Con vosotros, la segunda parte de la entrevista con Will Carruthers, bajista de bandas de renombre dentro de la psicodelia de los 80, 90 y más allá como Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, Spectrum o Brian Jonestown Massacre.
Como se comprobará, su vida musical es mucho más intensa e interesante que simplemente lo que se reduce a las bandas mencionadas y aquí descubriréis porque. Intégramente en ingles, a continuación, una transcripción editada acompañará el podcast para aquellos que os aventureis a la segunda entrevista en inglés en 16 años.
Will Arruthers, there he goes by the grace of god
Siempre podeis usarla como ejercicio de Listening, porque la voz y manera de relatar de Will Carruthers tiene un halo de contador de historias muy enganchante:
D: I’m so glad of having discovered so many bands through the research of this interview. The Koolaid sound awesome. Now for The Cogs Of Tyme, this one, by the way, you’ll have to unearth everything about them, although I recall them appearing in the book.
W: The Cogs Of Tyme were a band from Rugby and they used to play with Spacemen3 in the very early days. They used to run a club together called the Reverberation Club in the back room of a pub. They used to play together always.
I love The Cogs of Tyme and the first gig I ever did was with them, before I joined Spacemen 3. I did two gigs with them.. It was really good garage punk band, good fun.
They were old school Rugby band: Gavin Wissen, that went on to be lead singer in The Guaranteed Ugly which I played in later when we used to play with Billy Childish and Thee Headcoats. Sean Cook and Tim Morris also played in The Cogs of Tyme.
They just had a record released amazingly that I’m on. The record is just rehearsal tapes that we made. It’s called “Time waits for no man” and it’s on 17 Records and the song I would choose if you can find it is “Home Sweet Home”. That song is about the house that we used to go where Gavin lived and it reminds me of taking magic mushrooms there.
Song: The Cogs of Tyme: Home Sweet Home
D: What a pedigree that band has. It is really good that they has released that record. Even if it is good to have a band play and not record, so if you don’t watch them you miss them, I think that it is good to leave a testament of what happened. The next one is Silver Apples, a classic among classics. Veterans in their own right and very well ahead of their time during their heyday. I was able to watch them in a festival before Simeon Coxe (their leader and theremin maestro) passed away. They were beyond this earth.
W: Silver Apples I connected through Spectrum. We went to America to tour with Spectrum (we were touring the “Forever Alien” album) and we played some gigs with The Silver Apples (the first three shows). It was 1997 and then Spectrum made an EP with Silver Apples called “A Lake of Teardrops”.
Sorry to see Simeon go because he was doing really well. I saw him in Berlin, maybe seven or eight years ago, he was great. As an 80 year old man. It was funny that the two best shows I saw that year were Leonard Cohen and Simeon and Silver Apples and they were both like 80 years old and they’re both really good.
Simeon, nice fella, interesting bloke, interesting history, great records. Of “Teardrops” EP I’ll choose “(I don’t care if you) never come back”.
Song: Silver apples: (I Dont Care If You) Never Come Back
D: You expressed Will, the enormity of his figure. Him and NikTurner from Hawkwind are two people that deserve a big statue in the middle of all the musical cities of the United Kingdom. Their contribution, although not recognized, is just endless. Now it is the turn of Thee Headcoats of Mr Billy Childish, kings of garage.
A: Yeah I completely agree and Simeon should have a statue, he should have a thousand statues on the moon. He should have a statue on the moon that’s visible from earth and produces free electricity and makes theremin sounds (that’s why I’m not in charge of public statues).
So back to Thee Headcoats. There is a band called The Guaranteed Ugly who was Gavin Wissen andNatty Brooker…. Around 1996 Gavin asked me to play with them.
