My interview with the Stereo MCs was a disaster from the
start. I wasn’t supposed to be the one interviewing
them so had very little time to prepare questions and
working equipment. And of course, Stereo Mcs Nick
Hallam and Rob Birch are fairly
intimidating people, which did not help my ill-prepared
self one little bit.
I showed up to the venue early, was wandering around in
a daze, was introduced to the guys, was terrified of Rob
as he has this perpetual expression like he could punch
you in the face at any given moment, was left wandering
with the guys for a quiet place to talk, ended up in the
middle of the greenery in Hoxton Square, sat down for
our chat, and none of my frickin equipment worked! Luckily
Rob didn’t throw a punch at this.
Nick was very understanding – he was the main one
responding to my interview questions… He was SO
understanding that after the interview he said that if
my recording didn’t work, I could take the liberty
to make up the entire interview!!! GENIUS!
Turns
out my equipment DID work, but fuck it… Nick Hallam
said I could, so here is my made up interview with the
Stereo MCs:
LLHG:
So guys. What inspired you to get into the music
biz? NH: I always walk around the house with
major AGRO, banging shit, like pots and pans and stuff
so I thought, why not make some money out of this? RB:*intense stare*
LLHG: Fascinating. So of all the people
you’ve worked with, who were some of your faves? NH: Beyonce. She was a class act. RB:*intense stare*
LLHG: Who was your first love? NH: Well, let’s just say that Justin
wasn’t Britney’s first. Or, rather, Britney
wasn’t Justin’s first. RB:*intense stare*
Well, there you have it folks. Total utter nonsense inspired
by the words of Nick Hallam and the stare of Rob Birch,
collectively known as the Stereo MCs.
The real interview was more like this:
GARY
NUMAN Mighty Boosh Festival 2008 From Right to Left: Me and Gaz
How can I not admit that I was shitting myself at the
prospect of interviewing Gary Numan – the LEGEND
himself. I kept putting it off saying I didn’t mind
waiting until the end of the journalist queue for my interview,
trying to go over all of the research I had done about
him over the past few days in preparation for our chat.
After all, I didn’t want to seem clueless about
his epic past, even though I was only aware of dribs n
drabs before my date with Google.
The music speaks for itself. His most famous hit Cars
is recognized all over the world nearly 30 years after
its release. He’s been sampled numerous times by
everyone from the Sugababes to Basement Jaxx to who knows
who else. He’s also influenced some top artists
such as Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Beck, Dave Grohl,
and countless others. He’s also mentioned rather
fondly as well as frequently by Noel Fielding’s
Vince Noir on the Mighty Boosh. He’s used to this
affectionate fan behaviour as his loyal fanbase call themselves
Numanoids.
He’s rather modest about the whole LEGEND status
and Numanoid following. He is genuinely flattered by all
the attention he gets and cites Noel and fellow admirer
Trent Reznor mutual influences as he’s a fan of
them as much as they’re fans of his! LEGEND!!!
On the BOOSH attention, Gaz says, “The thing
that’s lovely about it is that I am genuinely a
fan and I saw the first ever… I actually saw Noel
do standup about 2 years before I even knew about the
boosh… so I was actually a fan of him before I even
knew who he was… Then the boosh came along and I
started to get mentioned on it and I just thought HOW
COOL IS THAT!”
Is he the nicest rock star ever or what!!?
Anyway, discussing what he thought of those artists that
cite him as an influence but copy his sounds rather than
his early pop-modernist attitude, he again was just grateful
for the attention and the adoration and does not take
his success for granted whatsoever. Especially when Trent
Reznor told him that he was the reason that he ever got
into keyboards in the first place, Gary was just flattered
as he was a huge Nine Inch Nails fan!
I didn’t get a chance to get onto the topic of his
aviation skills (the man has a pilot’s license!
LEGEND!), but I did get to geek it up a bit and ask him
how the evolution of technology has affected his music
writing process. Gary believes one must learn discipline
otherwise it would take 10 years to make an album playing
with all the toys now readily available. In some ways
he envies guitar bands as he feels it must be ‘easier’
for them to just nail their sounds.
