The Burning Up Times - Strangled.co.uk

Burning Up Times Issue 3
13.8.77
shit in the seventies. All of a sudden Punk
came along and to be involved in it was a
privilege. I just thank my lucky stars that I
knew these people and more importantly,
saw them play. For me, it was more about
the music. That was what I was there for.
People like Johnny Thunders – you’d see
him play one good gig in ten, and it was
worth it to see that one. Fantastic. The
Stranglers were always of the highest
standard. I never saw them play a bad
gig. It was always an event when The
Stranglers were around.
In your book, you reconvene with Hugh,
Rat Scabies and John Rotten. How was
the Jungle celebrity Sex Pistol?
Seeing John again after twenty-eight
years. Wow. I went over to his house in
Marina del Ray. It was hard work trying
to get hold of him for the book because
he doesn’t use the Internet at all. So I
got a fax number for Rambo, who’s a
kind of manager from Finsbury Park but
who lives in the US. Rambo responded
to my fax request and rang me. It turned
out we knew the same people, the same
streets from years back and that’s how I
got the interview. I went over and spent
the whole day with John mainly in a sushi
bar overlooking the Pacifi c, with John in
his shorts knocking ‘em back, he didn’t
eat much. We both got absolutely ratarsed
on saki and John smoked fags like
a kipper. Then he took me back to his
house which was Mae West’s old place
. It was kinda weird and it’s haunted
by Mae West’s ghost apparently. John’s
got the house next door as well. Mae
West bought it for Rudolph Valentino
who she fell in love with. But it was
unrequited love because he was gay. So
her wailing ghost roams the place. It was
a memorable day.
What about Hugh? Had he changed a lot
through the three decades you knew him?
The last time I met him was around ’89-
’90 when I sold a pop mag I’d started
– Pop Shop – to Robert Maxwell. At the
time I had to go over to Maxwell’s as
editor and while I was there, CBS asked
me if I’d write a press release for The
Stranglers, which involved interviewing
them all individually. I met Hugh, who
I’d not seen for a while, in a Greek
restaurant in Camden Town, and I
remember thinking this wasn’t the Hugh
I remembered. This was just before Hugh
left the band. You could see he wasn’t
quite right. He was circumspect and
suspicious and even aggressive at times I
was saying; ‘Come on Hugh, what’s this all
about? We’re mates.’ And he was saying:
‘Why are you asking me that?’
Did you see his fi nal Stranglers gig?
I did. I was there at Ally Pally. It was
strange, wasn’t it? A very odd gig.
It was. I was there at the front. Eye
contact was minimal. They were doing
their own thing, no interaction. I turned
to my girlfriend at the time, my wife now,
and said that’s a band about to split up.
That probably was the worst gig I saw The
Stranglers play. But it still wasn’t bad.
You missed the 30th anniversary gig at
The Roundhouse?
Did they play The Roundhouse? Ah, I
missed that!
They dug out the November ‘77 set list.
But midi software Gremlins forced the
band to restart the gig eight songs already
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