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| Another Raincoat interview | |||
| Interview Gina Birch Ana da Silva Gina: I always rocked, ever since I was tiny. I just rocked. I used to sing all the time, used to sing in the back of the car. My dad used to say "Oh for god's sake, Gina, shut up!" That's my first story. Ana...? Ana: I had these older cousins who brought all these records. They lived in Hong Kong and they brought all these Elvis records...this is a long time ago...Elvis, the Everly Bros., and he used to play all these singles and we used to make our own top record list. We used to do two at a time, to see which was the better of the two. We always knew which one was going to win; I think it was "Jailhouse Rock." So I always liked music. I used to listen to the BBC because I'm from Portugal, this island called Madeira. I used to listen to the World Service; there was this Top 20 list, and in those days it included Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles and all those people...a lot better than later. I used to very faithfully listen to all that and write them down on a piece of paper. Gina: I think when I was 7 or 8, my dad came home one day with a little mono record player and after that, each Saturday, one of the four of us in the family could choose a single. My dad's favorites were the Ronettes: "Baby I Love You" and "Be My Baby." But we could only listen to the Ronettes if...my dad used to say we could only listen to them at full volume. Only when he felt like it...Then of course we had Beatles records, but I used to love the Ronettes. And then we got The Sound Of Music soundtrack, and that was always a big influence, and we had Swan Lake. Ana: That's where "In Love" comes from. That kind of music. Gina: Julie Andrews meets the Ronettes. Ana, at what point did you move from Portugal to England, and what prompted the move? Ana: 1974. I had been in London three or four years before I moved there. I just felt so excited to see all these people dressed in different things. I went to to couple of gigs and things like that. I just thought that was the place to be because people could just be something different from everybody else and nobody even bothered looking. I once saw this guy, a black guy all made up and his eyebrows plucked, and he was walking down the street and nobody even looked at him! If he was walking like that in Portugal, I think he would have been lynched! I just thought it was a good place to express your own way: it was really great. And obviously there was the music; a lot of it came from America. My cousin was there (in England), so I ended up trying it there. Had you been in bands before the Raincoats? Ana: I used to strum acoustic guitar (in Portugal) and strum Bob Dylan songs and Joan Baez. That's it, really. Gina: I listened to an awful lot of music, but I never dreamt I would be involved in a band. I did a year of art school in Nottingham and I fell completely in love with conceptual art. I thought I would be an artist, and then I came to London and the art scene seemed to be so much less vibrant at the art school than in Nottingham. And punk was happening. And Ana and I...there were about three or four people from our course who used to go to the Roxy. It was really us two who used to go...We were at every gig at the Roxy, really, 3 or 4 nights per week, just watching all these band. Eventually we just decided we could have a go, too. I remember going to a gig at the Royal College of Art seeing the Clash and Subway Sect. Vic Godard was up on stage and he had the lyrics and was reading them (she says while holding up the bill)...and I was like, "this is so fantastic!" I'd already seen the Sex Pistols once before that and completely fell in love with them. There was the Cortinas, the Slits played there, Chelsea... Ana: X-Ray Spex came a little later, they were great anyway. Poly Styrene...I was in love with her, she was just amazing. She used to wear these day-glo kind of clothes and plastic handbags, a bit like Delia does with Mambo Taxi now. I thought she was really cool. Later on she shaved her hair and had these braces on her teeth. It was really an emotional thing to see her. It's not like we were doing something that was as "serious" as some other people at the college. They were doing like systems music and was more... Gina: Philip Glass-oriented stuff. So we were kind of "frivolous." Why bother? I think one of our tutors came to see us and said "Well...what can I say??" I went back during the Raincoats to finish and there would be strange messages on the notice board, strange things written like..."My hero."Interview Gina Birch Ana da Silva Gina: I always rocked, ever since I was tiny. I just rocked. I used to sing all the time, used to sing in the back of the car. My dad used to say "Oh for god's sake, Gina, shut up!" That's my first story. Ana...? Ana: I had these older cousins who brought all these records. They lived in Hong Kong and they brought all these Elvis records...this is a long time ago...Elvis, the Everly Bros., and he used to play all these singles and we used to make our own top record list. We used to do two at a time, to see which was the better of the two. We always knew which one was going to win; I think it was "Jailhouse Rock." So I always liked music. I used to listen to the BBC because I'm from Portugal, this island called Madeira. I used to listen to the World Service; there was this Top 20 list, and in those days it included Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles and all those people...a lot better than later. I used to very faithfully listen to all that and write them down on a piece of paper. Gina: I think when I was 7 or 8, my dad came home one day with a little mono record player and after that, each Saturday, one of the four of us in the family could choose a single. My dad's favorites were the Ronettes: "Baby I Love You" and "Be My Baby." But we could only listen to the Ronettes if...my dad used to say we could only listen to them at full volume. Only when he felt like it...Then of course we had Beatles records, but I used to love the Ronettes. And then we got The Sound Of Music soundtrack, and that was always a big influence, and we had Swan Lake. Ana: That's where "In Love" comes from. That kind of music. Gina: Julie Andrews meets the Ronettes. Ana, at what point did you move from Portugal to England, and what prompted the move? Ana: 1974. I had been in London three or four years before I moved there. I just felt so excited to see all these people dressed in different things. I went to to couple of gigs and things like that. I just thought that was the place to be because people could just be something different from everybody else and nobody even bothered looking. I once saw this guy, a black guy all made up and his eyebrows plucked, and he was walking down the street and nobody even looked at him! If he was walking like that in Portugal, I think he would have been lynched! I just thought it was a good place to express your own way: it was really great. And obviously there was the music; a lot of it came from America. My cousin was there (in England), so I ended up trying it there. Had you been in bands before the Raincoats? Ana: I used to strum acoustic guitar (in Portugal) and strum Bob Dylan songs and Joan Baez. That's it, really. Gina: I listened to an awful lot of music, but I never dreamt I would be involved in a band. I did a year of art school in Nottingham and I fell completely in love with conceptual art. I thought I would be an artist, and then I came to London and the art scene seemed to be so much less vibrant at the art school than in Nottingham. And punk was happening. And Ana and I...there were about three or four people from our course who used to go to the Roxy. It was really us two who used to go...We were at every gig at the Roxy, really, 3 or 4 nights per week, just watching all these band. Eventually we just decided we could have a go, too. I remember going to a gig at the Royal College of Art seeing the Clash and Subway Sect. Vic Godard was up on stage and he had the lyrics and was reading them (she says while holding up the bill)...and I was like, "this is so fantastic!" I'd already seen the Sex Pistols once before that and completely fell in love with them. There was the Cortinas, the Slits played there, Chelsea... Ana: X-Ray Spex came a little later, they were great anyway. Poly Styrene...I was in love with her, she was just amazing. She used to wear these day-glo kind of clothes and plastic handbags, a bit like Delia does with Mambo Taxi now. I thought she was really cool. Later on she shaved her hair and had these braces on her teeth. It was really an emotional thing to see her. It's not like we were doing something that was as "serious" as some other people at the college. They were doing like systems music and was more... Gina: Philip Glass-oriented stuff. So we were kind of "frivolous." Why bother? I think one of our tutors came to see us and said "Well...what can I say??" I went back during the Raincoats to finish and there would be strange messages on the notice board, strange things written like..."My hero." | |||
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