This man is still ridiculously funny..
Friday, 29 June 2012
Thursday, 28 June 2012
DRUMBO BOOK MASK REPLICA - post bag and an explanation
Yesterday was a peculiar day. Good things happened (like the arrival of this magnificent book on his sojourn with Captain Beefheart by John "Drumbo" French), but I was feeling a little untogether when I woke up. This led on to me posting the wrong set of notifications (which in turn prompted me to say that I was 'several Rizlas short of a suspiciously long cigarette') However, I got more untogether as the day progressed (totally screwing up a telephone appointment with Tony Hawks - sorry Tony) and by the end of the day I was in the middle of one of my "episodes".Regular readers will know what I mean. For newbies, I am bipolar, and sometimes - like today - my mental state collapses. I am pilled to the gills at the moment, and can write reasonably coherently, but don't expect much else out of me for a day or two.
Past experience shows that normal service will be resumed in a day or so...
LINK: Michael Des Barres - Video du jour
Don’t ask me why, but we like Michael Des Barres. We met him a few years ago at SXSW in Austin and ran into him on the streets of SXSW in subsequent years. He played and sang with former Sex Pistol Steve Jones in 2009 and had some band gigs on his own in 2010 and (maybe) 2011. We forget.Read on...
Preorder Michael's fantastic new album
LINK: The voice of Yes
Whether he’s singing “Owner of a Lonely Heart” to a 40,000-seat stadium or “Big Buddha Song” off his newest solo album Survival & Other Stories to an audience of 500 lucky souls at a winery, there’s no mistaking Jon Anderson’s voice. It’s the voice that propelled Yes to superstardom, and Anderson’s impressionistic and mystically themed lyrics are behind his band’s biggest hits.
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Anderson still crisscrosses the globe, playing music for audiences big and small, but for the past decade, he’s called SLO County home, always returning to his house just south of Arroyo Grande. He discovered the area years ago because his wife Jane’s sister lives here.
“On a visit, I remember seeing a police car trying to push an old Volkswagen hippie van that had stalled, and I thought, I want to live in a place like this. It has good energy,” Anderson said during a recent phone interview.
In 1997, when Yes reformed after a 10-year hiatus to record the album Keys to Ascension, he recorded it here, in what is now Heritage Oaks Bank on the corner of Marsh and Santa Rosa streets. For the past eight years, he’s concentrated on performing intimate solo shows.
“I’ve been traveling the world doing these solo acoustic shows where I’ll perform pockets of Yes and Vangelis songs, new songs which have been very well received, and in between telling stories about my life, my crazy, wonderful life I have lived and am living. It’s sort of like theater for me, and I really enjoy sharing this music and these memories.”
You want to find the Gonzo artist page for Jon Anderson? Of course..
LINK: Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman & Howe — BIRTHRIGHT
Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe were the vocalist, drummer, keyboardist and guitarist in the progressive rock band Yes. Over the years, each had come and gone, and in Anderson’s case, come back again. When the quartet came together in the late 1980s to form a new band, the name ‘Yes’ was still being used. Yes officially consisted of Anderson, vocalist/guitarist Trevor Rabin, bassist Chris Squire, drummer Alan White and keyboardist Tony Kaye. They were in a purple patch as a result of the roaring successes of the 90125 album and the ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’ single (which were produced by former Buggles, and Yes singer Trevor Horn).
And guess what? There is a Gonzo artist page for ABWH Go check it out..
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
MEET THE 9 HENRYS
For the past few months I have been working on this new book for Gonzo. I think that Peter McAdam's creations are hysterically funny. My wife thinks they are stupid.It is good to have differences of opinion in a relationship. Healthy like.
The book will be available to the world at large in a matter of days so expect a blitz of publicity...
Easy listening medley of Hawkwind, T-Rex and Alice Cooper by The James Last Orchestra, 1973
I could hear this playing in the other side of the house on my wife’s computer. “It isn’t?”
Oh, but IT IS: Mr. Dante Fontana of Mod Cinema has posted this clip of fab German bandleader James Last and his Orchestra performing an indescribably great medley of Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine,” “Children Of The Revolution” by T-Rex and Alice Cooper’s anthem to juvenile delinquency, “Schools’ Out.”
