Loud and Quiet presents Midnight Chats. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Loud on Quiet interview podcast Midnight Chats. I'm recording this part of the podcast in my car, which is outside our office, and this car failed it's mot this week and now there's not really much use for it. I mean, I will deal with it in a responsible manner. I'm not going to abandon
the car here before anyone thinks otherwise. But it's quite noisy upstairs in our office, so I've come down here to record this awkward part where I have to introduce who my guest is this week. So currently sat in a car park in Hackney in the cold, looking kind of strange to the people in the office below us who are looking out their window at me. But they
will get over it, I'm sure. So my guest this week on the podcast is a friend of Loud and Quiet, so I would say, I mean, he's just a musician, like anyone else that we interview in the magazine and online and here on the podcast. But Wesy Gonzalez is someone that I have followed his music endeavors since he was a child. Actually, he formed Let's wrestle around the time I was starting Loud and Quiet around two thousand
and five, and that band has now split up. They were quite a tumultuous threesome, a punk DIY slacker group, and this year he released his first solo album, which is called Excellent Musician. Now, if you do read Loud and Quiet as well as listening to this podcast, then you may recognize the name Wesley Gonzalez. As a cover feature that we did earlier this year, Wesley was on
the front under the headline man versus Indie. That was because Wesley has decided that guitars just aren't for him anymore so, having made his name in a guitar band and very much in the indie rock sphere, he's over it now and he's made an album called Excellent Musician, which how doesn't feature any guitars. It features synthesizers and piano mainly, but strangely, it kind of sounds like there's a guitar on there. I don't know how he's done that, but you you know, you have to be reminded that
there isn't one on there. Anyway. We did a feature earlier this year and had a really fun day where we walked around the guitar shops of London and we tried to get guitar people to listen to Wesley's new single and tell us what they liked it. It was good fun. We start the conversation reminiscing about that and
also talking about Wesley's videos. I'm going to put a link on our website below where this podcast is being posted on our website at least to Wesley's videos, because he's made five videos this year and that all quite something to behold. So if you're listening to this on your phone or via the ACRS st app or the Apple app or whatever, then do take the time to go on YouTube and just put in Wesley Gonzalez and
check out some of the videos he's made. The ultimate one is his trip to Why Betha, which is where we will pick up this conversation. Thanks to Wesley for coming in. It was a really fun one. This so it's a bit longer than they usually are, and yeah, what more do I need to tell you? There's a bit of swearing in it. Wesley is a bit of a potty mouth. He freely admits that. And as long
as you're okay with that please enjoy this episode. We're going to have a couple more episodes of the podcast before Christmas time, and then we'll take off, like you know, a couple of weeks. Nobody really wants to be listening to our podcast over the Christmas period, I'm sure, so we pick it back up in January. So there will be a couple of more but for now here is
Wesley Gonzalez. And if you're currently in the market for a Perjo two six four series without an mot and very little hope of passing one, I can help you with that. Last time, what I saw you was when we did the cover feature.
Was that March, Yes, something like that March praul When did the record come out? That came at June? It was a couple of It was a little bit yeah then.
So to bring any listeners up to date. That was for a feature for the magazine, a cover feature where we went down Denmark Street and attempted to play people in guitar shops your albums, which doesn't feature any guitar, no guitar at all. Yeah, to get their opinion. But we weren't that successful, not all because they were essentially because they were just too grumpy.
They weren't. Overall, they weren't that grumpy though, whether they were quite polite. There was a couple of guys who just told us to bugger off, but overall they were like frustratingly polite.
Yeah, the ones.
I did want them to sort of really start slating it, but I couldn't. They didn't ever get to that.
Point because basically the people that would have been cruel about it wouldn't even talk to us, And the people that would talk to us were just too polite. So they said, oh I like it.
Yeah, what was it going? Guy said, it sounds like mystery Jets? Just a bizarre reference.
I don't know where you got that from. But the but everyone was quite pleasant. It was a fun day out though, Yes, in Nevertheless, they're just weird shops, so aren't they? They are generally like.
I don't know why I keep on putting these ideas out there that it's putting myself in a situation which makes me the most anxious and nervous I could possibly be.
Were you really anxious that day?
Yeah? I get so terrified of doing it. I get really terrified of talking to people. I'm very good at pretending I'm not terrified. I don't exude anxiety in any way, but fucking.
Terrified inside you are.
Yeah, I'm dying, You're dying.
Yeah, very well, you sat on that. I remember that day very well, and you seemed with it. You were straight in there, walking up to them and saying, Hey, can I play you my record?
I think I gear myself up into it. I don't know. I think it's I'm paying too much attention to John Ronson or something, and like that's, you know, going into this sort of like I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it, but I've gotten, I've gotten all right. It's like we did that video and I Betha and that's the same. That was the most terrifying two days I've ever I've ever had. It was really there was about two or three occasions when I thought I'm genuinely gonna get shit kicked out of me.
So this is the video for Amsterdam. Yes, this is the this is the video of the year.
Yeah, well I think so.
This is for anyone listening that's not not seen this yet, I suggest you stop listening to this podcast now, go and watch that. I'd take three minutes of your day and then come back to this podcast. This is where's his video for his track Amsterdam and it's you on a Lad's Holidays filmed in Iviefa.
Right, it is filmed.
Yes, let's just set the scene of it.
