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Rod Goodway
interview
- September 2009 -
Right after doing interviews with Nick Saloman (The
Bevis Frond), Adrian Shaw (The Bevis Frond, ex-Magic Muscle,
ex-Hawkwind etc.) and Bari Watts (Outskirts of Infinity) back in
2003, I had the idea of also interviewing “Rustic” Rod
Goodway since he’s been very much associated with these
aforementioned musicians and has done lots of stuff with them
(especially so with Ade). Somehow due to lack of time and energy
(and maybe brain cells...) I forgot about this, and I never
achieved to make it happen. I’ve been harassing Rod for many
years to put our some new stuff by his solo project/band Ethereal
Counterbalance, since even though he has done loads of excellent
music besides EC, I have always thought that this project had a
special, mystical and psychedelic charm of its own. I was very
excited when he told me that he will release an album with his old
pal Adrian Shaw, and I must say that I was not disappointed when I
finally got the Oxygen Thieves album. Review of this psychedelic
gem will appear on the Psychotropic Zone site a.s.a.p. This new
release also gave me a good reason to make the long overdue
interview, so here we go...
How did you first get interested in music? Your
early influences & first instrument?
I grew up in a tiny village (with not even a pub or
a church) here in Wiltshire, England, and yet my parents decided to
open a little post office there with a shop selling groceries. We
didn’t own a television set until I was about 8 years old,
but we had an old 78 rpm gramophone and a stack of records which
included old ‘cowboy’ songs by Jimmy Rogers and Montana
Slim (‘The Yodelling Cowboy’ :-) and a handful of jazz
and blues records. (Jazz & Blues? “Drop That Sack”
by Louis Armstrong was a mixture of both!!) There was also a piano
and a radio, particularly Radio Luxemburg, where I first heard
ELVIS and the other new sounds coming from the USA. I had a few
piano lessons when I was very young, but the teacher insisted on
classical music and I was more interested in what was called
‘boogie-woogie’ music at the time. I actually stuck
drawing pins in all the piano keys in order to get a harder
‘honky-tonk’ sound. This did not please the piano
teacher at all so I gave up the lessons but continued to experiment
on piano and had my first guitar given to me when I was about
eleven years old, even though this was when I first got completely
blown away by a piano and sax-led ‘rock n roll’
explosion called “Keep a’Knockin’ But You
Can’t Come In” by someone simply known as LITTLE
RICHARD, which was purchased as a 78 rpm record!! The wild,
outrageous, primitive and completely out-of-control energy of this
record gets me off to this day. But I also loved the rockin’
pop of Buddy Holly, the gorgeous & spooky harmonies of the
Everly Brothers, the wild and wonderful Eddie Cochran and, of
course, ELVIS. Later, I really got into HOWLING WOLF, particularly
when featuring the great Hubert Sumlin on guitar, and OTIS SPANN,
Muddy Waters, all those guys, but I had to Import those early blues
EP’s myself via a specialist in nearby Swindon. You
couldn’t just buy it in the shops because some of it
wasn’t even released over here, and some retailers around
here just refused to stock them anyway. It was expensive but so
exciting. I even bought (by accident) a jazz record by the late
Jimmy Giuffre, which I fell in love with. (And I have loved all his
mid-period stuff ever since.) Jazz with no drums? Some of it is
very ‘out there’. I thought West Coast jazz of the late
1950’s was so cool. Late night coffee and cigarettes music.
That sound transposed itself nicely later on to the Dave Brubeck
Quartet’s massive hit “Take 5” ,but (much as I
like that quartet and “Take 5”) I think Jimmy Guiffre
was the king of late-night cool. Of course this was all (for me)
way BEFORE The Beatles, Stones, Pretty Things, Animals, Kinks, Who,
etc. etc. I fell for The BEATLES when I was at college. The word of
mouth gossip alone about them was phenomenal. Yet (when it was
finally released) I didn’t think much of their debut
“Love Me Do”. Except maybe for the Middle-8, it
didn’t live up to all the whispered hype I had been hearing.
It may not be considered cool to admit it these days but everything
thereafter DID live up to all the hype and was just amazing and
part of being alive back then (1962 onwards) was to have, as well
as everything else, a soundtrack to your ‘life’ by The
BEATLES. For many years they became the artistic model against
which everything else was judged.
How did you learn to play guitar? Have you ever
taken any lessons?
I just learned everything by ‘ear’ so I
was completely self-taught on guitar, like most people I suspect.
And I also taught myself ‘blues harp’ (or harmonica)
and bought my second guitar in January 1963. But soon after that I
discovered some young lads who could really play so I didn’t
use my old box so much. (This trend has continued on and off for
over 40 years now. :-) Seriously, I have known some truly amazing
guitarists in my time. Still do.
Please tell us something about your first bands. How
was it to play gigs at that time in the early 60’s?
