Post by Fuggle on Aug 13, 2007 15:38:36 GMT -5
Music correspondent Michael Bugeja caught up with PHIL STRONGMAN, director of the film Chaos! The Dave Goodman Story at the international launch of the director’s cut DVD organised by PRES (Malta) to find out more about his connection to Dave Goodman, punk rock and the art of writing!
“Hi! My name is Dave Goodman and I’ve a story to tell, so amazing that you’ll be asking yourself if it is real? If I said it was, then I doubt if I could tell it so you will have to decide for yourself.” This quote was lifted off the late Dave Goodman’s website; part of the introduction to the third part of the book he was writing about his chequered life – one spent almost entirely dedicated to music and the pursuit of peace through music!
Goodman’s career in music included stints in several name bands – from The Drifters to Ben E. King, the Four Seasons to Jackson 5, but perhaps his most significant and influential role was the one he landed in 1976, when he was given the task of mixing and producing the notorious Sex Pistols! In all he recorded three studio sessions with the band, the first of which incidentally took place around this same time 31 years ago. Despite only two of his Pistols’ tracks making it onto any of the official releases – both as rare B-sides – Goodman’s sessions with the Pistols have been attributed as a major factor in the sound they eventually presented to the unsuspecting public, and many critics still prefer his raw, edgy approach over the versions that made it onto the actual album.
His work with The Sex Pistols led Goodman to work with other leading punk acts at the time, such as Eater, UK Subs, Splodgenessabounds and Chelsea, but he took his punk tendencies one step further when he set up the Ex Pistols, a line-up that included original Pistols Glen Matlock, Paul Cook and Steve Jones, and emulated the original Pistols to the extent of often being mistaken for the real deal by fans! In recent years, Dave Goodman had relocated to Malta, where he set up his own studio and record label, Mandala Music. Besides working with several Maltese artists such as Fish and Jewls Verse, Goodman also performed himself with various bands, including Mandala Malta, Internet Café Orchestra and Healing Journeys, up until his untimely demise in February 2005.
Goodman’s story is obviously no ordinary tale, and certainly not easy to recount, although the man himself did his best at having a go at it. There are two parts
available online at www.
davegoodman.co.uk, book-ending the more significant account of My Amazing Adventures with The Sex Pistols, which is being published later this year through Bluecoat Press. More importantly, however, his escapades with The Sex Pistols have also been definitively documented – not in print this time, but on film, and by none other than director Phil Strongman, an internationally renowned novelist, film director and author of acclaimed titles John Lennon and The FBI Files, Pretty Vacant (A History of Punk), Cocaine and Metal Box (The Story of John Lydon and PiL).
Subtitled The Dave Goodman Story, Chaos! is a rockumentary outlining the story of The Sex Pistols via Goodman’s involvement with the band. The various episodes are further illustrated through interviews with several key figures from the time, including the band’s infamous Svengali Malcolm McLaren, Factory’s Tony Wilson, photographer Ray Stevenson, musicians Don Letts and Glen Matlock, Clash roadie Roadent and other punk acts whose input has given the final product a definitive edge to the story as passed on to us by Dave.
Probably an obvious question, but why did you pick Malta for the DVD’s international launch, as opposed to, say, the 100 Club in London?
Because the director’s cut is the most important one, really, and this film’s about Dave Goodman while Malta was the island he loved, the place he moved to and last recorded in and his wife Kathy still makes and mixes music here. So Malta seemed appropriate.
By his own admission, Dave Goodman’s story is amazing. Aside from being friends, what inspired/
motivated you to translate his story into film?
The fact that several big punk movies – such as The Filth and The Fury – had been released just a few years ago and some of them had barely mentioned Dave’s name. He was being written out of history and yet he played a really important role; he encouraged the Pistols, told them they’d change everything – and they did, in rock’n’roll terms at least. The whole Indie genre of music wouldn’t have existed without them. People like Adam and The Ants, Sting and The Police, Nirvana, U2, Green Day, Blur, Arctic Monkeys wouldn’t have existed without The Sex Pistols – and the Pistols would probably have broken up before getting a record deal without the encouragement, and the demos, that Dave gave them at a key time.
There’s a strong punk presence in your published work. What’s your connection to the genre?