Billy Childish (leader of Thee Headcoats) really like The Guaranteed Ugly and the other way around. So Thee Headcoats (and their backing vocal group Thee Headcoatees) used to play once a month down in London in Archway at the Wild West Rooms at The Dirty Water Club. So we played with Thee Headcoats once a month for about a year and it was always good fun. Thee Headcoats are playing, and Thee Headcoatees are playing and they would have us playing with them. Those shows were such good fun, going up to the point where the White Stripes were involved and it all blew up. Back around in 1996 it was really really good scene down there.
I only played with them once. I just had come back from the tour of America with Spectrum literally on that day so I was jet-lagged to f***. I just on 6 weeks touring driven all the way around America and I landed and they’re like “okay, there’s a Guaranteed Ugly gig” and I’m like “okay I’ll do it”. I was knackered. I went down to do it I played the show and then I started to get drunk because I’m just like oh f*** it I’m finished now I’ve just done 6 weeks and I’ve done this gig. And then as I was half drunk and Thee Headcoats were playing (laughter) , they invited me on the stage to play bass with them. By which point I could no longer play the bass. Bruce Brandwas shouting out the changes to me but I couldn’t work out the changes (laughter) so I just played one note and they never asked me back up on stage again . That was the only time I played with Thee Headcoats, so it was kind of a disaster (laughter). But we should choose a song from Thee Headcoats, shouldn’t we? I choose “Young Blood”, always liked that one. FIX when you release the whole interview
Song: Thee Headcoats …(once): Young Blood
D: The next band is Camera. I don’t know how or when I discovered then, you can imagine 16 years doing this radio program for the privileged few can make one’s brain forgetful. I love them a lot anyhow and I’m curious about your connection with them.
W: Camera, a Berlin based band. I met them through living in Berlin and I think I sang with them once. There was a real late night bar called Kaffe Burger just down on Thor Strasse and it was like everybody used to go like 2:00 in the morning when you couldn’t get a drink anywhere else, it was like the last chance saloon.
So the first gig I did with Camera was that they got me down to do some singing and it was like a gig at 11:00 in the morning. Normally we left The Cafe Burger about 10:00 in the morning rather than going there to do a gig. So I sang and then at another show in Berlin one night and then they got me to play bass with them when they played atSO36 4 years ago, the same place where the Dead Skeletons live album was recorded actually.
They’re just a really good band, there’s no recordings of me with Camera so you just have to play a song you choose. They’re all good… I think Camera is just like one song it just goes on and on forever. Michael (drummer) is a good friend and they’re good guys and it was always a pleasure to play with them. They’re still going and then we meet at festivals later on, it’s funny how it works. Really really good band and great great great great great drummer Michael.
Song:Camera: Gizmo
D: And what about Mercury Cure. I thought I had found music from them, but I might be wrong. This one doesn’t seem to be a band you’ve involved with.
W: How can you even hear The Mercury Cure? Because I don’t think they ever put anything out. We did like 5 gigs. It was a band with these two German women that were friends of mine. A very rock and roll that band in a very fun kind of way.
We got stopped mid-show in Fête de la Musique., a music festival in Berlin. We were doing a show down on a truck and the cops turned up and unplugged us because we didn’t have a license. So we had to move the equipment mid-gig into the gallery that we were playing outside of and set it up and play again. I’ve never had to stop a gig halfway before though and then do it set it up somewhere else. Another mysterious band that nobody will ever hear from.
Nobody ever asks me about these bands. Whenever I do interviews it’s always like Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, maybe The Brian Jonestown Massacre but nobody ever has ever asked me about all these bands so you’re the first person to ever ever ask me.
Song: The mercury cure: No song
D: As I suspected we don’t have any song for The Mercury Cure. A pity the ones I found on the internet weren’t the chosen. I hope the case of The People’s Revolutionary Choir is ok,as they sound a lot like Spacemen3and Spiritualized. Something that for me is good by the way.
