Some Northern Soul & the Patron Saint of Scottish Indie

Let’s rewind once again to the now hazy days of 1977 when millions of viewers tuned into a peak time documentary strand from Granada TV called This England, on this occasion for an episode titled Wigan Casino, which examined the most popular club on the Northern Soul scene, famous for its all–nighters where DJs like Russ Winstanley and Richard Searling would spin American soul rarities from the 1960s issued on labels like Okeh, Ric Tic and Mirwood.

There was some amazingly energetic and acrobatic dancing on display and what is equally amazing in the age of ‘reality’ TV and wannabes desperately craving media attention is the fact that many young Casino regulars didn’t want their private passion publicised and director Tony Palmer was under strict orders not to film those who didn’t want the exposure.

The documentary was undoubtedly a fascinating insight into a subculture I knew little about at the time, albeit I do think Palmer devoted too much time to local social history with old–timers reminiscing about the deprivation of their younger days accompanied by English folk tunes but the soul music was generally terrific, my own favourite being Turnin’ My Heartbeat Up, although the Charity Brown and Rain single Out of My Mind does sound more Eurovision than Detroit to my ears.

 
As a youngster I’d always enjoyed tracks like Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me, The Night, There’s a Ghost in My House and even (I’m whispering this) Footsie by Wigan’s Chosen Few but, by 1977, the idea of people making their way to Wigan, Blackpool, Stoke–on–Trent or anywhere else for a night of soul music struck me as outdated when they could probably venture out to a more local venue and see The Clash, Ramones or Stranglers perform live.

Likewise, why pay some crate digger over the top prices for some obscurity from a decade before when you could easily buy the latest blistering single by The Damned or Sex Pistols for under a quid?

And those tent–like flares and silly vests? No thanks.

Okay. Fast forward about twenty five years.

I’m half of a team that have just been shortlisted to make a Scottish based documentary and the proposal that is under consideration is on the subject of Northern Soul.

The plan is to shoot some footage at a few venues that put on Northern nights – Caley Soul at the Woodside Club in Glasgow and the Bonnyrigg Soul Club being two possibilities – and also interview some hardcore fans, the ideal candidates including a DJ and collector, Kenny Burrell, who at the time owned the most expensive single in the world after splashing out £15,000 for one of only two known copies of Frank Wilson’s Do I love You, and Stuart Cosgrove, author, broadcaster and former media editor of NME, who is also a well known soul fanatic and one time Wigan frequenter (he later coincidentally campaigned to keep the Wilson 45 in Scotland when Burrell put the record up for auction in 2009 – it went on to fetch over £25,000, another world record price and was sold to an anonymous buyer).

Obviously the story behind Do I Love You was be told in the doc along with the recollections of some Scots who made the long trip down to clubs like the Casino in the 1970s but we also intended to devote a fair bit of time examining the contemporary scene around the country and talk to some of the soul fraternity who were still keeping the faith.

There were definitely some serious devotees of the genre around at this point. One time at a special Hogmanay do held at Strawberry Fields in Glasgow that I attended, many of the punters weren’t very pleased when the DJ interrupted the music in order to count down the bells and wish everybody a happy New Year. Some even began booing the poor guy and demanding he get the soul music back on pronto. Believe me, that kind of thing is just about unheard of in Scotland on the most widely celebrated night of the year.

Sadly we weren’t selected to receive the funding to help make the film. Maybe the competing proposals were more professionally packaged and imaginative although I reckon we missed out because the idea of making a short film about a subject that, even in its heyday decades before, had only ever flirted with the mainstream was probably considered to have just too little general appeal. Maybe just a few years later our idea would have fell on more receptive ears.

Even ten years ago Northern Soul didn’t quite possess the hip cachet that it does now and few non aficionados could have predicted just how much interest would exist today on the subject; there’s certainly been a glut of documentaries in the last decade, including two made fairly recently by the BBC, as well as two feature films: 2010’s Soulboy starring Martin Compston and the forthcoming Northern Soul directed by Elaine Constantine, which will be screened in certain cinemas from the seventeenth of this month with the DVD and Blu–ray out just days afterwards.

