Adrian Sherwood & Stewart Lee In Conversation

okay good evening I think it's evening now so we're now we're going to do a quick 20 minute ad-hoc session here with a mr. agent Sherwood and mrs. Stewart Lee so well because it's so fast we can't get into the depth of things but well know precisely what you're doing here agent you're going to DJ later on in one of the best in the country and I've in the last five years I've put many records out or did they show it and pinch so I'm gonna I just released paperback volume 7 which after 20 odd year and I've got the best Lee Perry album in about 35 years coming out this what next week called Rainford which is his real name and I've come here to do a little we're gonna you know promote that a bit and I'm doing a two hour by DJ DJ dub set tonight playing unreleased rare and some classic tunes so well you talk about a new Lee scratch Perry record had been the best one 30 years I mean what's it what's difference in it I mean what something more about the records well I've said this a couple of times like it but what happened is I think me doesn't give a lot of himself that the beauty of him is he's mischievous like a naughty kid and then he's also very spiritual and very serious and obviously that spans all his work the first off I heard was when he was doing all the rude records you know early days and then he did the instrumentals remember the cab was for a nutcase yeah all that stuff as well as a kid and by Tom you piece together how brilliant he is I was then getting into is is this all the pre black arc stuff was brilliant and then the black art stops obviously a batch of work to itself but I felt throughout all his work he weren't really giving that much intimacy of him and he's like eighty-three now so what I thought to do is that Rick Ruby did now burn with Johnny Cash right at the end of his life will not end of his life and that stage of his career sorry but it was a great album and I thought if I could get me to do like his autobiography on a tune and then get him to do some you know reveal you know let go a little bit I started off he said come and stay with him in Jamaica cause I would stay it with him his wife and he started off and he said I'm not gonna do what you tell me that's what you hope he'd say you know yeah okay but with them embarks on making a track which is about seven minutes long and it sells it's like his life story about how his father was a freemason his mother was a Neto queen and sir like science or voodoo and how his life was it's a great anywhere the album's are also very song oriented much more than other things and it's a really really great piece of work so I'm here as part of the recent periods I'm promoting that's the first release for a long time and I've got a new album with Horus and II coming later in the year and next year is the 40th anniversary of my label so what would one doing is just to enjoy myself really I come and see my dear friend Mark Stewart you know sorry I think they're just getting ready to play here in 25 minutes yeah these people you meet people interviewing the guy who is mad he did this needed that and people that I've interviewed that people have said are are difficult like Roky Erickson from the thing for elevators almost well I got the idea that they just it was easier for them to behave like that as a way of not having their time wasted or getting ask stupid questions and actually this they were much less difficult if you ask them something they were interested in is that what he's like I mean it was Emily you got some sense you got a working relationship with well with no with him I'd be actually quite honestly I think he thinks if you go in a studio he wants to think you're going to make magic in there you know some people go to work and they like some people could do that with music I were going to work to do we're going to make a tune he will go in there stick things on the wall like candles and everyone's got to believe they're doing some magic I think Brian Eno's quite like a Briton make every one Carmichael but not about work of him but that's the kind of thing he does but he does on a different level and I think every minute of his life he thinks something is supposed to be because time is like a fun so it's great he won't sit still yeah-ha ain't hardly ever sits down so you'll be in a studio with him and he's like even not a kid he's only all the time so he's back strong yeah and though he's a bit of a mad bastard but he's good he's great he's close think he's gonna do something special yeah means you were loud as well do you create environments in the studio is but it's pretty much it's you and you're owning it it's like you know he's a great artist and I'm like facilitating it I'm staring thing got my little way of doing stuff but you do want to make sure everyone feels feels great you know I mean that's a pub break with us we have a little pub break and yeah things for an hour and make sure everyone feels good ever consider everybody but your weed I definitely have modeled my things on that you know that PC force of trying to make you believe you're gonna do something really special maybe like you say a minute ago if 40 years in now if season crazy to me so I'm very young I mean whereas as a years have rolled on to the point right now how much is what you do change you change you get different sort of favorite sounds or or do you sort hold down on sounds that you've realised you got older well I'm always