Dave Robinson

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left's podcast. My
guest today it's Dave, Robin's photographer, me anager co FOUNDERSTFF Records. Dave,
Welcome to the podcast, Bob. It's great to be here. Okay, Dave,
you started out as a photographer. I started my career
as a photographer in Dublin, Ireland and did a lot

(00:30):
of different photographs of various magazines. But eventually I've finished
up taking photographs of poor musicians who had no money
but who needed photographs, and I dug out my wide
angle lens and started taking pictures of bands. How did
you learn how to shoot photos? An old friend of

(00:50):
my father's who showed me pretty much how it worked,
and I practiced on a load of children and people
in Irish pubs, which is uh is an education in itself.
And at what age did you start? I started at
about sixteen sixteen, Okay. What kind of family did you
grow up and what did your parents do for a living?

(01:11):
My father was a signwriter, my mother was a housewife
and it was a very normal Irish Catholic family, two sisters,
and the only difference was my father decided that he
could afford to send me to boarding school. So that

(01:31):
was the difference between me and all my peers at
the time. So where are you in the hierarchy of
the three kids. I'm in the middle. And you went
to boarding school at what age? What was that experience like?
I went to boarding school when I was six six six,
and that was a novel experience. Obviously it's the only

(01:51):
one I had, so I didn't have a way to
compare it. But Ireland, as you can imagine, in early
years Catholic nuns to begin with, until I was eleven,
and then from eleven I went to secondary school and
I had the priest to look after me. Obviously, they've

(02:15):
had a bad press, inevitably, and I thought I can
say about them, but I had no problems, and I
was a very experienced born in school boy, so I
knew what was happening and that I could avoid stuff
and help my friends to avoid things that were going on.
The Irish priests have had a terrible battering, quite rightly,

(02:36):
and it's not obviously an area where in the music
business you you think about. But it was a very
good education. It was a very good from the academic
point of view. It was an excellent education, and it's
been the kind of confidence of my life to be
able to use that education to my advantage. Who usually

(03:01):
boarding school kids go to university, What about you? I
didn't because I'd had enough for boarding school. When I
got to seventeen, there was a The school I went
to was a very big rugby college. The rugby was
was a huge impetus to that school. And I played

(03:21):
on the rugby team and I was good, I think,
and uh it moved mountains, you know. I got a
very good status into school for being on the team.
But I fell out with the coach for various behavioral
reasons and decided that there wasn't a future in me
finishing the last two years before I might go to university.

(03:45):
But my father, in any event, had told me that
he had spent um, he'd spent money on my education,
but it was unlikely to be able to afford to
send me to university. He thought a should get a job.
But you skipped the last two years of what we
call high school or secondary school. That's right, that's right. Okay,
so you stopped going to school. What do you do? Well?

(04:07):
You get a job as a photographer in my In
my case, I had a hobby for photography, and I
wondered whether I could make a living at it, whether
I could please my father that I would have a
living and that I could show him what I could do.
So I went and took pictures of everything that moved

(04:29):
and eventually got a very good living and moved to
England when I was eighteen to be a beach photographer
for a company which is very well known called but Lands,
which is a holiday camp type environment, and I was
a beach photographer, also called a smudger. A smudger is

(04:49):
a beach photographer who takes pictures of people, gets money
off them, and they don't get the pictures till the
following day. So it's it's an art in itself. Why
is it called smudger, I'm not entirely sure. I think
because you're not great, because you smudge it, you blur it.
You're not you're not a you know, a fashion photographer

(05:12):
or whatever else. I think it's a slightly derogatory term.
So you're a beach photographer to holiday camp. Holiday camps
don't have a good reputation since Tommy and the reference there. However,
at a young age. One would think it was fun.
But when you work in a place like that in
the United States, you can have an existence, You can

(05:32):
have fun, but you really can only keep your head
barely above water. So was this something to kill time
or were you making any money? I was making money
because I got a commission from the photography that I did.
In other words, I got a commission for everybody who
paid to have their photograph the following day, So you

(05:52):
could make a lot by working very hard. It was
definitely um income from work. H view an example of
something that that I was just a young guy from Ireland.
I should have been nineteen. They only took nineteen year old,
so I was having to lower my voice and try
and be try and be good. Um. But a lady,

(06:18):
a middle aged lady, kept coming back to me for photographs,
and I thought it was because I'm so good at
what I did. It turned out that her husband was
a wrestler who worked at the camp, and he told
me he would kill me if I took another picture
of his wife, so I had to jump into the
bushes every time this woman came by. She obviously figured
I was a good looking Irish lad, but it was

(06:41):
very dangerous. So I made good income for a season
by the seaside in England at a at a holiday
camp which had a high proportion of young unaccompanied females,
And so it was a revelation to me in a
lot of different ways. Ireland is very um, you know, conservative.

(07:04):
So one good thing about it, Bob, was that I
met a lot of other photographers who did the season
at the camp. So they would just come down for
the three months, three or four months, and a lot
of them had contacts with agencies and other magazines photography wise,
So I'm I networked quite a lot of very good

(07:26):
jobs out of that particular um situation. So how did
you get from there into music? From there, I worked
for a couple of agencies. I was introduced to a
couple of agencies which would use a photographer like a
freelance operator. In other words, they would send me on
a job, they would tell me what they wanted out

(07:49):
of it. Their main interest in life was to make
sure that they had the correct names left to right
was one of their main features. And by my point
of it was good because I didn't have to I
didn't have to develop the film. I just sent it
back to them and they used it as they wish,

(08:09):
and I got a paid pair job and that could
be quite that, it could be quite a good week. Um.
As it happened, I worked for several magazines, music magazines
that they obviously were attached to, and Pop magazine and
the Rave magazine. I ended up doing pictures of quite

(08:31):
a lot of the up and coming musicians on the
British scene. Is that how you ended up shooting the Beatles? Yes,
it is, Yeah I did. I did a job where
I went to Liverpool to film twelve groups for for
some situation they had, and I ended up filming the
Beatles that lunchtime in the cavern without really realizing how

(08:55):
wonderful that was. Most of the bands were playing I did,
I've shots and most of them, and most of them
were playing the same song. So you had a situation
where they were playing a lot of Louisiana tracks and
most of the band, including the Beatles, played long Tall
Sally for example. I think about sick of them play

(09:16):
that song and several other covers that they were all
involved in. So the scene in Liverpool was was musically
a kind of Louisiana rhythm and blues area, and I
don't remember the Beatles being that much better. I do
remember Paul McCartney only insofar as he was very friendly.

(09:37):
He was very chatty. He he knew a photographer was
going to be useful. John Lennon was pretty nondescript. He
didn't relate to me in any way. Paul did chat
me up, and subsequently, over my career I have met
him several times and we have a relationship. So so

(09:57):
it wasn't because of that time. It was something we
could go back to and remind each other that we
had connected at that time. Okay, so you're being a
freelance guy, you're shooting these jobs. How do you move
on beyond photography? Well, I went back to Ireland to
show off to my parents that I was a happening

(10:18):
event I had. There was a there was a tailor
in London called sam Arcus, and sam Arcus was the
Hippus Taylor in London. So as I went to Sam
and had him make two suits for me before I
went back to impress my parents with the whole idea.
I got back to UH. I got back to Dublin

(10:40):
and there was a space music Congress going on. And
my agency said, could you cover it even though you're
on holiday, could you go in and cover that because
we're short. Uh. That space medicine was a very early
part of the space program. And I got on very
well with the American guy eyes doctors who had me

(11:03):
film all the Russians, and I got on very well
with the Russians who had me film all the American
so so so I did very well out of that
A week a week's conference in Dublin, and I started
to get a lot of Irish work, and because I
had come from London, which in those days very impressive

(11:24):
to Irish people, I was. I quickly got into the
top layer of photography in Dublin. I also had a
motorized camera, which the Irish had not actually discovered. So
the the the Union complained about me because I was
using this camera and taking more pictures than anybody else.

(11:46):
But that's a that's another story. So I became quite
a good photographer in Dublin. I made quite a lot
of money, and I decided to open a club because
Dublin did not have any kind of beat club like
London had. The Two Eyes and the Marquee and various
other things like that. I opened the club in Dublin,

(12:07):
and of course through the door came loads of groups
whose equipment didn't work, who just like you and I
early on in this interview where nothing worked too well,
and so uh in through my door came Van Morrison
one day when he it turned out he had got

(12:28):
rid of his manager, Phil Solomon's, and because he found
that his band was getting income from his publishing and
he didn't like that. And he came through the door.
I had taken pictures of them way back in the
kind of rave days, and so we knew each other,
and he came and stayed at my flat because he

(12:49):
wanted a manager, he wanted somebody to he had no
idea who else would handle him. And Van was, I've
got to say, was throughout his life he's been a
cont He's grumpy, he doesn't do things that you want
him to do, and he was a terrible flatmate. He
ruined my social life almost completely singlehandedly. But every now

(13:13):
and then he would get up with a local band
at the club and you would with his harmonica and
you would see extraordinary things. The band would lift up
two gears and be somebody that they couldn't do on
their own. He was remarkable in that way. Bert Burns
started calling and saying, you know, if you're looking after Van,

(13:34):
I really need him to be in America. I said,
I don't really look after him. I didn't feel I
was a manager. I felt it was kind of a mate.
So I persuaded Van to go to America and joined
Bert Burns and I could get my flat back. Okay,
Usually a club is a money pit. I mean now

(13:54):
everything is computerized. Everybody uses credit cards, even harder a
big money in a club. We get the money to
open a club, and how is business financially in Ireland?
It was very primitive, very primitive. I had a seller
that's probably if I had, if I had a fire license,
which I didn't have, would probably have held about a

(14:17):
hundred and fifty on a good night, Saturday night, we
had nine hundred people in that seller. And we didn't
have a liquor license. But we had a We had coke,
had just cocon Fanta had just discovered the serum serum
that you added with water and and with a gun

