Two interviews with Lloyd Cole: Part 1

Lloyd appears sceptical at the choice of Leon Osman on Everton's right 
Picture: Boston Globe

I did two interviews with Lloyd Cole while working for the Liverpool Echo and Liverpool Daily Post.
In hindsight, they aren't very good, Lloyd's answers were great, they're just not terribly well written. They are what they are. I'm not looking writing plaudits, 'Good job too,' says y'all.
Here's the first:

FROM his Stuttgart hotel room, one of the coolest songwriters of the last 30 years is talking about his admiration for Gerry Marsden.
Lordy, Lloyd Cole , the king of intelligent 1980s pop praising the bard of Mersey River crossings?
"I have more respect for Gerry and the Pacemakers, still playing the oldies rather than writing mediocre new songs, " he says earnestly.
Some might think that the erstwhile Commotions front man, known for his candour and wit, has gone soft prior to his first Liverpool show in donkeys' years.
But no, the Derbyshire-born, 'naturalised' Scot now living in Massachusetts still airs his opinions very freely, taking in everything from The Waterboys to The Clash, and US indie band The Strokes.
For many, Cole, now 42, signifies an all-too-brief moment in the 1980s when pop music was smart, when Manchester's The Smiths, Australia's The Go-Betweens and Glasgow's Aztec Camera along with Cole And The Commotions looked set to dominate the charts.

Flashback: Oscars coverage

I FILED this piece for the Liverpool ECHO TV column on March 25, 2002. It was written hurriedly after having been in the esteemed Crosby pub The Edinburgh the evening before with my mate Cormac Austin who had been visiting from Belfast.

When I say hurriedly, I mean (to use film parlance) it was one take right on deadline - in the old days a copy boy would have ripped it from the typewriter and ran like stink to the compositors rubbing sweat from his visor.

No rewrites and no self-analysis and still the favourite thing I ever wrote there because the emotions will be similar to those watching tonight's schmooze fest. It shows that sometimes it's better just to write what you think and be damned.

Oscar Special (BBC News 24) 
OKAY, okay, its not officially last night's telly, but the early-morning Oscar coverage from LA got the hatred meter rising through the roof.
As the nation slept and young parents like me were blearily calming down hyper-active weeuns, the biggest shower of over-paid prima-donnas were praising and analysing more prima donnas giving wee gold statues to other more highly paid prima-donnas.
So as billions of dollars were wasted on analysing the classic simplicity of Sharon Stone's dress, I was screaming at the telly: 'Of course she looks good, she gets paid $20m a movie, she's got people employed to make her look good.' 
Then we were told it was a great night for the African-American actors; it was a triumph of the great American dream. Did Martin Luther King die just so we could get the chance to see Halle Berry ham it up like the hammiest pantomime dame?
'This is for all the women of colour,' she blubbed unconvincingly, while I was sat shouting 'he's behind you' and waiting for Jim Davidson to come on as Buttons and start the song.
Even Sidney Poitier came on and made the sort of fawning, luvvie-speak acceptance speech that makes you want to kick in the TV.
The roll call of puffed-up luvvies in designer dress rolled on and on and on. By this stage steam was puffing out of my ears like a big old cartoon villain.
Leave it to the Brits: At least Jim Broadbent and Julian Fellowes looked as if they saw the ludicrousness of the whole thing and just pretended to be underwhelmed for a while.
Then as the parties started after the ceremony, Rosie Millard and some mad Yank woman with a big jaw from Vogue magazine started to analyse the couture, the haircuts and the shoes. Then I blew a gasket.
I began to shout: 'There's people dying of hunger in the world. Can't you see this is wrong? That it's immoral, that it's ridiculous. Why aren't you listening to me? Are you deaf? Argggghhh?'
And then I realised that sitting shouting about world hunger to the TV in the early hours of the morning is perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of Oscar viewing. 