open to hearing a new sound but I've definitely got my favorite things are vintage stuff and it's there's great companies like even sides still making amazing things you can buy cheaply and it's then it's down to anything as to how you use whatever you've got some of the best records ever made have been made on to track or for track mmm it's really down to performance and ideas and making someone that jumps out the speaker's at you know not really the equipment I've definitely got my favorite things I could bore you talking I mean didn't you invent that's some reverse dub sort of delay effect or something was that one of yours now what we know what we used to do was we had a Ritz and rhythms it was slightly out of sync cuz I'd / dub the great style Scott over a previous you were called a drum beat and it's slightly out so to make it sound interesting we turned the multitrack over and then roughly gauged where it was the foot job how it should be and then by adding a reverb and the delays it was all kind of sucking in on itself and you then turned that the mixtape over it's playing forward but the effects are coming backwards and we did that as an album called starship Africa I did that actually that was pre on you did that was bad um it's been about 20 or something I'm 19 I thought but we did that because we was experiment and the engineer introduced me to I can't tell you face won't you try that and that album people still really love that album David Ronnie can hated it really music but she let me show you that is well more times going to be there are two table the table was you could do anything with a studio uses studios in instruments to reshape the sound in any way you wanted well Dennis prevails Izzy for Jimi Hendrix is one of the first dub people you know the use of minimal ization stripping something down and in using effects and stuff that that's what I've done all my life I love it and I've been involved with some of the earliest ever dub records did all the krytus dubs - pretty far I am mmm those other things and then obviously working with people like who's coming up next the great Mark Stewart you know he a lot of like-minded people were listening to this stuff coming from the Jamaican studios and and also listening to people from not that environment and adding those things ourselves for me I did it to try not to sir I didn't want to sound like just a copy of a Jamaican Julian so we took on board you know you mentioned before earlier mentioning Mark Smith you know I did some records with him and I learnt from him about anti production you know no reverb no delay he suddenly got like this wet big water sound then you dry up and then move it around the eq sweeps in effect it's almost in effect as well in it yes that's it's a serious thing if you have some really really no effects and you just got the natural sound and finality of it and then you suddenly sweep it into a big eq and pull it to pieces you know you get some exciting an interesting poem mm-hmm so kind of all those different schools of sound you know from The Cramps or link wray or the for anybody you know mark with the Gera Flynn with the pop group everybody was really really into sound and a lot of people they weren't so much into so noticed oh we're playing our gene gaging rock-and-roll thing and it was secondary to other people like obsessed with the sound yeah but the idea the desk is an instrument yeah so speaking of Mavericks you're here stewards not you personally made maybe you are actually but I'm making a film about Rob Lloyd the nightingales yes so if you expand on that a little bit and also actually it's a crowdfunded film and it's not the right term for it so he actually needs you to contribute the film to get the sodding thing finished though yeah yeah well well aren't we're here because they said we could show our film we're trying to make about 80s post-punk Birmingham survivors the nightingales who played this afternoon and and then loads of other events have got loaded on it so we're I'm interviewing the folk musicians who did the music for the back push TV series in the 70s and they're gonna be plain live and I'm doing a little stand-up set in the morning so I bought I think that's all filled up now but yeah it's great this means we have gonna festivals a long time ago when they'd be more like this are the elephant fair or something where lots of discursive little break off things were happening and everyone had get a different experience depending on which part of the site they were on at whatever time it's really great mmm tell us a bit more about the film itself what story you're trying to tell well I suppose um well Rob Boyd from the nightingale said do you think there should be a film about us and I thought about and I thought what film would that be and I talked to Michael coming the directors also I known him through ages but he turned out to be girls fans so that works out well I suppose it's about a number of things one is how do you keep a cult concern going for four decades when you might get really good reviews in certain kinds of publications but you don't necessarily a household name and there's no money if we made out of it and also partly about how things have changed in that even when I started doing stand-up at the end of the 80s there was a lot more leeway for people to just sort of get by you know you could live more cheaply you could get little temp jobs if you did a gig you got paid in cash or you know and that