My boyhood neighbor-pal Pat Murphy and I began a
duo, singing harmony songs by Buddy Holly and The Everly Brothers
in 1962 and into early 1963. We did a few informal gigs ( just Rod
& Pat ), the local Youth Club being our first big show. :-) But
we wanted to play harder stuff and so cast around for like-minded
people to help us out. There was another duo in the nearby town of
Calne who played electric guitars only, mainly music by The
VENTURES, The SHADOWS, the truly spine-chilling LINK WRAY, and
other such solely instrumental guitar groups. The Rhythm guitarist
was named ROGER HARTLEY (who later played on a 7” single with
us) and the Lead guitarist was named Andy Rickell, who later
changed his name to ANDROID FUNNEL and played in J.P. SUNSHINE,
WHITE RABBIT, The CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN and RUSTIC HINGE.
They had never played LIVE and so Pat Murphy and I were regarded
with some respect (I think) when we asked them to join us, with Pat
playing drums and me taking on the role of lead vocalist, harmonica
player, tambourine and maraca shaker and general ‘front
man’.
We originally had a Bass player called Michael
Andrew who we called ‘Goldfish’ for some (forgotten)
reason... But his father was in the RAF and he had to move away so
we took on another great Bass player named KEV TINSON. We called
this ‘Beat Group’ ROD & THE SCEPTRES and soon got
bookings in local Youth clubs and village hall ‘hops’
for miles around, playing Chuck Berry rock n roll and lots of blues
and Bo Diddley, Link Wray, etc. We were only about 16 years old in
1963 and already playing every week, which could even mean 3 gigs
in one week due to all the Youth Clubs, Village Halls, Town Halls,
etc., and we worked the circuit, such as it was, really hard (
playing 4 or 5 hours of music per night), but just after I passed
my Driving Test (about a week after my 17th birthday) I
was driving a car full of VOX AC30 amplifiers home after a gig when
I skidded into a tree. (This could actually be considered
‘good luck’ because if I hadn’t hit the tree I
would have plunged over a 130 foot ravine. :-) Anyway, this put me
in hospital, unconscious and with severe lacerations and a
dislocated hip. (I even had to have a blood transfusion which may
have led to the serious health problems I suffered later in life.)
But I received SACKS of mail from our fans (all the little gals
thought I was going to die), which just goes to show you how
popular the music scene was back then. All this without a record
deal and very little publicity. Just lots of gigs. But in a matter
of weeks I was back onstage (on crutches, with a stuffed parrot on
one shoulder) fronting the same band’s but now re-vamped and
calling ourselves THE PACK.
One night we were approached by a guy named BRIAN
GREGG, who claimed to be the bass player of JOHNNY KIDD & THE
PIRATES (a much-respected British rock band) and who also counted
The TORNADOS, BILLY FURY’s BLUE FLAMES, and many others as
bands he had previously played with. He also claimed to be a friend
of Recording Mogul MICKIE MOST and said he reckoned we were good
enough to get a record deal! This all proved to be absolutely true
and within a year we had recorded the British
‘cover-version’ of The LOVIN’ SPOONFUL’s
“Do You Believe In Magic”, entered the Top 30 Hit
Parade and were appearing on TV + National (and Pirate) radio and
sharing stages with legends like Dusty Springfield and many others
of that magical musical year, 1965. Our Booking Manager was
‘Big’ PETER GRANT, (later to personally manage LED
ZEPPLIN) so the next couple of years is just a blur’s But by
1967 I had split the group and had moved to London to work in
WESSEX Sound Studio for Les Reed & Barry Mason, signed to The
ALAN CADDY ORCHESTRA and making a living as a Session singer.
Within the next year I would join the dying embers of The ARTWOODS
on the road, fulfilling ‘outstanding’ engagements as
The SAINT VALENTINES DAY MASSACRE, (due to Art Wood himself having
quit the band).
I would also compose the music for and sing/play
the J.P.SUNSHINE album and spend time with the lovely LINDA LEWIS
in WHITE RABBIT with my old pal Android, along with future HIGH
TIDE bassist PETE PAVLI, and future BLODWN PIG drummer RON BERG,
serving a residency at The Papa Gayo in St Tropez and backing
Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band at MIDDLE EARTH... among
other adventures. A very busy and fun-filled time. :-)
I guess you first met with Adrian Shaw around 1967
when you started J.P. Sunshine together. What was Ade like back
then and has he changed during the years?
In the later part of 1967, I was living just off
the Edgware Road in an apartment at Hyde Park Mansions in London
when I was visited by a guy named JORJ DUFFEL (who was a friend of
a friend) who had poetry which he wanted putting to music. I sat
down with my guitar and played some chords to one of his poems and
he immediately invited me to one of his regular
‘groovy’ soirees at his apartment in ST. MARY’S
MANSIONS...which was where I first met my lifelong friends, ADRIAN
SHAW and his partner Maureen (who is still married to Ade after all
these years), so two lifetime friendships were formed. Two
wonderful people. Neither have changed for the worse, simply
becoming nicer & better people as the years go by. (And they
were pretty darned beautiful to start with.)
