28 Sep '07 - 475 W - + 28 - 16 77 Sulphate Strip - the inside story of punk
For some reason, when I did an interview with The Stranglers for Flexipop! magazine, the editor, Barry Cain, decided that it would be a wizard wheeze to get band to lie on the floor with red carnations scattered all over them. In order to do that we had to traipse down to a flower shop and buy all the carnations they had (Barry tried to convince the owner to ‘rent them out’ for half an hour but she was having none of it).
So then we want to the PR person’s office and sat there, surrounded by flowers, throughout one long and tedious afternoon.... waiting for The Stranglers to arrive - which they eventually did, about three hours late. By that time the carnations were wilting and the photographer was desperate to go home, so the flowers and The Strangers were rapidly scattered over the floor, the pictures were taken - and then there was no time left for me to do the interview...
Ah, well, I’m glad to discover that Barry Cain is still on speaking terms with The Stranglers. So much so, in fact, that he has been speaking to their lead singer, Hugh Cornwell, recently and transcribing this and other interviews with the leading groups of the punk period of the late ‘70s for a new book called 77 Sulphate Strip (you probably have to be of a certain age to understand the pun).
According to the blurb....
If you were reading about punk in 1977 the chances are you read some of Barry Cain’s words. As a young writer on Record Mirror he was perfectly placed to take part in, and report on, the punk scene.
The book doesn’t end with the eyewitness account of 1977. Thirty years on, Cain re-interviewed John Lydon, Hugh Cornwell and Rat Scabies exclusively for the book. These extended interviews run for more than 100 pages and rise above being mere nostalgia. By asking Lydon, Cornwell and Scabies to comment on the original interviews Cain manages to coax unique insights from each of them.
I’d be glad to write a proper review but, in spite of being Barry’s top cub reporter for Flexipop! for more years than I can remember (mainly because I was drunk for most of them), Barry hasn’t even sent me a review copy! Ah well, I’m glad to know that time has done nothing to mellow the miserable penny-pinching git...
More on 77 Sulphate Strip here: http://www.budgetbooksdirect.co.uk/product/189/77-sulphate-strip
Just to undermine Barry’s punktastic credentials, I happen to know that the song that follows is one of his all-time personal favourites (I promise you this is absolutely true). So here is the very fabulous Boystown Gang with their 1982 hit, ‘Can’t take My Eyes Off You’...
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