Happy 70th Birthday to the great disruptor - Bill Drummond. Met him at Eric's in late 1977, and still friends. Without Zoo Records, there would be no Teardrop Explodes, Echo & The Bunnymen, Wild Swans, or KLF, and the world would be a duller place.
1981. The Teardrop Explodes 'Reward' video shoot.
Front -Les Pattinson (EATB), Bill Butt, Don Letts (director) Martin Atkins (Zoo Records artwork), Stephen Tempest. Rear -Alfie Agius (Teardrops), Yorkie, Ged Quinn & myself (Wild Swans) Troy Tate & Gary Dwyer (Teardrops)
Remember when David Bowie played keyboards for Iggy Pop on his 1977 tour? This is nothing like that. Me in 1979 playing for the Bunnymen at Liverpool Eric's club on their 3rd, and 4th ever gigs. x
Summer 1982, aged 22. Just minutes after discovering that my own band - The Wild Swans had been burgled from me. I walked outside, and unaware of what had transpired, my gf took my photograph. x
Liverpool loves Glasgow! Back in (double) denim with
@Will_Fuzz
on the Bunnybus outside Barrowlands. As Skyray I supported them here in 1997, and in 1981 😱 with the recently formed Wild Swans. x
It was rubbish being invisible for so long, so thank you to everyone involved in manifesting these recent projects, and love to everyone who supported them. This is honestly one of the best years I can remember. x
My partner Gemma home from hospital and recuperating in bed now. Thin, pale, a little frail - but alive. Thanks for all the kind messages of love and support over the past two hellish weeks. Onwards and upwards! xx
February 1979. Whilst onstage with The Teardrop Explodes, Merseyside's Drugs Squad raid my bedsit. A week later I am visited by two, flared-trousered, kipper tie wearing detectives...
I know that I am preaching to the choir here, but I've just finished the 2nd volume of Will's memoirs. His ego free, caterpillar to butterfly history of those remarkable times is a joy. Bring on the next volumes. x
Lovely 24-year old Granada TV documentary about the late Gladys Palmer, the lovely woman who sacrificed her basement and sanity so Zoo Records bands could use it as a rehearsal space. Cast incl. Bill Drummond, Julian Cope, Pete Wylie and myself. x
King Crimson? Yes? Pink Floyd? No. This is what Marty Willson-Piper (ex-The Church) hoiked up to Liverpool for The Wild Swans album sessions in December 2019. I brought a Mars bar and a bag of apples.
In 2013, on being told that my pitch meeting with the artistic director of a Liverpool theatre, had been blown out to accommodate Willy Russell, I lost it. Confronting her, I shouted "Willy F*cking Russell! I'm Paul Fucking Simpson!". Reader, she's now my girlfriend.
Reading this in a Glasgow cafe when the man on the adjacent table says "Very sad news about John. Did you know him?" It's only the brilliant author -Bernard MacLaverty. As he leaves, he squeezes my shoulder in approval, and I feel weirdly blessed. x
Thanks to
@Will_Fuzz
for his comedy gold while hosting my book event in Liverpool on Tuesday. Will: "What can you remember about recording Revolutionary Spirit?" Paul: "I sang it standing on a step ladder".
Will: "Not your real ladder then?"
Me in Music From Big Blue record shop in Hidden Lane, Glasgow just now, checking out my Astral Girl e.p. for Saturday's Record Store Day.
Cor! Smashing. x
Scousers
Weegies Cheltonians
Thank you to everyone who bought, gifted, or was gifted my book for Christmas this year, and thank you for all the beautiful messages & photos from readers. x p.s. the exorcism worked.