How lucky are we that this clip exists in the world: The James fucking Last Orchestra playing a decidedly UN-IRONIC (but truly incredible) big band version of Hawkwind’s greatest hit in 1973??? I mean, for that alone, sign me up, but throw in T-Rex and Alice Cooper covers in this style, too? That’s a party. A voodoo party.
Read on...
LOOK WHAT HELEN (McCookerybook) HAS FOR SALE
A quid each, or nine for a tenner (supermarket value!!!)
LINK: Starship enterprise - Music is still a frontier for Paul Kantner and Co
The time was 1970. Jefferson Airplane, one of the most successful 1960s rock bands to merge folk-rock and psychedelia, was in the process of crashing to the ground.
Paul Kantner, one of the group’s principal songwriters and guitarists, had already begun crafting a set of songs for what was supposed to be the next Jefferson Airplane album. Instead, he recruited a number of other musicians (including friends David Crosby and Graham Nash, as well as his partner, Grace Slick, the Airplane’s female singer) to record the songs.
...and check out the Gonzo Artist Page for Jefferson Starship you know it makes sense.
LINK: How Martin Stephenson sabotaged his own career and found contentment
THERE can’t be many musicians who, when poised for stardom, deliberately set out to sabotage their own careers — but then Martin Stephenson is not your average musician.
With his band The Daintees, the amiable Geordie was one of the rising stars of the British music scene in the mid Eighties.
The album Boat to Bolivia had established him as one of the best songwriters of his generation and the big time beckoned.
“At 22 I found myself employing 18 people and paying a VAT bill of £38,000,” said Martin. “I was cocooned like a queen bee with all these worker bees doing things for me.
“We were playing to 2,000 people a night but I realised it wasn’t what I wanted.
Check out the artist page for Martin Stephenson
Check out the artist page for Martin and Helen
Check out the artist page for The Daintees
Classic Rock Legends Jefferson Starship To Release Exclusive Live 4-CD Set 'Tales From The Mothership'
The Paul Kantner Science Fiction Rock & Roll Motion Picture Show!
June 26, 2012 - London, UK - “Roswell UFO Parade & Festival Hosts Jefferson Starship Sci-Fi Extravaganza” read the headlines for the annual July 3rd event that took place in Roswell, New Mexico in 2009. Jefferson Airplane founder Paul Kantner and his legendary band Jefferson Starship and special guests, which included original Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten, performed a one-of-a-kind sci-fi concert at Pearson Auditorium in Roswell in honor of the town's famed annual parade. The group was also bestowed the honor of being the parade's 'Grand Martians' that year and rode atop a special float especially built for them. The entire concert was filmed and recorded, and in addition to such iconic hits as “White Rabbit”, “Somebody To Love”, “Volunteers”, “Wooden Ships” recorded by its forebear Jefferson Airplane (the last two penned by Kantner), a special programme of science fiction themed compositions and select recordings were performed, some for the first time ever! Now, much to the excitement of Jefferson Starship fans across the globe UK's Gonzo MultiMedia is releasing the the entire concert in an extravagant 4-CD box set.
In 1971 the band's first album (Paul Kantner's first solo album actually), 'Blows Against The Empire' was also the first rock music recording ever nominated for literary science fiction's prestigious Hugo Award. In addition to Kantner, 'Blows' featured a 'Who's Who' of Bay Area musicians including David Freiberg from Quicksilver Messenger Service. Freiberg and Kantner, later launched the ongoing Jefferson Starship, eventually writing the hit “Jane.” David rejoined the band full time in 2005.
In 1991 the late great rock impresario Bill Graham signed on to produce 'Blows' from a 'scripted stage play concept' co-written bu Paul Kantner and his (then) new manager Michael Gaiman, a lifelong fan. Sadly, Bill was killed in a helicopter crash and the idea was shelved until Sony Pictures pitched an 'option' for a 'Blows' motion picture in 1996. “That was a big year for sci-fi,” recalls Gaiman. Stemming from a shared interest in 1950s science fiction film and literature, Paul and Michael have worked together for nearly 25 years. In 2008 they co-produced (along with David Freiberg), 'Jefferson's Tree of Liberty,' Jefferson Starship's first studio recording in a decade. The album garnered stellar reviews worldwide. In 2009 Jefferson Starship headlined 'The Heroes of Woodstock', the authorized touring commemorative of the 1969 Woodstock Music & Arts Festival.