If we If we start off from the beginning. We found out what the budget was from the label. I'm sat with my mate Danny does all the videos, We do them all together. He's an old old friend of mine. He also does a bank called Charles Hall, who are very good and we sat there found out how much the budget was. We talked up this ridiculous idea that was slightly vic and bob esque that we were planning and then just not really feeling it, and then found
out how much more was. We were like, let's see flights. Where can we go with this budget? And it matched perfectly. The budget was one hundred pounds off for spending on the video and then two hundred quid on the flight.
On the flights so go to Ibeth.
I think this because we watched an episode of sun Sex Suspicious Parents as well. That's the that was the influence behind it, and originally the video was also going to be us interviewing my mum afterwards and her watching the footage and getting subtle, but the song was too short to get it in there. We even went around and started setting everything up at my mum's house. But
so we fly over. We had about an hour's sleep on the way over, when neither of us had been to our breather before, neither of us had been on a lad's holiday before.
Why had you only had an hour's sleep this point?
Because the flight was it was like you know, cheap flights, five in the morning. We had to get to Standstead and so now it wasn't any mad party or anything, okay, it was we were sober. Just went and got there at like seven in the morning. The airbnb we were staying in was literally just as we like, right next to the beach, and we walked and we were a bit worried because it was so serene, but obviously that's seven in the morning. Yeah, it was a bit quiet.
I'm a bit worried about this. And then we went checked into the airbnb, sat down for a minute and then we're like, okay, let's go do it, get ourselves up, went out and did it. The first shot, we're lying it's me lying on the beach. It's one of the first shots in the video as well. I'm lying on the beach with whiskey and coke. I'm singing the.
Song wearing like Brown Trouns.
I'm wearing Yeah, I've got this T shirt made that says I love excellent musician, which caused a lot of trouble as well. The whole time was there going you're excellent musician, and yes, yes I am. And yeah. So I'm lying on the beach and this Welsh guy just runs up into as soon as he notices I'm doing something slightly odd, runs up, tucks his little penis out at the top of his shorts and proceeds to start
humping my head. And we got this shot and I could see Danny filming me, just like, do not move, do not change. You know, something amazing is happening right now. You don't know what it is, but something brilliant is happening. And then we went to the bar and sat down and we looked at the footage. We've made the complete right decision. This is the best possible thing we could have done. I think, like half an hour later, I'm like and I'm really smashing the drinks back as well.
To get through this, very very scared, I go up and start talking to these guys. This again very early on in the video you see it. Start talking to these guys doing laughing gas and I was trying to get balloons off them, and I go, hey, you're right, guys, I don't know how to approach it, all right, fellas, how you doing? Could I possibly buy one of those laughing gas and canisters off you? And you just that All of them looked at me and just started walking.
And it's one of the shots where I'm walking behind them and I do this weird like hand gesture like I'm in with them or something. It's just it's bizarre. And those are the guys where it was like they're going to kill me the sense I was following them, and then they sort of turned around and I ran off. I was like, I'm going to get murdered now. This is and everybody was so huge as well, like really
massively beefed up dudes. We got away with most of the video by telling people we worked for Vice, because it explained why we were such odd dickheads, you know, like that in their Vice was sort of enough of a platform that they understood what that was, understood that we were just some hipster dickheads trying to make some stupid video whatever. So we did get through it in the end, but it was and we only had two
hours sleep while we're there. Over the space of three days we had about three out of sleep, and it was just absolutely exhausting and grueling, but it was it was I'm so happy with how it came out.
Did you manage to enjoy the exp because you've never this is the first quote unquote lads holiday you've been on.
Well, we were discussing it when we were there, of what constitutes the lad's holiday. And I went away with the two guys I did let's wrestle with and a few school friends when we were about fifteen to Montpellier in France, which I wouldn't call it lads holiday but it was six lads, but just dorky lads.
Well, this is this is what's changed, I think because I've been because I'm from Essex, so I've been on lads holidays willingly. Yeah, and it had a great time. But then and maybe this is just maybe my complexion and my build, But now it seems like everyone looks like you're saying it, Well, the guys are all massive guys. They all really look after themselves. I don't know if this is like since Towie and Maiden Else and all those things.
I'm not sure what it is, but I questioning the Royds situation. It's some serious steroids shit. Yeah as well, I.
Think because when I went on Lad's holidays, it was really like we probably thought we were cool, but it was more like the in between us.
Well, we saw a lot of people like that. We were trying to keep away from those people because it became too real in that sense. We had to only get the beef cakes in. But we did see other people there who.
Looked as awkward as you felt.
Yeah, pretty much, but they in some they obviously didn't have the confidence in themselves that they knew they didn't belong there. At least we knew we didn't belong. They were trying to get along with everybody and it just wasn't working, and sort of you did feel really bad for them. And you know, I've only been in situations like that with like sort of young, youngish testosterone fueled
trying to get laid sort of situations very infrequently. I think I learned from a very early age that I wasn't that person, but I did on this holiday to Montpellier. I think it's because the flights are like a tenor AND's going to like the middle of the summer, go to Montpellier and just sort of had nothing to do. There's no clubs in Montpelli or anything like that. I think we did finally find a club, and everybody was really excited that there was a club. They finally found
a club. We went in and there was nobody in there, and I was just being a negative bastard, going, oh, this is terrible, there's nobody here. What do you think? I was like, look at you anyway. Do you think anybody's going to shag you? Look at you? Look we all look like idiots. What do you think is gonna happen?
And then about twenty Irish girls came into the club, and everybody I was with got so incredibly excited that there were these girls there, and it got really and I think I made one joke that I don't know if I should repeat. I made one joke to one of them, just honestly thinking it was quite funny. It went down so badly that all twenty girls left. She went, okay, we're all going now, and they all stormed out of the club and left instantly, And then everybody turned around
and hated me for the rest of the time. You blew it.
