Dave Robinson

angle lens and started taking pictures of bands. How did you learn how to shoot photos? An old friend of my father's who showed me pretty much how it worked, and I practiced on a load of children and people in Irish pubs, which is uh is an education in itself. And at what age did you start? I started at about sixteen sixteen, Okay. What kind of family did you grow up and what did your parents do for a living?

My father was a signwriter, my mother was a housewife and it was a very normal Irish Catholic family, two sisters, and the only difference was my father decided that he could afford to send me to boarding school. So that was the difference between me and all my peers at the time. So where are you in the hierarchy of the three kids. I'm in the middle. And you went to boarding school at what age? What was that experience like? I went to boarding school when I was six six six,

and that was a novel experience. Obviously it's the only one I had, so I didn't have a way to compare it. But Ireland, as you can imagine, in early years Catholic nuns to begin with, until I was eleven, and then from eleven I went to secondary school and

I had the priest to look after me. Obviously, they've had a bad press, inevitably, and I thought I can say about them, but I had no problems, and I was a very experienced born in school boy, so I knew what was happening and that I could avoid stuff and help my friends to avoid things that were going on. The Irish priests have had a terrible battering, quite rightly, and it's not obviously an area where in the music business you you think about. But it was a very

good education. It was a very good from the academic point of view. It was an excellent education, and it's been the kind of confidence of my life to be able to use that education to my advantage. Who usually boarding school kids go to university, What about you? I didn't because I'd had enough for boarding school. When I got to seventeen, there was a The school I went to was a very big rugby college. The rugby was

was a huge impetus to that school. And I played on the rugby team and I was good, I think, and uh it moved mountains, you know. I got a very good status into school for being on the team. But I fell out with the coach for various behavioral reasons and decided that there wasn't a future in me finishing the last two years before I might go to university. But my father, in any event, had told me that he had spent um, he'd spent money on my education, but it was unlikely to be able to afford to

send me to university. He thought a should get a job. But you skipped the last two years of what we call high school or secondary school. That's right, that's right. Okay, so you stopped going to school. What do you do? Well? You get a job as a photographer in my In my case, I had a hobby for photography, and I wondered whether I could make a living at it, whether I could please my father that I would have a living and that I could show him what I could do.

So I went and took pictures of everything that moved and eventually got a very good living and moved to England when I was eighteen to be a beach photographer for a company which is very well known called but Lands, which is a holiday camp type environment, and I was a beach photographer, also called a smudger. A smudger is a beach photographer who takes pictures of people, gets money off them, and they don't get the pictures till the following day. So it's it's an art in itself. Why

is it called smudger, I'm not entirely sure. I think because you're not great, because you smudge it, you blur it. You're not you're not a you know, a fashion photographer or whatever else. I think it's a slightly derogatory term. So you're a beach photographer to holiday camp. Holiday camps don't have a good reputation since Tommy and the reference there. However, at a young age. One would think it was fun.

But when you work in a place like that in the United States, you can have an existence, You can have fun, but you really can only keep your head barely above water. So was this something to kill time or were you making any money? I was making money because I got a commission from the photography that I did. In other words, I got a commission for everybody who paid to have their photograph the following day, So you could make a lot by working very hard. It was

definitely um income from work. H view an example of something that that I was just a young guy from Ireland. I should have been nineteen. They only took nineteen year old, so I was having to lower my voice and try and be try and be good. Um. But a lady, a middle aged lady, kept coming back to me for photographs, and I thought it was because I'm so good at

what I did. It turned out that her husband was a wrestler who worked at the camp, and he told me he would kill me if I took another picture of his wife, so I had to jump into the bushes every time this woman came by. She obviously figured I was a good looking Irish lad, but it was very dangerous. So I made good income for a season by the seaside in England at a at a holiday camp which had a high proportion of young unaccompanied females, And so it was a revelation to me in a

lot of different ways. Ireland is very um, you know, conservative. So one good thing about it, Bob, was that I met a lot of other photographers who did the season at the camp. So they would just come down for the three months, three or four months, and a lot of them had contacts with agencies and other magazines photography wise, So I'm I networked quite a lot of very good jobs out of that particular um situation. So how did you get from there into music? From there, I worked

for a couple of agencies. I was introduced to a couple of agencies which would use a photographer like a freelance operator. In other words, they would send me on a job, they would tell me what they wanted out of it. Their main interest in life was to make sure that they had the correct names left to right was one of their main features. And by my point of it was good because I didn't have to I

didn't have to develop the film. I just sent it back to them and they used it as they wish, and I got a paid pair job and that could be quite that, it could be quite a good week. Um. As it happened, I worked for several magazines, music magazines that they obviously were attached to, and Pop magazine and the Rave magazine. I ended up doing pictures of quite a lot of the up and coming musicians on the British scene. Is that how you ended up shooting the Beatles? Yes,

it is, Yeah I did. I did a job where I went to Liverpool to film twelve groups for for some situation they had, and I ended up filming the Beatles that lunchtime in the cavern without really realizing how wonderful that was. Most of the bands were playing I did, I've shots and most of them, and most of them were playing the same song. So you had a situation where they were playing a lot of Louisiana tracks and most of the band, including the Beatles, played long Tall

Sally for example. I think about sick of them play that song and several other covers that they were all involved in. So the scene in Liverpool was was musically a kind of Louisiana rhythm and blues area, and I don't remember the Beatles being that much better. I do remember Paul McCartney only insofar as he was very friendly. He was very chatty. He he knew a photographer was going to be useful. John Lennon was pretty nondescript. He

didn't relate to me in any way. Paul did chat me up, and subsequently, over my career I have met him several times and we have a relationship. So so it wasn't because of that time. It was something we could go back to and remind each other that we had connected at that time. Okay, so you're being a freelance guy, you're shooting these jobs. How do you move on beyond photography? Well, I went back to Ireland to show off to my parents that I was a happening

event I had. There was a there was a tailor in London called sam Arcus, and sam Arcus was the Hippus Taylor in London. So as I went to Sam and had him make two suits for me before I went back to impress my parents with the whole idea. I got back to UH. I got back to Dublin and there was a space music Congress going on. And my agency said, could you cover it even though you're on holiday, could you go in and cover that because we're short. Uh. That space medicine was a very early

part of the space program. And I got on very well with the American guy eyes doctors who had me film all the Russians, and I got on very well with the Russians who had me film all the American so so so I did very well out of that A week a week's conference in Dublin, and I started to get a lot of Irish work, and because I had come from London, which in those days very impressive to Irish people, I was. I quickly got into the top layer of photography in Dublin. I also had a

motorized camera, which the Irish had not actually discovered. So the the the Union complained about me because I was using this camera and taking more pictures than anybody else. But that's a that's another story. So I became quite a good photographer in Dublin. I made quite a lot of money, and I decided to open a club because Dublin did not have any kind of beat club like London had. The Two Eyes and the Marquee and various

other things like that. I opened the club in Dublin, and of course through the door came loads of groups whose equipment didn't work, who just like you and I early on in this interview where nothing worked too well, and so uh in through my door came Van Morrison one day when he it turned out he had got rid of his manager, Phil Solomon's, and because he found that his band was getting income from his publishing and he didn't like that. And he came through the door.

I had taken pictures of them way back in the kind of rave days, and so we knew each other, and he came and stayed at my flat because he wanted a manager, he wanted somebody to he had no idea who else would handle him. And Van was, I've got to say, was throughout his life he's been a cont He's grumpy, he doesn't do things that you want him to do, and he was a terrible flatmate. He

ruined my social life almost completely singlehandedly. But every now and then he would get up with a local band at the club and you would with his harmonica and you would see extraordinary things. The band would lift up two gears and be somebody that they couldn't do on their own. He was remarkable in that way. Bert Burns started calling and saying, you know, if you're looking after Van, I really need him to be in America. I said, I don't really look after him. I didn't feel I

was a manager. I felt it was kind of a mate. So I persuaded Van to go to America and joined Bert Burns and I could get my flat back. Okay, Usually a club is a money pit. I mean now everything is computerized. Everybody uses credit cards, even harder a big money in a club. We get the money to open a club, and how is business financially in Ireland?

It was very primitive, very primitive. I had a seller that's probably if I had, if I had a fire license, which I didn't have, would probably have held about a hundred and fifty on a good night, Saturday night, we had nine hundred people in that seller. And we didn't have a liquor license. But we had a We had coke, had just cocon Fanta had just discovered the serum serum that you added with water and and with a gun

you could fill a glass. I think it costs so little that you couldn't even calculated and we were selling it for obviously because of the club was running with condensation and very very hot. We were selling. We were selling out with all the cocon fanta we could imagine. We we did so well out of that club. That as remark, because Ireland was very primitive about licensing. It wasn't you know, it wasn't American, it was in London.