W: I’m afraid that a lot of the bands on that list that you’re using, you’re not going to be able to find any music. There’s a lot of these people I just played like 1 gig or did a few shows or rehearsed or it was just an idea we had drunk one night. Like I said when I say they aren’t real in the traditional sense, they’ve certainly no record of them, leave no tracks sometimes. I like the Ghost-bands, they’re haunting¡. And music I think you know. I like the idea of music that’s there one minute and then go on the next. I do like that a lot that’s why, I really like playing live more than I like recording. Because even though I love records, music is supposed to be played live and I like the idea of it never being recorded and it’s like if you’re not there in that moment then you’re not going to hear it. I like that about it.
The People’s Revolutionary Choir. Friends through BJM and around that time I’m doing a Freelovebabies show. That would be I don’t know 2006 or 2007 and they were playing a truck festival, and asked me to play the guitar or the bass, I don’t remember. So I did one gig with them. The driver was so hammered after the gig that he couldn’t move the van even 100 metres. And he couldn’t drive us home because he was so wasted (laughter). I know this is not something to be proud of but…You can play “The Breeze That Blows”, really nice people, they’ve done nothing for a long time.
Song: The People’sRevolutionary Choir: The Wind That Blows
D: It doesn’t really matter if you just played once with any of these bands. In the end, this exercise has a double target of reviewing your career and rediscovering those bands for the public. So yeah, you’ve played in Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized, but as we’re proving now, there’s much more to your musical career. I agree that live music is the best environment and now that we cannot have it, I really miss it . In any case it feels good connecting the dots. What can you tell meabout White Noise Sound?
A: It’s funny you talk about a live music because it’s like I know a lot of my musician friends are really struggling with not being able to do gigs and I really feel for them because it’s f****** hard. It was maybe three or four years ago that I had to stop playing live really and I can’t really even go to a loud concert same. I don’t like loud sounds, my ears are so f****** damaged after all these years of making everybody else deaf.
So I know how difficult it is and it’s just really important to do something creative with your energy. But the thing I always loved about music is it kind of just made me a lot of friends around the world and it brings people together. Nothing brings people together like music. It breaks down barriers between people. I sometimes think that music is not the most important thing about concerts.
White noise sound they are from Cardiff and I played 1 gig with them on only one song. They’re part of the scene We did it a Psychfest that my friend Laura and John Lynch organised. They put up a festival on in Essex and there was like 20 bands I think around 2007. We were all playing in that village on a campsite and nobody paid to come to the festival. So poor Laura and John had to pay all the bands. It’s just one of the best festivals I’ve ever been to in my life, it was hilarious because there was no audience all of the audience was bands (laughter). White Noise Sound asked me to play with them on a song so I just jumped off and played the bass for them. They are a decent bunch. They’re from Swansea actually.
Song: White noise sound: Heavy Echo
D: Perplexa, a band which 1997 record I heard very gladly during my research. It sounds very different than the rest, less distortion and more instrumental atmospheric music.
W: Is the project of my friend Jonathan Wald. The band is from LA and it’s largely instrumental. I made a record with John with the band Ps I Love You which is also a guy called David Stroughter from Detroit. They’re both from Detroit and they moved to LA and then John asked me if I play on the Perplexa tracks. I’ve never done any gigs, it was just a couple of recordings The album (Gone Beyond) came out of the few years ago. The song is called “After The Flood”?….no, I think it is called “Flood”. The title must have been influenced by the song by Talk Talk. The artwork by Natty Brooker by the way.
Song: Perplexa: Flood
D: I’m really enjoying all this unearthing and connections in this already entertaining interview. It’s going to make for a really fine podcast and also for a real fine written interview. I’ll do my best to spread the word about this. At least Ricky Maymi (long-time guitarist with The Brian Jonestown Massacre,I connected with him on Facebook), at least can have him listen to the interview if you don’t mind. Ps I Love You, you’ve mentioned just now. What’s the story behind them?
A: Yeah I mean Ricky features in a lot of this stuff, known him for a long time. It is a good guy Ricky very enthusiastic, always playing music, always encouraging people to play music. He always encouraged me. He’s a good friend I’ve done a lot of miles with Ricky and you know never fallen out, ever.