That was going to be, Yeah, that was everyone's moment.
It was going to be an orgy in the youth hostel.
With the rest of your party, the rest of Let's wrestle and the friends you're with. Were any of them getting on with any of the Irish girls, just even if they were just chatting to them?
And yeah, it's funny because Louis, who who I did Let's wrestle with it, I think he was more on my level. He knew we weren't getting lucky in anyway. We were a bit more like realistic about it. Yeah, nobody wants to fucking fucking fifteen year old boy, but you know, we were realists about it. But everybody else was like, this is it, this is it. We're new people now. Like one of them bought a copy of Nuts magazine on the plane and I was like, you've
never bought Nuts before? Why you buy a Nuts magazine? He's like, well, what it got really defensive. It's like some reinvention of himself as a lad. It's like you're a postboy from Mauslil. You're go into Montpellier and you're buying a copy of fucking Nuts. What are you doing? But yeah, it was horrific and I never And they went the next year and they didn't invite.
Me to to the same place.
No, they went. They went somewhere equally as middle class though, and.
They're like, we're not don't invite Wears because he blows it of all the girls.
Yeah, in this clubless like culture Land. I think they went to like Vienna or something.
So when you're in I Beefa and you're hanging out with like these beefcakes, yeah, how would you get the shots that you needed of talking to them? Would you ever say we're making a fit? Would you just like, how did you go about getting those kind of big stacked guys in? Do you just start some of them?
We were just some of them, some of them. Danny was going over by himself because I looked too odd. So it's like when it's the individual shots, I'm hiding like around the corner because they as soon as I'm in it. They know that something's odd.
This is exactly how we did the cover feature with me going into the shop and saying, I've got this musician outside.
That's my tactic. And I was hiding because I knew as soon as I get involved, it goes wrong and they realize something's up terribly wrong.
Is that just because they think this guy has clearly taking a piers?
I think so, I don't know. There's something about my demeanor that I can't I'm very bad at like you know, I think in the same way that sometimes you, especially in the music industry, a lot of the time selling yourself, You're just going like, I'm brilliant, I'm fantastic, and I don't have the capability of doing that. If something's going wrong, I'm going to go this is fucking terrible. Everything's awful. I want to kill myself. This is terrible, and I
can't do the thing. So it's the same thing. If I know that I'm trying to get a rise in some sort of way, I am still I've got a look on my face or and I'm wearing a T shirt that says I love excellent musician. I've designed the logo on my phone as well. I designed that T shirt on my phone, which I thought modern technology wise was absolutely fantastic. But you know, so a lot of it. He had to do that sort of side of it.
But then there were but then there were other ones where I would go and approach them and say, we're making a documentary. That was the line. We're making a documentary about lad culture. And there's so many noisy documentaries on lads in Ibtha or whatever. We knew we could get away with it, so just doing that and then they'd just be chatting and a lot of there were just really sweet guys as well, and they're just like,
oh yeah, brilliant. Like even the guy coming and humping my head when we talked to him after, he was like, oh, you're making a video, brilliance, and like, you know, he's got really excited. So everybody it was weird. It was sort of sometimes you just as soon as you could smell I'm going to get the shit kicked out me. I just get the fuck away from it as quickly
as possible. If there were there was like six lads on a hendu and they all had tattoos up to their ears, like completely full body tattooed, looked absolutely they come out of a gang, you know, they look terrifying, and oh yeah, I'm just on my hand. Yeah, just sort of, you know, so last night to night, so we go have a real mad one. You know, it's just right, This isn't what I thought it was, but you look like you look the part. So we're just
sort of trying to find anybody that did that. I mean, the worst pit was there was one shot where we're walking down the big strip where all the clubs are and I'm singing the song walking down and that took about three hours, where because I was so pissed as well, I was.
Like, you do look absolutely ship. First, I was going to say, is that just that's just real? That's not like, yeah it.
Was, Yeah, I was absolutely ship. But we were going into every bar. You go into there, they'll give you a free shot just for going in, and Danny the director wasn't drinking, so we'd got two shots every bar, and I do both of them, and then we go to the next place do both of them. And it was because I knew at some point I'm going to have to go and start doing mad dancing in a club, I'm going to have to do.
That's the best. That's the best moment when you're dancing and there's kind of a circle, a fague circle around your people looking The.
Video could have just been that one long I was just dancing to a song for three minutes. It was literally that, and we could have just released that of me dancing and doing this psychotic, really like weird tribal shucking that I'm doing and just sort of I was thinking, like I'm like trying my best to look completely normal, just going this is the most unnatural thing I've ever done, and I can as well. It's like, I'm all right
at dancing. I'm not too bad at dancing, and I think that's the funny thing is that I'm not bad at it, but I am just choosing to do the weirdest dancing. And they're playing like tech house in that club as well. It's like, this is to horrible tech house music, and it was the music. There was the
worst music. And I love techno and house music and stuff like that, but it was the worst of the worst, like you know, Avichi and stuff like that, and trying to dance to like a Rihanna club remix, but doing it in this insane style.
Yeah, because actually oddly it's kind of in time to the tune, Yeah to your song.
But that's what I was trying to do. If I'm doing like a straight beat, it's not gonna work with a song, so it has to be this weird flailing around but also slightly r men. But yeah, you just there is a shot where you see one guy in the background who was just looking the most perplexed I've ever seen. But he look he looks so like, what the fuck is going on? This is not what I signed up for. This isn't the ib ether I know and love. You just could not suss it out whatsoever,
but it was. It was. Yeah, it was the most exhausting two days I've ever had. It was. And then we got back the next morning again no sleep and had to go straight to work as well. I got from the from the airport straight into Soho to the record show to work, and luckily my boss gave me an extra hour off and I showed him. I showed him the video afters and he was like, I'm glad I gave you this.
