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Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop With Tony Hymas & Terry Bozzio

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Keyboard player Tony Hymas had one of the weirder music careers of the 1980s.

He began the decade helping to make There And Back one of Jeff Beck’s best albums, then popped up in a supergroup called PHD with singer Jim Diamond and drummer Simon Phillips, getting a classic UK one-hit wonder ‘I Won’t Let You Down’ (#2 in 1982!), then played on/wrote arguably the best track from Beck’s pretty poor 1985 album Flash, and then…not a lot for a while (read this excellent rare interview for more on Tony’s career).

But he was an absolutely vital part of Beck’s career comeback courtesy of Guitar Shop, released in October 1989. You might even call it Beck’s last great album, and arguably Bozzio’s too.

They recorded at Jimmy Page’s residential Sol Studios in leafy Cookham, Surrey (Beck later reported: ‘When we finished the album, I left me bike in his shed, so he got a bicycle out of it too…’!). The album ended up taking eight months to write and record because Hymas brought a chess board with him.

Beck took genres that he’d touched upon throughout his career – blues, reggae, rockabilly, metal, funk, fusion – and used them as a jumping-off points, working up material with Hymas and Bozzio in the studio.

And it’s very memorable material. On the title track Beck fondly mocks the gear obsession of guitar magazines, and goes through a range of tones and effects in the process, but…it all just sounds like Jeff. A Strat or Telecaster, distortion/delay pedals, and that’s it. It’s all in his fingers.

On the masterpiece that is ‘Where Were You’, he plays the lion’s share of the melody (reportedly very influenced by the Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir AKA Les Voix Bulgares) with harmonics and very judicious use of the whammy bar, bending in and out of notes with just the right amount of wrist tension.

Bozzio plays a blinder – mostly reining in his formidable technique at the expense of groove and presence – but unleashes some seriously quick double-bass playing on ‘Sling Shot’. Thrash-metal drummers beware. And there’s THAT amazing fill at the end.

Hymas is a great accompanist – you hardly miss real bass and only very occasionally yearn for another instrumental foil for Beck. A couple of tracks on the album became live staples too, played in concert to this day – ‘Big Block’, ‘Where Were You’ and ‘Behind The Veil’.

Guitar Shop did OK in the States, making #49, but weirdly didn’t chart in the UK. But it did win a Best Rock Instrumental Grammy award in 1990. Their Hammersmith gig of 29 July that year was one of the loudest ever heard at the venue.

Beck talked up the possibility of a second album and tour but it never happened. They did reform for Jeff’s birthday party at the Royal Festival Hall in 2002 though. And El Becko even got on the BBC’s ‘Rapido’:

 

40 Years Of Memorable Movie Moments

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Maybe it was the lockdown popcorn, maybe a great recent piece in Empire magazine initiated by director Edgar Wright, but this time away from the cinema has got me waxing all nostalgic.

Will the big screen ever regain its mojo? The alternative is a crushing thought.

And whatever the merits of Netflix et al, they can’t replace the shared experience watching a superb movie on a big screen with great sound and those ‘wonderful people out there in the dark’ (© ‘Sunset Boulevard’).

So, if it’s all over – and I hope it’s not – here are some memorable movie moments of the last 40 years (all in London cinemas unless otherwise stated), from the sublime to the shocking (with spoilers…). I hope they inspire some recollections of your own.

Seeing ‘The Exorcist’ at a cinema above a nightclub in Kingston circa 1989, me absolutely terrified as Salt-N-Pepa’s ‘Push It’ was heard pulsating through the floorboards… The entire audience laughing throughout ‘Prince Of Darkness’ (it’s supposed to be a horror movie…) at the Hammersmith ABC circa 1987… A late-night screening of ‘Carrie’ at the Prince Charles circa 2012, the young, hip crowd jumping three feet out of their seats upon the famous finale…