“On July 3rd, 2009, thanks to the Roswell UFO Festival Committee and Cool 94.9 Radio, we got to scratch that itch and assuage a long time desire to stage a mosh of rock music and science fiction,” says Gaiman.
Along with Paul Kantner and David Frieberg, Jefferson Starship also features lead singer Cathy Richardson (who played Janis Joplin on Broadway in 'Love, Janis') and longtime band members Slick Aguilar, Chris Smith and Donny Baldwin. In addition to Grateful Dead's Tom Constanten, special guests include Pete Sears (the band's former bass & keyboard player on all their hits), Barry Sless (guitar & pedal steel with Phil Lesh & Friends), former lead vocalist Darby Gould and legendary folk artist Jack Taylor, one of Paul Kantner's early musical influences.
Renegade Productions, the band's frequent collaborator ('Jefferson's Tree of Liberty' was the first album ever recorded in their new studio at the time) staged the production and provided custom sound, lighting and image projection. Karl Anderson of Global Recording Artists filmed the event dubbed 'Tales From The Mothership,' a joint production of The Roswell UFO Festival Committee and Jefferson Starship. “It's not a documentary, not a 'rockumentary', not a 'mockumentary'...it's a 'Spockumentary,” Gaiman quips.
Along with the entire concert from July 3, 2009, the 4-CD set also includes rehearsals from 6/27/2009 and the band's soundcheck before the show.
For more information: http://jeffersonstarship.com
To order Jefferson Starship – 'Tales From The Mothership' 4-CD set:
Progressive Rock Band GPS Releases LIVE 2DVD/4CD Box Set Entitled Two Seasons Live In Japan
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Progressive rock band GPS releases Two Seasons Live in Japan, a 2DVD/4CD box set documenting two powerful performances in Japan from 2007. Released by GONZO Multimedia, the box set features 2 video DVDS and 4 audio CDs containing two complete concerts. Priced at $29.99 (US) and £24.99 (UK) the box set is available NOW for pre-order at http://www.gonzomultimedia.com/product_details/15493 (US) and http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/product_details/15493 (UK/Europe). Orders ship June 18, 2012.
GPS (founded in 2006) includes singer/bassist John Payne (ASIA), guitarist Guthrie Govan (ASIA, the Aristocrats), drummer Jay Schellen (ASIA, CIRCA:, Conspiracy), and keyboardist Ryo Okumoto (Spocks Beard).
Volume One is a full band ensemble performance filmed "guerrilla-style" at Tokyo's O-West. Volume Two showcases John Payne and Guthrie Govan in an intimate acoustic setting at Clapper in Tokyo, filmed by multiple cameras. Both sets contain a mix of tracks from GPS's debut album "Window to the Soul", classic ASIA tracks and solo features.
Bonus DVD features include a lengthy interview with John Payne, Jay Schellen and Ryo Okumoto shot in 2011, and an in-store acoustic performance by John Payne and Guthrie Govan. The box set is housed in super jewel style cases in a handsome sleeve.
The DVDs are standard definition, region-free, and NTSC encoded. Production and engineering by John Payne, Jakko Jakszyk and Harold Houldershaw.
Priced at $29.99 (US) and £24.99 (UK) the box set is available NOW for pre-order at http://www.gonzomultimedia.com/product_details/15493 (US) and http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/product_details/15493 (UK/Europe). Orders ship June 18, 2012.
