The Liverpool Connection Podcast
The Liverpool Connection Podcast
Football and Music 1:1 with DJ & Writer Dave Haslam
Visit davehaslam.com to purchase his books!
Twitter: @mr_dave_haslam
The Liverpool Connection is an LFC podcast that aims to bring the story of our wonderful club to as many fans as possible around the world. The history, the passion, the music, the people, the City – we want to share perspectives on and off the pitch. We're delighted to have you here with us, be sure to Like and Subscribe with Notifications on for our latest podcast.
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Hi, this is Chris Hawkins and you're listening to the Liverpool Connection podcast. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Liverpool Connection podcast. I'm your host, taz. This is my football and music one-on-one episodes that that I've been doing, uh, for the past I think four months now. Uh, the last one was with james walsh from star sailor, uh, which was brilliant and uh, well, happy for him and, uh, his new album doing really well. But, um, my next guest, uh, he's not a liverpool supporter, but he is a football supporter and he's a West Brom supporter and he comes from, actually, my dad's neck of the woods. My dad is actually from, was born in Redknoll, birmingham, so you know I'll be talking to him about his upbringing and everything, but he's a DJ, he's a journalist, he's a writer and his name is Dave Haslam. Dave, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I told my missus like I haven't been this nervous in a long time. Well, it's weird, dave, like you know, I've talked to some of my football and heroes, but for you it's just because you've been there, done that and you've been a part of my life, you know right. So the hacienda, many, many times, and that's engraved in me. And then your musical side with not just the djing but, you know, with factory records, with like loving new order, joy division, the smiths, that's me as well. So it's like you know, looking at a little mirror image. And you know I, you know reading your book, which I'll bust out now. This, this is one of his many books and it's a great title too sonic, you slept on on my floor and was that the the time that you didn't have carpets as well?
Speaker 2:yeah, I was living in hume, uh, quite a grim part of manchester, um, in the 1980s. The council had given up on us all, um, and so it was kind of like a bit of a squat and the keys would just get passed around. You know, people came and went. In fact I stayed in the flat two or three times and then kind of went off somewhere and then came back and you know, yeah, those are the days I was promoting a lot of gigs and I've always been interested in in music, especially kind of at the beginning of things, you know, when bands are young and hungry and new, you know, I tend I tend to kind of be more in love with that kind of thing rather than a band who've done seven albums or something. So I was putting on a lot of bands who were at that point quite unknown and not getting that many gigs, and you know some of them have sunk without trace. But Sonic Youth is one of the bands I put on who obviously went on to stuff. But there was no money around, you know, and I mean I was signing on. You know they'd come all the from america on a, on a cheap ba flight, um, so to save money.
Speaker 2:Quite a few bands would kip on my floor, uh, and sonic youth were quite happy too. Uh, the butthole surfers. They came along a little bit later and they were, I think, they for a band who consider themselves on the edge. I was a bit surprised that they found my place a bit too on the edge and they kind of sort of demanded that they stay somewhere else. So I took them to my mate's house around the corner, and her place was even grottier than mine. So they came back to mine and so, yeah, the Past pastels, quite a few different bands, uh, stayed in that gaff, and it was also the place where um morrissey came around for tea, but of course the whole of hume got demolished. So there's no blue plaque or anything, there's just my memories written down in the book, basically at least you have those memories still, you know.
Speaker 1:And talking of memories, west Brom fan, you know. You know, when you think of the big boys, obviously no disrespect to West Brom. You know the Liverpools, the man United, arsenal, you know, and now City. I was just looking at the record against Liverpool 152 games played, won 33, drawn 40 and lost 62. That's not actually so bad.
Speaker 2:Well, often it's. I mean where West Brom are now, you know, I mean it looks like we're going to be in the playoffs. But I mean, uh, I grew up, my first match was 1971. Uh, I was living near the other side of birmingham in a place called mosley which was quite a kind of uh, it was sort of known as a bit of the bohemian area. Really, there were, you know, some uh, you know there were some dodgy pubs and lots of students. Uh, quite a few bands lived up in that area. The prefects and the au pairs ub40 came from just down the road in bolsell heath, so it's a bit of a trek over to the hawthorns.
Speaker 2:But, um, my mother, uh, and my dad, they were both black country when they grew up. My mother particularly lived in a place called smethwick which is right next door to uh the west brom and uh so, and her great, great grandfather was uh the baker on um smethwick high street and when west brom were formed he became one of the directors, because back in those days, you know, um the baker was a, a man with some standing in the community. There weren't, you know, in smith, it back then there weren't billionaires or lawyers or any kind of a hot shot. It was like, oh, we'll get the baker in, you know. So, um, he became a director of west brom when it went, when the club was founded, so there was a family connection there. And then, of course, my younger brother decided he didn't want to be like me and he followed the Villa still does. And then my sister she won't mind me saying she tended to follow the team that whatever boyfriend she was seeing at the time would support. So she'd go and watch Birmingham, she'd watch Villa a few months later. Whatever boyfriend she was seeing at the time would support. So she'd go and watch Birmingham, she'd watch Villa a few months later. But she went out with a couple of West Brom fans and she's now a proper West Brom fan. So, yeah, 1971, for my birthday treat I thought it was going to be a treat we lost 1-0. And that kind of set the scene.
Speaker 2:The thing is, I would say, if you went back to, say, 1978, west Brom and Liverpool were, you know, top two at that point, there was a game. I think it was New Year's Eve, new Year's Day, it was the 78-79 season or the one before and we played. I'm sorry I've not refreshed my memory, I think we played Bristol City on that day and we won and we went top and Liverpool was second and we I mean at that point everyone liked West Brom because we played attractive football. You know how people sometimes say that their club has a certain way of playing, and the West Brom way was very attacking. Obviously we'd had Jeff Astle, tony Brown, who were regularly scoring 30-plus goals a season At the end of the 70s. We had Cyril Regis, laurie Cunningham, and we played attractive football.
Speaker 2:But what we always say is what happened that season was, although we were ahead of Liverpool, going into the final few games, our pitch which people will know is possibly from general knowledge is the highest football ground in England in terms of whatever above sea level and the weather's pretty shit. So our pitches, which were pretty poor at the end of the 70s anyway, turned into. It was unplayable and the kind of attractive football we were playing wasn't suited to those kind of pitches and we just kind of faded away and, uh, I think that was the year, and I think that was one of the years, liverpool won the title. But at that point, you know, I remember, I remember when I went, when I arrived in Manchester in 1980 you know saying that I was a West Brom fan. That was really acceptable, more than acceptable.
Speaker 2:A lot of people like great team, obviously the black players. At the end of the 70s it seemed like a progressive team. Um, ron Atkinson moved from West Brom to man United and took some of our best players, uh, unfortunately including Brian Robson, but basically, you know, uh, it wasn't like saying, oh, I'm a Leeds fan, you know know, or I'm a Liverpool fan. The team at that point had a lot of respect for the way it played, for the fact that it was, you know, there or thereabouts in the old Division One. So I think, if you can I don't know I think a lot of people's passion for football comes from a pretty early age. A lot of people's passion for football comes from a pretty early age.
Speaker 1:So when I was in my teens they were pretty much a top team. I was actually eight years old when West Brom came to Anfield and it was the 78-79 season. We beat you 2-1. Fairclough scored the winner. You can't miss him, him, you know, redhead, yeah, it was. I think that's what I kind of miss because you know, these past few seasons it's been nothing but like Liverpool or City. You know, I think it's good that Arsenal are actually in the hunt. It kind of makes you know. I think it's good that Arsenal are actually in the hunt. It kind of makes it you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean back then. I mean you know Forest Villa, I mean, like I say, you know, West Brom were in for a fair shout in that season. I mean there were still poor teams lower in the division, but it wasn't as uh, uh, predictable and it didn't obviously it didn't feel at that time that, um, uh, that you know, the money that you had to spend on players made, you know, a big difference. I mean, when we saw lorry cunningham I think he was, I think we got more, almost a million pounds for him um, which, uh, if that had been well spent, you know, maybe that would have made a difference.
