RUTS DC Interview

RUTS DC

Listen to my new Cloudcast on Mixcloud at http://www.mixcloud.com/rolandgent/ruts-dc-interview-with-segs-and-dave-ruffy-ruts-and-ruts-dc-tunes/ check it out now!

RUTS and RUTS DC music interview with Segs and Dave Ruffy

Ruts DC supported the Damned on their recent UK tour, they were amazing both nights I saw them.

In December 2008 John "Segs" Jennings and Dave Ruffy returned to Ariwa Studios as Ruts D.C to record some new tracks with Neil Mad Proffesor Fraser. The project, entitled Rhythm Collision Vol. 2, was mixed in Brighton by Mike "Prince Fatty" Pelanconi and was finally released in 2013.

The band enlisted Leigh Heggarty on guitar, Seamus Beaghan on Hammond organ, and Molara on additional vocals and percussion, and completed some British dates supporting Alabama 3 in November and December 2011. The band also played the Rebellion Festival in August 2012, at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool alongside Rancid, Buzzcocks, Goldblade, Social Distortion, Public Image Ltd among others

History

The Ruts' first single, "In a Rut" was released on People Unite in January 1979, having been recorded back on 24 April 1978 at the aforementioned Free Range 8-track studios. It was backed up with anti-heroin tirade "H-Eyes" on the B-side ("You're so young, you take smack for fun/It's gonna screw your head, you're gonna wind up dead")

In June, their debut single for Richard Branson's Virgin Records, "Babylon's Burning" became a UK Top 10 hit, reaching number 7 in the UK Singles Chart, and prompting an appearance on BBC Television's Top of the Pops. The second Virgin single, "Something That I Said", followed in August 1979 and garnered a second Top of the Pops spot. The B-side was a reggae track "Give Youth a Chance" (also known as "Blackman's Pinch") originally recorded for the band's John Peel session in May.

Their debut album The Crack was produced by Mick Glossop and released in September 1979, reaching number 16 in the UK Albums Chart. The two singles "Babylon's Burning" and "Something That I Said" were re-recorded for the album.

Taken from The Crack album, the band's third single for Virgin at the end of October 1979 was the dub reggae song "Jah War", about the Metropolitan Police's Special Patrol Group's violence in Southall disturbances in April 1979.

By 1980 singer Malcolm Owen was suffering with health problems; a combination of sore throats and a heroin addiction. A UK tour was arranged, the 'Back to Blighty' tour, but a number of dates had to be cancelled due to Owen's condition. What turned out to be the last Ruts gig with Malcolm took place at Plymouth Polytechnic on 26 February 1980.

On 27 March 1980, The Ruts released their fifth single, "Staring at the Rude Boys", a comment on the rapidly rising Two Tone scene. It was backed by another reggae song "Love In Vein". The single reached the #22 spot on the UK Singles Chart. "Staring At The Rude Boys" was covered by the US hardcore band Dag Nasty in 1987, and by the British hardcore punk band,Gallows, in 2007

With their latest British tour sold out in advance and an American tour lined up, the band were beginning work on their second album in early 1980. Having been forced to cancel a number of UK tour dates, the other three band members fired their front man over his drug addiction, shortly after completing work on their next single, "West One (Shine on Me)". After negotiations, Owen briefly rejoined the band.

Malcolm Owen was found dead in the bathroom of his parents' house in Hayes, from a heroin overdose on 14 July 1980 at the age of 26. Prophetically, the track "H-eyes", which was the B-side of their first single "In a Rut", was a song against heroin use, and two other songs, "Dope for Guns" from the album The Crack, plus reggae lament "Love in Vein" ("don't want you in my arms no more") were also anti-drug songs. A year later, The Damned wrote a song, "The Limit Club", about their deceased friend which mentions the "velvet claws" that Fox talked about with reference to Owen's heroin addiction

The band continued as Ruts D.C. (D.C. standing for the Latin term da capo, meaning "back to the beginning") in a different musical vein. They released two albums, Animal Now (May 1981 on Virgin) and Rhythm Collision (July 1982 on Bohemian Records), the latter in collaboration with Mad Professor, a renowned dub producer. Ruts D.C. split in 1983.

Paul Fox benefit

16 July 2007 the band reformed for the first time in 27 years, and played a special benefit gig for Fox, following his diagnosis with lung cancer. Henry Rollins stood in for Owen. They were supported by Tom Robinson, The Damned, Misty in Roots, U.K. Subs, Splodge (Splodgenessabounds), John Otway; and the Peafish House Band which featured Lee Harris, (The Blockheads), Tony Barber (Buzzcocks) and Rowland Rivron, plus Edward Tudor-Pole and T. V. Smith.

Paul Fox died on 21 October of the same year, at the age of 56.