At the same venue circa 1994, a ‘lone white male’ saying very loudly, apropros of nothing: ‘What a f***ing bitch’ as the credits rolled at the end of ‘The Last Seduction’ (it’s a female-fronted, neo-noir)… Almost having an out-of-body experience as Jeff Bridges walked through the plane at the end of ‘Fearless’ at the Prince Charles circa 1994… The ripples of hilarity echoing around the cinema during Michael Wincott’s cracking cameo as Kent in ‘Talk Radio’ at the Riverside Hammersmith circa 1988…

Spooked amongst the drinking/smoking audience during ‘The Blair Witch Project’ at the Notting Hill Coronet in 1998… The quietest, most rapt audience ever for Orson Welles’ ‘The Trial’ at the BFI (formerly NFT) in 2019… Audience hilarity during Hugh Grant’s performance in ‘Bitter Moon’ at the Prince Charles circa 1994… Early cinema revelations seeing ‘Jaws’, ‘Close Encounters Of The Third Kind’, ‘Airplane’ and ‘Raiders Of The Lost Ark’ between 1980-1982… Seeing ‘Rain Man’ two nights in a row at the Richmond Odeon in 1988… The ‘Star Wars’ triple bill at the same venue circa 1985… A Laurel & Hardy all-dayer at The Kings Cross Scala circa 1988… Terrified watching ‘Scream 2’ alone in a huge moviehouse on Times Square, NYC, the only other paying customer deciding to sit directly behind me… Meeting David Lynch – and getting his very odd autograph – after a screening of ‘The Straight Story’ at the NFT in 1999… Seeing ‘Fame’ at a huge, almost completely empty Hammersmith Odeon circa 1983…

Not hearing one line of dialogue during ‘Fletch’ as the assembled teens screamed/laughed/threw food at the screen, Putney Odeon, 1985… Panic and nausea at the finale of ‘The Vanishing’ at a late-night screening at the Ultimate Picture Palace in Oxford circa 1991… Watching JG Ballard and David Cronenberg chatting amiably onstage after the controversial London premiere of ‘Crash’ at the NFT, 1996… Sitting behind a constantly laughing Jimmy Page at a screening of ‘Beware Of Mr Baker’, the Riverside Hammersmith circa 2012… Seeing ‘Heathers’ at the same venue in 1989 and thinking: well, that’s almost the perfect film… Feeling the whole packed house take an inward breath as the body crawled out of the TV set during ‘Ringu’ at the ICA, 1998…and…and…?

The Comic Strip to Castle Donington: An Interview With Nigel Planer

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Den Bad News

Nigel Planer as Den Dennis, Castle Donington, 16th August 1986

If you were a British teenager in the mid-’80s, ‘The Young Ones’ and ‘The Comic Strip Presents’ were pretty much required viewing.

In fact, it’s hard to imagine that period without them. They fused comedy and music with anarchic zeal and have endured as bona fide TV classics.

Nigel Planer was an integral part of both groundbreaking shows, working alongside Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, Alexei Sayle, Peter Richardson and many more.

He brought the world such classic characters as the perennially-prickly hippy Neil and Den Dennis, heavy metal’s unluckiest guitarist.

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Since then, Planer has appeared in countless quality TV productions, written several books and plays and starred in the hit musicals ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘Evita’, ‘Chicago’, ‘Wicked’, ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’ and ‘Hairspray’.

He’s also worked on several BBC Four music documentaries and is currently revisiting an early interest in songwriting.

I began my chat with Nigel by asking him about his musical influences.

MP: There was a great punky energy about the early days of The Comic Strip troupe, but I’m guessing your own musical tastes weren’t rooted in punk. Did you play in bands before becoming a pro actor?

NP: I was more into psych-folk and new-age jazz stuff. I didn’t so much play in bands but I did make a bubblegum pop record with my brother Roger, and I had a publishing deal for my songs which were sort of sub-Nick Drake, soft, liberal, poetic things.

