Vs

D:

W:
The Cogs Of Tyme were
a band from Rugby
and they used to play with Spacemen3
in the very early days. They
used to run a club together called the Reverberation
Club in the back
room of a pub. They
used to play together always.

I
love The
Cogs
of Tyme
and the first gig
I ever did was with them, before
I joined Spacemen
3. I did two
gigs with them.. It
was really good garage
punk band, so good fun.

They
were old school Rugby
band: Gavin Wissen,
that went on to
be lead singer in
The Guaranteed Ugly
which I played in later when we
used to play with Billy Childish
and Thee Headcoats.
Sean Cook and Tim
Morris also played
in The
Cogs of Tyme.

They
just had a record released
amazingly that I'm on. The
record is just rehearsal tapes
that we made. It\u2019s
called \u201cTime
waits for no man\u201d
and it's on 17 Records
and the song I would choose if you can find
it is \u201cHome Sweet Home\u201d. That
song is about the house that we used to go where
Gavin lived and it reminds me
of taking magic mushrooms there.

Song:
The Cogs of Tyme: Home
Sweet Home

D:
What a
pedigree that
band has. It is really good that
they has released that record. Even if it is good to have a band play
and not record, so if you don\u2019t watch them you miss them, I think
that it is good to leave a testament of what happened. The
next one is Silver Apples, a classic
among classics. Veterans
in their own right and very well ahead of their
time during their heyday. I
was able to watch them in a festival before Simeon Coxe (their leader
and theremin maestro)
passed away. They
were beyond this earth.

W:
Silver
Apples
I connected through
Spectrum.
We went to
America to tour with Spectrum
(we were touring
the \u201cForever
Alien\u201d
album) and
we played some gigs
with The Silver
Apples
(the first
three shows). It was
1997 and then
Spectrum made an
EP with Silver
Apples called
\u201cA Lake
of Teardrops\u201d.

Sorry
to see Simeon go
because he was doing really well. I saw him in Berlin, maybe seven or
eight years ago, he was great. As
an 80 year old man. It was
funny that the two best shows I saw that year were Leonard
Cohen
and Simeon and Silver
Apples and they
were both like 80 years old and
they're both really good.

Simeon,
nice fella, interesting bloke, interesting history, great records.
Of \u201cTeardrops\u201d
EP
I'll choose \u201c(I
don't care if you)
never come back\u201d.

Song:
Silver apples: (I Dont Care If You) Never Come Back

D: You
expressed Will, the enormity of his figure. Him and Nik
Turner from Hawkwind are two
people that deserve a big statue in the middle of all
the musical cities of the United Kingdom. Their contribution,
although not recognized, is just endless. Now it is the
turn of Thee Headcoats of Mr Billy Childish, kings of garage.

A:
Yeah I completely agree and Simeon
should have a statue, he should have a thousand statues on the moon.
He should have a
statue on the moon that\u2019s visible from
earth and produces free electricity and
makes theremin sounds
(that's why I'm
not in charge of public statues).

So
back to Thee Headcoats.
There is a band
called The Guaranteed
Ugly
who was Gavin Wissen
and Natty
Brooker....
Around 1996 Gavin
asked me to play with them.

Billy
Childish
(leader of Thee Headcoats) really
like The Guaranteed Ugly and the other way
around. So Thee Headcoats (and their
backing vocal group Thee
Headcoatees)
used to play once a month down in London in Archway
at the Wild
West
Rooms
at The
Dirty
Water
Club.
So we played with
Thee Headcoats
once a month for about a year and it was always good fun. Thee
Headcoats are playing, and Thee Headcoatees are playing and
they would have us
playing with them. Those
shows were such
good fun, going up to the point where the White
Stripes were
involved and it all blew up.
Back around in 1996 it
was really really good scene
down there.