GRANT HART

New movie about Grant Hart the Ex Husker Du and Nova Mob drummer and singer "Every Everything" out now

made by Gorman Bechard

Grant Hart speaks frankly about Husker Du, Drug addiction, solo projects, artwork everything really

http://everyeverything.com/

Grant Hart also has a new double vinyl album based on Milton’s Paradise Lost called The Argument .  UNCUT Review http://www.uncut.co.uk/grant-hart-the-argument-review

Put simply hear it. 

A double concept album sounds very seventies but if you like Bowie, Lou Reed, The Who or even Buddy Holly or forty years of rock and roll scrunched up into a ball and served in one helping you'd be doing yourself a favour

http://www.mp3boo.com/mp3-download-grant-hart-the-argument.htm Listen here

THE ARGUMENT

I saw Grant at Hebden Bridges Trades club recently playing a fine solo set, resplendent in pencil moustache, horn rimmed specs and purple winkle pickers he made Salvador Dali look like a blushing flower. "Beyond Embarrassment" is how he describes his career, after taking a plastic bag full of albums to sell to the audience from the front of the stage after finishing his set. But it 's a refreshing change to see a performer with no pretense of mystique happily chat to the crowd after he's finished the gig

Paradise Lost

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost. In case you never read it, or tried to read it and got a little lost

I previously interviewed Grant, and asked about his music

Songs
I thought I’d ask about some of the characters and themes of your songs, who is Charles Hollis Jones?

Grant Hart Charles Hollis Jones was an interior designer did a lot of tables and lamps and   chairs for Tennessee Williams and  business suites for Sylvester Stallone as the lyrics go, the song was inspired as a friend of mine did a retrospective of his work and I had some lyrics that I was working on its really a 3 chord rock thing and I added a little keyboard

Why Hot Wax?

Grant Hart Well I borrow titles consistently, Last Days of Pompeii, Good News for Modern Man  which was like the hippie bible, ‘Hot Wax’ was the record collectors’ journal but I’d already done the layout with the Lilientahll Glider flying close to the map of the sun….http://www.flyingmachines.org/lilthl.html
I was thinking yeah Icarus, what made Icarus fall? Well it was the wax on his wings and I thought ‘yes that’s a nice irony’ this is the stuff that people are supposed to figure out for themselves (laughs)
Who is Barbara?
Grant Hart Barbara… I was asked by a magazine in the States, kind of an arts magazine, no adverts no profit possible, to select a story which had been submitted by one of their readers. It was part of a project where they distributed these stories of these people’s imaginary childhood friends. And one particular woman, her friend was Barbara. And whenever she was misbehaving Barbara was the one responsible for it, and Barbara’s never around of course because she avoids unpleasant situations
What’s the sleeve for Good News for Modern Man?
Grant Hart There’s not much congruity between the front and the back, what I did is I cut a Apollo capsule in its little floaty recovery raft and just superimposed it on this water ballet because I sort of liked the idea of the thing returning from space being greeted by this acquatic ballet
You’re an artist, I don’t know about art but I know what I like….
Grant Hart Yes well I don’t know what I like but I know about art’ (laughs)
What’s the inner sleeve about? you’ve got Neushwanstein, and a car…http://www.neuschwansteincastle.net 
Grant Hart That was evocative of the motor accident of that Nova Mob was involved in near Neushwanstein, pretty much composed of a random collage that I was doing at the time when I needed some visuals for the record.’
Did that accident see the end of Nova Mob?
Grant Hart I wanted to continue the tour that was interrupted and that as soon as we were ready to hit the road that the band needed it, the bookers took advantage of the fact that the tour was insured but it didn’t ensure the mental stability of the band.
What’s Shoot Your Way to Freedom about?
Grant Hart It’s from Burroughs, it’s kind of a triple entendre, you got the prevalence of hard drugs in prisons because people are escaping that way, you have the idea of the western shootout and then there’s the orgasm metaphor of course…’
There’s me thinking it was about terrorism…
Grant Hart (laughs) Well one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist
Are you scared of flying?
Grant Hart No! I prefer ground travel, whenever I tour Europe or tour England there’s no need to fly Airports are kind of like chain hotels, a cross between chain hotels and a prison. I do not like to be under the scrutiny of idiots, you know someone popping through my stuff who is on minimum wage, people looking through notebooks I mean what does that have to do with national security? It’s just as safe to travel by rail, you end up in the city centre, you don’t end up 15 miles from the centre.
The tours been going pretty good, I may grumble about details about being booked into a Travelodge. Some of these chain hotels are in the business of lying to the customers, hotels, they got your credit card number and can put charges onto you like a fifty pound charge for cleaning. I don’t like this whole thing of a non- smoking hotel room. I’d rather book myself into a mom and pop hotel.
How are the gigs then ?
Grant Hart Oh splendid, the gigs are fine! you spend a third of your time at the hotel a third of your time at the gig and a third of your time travelling.