Ade was playing acoustic guitar at the time, and so
we had two guitars and LOTS of bongo players. :-) Before we got
down to composing the songs and any kind of recording sessions
there was lots and lots of stoned jamming, which probably went on
for several weekly visits. Importantly, we got together to listen
to the latest music (much of it from the USA), get very high and
generally tune-in. We listened to Beefheart’s “Safe As
Milk”, The United States of America and Sopwith Camel for the
first time. Plus The Doors, LOVE, all the many, many new
sounds.
JORJ began recording the sessions on an old
reel-to-reel tape recorder and, in time, the song structures began
coming together and so I introduced a couple of my friends,
including PETE BILES (who would later play congas in MAGIC MUSCLE)
and, more importantly for the album that was to come, ANDROID
FUNNEL who brought an electric guitar along for the first time.
This introduced a whole new feel to the songs and also better
arrangements too. He wrote all the music to the song “Dark
Star” (not The Dead’s version, of course) and played
many riffs over my basic chords, bringing a fresh sound to the
songs and, because another guitar wasn’t really necessary
(but a BASS guitar most certainly was) ADE bought his first Bass
guitar.
It’s important to note that Ade was playing
his first ever Bass guitar efforts on those J P SUNSHINE sessions
and, perhaps even more importantly, it should be noted that he
couldn’t really HEAR what he was playing at all, as he
wasn’t amplified. Just plugged directly into the tape
machine!
That was the time of flower power and psychedelia,
how did the hippie ideology, drugs etc. affect you as a person?
If it wasn’t for those times, (the
‘hippie ideology’ if you will) I really don’t
think any of it would have come together. Both Android and myself
were technically ‘professional musicians’ at the time
yet threw ourselves into the project in the ‘spirit of the
age’. There was never any question of financial reward for
any of us. Also, we were all from different social backgrounds and,
in any other time, I don’t see us getting together as we did.
Oddly, we never considered ourselves to be ‘hippies’
either (that was an invention of the mass media) although we maybe
thought of ourselves as ‘heads’ or simply
‘freeks’. There was definitely a real feeling of social
change even before L.S.D. came along, but acid really was the Crown
of all that Creation. The substance that divided the posers from
the REAL ‘freeks’. It all reinforced my beliefs and
opened me up to all sorts of new horizons too. The key words were
FREEDOM and LOVE.
What was it like to live in London in the late
60’s?
Back in 1965 my group The PACK had been taken to
Carnaby Street and kitted out with ‘groovy apparel’ by
Lord John; and I guess the ‘hipster’ side of
‘Swinging London’ was locked into that whole Carnaby
Street vibe. Not ‘hippies’ back then (not here in the
UK) but very ‘hip’ anyway. We smoked dope but still
enjoyed a beer. Part Beatnik (jazz, poetry) part Rocker (and all
that stood for) combined with early DYLAN and the groundbreaking
Folkadelic guitar experiments of DAVEY GRAHAM. Anyway, The PACK in
Carnaby Street were advised on fashion by Mickey Most’s
brother, insisting that ‘bell-bottom’ jeans (as
previously only worn by Sailors) were going to be the next big
thing’s which we laughed at and refused to be decked-out in
them, but of course he was correct. Within a couple of years
everyone was wearing ‘flares’. But it all went
well-beyond mere fashion. The feeling of ‘optimism’ was
everywhere, it seemed, and was quite overwhelming for many people
(such as myself ) and yet so many others didn’t seem to
‘feel’ it at all and carried on ‘as
normal’. Not just the older generation either. A lot of young
people, even old friends of mine, just didn’t seem to feel
what I was feeling. After taking in WILSON PICKET at an all-nighter
at The Flamingo club in London (after a PACK gig in 1965) and
attending strange jazz/blues sets by Georgie Fame and Alan Price at
The Marquee club, and early British appearances from TIM ROSE &
other visiting Americans, my own music veered wildly between Blues,
Rock, Folk and Soul.
I had already been experiencing other LIVE blues
bands for some time, such as The YARDBIRDS, JOHN MAYALL’S
BLUES BREAKERS, and even The BAND OF JOY (with Robert Plant &
John Bonham) as well as early wild sets by The KINKS. Between 1966
and early ’67 I had watched and listened spellbound (at the
nearby Bath Pavillion, here in the West Country) to LIVE
band’s such as the PINK FLOYD, The BYRDS, CANNED HEAT, and
The JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE (in my old diary, on February
20th 1967 I wrote : “Hendrix – the best LIVE
performance I have ever seen”, and that probably still stands
today), plus an almost endless list of emerging talent.
In early 1967 I just couldn’t stay away from
London. Although I was visiting regularly to do session work, I
just HAD to live there. I had wanted to move there the year before
but my band had too many outstanding engagements. But by 1967 I
just could not stay away. Like a moth to a flame. Most of the
people who felt this ‘vibe’ seemed to converge on
London. Without any kind of media hype, it was the epicenter of
some kind of new age. What was it like? Like a dream come true. It
was heaven, man. In the right places the “LOVE” really
was everywhere !!!