We all loved your portrayal of Neil in ‘The Young Ones’ (I think I still have ‘Neil’s Book Of The Dead’ somewhere…), but how much of that character was yours and how much of it Ben Elton and Lise Mayer’s?

Well, the original Neil comes from a show I wrote and performed with Peter Richardson and Pete Richens called ‘Rank’. Many of the characters later to appear in Comic Strip films stem from this show. We first did it at the Roundhouse and then on tour with various bands. We were trying to be like Alberto y Los Trios Paranoias or The Fabulous Poodles, if anyone remembers them. We ended up more like a Mike Leigh play with a rock band in it. When we made our double act, Neil came along with us and so he was my character in the ‘Young Ones’ setup. He was mostly my character but Ben and Lise made him more stereotypically hippyish.

Your cover of Traffic’s ‘Hole In My Shoe’ got to number 2 in the charts in July 1984! Any good memories from Neil’s ‘pop’ period? 

It was an incredible experience, to be a pop star all of a sudden without having to take the consequences of that decision because I was in character. I learned that I would hate to be a pop star.

Who or what was your inspiration for the brilliant Den, the hapless rhythm guitarist from The Comic Strip’s ‘Bad News Tour’ and ‘More Bad News’?

I’m afraid Den Dennis comes from deep inside my soul…

You famously played the 1986 Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donington with the News, how was that? The festival was probably at its peak during that time.

It was our first gig. We were terrified. It looks pretty good in the film – you see all the usual spoof documentary gags, we argue, get ready for the gig, go up the stairs onto the stage. And then in one panning shot you realise it’s real, there are actually 40,000 people there baying for our blood and throwing bottles of urine at us. The compere (Tommy Vance) had to wear a helmet and face guard, but we just walked out there like idiots.

‘Bad News Tour’ famously appeared on British TV long before ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ was released. Have you ever met any of the Tap guys? Are they aware of ‘Bad News Tour’?

I think both ideas were in germination at the same time. Funny how things happen like that. I never met any of them but have a huge admiration.

In Ade’s Comic Strip film ‘Private Enterprise’, you play this great character Derek, a bow-tied, extremely effete A&R man. It’s a brilliant portrayal of a lot of those public school types who got into the music biz in the late-’70s and early-’80s. Was Derek based on anyone you knew?

Not really. I didn’t think of him as a public school type, I just came up with this weird voice. A lot of the time things are just done on instinct and it’s best not to work it out too much. I did feel I knew the kind of person he should be, ie it wasn’t exactly a stretch.

In later Comic Strips, there were cameos and musical contributions from the likes of Jeff Beck, Kate Bush and Lemmy. Any printable memories of working with them?

We used to do this gag where one of us, probably Ade, would turn down volume on his guitar and mime, and out would come the most amazing solo. Then out from behind a speaker would walk Brian May, Jeff Beck or whoever we’d managed to con into doing the solo. Then Ade would stop and shout at the guitar hero: ‘I paid you a fiver to stay behind that speaker, you bastard!’ At The Marquee, we did it not once but twice – after coming out, Brian then turned down volume on his guitar and out walked Jeff. Jimmy Page did the gag with us once too, but I can’t remember where we were playing. Ah, memories… I do remember an early morning filming call in a hotel in Devon on a Comic Strip film. There had been a lot of drinking the night before. I’d gone to bed early, being a professional ‘actor’ you know, but others had stayed up trying to keep up with Lemmy. The next day at 6am, I get down to the lobby for pick-up time – none of the cast are there, not even the runner nor the driver. In fact, the only other person turning up on time for work, with his lines learned, was Lemmy.

You’ve been in the original casts of several very popular West End musicals (‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’, ‘Hairspray’, ‘We Will Rock You’) in the last ten years or so – what are the challenges of singing live night after night?