I’m happy, I’m it’s nice to answer questions about these bands because they’re something that I never really talk about and I’ve gone back and listened to these songs that I hadn’t listened for years. And it’s kind of nice and especially now as I’m just on the verge of selling my bass. So to go back and listen, it’s not a bad thing. If not too nostalgic, I’m at war with nostalgia but it’s not bad to look back sometimes.
PS I Love You, I think yeah it’s a heavy one because of David. David “Muscles” Stroughter. A guy from Detroit who was in a band called Majesty Crush that made a couple of albums, early US shoegazing. With Ps I Love You, they made an album (a 7”) called “Where the f*** is Kevin Shields” that was about Rocket Girl. Muscles was you know by turns fantastically entertaining and sometimes damn right insulting and generally very lively and intelligent and a little bit crazy.
He asked me if I could play this song so he sent me the tracks and I recorded it at my home studio in Rugby. Well, they liked it so they invited me over to Los Angeles to finish the album that he was making with Jonathan Wald. So I spent 6 weeks in LA. He was living at the Morrison Hotel. He said to me “you can come and stay with me at the Morrison”. It wasn’t very glamorous when I got there, it was kind of a bit sketchy. Just a really cheap motel in downtown LA. We went out to Jim Morrison’s room. One morning he said, “come on we’re going to have a look at Jim Morrison‘s room. We’re going to be careful because all the crackheads live on Jim Morrison’s floor so you have to be really quiet because you don’t want to wake up the crackheads”.
David was living in a pretty pretty marginal life in some ways but he was a great songwriter, interesting guy, smart but I think he had mental health problems. So we made the album, he kind of self-released it and it came out it wasn’t mixed properly and he tried to do it himself and didn’t quite manage it (lowers voice)…. it’s really difficult to talk about this for a lot of reasons.
I had been evicted from my Berlin flat 2016. I’d always been contact with Dave, trying to see what he was up to and keep track of him) but he was not having a good time I think he was living in his car. One day I was in Brussels and I woke up and somebody sent me a video. They said it was David. And I watch the video and it was a guy getting shot to death by the police in Los Angeles outside the airport. It turned out it was Dave. Cops put 8 bullets in him. Yeah I believe the police have got medals for valor
I ‘ve got 34,000 words written about him and I’ve got find a little publisher eventually. Find somebody to put this. RIP Dave. He was crazy but he didn’t deserve that. Sorry to end on such a difficult kind of story. It’s pretty weird to watch one of your mates shot to death in fucking youtube.. The song that I choose is “I bleed gasoline”.
Song: Ps ILove You: I Bleed Gasoline
D: And now from a man, not a band. A character, a one of the most rebellious and idiosyncratic musicians and artist in the UK of the last 40 years. Mr Bill Drummond of the KLF. His more recent activities include making and distributing cakes, soups, flowers and shoe shiners. More recently he organised the “no music day” festival and a lot of different activities that make him an interesting figure.
W: Bill Drummond. yeah purely by chance I’ve always loved The KLF. They kept me very well entertained during the 90s when they were burning a million quid and nailing money to the board for the TurnerPrize winner and I like The KLF as a band and I read the books from him.
I was in Berlin and we’ve been cycling we’ve just been out in the woods for the day and staying with a friend in a house out in it’s outside Berlin. We’re a bit drunk and I’ve been drinking Schnapps and I started spitting it into the fire. It was making a big fireball and this German host was like “oh you got a very deep voice would you like to do some recording?” and I was kind of a bit drunk in a bit like “what the f*** why do I want to do that” and “who’s it for” and he said it was for Bill Drummond and I was like “okay I’ll do it I’ll do it” I’d have done it for free just because it was Bill Drummond. It was the weirdest way I ever got a job in my life by spitting Schnapps into a fire and howling like a f****** wolf. So yeah I found myself in Berlin in the morning and there was Bill. He wanted to record because he was making the documentary film “Imagine waking up tomorrow and all music is disappeared”. He wanted to do that because he thought music was worthless since he got his iPod and didn’t like the way it worked. He said it had become debased and stupid and he only wanted to record music with the human voice. It was a recreation of when he had taken a drive across the Scottish borders and at some point in the drone of his engine and obviously caused overtones to appear. In his sound vision, this sound was like Vikings in the back of his Land Rover making this kind of sound (He emits a low droning gurgle).