Tracklistings and credits:
DVD Volume 1 (cds 1/2)
Performance date: 14-Oct 2007
Venue: O-WEST, Tokyo/Shibuya
filmed by Shinpei Sato
Volume 1 video sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXC2fLRosj0
1. The Objector
2. All My Life
3. Since You've Been Gone
4. Heaven Can Wait
5. Window To The Soul
6. Taken Dreams
7. Ryo's Keyboard Solo
8. Military Man (Acoustic) (Asia)
9. Gold (Acoustic)
10. Written On The Wind (Acoustic)
11. Silent Nation (Asia)
12. Long Way From Home (Asia)
13. Jay Schellen Drum Solo
14. Only Time Will Tell (Asia)
15. Guthrie Govan Guitar Solo
16. Heat Of The Moment (Asia)
17. New Jerusalem
John Payne: Vocals, Bass, Guitar
Jay Schellen: Drums, Percussion
Guthrie Govan: Guitars
Ryo Okumoto: Keyboards
DVD bonus:
John and Guthrie in-store performance
"GPS Jazz Trio" excerpt
DVD Volume 2 (cds 3/4)
Performance date: 6-April 2007
Venue: Clapper, Tokyo
Volume 2 video sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD2uFmH3SnE
1. Taken Dreams
2. All My Life
3. Written on the Wind
4. Heaven Can wait
5. Gold
6. The Objector
7. Guthrie Govan guitar solo
8. I Believe in Yesterday
9. Window to the Soul
10. New Jerusalem
11. Since You've Been Gone
12. Military Man (Asia)
13. The Longest Night (Asia)
John Payne: Vocals, Guitar
Guthrie Govan: Guitars
DVD bonus: interviews
Priced at $29.99 (US) and £24.99 (UK) the box set is available NOW for pre-order at http://www.gonzomultimedia.com/product_details/15493 (US) and http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/product_details/15493 (UK/Europe). Orders ship June 18, 2012.
LINK: Galahad review
http://progressiverockcentral.com/2012/06/15/battle-scars/
Battle Scars
– JUNE 15, 2012POSTED IN: CD REVIEWS
LINK: Rick Wakeman review
http://www.classicrockrevisited.com/reviewwakmanlive83.htm
Rick Wakeman & the New English Rock Ensemble – In the Nick of Time Live in 2003
Gonzo Multimedia
www.rwcc.com
Rating: B
What do you get when a virtuoso musician, who can simultaneously play 600 keyboards at the same time, is a master of musical composition and an all around genius who wears a cape puts a band together? Why progressive rock, of course. And with Rick Wakeman you get a nice mix of several additional genres to go with it.
This concert, from 2003, is a huge serving of some of the most complex popular style music ever created. The man is an insanely talented musician. This album features some of the best classical/prog/pop/rock music he has ever created. “Catherine Parr” opens the concert and sets the tone for an evening of masterful musicianship. “White Rock” and “Wurm” are, alone, worth checking this disc out.
That one man can be this talented, and funny, and cool, is just not fair. If you want to be impressed by a keyboard, cape wearing freak of musical nature then check out this show and remember, it’s live…he did this live…simply amazing.
By Jeb Wright
Check out his Gonzo Artist Page
Tuesday, 26 June 2012
MICHAEL DES BARRES: Carnaby Street Extended Edition
Carnaby Street, the new album from The Michael Des Barres Band, will be released on July 9th. But there will also be a Limited Edition of the album that comes with a Bonus DVD.
Here’s some info on the contents of the DVD:
“The Bonus DVD includes an in-depth interview with MDB about the reasons behind the album, his band, his take on the music biz, what he listens to and where he’s at. Entertaining and informative stuff. A video of the break out song “You’re My Pain Killer”. 4 live videos of tracks from the album, recorded at the legendary Hollywood night club “The Viper Room”. The Power Station’s appearance at Live Aid and a rare video of Silverhead performing their signature song “16 and Savaged”, plus an audio of Swan Song act Detective’s much heralded song “One More Heartache”… A comprehensive look at MDB’s past and present! You will determine the future!”
Limited Edition (CD + DVD) pre-order links:
gonzomultimedia.com (USA/Canada) $14.99
gonzomultimedia.co.uk (UK/Europe/Rest of the world) £9.99
THAT'S WHY GOD MADE THE RADIO
Why are the mainstream music press being so churlish about the Beach Boys? The surviving members of the band including David Marks, who was booted out by Murray Wilson in the early 1960s and Murray’s son Brian, the tortured genius responsible for all their greatest songs, have got together and made a 50th Anniversary album. And I think it’s rather nice. The trouble is, that your more conventional music journalist types don’t agree with me.