I
only played with them once. I just had
come back from the tour of America with Spectrum
literally on that day so I was jet-lagged to f***. I just on 6 weeks
touring driven all the way around America and I landed and they're
like \u201cokay, there's
a Guaranteed Ugly
gig\u201d and I'm
like \u201cokay I'll do it\u201d. I was knackered.
I went down to do it I played the show and then I started to get
drunk because I'm just like oh f*** it I'm finished now I've just
done 6 weeks and I've done this gig. And
then as I was half
drunk and Thee
Headcoats were
playing (laughter)
, they invited me
on the stage to play bass with them.
By which point I
could no longer play the bass. Bruce
Brand
was shouting out the changes to me but
I couldn't work out the changes (laughter)
so I just played one note and they never
asked me back up on stage again .
That was the only
time I played with Thee Headcoats, so
it was kind of a disaster (laughter).
But we should
choose a song from
Thee Headcoats, shouldn\u2019t we? I choose \u201cYoung Blood\u201d, always
liked that one. FIX when
you release the whole interview

Song:
Thee Headcoats ...(once): Young Blood

D:
The next band is Camera. I don\u2019t know
how or when I discovered then, you
can imagine 16 years doing this radio program for the privileged few
can make
one\u2019s
brain forgetful.
I love them a lot anyhow and
I\u2019m curious about your connection with them.

W:
Camera, a Berlin based band. I met them through living
in Berlin and I think I sang with them once. There was a real late
night bar called Kaffe Burger
just down on Thor Strasse and it was like everybody used to go like
2:00 in the morning when you couldn\u2019t get a drink anywhere else, it
was like the last chance saloon.

So
the first gig I
did with Camera
was that they got
me down to do some singing and it was like a gig at 11:00 in the
morning. Normally
we left The Cafe
Burger about
10:00 in the morning rather than going there to do a gig.
So I sang and then at another show in
Berlin one night and then they got me to play bass with them when
they played at SO36
4 years ago, the same place where the
Dead
Skeletons
live album was recorded actually.

They're
just a really good band, there's no recordings of me with Camera
so you just have to play a song you choose. They're all good... I
think Camera is just like one song it just goes on and on forever.
Michael (drummer) is a good friend and they're good guys and it was
always a pleasure to play with them. They're still going and then we
meet at festivals later on, it's funny how it works. Really really
good band and great great great great great drummer Michael.

Song:
Camera:
Gizmo

D:
And
what about Mercury Cure. I thought I had found music from them, but I
might be wrong. This one doesn\u2019t
seem to be a band you\u2019ve involved with.

W:
How can you even
hear The
Mercury Cure?
Because I don't
think they ever put anything out. We
did like 5 gigs. It
was a band with
these two German women that were
friends of mine. A
very rock and roll that band in a very fun kind of way.

We
got stopped
mid-show in Fête de la Musique., a
music festival in Berlin.
We were doing a
show down on a
truck and the cops turned up and unplugged us because we didn't have
a license. So we
had to move the equipment mid-gig
into the gallery that we were playing outside of
and set it up and play again. I've never
had to stop a gig halfway before though
and then do it set it up somewhere else. Another
mysterious band that nobody will ever hear from.

Nobody
ever asks me about these bands. Whenever
I do interviews it's always like Spacemen
3,
Spiritualized,
maybe The
Brian Jonestown
Massacre
but nobody ever has ever asked me about all these bands so you're the
first person to ever ever ask me.

Song:
The mercury cure: No song

D:
As I suspected we don't have any song
for The
Mercury Cure.
A
pity the ones
I found on the internet weren\u2019t
the chosen. I hope the case of The
People's
Revolutionary
Choir
is ok,
as they
sound a lot like Spacemen3
and Spiritualized.
Something
that for me is good by the way.

W:
I'm afraid that a lot of the bands on that
list that you're using, you're not going to be able to find any
music. There's a
lot of these people I just played like 1 gig
or did a few shows or rehearsed or it was
just an idea we had drunk one night.
Like I said when
I say they aren't
real in the traditional sense, they've
certainly no record of them, leave no tracks sometimes. I like the
Ghost-bands,
they're haunting 1.
And music I think
you know. I like the idea of music that's there one minute and then
go on the next. I do like that a lot that's why, I really like
playing live more
than I like recording. Because
even though I love records, music is
supposed to be played live
and I like the idea of it never being recorded and it's like if
you're not there in that moment then you're not going to hear it. I
like that about it.