It’s a slog doing eight shows a week on a raked stage. Lots of injuries and physio and the like. The singing is the nice bit. One is also fighting boredom on a grand scale. It’s hard to stay cheerful. But on ‘We Will Rock You’, I remember thinking to myself: ‘Shut the f*** up, you are about to go on in front of 3,000 people and sing a beautiful song with a band of incredible musicians handpicked by Queen and then do about 20 minutes of jokes and make everyone laugh and you’re complaining?’ I’m good at complaining. Ben used to call me Niggle Complainer.

In recent years, you’ve been the go-to voiceover guy for music documentaries on BBC4 – do you enjoy them and are there any more in the pipeline?

None in the pipeline at the moment unfortunately, but they are a really, really good gig. You get to sit for a day listening to all this brilliant music and hear some people talking who maybe meant a lot to you when younger. I particularly enjoyed ‘Blues Britannia’ which I thought was very interesting. The idea that the Brits re-imported the Blues back to America where it was dying.

What are you up to at the moment? A little bird told me you’re working on a music project alongside the acting…

I have a couple of musical projects at the moment. One is a stage musical I have written with Hannah-Jane Fox and Andrew Holdsworth who I met in the ‘We Will Rock You’ days. We’re trying to place it in a theatre now. It’s not usual musical theatre fare. It’s heavy-rock/pop based, a very dark gothic horror story called ‘She Devil’! The other is a psych-folk band called Rainsmoke I have formed with my musician brother Roger and a guy called Chris Wade who is behind the Dodson And Fogg albums. We have one song up on Bandcamp now, and are hoping to finish the album by the new year. Most of the songs are based on all those songs I wrote in the early 1970s when I was a young, green, poet-type guy.

Thanks Nigel.

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Nigel receiving his Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Edinburgh Napier University in 2011

Bigmouth Strikes Twice: More Classic 1980s Music Quotes

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Art Blakey

Here’s another selection of choice quotes taken from various 1980s magazines, TV shows, biographies and anthologies that have drifted through my transom in the last few months.

Check out the first instalment here if you missed it.

 

‘Morrissey’s a precious, miserable bastard. He sings the same song every time he opens his mouth. At least I’ve got two songs: “Love Cats” and “Faith”.’

Robert Smith of The Cure, 1985

 

‘George Clinton told me how much he liked Around The World In A Day. You know how much more his words mean than those from some mamma-jamma wearing glasses and an alligator shirt behind a typewriter?’

Prince, 1985

 

‘It would be nice to meet Madonna and squeeze her bum.’

Level 42’s Mark King looks forward to his first US tour, 1986

 

‘I hope nobody bought houses.’

Slash/Warners executive Bob Biggs upon hearing a preview of Faith No More’s Angel Dust album (OK, this quote is from the early 1990s, but wtf…). The band had bought houses…

 

‘The musician is like a house, and the music is like a friend that’s always out there knocking on the door, wanting nothing more than to come in. But you’ve got to get your house in order for music to come in. That’s where discipline comes in.’

Robert Fripp, 1984

 

‘Like the first side. The second side is rubbish. Miles don’t play jazz no more but feels kind of funny about it, so instead of just admitting that his chops aren’t what they used to be, he puts jazz down.’

Branford Marsalis on Miles Davis’s Tutu, 1986

 

‘Remember the hits? “Labour Of Love” was inspired by Antonio Gramsci, a love song called “Violently” and a tale of kitchen-sink realism about wife battery called “Looking For Linda”. We heard those songs on Radio 1 back to back with Yazz and we’d piss ourselves laughing. We pulled off the trick three times and I always think that lyrically I can pull it off again.’

Hue & Cry’s Pat Kane remembers the good old days, 1995

 

‘I have to be myself, and if being in rock music forces me to pretend I am an idiot or that I have to wear tight trousers or a wig, then I have to get another job.’

Sting, 1988

 

‘I heard the title song (‘Storms’) on the radio and the drum sound still makes me want to cry. I love Glyn (Johns, producer) but there were times during that album when I went back to the hotel to cry.’

Nancy Griffith on her 1989 album Storms, 1991

 

‘I would say that my entire life has been one massive failure. Because I don’t have the tools or wherewithal to accomplish what I want to accomplish.’