From where I’m sitting it is – if not quite a masterpiece – still a pretty good album; on a par with Brian Wilson’s more recent records, and better than anything that the Beach Boys have done for decades. Maybe that’s the problem.
In the last ten years, Brian Wilson has produced three major albums, all in collaboration with various outside musicians, mostly connected with a band called the Wondermints. The first and most controversial of these was/is their re-imagining of their 1967 meisterwork Smile. The second a song cycle in collaboration with Van Dyke Parks (who wrote most of the lyrics of Smile) called That Happy Old Sun. I liked both of these albums, and have even had a seasonal hum and toe tap along to the third (and much slighter) record, a collection of Christmas songs called Christmassy. For some reason, the mainstream music press seem to have an aversion to post-therapy Brian. They seemed convinced that he is somehow being exploited by person or persons unknown, and that therefore his tunes, which I think are often as magical as ever, are somehow diminished.
The reception to the two most recent Beach Boys’ records is ever so indicative of this. The new album is – apparently – contrived. Of course it’s contrived, it was put together by a bunch of people who have had no real connection with each other for decades, to mark a half-century since they first started playing together in the early 1960s. So what! The album has lovely moments and is certainly better than anything he has done in the Beach Boys name since the Beach Boys Love You in 1977 (which was, by the way, an album full of first fruits of Brian Wilson’s first batch of therapy with the controversial therapist Dr Eugene Landy). It is, unlike most records of this ilk, surprisingly age appropriate. This is not a bunch of old men pretending to be teenagers. This is singers, composers and lyricists in the autumn of their lives, basking in the glow of a rich and fulfilling sunset. They could, I suppose be accused of looking back at their glory days through rose-tinted spectacles. But, for heaven’s sake, who doesn’t? As a man in my early 50s, I look back at the time when I was thin, could walk properly, and didn’t have a mortgage. It is only natural.
The other recent album is more problematic. It is the long awaited release of the Beach Boys’ own recordings of Smile from 1967. They are, of course, a valuable historical document, but it should always be remembered that these are demos, rough working sketches of a work in progress, and should not be compared in any real sense with the Brian Wilson version of 2004. They are two totally different animals. In fact, I found it vaguely unpleasant trying to listen to them back to back, and gave up.
The Beach Boys have given us some of the most glorious Caucasian rock and pop music of the past half century. Brian Wilson has written some of the most enduring songs in that time and the band’s falsettos and harmonies have provided the soundtrack to many of our lives. Can we not just leave it at that, and allow them to enjoy their 50th Anniversary?
LINK: Jon Anderson Live at the Napa Valley Opera House
“Everywhere I go, all over the world, people sing this song. I hear it in Brazil, Argentina, Japan. They don’t know what the words mean, but they sing it. I don’t know what the words mean, either.” Everybody laughs. He plays Your Move/All Good People.
Jon Anderson is a consummate performer. He was perfectly at ease in front an audience, which is only to be expected, but not all artists of his renown are like that. When he talked, he was authentic and direct. He has a great spirit which is a joy to experience, and he put a lot of humor into his performance. The audience was highly appreciative, even to the point of giving him a standing ovation just for coming on stage and after every song. Part of this may have had to do with the fact that this was in Napa, the very heart of California wine country, where half the people are half-baked, a good number are fully baked, and a noticeable few are clearly overdone. Jon played guitar, a little electric piano, and an instrument he described as being based on a Chinese stringed instrument. It looked a lot like a Turkish sasz to me, and sounded very similar. He told a lot of stories about “the band,” and about meeting some individuals in the early years like Joe Cocker and Robert Plant, before all became stars.
DAN WOODING: The secret picture
BRENTFORD, LONDON, UK (ANS) -- It was a rather extraordinary situation for me when, back in 1978, I had just completed Rick Wakeman, the Caped Crusader, the official biography of my old friend, Rick Wakeman, the former keyboardist with YES, and a talented musician who has been named by many critics as the “world’s greatest rock keyboard player.”