It was. It was you have a club, that's all right, as long as there's no problems where we're happy with it. So it ran for about two years and it was it was magic. It was a magic thing. We had Englishman's come over. We could afford have Alex RV and various other bands come over, which was unique in Ireland. Nobody had that class of music coming to the club. So we had queues around the block and very good and I didn't take any photographs at all for for

that period. Okay, then takes off to talk to Burns. What does that leave you? He said, To give him credit, He said, come with me. And I knew Van by this time, and I knew he's not a fan of passengers, and I knew I'd be a passenger. I would have no idea how to do anything of the kind of stuff that he was going to get up to. So I passed, quite honestly, So I passed, and I wasn't

unhappy with that arrangement. Van paid me back and and maybe we'll cover that many years later at the Fillmore East, when Bill Graham had Quicksilver messenger service, Van Morrison and my group and Irish group that I looked after called the Heir Apparent, and that's another story we'll just telling. The music business, from my point of view, has always

had a problem. You find a good songwriters, you find people who can play, You find people who are motivated, but they do not have a record company, a major record company with the major promotion income. The record company doesn't want you if you haven't got an agent, and the agent doesn't want you if you haven't got a record company. And that has is as sound today as it was then. So I had a brief after the Club. I managed this group who were then called The People.

The lead guitar player was Henry McCulloch, who went on to be in the Grease Band, Joe Cocker, Wings and various other people, but he started off with a little Irish band called The People, which I looked after I could see they were good. I could not. I took him to London, but I could not get anywhere with them. And my backer was a gentleman for Canadian gentleman who who had five grand that was his that was his investment,

which didn't last very long. So I didn't have a I didn't have a large I didn't have a large chance of making things happen. So I hired a plane and aer Lingus plane Irish Airlines, and I got a media friend to get a hundred and fifty of the key media journalists music and otherwise to board that plane uh and to go. A convinced Bill Graham by flying out to see him one one morning and being in

his office. I had met him on a on a earlier American tours with Jimi Hendrix, and convinced him to put my band onto open for Van Morrison and Quicksilver messenger service at the Fillmore East UM inevitably, inevitably um the band where the band the American Embassy would not give them a visa because there was a various inter union situations which didn't occur. The plane aer Lingus seven oh seven UM crash landed at Shannon Airport in a sea of foam because their hydraulics had gone out over

the British Channel. Uh. The journalists who saw the whole thing as a bit of a jolly, as they call it. And of course we had put an awful lot of substances on the plane, alcohol and others, and they had indulged quite heavily. They quite enjoyed the panic of the

landing and aer lingus because that's their way. UM to get another plane out would take three or four hours, so they opened the bar for the journalists, and so by the time that plane got back it was a very very crashed out group of journalists who got on it and took off from New York. So the visas I managed to um sort out through a Canadian gentleman.

So we flew to Toronto, and although the although the empathy there saw sauce As as non bona fide visa applicator is because of the London London thing, I managed to convince immigration lawyer to do me a favor and in the meantime I hard a small plane to take us over the Canadian border and landed Buffalo, New York. The lead guitar player of the band suitably called Brindsley Shorts, the bass player being Nick low Lost. He had never flown in a small plane before his ear drums went out.

His ears completely clogged up. He couldn't hear anything, and so the show in New York wasn't everything I had hoped for, So it was a huge chaos. Most of the journalists didn't go to the show. Bill Graham in those days twenty minutes before the show. If you're press didn't show up, he would sell the tickets. You remember him, So it was a pretty much a disaster. Van Morrison was very friendly because I hadn't seen him for quite a few years. But ten, ten or fifteen people from

the plane actually saw the show. But everybody panned it big time. I have column inches that you have never seen before in your life, all saying death and damnation, and but everybody was talking about Brindsey Schwartz and United Artists did a big record deal with me, and I managed to do a publishing deal while I was in the States. So that was my entree into being a kind of a manager stroke disaster arranger, and out of

that came Stiff Records at a later stage. Okay, let's go back a couple of years there and goes to New York. Ultimately the club closes. What's your next step? The next step was take the group the People to London. We had reached the kind of top of Ireland. Ireland had a low ceiling in terms of groups. There wasn't there wasn't a big recorded scene or anything else. So you had to go to London. That was it. I took the band to London and I got them three gigs.

I've an agent friend got them three gigs. The second one was a London had just discovered the San Francisco happening affairs. Um, you know, an acid The acid idea was happening, but nobody was taking it in London. But they were putting on like they were in it. There was bubbles on the wall, there was psychedelia, procol harm We're playing that night that we got a gig at. It was called the Blarney Club in London and the Bonds A Dog Boot Do Da band. My band, The

People came on at four o'clock in the morning. Everyone was asleep. A hundred and fifty people were passed out on the floor. Everyone else had gone home, and they got up and did their thing. They were very good. They were very good rock and roll band, and the crowd of a hundred and fifty people woke up and really had a good time. At the end of it, I've got several university bookers trying to book the band, and they were offering me money. And this is what

it was all about. We had. Here was a few gigs, and here was a chance to break through. A gentleman in the corner with small John Lennon glasses Um said before you do everything else, you should talk to me, and I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, I just talked to this guy. I'll get I'll get you in a minute. The promoter passed me by and he said I would talk to him if I was you. I said why. He said, that's Mike Jeffreys, Jimmy Hendricks manager,

And thought, Mike, Mike, He hello, how are you? And it turned out that Mike Jefferies had three clubs in Miyorca Island off the coast of Spain. The British and the Spanish. We're having an argument about Gibraltar, another argument, and so the Spanish had banned all English people from getting work permits in Spain in order to negotiate. Mike Jefferies had three clubs and no bands, so he had stayed all night because he heard that we were an Irish band. Now what I didn't tell him, what I

didn't tell him was that we weren't. We were a Northern Irish band. We were essentially a British fan. They had British passport. He said, you are Irish, it's it's Irish. Of course I'm Irish. Oh you know I'm Irish. So he booked us for his three clubs. I had to rush to Ireland and managed to get Irish passports and the group didn't want them. The group did not on them because they were Northern Irish and if you had an Irish passport you'd be killed. That's what they told me.

I said, well, don't show them to anybody. Put them you don't need you get them to go to ma Yorker. You're not going to Belfast. So off we took to ne Yorker. Fantastic, great club, great apartment, everybody getting money every week, loads of girls on holiday, I mean heaven to a degree, great weather. And then Chas Chandler turned up chairs As, as we know, had formed a partnership with Mike Jefferies to manage Jimmi Hendrix, and he came out on holiday and of course he saw the band.

Now Chads was just Chads, a great bab you know, a really nice guy, a real musician, not a great bass player. He don't of himself, but but he liked looking and feeling with musicians. So he met my bunch who were playing pretty good. Now they're doing three sets a night. It's like Hamburg I have three sets denied. They're putting in new covers, the writing of bitter materials all happening. He likes them. He told me he wanted to sign them up. I mean I could hardly. I

could hardly hear how wonderful that was. Chas Chandler signed the people to his management company with Mike Jeffries, and I would be a third partner in the equation. They would own the major part. I would have a little part. So it was perfect and uh he would record us. He wanted to produce. It was just heaven. So back we go to London. Everything is really good and the first gig we've got is with Jimmy Hendrix. We're supporting Jimmy Hendrix. And again it's unbelievable. It's not a script

you could you could write down. So then, um, we've got on the tour with Jimmy the Aim and Corner, the Move of the Nice the Pink Floyd on a package tour. In those days, England had package tours where each if you had a hit, you had one hit, you'd get on a package tour. And and that group the was led by a group called the Outer Limits,

who are the cousin of the promoter. They had no hits I had Now the people were now named by Mike Jeffrey's girlfriend, the Heir Apparent with E I or e as the kind of as A as the hook right. The group didn't like it because they were not Irish, but they put up with it. So we went on tour for the Each show was two and a half hours. We did Mattnee's did Mattnee in the afternoon. Jimi Hendrix had twenty minutes to play. The Pink Floyd had twelve and a half minutes to play and they hated it.