Frank Zappa, 1986

 

‘I went into the old EMI offices many times in the late ’80s and it never occurred to me to look up in reception and see exactly where that iconic photo had been taken. In the ’80s it seemed we had been looking forward.’

David Hepworth on the famous Beatles photo from the cover of Please Please Me

 

‘I tried the Jesus and Mary Chain but I just couldn’t believe it. It’s awful! It was so sophomoric – like the Velvets without Lou. I just know that they’re kids from Croydon! I just can’t buy it.’

David Bowie, 1987

 

‘I was surprised how hip it is. There’s a strange thing I don’t understand of people in Boy George outfits dancing to Jimmy McGriff and old Jackie McLean Blue Note records in discos.’

Guitarist John Scofield on the latest English ‘jazz revival’, 1988

 

‘Songwriting’s a craft, that’s all. I always knew my lyrics were better than anyone else’s anyway. I just edit more than other people, that’s my f***in’ secret. Also I never sleep and that helps too. You’ve got more time that way.’

Shane MacGowan, 1989

 

‘I hate having my picture taken, I always look like such a dog.’

Kirsty MacColl, 1989

 

‘I was a patsy. I never made more than $200 a week at the Five Spot.’

Ornette Coleman looks back on his legendary six-month residency during 1959 and 1960, 1985

 

‘All of us were naive, not just Ornette. We couldn’t even pay our rents. And they were making lots of money off us. That club was jammed every single night we were there.’

Charlie Haden on the same residency, 1985

 

‘You walk into the record label and they just weren’t as friendly as they used to be. When the record’s not a success, it’s your fault, and so you take on all those feelings. The label doesn’t sit down and talk to you. And they don’t drop you either, because they don’t want to lose you to the competition – just in case you do come up with something good next. And so they just remain sort of not as friendly, no more: “Hey Kevin, how are you?” It’s a head-f*ck, and you just have to work it out yourself.’

Kevin Rowland on the commercial failure of his 1988 solo album The Wanderer

 

‘Pop stars live the life of Caesar. And we know where the life of Caesar leads: it leads to blankness, it leads to despair. That’s the real message of these rock stars’ lives. To the public, they represent vitality, youth, innocence, joy. But in private life they represent despair and an infatuation with death.’

Albert Goldman, author of ‘The Lives Of John Lennon’ and ‘Elvis’, 1988

 

‘I remember sitting next to the stage and seeing all those little red lights glowing on the amps while we waited for the guys to come out and give us a real pasting.’

Allan Holdsworth reminisces about early gig-going, 1985

 

‘I have the best legs in the business. And they’ve got dancing feet at the bottom.’

David Lee Roth, 1982

 

‘There’s only one woman I have deep respect for in this industry and that’s Chrissie Hynde.’

Annie Lennox, 1986

 

‘I would have thought that people would be pleased to have a band that could play half decently.’

Francis Dunnery bemoans It Bites’ poor standing with the British music press, 1989

 

‘Sometimes he would call for Monk out of the clear blue sky. “Thelonious! Come save me from these dumb young motherf*ckers!”‘

Wynton Marsalis on playing with Art Blakey in the early 1980s

 

‘Prince really wants to be white. I know what that’s like. I tried hard to be white too.’

Daryl Hall, 1985

 

‘What we do is an alternative to Elton John and Chris Rea and all those old bastards who were there and still are. It’s embarrassing to see these old people like Dire Straits doddering about, they’re hideous.’

Robert Smith, 1989

 

‘I’ll tell you what I dig. In the Sting movie “Bring On The Night”, Omar Hakim taking off on that tune. Like Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette. That’s being real free and comfortable. I don’t take my drums seriously, and they do.’

Drummer for the stars Jeff Porcaro, 1989

 

‘I believe that Bill (Bruford) and Adrian (Belew) thought that Beat was a better album than Discipline. I have no idea how anyone could come to that conclusion.’