You deserve you.
Did.
Did it make you think differently? At aur of like lad culture when you when you talk about when you say, like, you know, you some people and you thought they look hard, but they're like really sweet guys. Did it make you kind of think I've never really thought maybe some of them, all right, I've not really.
Had much of a disparaging thought about it, to be honest. I think the weird thing about it was I think I put it in the press release that I didn't want it to be in any way mocking of people. And you know, a lot of my family are like that. I'm from a family of a lot of people who were working class people who like to go and get ship faced.
On an island.
Yeah, you know, it's not become used to it weirdly like just but not in that circumstance. So I didn't have much preconceptions in the first place. And but it was just it was exactly what you would expect. It is walking into an episode of Parents, which is just one of my favorite shows ever. And like, you know, we were we were we were going back to the Airbnb and film it and watching the show and copying
the camera angles. Like we get one shot in the video where it's me doing a shot and the camera follows the shot going up to my mouth, which is
something we nicked directly from Sunsets Parents. We've got a few in there that we were really like, nobody's going to notice, but we were really proud that we've got the exact same shooting that they had done in their Sunsets Parents that I don't think it changed my mind on it in any way, or I mean, people are just people, and people like to let their hair down and stuff like that, and you know, people do whatever
they want. I mean, it was we made a big point we didn't want to film any in any of
the clubs that had strippers or anything. You know that it's so there is so much misogyny in those places, and you know, just the amount of women walking around in a bikinian heels and you sort of just feel really terrible for It's like you just be comfortable, you're on holiday, just have a nice time, but they're still looking at themselves as these sort of I've got to be in some way sexual to these beefcake men, and it's the testosterone levels are so incredibly different to and
it's sort of soak into you as well. You sort of start thinking in a different way, in a way I wouldn't usually think like it was like, oh, yeah, you know you start going, you remember that you have you're sort of you're a blow because well it's like, oh no, I'm from an arts background, you know, I'm thinking like this.
I'm not.
I'm a homely sort of you know, music carding this. But yeah, it was just it was bizarre. It was one of the weirdest things I've ever done, and I'm really glad I did it, but I never wanted to do it with again.
So then you come back and go pretty much straight to work. This is in in Sister Ray. I still call it selected disc in my mind. Yes, I had to catch myself.
So when I first started going, I always remembered it as selected discs. I started going when I was about twelve minears over the road and stuff.
That's a paper chase. Now, it's very depressing, sad.
It's depressing that you see like couples come in to bloke go downstairs and the wife I'm just go to paper and that really upsets me. You know, not obviously not all the time, but I'll wait for the paper chase. What is in there? What people find it's wrapping.
Paper, wrapping paper, and kind of like ironic cards. I think.
I think the only good place to buy gift cards at corner.
Shops absolutely the one across the road from here. I brought up all of that, all of that gift cards because they're old. They're not going to restock them. I think they've been in there since, you know, nineteen eighty five.
So the ones where they're really shuddly made and it's just like a picture of two wine glasses and congratulations.
Yeah, or it's like an embossed football football boot.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, they're great.
I love Happy Birthday Dad that.
Yeah.
What's great about them is they're like they're from a pre ironic age, aren't they. There's no that's so honest and sweet.
There's something with modern culture in general is that everything has some sort of niche boutique vibe, now.
Some gag in it.
Yeah. I just want everything to be ship like it was.
Yeah, paper chases. The paper chase excels in that does like I think, like kind of little nods.
And things, fancy ribbon.
How is the record shop very well because in a way, like we like when we were going in on the guitar shops, and we were talking about how guitar shops are particularly kind of weird. It's a weird specialist place where you feel awkward as soon as you've gone in, and the dudes there are kind of quite weak, sometimes quite dewavy guys. They want to prove that they know about Yeah, they.
Know who Stephen Wilson is.
Yeah. Really, I'm really proud of it. And it's to a lesser extent for sure, But like record shops do fill some people with that similar kind of dread. I think I get when I'm record shopping, especially if I'm buying a classic, if I'm buying a Beatles album or an Elton John record or something, I kind of I'm embarrassed when I'm paying.
You mean, I had myself because I kind of.
Just think you kind of want to say I work in I do know other music. I just want this one.
It's like you just go up and whisper mertz bough so they know I know about noise music. It's fine, No, I had that, well, you before I worked in CISTER. I used to work in Musical Video Exchange, which I think at one point was voted the rudous shop in London.
It's just the Camden one.
No, the Camden one was the only one I didn't work and I worked in the notting Hill on Greenwich one and the Soho one, and I remember once it's bloke I was working with and there were so many members of staff. Because the way you get the job as you do a written test on music. No you don't, yeah, genuinely, you don't do an interview that if you pass the test, it's questions like which band is Brian Chippendale in Lightning Bolts.
It's just like, you know, really, where is Touch and Go Records based, like really incredibly meticulous question, but.
All kind of from Is it all from like a DIY hardcore punk?
No, it is across across the po. They even do it with the closed shops, the book shops, musical video shows because they've got all the different So when you sit down and there's a school desk in one of the shops where prospective shop workers have to go and do this written test, and you sit in this school school desk and do this five page test. So the first one is rock and pop, the second one is sole music, the third one is dance music. The fourth one is books. The fifth one is designer clothes.
