Wednesday, October 05, 2005
NME Heroes - Part Five
Paul Morley
Paul was a Manc, when it wasn't too fashionable to be a Manc in London, and he arrived at NME about the same time as Ian Penman. He spoke at a hundred miles an hour, and was sometimes difficult to understand because of this and his accent.
I first met him when Spandau Ballet broke into the big time. This was mainly because I had been friends with some members of the band before they had changed their name; originally they were called The Makers, then The Gentry, before eventually hitting it big with Spandau Ballet. Tony Hadley worked in Dorset House, a building opposite Kings Reach Tower where the NME ad offices were; Steve Norman worked in the next office to me, on magazines like Yachting Monthly, Popular Gardening, and the like. When The Makers started out, Steve used to ask for a small advert to go into NME on the Live! Ads pages, and we came to an agreement whereby we'd carry it free (if we had space) if he'd put me on the guest list for the gig.
This worked well, and I think we only missed an advert out once that he wanted us to print. I therefore went to see the band play all over London - from Crouch End Church to the Rock Garden in Covent Garden! Anyway, I was in the editorial offices in Carnaby Street one afternoon, and Neil Spencer started talking about Spandau to Morley; he not very politely suggested to Paul that if he wanted to know anything about their past, he should talk to me...Paul therefore came over, notepad in hand, and started to ask me questions about the band - what music they played, how many in the band and what instruments, what songs they wrote, etc? Very strange to think that Mister Morley honed his interview skills on yours truly!
He wrote long, long articles, as did Penman, mainly as they were paid per word.
Wikipedia tells me - Paul left NME in 1983, and since written for a wide number of publications. He was the first presenter of BBC2's The Late Show, and has appeared as a music pundit on a number of other programmes. He was a co-founder, with Trevor Horn, of ZTT Records, and The Art of Noise. He is the author of Words and Music: a history of pop in the shape of a city. The book is an authoritative, scholarly and highly idiosyncratic journey through the history of pop; it seeks to trace the connection between Alvin Lucier's experimental audio recording, "I am sitting in a room" and Kylie Minogue's "Can't get you out of my head". A synthetic Kylie features as the central character of the book. His other books include Ask: The Chatter of Pop (a collection of his music journalism) and Nothing, a biographical book reflecting on his father's suicide and that of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis.
Tony Stewart
Tony held a number of roles during my time at NME; he started as a freelance writer, then he became part of the staff team, then moved upwards through the news desk, to Deputy Editor, until eventually he left to become Editor at Sounds. He left mainly because he'd been overlooked for the NME Editors job I think.
Tony lived fairly locally to me, so when (in about 1983) we had to go up to Kettering the night before our normal train day out (in order to ensure that the work got completed in time) Tony sometimes drove up in his Jaguar, and I went with him (for the ride). We used to chat a lot on these trips, but I didn't ever have the feeling that Tony was a happy man.
He got on well with most other staff, but he did have a temper. It was unusual for Tony to come out drinking at lunchtimes, or evenings, and I think we found out why one night...he couldn't handle his drink!
I'd arranged for a bunch of us to play pool in The Dog and Trumpet one night - it may have been an adverts versus editorial match, I'm not sure, though we did do this occasionally. Anyway, this night had been fun; a whole bunch of beers had been drunk, the match was over, and Tony was now drinking neat vodka for some reason - doubles at that! It was getting on, around 10pm, and I was playing pool against him in a singles game. Tony was a reasonable player who spent regular time at the snooker club in Eltham, where he lived.Snooker and pool are very different games, and though he could cue well, he didn't have the tactical nouse necessary to regularly beat good (I'm ever modest me!) players like me. In this game, I was playing well, and winning, but not taking it too seriously. I was chatting to someone else who was playing on another table between shots, and watching Tony play his shots on our table from a distance. Tony ended up calling me when it was my turn, and though I knew this, I was talking and slow to return to the table. He said something, to which I responded negatively, and next thing I knew he was in my face, standing right in front of me, snarling at me. I couldn't help but notice that he had blue chalk dust on his nose, and smirked - and that probably caused Tony to head butt me. I took a couple of steps back but, fully cognitive, I didn't want him to follow up with anything else so I whacked him on the shoulder, quite hard, with the cue I was holding. I could have smashed it over his head but I just did it as a warning not to try anything more. That set him off, and a couple of other players (not NME staff) jumped in and contained him. They knew me, as I was a pool regular, and could see I was the one being provoked. Tony was escorted out, struggling, but not before I had got angry and gave him a kick in the balls from behind for his trouble.