(14:38):
you could fill a glass. I think it costs so
little that you couldn't even calculated and we were selling
it for obviously because of the club was running with
condensation and very very hot. We were selling. We were
selling out with all the cocon fanta we could imagine.
We we did so well out of that club. That

(15:00):
as remark, because Ireland was very primitive about licensing. It
wasn't you know, it wasn't American, it was in London.
It was. It was you have a club, that's all right,
as long as there's no problems where we're happy with it.
So it ran for about two years and it was
it was magic. It was a magic thing. We had
Englishman's come over. We could afford have Alex RV and

(15:22):
various other bands come over, which was unique in Ireland.
Nobody had that class of music coming to the club.
So we had queues around the block and very good
and I didn't take any photographs at all for for
that period. Okay, then takes off to talk to Burns.
What does that leave you? He said, To give him credit,

(15:45):
He said, come with me. And I knew Van by
this time, and I knew he's not a fan of passengers,
and I knew I'd be a passenger. I would have
no idea how to do anything of the kind of
stuff that he was going to get up to. So
I passed, quite honestly, So I passed, and I wasn't
unhappy with that arrangement. Van paid me back and and

(16:07):
maybe we'll cover that many years later at the Fillmore East,
when Bill Graham had Quicksilver messenger service, Van Morrison and
my group and Irish group that I looked after called
the Heir Apparent, and that's another story we'll just telling.
The music business, from my point of view, has always

(16:28):
had a problem. You find a good songwriters, you find
people who can play, You find people who are motivated,
but they do not have a record company, a major
record company with the major promotion income. The record company
doesn't want you if you haven't got an agent, and
the agent doesn't want you if you haven't got a

(16:49):
record company. And that has is as sound today as
it was then. So I had a brief after the Club.
I managed this group who were then called The People.
The lead guitar player was Henry McCulloch, who went on
to be in the Grease Band, Joe Cocker, Wings and

(17:12):
various other people, but he started off with a little
Irish band called The People, which I looked after I
could see they were good. I could not. I took
him to London, but I could not get anywhere with them.
And my backer was a gentleman for Canadian gentleman who
who had five grand that was his that was his investment,

(17:36):
which didn't last very long. So I didn't have a
I didn't have a large I didn't have a large
chance of making things happen. So I hired a plane
and aer Lingus plane Irish Airlines, and I got a
media friend to get a hundred and fifty of the

(17:57):
key media journalists music and otherwise to board that plane
uh and to go. A convinced Bill Graham by flying
out to see him one one morning and being in
his office. I had met him on a on a
earlier American tours with Jimi Hendrix, and convinced him to

(18:20):
put my band onto open for Van Morrison and Quicksilver
messenger service at the Fillmore East UM inevitably, inevitably um
the band where the band the American Embassy would not
give them a visa because there was a various inter

(18:41):
union situations which didn't occur. The plane aer Lingus seven
oh seven UM crash landed at Shannon Airport in a
sea of foam because their hydraulics had gone out over
the British Channel. Uh. The journalists who saw the whole

(19:03):
thing as a bit of a jolly, as they call it.
And of course we had put an awful lot of
substances on the plane, alcohol and others, and they had
indulged quite heavily. They quite enjoyed the panic of the
landing and aer lingus because that's their way. UM to

(19:24):
get another plane out would take three or four hours,
so they opened the bar for the journalists, and so
by the time that plane got back it was a
very very crashed out group of journalists who got on
it and took off from New York. So the visas
I managed to um sort out through a Canadian gentleman.

(19:48):
So we flew to Toronto, and although the although the
empathy there saw sauce As as non bona fide visa
applicator is because of the London London thing, I managed
to convince immigration lawyer to do me a favor and

(20:10):
in the meantime I hard a small plane to take
us over the Canadian border and landed Buffalo, New York.
The lead guitar player of the band suitably called Brindsley Shorts,
the bass player being Nick low Lost. He had never
flown in a small plane before his ear drums went out.

(20:33):
His ears completely clogged up. He couldn't hear anything, and
so the show in New York wasn't everything I had
hoped for, So it was a huge chaos. Most of
the journalists didn't go to the show. Bill Graham in
those days twenty minutes before the show. If you're press
didn't show up, he would sell the tickets. You remember him,

(20:58):
So it was a pretty much a disaster. Van Morrison
was very friendly because I hadn't seen him for quite
a few years. But ten, ten or fifteen people from
the plane actually saw the show. But everybody panned it
big time. I have column inches that you have never
seen before in your life, all saying death and damnation,

(21:21):
and but everybody was talking about Brindsey Schwartz and United
Artists did a big record deal with me, and I
managed to do a publishing deal while I was in
the States. So that was my entree into being a
kind of a manager stroke disaster arranger, and out of

(21:42):
that came Stiff Records at a later stage. Okay, let's
go back a couple of years there and goes to
New York. Ultimately the club closes. What's your next step?
The next step was take the group the People to London.

(22:06):
We had reached the kind of top of Ireland. Ireland
had a low ceiling in terms of groups. There wasn't
there wasn't a big recorded scene or anything else. So
you had to go to London. That was it. I
took the band to London and I got them three gigs.
I've an agent friend got them three gigs. The second

(22:28):
one was a London had just discovered the San Francisco
happening affairs. Um, you know, an acid The acid idea
was happening, but nobody was taking it in London. But
they were putting on like they were in it. There
was bubbles on the wall, there was psychedelia, procol harm

(22:49):
We're playing that night that we got a gig at.
It was called the Blarney Club in London and the
Bonds A Dog Boot Do Da band. My band, The
People came on at four o'clock in the morning. Everyone
was asleep. A hundred and fifty people were passed out
on the floor. Everyone else had gone home, and they

(23:10):
got up and did their thing. They were very good.
They were very good rock and roll band, and the
crowd of a hundred and fifty people woke up and
really had a good time. At the end of it,
I've got several university bookers trying to book the band,
and they were offering me money. And this is what

(23:30):
it was all about. We had. Here was a few gigs,
and here was a chance to break through. A gentleman
in the corner with small John Lennon glasses Um said
before you do everything else, you should talk to me,
and I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, I
just talked to this guy. I'll get I'll get you
in a minute. The promoter passed me by and he

(23:52):
said I would talk to him if I was you.
I said why. He said, that's Mike Jeffreys, Jimmy Hendricks manager,
And thought, Mike, Mike, He hello, how are you? And
it turned out that Mike Jefferies had three clubs in
Miyorca Island off the coast of Spain. The British and

(24:13):
the Spanish. We're having an argument about Gibraltar, another argument,
and so the Spanish had banned all English people from
getting work permits in Spain in order to negotiate. Mike
Jefferies had three clubs and no bands, so he had
stayed all night because he heard that we were an

(24:34):
Irish band. Now what I didn't tell him, what I
didn't tell him was that we weren't. We were a
Northern Irish band. We were essentially a British fan. They
had British passport. He said, you are Irish, it's it's Irish.
Of course I'm Irish. Oh you know I'm Irish. So
he booked us for his three clubs. I had to
rush to Ireland and managed to get Irish passports and

(24:57):
the group didn't want them. The group did not on
them because they were Northern Irish and if you had
an Irish passport you'd be killed. That's what they told me.
I said, well, don't show them to anybody. Put them
you don't need you get them to go to ma Yorker.
You're not going to Belfast. So off we took to
ne Yorker. Fantastic, great club, great apartment, everybody getting money

(25:22):
every week, loads of girls on holiday, I mean heaven
to a degree, great weather. And then Chas Chandler turned
up chairs As, as we know, had formed a partnership
with Mike Jefferies to manage Jimmi Hendrix, and he came
out on holiday and of course he saw the band.

(25:42):
Now Chads was just Chads, a great bab you know,
a really nice guy, a real musician, not a great
bass player. He don't of himself, but but he liked
looking and feeling with musicians. So he met my bunch
who were playing pretty good. Now they're doing three sets
a night. It's like Hamburg I have three sets denied.

(26:02):
They're putting in new covers, the writing of bitter materials
all happening. He likes them. He told me he wanted
to sign them up. I mean I could hardly. I
could hardly hear how wonderful that was. Chas Chandler signed
the people to his management company with Mike Jeffries, and

(26:24):
I would be a third partner in the equation. They
would own the major part. I would have a little part.
So it was perfect and uh he would record us.
He wanted to produce. It was just heaven. So back
we go to London. Everything is really good and the
first gig we've got is with Jimmy Hendrix. We're supporting

(26:46):
Jimmy Hendrix. And again it's unbelievable. It's not a script
you could you could write down. So then, um, we've
got on the tour with Jimmy the Aim and Corner,
the Move of the Nice the Pink Floyd on a
package tour. In those days, England had package tours where

(27:08):
each if you had a hit, you had one hit,
you'd get on a package tour. And and that group
the was led by a group called the Outer Limits,
who are the cousin of the promoter. They had no
hits I had Now the people were now named by
Mike Jeffrey's girlfriend, the Heir Apparent with E I or

(27:32):
e as the kind of as A as the hook right.
The group didn't like it because they were not Irish,
but they put up with it. So we went on
tour for the Each show was two and a half hours.
We did Mattnee's did Mattnee in the afternoon. Jimi Hendrix
had twenty minutes to play. The Pink Floyd had twelve

(27:53):
and a half minutes to play and they hated it.
Everybody else got jolly that around and had a great time,
you know, the move, spend a long time talking about
Venereal Warts mainly, but but the Pink Floyd hated every
moment of it, and you got their manager to get
them a car so they wouldn't have to travel with

(28:14):
the riff raff, you know, the other people. Jimmy was fine,
he was quite happy to get on the bus with everybody,
and it was. It was a lot of fun, a
great experience and a lot of fun. Then we got
we got on other Jimmy Hendry shows and the next
thing Chad says, how do you feel about going to America?