created a space where people could spend ten years working out what they were doing and I think the debt culture and the cost of housing and everything has crunched that down certainly in comedy it seems like young people if they want to do it they have to hit the ground running with much of an idea of what they're trying to do and perhaps make compromises that we had the luxury of not making because we weren't as pressurised as them you know so it's partly about how that's changed and it's about I suppose it's about the sort of person that that environment created and how they could carry on through their life doing things what it won't be hopefully is I watched loads of rockumentary with my 11-year old when we're thinking about making it to try and work out what I didn't want to do and I said to my son what are all those films like about bands and rock you meant Ares and he said they're just loads of old men talking in rooms and then there's black and white photos of things yeah it's got a not be that so for example this afternoon we did an interview on the roof here with some trees in the background which is already not the kind of thing you see it's color it's got some green stuff in it rather than just the inside of studios and pubs so yeah but also we've been able to it's also become you know in a slightly funny way of film about making a film because with funding it ourselves bit by bit as we go along so he didn't have to deliver a proposal to anyone and certain things have come up in conversation that we were able to follow that we perhaps wouldn't have been able to if we'd had to fulfill a brief that we'd made little stories that Rob remember about things like having a shower with 70s sex comedy star Robin askwith we're now in touch with Robin asked with what we're going to Malta to meet him and that he once got a job replacing Nigel Slater as food critic of GQ somehow and Nigel Slater has agreed to talk to us about that although he says he can't remember it happening there's lots of great little dead ends and also because it's me working with Michael Owen iron rod boy trust we can have a bit of fun with the interviews and I can say things like at this point we'll probably cut to an interview with someone else saying they don't remember this thing you've talked about happening and then we can sort of do that so hopefully it'll be more fun than those things normally are and it will have a kind of critical relationship with itself on some level I mean the idea we've been about very Maverick pounds working on their own terms is that part of the fascination yes yeah I mean they're there they are maverick been working on their own terms and it's interesting to see how that works and it's interesting to see what the fletc join ten years other drummers brought to it in terms of an organizational sense people people like to like to look at a group like that and think oh it's all just come together in in chaos but there's obviously a lot of well what I'd sort of forgotten about was just this I went on the road with him last year and supported them a lot of gigs ting I did stand-up which I didn't think was going to work but it was good actually but just the effort of moving all that gear around when you're not gonna probably break even on the balance of a tour and how you know a flat tire can throw the whole thing out of sync and um and there's a sort of there's a sort of heroism about it that I don't think we know it is so much in Brittany attached it more to American bands than you the idea that they're on the road going down the highway it also is very romantic what's going on the a40 somewhere hasn't got the same sort of the same sort of you know luster to but that is a thing that is happening that that heroic romantic story is happening everywhere still all the time and it's not like a maverick spirit that you can identify with well you person all the people you work with this this kind of willful there's a vision and you don't deviate whatever you ask the vision is the most porn thing well I think with you know some of the greatest artists have you know like you saying that they're not necessarily the most successful artists but there still doesn't mean they're not brilliant or whatever just somehow summing captures the imagination of the public and clicks in and they're like party zillion multi zillionaires and they're like a bit crap a lot you know this and then somebody else works for donkey's years on there they're practicing every day and and they've got the people who love them it's like my god tuxedos spirit soul yeah yeah but then they're playing a pub to thirty people in the middle of nowhere I've been driven for hundreds of miles so imagine like me you know yeah yeah yeah no stitch - we did all right you know you do music or entertainment or art or whatever least you've got better life than a lot of other people haven't but I need to be doing I've like they're loved you love that band you know you love them you know surely callings and your music man you know there's like you don't mean you know I work with some of the people I know it's so sad well you see lots of them and they're genius and they're like suffering because they there's not so many gigs like they used to be I remember when the DJ's come on the disco who killed the musicians you know yeah and it's never kind of recovered in a way you know it's easy to put Madonna miming on stage or some rubbish like that then you know and are performing band yeah