In 1968, at Middle Earth, when CAPTAIN BEEFHEART
came up to WHITE RABBIT after our set to tell us he really liked us
and noticed that PETE PAVLI was walking around barefoot, he was
genuinely concerned that Pete might catch some infection and gave
him a 5 Pound note out of his own pocket to buy shoes with
(“not dope”, said the good Captain,“don’t
just spend it on dope. Buy some new shoes”) which was a
genuine outpouring of concern for his fellow man, and a perfect
example of the genuine love & care we all felt for one another.
(Of course, Pete spent it on dope, haha. :-)
What were your favourite bands in the late
60’s/early 70’s? How about now?
There were so many favourite bands. Just about
everything we heard became a favourite. In the Spring of 1968 (in
St.Tropez) I heard The Beatles ‘Sgt Pepper’ on
headphones and in STEREO for the first time!! Although I am sick of
that LP now ( from over-playing it), the production was just like a
miracle back then. But yes, we loved The Beatles of course, and The
STONES, (who Adrian and I went to see at the Hyde Park free concert
and were blown away by King Crimson instead :-) and all the UK
madcaps of the time. Adrian & I (along with our lady friends)
also experienced the ‘LIVE in The Park’ free concerts
by BLIND FAITH, etc., FAMILY etc. (including FLEETWOOD MAC),
TRAFFIC, and the very trippy PINK FLOYD ‘happening‘
where JETHRO TULL were amazing!! We also all went to the Royal
Albert Hall together to catch the last concert by CREAM. But we
really began getting turned on in a big way to West Coast American
bands, and USA bands generally. Apart from DONOVAN’s ‘A
Gift From A Flower To A Garden’ (which I had a massive crush
on) the American ‘loose jam’ approach of ‘After
Bathing At Baxters’ by JEFFERSON AIRPLANE combined with the
tight but crazed ‘Safe As Milk’ (especially the track
‘Electricity’) by CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & The Magic
Band was just right across the musical spectrum. LOVE’s
“Forever Changes” and “Electric Music for the
Mind & Body” by COUNTRY JOE & THE FISH etc. The new
Roundhouse venue for Middle Earth included LOVE, JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
and The DOORS. If you want an online Radio URL these days, you are
often asked to choose the ‘style’ of music you require.
Well, if we had listened to just ‘rock’ or
‘folk’ or ‘jazz’/whatever back then, how
limited we would have been. EVERYTHING was up for inspection and
re-interpretation, and we tried to listen to it ALL!! I received a
payment that I wasn’t expecting in late 1969/early 1970 and
went out and bought the Captain’s ‘Strictly
Personal’, Crosby Stills & Nash (debut LP), The
Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’, Jefferson Airplane’s
“Bless It’s Pointed Little Head” &
Tyrannosaurus Rex ‘Electric Warrior’. How diverse is
THAT ?!! It wasn’t long after that before we were really
getting into The GRATEFUL DEAD too. We liked the thought of The
Dead, Beefheart & Hendrix (or at least those particular sounds)
all in the same band. A bit of a blueprint for Magic Muscle.
:-)
Since then we have discovered many other bands from
back then which we knew nothing of at the time, as well as
thousands of NEW bands. Too many to list. I currently like WHITE
HILLS, CALIFONE, TITAN, The GREEN PAJAMAS, ARBOURETUM, far too many
to even remember let alone begin to actually list. I like
Classical, Folk, Jazz, Drone, even flat-out commercial POP stuff.
It just depends on my mood.
I think your band Magic Muscle first played with
Hawkwind at Glastonbury in 1971. What was it like?
I had actually been at the FIRST Glastonbury Fayre
in 1970, along with my old chum KEITH CHRISTMAS, who played with a
line-up including MARC BOLAN, Al Stewart, Ian Anderson,
Quintessence, Stackridge, Amazing Blondel and Sam Apple Pie. The
SECOND Glastonbury experience (the first to feature a Pyramid
stage) was a much bigger affair but wasn’t the first time
MAGIC MUSCLE played with HAWKWIND, not at all. We were kindred
spirits at that time and played several gigs and festivals with
them. Their management (Clearwater) was the same as our old friends
HIGH TIDE and we had lots of pals in common. They had visited us at
our Commune in Bristol and we were all good buddies, although my
closest relationships were with Lemmy (I still own a guitar he gave
me), DikMik and ‘dancing queen’ Stacia. (After Adrian
and I had left the RUSTIC HINGE farmhouse studio’s in Dorset
in 1970, which had included our old pal ANDROID FUNNEL and DRACHEN
THEAKER from the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, we set up base at 49,
Cotham Road in Bristol and began MAGIC MUSCLE, which carried on
until 1973.)
The Hawkwind connection resulted in a LOT of gigs
which included a Glastonbury Town Hall party in early 1971, which
had 3 bands: HAWKWIND, The PINK FAIRIES & MAGIC MUSCLE. (The
Party featured a huge hash cake with icing that included LSD
microdots!!)