So that’s what I did if you go and watch the documentary, the imaginary Vikings in the back of his Land Rover, one of them is me. God bless him. I spent a bit of time in Belfast recently and he was on the border there because Brexit was going to cause all sorts of s*** there when they start putting the borders up. He was there giving away hot cross buns. He had done some art exhibition in Northern Ireland, I don’t know why he’s got connections around there. But I was talking to him and weirdly I knew his art teacher’s wife from Northampton, she’s a friend of Johnny Mattock just purely by chance. because he went to school college in Northampton as well. He is from Corby, he was a carpenter over there and I was a builder for a bit as well so we were talking about that why not.
Song: Bill Drummond Trailer doc
D: Hahahaha, It’s going to be difficult to find something more mind-boggling but still, what can you tell me about The Standing Babas?
W: (Laughter) The Standing Babas, that’s a very good question. In Berlin there was a cafe on the corner and it was run by the two friends and Niall (an Irish fellow)and Dee Dee. I was trying to get a St. Patrick’s night there and I was like “we should get a band together for St. Patrick’s Day and do a gig at the cafe”. So we got an Irish band together and in this Irish band there was a Niall, Shaun (Dead Skeletons) Norwegian guy called Christian and a fella from New Zealand. We got together just for this one night and we learned loads of Irish traditional songs.
Niall made me learn “The Rocky Road to Dublin” which is a really really difficult Irish folk song. So I sang that one and we did the “Black Velvet Band” and loads of classic Irish trad songs. It was a very very interesting evening. That was The Standing Babas. I don’t believe there is any any recorded footage of that but it was a good night though. It went on very long.
So I sang “The Rocky Road to Dublin” and I’d sing it for you now:
While In the merry month of may from me home I started
Left the girls of Tuam nearly broken hearted
Saluted father dear, kissed my darling mother
Drank a pint of beer, my grief and tears to smother
Then off to reap the corn, leave where I was born
Cut a stout black thorn to banish ghosts and goblins;
Bought a pair of brogues for rattling o’er the bogs
And fright’ning all the dogs on the rocky road to Dublin
One, two, three four, five
Hunt the Hare and turn her down the rocky road
All the way to Dublin, Whack follol de rah!
In Mullingar that night I rested limbs so weary
Started by daylight next morning blithe and early
Took a drop of the pure to keep me heart from sinking;
Thats a Paddy’s cure whenever he’s on drinking
They hear the lassies smile, laughing all the while
At me curious style, ‘twould set your heart a bubblin’
Asked me was I hired, wages I required
‘till I was almost tired of the rocky road to Dublin
One, two, three four, five
Hunt the Hare and turn her down the rocky road
All the way to Dublin, Whack follol de rah!
In Dublin next arrived, I thought it’s such a pity
To be soon deprived a view of that fine city
Then I took a stroll, all among the quality;
Me bundle it was stole, all in a neat locality
Something crossed me mind, when I looked behind
No bundle could I find upon me stick a wobblin’
Enquiring for the rogue, said me Connaught brogue
Wasn’t much in vogue on the rocky road to Dublin
One, two, three four, five
Hunt the Hare and turn her down the rocky road
All the way to Dublin, Whack follol de rah!
From there I got away, me spirits never failing
Landed on the quay, just as the ship was sailing
The Captain at me roared, said that no room had he;
When I jumped aboard, a cabin found for Paddy
Down among the pigs, played some hearty rigs
Danced some hearty jigs, the water round me bubbling;
When off Holyhead I wished meself was dead
Or better far instead on the rocky road to Dublin
One, two, three four, five
Hunt the Hare and turn her down the rocky road
All the way to Dublin, Whack follol de rah!