The
People's
Revolutionary Choir.
Friends through
BJM and around
that time I\u2019m
doing a Freelovebabies
show. That would
be I don't know 2006
or 2007 and
they were playing a
truck festival, and asked me to play the
guitar or the bass, I don\u2019t remember. So
I did one gig with them. The driver was
so hammered after the gig that
he couldn\u2019t move the
van even 100 metres. And he couldn\u2019t drive us home because he was
so wasted (laughter). I know this is not something to be proud of
but...You can play \u201cThe Breeze That Blows\u201d, really nice people,
they\u2019ve done nothing for a long time.

Song:
The People\u2019s Revolutionary
Choir: The Wind That Blows

D:
It doesn\u2019t really matter if you just
played once with any of these bands. In the end, this exercise has a
double target of reviewing your career and rediscovering those bands
for the public. So yeah, you\u2019ve
played in Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized, but as we\u2019re proving now,
there\u2019s much more to your
musical career. I agree that live
music is the best environment and
now that we cannot have
it, I really miss it . In
any case it feels good connecting
the dots. What can
you tell me about
White Noise
Sound?

A: It's
funny you talk about a live music because it's like I know a lot of
my musician friends are really struggling with not being able to do
gigs and I really feel for them because it's f****** hard. It was
maybe three or four years ago that I had to stop playing live really
and I can't really even go to a loud concert same. I don't like loud
sounds, my ears are so f****** damaged after all these years of
making everybody else deaf.

So I
know how difficult it is and it's just really important to do
something creative with your energy. But the thing I always loved
about music is it kind of just made me a lot of friends around the
world and it brings people together. Nothing brings people together
like music. It breaks down barriers between people. I sometimes think
that music is not the most important thing about concerts.

White
noise sound they are from Cardiff and I played 1 gig with them on
only one song.
They're part of
the scene We did
it a Psychfest
that my friend
Laura and John Lynch
organised. They put up
a festival on in Essex and there was like 20 bands I think around
2007. We were all
playing in that
village on a campsite and nobody paid to come to the festival. So
poor Laura and
John had to pay all the bands. It's
just one of the best festivals I've ever been to in my life, it was
hilarious because there was no audience all of the audience was bands
(laughter). White
Noise
Sound
asked me to play with them on a song so I just jumped off and played
the bass for
them. They
are a decent bunch. They\u2019re
from Swansea actually.

Song:
White noise sound: Heavy Echo

D:
Perplexa, a band whose 1997 record I
heard very gladly during my
research. It sounds very different
than the rest, less distortion and more instrumental atmospheric
music.

W:
Is the project of my friend Jonathan
Wald. The
band is from LA
and it's largely instrumental. I made a record with John with
the band Ps
I Love
You
which is also a guy called David
Stroughter
from Detroit. They're
both from Detroit and
they moved to LA and then John
asked me if I play on the Perplexa
tracks. I've never done any gigs, it
was just a couple of recordings The album (Gone
Beyond) came
out of the few years ago. The song is
called \u201cAfter The Flood\u201d?\u2026.no,
I think it is called \u201cFlood\u201d.
The title must have been influenced by the song by Talk
Talk. The
artwork by Natty Brooker by
the way.

Song:
Perplexa: Flood

D:
I\u2019m
really enjoying all this unearthing and connections in this already
entertaining interview. It's
going to make for a really fine podcast and also for a real fine
written interview. I\u2019ll
do my best to spread the word about
this. At
least Ricky Maymi (long-time guitarist with The Brian
Jonestown Massacre, I
connected with him on Facebook),
at least can have him listen to the interview if you don't mind. Ps
I Love You, you\u2019ve mentioned just now. What\u2019s the story behind
them?

A:
Yeah I mean Ricky
features in a lot of this stuff, known him
for a long time. It
is a good guy Ricky
very enthusiastic, always playing
music, always encouraging people to play music. He
always encouraged me. He's
a good friend I've done a lot of miles with Ricky and you know never
fallen out, ever.

I'm
happy, I'm it's nice to answer questions about these
bands because they\u2019re something
that I never really talk about and I've gone back and listened to
these songs that
I hadn't listened
for years. And
it's kind of nice and especially now as I'm just on the verge of
selling my bass.
So to go back and
listen, it's not a bad thing. If not
too nostalgic, I\u2019m at war with nostalgia
but it's not bad
to look back sometimes.