You might just be wondering what happened between 1977, when I judged Northern Soul backward looking, and the middle part of the noughties when I was attending Northern nights and planning documentaries about the music?

Actually as far back as the last third of 1978, I had begun to reassess my thoughts on Northern Soul, after a visit to Blackpool in the last weekend in September, a local holiday in the West of Scotland. Down with a bunch of pals, we entered a mostly deserted bar early one evening, where a couple of guys were up dancing in an area to the side of the bar, shuffling across the floorboards and performing effortless spins and expert backflips. What looked impressive in snatches during This England looked absolutely incredible fifteen feet away from me in the flesh.

I’m guessing that this was the prelude to them making a pilgrimage to the nearby Blackpool Mecca, which at the time was the big rival to the Casino.

Being a group of sixteen and seventeen year old boys out for a good time we were soon on the move to somewhere busier and there was little chance of us heading to anywhere like the Mecca; the idea of paying into a club where we were unlikely to know any of the music being played and where guys and girls danced alone, wouldn’t have held much appeal at a time when our teenage hormones were busily erupting. And we would likely have been laughed at anyway if we’d dared to actually take to the dancefloor ourselves.

Instead we ended up in a disco dive called Diamond Lil’s on the Pleasure Beach where we proceeded to get blootered on watered down lager and Pernod n’ blackcurrants. Classy weren’t we?

I did though make a mental note to try and learn more once our weekend bender ended and we returned home but this wasn’t easy in the days before the advent of CDs and the internet. Northern Soul was back underground and local record shops weren’t exactly heavily stocked with soul stompers; radio stations weren’t playing the music and music papers like NME and Sounds only very occasionally even mentioned it.

Three or so weeks later I went to the Glasgow Apollo to see a double bill featuring two of my very favourite punk bands, Subway Sect and Buzzcocks,

Round about this time Vic Godard of Subway Sect was starting to immerse himself in Northern Soul after Sect bassist Paul Meyers had lent him a bunch of singles he’d got from a pal called Jacko, who was a regular at all–nighters. These proved to be a revelation to Vic.

Before the year was out and with their second single Ambition just released on Rough Trade, Vic was explaining in an interview in Sounds how he was already searching for a new sound and the music that this required sound came closest to was Northern Soul.

This next phase of Subway Sect would be relatively short and also largely undocumented. Early in 1980, at a support slot to Siouxsie and The Banshees at the Music Machine on Camden High Street though, Postcard Records boss Alan Horne, who was there with Steven Daly of Orange Juice, bootlegged the show on his ghetto blaster.

Almost immediately Orange Juice began covering one of the songs showcased that night called Holiday Hymn, and they later included a version of it in their John Peel session of August 1981, by which point Vic had already moved on, dipping a musical toe into jazz, swing and the world of crooning (by this time too, a radical reinterpretation by Soft Cell of the Casino classic Tainted Love was on its way to becoming Britain’s bestselling song of the year).

Since 1981, the careers of Edwyn Collins and Vic Godard have often intertwined, Edwyn, for example, produced Vic’s ‘comeback’ album of 1993, The End of the Surrey People and a couple of years later, Vic helped out with some backing vocals for Edwyn’s international hit single A Girl Like You, to name only two of their collaborations.

Now, along with Seb Lewsley, Collins has recorded and produced the latest Subway Sect project, 1979 NOW!, an album wrapped in some wonderfully intriguing artwork designed by Andrew Paul Shaw, that recreates what has become known as the Sects’ ‘Northern Soul period’.

 
Sandwiched between a pair of instrumentals that both echo their debut single Nobody’s Scared but which also introduce an entirely new funky guitar feel and cool, modish keyboards, the album really is an enjoyable listen, packed with tunes like Caught In Midstream and the aforementioned Holiday Hymn that won’t just get your toes tapping but make you pine for an opportunity to get out on the dancefloor and enjoy them properly.