Speaker 2:But that time it it always seemed more like the managers made a difference rather than the amount of money that the club had. Uh, I mean, we had johnny giles r Atkinson. We had some really good managers then. And then, you know, more recently I mean, tony Mowbray was great, gary Megson and I thought we might talk about Roy Hodgson because he was fantastic for West Brom, really fantastic, and I mean he was poached by England from West Brom.
Speaker 1:I think it's taken its toll, though, on him. You know I feel bad for him. He should never have taken the Liverpool job what went wrong?
Speaker 2:was it just that everybody else wanted Dalglish, or what was it?
Speaker 1:I think so. I think there was a still hiccup of you know wanting a top manager and then we got. We got Roy. But I was just looking back on on your West Brom managers and I just noticed like you barely had managers that stayed for three or four seasons like there's. There's a massive like name, gary Pegson, I think, stayed for four and that was one of the longest. So I was really surprised reading up on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean so the Megson, mowbray, hodgson era, obviously that was pretty good. We were back in the premiership for a lot of that. I mean Megson took us up, mowbray took us up. That I mean megson took us up, mowbray took us up, uh. But uh, after that point, which which is I'm probably now talking, the last 15, 18 years, we've had some very, very poor managers. You know, uh, poolis, again, it wasn't, you know, it was like he, poolos, played football. That was again like what we say, against the culture of the team.
Speaker 2:And so all the people who got into West Brom in the 70s and the early 80s, who were, in the main, the season ticket holders, you know, because for them to be subjected to the kind of football that Poulos played, you know that was just a disaster. And then we had Alan Pardew, who must be his record at West Brom was lamentable at something like that. Well, you might have the statistics there, but it was like a 15% win ratio and yeah, so obviously, if you've got that kind of ratio, you're not going to last long, basically. But the other thing is that we are, unfortunately we have, in the last 25, 30 years, become a selling club in the sense that you know we will often have. I mean, we had lukaku for a season or two, we had, I mean, the odd and wingy, and then, and the managers seem to go the same, the managers that stick around tend to be the worst ones because nobody else wants them, uh, and whereas the good, you know, the good managers move on somewhere, you know, um, so it's, uh, I mean my, so my, my kind of interest obviously dropped off a little bit when I moved, moved to manchester in 1980. But I would still, if West Brom came to this sort of area, I would go and watch them at Main Road and so on.
Speaker 2:But then, when my son was 13, I think again, like a lot of people, I was keen that, you know, me and my son should go to the football together. You know, that's kind of one of the things you always, you know, just like when you bring up a kid, that's what you want to do. So by that time, west Bromwood, you know, we were away at Stockport, away at Rotherham, you know. So I really put my son through it. We lost both games. No, we lost both. No, we lost at Rotherham and like, and we lost at Bradford. In fact, I took my daughter to Bradford with my son and we got like we got somebody sent off after like five minutes and lost three nil and I did feel a little bit guilty on the train home. You know that they're living in Manchester and having to support dad's team, you know, and it was not fun but they've stuck with it, you know.
Speaker 1:See that. But I think that's the main point, though. You know, like I think, these days, you know you get a lot of glory hunters. You know deciding, ah. You know, deciding, ah. You know this team's winning all the trophies, I'll go with that. But, like when you've been through the bad times, I mean you know Liverpool during the, you know 60s and 70s and 80s were absolutely brilliant. 90s not so much 2000s, you know so, I've seen it all as well as yourself. So if you stick with it, you stick with it. You know through good and bad times. But I mean for you, though, like you know, getting back in the Premier League and then getting, you know, knocked back down has got to take. You know, it's told. I mean, you're fifth in the championship, you know, I think, seven points behind Southampton, which is very doable these days. But I mean for me the championship, like I love watching it because it's proper physical, hard football.
Speaker 2:You know In fact, I think I didn't clop the other day say that the championship was an amazing league. Yeah, and you know and he named Chet West Brom among some of the teams it's very competitive, um, um, but you know, you need to go on a really good run a couple of times a season. Um, uh, but we, we struggled the first half of the season but, um, yeah, we could. I mean, uh, we're not a great previously, or normally we go up automatically. So I think the last time we were in the playoffs we lost. We lost to Derby, which we shouldn't have done. So I don't think it brings out the best, because I think a team like West Brom, which can't really rely necessarily on, you know, individual skill or whatever, they're very much a confidence team. You know, if they feel good on a day and things are going well and they're putting passes together, you know, and maybe they score early and you know, then they go up a level. But you can turn that right around and if the first 10 minutes are a bit under the cosh, you kind of you know the heads drop quite quickly and they start reverting to a kind of uh, you know, they don't express themselves, as managers always say, you know to me, and the confidence goes, uh, so, uh, you know, that's kind of one one of the things that sort of not helped the team recently, uh, but you know, I think west brom fans tend to find a silver lining with every cloud and you know, every time we've got, we've dropped down, you know, although it's disappointing, you then think, well, tickets will be easier to buy, we'll win more games. Uh, you know, we'll be on the telly more. You just kind of you know you make of it whatever you can.
Speaker 2:I think, and I think I mean the other thing is Midlands football, I think. Obviously, I mean I'm pretty amazed at how well Villa are doing this season. But again in the seventies into the eights, villa, birmingham, west Brom, coventry, wolves all pretty good teams on their day, but Birmingham particularly have just dropped. You know the Birmingham ground was the nearest ground to where I lived and they got really, you know they had Trevor Francis playing, they had a pretty big ground which would be full, very passionate. But I think it's the team that suffered the most from not just the cost of living crisis recently but years of, uh, unemployment and poverty and Birmingham just not having what it had in the sixties with, you know, car manufacturing and you know, some kind of degree of prosperity and, uh, you know, full employment of a kind, and Birmingham was always compared to Villa anyway, was always more working class following. And you know, and I think that's kind of a part of its demise, it's not being able to, you know, keep the attendances up, keep the season tickets up, put the prices up and, as a consequence, and then obviously this season, getting Wayne Rooney in, which was an absolute disaster and the writing was on the wall, I mean, how, how he's managed to fake a management career of no idea, but yeah, so so also, you know, west brom is a little bit like that.
Speaker 2:You know that part of the world, I mean, I know, you know liverpool and manchester are hardly, you know, prosperous and utopian, but that area, uh, you know, has suffered pretty much with, you know, industrial, post-industrial. It's not regenerated in the same way as maybe parts of liverpool and manchester have. It's not got the buzz around, it's not got the profile. I mean, I was talking to someone the other day and they were like you know, liverpool's a place where loads of kids want to go to uni. Now it's one of the most popular, and I can remember when Cream was around, you know they always claimed that students would go to Liverpool, and you know whether they did or didn't. They certainly do now, you know. But Birmingham, the black country, doesn't have that buzz about it that Manchester and Liverpool has of the black country, doesn't have that buzz about it that, uh, manchester and liverpool has, um, and you know, partly it's just because you know life is is still, you know, pretty grim and opportunities are quite few.
Speaker 2:And I think that historically, um, you know the music, the music scene has produced lots of great acts when I was growing up, not so many now because there's no infrastructure, you know there's no. You know Media City, there's no. You know no factory records and the history which obviously Liverpool and Manchester have, the music history which you know, sometimes it's a bit overplayed and a bit suffocating, but at least it's out there in the world and people know about it. Whereas actually birmingham's had lots of great groups, but the idea of birmingham being a hotbed of pop music and creativity has never really caught hold, you know, the city's never been able to market it, if you like. Um, so I think you know the fortunes of the football teams do.
Speaker 2:I think you know they do kind of reflect uh often. You know wider stuff going on. You know you look at you, look at that, uh uh. You know footage of the cop in the 60s singing Beatles songs. Well, who wouldn't want to be a Liverpool fan? It's just right place at the right time. And then you know, probably early 90s man United, you know Hacienda, all that kind of stuff, it it. You know cities get that moment, don't they? Um and uh?