Everybody else got jolly that around and had a great time, you know, the move, spend a long time talking about Venereal Warts mainly, but but the Pink Floyd hated every moment of it, and you got their manager to get them a car so they wouldn't have to travel with the riff raff, you know, the other people. Jimmy was fine, he was quite happy to get on the bus with everybody, and it was. It was a lot of fun, a

great experience and a lot of fun. Then we got we got on other Jimmy Hendry shows and the next thing Chad says, how do you feel about going to America? And how do I feel? I feel fantastic. Chas just point me at it. So off we went with the Soft Machine and Jimmy Hendricks experience to America again like opening a door of the unbelievable. You could not imagine. I thought, this is success, this is success. They're also

paying us very good money. I was getting a hundred and fifty dollars a week, which in those days night was was was very good money. When all your expenses were paid, you know, we were doing well. So that was the tour. Jerry Stickles, who is the uh Jerry Jerry was the tour manager and a rare. We were. We were in a very interesting thing. I didn't realize that at the time, but the animals them Harriman's Hermits and the Beatles had been to America. No other group

from England really had been there, and we were. They're making our own name. Jerry Stickles, a scaffolder from Folkeston in England who got the job with an experience because he had a van and they needed one at the time, turned out to be one of the great touring guys. He turned out to be a real happening and a real resourceful guy because you had to be because of no security. There was no criteria, there was no template

that made the tour work. There was no anything. Most of the gigs had the local police chief who knew the promoter. He was the security and he wasn't really out for the band, and particularly not Jimi Hendrix, who was slightly the wrong color for that. For a lot of the gigs that we were doing, it was amazing experience. The girls were extraordinary good looking. I mean it was and and everywhere, and they were everywhere. So the air partent, we're having a good time. Um, the group was going well.

Jerry stick has had to go back to England for a month for um for a medical for a medical procedure that that he had, and I got a briefcase and a baretta, and I was told on the tour manager. So I became for about six weeks the tour manager for the Jimmy Hendris experience on the road in America, with no idea at all. How really it went great experience and I had a great time. Jimmy was a

very nice guy. Um. You know, he was always trying to find out what's happening to the money, and I had to tell him that I didn't know what was happening. I put it into various banks in a company called you Amita, and you know, sometimes I would go into a bank with three or four hundred thousand dollars and the guards would draw their guns when I opened my briefcase. There was no credit cards. Nobody had a credit card. It was all cash. And nobody had a flight case.

A lot of these martial equipment had no flight case. They had plastic covers. They were ripped to shreds by going down the luggage ramps. I mean, it was total amateur land. And I thought, but there must be you know there these people obviously know what they're doing and there must be something going on here that makes sense. And the answer was there wasn't. The tour. The tour

zig zagged all over the road, all over the country. Um. I think around that time it was a fifty five and our speed limit because of the because of the gash problems, and you know, everybody was on the CB trying to beat the you know and get to the next gig. It was an extraordinary time. And the band where Mitch was, you know, great drummer that he was, he was also a pain in the arts because he wanted to be like Jimmy. I mean, Jimmy was so miles ahead of everything around him in terms of his

playing ability. Noel was very pragmatic and he just got on with stuff. He pulled me out of a swimming pool. I can't swim, and my band threw me into the swimming pool in I think Tampa, Florida. Noel tripping saw me at the bottom of the pool, you know, trying to trying to memorize any swimming manual that I'd ever seen in my life. And when he's six, he's very light man and he got jumped in and pulled me out. That was a That was a lifesaver. Anyway, we did

well and we toured and Jimmy produced the air Parents album. Okay, before you get there, you know you're talking about the old days. People don't realize where it was when it was all in cash and it was also difficult to get paid and difficult to get paid a hundred cents on the dollar. Did you ever have to use the BARRETTA? I never did. I was very anti guns, very anti guns. It was in the bottom of my briefcase for ages. And I did from time to time hang out with

some other tour managers. There was a tour manager who looked after the animals and he was a very fancy dresser. He was very sharp. He had a waistcoat and he carried a baretta in his waistcoat, right, and he showed every everyone would show the gun you had. They all had different guns. And uh so he was in Atlanta, Flora and Black Geezer. Unfortunately, you know, alcohold Up said give me that briefcase after the show. So he he pulled out the baretta to show, to show whatever, and

fired miles away from the guy. He fired it when it ricocheted off the wall and hit the guy in the lake. Right, So the guy is down bleeding profusely. Black and white pulls up and they're congratulating. They're congratulating my tour manager on his acumen and killing or trying to kill, you know, locals. I mean, It's America. Was very odd, Bob. You you've obviously been there forever. But the bottom line is it was so racid. I I didn't.

I came from a racist country where where Protestants and Catholics resented each other big time, and here I was in America. I thought John F. Kennedy, in my naivety, had solved all these kind of racial problems. I was totally astonished by the racism, you know, I was amazed. I could not understand why somebody wasn't doing something. But

it was everywhere. And Jimmy Hendrix was a black guy in a white in a white world to a degree, because we were playing white gigs everywhere, and there wasn't really an awful lot of our color Breton in the shows. So it was very very interesting. The Vanilla Fared a good example of guns is the Vanilla Fudge did a week or ten days on the tour. They joined the tour and I was told it was during my time touring.

I was told that they would come and it would you know, they'd go on third and what would happen, et cetera. I was on the stage in I think Jackson, Mississippi, and uh, this young dark guy in a silver suit in a in a shiny suit, and a very big man that was with him came came up and said, I'm the manager of the Vanilla Fudge. Our gear hasn't turned up um, so we'll have to use yours. And I said, well, I'll ask the band. It should be okay,

but I'll ask. I'll ask the group whatever, at which point the guy, the big guy, pulled the front of my shirt down and nearly knocked me over, but he literally pulled the front off, and when I looked up, I had a very big gun in my mouth. Right. So I'm mumbling to whom you can use enter your rooric, you know, take good all. The following day they gave me a small envelope with about five grand in it, which is more than I had seen for a while. I was asked to look after the band and he'd

been a little bit over what was it zealous? I think what's the word? He said, And that was another part of Americans history. From my point of view, it was it was what it's the wild West really and being in the music business with Jimmy Hendrix at that stage was was a great introduction. Okay, So Jimmy agrees to produce the Air Appearent album, Yes he did. He He said to me, I'd like to produce them. What do you think? And I said, oh, no problem, Jimmy,

no problem. Uh, they will love it. He said fine. He said, look, Dave, I want to tell you this. You know, you know I'm I'm not great at time keeping. He was. At this moment, we were in l A. And the tour had had slowed off for a week or two. It had just they've been doing far too much. And he was in this house up on mum Holland and it had I remember the bedroom had nothing but mirrors. The bedroom was a mirrored room. So he said to me,

I want to do this, Dave. I want so you're you're I'll give you permission to come in my bedroom and get me out. Every day. I want to go to the studio, and I want to be there at ten o'clock, okay, and it doesn't matter where I've been, you come and get me. I'll give you full permission to do this. So the very first night, very very first morning, you know, ac quarter to ten, I'm tapping on his door, knowing that he got in at seven

or something. And eventually I'll go in, Jimmy, Jimmy, and Jimmy is is in his bed in the mirrored room. And I did I didn't have my camera, a mirrored room with black sheets, black satin sheets, and a blonde girl on each side of him. They looked like twins, and they were a Scandinavian kind of couple who had he had adopted. He loved. He loved blonde women. We all do. So I'm going Jimmy, Jimmy, you me and

kind of shaking him and there's no movement. So eventually, you know, I remembered what he told me, and I get, you know, tough and getting him out there. So getting him out, giving him coffee and getting him to the studio became my job. And he did a remarkable He was there every pretty much every day, and and it's the guitar player, and an awful lot of the he played down. He played down so he would sound like

the guitar thing. It was fairly extraordinary. And my Facebook page has a lovely picture of me and Jimmy Hendrix in the studio making the air parent outing. But a lovely guy like that, a lovely a lovely, genuine Geezer. Aside from the extraordinary guitar playing, he got fed up with the with the kind of chitling circuit stuff that made his name. I mean, people just wanted the big stuff.

They wanted the fancy by the guitar player behind your back, you know, you use it as a phallic symbol, you know, and do all of that thing. And and eventually he got a little cheese with that, as you would. But that was what made him happen in England and that transferred to America. So the album was made. What are the next steps for you? Well, I would think at

that point we were on Buddha Records. There was a guy called Artie rip whatever, and Artie was was good value for money talking, but he didn't do very much with the record. And eventually the band decided that they would get back to England and expose the album too in England. So a few decisions were made and we got back to England, at which point the band broke up.