Robert Fripp of King Crimson, 2022

 

‘Thanks for letting me drop by, guys. Hope I didn’t ruin your album.’

Herbie Hancock bids farewell to Simple Minds after playing a synth solo on their 1982 song ‘Hunter And The Hunted’

 

‘You should have seen us trying to sound like Windham Hill. We’d fall on our butts, man. I learned that you can’t fake it.’

’70s jazz/rock pioneer Larry Coryell on his mid-’80s collaboration with violinist Michal Urbaniak, 1985

 

‘We weren’t asked but we wouldn’t have done it anyway.’

Robert Smith on Live Aid, 1985

 

‘The band is getting back together and playing, maybe every six months or every year. If I can do so without it being public knowledge, that would be great. But I can’t do it, obviously. It would be nice to play together just as friends.’

Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin reunions, 1986

 

‘I really, really would like to be in Led Zeppelin again. Whether or not time allows that to happen, I don’t know.’

Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin reunions, 1988

 

‘I’m a Catholic, and I would just ask God to to please help me find my own style. It’s not going to be like Tony or Elvin, so that when you hear me on a record, you know it’s Al Foster on the drums.’

Al Foster on his ‘stomping’ hi-hat technique, 1989

 

‘I feel I’ve created a field in which other people can discover themselves. I’m disappointed that they don’t create the room for me to discover myself.’

Robert Fripp on his King Crimson bandmates, 1984

 

‘I find therapy enormously valuable. It’s like car maintenance, send yourself in to be serviced every few thousand miles and, with any luck, it stops major problems developing.’

Peter Gabriel, 1989

 

‘I went to see this band INXS from Australia. They were on OK band, very much like a version of the Rolling Stones, but not as good. The singer is good and he looks great, but he doesn’t really move. He can’t be expending much energy.’

Mick Jagger, 1988

 

‘The band was like a fake democracy. Henley and I were making the decisions while at the same time trying to pacify and cajole the others.’

Glenn Frey looks back on The Eagles, 1988

 

‘(Jeff) Beck’s was a miserable f***ing band, horrible. Beck is a miserable old sod, but I do love him as a guitar player.’

Rod Stewart, 1988

 

‘I’ve always found it easier to write for other people. I feel terrible inhibited about writing for me. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve resigned myself into believing that I’m a moderately good singer.’

David Bowie, 1988

 

‘Of my writing partners since John (Lennon), Denny Laine was obviously nowhere near as good. Stevie Wonder is very good, but he’s not a lyricist. Michael Jackson is not as good of a writer as he is a performer. And Eric Stewart was good, but again, not as good as John.’

Paul McCartney, 1988

 

‘This new Clash compilation, which is meant to have sold a million copies, should be making me a rich man, but someone told me you only get quarter royalties for compilations. The CD wasn’t invented then so that wasn’t in the contract either. So I think I don’t get them royalties either. To tell the truth, I think we’re all a bit skint really.’

Joe Strummer on the legacy of The Clash, 1988

 

‘Those weird people on the street – every hundreth weirdest one has a Steely Dan record at home. That guy who hijacked a bus today probably has 47 copies of The Royal Scam.’

Walter Becker on Steely Dan’s audience, 1981

 

‘In 1981, something happened which changed my way of working with music. I woke up on a friend’s sofa in New York and simply understood something I’d known for a while: music was always present, completely with a life of its own, as a friend.’

Robert Fripp, 1984

 

‘The price of a ticket goes from two dollars to 20 dollars, the act doesn’t do an encore, someone has to stand in a long line, and it’s all my fault.’

Bill Graham on stadium rock, 1988

 

‘There are a lot of people who didn’t make a commitment and now they’re no longer with us. We lost Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Jimi Hendrix. I think maybe some of them didn’t know where or when to get off. The important thing is to be here.’

Al Green, 1988

 

‘Hell, we steal. We’re the robber barons of rock’n’roll.’

Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, 1981

 

‘After recording it, I flew off to see my manager and I said to him, “You’d better watch who you’re talking to. I’m the guy who wrote “Addicted To Love!”‘

Robert Palmer, 1988

 

‘I get the fans who write poetry. I have a slight David Sylvian audience, whereas Chris (Lowe) gets the sex audience, the ones who write obscene letters! It’s quite thrilling, actually!’

Neil Tennant of The Pet Shop Boys, 1988

 

‘It was the Enniskillen bombing that did it. The man whose daughter died beside him under the rubble; he was burning inside but he was so forgiving, so gracious. I thought, Christ, this is what courage is all about – Elton, just shut up and get back to work. After all, once you’ve been exposed naked on the cover of The Sun you ought to be able to face anything…’

Elton John on his 1988 comeback

 

‘It’s a better product than some others I could mention.’

David Bowie defends the Glass Spider Tour, 1987

 

‘Back then I thought I’d lost it and I did a bunch of things I was really unhappy with – all in public and on record. But it turned out not to be true. My ability hadn’t deserted me. And it won’t go away. Ever.’

Lou Reed, 1988

 

‘Michael Jackson’s just trying to cop my sh*t. I was insane years ago…’

Neil Young, 1988

 

‘I’ve said a lot of things in my time and 90 percent of them are bollocks.’

Paul Weller, 1988

 

‘We were excellent. Some of the best records of the ’80s are there. For the last six months of Wham!, it was OK to like us, we got a little hip. I cannot think of another band who got it together so much between the first and second albums. On Fantastic, you can tell I don’t think I’m a singer but some vocals on Make It Big are the best I’ve done. Even if we were wankers, you still had to listen.’

George Michael reassesses Wham!, 1998

 

‘The gig I have as the drummer in King Crimson is one of the few gigs in rock’n’roll where it’s even remotely possible to play anything in 17/16 and stay in a decent hotel.’

Bill Bruford, 1983

 

‘When I toured with The Rolling Stones, the audience would come up to me after the show and say, “Man, you’re really good, you ought to record.” How do you think that makes me feel after 25 years in the business?’

Bobby Womack, 1984

 

‘I find politics ruins everything. Music, films, it gets into everything and f*cks it all up. People need more sense of humour. If I ran for President, I’d give everybody Ecstasy.’

Grace Jones, 1985

 

‘I’m not the most gifted person in the world. When God handed out throats, I got locked out of the room.’

Joe Elliott of Def Leppard, 1988

 

‘I’m lazy and I don’t practice guitar and piano because I’ve gotten involved with so many other things in my life and I just had to make a sacrifice. Stephen Sondheim encourages me to start playing the piano again. Maybe I will.’

Madonna, 1989

 

‘Nile (Rodgers) couldn’t afford to spend much time with me. I was slotted in between two Madonna singles! She kept coming in, saying “How’s it going with Nile? When’s he gonna be free?” I said, “He ain’t gonna be free until I’m finished! Piss off!”’

Jeff Beck, 1989

 

‘I’ve never really understood Madonna’s popularity. But I’ve talked to my brothers and they all want to sleep with her, so she must have something.’

Nick Kamen, 1987

 

‘They ask you about being a Woman In Rock. The more you think about, the more you have to prove that you’re a Woman In Rock. But if you’re honest, it doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female. That’s the way we work.’

Wendy Melvoin, 1989

 

‘In Japan, someone told me I was playing punk saxophone. I said, “Call me what you want, just pay me”.’

George Adams, 1985

 

‘In the past, we’d bump into other musicians and it would be, “Oh, yes, haven’t I heard of you lot? Aren’t you the bass player that does that stuff with your thumb?” But once you’ve knocked them off the number 1 spot in Germany, they’re ringing you up in your hotel and saying, “Hey, howyadoin’? We must get together…”‘

Mark King of Level 42, 1987

 

‘We played London, we played Ronnie Scott’s, and I noticed that there were a lot punk-rock kids in the audience. After we finished playing, we had to go to the disco and sign autographs, because “Ping Pong”, the thing we made about 30 years ago, is a big hit over there.’

