Janszoon

Are we talking Doberman ears here or Basset Hound? I'm just trying to get the right mental image.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

TockTockTock

Quite an addition to Music Banter's community. Good to have you here.

Push

Thanks for your all warm welcomes. Good to be here!

@ Pedestrian -- I listen to all kinds of stuff (from rock and punk to rap and electronica) and I find it hard to pick any particular favourite artists. With Pulp, I especially like their early stuff. I interviewed them when their second album came out, so that was probably around 1987.

@ Mr Dave -- Well, he's certainly an intense character, but I always found him to be a nice guy – polite, chatty, cracking the odd joke. He was very direct in interviews and took the time to make sure you understood what he was saying (the other person I remember being like that was Professor Griff from Public Enemy). Rollins always gave me a lot of time and he always seemed to remember where and when we’d met previously, even if it had been a couple of years since we’d last talked.

@ Janszoon -- Cocker Spaniel.

Janszoon

Heh. good answer.

I was reading about your book on Amazon by the way. Sounds very interesting!

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

mr dave

That's very cool. Is 'making sure they understand' a typical issue when interviewing bigger musicians? What would you say is the ratio of legit personal answers and canned PR lines for a typical pop act?

I remember reading about Pantera back in the day and how they used to videotape ALL of their interviews to protect themselves against slanderous journalism. Ever deal with something of that nature?

Last question for now, you said you interviewed Soundgarden. Is Chris Cornell REALLY that perma-baked?

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i am the universe

Push

Most of the people I interviewed, even the bigger names, gave what I’d call honest answers pretty much the whole time. Some of these interviews took place 20-25 years ago and I think the record industry had much less control over their artists than they seem to have now. Plus, I was mainly interviewing rockers and rappers and technoheads, as opposed to mainstream pop acts.

The only one who insisted on making a tape of the interview was Professor Griff. I interviewed him in 1990, just after he’d been kicked out of Public Enemy for making racist comments about Jewish people to a Washington Times journalist (comments which he says were taken out of context).

I interviewed Cornell twice and he didn’t seem especially boxed either time. There were certainly several others who were a lot worse!! Lee “Scratch” Perry for one. Meeting him was an experience I’ll never forget.

mr dave

hahaha nice. Speaking of technoheads from 20-25 years ago did you ever chat with Squarepusher or Aphex Twin by chance? What about the dudes in Air?

Hope you don't mind these type of softball questions

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i am the universe

Push

Sorry for the delay in responding this time Mr Dave...

I've never interviewed Squarepusher or Air, but I did Aphex Twin a few times. This would have been around 1992/1993. He was nice guy but a very serious young man. He seemed a bit innocent and not quite of this world. I remember interviewing him once in Hyde Park and when we left the park we tried to hail a black cab, but I noticed he was trying to hail cabs that didn't have their lights on (meaning they weren't available for hire). When I pointed this out to him he said, "Oh, I've often wondered why cabs sometimes have lights on and sometimes don't". I think he'd been living in London for a couple of years by this point and I was astonished he hadn't worked that out yet!!

No problem about the questions. Happy to oblige with answers if I can.

mr dave

It's all good

Having read up on Aphex Twin a bunch in the past I'm not at all surprised in the way you describe him. There's a good chance there's a touch of autism at play.

So what's your score now? Are you completely out of the music journalism thing? Do you still find yourself digging for the next great thing or have you found yourself and your tastes relaxing more as you get older?

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i am the universe

Push

I have been out of music journalism for about 10 years. I've been mainly writing books since then. I recently started blogging, but it's no big deal, it's just for fun, and I'm certainly not searching for the next big thing these days. Far too old for that!