| John Robb Interview Part Two... |
| "Spike Milligan's Tape Recorder was on the Radio a lot, did this prompt offers from major record companies? I don't think that with songs like "Spike Milligan" we were ever destined for top twenty status! They were too chicken at daytime radio to ever play anything so loud, noisy and life affirming! Major labels would never go near bands like the Membranes, we were wild and chaotic people - the stiff's ultimate nightmare! But we were also very good at surviving and survive we did playing music exactly the way we wanted to, to a farily substantial cult following. What was the idea behind that song? "Spike Milligans" was about lots of stuff - obviously a nod to the genius comedian (I got him to sign a copy of the single in the end - and the Goon Show Fan Club bought 25 copies - f**k knows what they must have thought about it!) it's also about the nuclear power pollution from Sellafield, radioactivity, the local media, the ghostly moon over the dark sea where we lived, and the poisoning of the world........ Was it a conscious decision to move towards a more dance orientated direction towards the end of the band's existence? The Membranes didn't really move in a dance direction towards the end, we had made the occasional foray into funkier stuff right from the first single, we had been really into Hip Hop when that first came out and for one track used a vague Hip Hop feel to the beats later on, but predominatly we were working wityh guitar, bass and drums and Punk Rock right towards the end and the band never formally finished. It was the Acid House era and going to the all night illegal raves and rushing on esctasy seemed a lot more fun than dragging the rest of the band round the world, it was a break for me, no more getting bogged down organising stuff and a couple of years of wildness running around squats and getting off on the early Acid House scene. Round Hulme where I lived in central Manchester there was a 48 hour party scene in the collapsing old council flats, it was a great, chaotic and wild time and I really loved it. I was also writing full time for Sounds and getting flown around the world - being the first person to interview bands like Nirvana and the Stone Roses - it was defintely a cool time. Sensuround was a couple of singles that I did that documented that period. The first one, "Blind Faith" is the best - I worked with Greg Wilson on this, Greg was one of the first DJ's at the Hacienda - he was the first person to play Electro in the UK, he was passionate about all types of music but really understood Electro and I learned a lot of stuff about that scene from him. His girlfriend Tracy who sang on the track had an amazing voice, it was a great record and was picked up by the likes of Andy Weatherall which is a great compliment as he is one of the few DJs I have total respect for. How do you look back on your time with the Membranes? With fondness, we played a lot of gigs and had a wild time and made some great records that didn't really sound like anything else, we lived without any rules and ignored all advice! We helped alot of people along and influenced some pretty unlikely bands (Mercury Rev and Lambchop to name but two!) we played some amazing gigs and met some great people and played with some great people! It was a great Punk Rock experience! Do you ever get the urge to play Membranes songs again? Have occasionally played some of them with various members of Goldblade, we did "Muscles" in New York with Mojo sharing the vocals and he remembered all the words! Would you ever get the band back together? Not likely! Too busy doing loads of other stuff!! Still if we ever got hip again! You made a great series for the now defunct UKPlay TV channel on Punk a few years back....how difficult was it to get the diverse cast you used for that together? What a great break it was to make a Punk series for TV, bizzarely BBC2 and Channel 4 turned it down saying that Punk was a minority interest and then they comissioned a great Reggae series - even after all these years Punk is treated a Leper's music - maybe that's for the better - the mainstream does have a bad habit of poisoning music. It wasn't that hard to get all the people for the programme - I knew some of them anyway and the rest I rang up - some people on there had not been interviewed for years or not been interviewed at all. I tried to get people who were normally ignored by the now copyrighted history of Punk which has become very, very narrow. Was it fun to put together? Do you think it will ever see the light of day on DVD? It was great to put together - really interestingly I don't think it will ever come out on DVD, it's bogged down in a lot of paperwork - but you never know - I'm working on getting it put out on DVD at the moment.... You've also written a book, what's that about? Do you have any other projects of that type on the go? I've got a new book about Punk Rock out in April (Ed: it's in the shops now kids!) "Punk Rock, An Oral History Of Punk". It's a bit like the TV series - it interweaves loads of interviews with a very diverse bunch of people in the Punk Rock scene into a spoken word account of Punk Rock in the UK...there's also loads of TV stuff going on and loads of band stuff.. |
| Please Click here for the final part of the JR interview...... |