Joe Strummer RIP

JOE Strummer is seven years dead today, and we are much worse for it.
No one pop star ever touched me more than Strummage and never a week goes by without listening to The Clash or his four 'solo' albums.
I wrote this interview a month prior to his death for the Liverpool ECHO.
It's a rubbish interview because I was overawed speaking to a hero, I hope I did him justice. He even phoned me a day later to make sure I had got the pictures his wife was sending for it. I was feeding our daughter Ella her brekkie when I took the call, I dropped Weetabix all over the floor.
All the best, Joe.

Liverpool ECHO, November 22, 2002
THE voice is as enthusiastic and passionate as it ever was, the beliefs as idealistic as they ever were.
Joe Strummer's back in town and he ain't changed a bit.
Leader of punk deities the Clash, musical pioneer, political idealist and doting father, Strummer remains undimmed by the slings and arrows of 25 years outrageous fortune in the music industry.
And, excited punk rock pop pickers, he's heading our way.
On the phone from his West Country home, the man born John Mellor in Turkey 50 years ago is looking forward to coming back to Liverpool, a city which took the Clash to its bosom like no other.
But more of the nostalgia later. This time he's bringing his band, the Mescaleros, back to town next Friday at Liverpool University's small but perfectly formed Stanley theatre.
This is the story so far.
Strummer and his young band have recorded a couple of critically acclaimed albums (Pop Art And The X-Ray Style from 1999 and last year's Global A Go-Go) and won rave live reviews since the great man came back from nearly a decade of self-imposed showbiz exile three years ago.
They rip through a handful of Clash classics every night and augment these punk favourites with the best tracks from the two albums, as well as throwing in the odd new song or reggae cover.
And how would you describe the new songs?
Well, deep breath now, it's an interesting mixture of pop, blues, reggae, dance dub and African jive.
It's infectious and irresistible for anyone with a passing interest in quality sounds.
This time around they are hitting the university with the intention of honing a set ready for recording a new album early in the New Year.
Cue Joe, rapping quickly and enthusiastically about the vibe in the band.
He says: "We were out in Japan and America and we were really rocking, blowing crowds away with the new songs. So I wanted to get it back out on the road again and bash the songs out and make them stronger before we get in to the studio.
"The new songs are mutating, and becoming more human because we are banging them out without fussing.
"Playing live is a part of the process; we aren't interested in making something pristine, we want to bash the songs out before we get into the studio.
"But what I have learned is that when you are on a roll like this and the vibe is right you have to keep riding it; the only time we ever managed to do it before was with (legendary Clash triple album) Sandinista."
Clang! That there, folks, is the sound of the Clash name being dropped, and it's a musical legacy you can't ignore when interviewing the great one.
Liverpool loves him and he loves us. Heck, Liverpool is practically home territory for Strummer, who made his long-awaited return to the stage at a legendary show at the now closed Cumberland Street venue the Lomax in 1999.
But for many an ex-punk about town, a Clash show at Eric's in 1978 was the high water mark for both the band and the movement.
Joe adds: "We had some great shows in Eric's where it really went off, they were brilliant nights where we really rocked the house.
"We loved Eric's and loved playing Liverpool."
In fact Eric's in 1978 can claim to be the most packed show of all time - the club only held a couple of hundred people, but up to 10,000 claim to have been present.
Despite these nostalgic waxings there was no place for the Clash on the cheap TV celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the birth of British punk.
As middle-aged men and women rehashed a quarter of a century-old anecdotes, Strummer and his band mates Mick Jones, Topper Headon and Paul Simenon kept a dignified silence.
Strummer simply says: "That's all false memory syndrome. I don't want to look back, I want to keep going forward, I still have something to say to people.
"I don't want to be seen as one of the Searchers, doing the same things over and over again.
But until then, I'll just keep going."
There is no chance of a potentially multi-million dollar reunion of the Clash, but they are still the band most revered by the current crop of garage groups.
On top this of their 1979 classic London Calling has been voted one of the top 10 singles of all time by music bible NME.
Joe says: "That's better than money or anything else in this job - that's respect, the fact that these great bands acknowledge a debt to us. That's fantastic."
So that's Joe , punk rock Godfather and a man of the people.
* Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, Stanley Theatre, Liverpool University, Friday, November 22.