What The Subway Sect have did here is no attempt to recreate an exact facsimile of the Northern sound; for a start Vic makes no attempt to imitate the yearning vocal delivery of a Jimmy Radcliffe or Edwin Starr but remains happily West London throughout. The record lacks too the lush orchestration of some of the most popular records that would have been played in the Mecca or Casino but the footstomping 4/4 beat of Northern is utilised for inspiration on many of the tracks, some of which Vic fans might already know and love from previous albums and more recent live shows.

Okay, I do sometimes go into hyperbole overdrive when I’m talking about Godard but really if one of the Motown Hit Factory’s ace songwriting teams had presented Born to be a Rebel to Berry Gordy on a Friday afternoon in 1965, then I think the label boss would have been a very happy man over the weekend; the song also features a baritone sax solo worthy of Motown at its best, courtesy of Jim Knight.

Reviews so far have been very positive with Mojo calling the songs ‘strange, sibylline and gorgeous’, Uncut describing the album as ‘a brilliant hybrid’ and Louder Than War declaring: ‘The band sound organic and totally on-it throughout. There isn’t a weak track’.

I wouldn’t argue with any of that. Another triumph for Mr. Godard.

Filmed in Birmingham just a few days ago by Lee McFadden, this is another song from the album Get That Girl:

 
And here are a couple of Northern gems that Vic told me this week he’d been listening to back in the late 1970s, firstly Jay and The Techniques with Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie, a big hit in the States in 1967, which only really became popular on this side of the Atlantic some years later on the Northern scene:

 
And this is Michael, a 1965 single by The C.O.D.’s, later covered by Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band and referenced in Geno, Dexys Midnight Runners’ tribute to Washington; ‘You were Michael the lover, the fighter that won’.

 
Vic will be performing in Scotland next month with dates on November 14th in Glasgow’s Stereo and the following night at the Voodoo Rooms in Edinburgh. Support on both nights being provided by The Sexual Objects.

For more on Vic Godard & Subway Sect
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For more on AED Records click here.
For more on the current Northern Soul scene in Scotland click here.
And to read my interview with Vic Godard click here.

Nobody’s Scared, An Ex-Scar & Saint Jack Live In South Lanarkshire

An early contender for my best of 2014 list is Vic Godard’s 30 Odd Years, a double CD that highlights some of the finest music from Vic’s long career but which includes some idiosyncratic tracklisting choices that make the compilation all the more intriguing for long term fans, for example, the late Paul Reekie, occasional Subway Sect heckler but colossal fan, provides an intro and outro, while Ambition is represented here by a live version of the song performed ten years ago in Brentford by Vic along with The Bitter Springs rather than by the 1978 Subway Sect single.

30 Odd Years has attracted some sky-high critical praise with Louder Than War rating it 10/10 and Neil Cooper in The List describing it as a ‘joyride through Godard’s back catalogue that reveals Godard as craftsman, explorer and multi-faceted pop songwriting genius’.

This Thursday night, Vic and the lads will be in the 6 Music studios to play a live session for Marc Riley’s show before embarking on some sporadic live dates around England where they’ll be showcasing much of the material from the new album.

Here’s the latest details of these forthcoming shows but check Vic’s site for updates:

March 28th: New Continental, Preston
29th March: The Cross, Birmingham
April 19th: The Thunderbolt Bristol

April 20th: Light It Up Alldayer. The Star and Garter, Manchester
May 3rd: The Rigger, Newcastle-Under-Lyme
May 4th: The Leek Arts Festival. Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek
19th July: Latitude Festival. Henham Park, Southwold, Suffolk
8th August: Rebellion Festival, Blackpool
TBC September: Trash Cannes Festival, Hastings
19th September: The Star & Shadow, Newcastle
20th September: Westgarth Social Club, Middlesbrough
9th October: John Peel Night. TBC, Brighton

Vic’s also been involved in some recording over the past few weeks and the latest news is that 1979 Now should be out on AED round about September. Before that, a DVD/CD of his London Town & Country Club show of 1992, where he was accompanied by Edwyn Collins, Segs, Martin Duffy and Paul Cook, is due out in August.