I saw the Pistols at the 100 Club – and then saw the first London gigs by Siouxsie and The Banshees, The Clash, The Buzzcocks, etc… I was 17 at the time and designing “street couture” t-shirts for Acme Attractions in the King’s Road, Chelsea so I was in the middle of it all before it even had the name punk – it’s surprising to think of it now but it started off as something really quite sophisticated and arty although that huge energy buzz was always there from the beginning.
Given the several Sex Pistols-related books and films available, what do you feel makes Chaos! stand out above the rest?
It tells the inside story – Dave Goodman and Malcolm McLaren and Ray Stevenson were the mixer, manager and photographer team that worked behind the scenes and launched the band. They helped make the Pistols, and punk, world famous. Chaos! lets them tell their story fully for the first time.
Lennon, The FBI, Johnny Rotten, Punk Rock… Do you find yourself automatically drawn to anything that is controversial?
They came my way! The FBI files a friend got hold of early and I really didn’t think they could possibly be connected to John Lennon’s death – not until I’d read them all, that is – while Punk I just sort of stumbled on while trying to be a young t-shirt designer... I think such things do sometimes just come your way, and then it all depends on whether you’re brave, or crazy, enough to work with them.
Phil Strongman the author vs Phil Strongman the director! Which one comes closer to the real you?
Writing’s great, as you know, Mike, but it’s usually a very solitary thing, typing away on your own a lot of the time. That’s why too many of us writers drink too much! Film is much more hard work physically but you get to work with others and they almost always bring something to what you are doing, new ideas, new ways of doing things. So I’d like to think that author and director are now two sides of the same coin – and I’d like to get away with both as long as I can.
Punk’s not dead! True or false?
True – the spirit of anything never dies and there’s still some great indie music being made out there. For instance, there are some tight Maltese bands around now, like Cable 35 and The Monitors, who aren’t actually pure punk but who can really generate that energy again.
If push comes to shove, what and who is your favourite punk record/ artist of all time?
I suppose it has to be the Pistols’ God Save The Queen – partly because of its power, partly because it dared to talk about that Cold War H-Bomb reality; “we have no future”. Now the Cold War’s gone, of course, but mankind’s busy threatening the world another way, through climate change.
Last but not least, what’s your next project going to be? Film, book or music?
I think it’s going to be film! There’s the second part of the Dave Goodman story to be finished, the working title of which is Glastonbury-Osaka-Malta. And then there’s also A Search for the Blues, which I’ve been filming in West Africa…
For more information, visit www.davegoodman.co.uk
“Hi! My name is Dave Goodman and I’ve a story to tell, so amazing that you’ll be asking yourself if it is real? If I said it was, then I doubt if I could tell it so you will have to decide for yourself.” This quote was lifted off the late Dave Goodman’s website; part of the introduction to the third part of the book he was writing about his chequered life – one spent almost entirely dedicated to music and the pursuit of peace through music!
Goodman’s career in music included stints in several name bands – from The Drifters to Ben E. King, the Four Seasons to Jackson 5, but perhaps his most significant and influential role was the one he landed in 1976, when he was given the task of mixing and producing the notorious Sex Pistols! In all he recorded three studio sessions with the band, the first of which incidentally took place around this same time 31 years ago. Despite only two of his Pistols’ tracks making it onto any of the official releases – both as rare B-sides – Goodman’s sessions with the Pistols have been attributed as a major factor in the sound they eventually presented to the unsuspecting public, and many critics still prefer his raw, edgy approach over the versions that made it onto the actual album.
His work with The Sex Pistols led Goodman to work with other leading punk acts at the time, such as Eater, UK Subs, Splodgenessabounds and Chelsea, but he took his punk tendencies one step further when he set up the Ex Pistols, a line-up that included original Pistols Glen Matlock, Paul Cook and Steve Jones, and emulated the original Pistols to the extent of often being mistaken for the real deal by fans! In recent years, Dave Goodman had relocated to Malta, where he set up his own studio and record label, Mandala Music. Besides working with several Maltese artists such as Fish and Jewls Verse, Goodman also performed himself with various bands, including Mandala Malta, Internet Café Orchestra and Healing Journeys, up until his untimely demise in February 2005.
Goodman’s story is obviously no ordinary tale, and certainly not easy to recount, although the man himself did his best at having a go at it. There are two parts
available online at www.
davegoodman.co.uk, book-ending the more significant account of My Amazing Adventures with The Sex Pistols, which is being published later this year through Bluecoat Press. More importantly, however, his escapades with The Sex Pistols have also been definitively documented – not in print this time, but on film, and by none other than director Phil Strongman, an internationally renowned novelist, film director and author of acclaimed titles John Lennon and The FBI Files, Pretty Vacant (A History of Punk), Cocaine and Metal Box (The Story of John Lydon and PiL).