Henry McCulloch had got busted in Canada for marijuana possession and had been told that he would possibly he would possibly go to jail because they wanted to get musicians. At that time, getting somebody close to Hendricks was was a media thing, so he jumped bail. Henry Henry was advised by Mike Jeffrey's people to jump bail and and we got another guitar player out there. It wasn't half of talent, and when they got back to England they

broke up. That's when I got found the five thousand pounds investor to start a management company with Brindley Swartz. So that connects to that story. When I would try and use all my experience that I gained in two years in America and and would and would finally, you know, use it to to find an English band and find a group that could conquer the world. Meat putting that in the Melody Maker. Band wanted must have own equipment and van, and they didn't. They lied to me. They

didn't own the van. And they didn't own the gear. But I saw in Nick Low. I have to say I did see Nick Low. He had a couple of songs that were a bit crossis into the Nash at the time, but he um he had something and the band were good. The band were unusually good, and I thought I could make something of them. The trip to America turned out not too well, but I had got an ongoing deal with two albums firm from United Artists, and so that income the band um joined together to

live in one house together like a commune. Yeah. So the group proceeded to do three hundred gigs a year for four years and form a very big name for themselves in a low level kind of music musical area. Their second album was called Despite It All, which is an apt title, and it was very very good for four years, which is long enough for any group if they don't make it. That's when the seeds of descent set in and I left Tom to put a studio together at the Hope and Anchor in Islington, the famous

public house, and the band broke up. What was your thought in terms of building a studio, Well, I wanted a vowel studio. I bought two from Abbey Road. I bought to J fifty four. I think they were called studio machines, which I was told where a part of the Abbey Road UM machines that the Beatles possibly had

played on. I got the I got the desk out of Decca that I was told what had produced Nights in White Sason Satin and I set up a Vale studio eight track with two of the two machines together with one head and started recording at the Hope and Anchor I put it. It obviously went to the stage, so any music played on the stage was recordable by me. So the studio was going quite well, and um I also booked. I booked the venue so it was full

all the time. Again I did my favorite thing of having a very small hundred hundred licensed club and putting four hundred people in it. I had an alcohol license at this point as well, so that was good. Uh. And a group called Flipped City wanted to play and their manager was hustling me and I put them on our support with a band called Kokomo and they were terrible, but they had a guy lead singer who did a song called third Rate Romance, Low Rench Rendezvous and he

turned out his name was Declan mcmallus. So I said to him, you've got any original songs, and he said, yeah, I've got a few. I said, well, I've got a studio upstairs. I've just set it up, so I'll do some demos for you if you fancy doing a few. So he did thirty eight songs in the night. We finished at five in the morning, and I gave him a tape of his thirty eight songs and I thought he could be good. This guy could be useful. But I put the band on again a month or two

later and they were still terrible. He was good, but they were really rubbish. So while I was there, I put on a lot of music. All the London music traveled through the Hope and Anchor Pub recorded by me, and out of that I got the idea of Stiff Records. Also, Stiff Records was empty major record label because they didn't care about anything except their their money, the ideas that they liked, the kind of music that they sponsored, the kind of satin trousers and the high heeled boots and

the pink hair dues. I wasn't a big fan of and it wasn't very good. That prog rock area wasn't my favorite, and because the pubs were now my interests, and bands playing three minute numbers with no solos, with with happening with a couple of covers in there from some really decent people became my interests and they were

the I got the idea from there. I managed it wasn't his name was now, but I managed Declin, I managed Geane Drury, I managed Nick Lowe who come came to me with my partner at the time, Jake Vieira, and we started the tapes from the Hope and Anchor became stuff we could release because it was all Graham Parker I found at that time. He came to me with a couple of songs that somebody said, Dave's got a studio, why don't you go down there. I got him a deal with Phonogram, which was it's the quickest

deal I've ever ever made. I did the demo on Monday. On Friday, I gave it to a gentleman called Charlie Gillett, who was a great Unfortunately he's passed on. He was a marvelous spotter and really nice guy and helpful, but also he could spot things. He discovered Dark Straights me a load of bands and I gave it to him. He had a radio show on a Sunday on he played the track between You and Me. On Monday I got a call from Nigel Grange, the head of A and R at Phonogram, and on Tuesday I had a

deal sorted out and we were doing the paperwork. Okay, let's low down a couple of steps. Hey, who owns the Hope and Anchor. The Hope and Anchor is owned by a pub now called Green King. It's owned by by a brewery. I mean when you were there who owned it? Was owned by a brewery called Watney's. And it was right. It was run by a landlord who had a tendency in those days the the breweries owned all the pubs in different configurations, and they had tenants

in to run them. And obviously, if you if you haven't got a big crowd in your pub, getting a music license and getting music into was a way for you to sell more booze. So there was a landlord there called Fred Granger at the Hope and Anchor. He and I became partners in the studio. And where did the money come from across the bar Okay, and you have a studio who's doing the engineering and producing and all that stuff. Me me, I built it. It took

me a year to build it. I learned all about elect I had a couple of electronic guys come down and give me chores. They give me like your list, like your list of how to get this recording guy. They give me chores. And during the week I would solder and do what they told me, and they'd come the following week and give me more. I could only afford to get them one day a week, not to do any work, just to tell me what to do. I had a very good sound. I had Willie Mitchell, right,

I loved I loved the sound of Willie Mitchell. I thought that was one of the great England didn't have that sound. They had like a blank ye snare drum. English bands were more theatrical than musical. I always thought, you know, I always thought the English liked the theater and they liked the theatricals, and so I started a lot of other people. But but that was the main thing in in David Bowie h Pete Towns and I

mean Freddie our Freddie a queen. I mean, you know, I always thought he was a man chasing around looking for the other end of his mic stand by and large, but that was the English thing. I love the the R and B, the rhythm and blues. And Willie Mitchell I had every drummer who came to the Hope and Anchor for any reason, I would kidnap take him upstairs and I had a drum kit set up, and I would get him to play the drum kit for as long as I could. I'd give him drink, I'd give

him anything. So he kept playing on the drum kit while I fiddled to try and make the sound that was in my head, which was like high records al Green. That that sound. So I I thought, buggering, I can't. I couldn't do it. Nobody seemed to be able to. I wrote to Willie Mitchell. I wrote to him, I said, of the studio, I love the sound, blah blah. He wrote back to me with a mic set up right from Willie Mitchell. He wrote back, and all the mics

were incredibly cheap. I had been going and trying to get expensive stuff and trying to make and it was a vow sound. The early days. The tamlot was all valve I mean, obviously, So I went out and got all his microphones and put him in the in the place that he said they should go, all the same mics. The next drummer who came in downstairs turned into Al Jackson. He sat at the drum kit, he played the drum kid and he sounded like Al Jackson, My favorite drummer.

And that was the Willie Mitchell drum set. I've been using it ever since. And it came automatically. I didn't, you know. He told me a couple of e q s, but nothing dramatic. He just showed me the positioning of the mics, and that was pretty much what Stiff Records had based around that kind of drum set. I ordered to Nick Lowe then and we made a whole career out of it. Okay, why did you get involved with

Jake Riviera? Was that good or bad? Jake Rivieira was quite a smart geither now I'm not I'm not blowing my own trumpet by saying that I was doing more things around the place in the Hope and Anchor than Jake was. Jake saw me in his in his front vision he could see me, and he was following me around a little bit. He was stalking me a fraction and one of but it was very smart geezer, very

very witty, very sharp talker. And he got a job as tour manager on the very first dr Feel Good Tour of America, and he went around there, and he was very interested in record labels. It always had a he always had a fascination of recording more than me. I mean, I was thinking of Warner Brothers and others. He was thinking of modern and all the Brunswick and whatever. So he went around America would feel Goods and the field Goods loved small record labels and alcohol, two things

they loved. So they went around all these small record labels in every town in America. Who were the owners were dying off, you know, they've lost their money or whatever. Anyway, all these things were becoming bankrupt, but they all had stocks of singles in the warehouse that the wife of the owner who died of a heart attack still had. I didn't know what to do with. Jake came back from that tour and said to me. He said to me, Dave,

I've got an idea. Let's start a small record label, your tapes from the Hope and anchor right, and my ideas about what we'll do. He used to work for in that agency. He was very very good, uh clib geither so fine. We got together, the two of us. I had the management company, I managed declan Acmanus Injury, various other people, Graham Parker and we joined together and the money came from the management company to start the

record label and Nick Low. We pressed ten thousand, We did it in five hundred, five hundreds and sold them and then went on. There's a guy in England who was the genius of the independent record thing, John Peel. John Peel was the most extraordinary guy. God knows how he came up with his ideas, but he was a lovely guy and he really liked Stiff. So from our first record, So it Goes by Nick Low, he played

it on the radio and we became something. And we hated major record companies with such a passion that we loved making them look bad. We loved doing it. There were five newspapers, five music papers on the street every week who needed input. They needed stuff is like the internet. They needed loads and loads. We invented. We we we would sit late at night thinking up schemes. I mean, we love the record. We love the major record is

being embarrassed. Dar Straits had had their manager went to a marketing meeting at Phonogram and he was complaining that they were in a house bag. They were in a Phonogram house bag. Their new big head and reckless Eric, a guy that nobody'd ever heard of, had a four color bag. And it brought that all of that was made to measure because they had no sense of humor, they had no anything. They weren't very smart or talented. They were all pompous, black, black, bloody bmg w's and