Speaker 1:but the area around west brom and birmingham city, places like that, they've just never had that moment really well, I mean, you know, you, you hear the news of, like you know what's going on with the fair play and stuff, and financial fair play and leicester look like they might be getting a hit. Um, I just find it so but so bizarre, like what what's happening with it. You know, when you've got man city who have 115 charges pending, I know that's a big difference between you. Know, when you've got man city who have 115 charges pending, I know that's a big difference between you. Know, like everton had one or two knots, forest had a few, lester's got a few. But you know, you're hearing like it could take till after the season and that, just that just blows my mind. Um, how, how, all this kind of is it should be already taken care of, because yeah, I mean, I think the man City thing is a scandal, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Really it's a scandal. There's such a conspiracy of silence about it, I think you know I mean City fans are quite a defensive bunch, you know. Yeah, they, you know they haven't got the history of man United, you know, that's just. I mean they had great. You know Colin Bell, great player. You know what I mean. They've won stuff. They played amazingly Main road, packed to the rafters, a lot of passion.
Speaker 2:They did follow the teams. Some of the fans followed the teams as they sunk and got relegated, you know, a couple of times. But uh, they've not got the history. And also, you know they've, uh, they bought the way to where they've got. You know, and, um, they've bought the way to where they've got. You know, but fans want success, you know. And if you've done those trips in, you know the old Division II or whatever, and you know if you've suffered, you do want. You are a bit bedazzled at the idea of success, like the Newcastle fans are. I'm really happy they're not getting any, but um, there is odd conspiracy of silence around football ownership and and fair play rules and money for definite.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think not enough is said really about City it's. It's kind of like put under the carpet. You know um I. I get why Everton fans are pissed off. I get why Notts Forest fans are pissed off. Now Leicester fans they're just like. This isn't okay.
Speaker 2:And since you've got so much money, they employ the lawyers to just put obstacle after obstacle, Just appeal appeal, appeal around Now.
Speaker 1:You know I've appeal, appeal around now. You know. I've always said, like you know, it's the players on the pitch. They have an amazing team, they do, but they've bought those players because of, you know, these fake sponsorship deals. This, you know. I mean. It even blows my mind that some of our referees are playing in Qatar what you know during the week and then they come and play, you know, do the Premier League. That is conflict of interest for me. That's another, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes I mean people in the past who owned football clubs. There were some dodgy characters, let's be honest, you know what I mean people in the past who owned football clubs. There were some dodgy characters, let's be honest, you know what I mean. They're not. You know, generally, football owners were, you know, mill owners and you know they were either exploiting people left, right and center, you know, you know so they weren't all saints for sure, but nothing on the kind of level that goes on at some of the clubs now. And you know, as we were saying earlier, it affects the whole of the football world because it's so manifestly unfair and it's. But you know, I mean, like I said earlier, I've been in Manchester since 1980. I do feel like in the last few years Manchester generally has chased the dollars in a way that it never has done before, and not only are the football fans a bit bedazzled by the idea of success.
Speaker 2:Um, you know you, you look around the architecture of manchester now you know you're coming on the train or whatever. All this, all the 40 plus stories of apartment blocks going up, it's all chinese money and it's all absentee billionaire chinese owners. Uh, it's all buy to let. The rents are going up in manchester massively, um, you know it's becoming unaffordable, um, but the city council really never, never really put up any fight against the people who are building those places and uh, and again, kind of uh and exploiting the situation and uh, you know, uh, basically renting, taking, taking space in the city away from the people and then renting it back to them at an extortionate rate. So, uh, the the sort of the murky, the murky world of money is all over manchester right now, you know, in in lots of different areas, uh, and in that way, I guess, guess, you know, city just reflect the general way that, yeah, manchester has sold its soul a little bit, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was strange because I hadn't been back home for like three years and I flew into Manchester and then took the train to Lyme Street and just going through, you know, manchester it's just like wow, there's nothing but like high rises, like expensive, not, not high rises that we're probably used to, you know. Uh, it was high rises that look really, really nice, like double, double paned windows. That's, that's pricey for me and it's just changed. Yeah, I mean money, money's changing everything. You know, I mean not just football, but like the dj world as well. You know that we'll talk about. You know, because today you've got to be like a social media giant. To to be a dj, you have to have a brand behind it, you know. I mean you can be the best dj in the world and if you've got not a brand, then you probably aren't gonna. You know, make, make the big time. And, and I mean for you, like growing up in birmingham, what was your like musical background, like what? What were you listening to as a, you know, 15 year old?
Speaker 2:Well, 15. So, uh, I was 15 in 1977. So, yeah, 15, 16, started to go out in town. It was really the, it was pretty good age really. Uh, I remember, uh, I think it was February 1978, just turned 16. Uh, I was into 1978, just turned 16.
Speaker 2:I was into the John Peel show. I was into reading NME. I was that kind of a guy. I was very adventurous and hungry for experience.
Speaker 2:I kind of knew that most of what was on top of the pops was it meant nothing to me, it just didn't resonate. Mainstream tv, I think I say in my book, you know, um, I can remember sitting and watching Saturday night tv, you know, with my folks and, um, you know it was whatever, it ain't half hot, mum or something was on. And I can remember thinking there's got to be more to life than this. And that was the main reason I used to go out all the time, because I knew there was more to life than the kind of mainstream offer. The mainstream cultural offer in the 70s was horrible offer. The mainstream cultural offer in the 70s was horrible. And but if you went looking, what you could find was amazing. So I'd go, you know, to pubs and I'd go to back rooms this place and that place.
Speaker 2:Let's see, I saw joy division support dex's midnight runners in 1979. Um, uh, in, in, in, like a mod club, slightly out of town. Um, you know, I saw, uh, ub40 in the upstairs of a pub. Uh, I saw blondie, iggy, andy Iggy, in a club called Barbarella's. Yeah, so one week February 1978, I think it was Tuesday West Brom won away at Birmingham. All the buses got the bricks, got the windows smashed by bricks, but we won.
Speaker 2:And then, I think it was the next day, I went to see Blondie. Now, if you're 16, just turned 16, and you go and see Blondie in a small club and you're down the front, that is, it's almost up there with winning away. You know it's what you want from life. So you know Birmingham, at that point there was a band called the Au Pairs who I loved, quite political, fronted by a woman called Leslie Woods, who I then went on to interview. I went on to interview Kevin Rowland of Dexys and, like I say, ub40. So there was a lot of John Peel, nme type bands that were around and so I was really into that world. I mean, birmingham generally was a heavy metal city. You know, it was Black Sabbath.
Speaker 1:Ozzy's a brummy, isn't he? Yeah, I think he's from Rednaw as well, where me dad.
Speaker 2:Oh right, okay, yeah, he's, I mean he's. Black Sabbath were huge and you know, paranoid's still one of my favourite ever records. Led, um, you know it was. It was, um, heavy metal. So, like the new wave kids, uh, as we were, we weren't the punk kids. Punk wasn't that big in in, uh, in in birmingham, um, because there wasn't really a punk band. You know there wasn't a band that could. But but the next wave was, you know, really healthy, lots of stuff. And you know steel pulse I don't I remember going to Hemsworth see steel pulse play, uh, um, you know, and they were like, they were the probably the best British reggae band ever.
Speaker 2:So you kind of Birmingham was, you know, the birthplace of heavy metal. It had, you know, the best British reggae band ever. So there's lots going on. And then all these John Peel type bands. So when I got to Manchester it wasn't like I'd gone from a cultural desert to an amazing scene. You know, it was more of the same but slightly upper level.