(28:34):
And how do I feel? I feel fantastic. Chas just
point me at it. So off we went with the
Soft Machine and Jimmy Hendricks experience to America again like
opening a door of the unbelievable. You could not imagine.
I thought, this is success, this is success. They're also

(28:56):
paying us very good money. I was getting a hundred
and fifty dollars a week, which in those days night
was was was very good money. When all your expenses
were paid, you know, we were doing well. So that
was the tour. Jerry Stickles, who is the uh Jerry

(29:17):
Jerry was the tour manager and a rare. We were.
We were in a very interesting thing. I didn't realize
that at the time, but the animals them Harriman's Hermits
and the Beatles had been to America. No other group
from England really had been there, and we were. They're

(29:38):
making our own name. Jerry Stickles, a scaffolder from Folkeston
in England who got the job with an experience because
he had a van and they needed one at the time,
turned out to be one of the great touring guys.
He turned out to be a real happening and a
real resourceful guy because you had to be because of
no security. There was no criteria, there was no template

(30:01):
that made the tour work. There was no anything. Most
of the gigs had the local police chief who knew
the promoter. He was the security and he wasn't really
out for the band, and particularly not Jimi Hendrix, who
was slightly the wrong color for that. For a lot
of the gigs that we were doing, it was amazing experience.
The girls were extraordinary good looking. I mean it was

(30:24):
and and everywhere, and they were everywhere. So the air partent,
we're having a good time. Um, the group was going well.
Jerry stick has had to go back to England for
a month for um for a medical for a medical
procedure that that he had, and I got a briefcase
and a baretta, and I was told on the tour manager.

(30:48):
So I became for about six weeks the tour manager
for the Jimmy Hendris experience on the road in America,
with no idea at all. How really it went great
experience and I had a great time. Jimmy was a
very nice guy. Um. You know, he was always trying
to find out what's happening to the money, and I

(31:09):
had to tell him that I didn't know what was happening.
I put it into various banks in a company called
you Amita, and you know, sometimes I would go into
a bank with three or four hundred thousand dollars and
the guards would draw their guns when I opened my briefcase.
There was no credit cards. Nobody had a credit card.
It was all cash. And nobody had a flight case.

(31:33):
A lot of these martial equipment had no flight case.
They had plastic covers. They were ripped to shreds by
going down the luggage ramps. I mean, it was total
amateur land. And I thought, but there must be you
know there these people obviously know what they're doing and
there must be something going on here that makes sense.

(31:54):
And the answer was there wasn't. The tour. The tour
zig zagged all over the road, all over the country. Um.
I think around that time it was a fifty five
and our speed limit because of the because of the
gash problems, and you know, everybody was on the CB
trying to beat the you know and get to the

(32:16):
next gig. It was an extraordinary time. And the band
where Mitch was, you know, great drummer that he was,
he was also a pain in the arts because he
wanted to be like Jimmy. I mean, Jimmy was so
miles ahead of everything around him in terms of his
playing ability. Noel was very pragmatic and he just got

(32:40):
on with stuff. He pulled me out of a swimming pool.
I can't swim, and my band threw me into the
swimming pool in I think Tampa, Florida. Noel tripping saw
me at the bottom of the pool, you know, trying
to trying to memorize any swimming manual that I'd ever
seen in my life. And when he's six, he's very

(33:00):
light man and he got jumped in and pulled me out.
That was a That was a lifesaver. Anyway, we did
well and we toured and Jimmy produced the air Parents album. Okay,
before you get there, you know you're talking about the
old days. People don't realize where it was when it
was all in cash and it was also difficult to
get paid and difficult to get paid a hundred cents

(33:22):
on the dollar. Did you ever have to use the BARRETTA?
I never did. I was very anti guns, very anti guns.
It was in the bottom of my briefcase for ages.
And I did from time to time hang out with
some other tour managers. There was a tour manager who
looked after the animals and he was a very fancy dresser.

(33:44):
He was very sharp. He had a waistcoat and he
carried a baretta in his waistcoat, right, and he showed
every everyone would show the gun you had. They all
had different guns. And uh so he was in Atlanta,
Flora and Black Geezer. Unfortunately, you know, alcohold Up said

(34:06):
give me that briefcase after the show. So he he
pulled out the baretta to show, to show whatever, and
fired miles away from the guy. He fired it when
it ricocheted off the wall and hit the guy in
the lake. Right, So the guy is down bleeding profusely.
Black and white pulls up and they're congratulating. They're congratulating

(34:30):
my tour manager on his acumen and killing or trying
to kill, you know, locals. I mean, It's America. Was
very odd, Bob. You you've obviously been there forever. But
the bottom line is it was so racid. I I didn't.
I came from a racist country where where Protestants and

(34:52):
Catholics resented each other big time, and here I was
in America. I thought John F. Kennedy, in my naivety,
had solved all these kind of racial problems. I was
totally astonished by the racism, you know, I was amazed.
I could not understand why somebody wasn't doing something. But
it was everywhere. And Jimmy Hendrix was a black guy

(35:15):
in a white in a white world to a degree,
because we were playing white gigs everywhere, and there wasn't
really an awful lot of our color Breton in the shows.
So it was very very interesting. The Vanilla Fared a
good example of guns is the Vanilla Fudge did a

(35:37):
week or ten days on the tour. They joined the
tour and I was told it was during my time touring.
I was told that they would come and it would
you know, they'd go on third and what would happen,
et cetera. I was on the stage in I think Jackson, Mississippi,
and uh, this young dark guy in a silver suit

(36:00):
in a in a shiny suit, and a very big
man that was with him came came up and said,
I'm the manager of the Vanilla Fudge. Our gear hasn't
turned up um, so we'll have to use yours. And
I said, well, I'll ask the band. It should be okay,

(36:21):
but I'll ask. I'll ask the group whatever, at which
point the guy, the big guy, pulled the front of
my shirt down and nearly knocked me over, but he
literally pulled the front off, and when I looked up,
I had a very big gun in my mouth. Right.
So I'm mumbling to whom you can use enter your rooric,
you know, take good all. The following day they gave

(36:45):
me a small envelope with about five grand in it,
which is more than I had seen for a while.
I was asked to look after the band and he'd
been a little bit over what was it zealous? I
think what's the word? He said, And that was another
part of Americans history. From my point of view, it
was it was what it's the wild West really and

(37:09):
being in the music business with Jimmy Hendrix at that
stage was was a great introduction. Okay, So Jimmy agrees
to produce the Air Appearent album, Yes he did. He
He said to me, I'd like to produce them. What
do you think? And I said, oh, no problem, Jimmy,
no problem. Uh, they will love it. He said fine.

(37:30):
He said, look, Dave, I want to tell you this.
You know, you know I'm I'm not great at time keeping.
He was. At this moment, we were in l A.
And the tour had had slowed off for a week
or two. It had just they've been doing far too much.
And he was in this house up on mum Holland
and it had I remember the bedroom had nothing but mirrors.

(37:52):
The bedroom was a mirrored room. So he said to me,
I want to do this, Dave. I want so you're
you're I'll give you permission to come in my bedroom
and get me out. Every day. I want to go
to the studio, and I want to be there at
ten o'clock, okay, and it doesn't matter where I've been,

(38:15):
you come and get me. I'll give you full permission
to do this. So the very first night, very very
first morning, you know, ac quarter to ten, I'm tapping
on his door, knowing that he got in at seven
or something. And eventually I'll go in, Jimmy, Jimmy, and
Jimmy is is in his bed in the mirrored room.

(38:38):
And I did I didn't have my camera, a mirrored
room with black sheets, black satin sheets, and a blonde
girl on each side of him. They looked like twins,
and they were a Scandinavian kind of couple who had
he had adopted. He loved. He loved blonde women. We
all do. So I'm going Jimmy, Jimmy, you me and

(39:00):
kind of shaking him and there's no movement. So eventually,
you know, I remembered what he told me, and I get,
you know, tough and getting him out there. So getting
him out, giving him coffee and getting him to the
studio became my job. And he did a remarkable He
was there every pretty much every day, and and it's
the guitar player, and an awful lot of the he

(39:22):
played down. He played down so he would sound like
the guitar thing. It was fairly extraordinary. And my Facebook
page has a lovely picture of me and Jimmy Hendrix
in the studio making the air parent outing. But a
lovely guy like that, a lovely a lovely, genuine Geezer.

(39:43):
Aside from the extraordinary guitar playing, he got fed up
with the with the kind of chitling circuit stuff that
made his name. I mean, people just wanted the big stuff.
They wanted the fancy by the guitar player behind your back,
you know, you use it as a phallic symbol, you know,
and do all of that thing. And and eventually he

(40:06):
got a little cheese with that, as you would. But
that was what made him happen in England and that
transferred to America. So the album was made. What are
the next steps for you? Well, I would think at

(40:26):
that point we were on Buddha Records. There was a
guy called Artie rip whatever, and Artie was was good
value for money talking, but he didn't do very much
with the record. And eventually the band decided that they
would get back to England and expose the album too

(40:46):
in England. So a few decisions were made and we
got back to England, at which point the band broke up.
Henry McCulloch had got busted in Canada for marijuana possession
and had been told that he would possibly he would
possibly go to jail because they wanted to get musicians.