This is one of the songs from 30 Odd Years, Nobody’s Scared, originally released in March 1978 although this is from a performance in March 2012 at Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms:

As you can see from the posters displayed here, there’s usually an interesting support act or two when Mr. Godard rolls into town and at his gig in Newcastle last November, he was joined on the bill by a newish Edinburgh band formed by ex-Scars vocalist Robert King called Opium Kitchen, who also feature the talents of William Baird on guitar, Colin Whitson (Gin Goblins) on bass and drummer Russell Burn (Fire Engines and Win).

Their debut single, We Will Be, was released on iTunes last Monday on Eromeda Records and a CD and vinyl single should also become available in the very near future with an album in the pipeline too. I’m growing very fond of the song and here’s the promo video:

 
For more on Opium Kitchen click here.

Next up, some news on Vic Godard’s old pal and frequent collaborator, the Sexual Object that is Davy Henderson, who is reuniting one of his many stunningly good previous bands – Nectarine No.9 in this instance – to perform their 1995 Postcard album Saint Jack in its entirety live at Rutherglen Town Hall on the 7th of June. And not only that, the support on the night will be Casual Sex! And that sentence really does deserve an exclamation mark. This is NN9 with South Of An Imaginary Line:

 
And finally if you’d like to hear Vic’s special set in Edinburgh in tribute to Paul Reekie from 2011, where Davy Henderson helped out on guitar and Russell Burn guested on drums, here’s the link. And while I’m at it, I should also mention that one of the books in the pile at the end of the Opium Kitchen video is a 1997 collection of Scottish writing called Children of Albion Rovers, that included work by Paul Reekie, Irvine Welsh, Gordon Legge and others and which I would recommend.

30 Odd Years: An Interview with Vic Godard

Out this week on his own GNU inc imprint is the Vic Godard compilation 30 Odd Years, available as a double CD or download. The album spans his entire career and its gathering some highly positive reviews, Louder Than War, for instance, rated it 10/10. To mark its release, and with Vic’s permission, I’ve posted below a feature and interview with the singer that was originally used last year in the e-Fanzine Positive Noises.

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‘Vic is the great lost soul of the era: his nihilism is more extreme than anyone’s. He seemed to have seen through the circus which he was being enticed into, from day one. He saw all the contradictions and didn’t want to be a pop star.’ Geoff Travis quoted in England’s Dreaming by Jon Savage.

One of the most intriguing individuals in English music over the years has been Vic Godard, a man grandly described by 6 Music’s Marc Riley as ‘the greatest living Englishman’. As a teenager, Vic came to the fore – or at least almost came to the fore – with his band Subway Sect, a scandalously underrated act whose ‘We Oppose All Rock and Roll’ philosophy has, however, proved remarkably influential. This signalled their hope that they might help music find a way out of what they perceived as rock’s cul-de-sac.

So how did Vic and the band go about tackling that?

Well, for starters, they created a (non) image and ditched any onstage macho posturing when they played. Subway Sect dressed in Oxfam clothing which they dyed grey in a bathtub. Live, they would make no visual effort to grab attention – unless their ploy was to prove so intriguing by dressing drably and eschewing any obvious stagecraft that you actually felt compelled to watch.

Interaction with the crowd was obviously negligible. No stagediving into the front rows or even telling everyone how wonderful they were for our Vic. Unusually for a frontman, he didn’t compulsively crave the adulation of audiences, instead he preferred polarising them, favouring unpredictable reactions, good one night, hostile the next.

Likewise, with his Fender Mustang held awkwardly high, Rob Symmons would remain almost static throughout their sets, sometimes staring at amps or random spots on the stage rather than engaging directly with fans. At one point he even suggested the band glue their shoes to the stage, proposing that they walk on wearing socks and then step into the shoes and lace them up. This idea was rejected but not without being discussed seriously first.