it wasn't you know. They couldn't keep up. So that's what our slogans. We lead, others follow and can't keep up surfing on the new wave, you know, Tomorrow's sound today where the sun never sets. That we became the slogan company of things, and our groups loved it. The groups loved it. It was like a family affair with everybody in it, everybody laughing. The newspapers every week, everyone bought all the music papers and read all of them. So all the you know, we had journalists on the road,

but we called Elvis Costello, declar McManus. You know. We said to him, we had a meeting with him and said, look, we're getting nowhere with this great album you've just made, right, and we're gonna have to change your name. And he said, yeah, so what so we're gonna call you Elvis. And he didn't blink. The man did not blink. And Costello came from his um, his wife's name, her her name, and

he was great. Elvis was ready to promote. He'd come from a hard life working the computer programmer, which is putting putting the cards into the computer, and he um, he was great, and he pulled a lot of other people on as well. Okay, let's slow down and start with Elvis. You make the record. A couple of questions here, how does he end up making the record with Clover, a band from San Francisco though in England at the time, and he ends up with CBS Records. Tell me the

story there. Clover banned from Marin County. The pub music was was focused on a band who came from Maron County called Eggs over Easy. I went to a pub in town to do a do a deal with the landlord to get some of my bands in and there was a group playing. There was only ten people in the room. There was nobody in the room. I'm talking to the landlord and this group is playing, and I'm listening in the back of my mind and thinking, what's that.

That's an interesting turnaround in This four piece band is playing, right. I talked to them, I said, what, who? What? It turns out that Chas Chandler had been going to make an album of them for Polydor, but Polydor had had changed their mind, so they come from Marin County. I based all these bands playing the short numbers and doing this kind of slightly um rhythm and blues. The kind of songwriters they've vibe off them. I stole their idea. I still in touch with them. I'm I'm good friends

with them to this day. I got a whole lot of English bands two play that kind of style, to do three sets, To do three sets in a pub, to learn the game, to know what they're about, to put your songs in, put a cover in, keep the audience happy. It's a ub The majors didn't want to know. They sent a few people down to look at it because there was quite a lot of people starting to go and said, Oh, there's nothing happening here. It's just it's just pub rock, right, that's a that's what they said.

So Clover had been a favorite of Brindsley Schwartz when they lived together in the house. I had found this uh album by Clover. I'd given it to Nick Lowe who loved the music on it, and he was a big Clover fan. When we decided to have a management company, Jake and I and start the record company, we thought, who is there in America that we could get some use out of? And we thought, what about that band Clover? So I went over. He and I went over and

we chatted up Clover. Harmonica player Huey Lewis, but nobody was paying any attention to the harmonica player. John McPhee was the guitar player. And they had long hair, and they wore belts with conscios, and they had black leather waistcoats and they looked fantastic cowboy boots. They had to look long hair. They looked like Tin Lizzie to a degree. You know. Girls really liked them in Marin County and I said, come to England, Come to England. They vacillated.

They never came. We talked to them, they never came. Come on, come over, you'll have a good time. The day they got on the plane by themselves to come to England was the day that Johnny Rotten said fuck you to a Geezer on primetime television in England. Right punk came roaring out of the shed as the day this wild bunch of of of Wyant Earth Gunfighter, the Okay Canal looking group turned up in in England. Bad timing. We did everything with it. We got them a record deal,

we did everything. They've toured us in Lizzie. That was a very big part of it. We got everything going for the nothing worked. They were having a good time. They were hanging out with musicians, they were playing, they were going to the key clubs. Girls loved them. They were on every tour we could get them onto, and Jake and I were very persuasive and nothing happened. So eventually Elvis had these songs and there was nobody around with his kind of little style. He had a little

guitar style except Clover, so Clover playing not Hugh. He didn't. There's no harmonica on the album, but Clover played John McPhee playing that great solo on Allison. But but the British public didn't take to them. They didn't take to this. So we change Elves's name and I got him to play at the CBS convention, which was in a hotel on Park Lane, right in the middle of London, in the hotspot, and there was a convention in the hotel.

So I got Elvis down there with a little lamp, playing in his funny clothes from his album cover sleeve, and I said, whatever happens, don't stop playing, a right L. We called him L at this point, L. Don't stop playing. They'll notice you, they'll notice your song, they will know who the fund is that they're excusing my language. But but um, so he's playing away and I said, no, matter what happens, police while you'll get the police, keep playing.

So he's there playing and he wouldn't stop. And they said, move along, move along, Will you stop that? If you don't stop that, I'll ar rescue blah blah blah blah blah. So they arrest him. He's still playing as they put him into the back of their wagon. Right, so he goes to he doesn't know what to do now? He gets the at least to call Stiff Records, and I

answered the phone. We've only got a staff of three, so one of us and to the phone and they said, we've got a We've got a guy here called Elvis Costello. He says he works for you. I said, I've never heard him. So I have a friend on I TV News, which is the commercial news station, and I say, look, I've got this guy. He's been he's been arrested. They keep him in right. I said, he's been arrested. Is it a really good story? And he said, now it's not enough of an angle, Dave. You know I can't.

You know, there's no way you can get this on news the following day. What happens in England if you're if you're overnight in the cells, you go to both street Magistrates, Straights Court and both street magitates. Is the old Bailey. It's it's a traditional English how they dealt with an English miscreate. And he gets fined twenty pounds and bound over to keep the piece. That's the term, you're bound over to keep the peace twenty quid. My

I TV man is now outside. This is a story twenty quid, Elvis Costello whatever it was on the news twice that day and the following day. We've shipped about five thousand albums. There was record shops on the phone saying, who is this guy Helvis blah blah blah clover as a background band. That was the start of my aim is true. And that was the story of Elvis Costello. Okay, I only know in the US when it came out on Columbia Columbia in the UK, was it out on Stiff?

Of course, of course it was stiff. Stiff designed it all. But we were in the middle, Jake Rivieria and Dave Robinson were in the middle of doing a stiff deal for CBS for Columbia to sign the whole label. Now we were going to get what we deserved all its time. We were now going to get a big machine in America behind us. To that's when Jake jumped ship. Everyone said, what did Jake jump ship? Well, that's the reason Jake

jumped ship is there was a big income. There was half a million dollars on the table and they had to have Elvis. They loved able to why From from the story of the Park, Layne hotel. They had all seen him. That the story, that the legend of that predicted thing and the album that he just made became the fulcrum of the whole situation. And Jake left. Jake saw his chance to get out from under my shadow or whatever and left. And it was a very on you. I had not foreseen any second of it. Okay, you

know what's that seventy eight? Did my seven agent? Right? My name is true? Comes out? So just when you make the deal with CBS, is just when Jake leaves? Yes, so at this point because in America everything is delayed. But that was the first hit stiff record, and everything came after that. He and Dry etcetera. Oh yeah, Oh, Elvis was the business. Elvis was the business. And that all culminated in all that kind of effort and that kind of promotion and that kind of snappy you know

who gives a fun kind of attitude. All culminated then in that Jake leaves. Do you give him half of the five hundred thousand? No, he has all of it. I gave him Elvis Costello. I said, Jake, you'll need some income. Take Elvis gone. But it's Friday. I want a settlement complete, signed by you by Monday morning, first thing. Otherwise you don't get elvis. I wanted. Now, we're going to go to the house of my lawyer, your lawyer as well our lawyer, and we are going to have

a settlement. Because I realized that if we didn't settle quickly, we're both very very opedy geezers. Right, we would never settle, you know what I mean, we would never get said. Also, I spent the weekend looking through our accounts. The accountant of the company, the bookkeeper, was a Jake appointee. I went downstairs when Jake said he was leaving. I looked in this man's desk. I found drawers upon drawers of receipts,

untouched receipts, unformulated receipts. Right. I spent the weekend finding we owed a hundred fifty grand, right, which we didn't have a hundred fifty thousand we owed that hadn't been paid, right, But but we had forty grand in the bank. We were cash rich if if creditor large. Right, So I've decided to spend the forty grand on injury. I thought, my aim, it is true, great, but the day is gone Elvis is probably going to go with Jake. He

was a Jake. Jake went out of his way to be friendly to Elvis, and that was a good bloke. You know. I still talk to him. We have a really good time with whatever. But I thought Ian Dury's New Boots and Panties was the record that would really set up Stiff at the time. Okay, let's look down listen. Yeah, okay, so you have all this, you make the deal with CBS Redistribution five hundred k. They're gonna distribute all Stiff product around the world in England too. No, No, it

was just the USA and Canada, North America. So you have UK right, Stiff had it everywhere else. Okay, And Jake walks with Elvis, Yes, who only has one album at this point in time, and you also give him the five k to go away, Yes, because you thought that what you had left was worth more than that. I thought that we could survive. We had more artists. Jacob Jake at this point. It also started game quite argumentative about what bands he liked and what bands I liked.