The Glastonbury Festival itself was held over that
same (1971) Summer Solstice and all 3 bands appeared, although our
entire commune and friends chose to set up ‘camp’ on
the hillside overlooking the main Pyramid stage plugged into a
generator, where we played (between Main Stage acts) on and off for
3 days whenever we felt like it.
After that you played a lot with Hawkwind, Pink
Fairies etc. during the early 70’s. I’m sure the
readers would love to hear some juicy stories from that
period...
HAWKWIND, The PINK FAIRIES & MAGIC MUSCLE
played the 1972 WINDSOR free festival (and others) as The MAGIC
PINK WIND, due to the limited number of band members from all 3
camps capable of actually playing, the remainder having been made
incapable of playing by massive psychedelic drug abuse :-). I have
old gig listings showing Magic Muscle supporting Hawkwind all over
England and Scotland during 1971 and 1972, especially after their
“Silver Machine” hit record, when the venues got much
larger and the entire “Space Ritual” took off into the
stratosphere.
The police raided our dressing rooms regularly
(usually because they thought WE were Hawkwind) and one ploy was to
leave our stash & water pipe (inside a big polythene bag) in
the toilet system. After the police had hassled us and
strip-searched us to their satisfaction, we (usually Adrian) would
politely ask them for a bit of time alone for us to ‘get
ourselves together’ before going onstage. They seemed to
think this was a reasonable enough request & would kindly
leave, after which we would fish out the water pipe, load it up,
and get completely stoked before going onstage to play our usual
tripped-out set!!
Our drug diet at most gigs (and we did a lot)
consisted of half a tab of acid and a blast (or 3) on our infamous
water pipe, The Boschburger. This sounds like some kind of
‘drug-addled boast’ but I swear it’s true. Ade
& I would often fancy a hit of speed as well, “to keep it
all together, man“, but this was frowned on by the rest of
the crew, who (apart from LSD) were more into the organic –
only scene, (a similar policy existed in the Hawkwind camp) but we
managed various ways of smuggling some form of ‘upper’
into our systems, mainly because we had reel-to-reel
tape-recordings of most of our gigs and the BEST gigs (when we had
played at our peak) was when Ade and I had been speeding!! Of
course, only Ade and I usually knew this, due to the secrecy. But
if Ade and I didn’t ‘drive’ the band it just
seemed to ‘noodle’ and fizzle-out. At one gig, we even
bought an asthma inhaler (because it contained amphetamine) and
chewed the drug-soaked cotton wool within, just to get a hit. It
tasted absolutely foul, but it worked!
We were also loosely affiliated with the West Coast
Chapter of the Hells’ Angels (as they were then called) and
played for them, particularly at one huge ‘meet’ or
‘run’ attended by ‘Angels from all over the
country. The stories are just too wild and numerous to mention but
we lived completely outside the law and did just about everything
you ever dreamed of doing but never dared try. :-)
What were you up to in the 80’s?
During the mid-to late 1970’s (after MAGIC
MUSCLE) I joined a band called ALEHOUSE (1973 – ’75)
which featured DAVE GREGORY prior to him joining XTC. After Dave
left we re-named the band BUZZARD before I was hit by a car in
Finchley High Road whilst visiting Adrian & Maureen Shaw. I was
told not to sing for at least 6 months as a cracked rib was likely
to puncture a lung!! I then joined The THIRD EAR BAND for a short
time (in 1977) and then a band called The SCRATCH BAND and another
called The GENERAL which took me up until about 1982. After that I
joined STEVE LINES (of STORMCLOUDS) and PAUL RICKETTS (of Unhinged
Magazine) in a recording only project called THE TRYP, which was
released by ALAN DUFFY on the ACID TAPES label in 1984. The TRYP
also featured SIMON HOUSE and my good lady, Christine Cotter, with
whom I formed The JELLYMONSTERS for another Acid Tapes release,
“Two True Believers”, an album which also features
ADRIAN SHAW on Bass (on 2 tracks) and SIMON HOUSE (on 2 tracks) as
well as the original STORMCLOUDS duo of LOUISE ALLEN and STEVE
LINES. I also produced and played on the first STORMCLOUDS album
“It’s Raining Still”, until both bands joined
forces and went on the road (supporting a band named Red Jasper) as
JELLYCLOUDS.
This was all around 1985/’86, until Steve
Lines formed another band called THE DOCTORS POND (which I sang and
played guitar for) in order to play a form of mutant swamp/rock.
Around this time I also began recording something very
‘different’ in a solo capacity, songs which would later
be released on NICK SALOMAN’S label, WORONZOW, as ETHEREAL
COUNTERBALANCE.
But everything was put on hold in late-1987 by the
intention of 5 HOURS BACK (a subsidiary of the ZIPPO RECORDS label)
to release a retrospective MAGIC MUSCLE LP, which (due to
‘Muscle legend) had to be called “The Pipe, The Roar
& The Grid”. I worked really hard on making this a truly
collectable release. I asked COLIN HILL to write the sleeve notes.