So you can you can kind of swat up for it. But you don't know what's on the test, right, but they tell you beforehand you're going to do the test.
You phone up the owner. I don't know if it's changed. I worked there a long time ago, but so I went in. I asked for a job. They said, okay, we'll call the owner. The owner. I'm on the phone to the owner, who I also the whole I worked there for a while. I only met him once. He never came in the shop. So I spoke on the phone. He went, name all the members of the smiths. Okay, name all the members of Roxy music. Okay, you got come down Sunday. We'll give you the test. And that's it.
And then I went down. Did the test? You're there for half an hour? Got it? Yeah? Got the test?
Did they give you a past grade or is it just pass or fail?
I think you have to get like eighty percent or above to get through, and like like, for instance, at that point, this is I didn't know that much about dance music, so I wouldn't have been I only worked in the rock and pop shop. I wouldn't work in the okay, so you have special So there's five pages so they can determine which shops you like, I did days in the clothes shop because I didn't too badly do too bad on the clothes, even though I'm not really a fashion guy at all.
Okay.
So it's just a bizarre way to get a job. And the way that the thing that that sets up is somebody who I mean, it just it plays to people's autism. You know, somebody who's slightly autistic would be brilliant at the test but terrible at dealing with people. And that was common in the in the shop and that, you know, and I had it once. There was one bloke played this roy Wood record I like Boulders and it came on and I went up to it, went up to them and this is a guy like a colleague,
and I went brilliant choice, love this Roywood record. And he just didn't say anything. He just looked at the floor and it was like, I work with you. I'm just I'm saying good choice, you know, how are you? It's rude to me, You're like I passed the test, mate, Yeah, but he worked for that. He wrote for the wire. So that.
Explains it all. Well, I mean that's good. That's good to know that, because I kind of feel maybe I'm I being paranoid when I'm feeling awkward in a record shop.
And maybe I think that's natural. But I mean, you know, it's changes from shop to shop I guess, or who's working there, but it's it goes hand in hand. People people who know that much about music are always slightly dysfunctional, so it's sort of and also it's a it's a hard thing when like if somebody's being rude. If it's like a rich person who's buying a dire Straits record has been really rude to you, you're sort of like you're buying terrible music. You've been horrible to me. Stop.
You get a lot a lot of that, and people, because it's a niche market, people get confused about how the stuff works a lot of the time as well. So you hear the same question over and over and over again. So I can understand it. I mean, I'm never, I say I'm never. I try never to be rude to people. I don't think you know, anybody deserves it ever, whatever they're buying or you know, and I don't subscribe to that sort of thing, and I don't think anybody in the shop that I work out does. And I
think also that that has sort of over time. I think maybe because of the market, the record market crashing in like the late noughties. I think that changed people like I have to be a bit nice enough. You have to, you know, put a bit more effort in because otherwise I just won't have a job. So that's that's character. Also fucking that trip advisor stuff as well, you know that's true. Yeah, so you you can be reviewed in any way at any time, so you always
you know, you know. So I think I think it has gone down that sort of record shop rudeness over the line a few years.
What is the thing with Whenever I go in a record shop and I consider myself that I know a bit about music, I don't think I could pass the test at all. I would be terrible at that.
But nobody should be.
Nobody should. It's weird if you can.
Yeah, I'm slightly ashamed embarrassed that.
You managed it. But whenever I go in a record shop, I very rarely recognize the song that's on on Yeah, what's that about is that on purpose? Like I feel like I've never gone in the car that playing. Well, I think we spoke about this before, like, yeah, they're playing you know doves playing that Coop song. Just think, what the fuck is this? I don't know what this is?
Is like that, I don't know. It's like i've is there, like, oh, I'm a Beatles fanatic. I've never put the Beatles on in a shop.
The only is that because you think, like would you be would would it be? Would that be bad form in the world of record? Would you have the.
Hassle in the conversation with your co workers.
Because would they be like, why are you doing this?
Well, I've managed to convince some of my coworkers of some of Paul McCartney's genius recently, and that's my proudest achievement. At the shop, I'm the only person who likes the Beatles. I think maybe the owner likes the Beatles, but that's we've got over there. I love the pol yeah, my guy, but I put on McCartney too, and that's my go to one. If people don't like the Beatles, I put
on McCartney too. I don't say it's Paul McCartney. I wait for somebody to go, what is this is bizarre, and you go, it's Paul McCartney in nineteen seventy nine and on the four track at home, and it completely changes their opinion and sort of I've managed to infiltrate some of that stuff at the shop. But again as well,
I am still playing the weirdest Beatles affiliated records. The only other one I play is Approximately Infinite Universe by Yo Coono as well, which is a genius record, absolutely brilliant, but again, nobody ever knows that it's Yo Coo, and then once on they do, people look like their face drops when you tell it's It's like she's brilliant, She's Yokna was fantastic in every fucking way, but people just have this sigma with her, where as soon as you
say it's a Yo ConA record, fuck fu shit. So it is is stuff like that, and I think there is a WE play a lot of Bowie and stuff like that, and there's common threads of what it is, but it's always we Like I started making a I was asked to do some Spotify playlist or something, and I didn't send it off. In the end, but I started making one which was just all really successful artists,
but songs that you would never have heard of. The Frank Sinatra album Watertown that did terribly in nineteen sixty nine, which sounds like pet sounds. It's incredible, but it's just a completely unknown record.
Why didn't you send this off? You should have sent this because I couldn't.