Amazingly, he rang me the next morning to apologise; I told him it didn't matter and then he said that someone had booted him where it hurts on the way out but he didn't know who that was...I didn't confess!
Tony failed at Sounds, the paper folding in the late 80's. He has since become a travel writer I believe, and writes a couple of pages for the Mirror every now and then with his opinion of somewhere far way.
Steve Lamacq
Steve is another of the former NME gang to have become a successful radio DJ. I remember Steve particularly when he was in the midst of a battle with another writer over who could see the most gigs in a year. The number they were up to was astonishing - literally hundreds, with them sometimes going to three or four a night! They obviously couldn't tell each other where they were each going, as nobody would have made a gain on the other if they did...I never did find out who won, or what the prize was going to be... Consequently, Steve didn't have much time to hang around the pub or visit the typesetter!
Max Bell
I don't really have any stories to tell about Max, except to say I was a little jealous of him and his boy-ish good looks as he seemed to bed all the girls that I fancied. No names...you know who you are!
Once, he did allow me to use his guest list entry at Hammersmith Odeon to see Lou Reed, but it nearly all went wrong. The guy I went with spoke very loudly. When we were standing in the ticket office queue, this guy said (in a voice that everyone else could hear) "So are you going to pretend to be Max Bell then?" I told him to shut up, but just as we got near to the front of the queue, I heard another bloke announce himself as Max Bell to the ticket office guest list holder!There was a lot of faking names went on in those days (it probably still does), and certain peoples names who you could guess would be on lists were frequently usurped by identity fraudsters. I stepped in quickly and said that he wasn't Max, and that Max had said I could have his tickets. Luckily, this guy couldn't prove he knew Max or worked for NME but I could - I got the tickets!
Max currently contributes to Uncut, the Evening Standard and other publications, apparently.
Derek Johnson
Derek was the news editor for the first few years I was at NME. When we went across to Carnaby Street to check the dummy, we had a desk for our use situated in Derek's office. Derek was always on the phone talking to promoters or record companies to see what was going on. He was therefore a very good source of info on what new gig's had been announced or albums were being released before the news actually got into print. Derek definitely didn't fit in with the rest of the crowd at Carnaby Street, being significantly older than everyone else (except maybe Roy Carr?). He was a Palace fan which meant I didn't like him much either, but I did feel sorry for him when he was shunted out the door, seemingly for being uncool!
Paul was a Manc, when it wasn't too fashionable to be a Manc in London, and he arrived at NME about the same time as Ian Penman. He spoke at a hundred miles an hour, and was sometimes difficult to understand because of this and his accent. I first met him when Spandau Ballet broke into the big time. This was mainly because I had been friends with some members of the band before they had changed their name; originally they were called The Makers, then The Gentry, before eventually hitting it big with Spandau Ballet. Tony Hadley worked in Dorset House, a building opposite Kings Reach Tower where the NME ad offices were; Steve Norman worked in the next office to me, on magazines like Yachting Monthly, Popular Gardening, and the like. When The Makers started out, Steve used to ask for a small advert to go into NME on the Live! Ads pages, and we came to an agreement whereby we'd carry it free (if we had space) if he'd put me on the guest list for the gig.
This worked well, and I think we only missed an advert out once that he wanted us to print. I therefore went to see the band play all over London - from Crouch End Church to the Rock Garden in Covent Garden! Anyway, I was in the editorial offices in Carnaby Street one afternoon, and Neil Spencer started talking about Spandau to Morley; he not very politely suggested to Paul that if he wanted to know anything about their past, he should talk to me...Paul therefore came over, notepad in hand, and started to ask me questions about the band - what music they played, how many in the band and what instruments, what songs they wrote, etc? Very strange to think that Mister Morley honed his interview skills on yours truly!He wrote long, long articles, as did Penman, mainly as they were paid per word.
Wikipedia tells me - Paul left NME in 1983, and since written for a wide number of publications. He was the first presenter of BBC2's The Late Show, and has appeared as a music pundit on a number of other programmes. He was a co-founder, with Trevor Horn, of ZTT Records, and The Art of Noise. He is the author of Words and Music: a history of pop in the shape of a city. The book is an authoritative, scholarly and highly idiosyncratic journey through the history of pop; it seeks to trace the connection between Alvin Lucier's experimental audio recording, "I am sitting in a room" and Kylie Minogue's "Can't get you out of my head". A synthetic Kylie features as the central character of the book. His other books include Ask: The Chatter of Pop (a collection of his music journalism) and Nothing, a biographical book reflecting on his father's suicide and that of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis.