What’s the sleeve of Oeuvrevue? 
http://www.discogs.com/Grant-Hart-Oeuvrevue/release/2593755

Grant Hart If you look at it through a stereo Opticon, a primitive form of 3 dimensional viewer a bit like crossing your eyes, the 2 images form together and make a 3 dimensional image. I was going to leave that a secret for people to work out for themselves, but that’s given it away. You’re solving a lot of mysteries.
Who is Cesar the Monkey? (As named on the sleeve of Oeuvrevue)
Grant Hart Well Cesar the monkey is actually Amadeus the monkey who saved the Fuerstenhof hotel in Vienna http://hotel-fuerstenhof.at/
 he was in showbiz, in the 1920s I think,and his human companion went down to breakfast and left his cigar lit and it fell on the floor and started the rug on fire. Amadeus turned the taps on in the sink, he apparently blotted the drain with a pair of socks that his human companion had left lying around and it put the fire out. I like going back to the same places, to have a bit of familiarity and when I go back to Vienna which is my continental headquarters I like to stay at the Feurstenhof, I think that the heroism of Amadeus is pretty well unsung.
You do tend to have a lot of characters and stories in your songs
Grant Hart I think that’s to do with having done it as long as I have, trying to keep it interesting or doing it in a way that continues to interest me, there’s a lot of boring things that you could be writing a lot of songs about. I don’t lever as much peer pressure as some of these bands do, people subtly discover my music and discover the different twists and turns and I want it to be artful and I want to be able at the end of the night say I have done something that’s captivating to both the audience and to myself
Do you ever get cheesed off by the amount of success achieved by the Pixies who were huge and Dinosaur Jnr were on TV…
Grant Hart Well I got on TV too! there’s one thing to be said for not having to hire private security, and being able to walk into a museum and see the treasures of the world maybe one day a week and see the different treasures of the world. As long as you don’t have the compulsion to own them, you’re just as rich as anybody out there; and when you have the selection of the Feurstenhof or the Mitre house in London or any of the other fine friends I have in the lodging business, instead of finding treasure, treasuring the things you find…
What’s your favourite city?
Grant Hart London’s pretty good there’s so many cities and Manchester’s one of them, and the time you spend there is measured in hours instead of days. London’s got a fabulous history but it can only offer you London things. I like the old history of places like Hollywood the last time I was staying in Hollywood with a friend of mine I read a biography of actor Sal Mineo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal_Mineo
I saved the last bit of the book for the day that I was leaving and I went up to the Griffith Park observatory to see the Perseid Meteor shower it was real enjoyable http://westhollywood.patch.com/articles/perseid-meteor-shower-peaks-this-weekend-6#photo-first   The Griffiths Observatory is of course the scene of the last part of the climactic Rebel Without a Cause where James Dean comes out going “I’ve got the bullets”
Sometimes it can be an art form the way you stack up your experiences like the different foods on the plate. We motored around and went to see the Watts Towers, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Towers its this folk art like fantasia that this immigrant fellow built in the 20s and 30s it almost looks like the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona with these tapering spires, then we went to Mount Wilson observatory  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Wilson_Observatory where they have the same shaped spires except they are 100 metres tall and they are radio telescopes so you have a small and huge version of the same thing to a huge version of the same thing. There’s an art form to experience.
If you could put together an ideal pop group who would be in your band?
Grant Hart Let’s see Ringo Starr on drums……no I can’t get past Ringo (laughs) no it would be a duet Ringo on drums and me on everything else….(laughs)

Clough Taylor charity run will be warmer in 2014

The 2014 Clough /Taylor People's Run will take place on the evening of Thursday 26th June at the Donington Park motor racing circuit. 

On a freezing March morning this year I went to the first 10k race. Fans of Derby and Forest wore their respective red and white shirts and raised thousands for their chosen charities

Following feedback from participants in the 2013 event, organisers have moved to a warmer month and are also reducing the distance from 10km to 5km so that more people will get involved

Brian Clough and Peter Taylor led both Derby and Forest to the league title in their glory years.

Listen to my audio package I made for the BBC at the first race.
http://www.mixcloud.com/rolandgent/clough-taylor-peoples-run-a-package-made-at-charity-day/

Tim Hartley from Loughborough, who supports Forest, won the first race

  

Crystal Grenade

Amazing when someone you thought you knew decides to be someone else, and is astonishingly good at it. Carol Hodge is a Manchester based singer, teacher, model and radio presenter. She has a disability, a hand deformity but it is no handicap. 

This album is frighteningly emotional.

