Chiswick Part 3

How did you come to sign up Johnny Moped. He seems slightly off his trolley. Any memories ?

Moped was and probably still is eccentric to the point of being legendary. Live the band were one of the great punk acts and certainly further out on the edge than any of the others. I got to know them via Capt. before we were involved in the Damned. He brought them to our attention.

The conventional punk influences were New York Dolls, Stooges, 60s garage and pop etc, but Capt and various members of the Mopeds were big fans of the early Soft Machine. At one point they used to stalk them from gig to gig. Hence the Mopeds had this wild highly musical thing about them. Slimy Toad was a superb guitar player, and I think like many of the punks he was a musician whose vehicle was punk rock. He once met the jazz guitarist Alan Holdsworth in a guitar shop and invited him to play at a Moped gig. Alan duly turned up with a few beers or six on board in the punk spirit – gamey lad – and was amazed at how fast and intricate the Moped’s music was. He had real difficulty keeping up with them. Still in attitude and energy they were pure punk rock.

Getting Johnny to the studio could be a nightmare. At one stage the band resorted to kidnapping him form his work. To be honest he was not that unwilling. Captain was amazing with him – like a big brother always on the look out for him. He eventually married a fellow eccentric – Brenda. The first gig she turned up at was the Marquee. She plonked a chair down in the middle of the club and to watch the band. Eventually she was surrounded by pogoing punks who kept knocking her off the chair – but she defiantly got up put the chair back upright and sat down, only to be knocked down again.

Johnny was just electric on stage – one of the best performers we ever had. I remember him turning up at a Damned gig one night in Hemmel and he got up and did a couple of numbers with the band, finally dueting with Dave on New Rose – spectacular stuff.

Rat and I had birthdays only a few days apart, so round the time of my 30^th he arranged a big party in the back garden of his mum and dad’s place – big house – big back garden – Plan 9 video and outdoor parts of the Smash It Up were shot there. Anyway he hired the local heavy metal band as entertainment, but that didn’t last long and I have vivid memories of Capt and the Mopeds blasting through a set of Damned and Moped favorites.

Little Queenie still cracks me up.

Same question about, Motorhead, Johnny and Self Abusers, Radiators and 101ers.

Motorhead: Lemmy had an acetate of the album that they had made with Dave Edmunds and that UA had decided not to release. He played it for Ted and then came over to the Soho market stall and played it to me. Ted and I agreed that UA were right. Eventually the word was that they were breaking up, but going to do one last gig in the Marquee. At first we were going to record them live and then got cold feet on that one – what if they had an off night – that sort of thing. So we plumped for a single. We booked them into a studio that Genesis used for 2 days to do the single. At the end of the 2 days Lemmy rang Ted to say that they had almost finished the album and could they have a couple more days. Of course it dragged on and eventually took weeks to do and cost more money than we had. We managed to bust the tapes out of the last studio and get the record out before the pressure to pay the bills got too big. We put the single out first, and I think that it was the first rock 12". It did OK, but we just couldn’t afford to hang on to them so they went to Bronze. Later on of course we cut the MotorDamned single – Ballroom Blitz came out on the flip of Can’t Be Happy and Over The Top eventually surfaced on the Lost Weekend LP.

Johnny & The Self Abusers: This came through the post from a journalist friend in Scotland Brian Hogg. We just liked the record so much that Ted lost the first tape, so they sent us another. We pre-sold it on the strength of the name – everyone thought it was great. At the last minute the manager rang up and said that they had changed their name, but Ted said – sorry too late the labels are printed. This was maybe not completely accurate, but we were determined not to blow the good pre sales. In fact the band had split into the Cuban Heels and Simple Minds. The latter’s demos arrived and were pretty good – sounded a bit like the Sweet if I remember correctly.

Radiators (From Space): This came via Eamon Carr of Horslips who I had worked for briefly in the early 70s in Ireland. I went to Dublin and cut TV Screen (left) in a very funky studio, brought it back and mixed it over here and it still sounds great. The rest of the album was done in the same way, though I have never really been happy with the mix. If you want Radiator’s stories – Phil Chevron’s yer man for that. They eventually came over and settled here and toured a lot. Because of Ted’s connection they even opened for Thin Lizzy at one point. The 2^nd album Ghostown is revered in Ireland as a classic and was massively influential on the later Irish scene. The Radiators were the first punk band out of Ireland. Before punk they were a glam act called Greta Garbage & the Trash Cans.