A wonderful writer and collector of all things West Coast, (English
and American) Colin once took his future wife, Val, to see a LIVE
band in Plymouth, in 1972. And that band, the first they ever
experienced together, turned out to be none-other than MAGIC
MUSCLE!! He did a wonderful job on the sleeve notes, along with the
photos from my personal archive. In 1987 I drove to Bristol and met
up with Magic Muscle’s original drummer and artist, KENNY
WHEELER, who agreed to paint a special sleeve for “The Pipe,
The Roar & The Grid”.
I personally took all the master tapes, some of
which had been recently given to me by Thos, the man who bought
Magic Muscle’s gig wagon (The Muscle Bus) and provided the
reel-to-reel and tapes originally, along to London and they were
Mastered at the famous ‘Porkies’ mastering service (A
Porky Prime Cut , no less) And so it was released, and I suggested
that the old band get back together again to promote it. The chief
at the record label (Pete ‘the man’ Flanagan) suggested
that we could record the last date of any tour that could be
arranged. Adrian was gigging with his mate Canadian Dave under the
name The VOX Brothers, so he was well played in. Original
‘Muscle lead guitarist HUW GOWER flew in from New York, and
TWINK (of the original Pink Fairies, Pretty Things and Tomorrow)
agreed to drum for us. SIMON HOUSE also volunteered, so we did a
short tour, and recorded the last gig at MOLES studio & LIVE
music venue in Bath. This Tour and album was called “One
Hundred Miles Below”, recorded in 1988 and released on vinyl
only here in the UK (on One Big Guitar) and on LP and CD in the USA
(on Skyclad) in 1989. Unfortunately, we had no way of affording any
kind of promotional tour for this one. Even though Ade & I were
available, Simon was back working with Hawkwind and Twink was off
doing his own thing. Huw Gower was back in the USA and it all
looked a bit of a dead end for Magic Muscle.
When did you first meet Nick Salomon? How was it to
play in The Bevis Frond live band in the late 80’s/early
90’s?
Around 1988 I had become friends with PHIL McMULLEN
who lives nearby and who had been writing for BUCKETFUL OF BRAINS
magazine but had recently launched his new magazine PTOLEMAIC
TERRASCOPE. And the man helping him do it was NICK SALOMAN. I was
as smitten with Nick’s debut BEVIS FROND album as Phil was.
And in 1989 the follow-ups were getting more and more promising.
The WORONZOW label was in full bloom and Nick had just Produced
FERN HILL. One night there was a knock on my door and who should it
be but Nick himself. (He had been visiting Phil and Phil had given
him directions over to my place, after giving me a phone call.)
Later that same year Ade & I were offered a slot for MAGIC
MUSCLE on the HAWKWIND 20th Anniversary All-Dayer. There were only
minor expenses involved (more or less a free gig) but we were keen
to do it, and there were a couple of other free gigs available
around the same time. By this time I had insisted that Nick and Ade
should get together because I knew they would hit it off. (Proves I
was right too. :-) We were all together one night and said
“How the hell can we do these gigs?” and Nick said
“I could do them!!”
Now the reason we hadn’t even thought to ask
Nick was because (at that time) he suffered from ‘stage
fright’ of quite legendary proportions and it was generally
thought he’d probably never gig again. So we were taken aback
but delighted and, along with Nick’s old drummer mate from
Room 13, MARTIN CROWLEY we played our MAGIC MUSCLE slot at the
HAWKWIND 20th Anniversary All-Dayer at Brixton Academy. This, plus
a couple of other low-key gigs (one being at Club Dog in London on
my birthday) and that was that. Until Nick started getting offers
to play elsewhere, which he was a bit nervous about, so we were
flown over to play a gig in Grevenbroich in Germany as The MAGIC
BEVIS MUSCLE FROND. Haha. Also, on New Year’s Eve 1989 the
same line-up played to a packed house at the Fulham Greyhound. This
obviously gave Nick the onstage confidence he needed to book a full
European tour by The BEVIS FROND in 1990. I don’t think I was
exactly necessary for this tour, but Nick kindly asked me anyway,
and I wasn’t about to say “no”. We all had a
great time! There are a couple of ‘documents’ of the
1990 line up in the form of the “Earsong” lp (one side
was recorded LIVE at Faelled Parken in Copenhagen) and a rather
poorly recorded bootleg of part of the Grevenbroich gig, called
“Deathtrip”; but there are tapes of these gigs, one of
the favourites being a gig in BACKNANG. Great fun. That entire tour
was a real laugh.
What did you want to achieve with your band Ethereal
Counterbalance? Can you tell us something about the recordings with
this band?
