phrase, they initially gawked at me like I’d just puked up the Review section of that day’s Guardian newspaper. Convinced that it was a real word and I was using it in the right context, I bumbled on, asking them how they feel about bands reforming, revisiting old material, vaguely mentioning ATP and skirting around the ‘Don’t Look Back’ series, of which Mudhoney took part a few years ago.

Mark: “You mean the ‘Don’t Look Back’ stuff?”

Er, yeah, that and the fact that there are a hell of a lot of bands reforming, like the New York Dolls, etc, etc, blah blah blah.

Mark: “I go by a case-by-case thing really (there are mumbles of agreement between mouthfuls). I mean, I was really excited to see the The Stooges. I’m not as excited to see The Stooges with James Williamson. But I’m still pretty excited to see them… It was a pretty weird process for us to do it (referring to their ‘Don’t Look Back’ performance of Superfuzz Bigmuff Plus Early Singles) But we’re doing it again with the Raw Power Stooges (sic) in New York, about a year from now.”

Guy: “Barry (Hogan, All Tomorrow’s Parties henchman)’s been very clever, because he’s picked bands that have been popular for him. There’s people that want to see them that didn’t get a chance to see them.”

Mark: “And it’s a really fucking good idea.”

Guy: “But a lot of these bands reforming, you know, a lot of it’s about money.”

Care to name names?

Steve: “Well, I think that’s a good part of why we’re doing it, right?” (more mumbles of agreement)

Mark: “And I think a band like The Stooges should get the money.

Sure, I get what you’re saying, but you know, there’s tons of bands that I like, that I never got to see first time round, but you know, that wasn’t my time. Why should I feel the need to be a part of it? Isn’t it a bit selfish to insist on having a little bit of everybody’s past for yourself? Doesn’t kind of indicate a serious lack of anything happening in the here and now, if we’re all desperately scrabbling around getting bands to reform and recreate the past? Sounds like a fairly damning indictment of modern music culture…

Mark: “So don’t go.”

I won’t!

Guy: “You can never recreate the real thing; like, seeing the Stooges in a football stadium in Seattle is never like seeing them in a small ballroom in the ‘70s.”

Steve: “I’m amazed that, you know, punk rock fans wear the same things that punk rock fans have worn for years. You know, it’s like, you’re worse than the hippies ever were…When we got into music, people were wearing stuff from, like, 10 years before, late ‘60s, early ‘70s and this was the ‘80s. Punk rock was like, what? 30 years ago? People wearing leather jackets with The Clash and The Exploited patches right next to each other, you know, just not getting the point at all. At the time, there was a huge gulf between those two bands. Now it’s all kinda the same thing.”

Mark: “I’m always happy when I see the kids doing something that I don’t expect them to do.”

Steve: “So, what, you’re happy when they wear leather jackets with The Clash and The Expoited next to each other?”

Mark: “No, but I accept that, because…” (at this point, Mark’s profound statement is cut off by the more pressing issue of a waitress taking our drinks orders)

I think there’s a lot less tribalism with kids these days, they listen to loads of different types of music, because it’s all there at their fingertips.

Guy: (the conversation moves on to electronic music and access to downloads) “people don’t really buy albums, they just buy tracks. And there’s so much out there, so much that’s underground, they start a label on their own or there’s independent labels. Thre’s all these labels of what it actually is – it’s fascinating.”

I guess, in a way, it’s become so much easier now for kids to sit at home, with a laptop, than it is to lug guitars and amps across town. Harder to find places to practise too. I think in many places, people are less tolerant of noise, warehouses & practise places are getting bulldozed to make way for posh flats, councils trying to gentrify every inch of their towns and cities…

Steve: “And you can also discover so much music now, just sitting at your computer, which I think is great.”

Mark: “But you know, I looked for those first two Stooges records for a couple of years before finding them on Canadian import in Oregon…”

There is a general agreement that the widespread availability of downloads kinda kills the thrill of the hunt that record collectors have thrived on for years. Pity the children. And the lazy ones…