I couldn't quite get it to the amount that I wanted it. I want it to be like fifteen songs. I think I got to like thirteen twelve thirteen, and I thought it needs to be a bit longer, but I'm going to try and do it. There's like a song called Tapio Catundra by The Monkeys, which is on their last album, which is brilliant, a Mike Nesmith song,
and I'm trying to remember the others. Like I managed to get some really really like household names with just songs that like, if I play them to people, I can't believe this has been released, or it sounds nothing like the people and just just weird B sides and stuff like that. But I'm always looking for that. So I always like the record that nobody likes of an artist.
There was a like with the Kinks. There is this record where Ray Davis made this TV musical in nineteen seventy six about is called Starmaker or something, and Ray Davies goes and it's like live TV audience. The Kink's playing on a stage in the background and he's acting, and he goes in and just knocks on this door
at this this couple's house. He invites himself and he's like, I'm gonna turn your pathetic lives around and I'm going to make you into a start ah and like it's just insane, and he's so disparaging the whole way through. He's like, you look at this having toes for breakfast, pathetic?
Do you not have any pati in? Like the whole record is this concept album of him just going your puny, little terrible lives and it fills me with such great joy and I play it to other people that this is the worst Kings album and I could imagine it and I'm like, it's genius, It's brilliant. So it is always that kind of thing. It's like, you know, in the cover features to talk about how much I I hate the Velvet Underground. Yeah, but just you know from
the stigma that comes with him. But it's like the Lou Read album The Bells, which he did in nineteen seventy nine, which is all him trying to do. Yeah, funk album.
Yeah, I've heard that, brilliant Yeah, stupid me doing.
This mad singing, like really trying to sing. It's so awful. But because it just sounds it sounds like a proper post punk crackle because it is. It sounds like something the pop group would do. But obviously he's not going for that. He is going for that major label I want to be a star thing, but it's coming off like early Why Records sort of thing. It's just bizarre. It's great and those sort of weird oddities are sort
of what I really love. And it's amazing that there's so many that are out there that are still undiscovered that are actually genuinely brilliant. That Frank Sinatra record, it's not my favorite record ever. I'm not a huge Sinatra guy. I hate the whole stick really, to be honest, which is weird as well. I've been doing encores where I do That's life to a karaoke yeah back in I've heard yeah, but yeah, it's it's just a bizarre everybody should listen to it because it's just mad. It's really odd.
But I think that is the case with most of the people working there. It is fine. The most obscure thing that is your identity. You have these records that nobody else has in the same way with like DJ culture or whatever, and it's always like you want to place that into your colleague that the colleague hasn't heard before, and he goes, that's brilliant, and now he'll do the same and then, which is great and a great environment to hear tons of music and sort of learn constantly about new start.
Talking of McCartney, have you ever met Paul McCartney, I wish if you did meet him, what did you have any if anything you'd wanna what would you ask Paul McCartney or Ringo? That's we put Ringo in there as well.
I wouldn't want to talk to Ringo because of the whole Brexit shit. Ringo can go fuck himself. He's the best drummer ever, but he can go fuck himself. McCartney, I think I would just talk about Secret Friend. I think Secret Friend is the thing which fascinates me the most that he did. It was just an incredible record. Off is the single that went with that McCartney two record, and it is just like the beginnings of dance music and stuff like that. I think, I just I just
want to tell him how much I like it. I don't really know what i'd say. We me and a friend of mine talked about getting Paul and Linda McCartney tattoos on our forearms, like both having a portrait on either charm of Paul and Linda. And it got to the point where he'd even got a tattoo guy to book let us get it for free as well. He'd like managed to wang it would get these tattoos for free, and now I'm really glad. I'm very anti tattoos now as well. But I was like, okay, let's do it.
And then it got to the day when we were going to do it, and I find him up. If I meet Paul McCartney at any point, I'm going to have tire a long sleeve T shirt and I'm not doing it. I'd want to be able to have my arms on show. I don't want him to think I'm with what if I just see him in the street.
I want Paul to be able to see these arms for what they are.
Indeed, I don't want him to judge me. And you know, you would be like, what the fucking would discussion that would really?
I mean, I'm sure he's seen he must have seen stuff like that. Yeah, but I do wander because most people that get those kind of things done would probably be the opposite to that, and they would say, there's Paul McCartney. Quick, I'm going to take your shirt off. You've got you've got his face on. He's not room. He won't know it's there as you show him, expecting like that celebrity bea at Port, McConnel or whoever, to go, oh wow, it.
Must be in his mouth slightly every time he sees it. It'd be horrible. I mean, like I mean, in terms of me, I couldn't imagine what I think. It would just be how has your day been? It would be so minimal the conversation, because there's nothing I could say that would come close to sort of explaining how excited I was that I was meeting him, And I wouldn't want him to know. You know, I'm awful for that. If I meet somebody I really like I'll be really
really like sort of cool about it. Mark Riley once brought to Alex Say. Mark Riley once brought the entire early lineup of The Fall, obviously apart from Mark Smith, to a Let's Wressel show, and I was fucking giddy. I was like, this is the coolest thing that's ever happened. I'm in South of playing this gig and nobody's apart from all of The Fall, all of like live CHARALSI are a Fall. You must have been at about seventeen seventeen, okay, Steve Hanley, the bass players in it till like nineteen
ninety six. It's Mark and produced us. You know, after doing lots of sessions with him. I yasmin my girlfriends from Manchester and we when we go up for Christmas, we off and have a drink with Mark Bradley. We did a couple of years ago, and you know, he's
become a pal. And Steve Hanley was like talking about He's like, oh, Mark says, you really like Paul McCartney and uh, Paul McCartney and Wings, And then they all started laughing liking Wings, and then I think I said Wings shit all over The Fall and it just ruined it for myself, and they all just looked at me like what is wrong with you? Like like just took it too far, And I was like, oh, no, I've just slagged off one of my favorite bands in the world.