We we had there was a schism that had started. It wasn't a big number, but I was aware that it was going to come to a fruition, come to a head at some point, but I didn't think he was just gonna skip. That half a million would have set us up in America. We might have done a chrysalis. We might have, you know, one person in America, one person in England. But I had belief in the label to survive, and he he thought by him leaving, it

wouldn't survive. Was that always his goal to leave or was he trying to say I will leave so that you give him the business. No, we weren't. We weren't, Bob, you you have a great eye for the business, etcetera. We were too kind of quite idealistic. Although there was money lying around, we were we were not moved. I think Jake saw that that half a mill was going to set him up separately, and I could see that right,

But our attitude was not primarily money. We did talk music and we got an agreement between us by Monday to settle. He went and I had a paperwork with all the shares and all the business. If I could make it work for myself, I got everything and he went off to do whatever you want to do. He had money, but The other thing about Jake is he has excessive tastes, and I was quite happy that he should go and I paid for it. Okay, So he goes and the next step is the in Dury album.

It is okay at this point, how many acts are signed to Stiff when Jake leaves? Probably about five? Okay. So you're the one who builds this big roster. Okay. So in Dury comes out, you know, hit me with your rhythm stick, wake Up, make love to Me? Does that meet your expectations? What a waste? Great single? Yes? Yes, I thought In Dury I had managed the Injury. He had been signed to my management company before Jake entered

the picture right. In Dury was signed to Advancedale with Decla McManus, with Graham Parker and with a few other people at that time. So I thought the Injury album was ripe? Was ripe for your and and if if nothing else down the road, possibly America, but it would have to be it would have to come from England. It would have to be a swell because he incoherent. A lot of his stuff was very incoherent to the American market. What happens to the hundred odd k that

you won't. We had forty grand in cash. I spent it on ads for Dury. Right in Drury. We had some great ads, give up smoking, give us your money. We had done fart before your ars is ready. I mean, we had some ads that really, you know, double page ads in everyone's face, and people had to hear this album. And then he came up with the singles. Him and Charles Jankl came up with the singles on top of

the album incredible stuff. And I was a thirty three year old cripple who who had never kind of got out, he never really got going, and I thought he had the business. Uh So, as it proved, he sold records right across Europe, my aim is true, did well. Uh but he was bigger than America. Elvis was made for America, and he was bigger in America. Now, we had an

attitude about the US market. Jake and I had an attitude which is, no matter how what you think you're gonna get, you're gonna get ten percent if you're lucky. That was the attitude because record companies, by their very nature, want to give you something to get you, but once they have you, they want to crawl it all back as much as possible. That's what the major did, Claude all back. We we wanted back packaging, in deductions, all

the things that they can get. So we buided our time and eventually we did a deal for Stiff with Arista. Clive and I got on well. I thought he was very much a pop guy. He had total control of his company, and that was where we headed for once we got in going in the UK. Ian certainly, I mean, I'm in Los Angeles, he gets played on k Rock, but you would get Ian on the way and then where do you go from there? Well, Ian and Lana Lovitch.

Lana Lovitch was an unheralded young lady and her lucky number which went to number two in the UK UM At a certain time, we could have done a deal with Epic or Columbia, mainly Epic because Elvis was on Columbia and uh, but aristall looked good and they did pay us a big events and they look good because

Clive wanted some kind of credibility. He wanted to be seen that he had an edgy He liked the edginess of Stiff, and he was going to he was going to do the business he was going to make it all happened big time, so he paid to put Ian on tour with Now there's for Alzheimer's is setting in um the vanilla? No, anyway, he will come back to me.

He went on tour in America. Ian and Lena went on touring America and their two singles, hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick and Lucky Number, We're going up the chart with the bullets required, we were starting to look like we could turn out hits right stiff. So Clive came down to the bottom line. Uh Ian Jury played three nights at the bottom line at the end of this big club tour, you know the whiskey that kind

of you know, hip club tour. The single was seventy hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick, and I think Lucky Number was eighty five or looking very good. So Clive came down at the end of the show with a boyfriend and a cameraman and said, look, Dave, I'm just going to I'm just gonna go in. I've been doing something else, but I'm just going to go in and do the Caught in the Act picture. Do you remember

that picture in Billboard every week? Remember the Yeah? So he was going to be executive Meats group at bottom Line. Now I said to him, I said, Clive, you won't be able to rush in there. The band occasionally have a bit of a row and it's a very small dressing room and E will be very sweaty. He's very, very disabled and it takes him a while to get dressed and get him brain together. After I said, or

they might have a row, I've been going. I went in there once where they were punching each other out anyway. Clive said, no, no, Dave, I do this all the time. Don't worry about it. You know I know how to do it. Ian had a guy called Cosmo Vinyl who is his mouthpiece. Cosmo went on to look after the clash. He was the mouthpiece and he was fascinated by Clive Davis. He taught Clive Davis his clothes were interesting. He was fascinated. He was in the dressing room. I'm saying to Clive,

don't do it. Clive, I'm against the door, or don't do it. He's saying, Dave, it's easy. I do this all the time. So I said, okay, and you go. Clive. Clive hates been touched Cosmo was down his jacket looking at the label of his clothes. Cosmo was all over him, handling him right, not not not violently, but but you know, in his space, completely in his space. Clive, if you

ever see the picture, he didn't look too well. The following day, Elliott Goldman, Elliot Goldman, Clive's business partner, calls me in to the office in New York and he says, so, I think it's a romance. I think it's you know, he's going to talk to me about how the records are doing and what needs to be done and whatever. You know, Elliot's going to talk business. And Elliot said to me, we're withdrawing all the promotion on your records. And I said, sorry, sorry, I thought it was a joke.

Don't joke. I said, what's what's happening? He said, Clive was manhandled by your staff last night, and I'm pulling the whole deal. There's no promotion going on. I said, don't be ridiculous, you know, Elliott, you know it's just rock and roll, a little bit of rock and roll. I told Clive not to go in, but he wanted to do it. He's an adult. It's up to him, you know it's not my problem. They're not my staff.

If you're going to go in groups dressing rooms, you better know that the group can bite, you know, so you're better go and do that. He said, it's not happening, Dave, where I said, well, then I want to leave. I want to leave now. I want to leave this instant. You know you're breaking You're breaking the contract. It's a big breach. Anyone, any lawyer will tell you, any judge will tell you. You You can't just pull out of this because of a little contra toempts over your bloody jacket.

So he said, I'm doing some figures. Let you have them tomorrow, but if you want out, you'll have to buy your way out. And the following day he gave me a bill for nine hundred thousand dollars. Right, And the other thing he said to me with Bob, which is an interesting comment, he said, what you what you need to discover about the American industry record business is this. I'm gonna fuck you now, and if you survive, you might get to fuck me later. So that was it.

Now I was totally stuck. I was totally stuck. I didn't have that money. I didn't have anything. That money had been spent on various other quite a bit of it on various other things that were going on. So I had to go to Bruce Lumville at Epic and say, Bruce, I should have taken your deal. Those fucking idiots that Aristyle I can't understand them, but I need to take your deal, and I need an advance of nine hundred

thousand dollars and he gave it to me. Bruce Lumbo was a lovely fucking geither in more ways than one. So now you're on Epic. We moved along very swiftly there. Yeah, gone, but were good sailing after that? Yeah, it was pretty good if you think about it. It was They decided, which was rather nice, that they would put it on Epic Stiff. So there was a label called Epic Stiff and we put a lot of stuff out, but the momentum for the two biggest records that we had was gone.

By the time we got all the parts and other bits from Arista. It was a couple of months and the records had had long gone, unfortunately, and they were two biggest shots. So we put out quite a bit on on Epic and we had a very good relationship with him, and Bruce Lumbo was really nice guind of a lot of really good staff there who I'm still in touch with. But are are we? We had we had missed the boat. We had missed the boat with that situation Asian and and that was that was the

way that went. I mean in England. I signed Madness very soon after, right, and that was one of the biggest That was one of the biggest things around the world except for America, although our House with a Big Hit in on Sire in the US. Sire had them for the US. Anyway, the deal we made was Seymour and I got persuaded the band wanted to sign. I auditioned the band at my wedding, so my wife has

never quite given me. And Seymour got them for America and our House with a Big Hit, but he didn't quite know what to do with them, their rowdy bunch and they're still going now and probably bigger now they've ever been. It's extraordinary the success of Madness. And what about all the other acts you signed, well, all the acts that I signed, Lana, the Pokes, Shane McGown and the Poles, they're all they all did well. About seventy of Stiff's signings broke even at least of my money.