Posties been with a fabulous cornucopea. Album 3 features me with the Mk.1 band live on the 5.3.79 at Manchester's Band on the Wall. Only our ever fifth gig. The Fall, and Magazines's Barry Adamson in attendance. No pressure then. x
A boyhood friend I lost touch with in late 1971 just saw my name in Will Sergeant's memoir. He lives in Canada now and had no idea I'd gone into music. He's just mailed reminding me that on March 20th 1971 we saw Hawkwind at the Liverpool Stadium. He was 11, I was 12. Stacia! x
Saturday March 13th
9pm (U.K. time)
Echo & The
@Bunnymen
’s Heaven Up Here will be the album on out
@LlSTENlNG_PARTY
turntable, with Will Sergeant (
@Will_Fuzz
) as our guest host
My pal of 45 years
@Will_Fuzz
just confirmed as host at my Liverpool book event in February. New date, larger venue. Thanks
@sarahuggs
@OhMeOhMy_Liv
Tickets here:
Will was kind enough to send me an advance copy of his memoir last week. Don't want to oversell it, but it is FANTASTIC. Unvarnished, sad, shocking, and hilarious. Woah! Check out those back cover quotes. x
'Significant records are often loved because of their imperfections, not despite them. If they connect on a physical, or emotional level - all is forgiven. If they capture some spirit of the age within their spiral - they enter into sonic Valhalla'. September 12th -Jawbone Press
We're back and filming....
The Revolutionary Spirit : A Personal Story of Liverpool Post-Punk and Zoo Records.
A film by the makers of Big Gold Dream and Teenage Superstars.
Paul and Will, Bill and Dave.
Alan Wills (2nd left) ten years gone today. After drumming for The Wild Swans, Shack etc, Alan reinvented himself as the mastermind behind Liverpool's Deltasonic Records helping launch the careers of The Coral, The Zutons, The Little Flames & The Dead 60's. Miss you Maverick x
In 2000, after a gap of 21-years, I joined Julian on stage, playing 'Sleeping Gas' on one of the biggest pipe organs in Europe. 7,866 pipes and 103 draw stops. The organ I'd played in The Teardrop Explodes had vibrato, and an on/off button.
Walthamstow Rock n' Roll Bookclub Dec 5th 2023.
Bill Drummond: "So, Paul. Which one of the four gospels is yours.. Matthew, Mark, Luke or John"?
Paul: (as an aside) "I should have asked John Robb to interview me.
Hard to believe that before mobile phones not every gig was on YouTube 2 hours later.
Bill Butt said 'there's nothing that's not been seen before' but I had a funny feeling about that old film roll and had it digitised and cleaned up.
There was The Wild Swans Mk1, unseen since 81
1978. Julian Cope & I wearing masks bought from The Wizard's Den joke shop in Liverpool. I can't remember who took the photo, Mick Finkler, Les Pattinson or Will Sergeant. x
September 1981. Myself, the late - Jake 'Fifth Bunnyman' Brockman (in eye-shadow) and Julian Cope, all hallucinating wildly on quadruple strength microdot LSD at the short-lived but seminal Liverpool club - Plato's Ballroom. Pic Will Sergeant.
The M.V.C.U. (Merseyside Visual Communications Unit) where on 1/12/78 The Teardrop Explodes recorded our 3-track Sleeping Gas e.p. A 4th track was recorded, but wiped off the reel the next day so the next band in could use the tape.
1981. Myself and fellow Wild Swan -Ged Quinn on a tea break during the Don Letts directed video for Reward by The Teardrop Explodes. Yorkie checking to see if the planets are aligned.
June 1979, Echo and The Bunnymen play The Tingle Tangle in Manchester. Having no support band, Bill Drummond & I take to the stage. 'Just go mad' he whispers to me. 'Good evening Manchester. We are Danger Quentin There's A Dog Behind You'.
Happy birthday to our brilliant cultural oracle
@JonSavage1966
. Jon and I first met at Granada TV studios in Manchester in the February of 1979, during the filming of this - the television debut of The Teardrop Explodes. x
When asked what the first gig I attended was, I say Roxy Music 1974, all the while secretly knowing it was Hawkwind in 1972, discounting the school trip to the Odeon Blackpool in 67 to see Paul & Barry Ryan, and some acts I couldn't remember. Just googled it. FFS!
On this day in 1943 Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann was cycling home from the laboratory when he started to feel a little strange. Accidentally ingesting lysergic acid diethylamide, he was experiencing the world's first acid trip (Images Brian Blomerth).
Glasgow, you're blowing my mind. Tom Verlaine vinyl, Bukowski first editions and an unworn tailor made suit from 1932 in the charity shop on Byre's Road.
With my new pals
@PatNevin
@densherryboe
at the Speak Oot festival in Dundee the night before last. Back in Dublin now, but still on a post-gig high. Fab evening. x
Mid-1960's. When your mum drags you and your sister to a local art exhibition and the photographer from the Liverpool Echo insists that you stare into the epicentre of the psychedelic void.