Initially, Ethereal Counterbalance was just me (as
heard on a self-released CD-R called “Holy Smoke” on my
Uncle Glitch label) but it wasn’t called Ethereal
Counterbalance just yet. Nick Saloman decided to release these
songs on his Woronzow label in 1990 (on vinyl LP only) and instead
of ‘by RUSTIC ROD’, he suggested a band name: ETHEREAL
COUNTERBALANCE. He added piano, drums and sitar himself so it
sounded more like a full band effort, but the actual song tracks
were already recorded on tapes (with me singing and playing
everything), which were then copied onto master tape in Goldust
Studio’s. Nick played along to them LIVE in the studio and
made it into a ‘cult’, haha. There were fake band
member names on there and everything. He introduced me once on the
1990 European Tour as “King of the Ethereal Counterbalance
“, before the album had even been released. I just cracked
up. (The only one there who knew what he was on about.) I was still
making occasional LIVE ‘guest’ appearances with The
Bevis Frond, singing “Radio Bloodbeast” (a version of
which can be heard on the “Earsong” disc) when BARI
WATTS & RIC GUNTHER were in the band, but after we cut the
“GULP” album by MAGIC MUSCLE in early 1991, which
included Ade, myself, Nick, Simon House and Steve Broughton (of The
Edgar Broughton Band) I decided to try and put a LIVE version of
ETHEREAL COUNTERBALANCE together. It consisted of PHIL SMITH (from
SCRATCH BAND days, currently fronting his own band called HEADSMITH
these days), plus drummer DAN TILBURY, and (also from The Scratch
Band and The Generals) TONY ORCHARD on bass. We did our first LIVE
gig supporting The BEVIS FROND at The Standard venue in London. By
the time we played our next gig (in Margate) we had STEVE CHEW on
bass, but otherwise this line-up stayed together for quite a while,
playing the EARTH RITUAL Festival in Belgium in 1994, where the
second ETHEREAL C’ album, “Mellifluous
Confluence” was released. The wonderful Michael Demmler of
the SG label drove all the way from Germany to make it a special
promotional album release. This was mainly me again on this album
(especially on the vinyl LP), but with a lot of back-up and support
from PHIL SMITH, who played bass, drums and some keyboards as well
as recording it in his BIG FISH Studio. The entire band plays on
the 2 bonus tracks that came with the CD format. (All released on
the September Gurls label.) But, as with the first album, the basic
tracks were recorded by me at home, converted onto reel-to-reel in
the studio, where all the other stuff was added. Another half-album
was completed in this way which appeared (again on September Gurls)
as a ‘split’ lp with The SMELL OF INCENSE. The
remainder of that album (to this day) remains with Phil Smith, and
I guess we may get around to mastering it one of these days. It was
around this time that I got very ill and was diagnosed with
Hepatitis B and C. I had apparently been carrying this around since
1973 (or maybe since 1964?) and was told it was ‘beyond
treatment’. The whole issue of a liver transplant was
discussed and I, basically, thought I was dying. (So did my
Doctor.) It certainly felt like I wasn’t due to stay much
longer in this world. Terrible times. It was actually Adrian and
Nick who persuaded me gently back onstage in 1997, when we did an
impromptu jam at Terrastock 3 in London. The resulting blow was
called “Desert Sands” (based on an old Magic Muscle
number) and it appears on the Woronzow ACID JAM 2 double-CD. This
began a little ritual of Ade, Nick, Paul Simmons and whoever else
was traveling with The Frond ‘backing’ me onstage as
ETHEREAL COUNTERBALANCE as I free-formed various fancy mixtures of
poetic cozmic wisdom and utter nonsense. We played
Terrastock’s in Seattle and Boston and did a Woronzow
“Summer Pudding” line-up of ‘underground
all-stars’ at The Standard in London with KEITH CHRISTMAS,
NICK SALOMAN, JOHN PERRY (The Only Ones), HARRY SUMNALL (The Lazily
Spun, etc. ), PAUL SIMMONS (The Bevis Frond, Alchemysts, etc.) PETE
PAVLI (High Tide, etc. etc. etc.) BRENDAN QUINN (Abunai, etc.),
myself, and of course, ADRIAN SHAW.
There has been a lull in LIVE performances of late.
The last time I did a full, LIVE freak-out was at a soiree of COLIN
HILL’s in 2005 with an impromptu line-up hastily named
ETHEREAL MUSCLE with HUW GOWER and BARRY ‘The Fish’
MELTON (on joint lead guitars), myself on guitar and vocals,
VANESSA WILLIAMS on bass and STEVE CARHART on drums; with a guest
appearance from drummer CHRIS PANK of Cornish blues/psych band The
Backdoor Men. (This was another of the occasional UNCLE GLITCH
limited CD-R releases, called “Sleight Returns - LIVE at
Hilly Fields”, reviewed favourably by The Psychotropic Zone
at the time I recall? :-) Apart from an impromptu appearance with
The BEVIS FROND in 2006 I have not performed onstage since.
I’ve been waiting for a new Ethereal
Counterbalance album for years now. Is there going to be a new
album one day?