(41:07):
At that time, getting somebody close to Hendricks was was
a media thing, so he jumped bail. Henry Henry was
advised by Mike Jeffrey's people to jump bail and and
we got another guitar player out there. It wasn't half

(41:28):
of talent, and when they got back to England they
broke up. That's when I got found the five thousand
pounds investor to start a management company with Brindley Swartz.
So that connects to that story. When I would try
and use all my experience that I gained in two

(41:49):
years in America and and would and would finally, you know,
use it to to find an English band and find
a group that could conquer the world. Meat putting that
in the Melody Maker. Band wanted must have own equipment
and van, and they didn't. They lied to me. They

(42:10):
didn't own the van. And they didn't own the gear.
But I saw in Nick Low. I have to say
I did see Nick Low. He had a couple of
songs that were a bit crossis into the Nash at
the time, but he um he had something and the
band were good. The band were unusually good, and I

(42:32):
thought I could make something of them. The trip to
America turned out not too well, but I had got
an ongoing deal with two albums firm from United Artists,
and so that income the band um joined together to
live in one house together like a commune. Yeah. So

(42:53):
the group proceeded to do three hundred gigs a year
for four years and form a very big name for
themselves in a low level kind of music musical area.
Their second album was called Despite It All, which is
an apt title, and it was very very good for

(43:13):
four years, which is long enough for any group if
they don't make it. That's when the seeds of descent
set in and I left Tom to put a studio
together at the Hope and Anchor in Islington, the famous
public house, and the band broke up. What was your
thought in terms of building a studio, Well, I wanted

(43:35):
a vowel studio. I bought two from Abbey Road. I
bought to J fifty four. I think they were called
studio machines, which I was told where a part of
the Abbey Road UM machines that the Beatles possibly had
played on. I got the I got the desk out

(43:56):
of Decca that I was told what had produced Nights
in White Sason Satin and I set up a Vale
studio eight track with two of the two machines together
with one head and started recording at the Hope and
Anchor I put it. It obviously went to the stage,
so any music played on the stage was recordable by me.

(44:21):
So the studio was going quite well, and um I
also booked. I booked the venue so it was full
all the time. Again I did my favorite thing of
having a very small hundred hundred licensed club and putting
four hundred people in it. I had an alcohol license

(44:43):
at this point as well, so that was good. Uh.
And a group called Flipped City wanted to play and
their manager was hustling me and I put them on
our support with a band called Kokomo and they were terrible,
but they had a guy lead singer who did a

(45:04):
song called third Rate Romance, Low Rench Rendezvous and he
turned out his name was Declan mcmallus. So I said
to him, you've got any original songs, and he said, yeah,
I've got a few. I said, well, I've got a
studio upstairs. I've just set it up, so I'll do
some demos for you if you fancy doing a few.

(45:26):
So he did thirty eight songs in the night. We
finished at five in the morning, and I gave him
a tape of his thirty eight songs and I thought
he could be good. This guy could be useful. But
I put the band on again a month or two
later and they were still terrible. He was good, but
they were really rubbish. So while I was there, I

(45:50):
put on a lot of music. All the London music
traveled through the Hope and Anchor Pub recorded by me,
and out of that I got the idea of Stiff Records. Also,
Stiff Records was empty major record label because they didn't
care about anything except their their money, the ideas that

(46:13):
they liked, the kind of music that they sponsored, the
kind of satin trousers and the high heeled boots and
the pink hair dues. I wasn't a big fan of
and it wasn't very good. That prog rock area wasn't
my favorite, and because the pubs were now my interests,
and bands playing three minute numbers with no solos, with

(46:35):
with happening with a couple of covers in there from
some really decent people became my interests and they were
the I got the idea from there. I managed it
wasn't his name was now, but I managed Declin, I
managed Geane Drury, I managed Nick Lowe who come came

(46:55):
to me with my partner at the time, Jake Vieira,
and we started the tapes from the Hope and Anchor
became stuff we could release because it was all Graham
Parker I found at that time. He came to me
with a couple of songs that somebody said, Dave's got
a studio, why don't you go down there. I got

(47:17):
him a deal with Phonogram, which was it's the quickest
deal I've ever ever made. I did the demo on Monday.
On Friday, I gave it to a gentleman called Charlie Gillett,
who was a great Unfortunately he's passed on. He was
a marvelous spotter and really nice guy and helpful, but

(47:38):
also he could spot things. He discovered Dark Straights me
a load of bands and I gave it to him.
He had a radio show on a Sunday on he
played the track between You and Me. On Monday I
got a call from Nigel Grange, the head of A
and R at Phonogram, and on Tuesday I had a

(47:59):
deal sorted out and we were doing the paperwork. Okay,
let's low down a couple of steps. Hey, who owns
the Hope and Anchor. The Hope and Anchor is owned
by a pub now called Green King. It's owned by
by a brewery. I mean when you were there who
owned it? Was owned by a brewery called Watney's. And

(48:19):
it was right. It was run by a landlord who
had a tendency in those days the the breweries owned
all the pubs in different configurations, and they had tenants
in to run them. And obviously, if you if you
haven't got a big crowd in your pub, getting a
music license and getting music into was a way for

(48:41):
you to sell more booze. So there was a landlord
there called Fred Granger at the Hope and Anchor. He
and I became partners in the studio. And where did
the money come from across the bar Okay, and you
have a studio who's doing the engineering and producing and
all that stuff. Me me, I built it. It took
me a year to build it. I learned all about

(49:03):
elect I had a couple of electronic guys come down
and give me chores. They give me like your list,
like your list of how to get this recording guy.
They give me chores. And during the week I would
solder and do what they told me, and they'd come
the following week and give me more. I could only
afford to get them one day a week, not to
do any work, just to tell me what to do.

(49:25):
I had a very good sound. I had Willie Mitchell, right,
I loved I loved the sound of Willie Mitchell. I
thought that was one of the great England didn't have
that sound. They had like a blank ye snare drum.
English bands were more theatrical than musical. I always thought,

(49:45):
you know, I always thought the English liked the theater
and they liked the theatricals, and so I started a
lot of other people. But but that was the main
thing in in David Bowie h Pete Towns and I
mean Freddie our Freddie a queen. I mean, you know,
I always thought he was a man chasing around looking

(50:08):
for the other end of his mic stand by and large,
but that was the English thing. I love the the
R and B, the rhythm and blues. And Willie Mitchell
I had every drummer who came to the Hope and
Anchor for any reason, I would kidnap take him upstairs
and I had a drum kit set up, and I

(50:30):
would get him to play the drum kit for as
long as I could. I'd give him drink, I'd give
him anything. So he kept playing on the drum kit
while I fiddled to try and make the sound that
was in my head, which was like high records al Green.
That that sound. So I I thought, buggering, I can't.
I couldn't do it. Nobody seemed to be able to.

(50:52):
I wrote to Willie Mitchell. I wrote to him, I said,
of the studio, I love the sound, blah blah. He
wrote back to me with a mic set up right
from Willie Mitchell. He wrote back, and all the mics
were incredibly cheap. I had been going and trying to
get expensive stuff and trying to make and it was
a vow sound. The early days. The tamlot was all

(51:16):
valve I mean, obviously, So I went out and got
all his microphones and put him in the in the
place that he said they should go, all the same mics.
The next drummer who came in downstairs turned into Al Jackson.
He sat at the drum kit, he played the drum
kid and he sounded like Al Jackson, My favorite drummer.

(51:39):
And that was the Willie Mitchell drum set. I've been
using it ever since. And it came automatically. I didn't,
you know. He told me a couple of e q s,
but nothing dramatic. He just showed me the positioning of
the mics, and that was pretty much what Stiff Records
had based around that kind of drum set. I ordered

(52:00):
to Nick Lowe then and we made a whole career
out of it. Okay, why did you get involved with
Jake Riviera? Was that good or bad? Jake Rivieira was
quite a smart geither now I'm not I'm not blowing
my own trumpet by saying that I was doing more
things around the place in the Hope and Anchor than

(52:21):
Jake was. Jake saw me in his in his front
vision he could see me, and he was following me
around a little bit. He was stalking me a fraction
and one of but it was very smart geezer, very
very witty, very sharp talker. And he got a job
as tour manager on the very first dr Feel Good

(52:43):
Tour of America, and he went around there, and he
was very interested in record labels. It always had a
he always had a fascination of recording more than me.
I mean, I was thinking of Warner Brothers and others.
He was thinking of modern and all the Brunswick and whatever.

(53:04):
So he went around America would feel Goods and the
field Goods loved small record labels and alcohol, two things
they loved. So they went around all these small record
labels in every town in America. Who were the owners
were dying off, you know, they've lost their money or whatever. Anyway,
all these things were becoming bankrupt, but they all had
stocks of singles in the warehouse that the wife of

(53:27):
the owner who died of a heart attack still had.
I didn't know what to do with. Jake came back
from that tour and said to me. He said to me, Dave,
I've got an idea. Let's start a small record label,
your tapes from the Hope and anchor right, and my
ideas about what we'll do. He used to work for

(53:47):
in that agency. He was very very good, uh clib
geither so fine. We got together, the two of us.
I had the management company, I managed declan Acmanus Injury,
various other people, Graham Parker and we joined together and

(54:08):
the money came from the management company to start the
record label and Nick Low. We pressed ten thousand, We
did it in five hundred, five hundreds and sold them
and then went on. There's a guy in England who
was the genius of the independent record thing, John Peel.
John Peel was the most extraordinary guy. God knows how

(54:32):
he came up with his ideas, but he was a
lovely guy and he really liked Stiff. So from our
first record, So it Goes by Nick Low, he played
it on the radio and we became something. And we
hated major record companies with such a passion that we
loved making them look bad. We loved doing it. There
were five newspapers, five music papers on the street every

(54:57):
week who needed input. They needed stuff is like the internet.
They needed loads and loads. We invented. We we we
would sit late at night thinking up schemes. I mean,
we love the record. We love the major record is
being embarrassed. Dar Straits had had their manager went to

(55:20):
a marketing meeting at Phonogram and he was complaining that
they were in a house bag. They were in a
Phonogram house bag. Their new big head and reckless Eric,
a guy that nobody'd ever heard of, had a four
color bag. And it brought that all of that was
made to measure because they had no sense of humor,

(55:41):
they had no anything. They weren't very smart or talented.
They were all pompous, black, black, bloody bmg w's and
it wasn't you know. They couldn't keep up. So that's
what our slogans. We lead, others follow and can't keep
up surfing on the new wave, you know, Tomorrow's sound
today where the sun never sets. That we became the