PS
I Love
You,
I think yeah it's a heavy one
because of David.
David \u201cMuscles\u201d
Stroughter. A
guy from Detroit who was
in a band called Majesty
Crush
that made a couple of albums, early US
shoegazing.
With Ps I Love You, they
made an album (a 7\u201d) called \u201cWhere
the f*** is Kevin Shields\u201d
that was about Rocket
Girl. Muscles
was you know by turns fantastically entertaining and sometimes damn
right insulting and generally very lively and intelligent and a
little bit crazy.

He
asked me if I could play this song
so he sent me the tracks and I recorded it at my home studio in
Rugby. Well,
they liked it so they invited me over to Los Angeles to finish the
album that he was making with Jonathan
Wald. So
I spent 6 weeks in LA. He
was living at the Morrison Hotel.
He said to me
\u201cyou can come and stay with me at the Morrison\u201d. It
wasn't very glamorous when I got there, it was kind of a bit sketchy.
Just a really
cheap motel in downtown LA. We went
out to Jim Morrison's room. One
morning he said,
\u201ccome on we're
going to have a look at Jim Morrison's
room. We\u2019re
going to be careful because all the crackheads live on Jim Morrison's
floor so you have to be really quiet because you don't want to wake
up the crackheads\u201d.

David
was living in a pretty pretty marginal life in some ways but he was
a great songwriter, interesting guy, smart
but I think he
had mental health problems. So we
made the album, he
kind of self-released it and it came out it wasn't mixed properly and
he tried to do it himself and didn't quite manage it
(lowers voice)\u2026. it's
really difficult to talk about this for
a lot of reasons.

I had
been evicted from my Berlin flat 2016. I\u2019d always been contact with
Dave, trying to see what he was up to and keep track of him) but he
was not having a good time I think he was living in his car. One day
I was in Brussels and I woke up and somebody sent me a video. They
said it was David. And I watch the video and it was a guy getting
shot to death by the police in Los Angeles outside the airport. It
turned out it was Dave. Cops put 8 bullets in him. Yeah I believe the
police have got medals for valor

I
\u2018ve got 34,000
words written about him and I\u2019ve got find
a little publisher eventually. Find
somebody to put this. RIP Dave.
He was crazy but
he didn't deserve that. Sorry
to end on such a difficult
kind of story. It\u2019s pretty weird to watch one of your mates shot to
death in fucking youtube.. The song that I
choose is \u201cI bleed gasoline\u201d.

Song:
Ps I Love You: I
Bleed Gasoline

D:
And now from a man, not a band. A
character, a
one of the most rebellious and idiosyncratic
musicians and artist in the UK of the last 40 years.
Mr Bill Drummond of the KLF. His
more recent activities include
making and distributing cakes, soups, flowers and shoe shiners.
More
recently he organised the
\u201cno music day\u201d festival and a
lot of different activities
that make him an interesting figure.

W:
Bill
Drummond. yeah purely by chance I've
always loved The KLF.
They kept me very
well entertained during the 90s when they were burning a million quid
and nailing money to the board for the Turner
Prize
winner and I like The
KLF as a band and I read the books from
him.

I
was in Berlin and we've been cycling we've just been out in the woods
for the day and
staying with a
friend in a house
out in it's outside Berlin. We're a bit drunk and I've been drinking
Schnapps
and I started spitting it into the fire. It
was making a big fireball and this
German host was
like \u201coh you got a very deep voice would you like to do some
recording?\u201d and I was kind of a bit drunk in a bit like \u201cwhat the
f*** why do I want to do that\u201d and \u201cwho's it for\u201d and he said
it was for Bill Drummond and I was like \u201cokay I'll do it I'll do
it\u201d I'd have
done it for free just because it was Bill
Drummond. It was the weirdest way I ever
got a job in my life by spitting Schnapps
into a fire and howling like a f****** wolf. So
yeah I found myself in Berlin in the morning and there was Bill.
He wanted to record because
he was making the documentary
film \u201cImagine
waking up tomorrow and all music is disappeared\u201d.
He wanted to
do that because he thought music was
worthless since he got his
iPod and didn\u2019t like the way it worked.
He said it had
become debased and stupid and he only
wanted to record music with the human
voice. It was
a recreation of when he had taken
a drive across the Scottish borders and at some point in the drone of
his engine and obviously caused overtones
to appear. In his
sound vision,
this sound was
like Vikings in
the back of his Land
Rover making this
kind of sound (He emits a low droning
gurgle).