Art Blakey, 1985

 

‘I believe music – just about everything – sounds better these days. Even a car crash sounds better!’

Miles Davis, 1986

 

‘It’s a dangerous time for songwriters in that a monkey can make a thing sound good now.’

Randy Newman, 1988

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‘To have those glasses on the cover was important because it was a statement and you have to understand that it was like John wanted you guys to see those glasses.’

Yoko Ono, 1989

 

‘I’ll f*cking… I’ll go and take on anyone, any white singer who wants to give me a go.’

Matt Goss of Bros, 1989

 

‘I’ve never said this before but my drums is so professional, man, know what I mean?’

Luke Goss of Bros, 1989

 

‘I hate parts of my own albums because I know I’m hearing something that doesn’t translate to piano. In fact, I’m being dishonest by playing piano at all.’

Keith Jarrett, 1987

 

‘When I began to see how Elvis lived, I got such a strong take off of it. It was all so revolting!’

Albert Goldman, 1988

 

‘The best way to make great art is to have it trivialised by other people as much as possible. That way, you fight and fight and fight.’

Julian Cope, 1989

 

‘Whatever you’re tops in, people is trying to bring you down, and that’s my philosophy.’

Samantha Fox, 1987

 

‘Call me fat and I’ll rip your spine out.’

Ian Gillan, 1983

 

‘Sure I care about my fans. Because fans is money, hahaha. Muh-neee! And who does not care about money? Me, I like muh-neee, haha.’

Chuck Berry, 1988

 

‘I have this long chain with a ball of middle-classness at the end of it which keeps holding me back and that I keep sort of trying to fight through. I keep trying to find the Duchamp in me.’

David Bowie, 1980

 

‘People who say, Oh, I don’t know anything about music – they’re the people who really do know about music because it’s only really what it does to you.’

Steve Winwood, 1988

 

‘I notice that critics and others don’t credit black people with the ability to write ingenious, creative lyrics.’

Nile Rodgers, 1981

 

‘I’m below the poverty line – I’m on £16 a week. We needed some clothes and our manager said, “I don’t know what you do with your money. I mean, 16 quid!”’

Gary Daly of China Crisis, 1984

 

‘You take four or five of those rattlesnakes, dry ’em out and put them inside your hollow-box guitar. Lightnin’ Hopkins taught me that trick.’

Albert Collins on his guitar tone, 1988

 

‘People are bored with Lionel Richie going “I love everybody, peace on earth, we are the world…” F*ck that! People love bastards.’

Terence Trent D’Arby, 1987

 

‘Epstein dressed The Beatles up as much as he could but you couldn’t take away the fact that they were working-class guys. And they were smart-arses. You took one look at Lennon and you knew he thought the whole thing was a joke.’

Billy Joel, 1987

 

‘I remember when the guy from Echo & The Bunnymen said I should be given National Service. F*** him...’

Boy George, 1987

 

‘No-one should care if the Rolling Stones have broken up, should they? People seem to demand that I keep their youthful memories intact in a glass case specifically for them and damn the sacrifices I have to make. Why should I live in the past just for their petty satisfaction?’

Mick Jagger, 1987

 

‘The industry is just rife with with jealousy and hatred. Everybody in it is a failed bassist.’

Morrissey, 1985

 

‘I couldn’t stand it – all that exploitation and posturing, the gasping at the mention of your name, the pursuit by photographers and phenomenon-seekers. You get that shot of adrenalin and it’s fight or flight. I chose flight many a time.’

Joni Mitchell, 1988

 

‘I’m strongly anti-war but defence of hearth and home? Sure, I’ll stick up for that… I’m not a total pacifist, you know? I’ve shot at people. I missed, but I shot at them. I’m sort of glad I missed…’

David Crosby, 1989