Additionally they hit on the idea of eliminating lazy recycled riffs in their songs; for example, no easy Chuck Berry-isms were allowed and if the chords to any new song reminded them of the sound of any traditional rock song it would be quickly rejected. Obviously solos were a no-no, as was anything that sounded ‘heavy’ – and Vic’s definition of that word could include even The Sex Pistols. The Sect’s brittle, trebly guitar sound ensured that ‘heaviness’ wasn’t ever going to be something they would be accused of.

Highly literate – when I spoke with him he was reading Enid Starkie, an Irish literary critic born in 1897, known chiefly for her biographical works on French poets – Vic put a great deal of thought into his lyric writing. Filmed by Wolfgang Buld in 1977 for his Punk In London documentary, Vic explained his methods: ‘I write, say, an essay or something like that and condense the words for a song so it doesn’t end up being a normal rock song hopefully.’

To assist this aim, Vic veered away from the language of ‘rock’, rejecting any Americanisms like ‘yeah’ and ‘baby’ and insisting on using ‘English’ words to give us his own idiosyncratic view of a Britain sliding into economic and political crisis. Or whatever else took his fancy.

Nobody’s Scared, a single with the startling opening lines: ‘Everyone is a prostitute / Singing the song in prison’ was the first time the band were captured on vinyl but it took Subway Sect until the spring of 1978, a whole six months after it had been recorded, to finally see the release of that debut 45.

In the fast moving world of punk and then post-punk (and Subway Sect could be said to have been both simultaneously) delays like this didn’t help their cause as their sound had progressed significantly in that time.

Their manager Bernard Rhodes concentrated his energies on his main act The Clash, although he did find time once the next 45, Ambition had been recorded, to – without the band’s permission – speed up and add ping pong sound effects to the track, which again failed to find a fast release. Rhodes also sat on tapes the band had recorded for a debut album which was then shelved. Finally he sacked the whole band apart from Godard, who was put on a wage of £50 a week to write songs.

After experimenting with a Tamla/Northern Soul infused set that included a cracking cover of Tony Clarke’s Blackpool Mecca stomper Landslide, Vic moved direction again. And not for the last time either.

An L.P called What’s The Matter Boy? (credited to Vic Godard and Subway Sect) hit record shops in 1980 on MCA offshoot Oddball. It’s hard to categorise this collection of songs; punk and Gallic pop, soul and swing being just four of the influences utilised but the album is united by Vic’s consummate songwriting skills. The London funk act The Black Arabs (best known for their disco medley of Sex Pistols tracks on The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle) helped out on percussion and backing vocals while former Clash drummer Terry Chimes and his bassist brother Paul also became involved.

Of course, Vic didn’t really bother promoting his long awaited debut and almost immediately changed path yet again.

Profiled in The Face in January 1982, he looked surprisingly dapper, photographed in a starched white shirt and dickie bow, in fact, it was easy to imagine the staunch Francophile Godard – who was born Vic Napper but renamed himself as a homage to the French film auteur Jean Luc – as a character from an early 60s movie by one of that director’s contemporaries like Claude Chabrol or Agnes Varda.

Rhodes had set up Club Left in the heart of London and Vic had taken on the role of resident crooner and was keen to inform everyone that he’d rather play to old people than young and that his songs were right for Vic Damone fans and the Radio 2 playlist.

He’d moved from uneasy listening to easy listening in less time than it takes many contemporary bands to record and bring out an album.

Vic is no David Bowie but he has certainly reinvented himself on a number of occasions over the years. Disillusioned in the mid 80s, after another album T.R.O.U.B.L.E encountered release problems, he again sprung a massive surprise by becoming Vic the Postman and rising to deliver mail to the citizens of the capital at the kind of hour when many a rocker is just beginning to think about turning in to catch some shuteye.