Because also the label taught them a culture of not spending their money, of looking after it, a bit of being a little bit sensible when it came to the money. We had. Devo, I mean, Devo was great fun We put out Devo's big records at the time. They were very funny because they they Jerry Casals was so he's such a winder, you know, he winge and wine and which he hated. We put him in a small hotel. He'd winge, winge, winge. People think that the record industry

is not just a job. Here the things that it's some kind of romance, and you have to say to people, look, this is how it works. This is what it's about. The will come a day when did you did you put your money in the bank? Did you buyers ever house? And you've got something for it, you know, a pub? So uh that that was the essence. My mistake, Bob was Ireland before you get thail and I have to ask you about a couple of these records. One and I saw the act at the Whiskey. How does Rachel Sweet,

end Up It's stiff. Rachel's Sweet came from a Devo situation. I was in New York and I played Chris Blackwell Satisfaction by Divo, and he almost exploded. He couldn't believe, like I couldn't, that they had come up with this version of this song. I mean, it was extraordinary. I loved I loved all the rest of their song, but that was extraordinary. And he said to me, We're in New York, and I think New York was quite warm.

I remember being in a T shirt and he said to me, so, so what are you doing Nowaday, What's what's happening. I said, I'm into Akron. I've got to Acron, Ohio to sign Devo. He said, what he said, I'll come with you. We we we had a friendship at that point, you know, such a but we didn't have a business arrangement. So he and I went to Akron and it was the biggest blizzard in the history of Acron, right, and we were both in T shirts. We just got

on a plane. He was in sandals. So we we tied ourselves up in a motel and the bands and all the the word went out of the Chris Blackwell and Dave Robinson. Probably Chris Blackwell was in town and all the bands to bogging to this motel. They all came, none of them great, none of them. A guy called Lean Sternberg, who wrote Walk like an Egyptian came from out of the blue. He came and he had various connections,

and I got the idea. I got devoted. They wouldn't sign a deal with me, but they signed the three singles with me because they were They had Virgin and Warner Brothers on tap and Jerry Gasels is going to make a fortune. So I left him to it. I said, I'll put out your singles and then that will make

him want to have you. Blah blah blah. Blackwell went back to town and Jerry Lee Sternberg brought all these bands, one of which was Rachel Sweet, Jane eyre various, and I got the idea of Acron was kind of going downhill. It had been the tire factory that that it had been a huge place. It also smelt of rubber. It smelt of really a lot of rubber. So I came up and maybe maybe in an alcohol driven evening, with the idea that I would put out an Acron album.

Right of these bands, whatever thing I said this, remember you get a track by each of them, put it on the album. I want to try out a thing called scratch and sniff, so we'll put the smell of rubber that you scratched on on thing. And it gave you that kind of thing, and that was the essence of Acron. So I got that idea there, and then in a blizzard in Akron and we put out with album and Rachel Sweet came with it. And she was

a very interesting little fifteen year old. She was very her mother had just died and and she but she was very driven and very very interesting. And I had this song Baby. I had that song Baby was hanging around somewhere in my things that we did it with her.

Her father, Dick Sweet, was you know, a nice man bathroom bathroom, salesman bathroom, and the mother had just died, so he was kind of clinging to his fifteen year old daughter and her sister who was seventeen, so it was it was kind of a very odd emotional thing. I felt for them, but there's nothing I could do. I'm just running a record company. So we put her on I decided to put her on the next tour. Um Dick. Dick thought that rock and roll was where

you you sang louder at the microphone. That was that was That was his essence of things down the road. After a couple of tours, and she did very well. She's very articulate. She's now, I believe, a TV producer. She she's got a career in that area. Arma and at one of the Sony companies really liked Rachel Sweet and he was hustling me to get a license for America. And I said, look, Arma, I had now had an experience of Dick Sweet close up for several months and

it was doing right. And he's the father and you came. He doesn't know what he's doing, but he wants to be the manager or whatever. She's very nice, Rachel. So armor I said, Arma, I'll tell you what. Let's do a deal. You can buy her whole contract. You can buy the whole contract and um, you know she she wants She and her father want to have an American label. Stiff doesn't suit them. They're very straight and they want to be in an America. So you buy the whole

contract forget just America, and so he did. He bought the contract, and I kept Dick Sweet away from him untill he un till the check went through the bank. And then I said, Arma, meet the manager Dick Sweet, and Armor about a year later, said you wanchor, you complete you. You should be banned from this business for doing that to me. We still get on. So okay, there's a full story of Rachel Sweet. So tell us

about the mistake of making your deal with Ireland. Chris Blackwell kept hustling me in the back end of a D three. We had Madness really good, we had Tracy Ullman really good. We had the No, we didn't have the Pops at the time, but we had a good business and I had money in the bank and we had a good turnover and we were doing very well. And Blackwell is on the phone saying, why don't you come, Dave. I'll buy half of your company and you come and

run Ireland. And I said no, No. I genuinely said no, no, Chris, I don't you know. I don't want to do that. You know, I like things the way they are. We're doing well. I've got some new stuff for next year. Uh and uh. So he kept on and on, and eventually he offered me two million dollars for half of Stiff. He went by half. We had barious discussions. We also he said, I'm going to sell Island in three years.

Why don't we put the two companies together, one Pop one pop interesting, one Island traditional with a catalog, and why don't we get rid of it? And he gave me a very very big for the sale. I was going to get a very big override, very big, okay, but I would work both companies. So I talked to the wife and she said, well, Dave, you know how long did these things last. It's an opportunity. You may

as well. You're giving away half and you've got the opportunity of building some more and maybe you can make a bigger day down the road. So I did it. And the first month I got in there, they had no money. They were broke. I learned them money A million dollars. Stiff lent Island to pay its salaries for

two months. So I looked into Ireland completely from beginning to end right, and I found that a it had a license in America, it hadn't paid any royalties to the UK company for ages and it had a license with Atlantic, and it had seventy staff on a license. The license was not huge, it was decent, but there's no way you run seventy people on a license of a company whose day is kind of done. You're gonna have to revitalize. And because it's financially stuck. The people

through the door, Bob usually are artists managers. When when a new person comes in town, the artist manager come because they want to know if you're going to tour them, if you're going to support them, if you that's what normally happens. I had nothing but creditors, right, creditors through the thing. Say David, you're gonna be able to turn this around because my bill is really high. And they're the same people who are manufacturing from me. You know

they're they're similar. I said, no, I think we can. So I was in New York December and I saw a twelve inch Now Trevor Horne and I had known each other for a long time, and I was aware of Frankie Goes to Hollywood because they were quite outrageous. It's quite outrageous carry on their record, and I said, I became aware that I was watching them and they stalled in the British chart something like that. But I was in New York and I saw this twelve inch

that said sex Mix Frankie goes to Hollywood. I thought, oh, I didn't know about that. That's amazing. So we need to push this band on quickly. They've got a chance. This record is quite good, actually it's quite extraordinary, but it's not going anywhere. So I called somebody in New York. I found out who was the production manager. And I don't want to start like I'm blowing my trumpet, but

inevitably you kind of do. And I said to him, I need five thousands of those twelve inches across to the UK in a few days, right, can you can you deliver? And he said who are you? I don't know who you are. No, I don't think I can deliver. Capacity is blah blah blah blah. And they gave me

a load of welly. So I called black Bell. I said, Black I'm not going to do this job if I don't get five thousand and those things on on Saturday morning, right, and I want that geezer to fucking deliver to them, right. So I got them and we spread it out over Christmas, the sex mix the twelve inch and the record zoomed from sixty five to thirty two and got on top of the pops. Now you know, top of the pops that is, that is where you want to get in the world. In the UK, we got on top of

the pops. The band played with no arts in their trousers. They wore those kind of chaps, those kind of gay chaps. That that whatever they got. The guy the BBC freaked out completely and of course the entire public went miniachel next thing, it goes to number six, thirty two, number six. I know the guy is saying, I'll never have an

act on top of the pubs forever. Number six. And that day a guy called Mike Reid, who is the breakfast DJ on Radio one, biggest radio station in the UK, plays a little bit of the record, pulls it off the needle and throws it at the wall. So there's this big splatter let's splatter whatever. Everyone's going, what's happening because everybody listens to that breakfast show. And then I get the head of the BBC said, day, were are

we're banning it? I said, how can you? Banny you've been playing it for three months, not a lot, but enough. What's the problem, he said, It's all about ejaculation. I said, I said most of the chart. I could describe ejaculationship most of the chart. What are you talking about? This is the rock and roll business. I said. The least you could do is tell the press while you're banning it, he said, he said, I will. I said, well, I've got to. I could get a pressure reception for this afternoon.

