Ian Dury, Martin Atkins and The Tour Smart Fallacy A lot of people hate Martin Atkins. Tales of his supposed double-dealing centre around his independent Chicago label, Invisible Records. The stories are lurid and insidious. People say that Atkins didn’t pay them, or that he didn’t release the album they recorded, or that he did [...]
continue reading >How To Be A Machine Pt. 2 (1981)
The trouble with technology, the trouble with humanity… There’s a girl all the androids and the clones adore She really makes a change from those mechanical bores Preset females wear thin in a while I’d give my left diode for a spontaneous smile She’s certainly soft, she’s realistically warm She’s not manufactured, she was [...]
continue reading >How To Be A Machine Pt. 1 (1981)
Apologies for all the scabrous language, teenage sexual attitudes, Nazis and whatnot. But this is the way it was. What happens if you’ve decided that you no longer want to be human? To be rid of all that? What does the dehumanization process entail? Can (e.g.) one close down parts of the brain, discretely? Does [...]
continue reading >Watts vs. Louche (2003)
Between 2002 and 2004 I shared a studio in Old St. with Raymond Watts of Pig. A fragment of my diary, from 2003. …since I couldn’t get anywhere with the song, I mooched up to see Bryan and Ollie. Reclining on the chaise longue in their studio was a surprise visitor, Jared Louche of Chemlab, [...]
continue reading >Why I Hear Machine Music In My Head (1981)
I predicted disorder. This is a strange recollection, one that goes back to the very beginning. In the summer of 1981 I was 16 and I needed a holiday job to earn money to buy a motorbike. Without wheels my range was limited. I lived in rural isolation, miles from anywhere I wanted to go, [...]
continue reading >Judda (1994)
Some time ago I was asked to write a piece about Judda. Who? You may well ask. I never sent through the work – but on reflection it’s not a bad start point, so here it is. To understand about Judda it’s first necessary to describe London and Camden in the early 1990’s. And that [...]
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