yeah I mean do you find you work you work in isolation cual or don't you uh you probably only have any idea where this stuff's actually gonna go you're just making it you just get engaged by the sounds that you make in and fascinated by them well may I've been lucky because I make records for most to lose myself or with people that I really like I don't have and I've only ever done jobs to make money to prop up what I wanted to do so I'm a bit fortunate but I see other people who you know literally they can't make an album every year then one every few years you know great example mark Stuart marks a brilliant songwriter because knocking out about every every year so don't follow that you're gonna make a living easily by not not being hit or oriented no yeah he saw the industries geared she's supposed to be whatever for me I'd flex about doing a few different things but you know what while the few different things he do now well I've run what's loosely called a business with a record label but that's not that's a different matter I do production remix sing and I go and do live shows I do like tonight I'm doing a DJ little dub set from 11:00 to 1:00 in the morning if anyone's got any energy left and I can mix bands life and they do quite yeah I guess it's different verse like different versions to say you think you know yeah that love that music in it yeah I kept myself very lucky and I'm blessed so I don't just like you saying your mate you know the running up and down the country they're brilliant band and and and the people who love and love them they love people who've just possibly would just play their music and wanted to other things they love hmm and there's somebody else who's like to be honest with you on a talent scale from here to here they're down here but this one down here it's captured the imagination of people that suddenly zoom like done really well it's like my god how did that happen yeah no it's cool yeah so what well so with the film now way about halfway through filming it I think so pretty about two-thirds unless some other mad stories come up well which one finish it for documentary festivals in the autumn and yeah we just basically try and do little events to fund the next hiring of a camera crew for two days so get a bit from tomorrow morning for the stand-up with the end to it then we're doing a screening in London of a documentary Michael made about when he works on Chris Morris's brass eye and use the money from that to get the camera crew for the next little two-day session so yeah and fire have been records been really good at helping out on it so um yeah it's been really good not having to it's really good not having to be answerable to anyone basically if people want to contribute it's you guys King rock yes no fee and there's a there's a calm there's a yeah you know I think you I think you get your name and mention in the credits at the end or something not in the film yeah maybe keep a little extra he gets right way discuss yeah yeah that's that's all roll in the head and I mean it's good at the end the end seems inside now I know it's been really good you know what is your fascination with some light Rob you know you like all those kind of bands if it kind of quirky well you're on the ground I suppose um I suppose one of the things that gets you first as a kid is the lyrics which are there this interesting mix of sort of mundane things and surreal things they Sam what they use phrases from everyday life but in quite a quirky way often it'll take you four decades to work out what they're about and then you go oh yeah great and then I like the fact that it was set against this you know endlessly inventive music it's a traditional rock sort of setup but it'd be going in all different place if you soared myself to noon they'd run all the songs together see never knew quite where you were very exciting but you know I do like I do like people with a singular sort of a singular sort of vision and also weird thing that's happened in our lifetime there's a lot of people don't find it necessary to stop there seemed to be a sort of feeling that you had to make it by a particular point but I think the Internet's allowed people to keep in contact with their audiences and grow new ones and say you you end up liking bands for 40 years now she's gonna keep on Janis for life not quite exact the best seem to be really prolific and have not died which is expensive that's interesting by about nine girls are actually at the peak now are they would yeah there's the old rules and music and the best yes fourteenth sort of 43 years in a space yeah they sort of working out - yeah yeah no I always think this thing is well but the kind of comment you do the way the way you do it is very parallel to those kind of bands as well special night girls like you know I mean I'm I was sort of made by the John Peel show you know and and so that that informs your sensibility in the 80s formed the the music inform the politics of it it informs the quirky sense of humor Eve even a lot of you know it's hard for people to imagine now but if you were if you interested him what was called alternative comedy in the early 80s and he didn't live in London you weren't really going to see it anywhere I used to see comics supporting bands you know I saw said Cypriots an opening for the Fall Peter Richardson from the comic strip opening for Dexys and Phill Jupitus one east we call porky the poet opening for the Syd Presley experience a thing