I've just off to their faces, all my favorite members of the Fall, I have just slagged off to their faces. And it was awful. And I since then, I think I'm just very unassuming with it because I know I have the capability to completely fuck it up and be horrible, and just like I get very defensive.
I would have thought that they would have thought that was hilarious and been like, amazing, amazing, good on your kids.
Like I think they probably did find it quite funny. But I think the panic of hearing myself say it means I can't even remember the reaction. I said something along those lines, maybe not as extreme, but it was definitely something disparaging about them, and it was just really And I think it was also the thing of like I was super like punk guy then as well, It's like, what's the most punk way I can react to this?
I can really fucking go for yeah, and like it was just and I think I was did Mark Riley's show on Wednesday, and I was he was talking to me. He was talking about me and Mike from the band having a fist fight, seeing us having a fist fight outside the Star and Garter where we met all of them, And I think it was me saying that. He was
then like getting he was getting angry. How could you say that to the fall having this fist fight outside because they was so stressed out that I said it, And you're.
Like they slagged off Paula.
Yeah, yeah, nobody's watch.
Yeah, don't care who you are, don't care if you are in the full Do you believe in like guilty pleasures in music? Do you not see? I know that I shouldn't write, but I think I do, and I think I actually think that quite it's quite good to have guilty pleasures. I mean, it's a weird thing, isn't it, Because the idea is essentially obviously that you shouldn't feel good about the music you like, you like what you like,
that you shouldn't apologize for it at all. But the other day I was listening to sixteen Stone by Bush in my car and I was very thankful that there was no one else in the car when I was enjoying that because I also listened to it. I'm not listen to it for a long time. Remember it as a teenager and loved it and listened back to it and I realized this was only yesterday. I realized just how appalling it is, and especially the lyrics of it. I mean, the lyrics are so nonsensical. And it got
me thinking about Gavin Rossdale. I'd seen him on TV recently and he was appalling and he did. He wasn't called, he didn't come across, he had no kind of humor about it.
He's not the one, is he.
He's not the guy, not at all as he was marketed to us. And I was thinking, yeah, this is a guilty pleasure me listening to this is that's a good thing. And I think that's okay because I'm aware of the fact it's crap.
But I think that the what's different for me is that I'm just never I don't ever feel guilty. I don't have any over guilt, full stop. I don't have guilty. No, I'm an incredibly guilty person. It's the one thing I'm
not guilty about. But it's I really don't I've never been embarrassed about anything that I like, and I think I'm very confident in the fact that even if it's something that's naff, I can point out what's a good song, what in it is a good what you like about it, because I have this weird thing where it's like I'm a music fan, but then I have this songwriter brain that even if I don't like something, I can appreciate the songwriting behind it. I can appreciate why people like it.
The only thing that makes me angry is when I can't hear any merit in it, Like it sounds horrible. I don't like it, and it's poorly written, which is very common, you know, So I don't if I even if I don't like it at first, I can still see past it and sort of get a couple of bits where it's like that bit's good. I remember there was this Maximo Park song in like two thousand and seven, and I remember I really didn't like the whole song apart from one section.
Is the big one, the big single, It was like.
The second album. It's it was when he had the bowler hat, not the comb over. I'm with you the video where they're in a white room and there's they're just doubled. There's loads of them. Okay, do you remember that?
I think I remember seven.
And there was Yeah. I really just didn't get the song until this one bit came in. And I really like songs like that, where like there'll be one little segment that I like and then the rest of it I just hate. And I remember we were at Glastonbury. We kept on seeing these bands that, like, other people wanted to see and I didn't want to see. And then it would come to one song and I'd pick out like three phrases and go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I hate it. And it's sort of I do bits like that.
But but with stuff like that, you know, I openly love Billy Joel. You know, there is there's people that I openly I don't care if people think it's ship. It is just they're wrong. It's they're wrong. It's really good. The Stranger by Billy Joel is a brilliant record, always will be. There is no there is no room for maneuvering with it. And Billy Joel's the only person I can really think of right now that I actually think people could see is a guilty thing people a while ago.
I remember when we first started making music, Electric Light Orchestra was like one. People were not into Yellow. But I've always loved DLO. But now they seem hip again.
Now everyone's in them. Yeah.
Yeah, Now it's not a guilty thing at all to like Yellow.
It's the same with Fleetwood Mac, wasn't it. Yeah, remember, like everybody, there used to be a time when hearing a Fleetwood Mac tune in a shop would be like a little treat.
Yeah. Yeah.
Now you can't go into any you can't go into vintage clothes shop without them playing.
It is the most vintage clothes shop music I've ever heard. I don't know why it has become that, because I remember when I first started going to vintage clothes shops it would always be like that rip it up and start again in compilation from that Simon Reynolds book or something like that would be scratchy post punk. And now it is just Fleetwood Mac all the time. Fleetwood Mac or UK garage.
Yes, yeah, that's because the whole the nineties things coming.
Back a big way. Yeah, and I love a bit of UK garage. There's nothing wrong with that. I think it was was it Tusk? I think that's the very Tusk because again because it wasn't rumors it was, you know, because it's slightly different, and Tusk is a weird record as well, the fact that Lindsay Bucking changes the studio to make it like a home studio.
And it's weird that on the sleeve he is thanked by the band.
No, I'm not seen.
Fleetwood would like to thank Lindsay.