Speaker 2:But I remember, I can remember thinking that and I was into the manchester bands, you know, and I traveled up to manchester to see joy division and the buzzcocks. So I knew, I knew I would be at home here. But I kind of in my I'd built up all those people like Mark E Smith and Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks into. I mean, they had kind of like godlike status in my head by the time I got here. And what still amazes me is that they were pretty much unrecognized in their own city. You know, they were pretty much unrecognized in their own city. You know, I kind of imagined you know Pete Shelley kind of being, you know carried through the streets and you know, given flowers by people and just treated like the ultimate VIP. And I can remember seeing him in a bookshop, just kind of like flicking through the gender politics section of grassroots books, and Marky Smith, just, you know, in the pub and bands that I thought would like. I saw New Order's first gig with Gillian, about 100 people, that in manchester.
Speaker 2:So that manchester scene that is now lauded quite rightly for its music uh, was tiny. I mean, I was talking to steve steven morris, uh, the other day and he said, um, apart from when they supported buzzcocks on a on tour, he said he, and then they played a festival in leeds, but apart from that he said that he thought they'd only played to more than 300 people, probably twice at most in their career, you know. And so, uh, so it was, you know it was. Yeah, that scene was completely on the edge, really cultural edge, of Manchester. You know, people were into dire straits and status quo and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:I actually remember going on the bus I was living in Moss side and I went on the bus past main road when it started they started putting on bands and I think it was Status Quo were playing and it was just queues of denim-clad families, you know granddad, son, grandchildren, wives, ex-wives, all double denim queuing up to what status quo.
Speaker 2:And I was on the bus going into town to see some tiny band in a tiny venue and, uh, but I didn't feel like I was missing out. I felt like, you know, I'm, I'm gonna have a great experience, you know I'm going to have a great experience, you know, but that's kind of what the power, that was, how it was, you know. And obviously now you know that gig is not ever talked about, whereas you know every single gig by Joy Division or New Order or early Smith's gigs are documented to death and celebrated and everyone claims they were there. And you know, at the opening night the hacienda and blah, blah blah, whereas you know the generally the people of manchester which is not at all interested in factory or the hacienda or any of that you know it's, it's so weird.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, you know a scene's got to start somewhere. You know it's so weird. I mean you know a scene's got to start somewhere. You know, I mean, with the acid house scene in London Shroom with Danny Rampling, you know, and like for me, you know, I started like first reading the fanzine. I know you had yours, but I was into Boy's Own yeah, yours, that I was into Boyzone yeah, terry Farley, and because they just made it about, like me, the everyday Joe, you know it was about football, it was about music, it was about what you wore, you know, but it was also political and and very, very satirical as well, you know, and but it said the words I wanted to say, you know, yeah, that's that's why, you know, I'm curious, like for the fanzine you did, um, because you didn't really have football in there.
Speaker 2:It was just mostly just, you know yeah, it was um 1983 I started it. I mean, it was uh, mostly music and it was kind of out there music, you know, because the thing, like I said, I was interested in the, the new bands, on the young bands, you know, like when I was talking about status quo, wasn't like dissing the people going, but it was like for me it was more exciting to go to a small venue and see a band and meet and also just to meet with you know, like what I call a small cell of people. You know, cell as in c, e, double l, you know where you're just like-minded folk and you know you paid 40p to get into the 50p to get into the venue and you almost take it in turns to dj and you know, uh, lend records to each other and take records for each other and you, as a fanzine editor, you I'd go and sell my fanzine and the first five fanzines I'd sell would be to other people selling their fanzine. You know, and it was like a little, it was just the little communities of like-minded people uh, who you know, and sometimes a fanzine, like boys own, kind of defines that kind of a person that is in that little community, you know, and it's very uh, empowering and authentic. Um, my, my fanzine kind of reflected all the shit in my head really, because, as well as the music, I write about books and films and politics.
Speaker 2:And then I started uh, interviewing, uh, one, one issue. I interviewed three barbers because that was a time when there was still like old barbers in town. You a time when there was still like old barbers in town. You know who'd been cutting hair since the second world war? Um, desperately hoping the whole short back and sides would come back into fashion. So, you know, once acr and bernard sumner started like cutting the hair and, uh, the whole punky look was completely out of fashion. All these barbers came out of the woodwork because they knew how to do all these. You know, all these kind of austere Manchester haircuts. And then, of course, manchester came along and they were out of business again because everyone was growing their hair and I interviewed them and it was just fantastic. You know, uh, hear all this, hear all their stories of uh. So the fan scene had all kinds of stuff, but it was just I get it because it was just like me communicating my passions and obsessions with everyone else.
Speaker 2:I think that that is one of the things that sort of underpin what I've done over the last 40 years is that actually I'm not a very sociable person. I'm quite, I like my own company and I don't really, you know, I don't kind of go out to the pub with the lads and all that kind of stuff. Really I've never felt part of that, for whatever reason. But at the same time I'm really interested in the world. You know, although I live in a world of my own, I live in a world of my own and so going to club, going to gigs kind of just connects me with other people. Going to football and then doing the fanzine was the same, you know, it was for 40p. You could get this insight into my world, you know, and you know, and again, again, I did like early interviews with sonic youth and all kinds of people in that um and so, and I think my djing and my writing is a reflection of that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:It's me, uh, sharing ideas with the world, but not in a kind of, but in a way in a world, in a way that's more uh, you know it's maybe it's more of a kind of gift from me, if you know what I mean, I'm like this is my mute, this is the music that is turning me on. I've spent hours listening to it. I've trolled the record shops, I've. You know, obviously, back in the day that was the really important thing. I put the hours in, um, you know. I know I've got good ears. I've been listening to music since I was a young kid. I've seen all these bands. I trust my taste. If you trust my taste, I will play my favorite music loudly and you will enjoy it.
Speaker 2:And I believe in that process. And I think with the books it's pretty much the same as that. You know, these are things that entertain or intrigue me or make me angry or interest me, or intrigue me or make me angry or interest me, and I'm going to write it, put it all down and, um, and, and you know, if you buy it, you'll feel connected, at least to me, and also I think it will resonate with people in the same way as when I put on when I can. You know when I can hear a piece of music on a Tuesday, um, and if I've got a gig at the weekend, the next three or four days will be I'll be obsessed with making that bit of music the high point of that weekend gig, even if I know that they've not, nobody knows it, even if I'm the only person who's likely to have picked up on it, because I just want to blow their mind with it and share it.
Speaker 2:You know, and, and that's that's what my DJing really has always, always been about and and I think my right writing is similar really it's that, uh, just trying to articulate things or present things in a way that will turn people on and just make their life a little bit more clear or a little bit more fun. And you know that's the aim and that's the connection between all the stuff I do, I think. And you know that's the aim and that's the connection between all the stuff I do, I think.
Speaker 1:Well, with the DJing, you know, would you spend like all week curating your set? You know, because I know DJs are a little bit different from back in the day. You just bring your record box, you know, or well, actually, a milk crate, you know, and you just play. How you felt nowadays, you know, you, you spend, you see, djs on planes, working on their, their tracks and everything. How was it for you for, like, cause you, you know, you had two, two separate nights at Hacienda. So you know, I'm sure you don't want to play you. So, you know, I'm sure you don't want to play you know the same.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, true, I mean from 86, um, from 86 to 89 I had two nights and then I then I carried, then I was still, then I was went down to one. But then I started working at a place called the boardwalk in um 1990 which was around the corner from the hacienda, which I kind of of helped set up a lot of the stuff there. It was just smaller and it didn't have some of the issues that the Hacienda had in 90 onwards and I did two nights a week there, every Friday and Saturday, more or less all the way through the 90s. So every so from about 86 to 96 I was working at least two nights a week in big clubs, um and uh, yeah, you're right, I mean I I liked, um, in some ways I kind of overthought everything you know in in the sense of the kind of music I'd play if I was doing like the two nights. That has the end of the thursday night, which was historically a bit more of the kind of student night or the sixth form or the doll light type night. People would get the doll money on the thursday. A lot of students would have a night a day, especially the night people would get the doll money on a thursday. A lot of students would have a night a day, especially the art students would have the day off on the friday.