in the early 80s and then and then but Peel used to play sort of sessions of people you know you know he had a set he put Eric Bogosian on american sauce performance art stand-up did a peel session ted Chivington did a peel session and this stuff you know it wasn't on telly and he weren't gonna see it live if you were a 14 year old school boy not in London so that that sensibility sort of formed it and a lot of those acts had relationships with musicians as well you know and they were so I mean with them but although funnily enough it didn't always work out I mean I I saw Peter Richardson doing this Mexican bandit character opening for Dexys and I thought it was brilliant and yeah from the comic strip yeah and it was it was really great and it yeah it ended up being in fiscal Travelers Cheques that Karen once who said I I saw that and it was brilliant it really set me on the way to being a stander me went really silly went down so badly I never did it again [Laughter] yeah but it wasn't it kind of that was they were onto anyway that I'm doing yeah he died recently actually yeah the other would be a rich and she wrote yeah yeah it's some yeah seed sort of it was really like the you know late night radio wanna suppose we winning when it you to be when it was a bush Telegraph you know and there wasn't really other ways of finding out about stuff but Socrates had he was meant to be here yeah one day boy he's not gonna she's very sad outs that's the best way to maintain I couldn't imagine him coin and sin it's not his thing is it's do this no you know it's the same time of books if somebody hasn't said that 100 fight if I imagined him it's not like he had to come very fast nanami lives literally on the next train stop I mean it's so perfect this idea that what you're doing is a parallel in a sense right in the middle of a yeah I mean I think with said chipping I saw said to me to stand up opening for the for when I was about 15 I never see anything like it he's uh you know he could tell you himself he was here but he um he came out and he he wore a sort of Teddy Boy outfit he didn't really have any material he told the same joke about five times which was I was walking down this road the other day float came up to me and he said something and I said something else that just over over again like how far is it to the railway station five miles five miles yeah roughly speaking rubbish rubish jugs have made the audience really angry or in hysterics and the thing I got off it was what you get off a lot of Maverick artists it wasn't that I wanted to do that but I thought ah you could do anything you know stand-up doesn't have to be been out it doesn't have to be burnt if Manning it can be it could be a man saying the same thing over again with minimal variation it could be it could be someone who's performing looking as if they don't even want to be there and that's made it face it wasn't you exactly copied and I think that was that was the thing you get off people like that it's not necessarily that you want to do that thing but that you means you can do your own thing does anyone get off a lot of seeing you know that's why I get a lot of inspiration for stand-up off music because it's seeing people go down particular blind alleys or you know and and see where it takes them hmm yeah we even with even bothering about getting a laughing yes in fact for teddy who's actually trying not to get the laugh yeah but that made it funny even funnier on it so we're so when Sally scratch Perry album out it's out next week next week yeah we've got some advance copies of it's awesome here yeah yeah is that so will they be on sale they're all there but the record shop yeah okay yeah yeah well it drift intend along with the horizonte' when such Laura sandy I'm playing loaded but plates tonight all unreleased rare James Lee Perry Horus everything and that's finished now I'm hoping to I'd like to see it released this year but I've got to try and sort it all out to get it and some people even though it exists because now our problem is promoting anything John Peel you mentioned a great man if it worked for him I would never got study played my first ever production on the show and off you go it not only did have a great ear but he's also the place you everyone had to go to for whatever style means they liked so you would get turned on towards all this stuff by listened to his show as well yeah he was very much his own man he like he's a very wide tasting stuff gave everybody sessions and you know I've got a great deal to thank John Peel for as I've countless other people from mmm and nowadays the problem you got is is so much you're bombarded with stuff all the time from everywhere and to get noticed it's probably just you know but maybe even like it's harder now than it was in those days what was very competitive you know to get gigs or yeah so guess the theme of this little mini chats a celebration of the Maverick and then yeah we celebrate new so renew celebrated nightingales celebrating John Peel and about five minutes will celebrate the spirit of the pop group so thanks my guess [Applause]

Channel: Sea Change Presents

Views: 15,274

Rating: 4.908257 out of 5

Keywords: Adrian Sherwood, On-U Sound, Stewart Lee, King Rocker, The Nightingales, John Robb, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Rainford, Robert Lloyd, High Cross House

Id: y-JN-JiwDvk

Length: 28min 24sec (1704 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 13 2019