I think I'm going to thank myself.
That's that's nuts, isn't it. It's nuts thanking yourself in the third person, and.
That's a lot of cocaine.
Yeah, Like they signed off on that. He must have said I'd like you to thank me for my work on this and they went okay.
So did they have individual thanks then?
No, it's just him.
Mac would like to thank Lindy.
I think so, yeah, that's I might be right. I mean I might be paraphrasing, but he is especially picked out. No, no, no, no, it's all him.
She's a witch anyway.
So Greg, who I work with here. A couple of years ago, we were at Primavera sound. You were there, not playing, but he overheard you telling a story to your friends, which he then related to me, is like, oh I think he text that are it's about you? It was about you going for a job yeah sports Direct?
Yeah, okay, yeah that is a good story.
Okay, yeah, that's a pretty much clean story, right.
You know, I'm a foul mouth piece of ship, so I'm worried that it could be anything. Yeah, that I was signing on and this is when I was doing that wrestle and I was signing on, and I've been signing on for a while, and it got there. I've been putting his work program and it was like, you're going to lose your benefits if you don't go for this job interview at sports Direct?
Which branch?
Are we talking the fucking Stratford or Westfield? Miserable? So I went and I went to this office where you went and did the They basically watched you look for jobs, basically was what they were doing. They were like, Okay,
meet here, we're all going to take you. It was me and three drug dealers basically going to this job interview at swarts Direct, one of which I was talking to and he was like, yeah, I used to be a manager at JJB Sports And I was like Okay, perfect, he's got it, but in actually I haven't fully it in. Before I even went, I made sure that I'd been up all night drinking in the clothes I was going to wear, so I smelled of booze. I really didn't
want the job. So I was getting fucking ship face, wearing a brown corduroy's suit with a psychedelic green shirt. And I turned up at this thing with a I think a baseball cap, a green yeah, brown cord oroy suit and just looking like dressed like Sid Barrett. It was, you know, I was just thinking, what's the weirdest look I can go for? And they went, they took us. We all went on the train with this job center worker.
Me and all the guys had like three phones, so it's obvious they're all dealers and none of them, none of us want this job.
One of them is like, yeah, you're all trying to throw the job in a slightly different way.
And he yeah. One of the guys talking to me, I used to be a manager at sports. I was like, okay, that's calm me down a bit. I went into the back room for this interview. I was the last person to be interviewed as well. I went in and the question started with like, first off, are you interested in sports? I go not really, not really my kind of thing, and he was like, is there any sports are interested? And I said dark. I was like, I do like
watching darts over Christmas when it's on the BBC. But it's not like I'm getting going out of my way to watch darts, but when it's on BBC, I watch it because I like the darts. He was like, he said, we've got a dark section and nobody knows about darts. Ah fuck. You know. It started going downhill and he was like, so what have you done? Is like I used to work in a record shop. I and I was saying, you know, i'd done this fanzine when I was younger, and I used to do fanzines. And I'm
really interested in art. Was the thing. I kept on saying, I'm really interested in art, just to basically tell him I'm not interested in this. I'm really interested in art. And then it got to the point where he was like, Okay, let's give you a couple of scenarios. What happens. You've got retail experience, you know, you got retail experience.
So this is quite good, like he really wants to help you in a way.
I realized that I'm just trying to get out of this as quickly as he says, all right, I can give you a scenario. There's a shoplifter in the shop. What is going to happen here? And I just went, you just got to get them at the shop. And then I said, the last thing you want is a shoplifter in your shop. Get him out. And that was my answer to the question. And then he said and then right at the end he said, I think maybe you should concentrate. No, before he said that, he said,
what does he say? Once said, I'm going to get my bearings. He said, okay, so you'll be glad to hear you were the best candidate of the day. So he said, you're the best candidate of the day. And I'm just thinking, what the fuck of those other guys done?
What the fuck of they said? They're all wearing pinstrip, so it's at least they're dressed properly, and I stink a booze dressed like Sid Barrett doesn't matter any fucking said you're the best of the day, and I was just like going no, don't give me a job please, and then finally went, now, I think you should concentrate on the art was what he said. And I got out of it, thank fucking Christ. And that was I was like, I have to get a job now because like and now I've got a job in the pub.
That ended up making me make this record. But it was nightmarish.
Do you think maybe they thought, oh, bless this guy.
Yeah, I think they thought I was an odd ball. They knew the guy. There was stuff I was saying. I wish I had it recorded. I wish I like put a tape record in my pod because I knew I was going to do it and it would have made a brilliant like if I turn it into an article or something like that, it would have been great. But I should have recorded it. But I didn't have the foresight too. But he was just looking at me like, this guy is deranged. What he's saying makes this is
the worst interview. But again, how bad could those other guys have been. One of them would managed a JJB sports. I don't know how it could have gone that badly. It was really just really really fucking strange, and then having this miserable journey back with the woman from the job center a bit pissed off with me as.
Well, you know she's seen this before. She could tell that you just threw it.
He knew that I was doing something, and there must be so many sort of art people on the dole who were sort of trying to get stuff done. Another friend of mine who was also signing on around a similar time, he went in and he like, I never said I was a musician or anything like that. He told them, Yeah, I'm I'm looking for a job in I'm a musician, you see, so I'm looking for job
sort of to do with that. And then the bloke went okay, all right, and then went and what he's like, just give me, give me five minutes, and then went over and talked to his coworker and he my mate could see them both really laughing at him, pointing at him and laughing at and it kept on going on, and they all had a really weird attude to him after he said that, and it came out a couple of weeks later that they thought he said Magicians.
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