Speaker 2:Um, uh, yeah, uh, sixth formers who might not fancy going out on a, you know, saturday night might be a bit too uh, mainstream or whatever for them. So I kind of played a real mix of stuff. So in 86 that would be um, def jam, hip-hop, party, hip-hop, basically, uh, public enemy. And then, you know, dig into a few of the things like sympathy for the devil, uh, new order obviously kept giving me the white labels um, go on, dave, give that a spin. Um, and then the new stuff that was coming through, you know, first happy mondays, ep, um, trouble, funk, bits of old soul. So basically it was a very eclectic.
Speaker 2:But the idea was it was it. It was more the type of people who were coming in. Uh, you know they at that point they still wanted to kind of the back wall was like kids snogging, you know. It was like that kind of a. It was like a transition basically from, uh, you know, the best house party ever into um grown-up clubbing. It was a really young crowd.
Speaker 2:But then the saturday night I remember, um, I never really talked to the management, I think I never spoke to really anyone about what to play, but in my head saturday night was, more especially in 86, was like, um, hairdressers, basically, uh, hairdressers and their favorite clients. Because my theory was that, um, uh, you know, all the kind of coolest girls would be going to get their hair cut and they'd be in there for hours, um, and you know, the hairdresser you know might be straight, probably gay, uh, you know, where'd you go out? Have you heard about this? Have you tried that? Um and uh. So if you, in that two, three hour conversation that they have with the hairdresser, if you, if they're talking about saturday night, the hacienda, then you're going to get a really cool. You're going to get some of, you're going to get some of the kids from thursdays gravitating to saturdays.
Speaker 2:Uh, then you're going to get the gay hairdressers, you're going to get the good-looking ladies and in fact, when I started Yellow at the Boardwalk, by that time I really believed in the importance of the cool girls and I because the lads have a lot of lads in that era would have a uh attitude to music which was quite not exactly trained spottery, but they were.
Speaker 2:A lot of them would be taking notes really in them, in their minds, you know, and the feedback I would get was oh, um, you know, I would oh, I don't think that's the remix, I'd have played a different remix.
Speaker 2:You know, I was in your club on saturday and I think the instrumental is better of such and such a record, you know, um, whereas the women would be like that was amazing, that was that's.
Speaker 2:They would get up first on the dance floor and their, their reaction to the music would be much more spontaneous and unself-conscious, whereas a lot of the lads were like a bit head nodding, you know, head nodding, and, um, making making a little mental note to pull me up on a track or two that they would consider to be not the right tracks to play. So when I started Thursday at the Boardwalk, yellow me and the other two DJs, jason Boardman and Elliot Eastwick, I bought us a notebook and any record that we played where women left the dance floor and men got on the dance floor uh, or men didn't get on the dance floor, but women basically left the dance floor we made, and then we made an actual note of it and we decided we'd never play it again smart yeah so we had a, I remember rocket by herbie hancock, which is a great record.
Speaker 2:The women didn't like it, uh, whereas apparently nothing by the young disciples the women loved, so you know. So, as I say, I kind of overthought it all, but I only was. I was only overthinking it all to make the night better, to make the party better, and there was still a lot of room for spontaneity. Basically, I'm giving away all my secrets here. Basically do you?
Speaker 1:remember your first hacienda record because I I know you borrowed records from the hairdresser right in the basement, andrew yeah, and I actually took some of his gigs as well.
Speaker 2:He was he. He was the guy that Morrissey wrote hairdresser on fire about. Oh, wow, yeah, um, because he had a very, very busy social life and Morris's thing was, you know, he could never track down Andrew in order to get a haircut, because he was kind of, you know, he was literally on fire, you know, like a you're really on fire tonight, mate, or your social life's on fire, um, and because he was so busy that he often was penciled into dj at the hacienda and, um, he was off somewhere else and he'd phone me up and say, uh, can you do my set for me? And uh, and it was through doing that that I ended up. And then I did a night a venue down the road from the hacienda, um, in 86 85, 86, a venue called the venue, and that was a night. I originated on a friday and, um, the hacienda were thinking of relaunching almost by doing dj nights, because they'd done a lot of live music and, as hooky will always maintain, lost a lot of money. So they were kind of, if we could pay djs like 40 or 50 quid a night and um, that's going to be cheaper than paying playing, paying weird german industrial bands that no one comes to see, um, we might have a chance of making some money. So they came down to the venue to check me out, like an audition really, and uh, the feedback was uh, yeah, too many art students, um, but, uh, you'd, you'd be great on a thursday, um, and I never minded too many art students as a kind of criticism of one of my nights, because John Lennon was an art student. You know what I mean. The Sex Pistols' first gigs were in our art colleges. There was nothing wrong with that in my eyes. The whole new romantic thing was very art student. The au pairs were art students, so that wasn't really an issue. Anyway, so that's kind of yeah. So I borrowed stuff from Andrew. I mean, I was lucky in the sense that it was an era when the audition, as it were, was they'd come to a club and watch you do your thing, and also there wasn't lots of competition.
Speaker 2:It wasn't like the Hacienda. People were knocking on the door of hacienda every every day saying, can I dj? That in fact, nobody really wanted to go near it because it was, you know, it was renowned for being quiet, um, so um, and so I started thursdays and then, and then they start. Then they gave me sat Saturdays.
Speaker 2:And I was still doing the venue on a Friday, down the road with the art students and, uh, the manager of the venue, who was called um Andy the Greek, he sat me down and he was like, uh, so what's this Hacienda? Thursday, saturday, uh, and I said, oh yeah, it's going well. And he, although he was 50 yards away, he'd never been in Hacienda. He said so what's it like in there? Well, it's kind of half empty and quite cold. He said that's what I heard.
Speaker 2:So why are you DJing there? We've got a good thing going. And he said I'll raise you money from 50 quid to 70 quid if you will stay here on a friday exclusive. And I said I don't know, I think this, this has the end of things got. It's got potential andy and um, and little did you know, you know. And so I walked away from him and and did the Hacienda. Anyway, so what I'm saying is that DJ culture has changed in so many ways, but I was lucky to be probably the last generation who would get a gig purely on your taste in music and your willingness to turn it with a box of records and play them, even you know whether it's full or it's half full, play them before bands, play them after bands, and that was it. No mixtape, no brand, no social media. You know, just good taste and kind of willingness to do it. But that was the last generation where djs were like that.
Speaker 1:Now and and obviously now it's completely different well, how, how do you feel about like the whole vinyl digital age? Because I know you sold like your record collection to Seth Chokzler. Was that just because you, you just need you weren't playing the? You know? Because you know like, like I said with with my trainers, I don't wear 80% of them but I'll keep them, how I mean, because that's a big decision you know to, to sell like what you've collected, cause I'm sure you've got. You know I, I can imagine your record collections got just different genres in there.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean it did and it and it. It was very, very much like a personal collection, but uh, yeah, it did have, like you know, um, all that, all that different. Whatever I was into at the time, you know, because I've been quite um, uh, restless or hungry or whatever, uh, or unfocused you might say I, um, you know, I was buying all kinds of stuff, uh, so seth ended up with, you know, probably a lot more albums by the fall and he really needed, and, uh, yeah, all kinds of alternative american bands and c86 bands and but, um, yeah, but also quite a lot of, uh, very obscure hip-hop from New York, you know, uh, and uh, quite obviously, quite a lot of early techno. Um, I mean, my decision was, I don't know, I mean it was a combination of things, but it was instinctive. Um, I didn't, uh, I didn't fret about it over a period of months, like should, I shouldn't? I know there was no spreadsheet of reasons to sell, reasons not to sell. I just woke up one day and just put a picture of my record collection online and, you know, said I'm open to offers, but I wasn't playing them in the club, because at that point that was ten years ago, eight years ago a lot of clubs weren't set up for turntables.
Speaker 2:So people would say I'd say, look, I play vinyl. Yeah, yeah, we've got some vinyl decks, we'll get them out for you, don't worry about that. And I'd arrive and they'd be, you know well dodgy pair of turntables. The engineer putting them together wasn't used to put in, didn't know how to weight them properly. Bus cartridge would be bused, the sound would be all wrong, and then people come in, jump about and the records would jump about and it just kept happening. Because that, because that uh revival of playing vinyl hadn't really kicked in. So so I'd kind of moved up, moved off the vinyl.