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At Rick’s request, I had approached Elton John’s publicist to see if Elton would write the foreword. To start with, the request was turned down by the publicist, but then to my great relief, I got a call from her that Elton (now Sir Elton) had agreed to do so.
Now came the tricky part. The publisher wanted a picture of Rick, Elton and I, to go on the back cover of the book and a photographer was hired to take some photos before a soccer game between Brentford FC and Watford FC.
Rick was then a big fan of Brentford and Elton was, at the time, chairman of Watford.
ROUND IRELAND WITH A FRIDGE.....
Imagine the scene. Middle-aged bass player, cryptozoologist, and occasionally rock music journalist limps into his sitting room, shoos the orange cat off his favourite chair and sits down. His nephew and niece have come for the evening. “What are your plans for the evening Uncle Jon?” asks Jessica. “Rob Ayling has sent me a DVD about a mate of his who hitchhiked around Ireland with a fridge, as a drunken bet. I’m going to watch that this evening,” he says with a cheerful smile. For some reason this was a cue for niece and nephew to leave hurriedly, his lovely wife to suddenly decide that there are things to do in the other room, his equally lovely mother-in-law to immerse herself in a jigsaw puzzle and the also equally lovely boxer-cross-bulldog bitch to curl up in a corner, go to sleep and snore loudly.Our hero, leaning heavily on his walking stick limps to the wine cellar (actually, a cardboard box from Lidl underneath the kitchen table) and grabs a bottle of South African Chenin Blanc 2001. He limps back into the sitting room, ignoring the studied indifference of his nearest and dearest, presses the play button the remote control and settles down for the evening.
If the truth were known, our hero (Jon that is, not Tony Hawks) was not particularly enthusiastic about the prospect either. He has a singular sense of humour, and didn‘t think that 90 minutes of the adventures of a bloke hitchhiking around Ireland with a fridge would be more than passingly entertaining. He was completely wrong.
Our other hero (Tony Hawks, not Jon) is a remarkably self-effacing leading man. At first you think that the whole scenario is so ridiculous that the film is going to be remarkably contrived, but within minutes you are proven wrong. My first big laugh came about ten minutes in when a taciturn and ever-so-slightly sociopathic Irish countryman, the first person to give Tony a lift, plopped a smug looking terrier on his lap. The film went uphill from there. Having travelled around Ireland myself, but more importantly having travelled around all sorts of parts of the world doing something that the rest of humanity would probably think more than passably stupid, Tony’s odyssey quickly began to appeal. Having worked for local radio in the UK, the scenes of hyperbole drummed up by low budget DJs and their operatives not only rang true but illicited a whole slew of belly laughs. All in all, a film that I wasn’t looking forward to watching turned out to be massively entertaining and not a little heartwarming.
And the last scene, in which Tony broke the fourth wall and suddenly became narrator in his own personal narrative (a little bit like I have done in this review) was far more moving than I thought it was going to be.
This is a smashing movie. I look forward to talking to Tony in the next few days and to blagging a copy of the next DVD off those jolly nice people at Gonzo as soon as it can be managed.
Slainte
Monday, 25 June 2012
EXCLUSIVE: Roy Webber (Jackson Webber, Wally) interview (Part Three)
Today we present the third and final part of our interview with Roy Webber, front man of Wally and the sublime Jackson Webber.We continue with a discussion about the superb album by Jackson Webber:
JON: The thing that impressed me most about the Jackson Webber album, I remember reading an interview with Ronnie Lane years ago, thirty odd years ago, when he said that what he was trying to do was English country music. He didn’t like the fact that so many people even though they were English sounded American. Which you don’t.
ROY: My heroes are Gram Parsons and people like that. But you can’t be those people. In England it’s hard to write songs about places in England. You need to write songs about places in America ‘cos it seems to flow and work, and you can’t. But all my songs are very you know...I can’t write a song that’s just about nothing. It has to mean something to me, so there’s always a story behind what I do or what I write.
