The Burning Up Times - Strangled.co.uk

Burning Up Times Issue 3
notoriety. Alas, The Clash are out of the
loop. Mick Jones and Paul Simonon are
diminished without the late Joe Strummer,
as he was without them, and that’s the
biggest tragedy of all. So I say get your
ya ya’s out lads and do the right thing.
You’ll all make fortunes but, better still,
you’ll put smiles on the faces of those
who adored you. With every year that
passes you’re denying them the magic
that coursed through that Brixton Pistols
gig from beginning to end. In the face of
dwindling record sales, live and dangerous
is what it’s all about. It’s going back to the
roots, the ones in your soul and not on
your head. With the odd exception, pop
music as a vibrant, pertinent force is dead
on its feet, its cutting edge blunted by the
excessive eighties, Spice Girl nineties and
the I-pod overkill of the new millennium.
It’s duty now is to massage the memory, to
be a chute for all the shit we’ve managed
to collect over the last thirty years. To be
live, just to prove we’re not dead. On the
packed tube home I overheard a guy say to
his mate. ‘I was really choked they didn’t
sing Who Killed Bambi.’ Like the song
says that introduced the Sex Pistols to
Brixton – They’ll always be an England.
Nowadays I have a cruise magazine
which I started about eight years ago,
travelling all over the world reviewing
cruise ships. Nice.
All the bands loved RM because it was
poppy, and they all regarded themselves
as pop bands. If you talk to John Lydon
now, he’d tell you it was all about having a
good time and being in a pop band. They
used to laugh themselves silly at some of
the pomp and circumstance stuff that was
written about them at the time. There
were some journos I really respected. Tony
Parsons I really got on well with – I went
on my fi rst trip abroad with him to see
Nazareth in ’76 in Hamburg. Him and
Julie Burchill handled themselves very well
on NME. I was also a big fan of Charles
Shaar Murray as a writer. I went with
him to see The Clash in Paris which was
the fi rst time I’d really been on the road
with them. Caroline Coon, was there as
well and she was like this aristocrat in the
corner. They were such different people
to me and I guess I had this underlying
inferiority complex. When I left RM
to go into PR with Alan Edwards I felt
uncomfortable. Although I loved working
with Alan I missed being a journalist. It
was the writing side I missed more than
anything. Being in PR, you couldn’t enjoy
gigs anymore because there were things
you had to do, people you had to deal
with and I couldn’t appreciate the music.
Suddenly it was all about the business
end. And I didn’t like dealing with the
journalists at all. When I got back into
journalism I ended up writing the pop
columns for the Daily Record and The
Star and had my own Saturday music
column in the old London Evening News.
Punk was dead but I travelled the world
interviewing stars from Springsteen to
McCartney. They were heady times. Might
be a book in it! At this time Malcolm
McLaren asked me to ghost write his
autobiography which involved McLaren
spilling the beans to me about everyone
and everything round my fl at nearly three
nights a week for two months. It was
his Bow Wow Wow phase and he was a
man on a mission. For him, time had to
be respected, wined and dined and then
taken from behind. You had to master it,
to ride it like a rodeo star and never, ever
fall off. It was all a question of timing.
Get that right and manipulation will
invariably follow. Sadly, due to contractual
complications, the book still hasn’t seen
the light of day. But it’s pretty explosive
stuff. I eventually went into publishing and
started up Flexipop magazine in 1980. We
used to have an exclusive track recorded
on a fl exi disc on the cover of each issue
and had bands from Genesis to The Jam.
I remember organising an interview
with Hugh and JJ for the mag. While we
were waiting for them, I had this idea of
a picture for the cover with the two of
them covered in carnations. So I went to
a nearby fl orist off Tottenham Court Road
to see if I could just borrow them, but they
wouldn’t have it. I ended up buying loads
of these fl owers but Hugh and JJ were
three hours late. There was no time for the
interview and the carnations were wilting.
But somewhere out there are pictures of
them lying on the fl oor in a sea of red
carnations.
Was ‘77 and Punk a tough act to follow?
It was the best year of my life. Oh dear,
does that sound too sad for words…?
My head was crammed with
Barry’s infectious enthusiasm
for music and love for The
Stranglers. But at this point, the interview
endeth. For it came to pass Barry had kids
waiting for him at a school, and I had
the North Circular to circumnavigate. As
I photographed Barry between Muswell
Hill’s shoppers, I offered him a lift. As
we approached his base, he suggested I
park up for a second outside while he ran
inside. I made a mental note of thanking
him for doing the interview. Half a minute
on, Barry emerged from his porch holding
a copy of ‘77 Sulphate Strip – he beat me
to it: he signed it as well. ‘To Gary, Thanks
for a great interview. Barry Cain.’
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