Speaker 2:But uh, so, and also, you know, psychologically I was was in my mid-50s and I think that I don't really believe in the idea of a midlife crisis, mainly because I've had crises throughout my life. So just pinpointing midlife seems a bit random. I think you know you have a crisis at every point, don't you? You have a crisis when you're a teenager. I mean, midlife is nothing compared to being, you know, 15 and you know and you know, and then maybe you have your first child at whatever 20, in your 20s, and you know that's not a crisis in terms of a trauma, but your life's turned upside down, anyway. So I wouldn't call it a midlife crisis, but something that kind of happens around that time, I think, in a lot of people's lives, and you can.
Speaker 2:I think what you do is you reassess your life going forward. Your midlife crisis isn't so much about what you've done, but you begin to think, well, how much time have I got left on god's earth and what am I going to do with that time? And uh, my mother died when she was 52. So, uh, so I was kind of aware of uh, mortality and I was aware of that if you die at that age, how much life you miss out on. You know all the life that she'd missed out on. So I was thinking, well, this is kind of like bonus time, this is kind of the time that my mum never had. So what am I going to do?
Speaker 2:And I think there was an element where the whole Hacienda retro thing started off and Hookie was doing his Hacienda nights and they were basically because I've talked to him about them and he's like, like we play old records and you know they were. I mean, it's moved on a little bit since then. But you know, we want. We're playing what we were playing in 88 89 on a saturday night, on a friday night, um, and that's what we play. And, uh, and there was you, and there's perennial nostalgia around the around the Manchester scene and I think I.
Speaker 2:So when I got to that point in my mid fifties I was thinking, well, am I going to spend the rest of my life looking back on the eighties as my golden period and, you know, trying to recreate it and, um, chasing that again and again and playing the same records again and again? Or am I going to absolutely live in the now and and live in the future and reassess stuff? Not and not look back or not look back so much, um. So I think getting rid of the records became kind of symbolic of me ridding myself of the baggage of the past. Not because I can't, you know, I can talk to you all night about it and I can, and you know, and I celebrate it and I love it and I don't regret any of it. But the idea of waking up every day and thinking my life's not as good as it was in the 80s is psychologically not very good for you, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think also, dave, is you know, we it's like kind of the resurgence of the the rave scene again. You know there's a lot more people kind of doing like the warehouse parties. But then there's the the kid in me that always, because I'm I'm on a group called like 90s ravers and um, just listening to some of the people, it's like, you know, back back in our day and it's like I don't want to be that person. You know, that was our time. You don't need to compare like what's going on now to what's going on back then. I was there, I lived it, I breathed it. You know, if I could, all these people like, if I could go back, why We've done it you know, you know, I think what that kind of that attitude?
Speaker 2:I think there's a uh, there's a sentence that I've probably ended up writing in a few of my books. To be honest, uh, nostalgia is a disease created by old people to deny young people their dreams. You know, because the the implication is that, um, we had, what we did can never be replicated by anybody. And you, you're all living in a dark age compared to the golden age we lived in, uh, which is just not true. You know, because, as I still am that person who will seek out young bands in small venues and look for new music and try and play new music, then I can tell you that in Manchester there are better venues, there are better DJs, there are so many great groups. There's at least two or three new recording studios opened in the last year. There's art spaces, there's all kinds. Two or three new recording studios opened in the last year.
Speaker 2:There's art spaces, there's all kinds of collectives, uh, mini festivals, um, and in fact, it makes the eighties look like a wasteland, you know, and so, but you still have to be curious to find it all. You know, because if you don't, if you're not curious, you'll walk out and you'll go to some really horrendous places playing some terrible music and, uh, you know you won't find your tribe and you won't find anything different and you won't be inspired. But if you, if you're a curious person and you go looking, then you will find stuff. And it's that implication that, um, that things were better back then objectively, which I don't believe it. Subjectively you're entitled to your opinion, but objectively that's not true, um, and in fact I can remember when I, when I was, yeah, in late 70s, and I was, you know, going to see all these bands Joy Division, blondie, iggy Pop, magazine, um, uh, steel Pulse, going to great parties, um, and there were the older, the slightly older generation to me was still talking about Woodstock, carnaby Street, the Beatles, uh, and it, and they were definitely saying, you know, we did it all, there's nothing left to do. You know, you missed out, kid. And and I remember looking around thinking, oh, I don't, I actually do not agree with you there, you know, and I've ended up living through that post-punk and then living through hip-hop, living through the early Acid House, and so I'm kind of like, well, you can keep Woodstock, you know what I mean, that's your thing, but so I never.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a big mistake to kind of write off people's potentials and people's futures by looking back. And I think that's again like I say, it was instinctive selling my records. But the more I kind of work out why I got to that point then, the more I think it was a kind of a symbolic act. And the thing was Seth bought them and then he took them. Seth bought 35 boxes of records and then kind of took them to Ibiza and played them, you know, and he'll he'll occasionally, um, you know, send me a photo of one of my records getting played in Argentina or Japan or something you know. So the alternative would be that just be sat in my in in the basement of my house, um, you know, waiting for me to die so that my son or my daughter can sell a few and put the rest in a skip. Well, it's the better off in Argentina with Seth Troxler.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sending you photographs, I mean.
Speaker 2:I don't know where I am in that scenario.
Speaker 1:I think it's brilliant, though, because I know was it 2016,. You interviewed him and he played some of your records on stage right While you were doing.
Speaker 2:It wasn't a club right, we did a Q&A at a music conference in Ibiza and, yeah, we got really deep on it. I mean, seth is a genuine, really genuine guy, big music fan and the audience were mainly at this music conference. I would say, kind of serious German techno boys come to listen to Seth with their backpacks on and he picked out I think he said he picked out two records from my collection. One was A Certain Ratio Flight which was produced by Martin Hannett, which is, I mean, a fantastic record even now, and then a track by a band called the marine girls, which was the band that tracy thorne from everything but the girl was in before, um, everything but the girl.
Speaker 2:And so the german techno boys were forced to listen to these two songs and, um, but yeah, we took, we, in fact we took lot, we found a lot in common, you know, and we did a night that raised four or five grand for mental health charity. We DJed together and raised some money for mental health charity. So you know, and I've never regretted selling the records at all, not like, not for one moment um, I mean, and he got them all, you know, he got, I mean, he got, uh, he got a fall album with the? Uh marky smith had got a pen to have written I love you, dave, mark and dave forever or something. Uh late one night and uh so seth's got that I haven't got that anymore and he also he got.
Speaker 2:Occasionally people post on my, on facebook or whatever. You know, uh, remember this. You know, uh, bet, none of you remember this it was. You know this was a classic. This is brilliant. People should know about this.
Speaker 2:You know some record from years ago and I just comment seth has this record, you know, because he's ended up with loads of obscure stuff. But you know he liked it. Yeah, he loves it. So, yeah, the music is still there. And you know, I, uh, you know, and and uh, the only thing is he didn't.
Speaker 2:He took all the 12s and all the albums, but I've got all the sevens, so I've actually, I've actually got three gigs this year playing seven inch only sets. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, because I'm kind of thinking, well, I'm glad you said that, um, rather than that's mad, but, um, because I do think it's kind of quite cool that, uh, you know it's not the easiest option or the most lucrative option. Day, will you come and dj for us. We'll put yellow and black stripes all over the flyer. No, but I will come and do a 7 inch only set and play a load of obscure early mute recordings from 1981. So I don't get paid particularly well for that kind of a set, but you know why not really. Why not? Well, I wanted a set, but you know why not really, why not?