Crystal Grenade, Carol's Creation, has been described as "Shakespeares Sister fighting Amanda Palmer and Tori Amos in a dimly lit Victorian pub. 

Watch and listen here

And that's a pretty good way of putting it. Miss Crystal Grenade explores the darker side of life, framed by the concept of Freak Show life of the late 1800s. 

Possibly the most infamous seven fingered pianist in the UK, Hodge is probably best known as the lady who sang alongside Steve Ignorant (once of Crass) on his Last Supper world tour. 

She now sings with in the new acoustic project Slice of Life. 
Also she's in Manchester metally punkers Wrecks

Touring the world singing the songs of Crass gave Carol the confidence she needed to finally spread her gnarled yet unique solo wings.

Miss Crystal Grenade's debut album Lo! And Behold is due to be released in October 2013 by Gonzo. Produced by Nick Zart (The Modern, Matinee Club, Backdraft, Kactus), the aim of the album was to capture the raw emotion of the vocal performance, in as live a manner as possible. The songs twist tales of regret, malfeasance and death in all its various forms.

Featuring material recorded by Harvey Birrell (Therapy?, Stereolab, Snuff, Stratford Mercenaries, Buzzcocks, Johnny Foreigner), at Southern Studios, Miss Crystal Grenade has the dubious accolade of being the last artist to record at this historic location.

Read more about Crystal Grenade Releases Debut Album this Month - BWWMusicWorld by www.broadwayworld.com

Loan-ly at Christmas?

What sort of Christmas are you going to have? 

Buying presents at Selfridges? An M and S Yuletide? or is it Poundstretcher for you?

I was skint last year, but my kids didn’t seem to notice the difference between the dolls I got at Poundstetcher and the expensive ones I’d bought the year, before when I was on decent wages.

But even if you are feeling the pinch, there’s another way. Why not take out a pay day loan? Wonga, Quick Quid, Peachy, Peachy, Pounds to Pocket and loads more just can’t wait to deposit money into your account.

They make it sound so easy, Wonga simply say

“The Representative APR is 5,853% so if you borrow £150 over 18 days at a rate of 365% p.a. (fixed) you will repay £183.49. Includes £5.50 transmission fee.”

Quick Quid quite happily say The Representative APR is 1,362% so if you borrow £1,200 over 10 months at a rate of 300% p.a. (fixed) you will repay £2,831.34

Just look at those lovely percentages.

The problem comes in that most people are in severe difficulties and are desperate for £150 but the average person uses that money to pay off other debts that they also can’t afford to pay. 

When the end of the month comes, they often can’t pay back everything to the Pay Day Loan Firm, so they happily lend you more money and you may enter a cycle of debt that’s hard to ever get out of.

I spoke to Dave, that’s not his real name, who works for a debt management firm in Greater Manchester.

He said “Our firm deals with literally thousands of people who have got themselves into major financial problems. We try to sort out their debts. I can’t believe these Pay Day Loans firms are allowed to operate at these interest rates. They make a contract where they automatically take the money out of the person’s account.

Ok maybe people should not be so foolish with their money, but these firms make it sound so easy to borrow, the problem comes in when someone takes out one loan to pay off another.

Banks are offering loans at roughly 15 % these days but it depends on the persons credit history.

If they have poor credit, banks may not offer them a loan. Or at much higher rates. Often the pay day loans companies only offer the money over 30 days, they give an example of borrowing over 18 days but the customer may not be offered those terms “

Recently a survey found that there are four times as many people ending up at the Citizens Advice Bureau asking for help because they are in trouble with pay day loans that they are having trouble paying back

Of course we all remember the story in the bible of Jesus overturning the money lenders tables. The Church decided to take a leaf out of their leader’s book to have a pop at Wonga. 

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby ended up red faced when he found out that the Church of England had actually invested a stake in Accel Partners, a US venture capitalist firm who helped finance Wonga.

The Daily Mirror recently found that the Queen makes money by renting out an office to Wonga, it’s a lovely property in Primrose Hill London. The Queen is, ironically for the Archbishop, also head of the Church of England

MPs are launching an investigation into Pay Day loans firms, but what will they do?

Tax them and they’ll just put up their interest rates. Ban them and the politicians will be putting the Pay Day Loans staff on the dole. Cap their extortionate interest rates and politicians will legitimise their existence.

Errol Damelin and Jonty Hurwitz founded Wonga, 

the idea being to lend quick cash to tech savvy young people, but the reality is that it’s the poorest and least financially educated who usually end up using pay day loans. 
The 2 business founders made £50 million between them last year. I’m sure they are going to enjoy this Christmas.

So will I, but I’m happy with a pair of socks 
and a bottle of whiskey for presents. 

Moral of the story? There’s plenty of options and advice out there, but if you haven’t got it don’t spend it.