I have some music in the can which can only be
described as ETHEREAL COUNTERBALANCE music, but there are others
involved too and it is unfinished and therefore all a bit
‘under wraps‘ at the moment but, yes, there WILL be
another album. I even have the front sleeve ready, already painted
by Phil McMullen’s son Tom. But as long as Adrian and I are
writing and recording fresh music and song, it isn’t likely I
will have the time to oversee a release. What we create together is
exciting and jolly good fun but very time-consuming work,
especially when combined with my Mail Order Business. So, until
demand warrants it, Ethereal Counterbalance remains under
wraps.
You have a brand new album out with your old pal
Adrian Shaw called Oxygen Thieves. Please tell us how it happened,
and why you’re not playing any guitar on it?
Adrian and Maureen left London behind them just a
few years ago and went to live in the countryside. I was visiting
them in their rural retreat in late April, 2008, and the night
before I was due to leave (on May the 1st) Ade was playing me some
music he had been working on in his studio. Just one number with
drums, bass, guitars & keyboards, (all done by Ade), sounding
really punchy, but Ade said he didn’t have any vocals in mind
for it. Being fairly stoned at the time I said “I know
exactly what I could sing with that”, so Ade (also suitably
high) said “go on then” and we immediately set to work.
Within the hour it was all done except for the hand-claps. And THAT
was just the start of what has since become ‘Oxygen
Thieves’. We do a lot of work online, and I visit
occasionally to do the particularly tricky vocals that I
can’t do at home. But the music is so good that I feel no
need to intervene other than with words & song. If it aint
broke, don’t fix it !! I suggest the occasional
‘musical’ idea but they are too few to mention. Ade
says he knows his limitations (though I’m damned if I can see
what they are :-) but I guess this is why we have guitar
solo’s by his son AARON SHAW and the fabulous BARI WATTS on
there as well as Ade’s mighty Axe. But, overall, I am so
pleased with what we have created; and we have already recorded a
further 18 songs since ‘Oxygen Thieves’ was ‘put
to bed’ in March 2009. So, a full-length follow-up album and
more besides, is just waiting...if anyone is interested. Ade and I
always promised ourselves we would do this if we lived long enough.
Thus it is like some kind of ‘lifetime achievement’ for
us to be able to do this. Having said that, I don’t think
either of us are ‘surprised’. It just HAD to happen one
day. And now HERE IT IS !! It just depends how much interest and
support we get from ‘record buyers’ because
‘Oxygen Thieves’ is only available in the LP and CD
formats. We will have to get significant sales and airplay to
warrant the ‘follow-up’, which (if it never happens)
would be a shame because the amount of unreleased NEW music we
currently have recorded is certainly as good (if not better) than
‘Oxygen Thieves’ and contains some of the best music
either of us has ever recorded.
When did you start your music mail order business?
Can you support yourself on that? Have you ever done any
“proper” work besides music?
The Rustic Rod’s Mail Order emporium began in
1988, just selling MAGIC MUSCLE cassette tapes, badges, and then
LP’s. It was basically ‘Magic Muscle Mail Order’
for a while, but the business name was Rustic Rod’s. Yes, I
was able to support myself, although my sweetheart of 30 years,
Christine, has worked for me as well as working her own job and I
couldn’t have done it without her. Then I began selling loads
of CD’s, leasing master tapes to record companies
(“Laughs & Thrills” by Magic Muscle being one of
them) and eventually starting my own Record Label ‘UNCLE
GLITCH, whose first release was, what else, the J.P. SUNSHINE LP.
Hey, I think we have come full circle now. :-)
Oh, ‘proper work’ you asked me? I guess
people don’t count working a stage 4 hours per night, 7
nights a week and all night on Saturday as work, huh? Yes,I have
driven vans for a living several times when the going got tough,
but only for very short periods of time; and not since about 1974.
I have worked myself into a state of nervous collapse several
times, but only making music. Working the road is a very hard life
and I do NOT miss the constant gigging. But I could live in a
studio, man. Make music every day. And just doing the occasional
LIVE appearance is nice.
Can you tell us something about your future
plans?
When you get to my age you don’t plan too far
ahead, but I hope Ade and I can carry on recording regardless of
what else comes our way. Ade is very much ‘in demand‘
as a musician and is currently playing LIVE with The HAWKLORDS and
I don’t reckon The Bevis Frond will remain quiet for too long
either. (I hope not. Nick is a great songwriter.) And I have those
‘mystery’ Ethereal tracks to release. Man, they are
REALLY weird.
I don’t really think of myself as a
‘musician’, maybe a little bit of a musical magician. I
love the magic of words and the power of music. Together they can
melt you.
Anything else to add?
Just thank you for your interest and support.
It’s been a blast !!
I want to thank Rodster fromthe bottom of my heart
for these VERY informative and interesting answers. Please buy the
new Oxygen Thieves album by Adrian Shaw and Rod Goodway, so that
these old freaks can carry on doing what they do the best... Making
great music to blow some minds! You can order it directly from Rod,
or any good psych mail order outlet. I won’t put the Rod
Goodway discography here, but you can find that and LOADS of other
information and some free downloads plus of course the very
reasonably priced Rustic Rod’s Mail Order at his web
site:
www.achingcellar.co.uk
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