The image might change and the amazing juxtapositions of influences might move from Tony Bennett and The Velvet Underground to hip-hop and bhangra but what doesn’t change is Vic’s singular knack for ignoring the easy option to pursue instead whatever he thinks is the most interesting route to follow.

 
Occasionally he even threatens some kind of commercial breakthrough, like the release of The End of the Surrey People on the reactivated Postcard label in 1993 or when, in 2002, he collaborated with Irvine Welsh on the musical Blackpool but any potential leap into the consciousness of the wider public is always somehow thwarted.

Postcard Mk2 met was with far less music press enthusiasm than it had received during its first incarnation – possibly due to albums not even being sent out to the music press for review purposes, while most of the songs written for Blackpool were dropped from the actual performances of the show – which also met with a subdued response from theatre critics.

In 2007, Godard revived the Subway Sect moniker and, along with their White Riot tour drummer Mark Laff and, on some tracks, original bassist Paul Myers, re-recorded the songs that had originally been intended for the lost debut LP; these were released as 1978 Now on Overground.

This year should see the Edwyn Collins produced 1979 Now, new versions of their post-punk meets Northern Soul set, the first fruits of which, the vinyl single Caught In Midstream/You Bring Out The Demon In Me came out on Record Shop Day in Britain in April 2013 on AED Records.

You seem to be going through a pretty productive period at the moment, doing plenty of shows and releasing the Caught In Midstream single, with an album to follow in the not too distant future.

Yes hoping to finish the album ‘1979 Now’ in the next few months, gigging with Subway Sect, The Sexual Objects, Mates Mates and a jazz combo.

Are you still working as a postie?

I’m lucky that I do a jobshare so have every other week off – otherwise the out of town gigs would be severely affected.

How did the recent Velvet Underground covers set go in Glasgow?

It was really enjoyable as it always is there, and it was good to see Stephen and Katrina (of The Pastels). Everyone at Mono seemed in a nice laid back mood. I had great backing from Davy Simon and Douglas MacIntyre (of the Creeping Bent Organisation). I loved singing She’s My Best Friend as I had recorded it in the early nineties but had never had a go live.

You first saw the Pistols by accident, didn’t you? Walking past the Marquee and hearing what sounded like a racket, made you decide to investigate what was going on.

We saw Jordan first and that’s how we knew it was connected to Sex. I had been in there a few times over the years from when it was Let It Rock so I knew they had Nico stuff on the Jukebox, but didn’t know about the group till that night in February (1976).

How did you discover Let It Rock/Sex, was it while you were on your way to watch Chelsea play at Stamford Bridge?

No I didn’t ever go to the New Kings Road when seeing Chelsea play as I always came down Fulham Road and it was out of my way. I have a sister who was a bit of a mod in the sixties and she used to take me down the Kings Road now and again.

She bought me a shirt for my birthday and was served by Malcolm. It had a pin to hold the collar together like the ones Illya Kuryakin wore in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Years later the same shirts were painted over in broad stripes and had had the Karl Marx photo added, and the price was more than doubled.’

The Marquee story is a neat example of being in the right place at the right time. What brought you to Soho that night?

We were on our bicycles which was handy as we didn’t need to worry about the last bus and we were on the lookout for a group to see as gigs weren’t advertised in those days so you went to Soho and had a look for one. Our favourites at the time were the Count Bishops as they were like a 60’s US punk group transported to London 1975, and we found out later that Mike Spenser was indeed an American who’d moved to South London. We stopped going by bike for some reason and came to regret it walking home from the Screen on the Green gig a while later.

Why was that?

The Screen on the Green thing was out of our bicycle area so we went by bus, meaning a long walk home from Islington, although we didn’t mind as we taped the gig and it came out well. I think it was the first time we saw the Clash and they were drastically different to how they became without Chimes and Levene.

You were also a fan of Dr Feelgood before Punk, weren’t you?

When we used to see Dr Feelgood and the rest of the r’n’b groups from the era, I was listening to and buying soul records but they weren’t rarities (unless you count the Jimmy Castor Bunch). I’d been a fan since the sixties of great tunes and it just so happened that in those days that meant mainly soul.’