(56:05):
slogan company of things, and our groups loved it. The
groups loved it. It was like a family affair with
everybody in it, everybody laughing. The newspapers every week, everyone
bought all the music papers and read all of them.
So all the you know, we had journalists on the road,
but we called Elvis Costello, declar McManus. You know. We

(56:28):
said to him, we had a meeting with him and said, look,
we're getting nowhere with this great album you've just made, right,
and we're gonna have to change your name. And he said, yeah,
so what so we're gonna call you Elvis. And he
didn't blink. The man did not blink. And Costello came
from his um, his wife's name, her her name, and

(56:53):
he was great. Elvis was ready to promote. He'd come
from a hard life working the computer programmer, which is
putting putting the cards into the computer, and he um,
he was great, and he pulled a lot of other
people on as well. Okay, let's slow down and start
with Elvis. You make the record. A couple of questions here,

(57:14):
how does he end up making the record with Clover,
a band from San Francisco though in England at the time,
and he ends up with CBS Records. Tell me the
story there. Clover banned from Marin County. The pub music
was was focused on a band who came from Maron

(57:35):
County called Eggs over Easy. I went to a pub
in town to do a do a deal with the
landlord to get some of my bands in and there
was a group playing. There was only ten people in
the room. There was nobody in the room. I'm talking
to the landlord and this group is playing, and I'm

(57:55):
listening in the back of my mind and thinking, what's that.
That's an interesting turnaround in This four piece band is playing, right.
I talked to them, I said, what, who? What? It
turns out that Chas Chandler had been going to make
an album of them for Polydor, but Polydor had had

(58:18):
changed their mind, so they come from Marin County. I
based all these bands playing the short numbers and doing
this kind of slightly um rhythm and blues. The kind
of songwriters they've vibe off them. I stole their idea.
I still in touch with them. I'm I'm good friends

(58:40):
with them to this day. I got a whole lot
of English bands two play that kind of style, to
do three sets, To do three sets in a pub,
to learn the game, to know what they're about, to
put your songs in, put a cover in, keep the
audience happy. It's a ub The majors didn't want to know.

(59:02):
They sent a few people down to look at it
because there was quite a lot of people starting to
go and said, Oh, there's nothing happening here. It's just
it's just pub rock, right, that's a that's what they said.
So Clover had been a favorite of Brindsley Schwartz when
they lived together in the house. I had found this

(59:25):
uh album by Clover. I'd given it to Nick Lowe
who loved the music on it, and he was a
big Clover fan. When we decided to have a management company,
Jake and I and start the record company, we thought,
who is there in America that we could get some

(59:45):
use out of? And we thought, what about that band Clover?
So I went over. He and I went over and
we chatted up Clover. Harmonica player Huey Lewis, but nobody
was paying any attention to the harmonica player. John McPhee
was the guitar player. And they had long hair, and
they wore belts with conscios, and they had black leather

(01:00:07):
waistcoats and they looked fantastic cowboy boots. They had to
look long hair. They looked like Tin Lizzie to a degree.
You know. Girls really liked them in Marin County and
I said, come to England, Come to England. They vacillated.
They never came. We talked to them, they never came.

(01:00:29):
Come on, come over, you'll have a good time. The
day they got on the plane by themselves to come
to England was the day that Johnny Rotten said fuck
you to a Geezer on primetime television in England. Right
punk came roaring out of the shed as the day
this wild bunch of of of Wyant Earth Gunfighter, the

(01:00:56):
Okay Canal looking group turned up in in England. Bad timing.
We did everything with it. We got them a record deal,
we did everything. They've toured us in Lizzie. That was
a very big part of it. We got everything going
for the nothing worked. They were having a good time.
They were hanging out with musicians, they were playing, they

(01:01:18):
were going to the key clubs. Girls loved them. They
were on every tour we could get them onto, and
Jake and I were very persuasive and nothing happened. So
eventually Elvis had these songs and there was nobody around
with his kind of little style. He had a little
guitar style except Clover, so Clover playing not Hugh. He didn't.

(01:01:41):
There's no harmonica on the album, but Clover played John
McPhee playing that great solo on Allison. But but the
British public didn't take to them. They didn't take to this.
So we change Elves's name and I got him to
play at the CBS convention, which was in a hotel

(01:02:04):
on Park Lane, right in the middle of London, in
the hotspot, and there was a convention in the hotel.
So I got Elvis down there with a little lamp,
playing in his funny clothes from his album cover sleeve,
and I said, whatever happens, don't stop playing, a right L.
We called him L at this point, L. Don't stop playing.

(01:02:27):
They'll notice you, they'll notice your song, they will know
who the fund is that they're excusing my language. But
but um, so he's playing away and I said, no,
matter what happens, police while you'll get the police, keep playing.
So he's there playing and he wouldn't stop. And they said,
move along, move along, Will you stop that? If you
don't stop that, I'll ar rescue blah blah blah blah blah.

(01:02:50):
So they arrest him. He's still playing as they put
him into the back of their wagon. Right, so he
goes to he doesn't know what to do now? He
gets the at least to call Stiff Records, and I
answered the phone. We've only got a staff of three,
so one of us and to the phone and they said,
we've got a We've got a guy here called Elvis Costello.

(01:03:12):
He says he works for you. I said, I've never
heard him. So I have a friend on I TV News,
which is the commercial news station, and I say, look,
I've got this guy. He's been he's been arrested. They
keep him in right. I said, he's been arrested. Is

(01:03:32):
it a really good story? And he said, now it's
not enough of an angle, Dave. You know I can't.
You know, there's no way you can get this on
news the following day. What happens in England if you're
if you're overnight in the cells, you go to both
street Magistrates, Straights Court and both street magitates. Is the
old Bailey. It's it's a traditional English how they dealt

(01:03:54):
with an English miscreate. And he gets fined twenty pounds
and bound over to keep the piece. That's the term,
you're bound over to keep the peace twenty quid. My
I TV man is now outside. This is a story
twenty quid, Elvis Costello whatever it was on the news
twice that day and the following day. We've shipped about

(01:04:17):
five thousand albums. There was record shops on the phone saying,
who is this guy Helvis blah blah blah clover as
a background band. That was the start of my aim
is true. And that was the story of Elvis Costello. Okay,
I only know in the US when it came out
on Columbia Columbia in the UK, was it out on Stiff?

(01:04:38):
Of course, of course it was stiff. Stiff designed it all.
But we were in the middle, Jake Rivieria and Dave
Robinson were in the middle of doing a stiff deal
for CBS for Columbia to sign the whole label. Now
we were going to get what we deserved all its time.

(01:05:00):
We were now going to get a big machine in
America behind us. To that's when Jake jumped ship. Everyone said,
what did Jake jump ship? Well, that's the reason Jake
jumped ship is there was a big income. There was
half a million dollars on the table and they had
to have Elvis. They loved able to why From from

(01:05:22):
the story of the Park, Layne hotel. They had all
seen him. That the story, that the legend of that
predicted thing and the album that he just made became
the fulcrum of the whole situation. And Jake left. Jake
saw his chance to get out from under my shadow
or whatever and left. And it was a very on you.

(01:05:46):
I had not foreseen any second of it. Okay, you
know what's that seventy eight? Did my seven agent? Right?
My name is true? Comes out? So just when you
make the deal with CBS, is just when Jake leaves? Yes,

(01:06:06):
so at this point because in America everything is delayed.
But that was the first hit stiff record, and everything
came after that. He and Dry etcetera. Oh yeah, Oh,
Elvis was the business. Elvis was the business. And that
all culminated in all that kind of effort and that
kind of promotion and that kind of snappy you know

(01:06:29):
who gives a fun kind of attitude. All culminated then
in that Jake leaves. Do you give him half of
the five hundred thousand? No, he has all of it.
I gave him Elvis Costello. I said, Jake, you'll need
some income. Take Elvis gone. But it's Friday. I want
a settlement complete, signed by you by Monday morning, first thing.

(01:06:52):
Otherwise you don't get elvis. I wanted. Now, we're going
to go to the house of my lawyer, your lawyer
as well our lawyer, and we are going to have
a settlement. Because I realized that if we didn't settle quickly,
we're both very very opedy geezers. Right, we would never settle,
you know what I mean, we would never get said. Also,

(01:07:13):
I spent the weekend looking through our accounts. The accountant
of the company, the bookkeeper, was a Jake appointee. I
went downstairs when Jake said he was leaving. I looked
in this man's desk. I found drawers upon drawers of receipts,
untouched receipts, unformulated receipts. Right. I spent the weekend finding

(01:07:38):
we owed a hundred fifty grand, right, which we didn't
have a hundred fifty thousand we owed that hadn't been paid, right,
But but we had forty grand in the bank. We
were cash rich if if creditor large. Right, So I've
decided to spend the forty grand on injury. I thought,

(01:08:01):
my aim, it is true, great, but the day is
gone Elvis is probably going to go with Jake. He
was a Jake. Jake went out of his way to
be friendly to Elvis, and that was a good bloke.
You know. I still talk to him. We have a
really good time with whatever. But I thought Ian Dury's
New Boots and Panties was the record that would really

(01:08:23):
set up Stiff at the time. Okay, let's look down listen. Yeah, okay,
so you have all this, you make the deal with
CBS Redistribution five hundred k. They're gonna distribute all Stiff
product around the world in England too. No, No, it
was just the USA and Canada, North America. So you
have UK right, Stiff had it everywhere else. Okay, And

(01:08:46):
Jake walks with Elvis, Yes, who only has one album
at this point in time, and you also give him
the five k to go away, Yes, because you thought
that what you had left was worth more than that.
I thought that we could survive. We had more artists.
Jacob Jake at this point. It also started game quite

(01:09:06):
argumentative about what bands he liked and what bands I liked.
We we had there was a schism that had started.
It wasn't a big number, but I was aware that
it was going to come to a fruition, come to
a head at some point, but I didn't think he
was just gonna skip. That half a million would have

