Charlie Watts

One of the really interesting things about living in London is the seemingly endless potential it offers for running into or sighting famous people, some of whom are even interesting. When I first moved here, it seemed like I saw Bob Geldof every month or so, no matter where I went. I remember being surprised at seeing Tracy Emin a few years back walking down the street in The City (London's financial district), smiling about something. She'd probably just been to see her accountant. While I was hanging around waiting for the start of the Spatial AKA gig at the Barbican in November, I looked up to see Gary Oldman standing two feet in front of me, scanning the room for the people he was meant to be meeting. And then there was my up close and personal encounter with Sting.

However, the best by far occurred last summer. It was a nice day and I was walking to a meeting with one of my colleagues, to whom I'll henceforth refer to as "X." We were walking down Bond Street, just approaching the really swank run of jewellery shops. Looking ahead up the pavement 100 feet or so, I caught sight of a small figure in a powder blue blazer, his face mostly obscured by the pedestrians oscillating between us. I could just make out a spiky bit of white hair and one cheekbone. The cheekbone was pretty much the only thing I needed to identify the great Charlie Watts, who had apparently just emerged from spending some not inconsiderable amount of money with a purveyor of fine jewellery, who was now standing next to him chatting while Charlie waited for a car to collect him.

Seeing Charlie in itself was enough, but the anecdote that follows made it better. As we approached him, I whispered to X, "That's Charlie Watts." He seemed not to take note until we had passed Charlie and were 100 feet or so further along. Suddenly he stopped me and asked, "Who did you say that was?" "Charlie Watts." "Really?"

X then proceeded back up the pavement, but by this time Charlie was in his car and rolling away. "That was Charlie Watts?" "Yes." "Who's Charlie Watts?" Exasperated, I replied, "He's the drummer in the f*cking Rolling Stones." "I met Keith Richards once," replied X. "Really?" said I, incredulously. X then told me that in a previous job, he had been in a coffee shop in Noho with some colleagues, when in walked a very drunk Keith Richards, who gravitated towards them, and a short conversation ensued. At some point, someone took a photo, which X said he still had back at the office.

I interjected at one point that it would have been funny if X had claimed to Keith Richards at the time that he thought he was Ronnie Wood. After our meeting, X went off to a lunch appointment, and I went back to the office. Back at my desk, I told my colleagues about seeing Charlie Watts. They asked if X had shared his Rolling Stones close encounter anecdote with me. "Yes," I replied, "he told me about meeting Keith Richards." Almost in chorus, they shouted, "Keith Richards? Is that what he said? Keith Richards? It was Ronnie Wood!" They then produced the photographic evidence, and sure enough, it was Ronnie Wood.

West Memphis Underground

Thanks to friend and master drummer Bob Fordyce for this gem. The late, and indescribably great, Jim Dickinson deconstructs the Memphis sound in under three minutes. And to think Memphians typically laugh about West Memphis...

Captain Memphis meets The Klitz

This gem turned up on Facebook last week, and it was the first time I had seen it, though I knew about its existence. Here we find Jim Dickinson, in the guise of "Captain Memphis," recording The Klitz, "sister band" of Panther Burns and The Scruffs (Dave Branyan is name-checked at one point) at Phillips Recording in Memphis in 1979. I never saw The Klitz play, which may be something of a blessing, and I have never heard any of the recordings from these sessions, which still remain unreleased as far as I know. The scenes at the pre-restoration Orpheum, including J.D. playing "Green Onions" on the organ as a Phantom-esque character, are priceless. Producer/director Charlie Raiteri was a local TV news reporter who had the vision to document what must have been a very threatening and strange local music underground in such a conservative town. In retrospect, it all seems so tame, but in 1979 this was serious bidness.

Missing

Tonight I'm missing a show at the Levitt Shell in Overton Park, Memphis, originally scheduled as a Big Star performance, but now re-purposed as a tribute to Alex Chilton. Of course I'm missing it, because I live 4,400 miles out of town, just beyond the dying gasp of Memphis' relentless eastward urban sprawl. Last night, I missed what by all accounts was a great show by my friend and occasional co-conspirator, Linda Heck, with whom I have just recently done some recording, both from London and in Memphis. This remarkable video sort of connects the two, at least in my mind.

Here we see Alex, joined by the late Jim Dickinson and Lee Baker, along with Sid Selvidge, Marcia Hare, a bass player I don't recognize, and an unseen drummer (presumably Richard Rosebrough) recording sections for "Like Flies on Sherbert," in either 1978 or 1979. This was a record I listened to with fascination for a long time, and while reviewers at the time struggled to know what to make of it, in retrospect, I think it's an important missing link on the road to the "lo-fi devolution." It's also an awful lot of fun.

If I understand it correctly, the story is that Alex managed to con some free studio time by claiming that technical problems had impeded his production of the Cramps' "Songs the Lord Taught Us," though this may be apocryphal.

This is a fascinating document to me, both of the people and of the recording process at the time. My recent Urashima Taro-like re-entry to the recording studio was an eye-opener, and this video reminds us how painful and challenging the process used to be. Witness Sid Selvidge trying with great difficulty to punch a single phrase into the beginning of "No More the Moon Shines on Lorena," and you get a sense of how difficult things were. Obviously, working within these constraints also prompted more innovative thinking, but damn, some easy things really seem unnecessarily hard in retrospective.

The songs are, "My Rival," "No More the Moon Shines on Lorena," and "Boogie Shoes." A longer version of this once existed on Vimeo, which also included more of "My Rival," "Bangkok," "Baby Doll," and "Rock Hard." Chaotic and all over too soon. Rest in peace, Alex.