Tony Stewart
Tony held a number of roles during my time at NME; he started as a freelance writer, then he became part of the staff team, then moved upwards through the news desk, to Deputy Editor, until eventually he left to become Editor at Sounds. He left mainly because he'd been overlooked for the NME Editors job I think.
Tony lived fairly locally to me, so when (in about 1983) we had to go up to Kettering the night before our normal train day out (in order to ensure that the work got completed in time) Tony sometimes drove up in his Jaguar, and I went with him (for the ride). We used to chat a lot on these trips, but I didn't ever have the feeling that Tony was a happy man.
He got on well with most other staff, but he did have a temper. It was unusual for Tony to come out drinking at lunchtimes, or evenings, and I think we found out why one night...he couldn't handle his drink!
I'd arranged for a bunch of us to play pool in The Dog and Trumpet one night - it may have been an adverts versus editorial match, I'm not sure, though we did do this occasionally. Anyway, this night had been fun; a whole bunch of beers had been drunk, the match was over, and Tony was now drinking neat vodka for some reason - doubles at that! It was getting on, around 10pm, and I was playing pool against him in a singles game. Tony was a reasonable player who spent regular time at the snooker club in Eltham, where he lived.
Snooker and pool are very different games, and though he could cue well, he didn't have the tactical nouse necessary to regularly beat good (I'm ever modest me!) players like me. In this game, I was playing well, and winning, but not taking it too seriously. I was chatting to someone else who was playing on another table between shots, and watching Tony play his shots on our table from a distance. Tony ended up calling me when it was my turn, and though I knew this, I was talking and slow to return to the table. He said something, to which I responded negatively, and next thing I knew he was in my face, standing right in front of me, snarling at me. I couldn't help but notice that he had blue chalk dust on his nose, and smirked - and that probably caused Tony to head butt me. I took a couple of steps back but, fully cognitive, I didn't want him to follow up with anything else so I whacked him on the shoulder, quite hard, with the cue I was holding. I could have smashed it over his head but I just did it as a warning not to try anything more. That set him off, and a couple of other players (not NME staff) jumped in and contained him. They knew me, as I was a pool regular, and could see I was the one being provoked. Tony was escorted out, struggling, but not before I had got angry and gave him a kick in the balls from behind for his trouble.Amazingly, he rang me the next morning to apologise; I told him it didn't matter and then he said that someone had booted him where it hurts on the way out but he didn't know who that was...I didn't confess!
Tony failed at Sounds, the paper folding in the late 80's. He has since become a travel writer I believe, and writes a couple of pages for the Mirror every now and then with his opinion of somewhere far way.
Steve Lamacq
Steve is another of the former NME gang to have become a successful radio DJ. I remember Steve particularly when he was in the midst of a battle with another writer over who could see the most gigs in a year. The number they were up to was astonishing - literally hundreds, with them sometimes going to three or four a night! They obviously couldn't tell each other where they were each going, as nobody would have made a gain on the other if they did...I never did find out who won, or what the prize was going to be... Consequently, Steve didn't have much time to hang around the pub or visit the typesetter!Max Bell
I don't really have any stories to tell about Max, except to say I was a little jealous of him and his boy-ish good looks as he seemed to bed all the girls that I fancied. No names...you know who you are!
Once, he did allow me to use his guest list entry at Hammersmith Odeon to see Lou Reed, but it nearly all went wrong. The guy I went with spoke very loudly. When we were standing in the ticket office queue, this guy said (in a voice that everyone else could hear) "So are you going to pretend to be Max Bell then?" I told him to shut up, but just as we got near to the front of the queue, I heard another bloke announce himself as Max Bell to the ticket office guest list holder!
There was a lot of faking names went on in those days (it probably still does), and certain peoples names who you could guess would be on lists were frequently usurped by identity fraudsters. I stepped in quickly and said that he wasn't Max, and that Max had said I could have his tickets. Luckily, this guy couldn't prove he knew Max or worked for NME but I could - I got the tickets!Max currently contributes to Uncut, the Evening Standard and other publications, apparently.
Derek Johnson
Derek was the news editor for the first few years I was at NME. When we went across to Carnaby Street to check the dummy, we had a desk for our use situated in Derek's office. Derek was always on the phone talking to promoters or record companies to see what was going on. He was therefore a very good source of info on what new gig's had been announced or albums were being released before the news actually got into print.
Derek definitely didn't fit in with the rest of the crowd at Carnaby Street, being significantly older than everyone else (except maybe Roy Carr?). He was a Palace fan which meant I didn't like him much either, but I did feel sorry for him when he was shunted out the door, seemingly for being uncool!