(01:09:27):
set us up in America. We might have done a chrysalis.
We might have, you know, one person in America, one
person in England. But I had belief in the label
to survive, and he he thought by him leaving, it
wouldn't survive. Was that always his goal to leave or
was he trying to say I will leave so that
you give him the business. No, we weren't. We weren't, Bob,

(01:09:50):
you you have a great eye for the business, etcetera.
We were too kind of quite idealistic. Although there was
money lying around, we were we were not moved. I
think Jake saw that that half a mill was going
to set him up separately, and I could see that right,

(01:10:11):
But our attitude was not primarily money. We did talk
music and we got an agreement between us by Monday
to settle. He went and I had a paperwork with
all the shares and all the business. If I could
make it work for myself, I got everything and he

(01:10:32):
went off to do whatever you want to do. He
had money, but The other thing about Jake is he
has excessive tastes, and I was quite happy that he
should go and I paid for it. Okay, So he
goes and the next step is the in Dury album.
It is okay at this point, how many acts are

(01:10:52):
signed to Stiff when Jake leaves? Probably about five? Okay.
So you're the one who builds this big roster. Okay.
So in Dury comes out, you know, hit me with
your rhythm stick, wake Up, make love to Me? Does
that meet your expectations? What a waste? Great single? Yes? Yes,
I thought In Dury I had managed the Injury. He

(01:11:13):
had been signed to my management company before Jake entered
the picture right. In Dury was signed to Advancedale with
Decla McManus, with Graham Parker and with a few other
people at that time. So I thought the Injury album
was ripe? Was ripe for your and and if if

(01:11:40):
nothing else down the road, possibly America, but it would
have to be it would have to come from England.
It would have to be a swell because he incoherent.
A lot of his stuff was very incoherent to the
American market. What happens to the hundred odd k that
you won't. We had forty grand in cash. I spent
it on ads for Dury. Right in Drury. We had

(01:12:01):
some great ads, give up smoking, give us your money.
We had done fart before your ars is ready. I mean,
we had some ads that really, you know, double page
ads in everyone's face, and people had to hear this album.
And then he came up with the singles. Him and
Charles Jankl came up with the singles on top of

(01:12:21):
the album incredible stuff. And I was a thirty three
year old cripple who who had never kind of got out,
he never really got going, and I thought he had
the business. Uh So, as it proved, he sold records
right across Europe, my aim is true, did well. Uh

(01:12:43):
but he was bigger than America. Elvis was made for America,
and he was bigger in America. Now, we had an
attitude about the US market. Jake and I had an
attitude which is, no matter how what you think you're
gonna get, you're gonna get ten percent if you're lucky.
That was the attitude because record companies, by their very nature,

(01:13:04):
want to give you something to get you, but once
they have you, they want to crawl it all back
as much as possible. That's what the major did, Claude
all back. We we wanted back packaging, in deductions, all
the things that they can get. So we buided our
time and eventually we did a deal for Stiff with Arista.

(01:13:29):
Clive and I got on well. I thought he was
very much a pop guy. He had total control of
his company, and that was where we headed for once
we got in going in the UK. Ian certainly, I mean,
I'm in Los Angeles, he gets played on k Rock,
but you would get Ian on the way and then

(01:13:51):
where do you go from there? Well, Ian and Lana Lovitch.
Lana Lovitch was an unheralded young lady and her lucky
number which went to number two in the UK UM
At a certain time, we could have done a deal
with Epic or Columbia, mainly Epic because Elvis was on

(01:14:15):
Columbia and uh, but aristall looked good and they did
pay us a big events and they look good because
Clive wanted some kind of credibility. He wanted to be
seen that he had an edgy He liked the edginess
of Stiff, and he was going to he was going

(01:14:37):
to do the business he was going to make it
all happened big time, so he paid to put Ian
on tour with Now there's for Alzheimer's is setting in
um the vanilla? No, anyway, he will come back to me.
He went on tour in America. Ian and Lena went

(01:14:59):
on touring America and their two singles, hit Me with
Your Rhythm Stick and Lucky Number, We're going up the
chart with the bullets required, we were starting to look
like we could turn out hits right stiff. So Clive
came down to the bottom line. Uh Ian Jury played

(01:15:21):
three nights at the bottom line at the end of
this big club tour, you know the whiskey that kind
of you know, hip club tour. The single was seventy
hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick, and I think Lucky
Number was eighty five or looking very good. So Clive
came down at the end of the show with a

(01:15:42):
boyfriend and a cameraman and said, look, Dave, I'm just
going to I'm just gonna go in. I've been doing
something else, but I'm just going to go in and
do the Caught in the Act picture. Do you remember
that picture in Billboard every week? Remember the Yeah? So
he was going to be executive Meats group at bottom Line.

(01:16:04):
Now I said to him, I said, Clive, you won't
be able to rush in there. The band occasionally have
a bit of a row and it's a very small
dressing room and E will be very sweaty. He's very,
very disabled and it takes him a while to get
dressed and get him brain together. After I said, or
they might have a row, I've been going. I went

(01:16:25):
in there once where they were punching each other out anyway.
Clive said, no, no, Dave, I do this all the time.
Don't worry about it. You know I know how to
do it. Ian had a guy called Cosmo Vinyl who
is his mouthpiece. Cosmo went on to look after the clash.
He was the mouthpiece and he was fascinated by Clive Davis.

(01:16:50):
He taught Clive Davis his clothes were interesting. He was fascinated.
He was in the dressing room. I'm saying to Clive,
don't do it. Clive, I'm against the door, or don't
do it. He's saying, Dave, it's easy. I do this
all the time. So I said, okay, and you go. Clive.
Clive hates been touched Cosmo was down his jacket looking

(01:17:11):
at the label of his clothes. Cosmo was all over him,
handling him right, not not not violently, but but you know,
in his space, completely in his space. Clive, if you
ever see the picture, he didn't look too well. The
following day, Elliott Goldman, Elliot Goldman, Clive's business partner, calls

(01:17:34):
me in to the office in New York and he says, so,
I think it's a romance. I think it's you know,
he's going to talk to me about how the records
are doing and what needs to be done and whatever.
You know, Elliot's going to talk business. And Elliot said
to me, we're withdrawing all the promotion on your records.

(01:17:59):
And I said, sorry, sorry, I thought it was a joke.
Don't joke. I said, what's what's happening? He said, Clive
was manhandled by your staff last night, and I'm pulling
the whole deal. There's no promotion going on. I said,
don't be ridiculous, you know, Elliott, you know it's just
rock and roll, a little bit of rock and roll.

(01:18:20):
I told Clive not to go in, but he wanted
to do it. He's an adult. It's up to him,
you know it's not my problem. They're not my staff.
If you're going to go in groups dressing rooms, you
better know that the group can bite, you know, so
you're better go and do that. He said, it's not happening, Dave,
where I said, well, then I want to leave. I
want to leave now. I want to leave this instant.

(01:18:41):
You know you're breaking You're breaking the contract. It's a
big breach. Anyone, any lawyer will tell you, any judge
will tell you. You You can't just pull out of this
because of a little contra toempts over your bloody jacket.
So he said, I'm doing some figures. Let you have
them tomorrow, but if you want out, you'll have to

(01:19:03):
buy your way out. And the following day he gave
me a bill for nine hundred thousand dollars. Right, And
the other thing he said to me with Bob, which
is an interesting comment, he said, what you what you
need to discover about the American industry record business is this.
I'm gonna fuck you now, and if you survive, you

(01:19:26):
might get to fuck me later. So that was it.
Now I was totally stuck. I was totally stuck. I
didn't have that money. I didn't have anything. That money
had been spent on various other quite a bit of
it on various other things that were going on. So
I had to go to Bruce Lumville at Epic and say, Bruce,

(01:19:51):
I should have taken your deal. Those fucking idiots that
Aristyle I can't understand them, but I need to take
your deal, and I need an advance of nine hundred
thousand dollars and he gave it to me. Bruce Lumbo
was a lovely fucking geither in more ways than one.
So now you're on Epic. We moved along very swiftly there. Yeah, gone,

(01:20:12):
but were good sailing after that? Yeah, it was pretty
good if you think about it. It was They decided,
which was rather nice, that they would put it on
Epic Stiff. So there was a label called Epic Stiff
and we put a lot of stuff out, but the
momentum for the two biggest records that we had was gone.
By the time we got all the parts and other

(01:20:35):
bits from Arista. It was a couple of months and
the records had had long gone, unfortunately, and they were
two biggest shots. So we put out quite a bit
on on Epic and we had a very good relationship
with him, and Bruce Lumbo was really nice guind of
a lot of really good staff there who I'm still
in touch with. But are are we? We had we

(01:20:56):
had missed the boat. We had missed the boat with
that situation Asian and and that was that was the
way that went. I mean in England. I signed Madness
very soon after, right, and that was one of the
biggest That was one of the biggest things around the
world except for America, although our House with a Big

(01:21:19):
Hit in on Sire in the US. Sire had them
for the US. Anyway, the deal we made was Seymour
and I got persuaded the band wanted to sign. I
auditioned the band at my wedding, so my wife has
never quite given me. And Seymour got them for America

(01:21:40):
and our House with a Big Hit, but he didn't
quite know what to do with them, their rowdy bunch
and they're still going now and probably bigger now they've
ever been. It's extraordinary the success of Madness. And what
about all the other acts you signed, well, all the
acts that I signed, Lana, the Pokes, Shane McGown and

(01:22:00):
the Poles, they're all they all did well. About seventy
of Stiff's signings broke even at least of my money.
Because also the label taught them a culture of not
spending their money, of looking after it, a bit of
being a little bit sensible when it came to the money.