He said, okay, I'll address them. He told the assembled press. We had I think seventy eight people in that room, that it was all about ejaculation. We we couldn't press the record, we couldn't get pressing. And then I found that you could change the track two or three times, and and everybody wanted the next version of the ejaculation record. We sold I don't know, three and a half million in the UK. It was number one for ever it was. You know, we had the T shirt. Then relax, don't

do it. I mean it was a script you could not write. And ted beston God bless him. The head of the BBC was the man who did it all by himself. So we sorted that out Chris Blackwell now has got a little cash flow. We're cash flowing right, And the next thing is the Bob Marley record. Chris said, I'd like you to do a Bob Marley A Greatest Hits, Dave. We haven't done one before, but I think you're the right man to do it. And I said, well, yeah, I I really like Bob Marley. I've got an idea

and how that goes. He said, well, I've got the cover done and I've got the running order. And I said, well then let's have a look. So he had a look at I said I wouldn't use that cover and I wouldn't use that running order. And he said what do you mean? And I said, well, what's the point of the of wasting time? That's not the one, okay, And there's no point in two of us fighting about it. You do it, you do it. You've got the ideas that you do it. So eventually he agreed. I said,

I'm not going to do it with you. I'm not gonna do it anybody. I will do it, and I have an idea that that will work. So the idea of bottom line was to sell it to the white people. That's all I said, the man is a genius. The man has got songs that are unbelievable. But the man is provocative. And all the pictures you've used of them, he's wearing camouflage clothes, he's wearing military clothes. People in England and around the world think he doesn't like white people.

He does. But the pictures that you've used to describe and I wouldn't have it. So that's where we that's where we drew the line, and you know, the rest is kind of history. So how did it in? That's alves that that's all of the cash flow. That's alved. The cash flow I did so TV on YouTube. But most of Ireland's bands were leaving at that point. Robert Palmer was going, Stevie Winwood was going because they hadn't

been paid royalty. So hided end with you in Ireland very badly, very badly because the following I put a lot of effort into Ireland because of the arrangement that were black Wood and I had ah that isn't what he thought was going on or his people. He wasn't

going to sell. He now didn't need to sell because I had recovered the position that he had vacated and now he got He then sold a company, if you think about it, to David vine At, a PolyGram who bought A and M and Ireland and paid ridiculous amount of money. He gave the Black World three and eighty million or something. You know, it's probably worth fifty at the time. But we fell out because also his people

didn't pay stiff bills. There was a do we were a partnership, the accounts department all moved into Ireland, everything every we cut back and did all the things that people do, and he double cross me. And then what about didn't you have a contract for your percentage? Yeah, we had a contract written on a filefax page and we went to court with it and it was going

to cost an awful lot of money. I mean, Blackwell's lawyer called my lawyer and said, look, Chris has just sold a company for two and eight nine million, as Dave got the wherewith all to get into a long drawn out legal litigation. So we fought a bit of a draw. I got a bit out of it, but not what was required. And of course the sale of the companies never took place, and Chris went into the hotel business. Okay, you leave Ireland in where does that

leave you? It meant that everybody then a wombed that that Stiff would be hard to keep going. So a lot of people then tried to think about to get their two hundred dollars or whatever they were owned. And in England, the way the way that works, it's snowballs. It's a snowballing situation. So I did a liquidation. I liquidated the company and sold it to mt T so that it was sailable, right, But it wasn't ideal. It

wasn't something that you would write down as your script whatever. Okay, you sold it z T T. Was that profitable for you? Did you finally get a check? No? No, it's profitable for the some of the creditors they got a small amount of the company was wound up and they got a small amount of the owing. No, it wasn't profitable. I was the biggest creditor in the company. No, I I lost what I put in. I put a lot into try and of a guy, So what year do

you give the assets? And then what do you do personally? Well? I worked for Stiff for a while until the until the Pope single which I signed the Pope, so until the Fairytale in New York, and then I I dropped out because Jill Sinclair, who is Trevor Horne's wife, I was unfortunately she was killed. She was chiseling away at the bits that I had. So I thought, I've had enough of it for a while. My wife and I thought we will take a little time off and gone

do something fun. So one has occupied your time in these past years. I put together and I hope to get that out next year. Gregory Isaac's credits hits called Icon and that's I think a great record. He wasn't quite the Bob Marley, but he had some great records, a great voice. And I look after a small band from a young band from Carlisle and called Hardwick Circus, and they're doing things, and they're starting to do things, and we're starting to get somewhere. So I'm still in it.

I'm still doing it. I have a lot of fun doing it, and I do um you know, various bits in the industry, and you know, corporate with several projects like the Greatest Hits and things of that nature, which I'm good at. I have to ask because a long career, I know this is not what you're in for it. So with this lead, d did you make enough money or do you have to work to pay the bills? Oh? No, I have to work, Bob. Yeah, and you never retire.

It's not you know, what would you do? Paul McCartney when when I got Brinday Schwartz to be their support band on the Wings tour of the UK. You know, I did a big three day debrief with Paul at the back of the coach and I said, so have you done enough? What are you? What are you going to do? What's the plan? What he said, Dave, you never retire because you're as successful as you can be. But what are you? I'm a bass player? What do you do? I said, well, I'm a kind of a manager.

He said, well, we'll both be doing that until we die. Okay. Just going back in history one point, how long were you involved with Graham Parker? Graham Parker from UM nineteen seventy five to nineteen seventy eight, maybe seventy nine. Okay, So were you involved with him when he signed ultimately with Arista? Was that after your time? I did the deal for him and left at that point. Okay, So Graham Parker. He had the first two albums made an

incredible amount of notice. He blames that our Mercury, which certainly in America, was a terrible label. Do you think it was just luck of the draw it didn't happen for him or really in essence, he didn't have it and it wasn't gonna happen in big time. There was a great momentum for a Graham. There was a great momentum uh at the time when he was playing in New York in the early Palladium period with Bruce Springsteen in the audience and Steve van zandt. He was at

the height of his thing. He was he was ready to crack it. Mercury were appalling. They had no real interests. They didn't have any interest in filling it. But that's and that's his story. They just did not understand what it took to break a rock act in America. You had to climb on it, You had to climb on that bus and do it. They had a great guy and Mike Bone was a radio plugger. He was very good. But the marketing and the expenditure was it was non existent.

Really it was. It was poor and they had no attitude. It was very much a jazz label, you know. And the guys that ran it. I'll tell you an interesting story. There was a guy called There's a guy from barn In. I. I raised this big time right into polygraph right. I raised it right up to the top of the cheese right.

And they sent a guy who remained nameless at this point to Chicago, and they paid my fare to go back to Chicago with him for for me to point out what had happened, what hadn't happened, what should have happened. It's a very delicate situation. It happens in managers careers from time to time when they don't want to they need to get some action and it needs to be quick. And they understood that. When we had a lunch, when we had the dinner that evening, we all arrived, he

from Holland, me from whatever. There was a girl, very pretty girl, introduced to me as the head of regional promotion. I had never seen her before. I asked Mike Bone and he kind of his eyes to heaven a little bit. This girl was seated next to my gentleman from Holland, Mr Holland right, and the following day, the Mr Holland went back to Holland and I had checked at the hotel and the girl had been in his room that night, and it was all over. He was moved to Australia

thereafter by PolyGram. Right, and it was all over. And Barnes said, we've investigated this. Our man says, there's no one toward you know, it's it's a chancy business, Dave. And we had a chance, and maybe we didn't. But Graham had such a such a very keen wave. He had such a keen wave, and he had some very very good tracks. Right. He had mud Langer, had done the second album Nicklaud, the first mud Langer, and the third was Squeezing Out Spark. I mean, people really love.

He had all the ingredients. But unfortunately it's the momentum of the record business is that you seize the opportunities they come and then they can go and like a lot of other things. So mercury poisoning is a very relevant part of why Graham, it turned out, then changed his mind a little bit. He went off into slightly different directions. He also went a lot of a lot of groups. And you know this, they they they always need help and good from the management, and they need

they need people who are objective about them. And the day you drop the objectivity is silly. The day that an artist is then asked to be the picker of the singles or the picker of the producer or whatever. I've never been a big fan with that. At the same time, I'm not autocratic. I tell the group why this is the situation, on what could and should happen. I try and be the artist's friend as well as their record company, their partner. Most contracts say we are

not partners and we never will be. I always said, I'm your partner. I will try and find the key to the door. If you support me, I will be with you. And Graham, unfortunately, was the back end of that. It's a shame because if you look at some of the stuff he has done and look at some of those early videos, I mean you're looking at a hit at a hit act. Also, you know the wave, the wave moved and the punk kind of started coming up.

Elvis Costello came, Bruce Springsteen started getting him seven gear, and Mercury denied Graham when he had a chance. Well, Dave, you're a fount of knowledge, with a lot of great stories. I can listen to them forever. I want to thank you for taking the time with us today. Good bomb, but I've read in going to more until next time. This is bob Blefslin's