But I’m very fortunate, as not being a very good musician, that I’m surrounded by people like Frank Mizen and Will Jackson that on the one hand are brilliant musicians, but don’t write songs. It’s strange. So we’re doing this album now between Will Jackson, myself and Frank Mizen and the instruments that we’re using are all very acoustic, like pedal steel and acoustic piano and acoustic guitars and mandolins and stuff, and it’s got a very nice feel.
JON: When is it coming out?
ROY: Well we’re about half way through it at the moment. It’s slow moving because, you know, I’m all over the world at the moment with my business, Will is very busy with his studios so we just get together when we can, but I’ll happily send you a couple of tracks for you to have a listen to.
JON: Oh yes please because I really am a fan. Because I’m a Gram Parsons fan as well and I can feel Gram Parsons’ influence in your musical DNA
ROY: What he did, he fused it all together didn’t he?
JON: He described what he did as cosmic American music and I was wondering if I could get away with what I write about you as cosmic Yorkshire music.
ROY: Well I grew up listening to Gram Parsons, and the Byrds and very early Crosby, Stills and Nash. Personally my favourite song writer is David Crosby because my favourite all time album is If Only I Could Remember My Name by David Crosby
JON: That’s fairly close to the top of mine. I think the second Gram Parsons album and the first Flying Burrito Brothers album are mine
ROY: Yes, and it’s hard to find musicians that feel that sort of music. It’s heavily directed by myself because I feel that sort of music, and that whole influence in Wally was .. that whole sort of country side of Wally comes from.
But sometimes it just got out of hand because on Valley Gardens, our second album we did a piece of music that I had nothing to do with, but I had to go along with it, which took up almost one whole side of the album and it was contrived. And half of the band were into people like Yes and Genesis, you know that whole complex stuff of how many guitar notes you can play in a second, you know, and it was so complex that when we actually played it live, there was only about one in five times that we actually got it right and I thought to myself, why are we doing this? Music is all about feeling and just being relaxed, and letting it flow and the pressure of can we deliver this or not? So that was one of the fall outs that we had.
JON: Is there still a schism between the country side and the proggie side of the band?
ROY: No, I think we gelled it quite well. If you listen to the live album, what we’ve just done To The Urban Man and if you listen to the live version of 'To The Urban Man' which last about 15 or 16 minutes, it’s the shortened version ; but if you listen to that it’s classic. It’s absolutely classic prog rock played really well and I love that. I love that song and you could play that at any festival to any audience to any crowd, and it would go down a bomb. So all that stuff I think I love it. It’s the real deal. But there is other stuff that we did that you know, I’m not too proud of because to me it didn’t flow naturally, it was contrived.
JON: How much stuff have you got written for the next Wally studio album?
ROY: Not a lot to be honest. There’s probably one or two tracks that we’ve got that we could dig out from the past. I mean it happens fairly quickly because somebody comes along with an idea and it develops. Whether or not we would do another Wally studio album or not I don’t know. Certainly another Jackson Webber one is on the way. We will certainly play some more Wally gigs and I suppose if anything came from that we would definitely do it. We’ve had opportunities to play places, it’s just pulling everybody together.
It’s not easy because the fiddle player, Pete Sage, this is a lovely story, after the last reunion gig, he went home, he had a fall-out with his wife who kicked him out. He had all his kit, his amplifiers and all his instruments and he had nowhere to put them, so he went – he lives in a place called Freburg in Germany – to a local recording studio and he said ‘Look I’m a musician and I‘ve got all this gear and I’ve got nowhere to put it. Would you mind storing it for me? You’re welcome to use it – it will just be for a short while until I get myself sorted out,’ so they said to him, ‘what do you play?’ and he said ‘I play fiddle, mandolin, guitar, bass, you know.’ And they said, ‘we’re working on a project at the moment, would you like to get involved? We’d like to audition you,’ so of course he did, and of course he‘s an absolutely brilliant musician so they took him on and they made this album and this album has gone gold – it’s knocked Madonna off the top of the charts in Germany, it’s now gone platinum, he’s a superstar in Germany where he’s doing TV shows, his made countless videos, he’s booked up for the next two or three years and he’s just gone ‘woosh’ .
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