(01:22:21):
We had. Devo, I mean, Devo was great fun We
put out Devo's big records at the time. They were
very funny because they they Jerry Casals was so he's
such a winder, you know, he winge and wine and
which he hated. We put him in a small hotel.
He'd winge, winge, winge. People think that the record industry

(01:22:46):
is not just a job. Here the things that it's
some kind of romance, and you have to say to people, look,
this is how it works. This is what it's about.
The will come a day when did you did you
put your money in the bank? Did you buyers ever house?
And you've got something for it, you know, a pub?
So uh that that was the essence. My mistake, Bob

(01:23:09):
was Ireland before you get thail and I have to
ask you about a couple of these records. One and
I saw the act at the Whiskey. How does Rachel Sweet,
end Up It's stiff. Rachel's Sweet came from a Devo situation.
I was in New York and I played Chris Blackwell

(01:23:31):
Satisfaction by Divo, and he almost exploded. He couldn't believe,
like I couldn't, that they had come up with this
version of this song. I mean, it was extraordinary. I
loved I loved all the rest of their song, but
that was extraordinary. And he said to me, We're in
New York, and I think New York was quite warm.

(01:23:53):
I remember being in a T shirt and he said
to me, so, so what are you doing Nowaday, What's
what's happening. I said, I'm into Akron. I've got to Acron,
Ohio to sign Devo. He said, what he said, I'll
come with you. We we we had a friendship at
that point, you know, such a but we didn't have
a business arrangement. So he and I went to Akron

(01:24:16):
and it was the biggest blizzard in the history of Acron, right,
and we were both in T shirts. We just got
on a plane. He was in sandals. So we we
tied ourselves up in a motel and the bands and
all the the word went out of the Chris Blackwell
and Dave Robinson. Probably Chris Blackwell was in town and

(01:24:37):
all the bands to bogging to this motel. They all came,
none of them great, none of them. A guy called
Lean Sternberg, who wrote Walk like an Egyptian came from
out of the blue. He came and he had various connections,

(01:24:58):
and I got the idea. I got devoted. They wouldn't
sign a deal with me, but they signed the three
singles with me because they were They had Virgin and
Warner Brothers on tap and Jerry Gasels is going to
make a fortune. So I left him to it. I said,
I'll put out your singles and then that will make
him want to have you. Blah blah blah. Blackwell went

(01:25:20):
back to town and Jerry Lee Sternberg brought all these bands,
one of which was Rachel Sweet, Jane eyre various, and
I got the idea of Acron was kind of going downhill.
It had been the tire factory that that it had

(01:25:40):
been a huge place. It also smelt of rubber. It
smelt of really a lot of rubber. So I came
up and maybe maybe in an alcohol driven evening, with
the idea that I would put out an Acron album.
Right of these bands, whatever thing I said this, remember
you get a track by each of them, put it

(01:26:02):
on the album. I want to try out a thing
called scratch and sniff, so we'll put the smell of
rubber that you scratched on on thing. And it gave
you that kind of thing, and that was the essence
of Acron. So I got that idea there, and then
in a blizzard in Akron and we put out with
album and Rachel Sweet came with it. And she was

(01:26:25):
a very interesting little fifteen year old. She was very
her mother had just died and and she but she
was very driven and very very interesting. And I had
this song Baby. I had that song Baby was hanging
around somewhere in my things that we did it with her.
Her father, Dick Sweet, was you know, a nice man

(01:26:49):
bathroom bathroom, salesman bathroom, and the mother had just died,
so he was kind of clinging to his fifteen year
old daughter and her sister who was seventeen, so it
was it was kind of a very odd emotional thing.
I felt for them, but there's nothing I could do.
I'm just running a record company. So we put her

(01:27:11):
on I decided to put her on the next tour.
Um Dick. Dick thought that rock and roll was where
you you sang louder at the microphone. That was that
was That was his essence of things down the road.
After a couple of tours, and she did very well.
She's very articulate. She's now, I believe, a TV producer.

(01:27:32):
She she's got a career in that area. Arma and
at one of the Sony companies really liked Rachel Sweet
and he was hustling me to get a license for America.
And I said, look, Arma, I had now had an

(01:27:55):
experience of Dick Sweet close up for several months and
it was doing right. And he's the father and you came.
He doesn't know what he's doing, but he wants to
be the manager or whatever. She's very nice, Rachel. So
armor I said, Arma, I'll tell you what. Let's do
a deal. You can buy her whole contract. You can
buy the whole contract and um, you know she she

(01:28:20):
wants She and her father want to have an American label.
Stiff doesn't suit them. They're very straight and they want
to be in an America. So you buy the whole
contract forget just America, and so he did. He bought
the contract, and I kept Dick Sweet away from him
untill he un till the check went through the bank.

(01:28:40):
And then I said, Arma, meet the manager Dick Sweet,
and Armor about a year later, said you wanchor, you
complete you. You should be banned from this business for
doing that to me. We still get on. So okay,

(01:29:02):
there's a full story of Rachel Sweet. So tell us
about the mistake of making your deal with Ireland. Chris
Blackwell kept hustling me in the back end of a
D three. We had Madness really good, we had Tracy
Ullman really good. We had the No, we didn't have
the Pops at the time, but we had a good

(01:29:22):
business and I had money in the bank and we
had a good turnover and we were doing very well.
And Blackwell is on the phone saying, why don't you come, Dave.
I'll buy half of your company and you come and
run Ireland. And I said no, No. I genuinely said no, no, Chris,
I don't you know. I don't want to do that.

(01:29:43):
You know, I like things the way they are. We're
doing well. I've got some new stuff for next year.
Uh and uh. So he kept on and on, and
eventually he offered me two million dollars for half of Stiff.
He went by half. We had barious discussions. We also
he said, I'm going to sell Island in three years.

(01:30:05):
Why don't we put the two companies together, one Pop
one pop interesting, one Island traditional with a catalog, and
why don't we get rid of it? And he gave
me a very very big for the sale. I was
going to get a very big override, very big, okay,
but I would work both companies. So I talked to

(01:30:26):
the wife and she said, well, Dave, you know how
long did these things last. It's an opportunity. You may
as well. You're giving away half and you've got the
opportunity of building some more and maybe you can make
a bigger day down the road. So I did it.

(01:30:46):
And the first month I got in there, they had
no money. They were broke. I learned them money A
million dollars. Stiff lent Island to pay its salaries for
two months. So I looked into Ireland completely from beginning

(01:31:07):
to end right, and I found that a it had
a license in America, it hadn't paid any royalties to
the UK company for ages and it had a license
with Atlantic, and it had seventy staff on a license.
The license was not huge, it was decent, but there's

(01:31:27):
no way you run seventy people on a license of
a company whose day is kind of done. You're gonna
have to revitalize. And because it's financially stuck. The people
through the door, Bob usually are artists managers. When when
a new person comes in town, the artist manager come

(01:31:49):
because they want to know if you're going to tour them,
if you're going to support them, if you that's what
normally happens. I had nothing but creditors, right, creditors through
the thing. Say David, you're gonna be able to turn
this around because my bill is really high. And they're
the same people who are manufacturing from me. You know
they're they're similar. I said, no, I think we can.

(01:32:11):
So I was in New York December and I saw
a twelve inch Now Trevor Horne and I had known
each other for a long time, and I was aware
of Frankie Goes to Hollywood because they were quite outrageous.
It's quite outrageous carry on their record, and I said,

(01:32:34):
I became aware that I was watching them and they
stalled in the British chart something like that. But I
was in New York and I saw this twelve inch
that said sex Mix Frankie goes to Hollywood. I thought, oh,
I didn't know about that. That's amazing. So we need

(01:32:55):
to push this band on quickly. They've got a chance.
This record is quite good, actually it's quite extraordinary, but
it's not going anywhere. So I called somebody in New York.
I found out who was the production manager. And I
don't want to start like I'm blowing my trumpet, but
inevitably you kind of do. And I said to him,

(01:33:15):
I need five thousands of those twelve inches across to
the UK in a few days, right, can you can
you deliver? And he said who are you? I don't
know who you are. No, I don't think I can deliver.
Capacity is blah blah blah blah. And they gave me
a load of welly. So I called black Bell. I said,
Black I'm not going to do this job if I
don't get five thousand and those things on on Saturday morning, right,

(01:33:40):
and I want that geezer to fucking deliver to them, right.
So I got them and we spread it out over Christmas,
the sex mix the twelve inch and the record zoomed
from sixty five to thirty two and got on top
of the pops. Now you know, top of the pops
that is, that is where you want to get in
the world. In the UK, we got on top of

(01:34:03):
the pops. The band played with no arts in their trousers.
They wore those kind of chaps, those kind of gay chaps.
That that whatever they got. The guy the BBC freaked
out completely and of course the entire public went miniachel
next thing, it goes to number six, thirty two, number six.

(01:34:28):
I know the guy is saying, I'll never have an
act on top of the pubs forever. Number six. And
that day a guy called Mike Reid, who is the
breakfast DJ on Radio one, biggest radio station in the UK,
plays a little bit of the record, pulls it off
the needle and throws it at the wall. So there's
this big splatter let's splatter whatever. Everyone's going, what's happening

(01:34:53):
because everybody listens to that breakfast show. And then I
get the head of the BBC said, day, were are
we're banning it? I said, how can you? Banny you've
been playing it for three months, not a lot, but enough.
What's the problem, he said, It's all about ejaculation. I said,
I said most of the chart. I could describe ejaculationship

(01:35:16):
most of the chart. What are you talking about? This
is the rock and roll business. I said. The least
you could do is tell the press while you're banning it,
he said, he said, I will. I said, well, I've
got to. I could get a pressure reception for this afternoon.
He said, okay, I'll address them. He told the assembled press.
We had I think seventy eight people in that room,

(01:35:38):
that it was all about ejaculation. We we couldn't press
the record, we couldn't get pressing. And then I found
that you could change the track two or three times,
and and everybody wanted the next version of the ejaculation record.
We sold I don't know, three and a half million
in the UK. It was number one for ever it was.