Speaker 1:well, I wanted to ask you, you know, I mean you you've kind of done it all um. I mean you've dj'd for stone roses at their their big blackpool gig, which you know still to this day. I mean, I'll put it on youtube and watch it. Obviously I'm not going to be one of those. I was there bollocks, you know I was nowhere. Well, I mean, I was in outside the liverpool but not not in blackpool. But you know it, it just looked like an amazing gig, but it looked like a movement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everyone was together and um, funnily then that gig was uh, it was uh reviewed by bob stanley in melody maker and stewart mcconaughey in the nma. I mean, those guys know what they're talking about and they both reviewed my dj set as well as the band. That was like the change in that was that was the part of the new culture you know. There's not, you know, in all the reviews ever written about you know, the smiths or no one's reviewed the dj warm-up set. You know to me, but then it, it was became part of the experience. People would kind of come in and you know the uh, you know my job there. And then obviously I did uh, spike island, alexandra palace, I see, and I did four gigs with them, you know, and you've got a very specific job which is just to set that vibe so that when they come on it's less like the perfect moment. And, yeah, so they reviewed the DJ, which was fantastic, you know, and the atmosphere.
Speaker 2:Blackpool was my favourite Stone Roses gig of them all. Yeah, something very special. Again, the crowd were really young. I mean, I noticed it even more at spike island. Um, that was 1990, so I was uh 28, so that means that, um, uh, ian and john were, uh, probably 26, but I would say the average age of the crowd was 19, 18, 19.
Speaker 2:And that's when you know there's a change in the culture. You know, when you know, like I said before, it's almost like their Woodstock. You know it's like their moment. You know that is their, it's going to be their abiding memory, it's their formative years and they found, you know, they found their favorite music, they found their band to follow, and that's a great age to discover yourself, a lot about yourself, you know. So there's a lot of energy, a lot of excitement. In fact there was more energy and excitement from in the crowd than there was kind of on stage at spike island. But, yeah, blackpool was different. Blackpool was, blackpool was great. Alexandra palace the band didn't like the alexandra palace gig. Uh, they were really, really disappointed with it, but Blackpool absolutely all came together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I Am your Resurrection. You know just especially the kind of the longer version than you know. On the seven inch you only get what like four minutes of it and it's like a nine 10 minute, like John Squire just going off on the guitar but just seeing ian playing the with the drumstick on on the edge of the stage and from what I read you you couldn't even get off the stage, so you saw the whole get and behind the stage.
Speaker 2:Well, my, yeah, so, um, yeah, because they'd set up the dj. I mean, that was the other new thing. It was like the roses and other bands james were the same. They asked me to dj blackpool and brixton academy and gmex. But, um, promoters like old school, well you've got, you don't have to support when you've got to support dj.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, where do we put the DJ? Well, on the stage. Well, where you know, um, I mean, it's been a few times when I've played with bands and I've been like quite at the center of the stage and then the band are about to come on and they kind of they've got the got the DJ thing on on on wheels. So I'm literally kind of stood there and I'm pushed to one side on wheels, which is a bit undignified. Um, I kind of prefer sort of being half hidden really. So at blackpool I was behind, uh, john squire's amp, um, and that's good because you can kind of see the band about to come on. You can just make sure that, you know. I mean I think I played with dj for ian on one of his solo tours and uh, my last song was, uh, fight the power public enemy and honestly, ian was just so, energized by you know, and he kind of bounced past me sort of, you know, just like yes, um. So, uh, my mate Cressa, steve Cressa, who was, um, nominally, uh, john Squire's guitar tech, um, and he's visible on a lot, quite a few, quite a lot of um footage of the stone roses, um, he was there, so me and him were, he was a bit, he was in front of me but we were both basically behind john's amp um, but because I was on stage and I had all this equipment, I couldn't get off this equipment. I couldn't get off, so I literally stood at the back of the stage for the whole of that Blackpool set.
Speaker 2:So obviously you could I've never experienced anything like that because it was the crowd, you know, you know that from djing. You know, obviously you know that, uh, the, you know the, the chemistry that that you can create in the atmosphere you and the crowd together is what makes it great. Um, you can't create that atmosphere without them buying into it and and adding to it and contributing to it. And the and the way the crowd reacted to the roses was was kind of just like that really, um, and it wasn't so much the noise, it was just, it was almost something, some other kind of psychic energy. I mean I know I'm talking like hippie now, but I kind of feel I can kind of psychic energy. I mean I know I'm talking like hippie now, but I can kind of feel it felt it almost like buffeting me, just whatever was in that room it was, yeah, it was brilliant and it was 35 years ago.
Speaker 1:I know, isn't that mental, I know, it just seems like you know yesterday.
Speaker 2:The other weird thing about that is that you know when you DJ I sometimes I still think of it as not a blag exactly, but I'm like people are paying me.
Speaker 2:Or you know, I don't travel the world exactly but I get, you know, gigs in Paris or Italy, and but you don't realize till you often don't realize how much of an impact you have. And then I in fact it's happened to me a couple of times in Paris recently I did a night at a club called the Locomotive in 89 and 90. And in the last few years I've two people who in paris who said to me I used to come and hear you at the loco and I remember one time you played and they kind of reel off what I played that that night wasn't just another night out for them, it wasn't like a blurred memory, it was the same as if they'd gone to see a band. You know it. You could have had that conversation with somebody. Yeah, I remember when you know I went to see whatever the smiths, uh, or you know, and they played for an encore. They did a cover version of da, da, da and I can remember it like it was yesterday.
Speaker 1:There's actually people who can remember what I played 35 years ago, which is you know, uh, you know, I'm still uh trying to process that really um, must be a great feeling, because you know, I mean, you know how it is, dave, these days a lot of people blag and say like you said, oh, I was there and all that, and you weren't, you probably just got on youtube and you know, you just need to google stuff.
Speaker 2:But like you can tell when somebody's telling the truth and it comes from the heart, yeah, yeah, I mean, I have to say I mean it sounds like I'm I'm being like ultra uh, uh, modest, but I remember uh before the hacienda, so it's like a before and before I did the venue I did uh. I worked with some other guys who were in a band called Big Flame and we did the occasional night at a tiny club called the man Alive Probably held about 150 people. The dance floor probably held about 30. In fact, I think that's where I was going the night. I saw the status quo queue, um, and we put bands on uh, and then once a month I would dj and um, we just did it because why not? You know, and they and you know, and I had my fanzine, so I had people I got to know through my fanzine and they, you know, we all lived in Hume, which was close to the venue, so our friends would just come in. You know why not? Um, there was a pool table and all that kind of thing. Make a night of it.
Speaker 2:And then one night these two girls came who were dead young and we looked at each other who who were dead young, and we looked at each other like who are they? And it was the first time I'd ever dj'd and to people other than my friends or friends of friends. Two complete strangers who didn't know anyone in the room had heard that it was a decent night and they were from chilton because obviously we made friends with them. Then we were like, wow, why are you here? Well, you know, we liked it. It sounded like it was going to be a good night. You know, they paid, whatever it was a quid to get in, and I can just remember being so overwhelmed that somehow what we'd done had captured somebody beyond our friendship circle. You know, and you always kind of, when you're starting out, you always think people are just supporting you because, you know, not because they feel sorry for you, necessarily, but they're like, we're just supporting you, so we're going to come down to your night. You know, do we have to pay a quid? You do, if, yeah, if you can, um, but to actually and and you know, and obviously, since there's whatever tens of thousands of people who've come to pay to hear me dj, uh, and not have their, you know, not having had their arm twisted or anything, you know, just genuinely want to come in. And I still remember that moment because I was thinking, I just thought it was so incredible and I still think.
Speaker 2:You know, I go to. I've got a gig in Preston at the beginning of September, a club called the New Continental in Preston and it's the third time I've done that and it sold out both nights. And I do a night at the Golden Lion in Codmerdon and they're not the greatest. Obviously they sound like they're not the greatest gigs in the world, but those gigs sell out and there's no one there that I know, but they're all. They arrive with a completely open mind, open heart, absolute desire to have a good time. Uh, you know, and it's always good, it's always sold out.