So
that's what I did
if you go and watch the documentary, the
imaginary Vikings
in the back of his Land
Rover, one of
them is me. God
bless him. I
spent a bit of
time in Belfast recently and he was on the border there because
Brexit
was
going to cause all sorts of s*** there when they start putting the
borders up. He
was there giving
away hot
cross buns.
He
had
done some art exhibition
in
Northern Ireland,
I don't know why he's
got connections around there. But
I was talking to him and
weirdly I knew his art
teacher\u2019s wife from Northampton, she's a friend of Johnny Mattock
just purely by chance. because he went to school college in
Northampton as well.
He is from Corby,
he was a carpenter over there and
I was a builder for a bit as well so we were talking about that why
not.

Song:
Bill Drummond Trailer doc

D:
Hahahaha, It\u2019s going to be difficult to find something
more mind-boggling but still, what can you tell me
about The Standing Babas?

W:
(Laughter) The Standing Babas, that\u2019s a
very good question. In
Berlin there was a cafe on the corner and it was run by the two
friends and Niall
(an Irish fellow)and
Dee Dee.
I was trying to get a St.
Patrick's night there and I was like \u201cwe should get a band together
for St. Patrick's
Day and do a gig at the cafe\u201d. So
we got an Irish band together and in this Irish band there was a
Niall, Shaun (Dead Skeletons) Norwegian
guy called Christian and a fella from New Zealand. We
got together just for this one night and we learned loads of Irish
traditional songs.

Niall
made me learn \u201cThe
Rocky
Road
to Dublin\u201d which is a really really
difficult Irish folk song. So
I sang that one
and we did the \u201cBlack
Velvet Band\u201d
and loads of classic Irish trad songs. It
was a very very interesting evening. That
was The Standing
Babas.
I don't believe there is any any recorded footage of that but
it was a good night though. It
went on very long.

So I
sang \u201cThe Rocky Road to
Dublin\u201d and I'd sing it for you now:

While
In the merry month of may from me home I started

Left
the girls of Tuam nearly broken hearted

Saluted
father dear, kissed my darling mother

Drank a
pint of beer, my grief and tears to smother

Then
off to reap the corn, leave where I was born

Cut a
stout black thorn to banish ghosts and goblins;

Bought
a pair of brogues for rattling o'er the bogs

And
fright'ning all the dogs on the rocky road to Dublin

One,
two, three four, five

Hunt
the Hare and turn her down the rocky road

All the
way to Dublin, Whack follol de rah!

In
Mullingar that night I rested limbs so weary

Started
by daylight next morning blithe and early

Took a
drop of the pure to keep me heart from sinking;

Thats a
Paddy's cure whenever he's on drinking

They
hear the lassies smile, laughing all the while

At me
curious style, 'twould set your heart a bubblin'

Asked
me was I hired, wages I required

'till I
was almost tired of the rocky road to Dublin

One,
two, three four, five

Hunt
the Hare and turn her down the rocky road

All the
way to Dublin, Whack follol de rah!

In
Dublin next arrived, I thought it's such a pity

To be
soon deprived a view of that fine city

Then I
took a stroll, all among the quality;

Me
bundle it was stole, all in a neat locality

Something
crossed me mind, when I looked behind

No
bundle could I find upon me stick a wobblin'

Enquiring
for the rogue, said me Connaught brogue

Wasn't
much in vogue on the rocky road to Dublin

Hunt
the Hare and turn her down the rocky road

All the
way to Dublin, Whack follol de rah!

From
there I got away, me spirits never failing

Landed
on the quay, just as the ship was sailing

The
Captain at me roared, said that no room had he;

When I
jumped aboard, a cabin found for Paddy

Down
among the pigs, played some hearty rigs

Danced
some hearty jigs, the water round me bubbling;

When
off Holyhead I wished meself was dead

Or
better far instead on the rocky road to Dublin

One,
two, three four, five

Hunt
the Hare and turn her down the rocky road

All the
way to Dublin, Whack follol de rah!