(01:36:01):
You know, we had the T shirt. Then relax, don't
do it. I mean it was a script you could
not write. And ted beston God bless him. The head
of the BBC was the man who did it all
by himself. So we sorted that out Chris Blackwell now
has got a little cash flow. We're cash flowing right,

(01:36:23):
And the next thing is the Bob Marley record. Chris said,
I'd like you to do a Bob Marley A Greatest Hits, Dave.
We haven't done one before, but I think you're the
right man to do it. And I said, well, yeah,
I I really like Bob Marley. I've got an idea
and how that goes. He said, well, I've got the
cover done and I've got the running order. And I said,

(01:36:46):
well then let's have a look. So he had a
look at I said I wouldn't use that cover and
I wouldn't use that running order. And he said what
do you mean? And I said, well, what's the point
of the of wasting time? That's not the one, okay,
And there's no point in two of us fighting about it.
You do it, you do it. You've got the ideas

(01:37:07):
that you do it. So eventually he agreed. I said,
I'm not going to do it with you. I'm not
gonna do it anybody. I will do it, and I
have an idea that that will work. So the idea
of bottom line was to sell it to the white people.
That's all I said, the man is a genius. The
man has got songs that are unbelievable. But the man

(01:37:29):
is provocative. And all the pictures you've used of them,
he's wearing camouflage clothes, he's wearing military clothes. People in
England and around the world think he doesn't like white people.
He does. But the pictures that you've used to describe
and I wouldn't have it. So that's where we that's

(01:37:50):
where we drew the line, and you know, the rest
is kind of history. So how did it in? That's
alves that that's all of the cash flow. That's alved.
The cash flow I did so TV on YouTube. But
most of Ireland's bands were leaving at that point. Robert
Palmer was going, Stevie Winwood was going because they hadn't
been paid royalty. So hided end with you in Ireland

(01:38:12):
very badly, very badly because the following I put a
lot of effort into Ireland because of the arrangement that
were black Wood and I had ah that isn't what
he thought was going on or his people. He wasn't
going to sell. He now didn't need to sell because
I had recovered the position that he had vacated and

(01:38:37):
now he got He then sold a company, if you
think about it, to David vine At, a PolyGram who
bought A and M and Ireland and paid ridiculous amount
of money. He gave the Black World three and eighty
million or something. You know, it's probably worth fifty at
the time. But we fell out because also his people

(01:39:00):
didn't pay stiff bills. There was a do we were
a partnership, the accounts department all moved into Ireland, everything
every we cut back and did all the things that
people do, and he double cross me. And then what
about didn't you have a contract for your percentage? Yeah,
we had a contract written on a filefax page and

(01:39:21):
we went to court with it and it was going
to cost an awful lot of money. I mean, Blackwell's
lawyer called my lawyer and said, look, Chris has just
sold a company for two and eight nine million, as
Dave got the wherewith all to get into a long
drawn out legal litigation. So we fought a bit of
a draw. I got a bit out of it, but

(01:39:44):
not what was required. And of course the sale of
the companies never took place, and Chris went into the
hotel business. Okay, you leave Ireland in where does that
leave you? It meant that everybody then a wombed that
that Stiff would be hard to keep going. So a

(01:40:05):
lot of people then tried to think about to get
their two hundred dollars or whatever they were owned. And
in England, the way the way that works, it's snowballs.
It's a snowballing situation. So I did a liquidation. I
liquidated the company and sold it to mt T so
that it was sailable, right, But it wasn't ideal. It

(01:40:31):
wasn't something that you would write down as your script whatever. Okay,
you sold it z T T. Was that profitable for you?
Did you finally get a check? No? No, it's profitable
for the some of the creditors they got a small
amount of the company was wound up and they got
a small amount of the owing. No, it wasn't profitable.

(01:40:53):
I was the biggest creditor in the company. No, I
I lost what I put in. I put a lot
into try and of a guy, So what year do
you give the assets? And then what do you do personally? Well?
I worked for Stiff for a while until the until
the Pope single which I signed the Pope, so until

(01:41:14):
the Fairytale in New York, and then I I dropped
out because Jill Sinclair, who is Trevor Horne's wife, I
was unfortunately she was killed. She was chiseling away at
the bits that I had. So I thought, I've had
enough of it for a while. My wife and I
thought we will take a little time off and gone

(01:41:36):
do something fun. So one has occupied your time in
these past years. I put together and I hope to
get that out next year. Gregory Isaac's credits hits called
Icon and that's I think a great record. He wasn't
quite the Bob Marley, but he had some great records,
a great voice. And I look after a small band

(01:41:57):
from a young band from Carlisle and called Hardwick Circus,
and they're doing things, and they're starting to do things,
and we're starting to get somewhere. So I'm still in it.
I'm still doing it. I have a lot of fun
doing it, and I do um you know, various bits
in the industry, and you know, corporate with several projects

(01:42:19):
like the Greatest Hits and things of that nature, which
I'm good at. I have to ask because a long career,
I know this is not what you're in for it.
So with this lead, d did you make enough money
or do you have to work to pay the bills? Oh? No,
I have to work, Bob. Yeah, and you never retire.
It's not you know, what would you do? Paul McCartney
when when I got Brinday Schwartz to be their support

(01:42:42):
band on the Wings tour of the UK. You know,
I did a big three day debrief with Paul at
the back of the coach and I said, so have
you done enough? What are you? What are you going
to do? What's the plan? What he said, Dave, you
never retire because you're as successful as you can be.

(01:43:04):
But what are you? I'm a bass player? What do
you do? I said, well, I'm a kind of a manager.
He said, well, we'll both be doing that until we die. Okay.
Just going back in history one point, how long were
you involved with Graham Parker? Graham Parker from UM nineteen
seventy five to nineteen seventy eight, maybe seventy nine. Okay,

(01:43:28):
So were you involved with him when he signed ultimately
with Arista? Was that after your time? I did the
deal for him and left at that point. Okay, So
Graham Parker. He had the first two albums made an
incredible amount of notice. He blames that our Mercury, which
certainly in America, was a terrible label. Do you think

(01:43:48):
it was just luck of the draw it didn't happen
for him or really in essence, he didn't have it
and it wasn't gonna happen in big time. There was
a great momentum for a Graham. There was a great
momentum uh at the time when he was playing in
New York in the early Palladium period with Bruce Springsteen
in the audience and Steve van zandt. He was at

(01:44:11):
the height of his thing. He was he was ready
to crack it. Mercury were appalling. They had no real interests.
They didn't have any interest in filling it. But that's
and that's his story. They just did not understand what
it took to break a rock act in America. You

(01:44:33):
had to climb on it, You had to climb on
that bus and do it. They had a great guy
and Mike Bone was a radio plugger. He was very good.
But the marketing and the expenditure was it was non existent.
Really it was. It was poor and they had no attitude.
It was very much a jazz label, you know. And
the guys that ran it. I'll tell you an interesting story.

(01:44:56):
There was a guy called There's a guy from barn In. I.
I raised this big time right into polygraph right. I
raised it right up to the top of the cheese right.
And they sent a guy who remained nameless at this
point to Chicago, and they paid my fare to go

(01:45:17):
back to Chicago with him for for me to point
out what had happened, what hadn't happened, what should have happened.
It's a very delicate situation. It happens in managers careers
from time to time when they don't want to they
need to get some action and it needs to be quick.
And they understood that. When we had a lunch, when

(01:45:41):
we had the dinner that evening, we all arrived, he
from Holland, me from whatever. There was a girl, very
pretty girl, introduced to me as the head of regional promotion.
I had never seen her before. I asked Mike Bone
and he kind of his eyes to heaven a little bit.

(01:46:02):
This girl was seated next to my gentleman from Holland,
Mr Holland right, and the following day, the Mr Holland
went back to Holland and I had checked at the
hotel and the girl had been in his room that night,

(01:46:22):
and it was all over. He was moved to Australia
thereafter by PolyGram. Right, and it was all over. And
Barnes said, we've investigated this. Our man says, there's no
one toward you know, it's it's a chancy business, Dave.
And we had a chance, and maybe we didn't. But
Graham had such a such a very keen wave. He

(01:46:45):
had such a keen wave, and he had some very
very good tracks. Right. He had mud Langer, had done
the second album Nicklaud, the first mud Langer, and the
third was Squeezing Out Spark. I mean, people really love.
He had all the ingredients. But unfortunately it's the momentum

(01:47:07):
of the record business is that you seize the opportunities
they come and then they can go and like a
lot of other things. So mercury poisoning is a very
relevant part of why Graham, it turned out, then changed
his mind a little bit. He went off into slightly
different directions. He also went a lot of a lot

(01:47:28):
of groups. And you know this, they they they always
need help and good from the management, and they need
they need people who are objective about them. And the
day you drop the objectivity is silly. The day that
an artist is then asked to be the picker of

(01:47:50):
the singles or the picker of the producer or whatever.
I've never been a big fan with that. At the
same time, I'm not autocratic. I tell the group why
this is the situation, on what could and should happen.
I try and be the artist's friend as well as
their record company, their partner. Most contracts say we are

(01:48:11):
not partners and we never will be. I always said,
I'm your partner. I will try and find the key
to the door. If you support me, I will be
with you. And Graham, unfortunately, was the back end of that.
It's a shame because if you look at some of
the stuff he has done and look at some of

(01:48:31):
those early videos, I mean you're looking at a hit
at a hit act. Also, you know the wave, the
wave moved and the punk kind of started coming up.
Elvis Costello came, Bruce Springsteen started getting him seven gear,
and Mercury denied Graham when he had a chance. Well, Dave,
you're a fount of knowledge, with a lot of great stories.

(01:48:54):
I can listen to them forever. I want to thank
you for taking the time with us today. Good bomb,
but I've read in going to more until next time.
This is bob Blefslin's

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Bob Lefsetz

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