I didn’t have time to ask our usual One Word
to Sum You Up question, so I am taking the liberty
of deciding that it’s LEGEND
Robots
in Disguise THE
TRIALS OF THE ROBOTS
The Mighty Boosh Festival 2008 The Robots put on their Geil (HORNY)
faces for the camera
Girl
duo Robots in Disguise are probably known better for their
Mighty Boosh association than their music. But with some
great electro tunes in the vein of Chicks on Speed or
Peaches, I doubt things will be that way forever for Robots
in Disguise.
While guest appearing on Mighty Boosh (Dee Plume dates
Noel Fielding!) has exposed them to a wider audience,
the gals still find it stressful being in the music biz
as their autobiographical single We’re In the Music
Biz may allude to. Dee Plume and Sue Denim have been around
for years and of course being 2 girls, they have experienced
sexism firsthand in the cock-rock dominated music industry.
“GET ON THE FUCKING STAGE AND PLAY”
is some of the abuse they’ve gotten from ‘macho’
sound engineers. “Yeah you’re girls, who
do you think you are? The music industry is still really
about boys. There are just loads of girls coming to our
gigs and I feel like we’re doing something important
for them.”
I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with the Robots, but I got
the impression that they’re slightly ADD jumping
from one topic to another, breaking into song and sporadically
admiring my watch. Full of energy, hyper, fun-loving good
people who are coming up to nearly 10 years in the music
biz because they genuinely love what they do and are not
in it for the money, or lack of in their case.
Sue currently lives in Berlin with their drummer, one
reason being that she can’t afford to live in London.
She has a “good quality of life out there in
Berlin as an ex pat” with rent a mere 200 euros
per month. Berlin is like a bigger Shoreditch in their
eyes. A huge music scene including their idol Peaches
who they desperately want as producer on their next album…
They promised they would be asking her that day while
she was on site to perform a DJ set! Let us know how it
went girls!!!
Even though Dee and Sue live in different cities, they
still manage to work well together. Many of their songs
were written over the past few years and Dee went to live
in Berlin for three months while making the last album.
When asked our usual tormenting question of one word to
sum them up, after much debate, the word is…
(drum roll please)Geil
– the German word for HORNY!
Jack
Penate is not what you think he is. He’s not just
another pretty boy on the London scene; he’s not
just another version of Lily Allen, Kate Nash or Jamie
T. He seems to abhor fame and the fact that he shared
an NME cover with Kate Nash leading people to pigeonhole
him by association, therefore misjudge him as his music
is nothing like hers except for the fact that he has a
vague London accent.
Jack as a person is quite different to Jack as a musician.
Musically he can often come across as harsh or self-proclaimed
‘simple’ as many of his musical influences
have been derived from ska and soul among other genres.
Personally he seems thoughtful, easy-going, genuinely
concerned that I might have lost my Ipod on the ferry
ride over (I didn’t, don’t worry) and a happy
individual. And why shouldn’t he be with his debut
album breaking the charts and him loving every minute
of it!
Excited yet nervous to play Bestival, Jack has worked
his way up from trying to entertain crowds of 10 people,
to holding his own on a festival stage. He’s still
down to earth enough to let the paranoia of a potential
lack of audience get to him. Lucky for us he realises
that it’s worth that risk in exchange for the possibility
that he might make a new fan or two in the crowd.
With witty analogies comparing studio recording and live
recording to writing a play and being an actor, Jack creates
music for his sanity, as it is his emotional outlet. With
soulful and ‘simple’ music, a thoughtful manner
and raw geniality, Jack Penate has won me over.
One word to sum him up? Non-cynical. He is one happy chap
indeed!
-----------------------------------------
The
Sounds
Roskilde Festival July 2007 Yes, he is winking at us
I’m
rather ashamed to admit it now that I’ve seen them
in action, but I’d never heard of The Sounds before
this year’s Roskilde festival. Well, someone’s
been missing out because they’re pretty fucking
cool. Hot front-woman Maja rocks the Annie Lennox-style
androgyny and has a belting voice. And, as much as the
band may deny their 80s influences, they can do a power
ballad better than Berlin can (quite well). Not to mention
the synths.
We met Sounds drummer Fredrik for a chat at Roskilde on
the Friday (the ONLY day it didn’t rain). Here’s
what he had to say for himself, more or less:
How did you guys first meet?
We’re all from a pretty small town in Sweden (Helsingborg).