When did you start listening to Northern Soul?

It was only just after punk that I was loaned a selection of 45s that belonged to a friend of some of the Sect, called Jacko. He regularly travelled from Acton to the wilds of Stoke, Wigan or wherever and collected the records. I was looking for something new to do that wasn’t punk and this fitted the bill. I started writing songs heavily influenced by the music, to which I could put my words. These form the body of the album we’re working on at the moment.’

So after seeing the Pistols that first time (this being the show that earned the band their first press coverage with NME’s ‘Don’t look over your shoulder, but the Sex Pistols are coming’ piece) you began going to see the band regularly and at one gig McLaren mistook you and the future members of Subway Sect for a band and invited you to play at the Punk Special at the 100 Club. Do you think you would you have become a musician anyway if he hadn’t?

Not a chance. It would never have entered my mind. Even when the group got together we didn’t think we’d be doing music. We had no instruments but we had an old Super 8 camera so our first plan was for a film to be done down on the tow path at Mortlake. We wanted the Brewery in the back ground as we thought it looked a bit Eastern European but we never got round to a script. Next we got a tape recorder out and did the Moliere play entitled ‘A Doctor In Spite of Himself’, with our drummer Paul Packham doing the lead roles and the rest of us doing the minor roles (he was our only extrovert in those days).’

The White Riot Tour show in Edinburgh was voted the fifth best ever gig in Scotland by the Scotsman newspaper and you’ve since worked closely with some of the guys who went along that night like Edwyn Collins and Davy Henderson. Any specific memories of the show?

Yes I do but I don’t remember anything about our set. I nearly killed myself before we played by grabbing the Safety Curtain as it went up. Luckily for me it ripped and I fell to the ground holding a bit of it. The manager wasn’t very happy about it though so I was in disgrace. Walking into the venue we were awestruck by the size of it as thus far we’d been playing in bingo-hall sized places, and this looked like the sort of place you’d go to see Max Miller.

Ever bump in to Bernie Rhodes in recent years?

I haven’t bumped into him lately [since the early nineties] but I had a phone call with him a few years back.’

The End of the Surrey People was released on the reactivated Postcard label in 1993. How did you find working with Alan Horne, the album wasn’t really promoted that well, was it?

I didn’t expect anything of it really as I thought my recording and singing days were long gone. Alan was no more suited to selling an album than I was but we got on fine at the time. Doing the album was a break for me as it led to me getting into the recording process for the first time. Before then I’d been content to take a background role and do as I was told. Once I’d got a 4 Track and Drum Machine I thought I could be the next Teddy Riley and started thinking about what made a great record great. Hip-Hop also changed my lyrics in a profound way. I started thinking in syllables connected to beats and have carried on doing things that way. My songwriting is confined by the beats. It’s not that I can’t do a ballad but I tend to work on things I’m enjoying and beats and bass lines do it for me.

Have you ever thought of writing your autobiography?

Easy one this – yes but as I’m a lazy sod I’ll wait till I get one of those computers you can talk to.

Would you like to recommend any music, books or films?

Music: Fats Waller, Hoagy Carmichael, Jimmy Lunceford, Charles Aznavour, Jermaine Dupri, Peter Skellern.

Books: Biography – The Life of Monsieur de Moliere by Mikhail Bulgakhov

Horror: Mateo Falcone by P.Merimee

Comedy: The Misanthrope by Moliere which has recently been re-done by Roger McGough

Photography: What Presence! Harry Papadopoulos

Films: Anything with Norman Wisdom, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jerry Lewis, or John Le Mesurier. My favourite film is Diva as it has the Post Office and Music at its heart.

 
Anyone wanting to find out more on Vic should have a look here:

Vic Godard & Subway Sect Official
Subway Sect on Facebook
Vic on Twitter
30 Odd Years: Louder Than War Review
Buy 30 Odd Years Here