Subtitled The Dave Goodman Story, Chaos! is a rockumentary outlining the story of The Sex Pistols via Goodman’s involvement with the band. The various episodes are further illustrated through interviews with several key figures from the time, including the band’s infamous Svengali Malcolm McLaren, Factory’s Tony Wilson, photographer Ray Stevenson, musicians Don Letts and Glen Matlock, Clash roadie Roadent and other punk acts whose input has given the final product a definitive edge to the story as passed on to us by Dave.
Probably an obvious question, but why did you pick Malta for the DVD’s international launch, as opposed to, say, the 100 Club in London?
Because the director’s cut is the most important one, really, and this film’s about Dave Goodman while Malta was the island he loved, the place he moved to and last recorded in and his wife Kathy still makes and mixes music here. So Malta seemed appropriate.
By his own admission, Dave Goodman’s story is amazing. Aside from being friends, what inspired/
motivated you to translate his story into film?
The fact that several big punk movies – such as The Filth and The Fury – had been released just a few years ago and some of them had barely mentioned Dave’s name. He was being written out of history and yet he played a really important role; he encouraged the Pistols, told them they’d change everything – and they did, in rock’n’roll terms at least. The whole Indie genre of music wouldn’t have existed without them. People like Adam and The Ants, Sting and The Police, Nirvana, U2, Green Day, Blur, Arctic Monkeys wouldn’t have existed without The Sex Pistols – and the Pistols would probably have broken up before getting a record deal without the encouragement, and the demos, that Dave gave them at a key time.
There’s a strong punk presence in your published work. What’s your connection to the genre?
I saw the Pistols at the 100 Club – and then saw the first London gigs by Siouxsie and The Banshees, The Clash, The Buzzcocks, etc… I was 17 at the time and designing “street couture” t-shirts for Acme Attractions in the King’s Road, Chelsea so I was in the middle of it all before it even had the name punk – it’s surprising to think of it now but it started off as something really quite sophisticated and arty although that huge energy buzz was always there from the beginning.
Given the several Sex Pistols-related books and films available, what do you feel makes Chaos! stand out above the rest?
It tells the inside story – Dave Goodman and Malcolm McLaren and Ray Stevenson were the mixer, manager and photographer team that worked behind the scenes and launched the band. They helped make the Pistols, and punk, world famous. Chaos! lets them tell their story fully for the first time.
Lennon, The FBI, Johnny Rotten, Punk Rock… Do you find yourself automatically drawn to anything that is controversial?
They came my way! The FBI files a friend got hold of early and I really didn’t think they could possibly be connected to John Lennon’s death – not until I’d read them all, that is – while Punk I just sort of stumbled on while trying to be a young t-shirt designer... I think such things do sometimes just come your way, and then it all depends on whether you’re brave, or crazy, enough to work with them.
Phil Strongman the author vs Phil Strongman the director! Which one comes closer to the real you?
Writing’s great, as you know, Mike, but it’s usually a very solitary thing, typing away on your own a lot of the time. That’s why too many of us writers drink too much! Film is much more hard work physically but you get to work with others and they almost always bring something to what you are doing, new ideas, new ways of doing things. So I’d like to think that author and director are now two sides of the same coin – and I’d like to get away with both as long as I can.
Punk’s not dead! True or false?
True – the spirit of anything never dies and there’s still some great indie music being made out there. For instance, there are some tight Maltese bands around now, like Cable 35 and The Monitors, who aren’t actually pure punk but who can really generate that energy again.
If push comes to shove, what and who is your favourite punk record/ artist of all time?
I suppose it has to be the Pistols’ God Save The Queen – partly because of its power, partly because it dared to talk about that Cold War H-Bomb reality; “we have no future”. Now the Cold War’s gone, of course, but mankind’s busy threatening the world another way, through climate change.
Last but not least, what’s your next project going to be? Film, book or music?
I think it’s going to be film! There’s the second part of the Dave Goodman story to be finished, the working title of which is Glastonbury-Osaka-Malta. And then there’s also A Search for the Blues, which I’ve been filming in West Africa…
For more information, visit www.davegoodman.co.uk
.....thanks for the info Fuggle 