The boys of Liverpool, when we safely landed
Called meself a fool, I could no longer stand it
Blood began to boil, temper I was losing;
Poor old Erin’s Isle they began abusing
“Hurrah me soul” says I, me Shillelagh I’ll apply
Galway boys were nigh and saw I was a hobble in
With a load “hurray!” joined in the affray
We quickly cleared the way for the rocky road to Dublin
One, two, three four, five
Hunt the Hare and turn her down the rocky road
All the way to Dublin, Whack follol de rah!
Well it wasn’t exactly singing, was it? But it’s a tricky one… so that was The Standing Babas. Niall, bless him, he’s in Australia now he’s working on the building down there. It was a good night.
Song: The Standing Babas: As Recited by Will Carruthers in the answer
D: Apart from having Will Carruthers with us answering, he have him reciting an Irish traditional song live. It is fantastic. You are really really making this program more and more interesting as the answers go by so I don’t know if you will have something so amazing about The Shift…
A: It was the project of my friend Graham Holliday. He is from Rugby. Just did it one day cuz he came around and he wanted to record a song and I think it was “Surfing Saves Soul”. It was me Natty and Gavin. Graham is somebody who was in bands around the time I was in Rugby and he’s a writer now. He writes food books. He wrote one about Spacemen 3 “Are Your Dreams At Night 1985 Sizes Too Big? “. It’s a pretty good song considering we did it in really hot afternoon, and we recorded it in a four track.
Song: The Shift: Surfing Save Soul
D: This analysis of your musical life I think will work as some kind of greatest hits for the music you have done now that you seem to be semi-retiring and that you’re selling your bass for good. I think there’s no better way to end the interview to let you talk to me about BOBB (Burned Out Blues Band) that is the last band that I’ve chosen and will mean the end of the program so let’s say goodbye with some anecdotes about this one. Again thank you.
W: Okay I haven’t really retired. I did an acoustic show in Iceland in a lighthouse. Just a solo show. I do them sometimes, quiet ones. But playing bass yeah I’m kind of done I reckon.
BOBB or burn down blues band. That wasn’t really the name of the band but that’s what we used to write on the cassettes. That was the first band I was ever in and it was me Natty, Steve Evans (from Electrahead), Darren Wissen (Gavin’s brother), Roscoe also from Spacemen 3 and we just used to play the same riff over and over again. We never had any songs and I don’t think we ever did any gigs. We just rehearsed, just played one riff over and over again and it was the first time I ever played the bass. And I only played the bass because there was too many guitarists and I wasn’t the best guitarist.
So they got me playing bass and that’s how I started playing bass, by accident. I think that there might be some cassette recordings of that stuff somewhere. We did a couple of covers One of of the “Alabama Bound” by The Charlatans. Just as weird kind of haunted spooky sludge we used to make. Maybe it was just perfect like that in the rehearsal room. They were trying to teach me my first key change because I couldn’t change key so there’s a recording somewhere of them shouting at me trying to get me to change key at the right time and I just failed to change. It was just getting trashed and playing one riff until it stop making sense.
God that seems like a very long time ago now and at the same time just like yesterday. Funny things seems the time I retired. If I could you know I would be doing that, I really would but now I’m just painting and doing a bit of writing and the odd poetry reading…
I keep busy you know it’s been a really nice interview and it’s been interesting to talk about these bands because some of these songs you talked about I haven’t listened to for ages It’s an interesting time to be doing it as well. Thanks very much for your interest and thanks for doing your research because there’s a lot to research (laughter) thank you very much you need to give me a shout. All the best and thanks a lot.
BOBB …After this splendid interview, ladies and gentlemen, in order to give a perfect closure to this trip down the musical lane of Mr Will Carruthers, Irola Irratia presents: Dreamweapon- An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music
Thank you very much for listening and we hope you’ve enjoyed this enchanted evening.
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