Speaker 2:And I still, you know the buzz that I get from that is just the same buzz as I got back in 1984, whenever it was when these two sisters from Chorlton turned up and we were like, wow, we've connected, we've connected to somebody else. And you know, and honestly I can say that for me that is what it is about, that is absolutely what it is about. And you know, most of the rest of djing is a pain in the ass. You know invoicing people, doing your taxes, organizing your transport, getting home, recovering the next day all of that is nobody wants to do any of that, but you do it because you just you've had that, those hours of connecting with those complete strangers, and that is just joy, absolute joy yeah, you must.
Speaker 1:You must pinch yourself. I mean again, you, you've dj'd hacienda. You've DJed, you know, all over the place. You've had the pleasure or the pain of interviewing Morrissey. You know you were the first one to get the exclusive from Johnny Marr about the break on Smith's, which you know and to me, you know. Keeping that inside as well for Johnny for two years, that's just you know. Keeping that inside as well for Johnny for two years, that's just you know, because a lot of people just come out and go. You know, I had enough. You know we hear it from Noel and Liam nearly every damn day, especially from Liam. You know how the breakup was in Paris. But with Johnny, you know it took two years. But for him, to you, you know, trust you that you would write the right things. Yeah, you know, it's just amazing to me, you, you seem to have lived life on your, your terms, and and that's, that's the way to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's great that you say that. I mean, it's like I say it's um, you know, I still queue at the post office to you know, buy a stamp like everyone else so does, do you know? I mean it's not, it's like the stamps don't come to you. Tonight I've got to put the bins out and tomorrow it's three-bin day. We have four bins in Manchester and tomorrow is three-bin day, which is my favourite because you're getting rid of three times more shit than you do on next week, which is one-bin day. So tomorrow I can't the brown bin with the plastic and the aluminium. That's got to wait until next week, but everything else goes in the morning.
Speaker 2:So honestly, I've spent more time than you would imagine sorting out my bins this evening and then cutting them. You know what I mean. There's no. You know you could do exclusives for johnny marr every year and you still have to put your bins out yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:It's just brilliant, like I mean, if anybody loves music and and a really good book again. Sonic youth slept on my floor. The Happy Mondays stuff, the fax machine story had me absolutely rolling on the floor because I can imagine what those lads were up to during that those days, just off their tits and their mates doing what they did. I don't want to give too much away because I want people to go, you know, go buy the book. But any good stuff coming up for you I know you have the. Is it April 10th or 11th? You have the Grace Jones book coming out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean, my recent writing project has been this series of small format books. I mean, at this point I should kind of have one in my in my head and wave it. I've got one, but there's been, there's been eight. Uh, this is actually about keith herring, the artist, and I said to the uh designer designer uh, that I would, that I thought the front cover should be uh, if we could make it look like a cross between a dove of peace and an erect penis, that would be like the perfect signals for the life of keith herring, and I think we pretty much nailed it. Yeah, will this, well, the podcast get taken down for me saying you're at peanuts no I can see it now.
Speaker 1:I've shown you. You can see it twice now. Yeah, well, also looks like a peeled banana okay, thank you.
Speaker 2:Um, so I've done eight of them, I mean, and there's, you know, they're sort of two, two or three hour read and I've done them on various topics Pablo Picasso's Paris nightlife, courtney Love in Liverpool, the whole story of Courtney being in Liverpool in 1982 and what she got up to, including jumping in the van when Echo and the Bunnymen came over to play the Hacienda. So she visited the Hacienda in the early months, early months when it was open in 1982. It had only been open a couple of months when it was open in 1982 and only been open, uh, yeah, a couple of months, and courtney was uh drunk and in the hacienda, um, sylvia plath, uh. So yeah, I mean, they're books. They're all books based on, on things I always wanted to write about.
Speaker 2:And the Grace Jones book, which is out in April, is about a story I heard that she obviously absolute queen of disco, studio 54, glamorous jet setting, all of those things, um, and she went to Stockport which, um, you know, if anyone knows Stockport, especially in 1980, it was kind of post-industrial, quite grim, and I kind of try to imagine Grace Jones walking through Stockport shopping center in November of 1980. Stockport as a football team doing even worse, than a lot worse than they are now. Um, they're just drawn nil nil uh in the in the uh, and I think they're in the bottom half of the bottom division anyway. Uh, and I just wanted to, and she was there to talk to a factory band called a certain ratio about recording a song together, uh, talking head song. So she met a certain ratio and, um, uh, their producer, martin hannett, who was also joy division producer. So so she was in Stockport to go to the recording studios and meet them and listen to a demo version of the song they were going to work together on.
Speaker 2:And so the book is about how and why that happened and it follows Grace Jones's life trajectory, you know, growing up in Jamaica, living in Paris as a model, being in New York, hit records on the disco scene, and then a certain ratio, young lads with good haircuts but not much else going for them, you know, from pretty normal backgrounds, uh, you know, withenshaw, flickston, um, on on factory, which was operating, uh, in in the bedroom of a house in Withington. So two different worlds basically. But so I sort of track how they came together and the whole process, and I love doing it because it's an era of music that I love and it's around the time that she wrote an album, or she released an album called Warm Leather Rat, which is a great album. So the book is called Strawberry and the Big Apple, grace Jones in Stockport 1980. And she'd actually been to Liverpool earlier in the day. So that's even more reason for people to buy. Buy it, because that's totally undocumented. And there's a photo of um grace jones in liverpool in 1980, boxing with john conte, the boxer, um, and hanging out at the Anglican cathedral in Liverpool.
Speaker 2:So, um, so my books tend to be about untold stories, um, which seem to be, seem to have like a bit of a meaning and a bit of resonance. Um, in the same way, I guess, as I love to play you know unheard music that also has a bit of resonance. You know it's that, it's uh, it's a challenge, uh, but I think that's important. You know, like I mean, a dj could play you know the top 50 dance tunes of the moment, one after the other, and they're never going to have, they're never going to be interesting and they're never going to have a career. Or you write books that are basically rewriting various wikipedia entries, but that's not interesting. So just going that little bit further and finding something a bit out there, I think is really important. So, um and uh, I mean I'm in liverpool at the end of may, of May, at Leaf. Yeah, I'm at Leaf doing a book, a book talk. I can't remember.
Speaker 1:Off the top of my head I think it's the 27th of May, I might actually be back home, because I'm hoping to be celebrating the league title and winning the Europa League and waving goodbye to Mr Klopp see, dave, you shouldn't have said that. I've put that in the back of my mind for the next three months.
Speaker 1:You've just woken it up again but also West Brom might have got through the playoffs you know what I wish the best, and again we're all going to be looking at what's got through the playoffs. You know what I wish the best, you know, and again, you know, we're all going to be looking at, like, what's going to happen with Leicester, cause if Leicester get docked 10 points, that's going to change the whole, you know, league table. So I wish you the best for that. But I wanted to leave you with this because I really do like this quote Um, when you met Thurston Moore, well, you met him a few times and he didn't remember meeting you and it is kind of like you know, don't meet your heroes, and then you, saying you recollected of each other, tells us a lot about the hero fan relationship.
Speaker 1:You changed my life, but I didn't change yours. You know that's, it's a it's. It does sum up like how we put people on a pedestal. You know, yeah, and we buy all their, their records, or we buy all their books, all their art, and they don't really know who we are, why we think we know who they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just the way that people you know people with a book or a record or an album or a photograph or something, can just, can just change your life. You know it's and, uh, changing your life, making the world a better place, you know, which is should be the project we're all engaged on, but sadly, isn't always.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you turn on the telly and it's just all bad news. You know, that's why I, you know, looking my football takes me away from that, music takes me away from it. So, dave, it's been an absolute honour and a pleasure to have you on.
Speaker 2:Well, I've enjoyed it. It, I've really enjoyed it. So thank you for inviting me thanks everyone for listening.
Speaker 1:Please like and subscribe and we'll see you next time. Oh, so good to know that I can see Still the sun Come out. One. One will reign. One will reign For the King. He comes and the Lord. ©. Transcript Emily Beynon. Thank you.
