Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Last Interview

I had a lucky strike today; an interview I'd been trying to set up for weeks suddenly cropped up with an hour's notice. I snaffled a mouthful of Twiglets for lunch and headed on down to Camden's Parkway to a wonderful record shop called No Hit Records at number 88, which is packed full of rockabilly vinyl (including the Bison Bop series which I had no idea were still in circulation), and loads of CDs of really interesting music: old soul, horror rock, surf music, all sorts.
While I was waiting I browsed and bought a CD for my little brother's Christmas present of rockabilly songs all dedicated to girls and named after them (don't tell him if you are reading this, Sarah!).
My interviewee turned up; she had been away for four weeks in Cyprus and had come back with a poorly ear, so I tried not to exhaust her.
She has a head full of interesting stories and she's going to take part in Gina's documentary too. I could have spoken to her for weeks but I could see she wasn't feeling well and even after half an hour she was looking pale. I remembered being interviewed for a German Radio Show and three hours later feeling as though a vampire had drained my red corpsuckles dry!
So that's another one to transcribe, I hope this weekend.
What a pity Chrissie Hynde is not going to be in the book! There are too many silly myths about her floating around, the silliest of which being that she's not a good guitarist. She's very good indeed: she's just not Eric Clapton or another one of those twittish widdlers.
I am left wondering if she was the victim of anti-American racism at the beginning of punk; it probably did her favours in terms of her career to feel eventually separated from it, but her beginning was very much embedded in mid-seventies germination of British punk .
The pic (sorry about the quality) is from an elpee cover- I thought they looked like a family band. I couldn't work out who they are- anyone know? The woman is playing a double-necked guitar. Amazing.

1 comment:

Phil said...

I went to The Roxy one night when The Damned were playing, and Johnny Rotten and Chrissie Hynde came in together and sat at my little table in the bar. John sat turned with his back to Chrissie in a big sulk or something. It was a bit embarrassing to be be there, they were glancing across at me. Eventually Chrissie said to him "What, do I smell that bad?", and I got up and went downstairs.
Later when I saw the Pretenders I recognised it was her, and years later I read that she had been giving him some guitar lessons.
Whatever...
Zoot