The
boys of Liverpool, when we safely landed

Called
meself a fool, I could no longer stand it

Blood
began to boil, temper I was losing;

Poor
old Erin's Isle they began abusing

"Hurrah
me soul" says I, me Shillelagh I\u2019ll apply

Galway
boys were nigh and saw I was a hobble in

With a
load "hurray!" joined in the affray

We
quickly cleared the way for the rocky road to Dublin

One,
two, three four, five

Hunt
the Hare and turn her down the rocky road

All the
way to Dublin, Whack follol de rah!

Well
it wasn't exactly
singing, was it?
But it's a tricky one... so that was The
Standing Babas.
Niall, bless him,
he's in Australia now he's working on the building down there. It
was a good night.

Song:
The
Standing
Babas:
As
Recited by Will Carruthers in the answer

D:
Apart from having Will Carruthers with
us answering, he have him reciting an Irish traditional song live. It
is fantastic.
You are really really making this
program
more and more interesting as the answers go by so I don't know if you
will have something so amazing about The
Shift...

A: It
was the project of my friend Graham Holliday.
He is from Rugby. Just did it one day cuz he came around and he
wanted to record a song and I think it was \u201cSurfing Saves Soul\u201d.
It was me Natty and Gavin. Graham is somebody who was in bands
around the time I was in Rugby and he's a writer now. He writes food
books. He wrote one about Spacemen 3 \u201cAre Your Dreams At
Night 1985 Sizes Too Big? \u201c. It's a pretty good song
considering we did it in really hot afternoon, and we recorded it in
a four track.

Song:
The Shift: Surfing Save Soul

D:
This analysis
of your musical life I think will
work as some kind of greatest hits for the music you have done now
that you seem to be semi-retiring
and that
you're selling your bass
for good. I think there's no better
way to end the interview to let you talk to me about BOBB
(Burned Out Blues Band)
that is the last band that I've chosen and will
mean the end of the program so let's
say goodbye with some anecdotes about this one. Again
thank you.

W: Okay
I haven't really retired. I did an acoustic show in Iceland in a
lighthouse. Just a solo show. I do them sometimes, quiet ones. But
playing bass yeah I'm kind of done I reckon.

BOBB
or
burn down blues band. That
wasn't really the name of the band but that's what we used to write
on the cassettes. That
was the first band I was ever in and it was me Natty,
Steve Evans
(from
Electrahead),
Darren Wissen
(Gavin's
brother), Roscoe
also from
Spacemen
3 and we just used to play the same
riff over and over again. We
never had any songs and I don't think we ever did any gigs. We
just rehearsed, just played one riff
over and over again and it was the first time I ever played the bass.
And I only played
the bass because there was too many guitarists and I wasn't the best
guitarist.

So
they got me playing bass and
that's how I started playing bass, by accident. I think that there
might be some cassette recordings of that stuff somewhere. We
did a couple of
covers One
of of the \u201cAlabama Bound\u201d
by The Charlatans.
Just as weird
kind of haunted spooky sludge we used to make. Maybe
it was just perfect like that in the rehearsal room. They
were trying to teach me my first key change because I couldn't change
key so there's a recording somewhere of them shouting at me trying to
get me to change key at the right time and I just failed to change.
It was just
getting trashed and playing one riff
until it stop making sense.

God
that seems like a very long time ago now and at the same time just
like yesterday. Funny
things seems the
time I retired.
If I could you
know I would be doing that, I really would but now I'm just painting
and doing a bit of writing
and the odd
poetry reading...

I
keep busy you know it's been a really nice interview and it's been
interesting to talk about these bands because some of these songs you
talked about I haven't listened to for ages It's
an interesting time to be doing it as well. Thanks
very much for your interest and thanks for doing your research
because there's a lot to research (laughter)
thank you very much you need to give me a shout. All
the best and thanks a lot.

BOBB
\u2026After this splendid interview, ladies and gentlemen, in order to
give a perfect closure to this trip down the musical lane of Mr Will
Carruthers, Irola Irratia presents: Dreamweapon- An Evening of
Contemporary Sitar Music

Thank
you very much for listening and we hope you\u2019ve enjoyed this
enchanted evening.