Johan (bass) and Felix (guitar) knew each other when they
were kids, they played soccer or something together. Years
later, me and Johan were living in the same neighbourhood
and he asked me to be in the band. Maja and Felix went
to the same art school so he asked her to be in the band.
A year later we met Jesper (synths) at a festival in Sweden.
That was in 1999.
How has your sound changed over the years?
In the beginning, when you don’t know how to write
songs that well, you focus more on making a whole lot
of noise. I think we’re becoming better and better
at songwriting. We know much more what we want these days,
especially in the studio. In the beginning we knew how
to play live, but we didn’t really know what we
were doing in the studio. We had to put our trust in the
people working with us, but they didn’t always have
the same vision of how we were going to sound. But these
days we’re much more in control.
Your first album was recorded in Sweden and your
second in America. What were the differences?
Well, they were two totally different records. Recording
the first album was quite easy – all the songs were
written and played over 100 times live. But for the second
album we spent three months in the studio just doing stuff
because we didn’t have 100 shows behind us. Also,
the first time we were in a much smaller studio. No one
wants to spend any money on a band no one’s heard
about.
Why do you think you’ve achieved such popularity
in America? (The band feature on the Snakes on a Plane
soundtrack and played at Bam Margera’s wedding.
Random!)
For a year and a half we devoted all our time to playing
in America. Most Sweden bands go to America and play a
couple of shows, but we kept going and going.
How do you feel about being labelled New Wave?
Well, we don’t really agree with that label, but
that’s what the media does – puts things into
boxes. We wouldn’t say our sound was really 80s
– we have so many influences, we listen to a lot
of reggae and stuff.
With
music downloads being at the forefront of the industry,
do you feel the pressure to make each song a single?
No, I think digital music is good for bands to get exposure
and develop their fanbase. But people get bored and will
want something new. Our next album will definitely be
an 'album'.
If you could describe The Sounds in one word?
Snacks.
Jazzy
Jeff – or to give him his proper, post-legal battle
with Jazzy Jeff of Funky Four Plus One fame title, DJ
Jazzy Jeff – is difficult to know how to approach.
He’s the man who used to have such a reputation
on the Philadelphia hip hop scene that, by all accounts,
Will Smith used to get bottled off stage because the headnodders
wanted to trainspot Jeff creating the transformer scratch.
He’s the man who made my 21st birthday such a good
night for dancing I forgot to get blind drunk and earn
a spot on Britain’s Most Pissed and Incapable. He’s
also the man who most people only really know as the comic
foil that routinely enraged Uncle Phil and caused Jeffrey’s
eyes to roll skywards.
In short, a phenomenally talented DJ and turntablist who
became a household name for reasons entirely unconnected
to his most apparent skills. Speaking to Jeff, it becomes immediately apparent that
he subscribes to the classic KRS-1 maxim, ‘Rap is
something you do/Hip hop is something you live.’
He’s deeply frustrated with the current US rap scene.
As far as he’s concerned the rap industry is now
just that – a business like any other, that identifies
its target audience, markets viciously, sorts out the
post-product merchandising opportunities, does the beancounting
on tour revenues, and wonders as an afterthought whether
they’ve got an ex-drug dealer with a vague vocal
co-ordination to hang it all on.
Jeff’s mission with new album The Return of the
Magnificent has been to ‘take it back to momma’s
basement’. If you listen to any of the tunes, it’s
clear that they’re full of the old-school scratching
style and jazz breaks that hip hop was built on. It’s
no coincidence that Jeff is quick to namecheck Gangstarr’s
master producer DJ Premier when talking about other DJs
that have become fed up with the US’s demand for
gangsterism and decamped to Europe to find an appreciative
market.
But he hasn’t come to England just to peddle US
hip hop to Brits though. Jeff’s quick to bemoan
the fact that people like Dizzee Rascal and Ty who’ve
got ‘crazy energy’ aren’t making it
over in the US, but says that they always go down well
when he plays them stateside.
Looking over my back-of-an-envelope notes and questions
it becomes quickly apparent that most of the questions
I asked Jeff during our brief chat were ones that were
always going to elicit negative responses about the state
of US hip-hop. But you can’t help thinking that
if they were more people like Jeff out there, trying to
make people move to a dancefloor rather than figuring
out just how many words they can rhyme with gun, then
he would have had much more to be positive about.
