Trailer Star interviewed in heaven…
Before anybody thinks I totally lost plot here ..interviewing my dead self???..what….
check out full story of Trailer Star here
http://www.shaunbelcher.com/trailer
1. WHERE WERE YOU BORN, WHERE DID YOU GROW UP?
I was born at 7.30 p.m. on a cold January Wednesday night in Oxford, England.
I grew up for my first six years in a wooden ‘shack’ (true..now used as a tractor shed!) on top of a hill in what was then Berkshire downland..now redesignated Oxfordshire…..near a famous and beautiful set of hills called Wittenham Clumps that Paul Nash painted and drew all his life.
http://shaunbelcher.com/archive/art/landscape.htm
2. WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST MUSICAL MEMORY?
Watching Top of the Pops – The Move -Fire Brigade on our newly acquired black and white TV ( post 1966 then as I distinctly remember my father jumping up and down on the sofa when England scored). So having checked online I can safely say that was around about mid 1968 (Released as a single in Britain in February 1968, it reached No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart. ) Apparently that track’s guitar figure influenced the Sex Pistols God Save The Queen……so that explains why I remembered it then:-)
3. WHAT WAS THE FIRST RECORD YOU OWNED?
Easy as etched in my memory…I used to look fondly at full length vinyl albums on Mr Lay’s electrical shop walls but could never afford wonders like the Tyrannosaurus Rex gatefold LP..instead the first album was a Music For Pleasure soundtrack (stage version) of Oliver …because only album I had I played it to death and I can still remember ALL the words…’In this life one thing counts..in the bank large amounts…’ Yup Lionel Bart was and still is my hero:-)
The first proper 45 and album I could save up pocket money from my paper round for was
Back off Boogaloo -Ringo starr 45 (influenced by the early ‘video’ on T.V. (TOTP again) and then in a moment of rebellion (whilst visiting my mother’s slightly dodgier sister in northampton)
Alice Cooper – Billion Dollar babies..again it was sleeve art and packaging that drew me into Alice’s world…’Raped and Freezin’…I was only 13 and had no idea what he on about…..so is a young mind corrupted….
Other flashes from the archive of my mind were the boxes of old soul singles in my Uncle’s front room..Invictus and Motown and a strange crop of pop 45’s from a jumble sale..Maryy Wilde ‘Endless Sleep’ ‘Frank Ifield, Cliff Richard, Perry Como, Jim Reeves’..there was a lot of Jim Reeves around as I grew up….maybe a tad too much…
4. WHEN AND WHERE WAS YOUR FIRST PERFORMANCE?
Technically I think it was in a church hall in Muswell Hill London as bottom on a bill with a motley crew of various Hornsey College of art musicians including Fergus Pearson and Peter Cavacuitti..Peter went on to be a cameraman for Derek Jarman and Fergus is the Vicar of a parish in the lake district!
I came up from Oxford with a guitar in a home made box I think..I was brilliant in my ehad rubbish everywhere else…
Second gig might have been in The Plough public House in my father’s village of Long Wittenham, Oxfordshire. I was too Steve Earle for the local folkies with their lutes …
5. WHO IS THE SINGLE BIGGEST MUSICAL INFLUENCE ON YOUR WORK?
Tom Waits and Raymond Carver and my father.
6. WHAT IS THE MOST MEMORABLE CONCERT YOU’VE ATTENDED?
The Clash supported by Joe Ely at the old Electric Ballroom in Camden Town. Police lines and sirens after and blistering gig……by all concerned..
7. WHAT IS THE WORST JOB YOU’VE EVER HAD?
Cleaning plastic containers of irradiated mouse shit……in a nuclear research establishment called ‘Animal Farm’..now could I make that up..no I really couldn’t…
8. WHAT IS THE BEST JOB YOU’VE EVER HAD?
Being paid £70 to read poetry for fifteen minutes…it only happened once so I better enjoy it forever 🙂
9. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE ARTIST (ALL MEDIA)?
Thomas Hardy
10. WHAT IS YOUR ALL-TIME FAVORITE BOOK
Salamander Encyclopedia of Country Music..I’d sit all day in a deserted library on a sink estate looking at the pictures of country album sleeves….it sunk in…
11. WHICH IS YOUR FAVORITE INSTRUMENT?
My Ovation Balladeer and my Harmony semi..both cost me more money than sense
12. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SONG YOU’VE WRITTEN?
last one ..’Hanging Puppet’…..always the best..
13. WHAT IS THE FAVORITE SONG SOMEONE ELSE HAS WRITTEN?
Tecumseh Valley -Townes Van Zandt
14. HAVE YOU EVER COLLABORATED IN SONGWRITING?
Yes especially on Moon Over the Downs…all collaborations..
15. CAN SONGWRITING BE TAUGHT OR IS IT A GOD-GIVEN TALENT?
Start with some talent then work hard…hard work with no talent is just work…
16. WHAT SINGLE THING HAS HELPED YOU MOST IN YOUR CAREER?
My partner…well she still is I think…you never know in this business…
17. WHAT SINGLE THING HAS HINDERED YOUR CAREER?
Greedy egotistical fools..all fields…there no limit to their follies
18. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE DRINK?
Beer
19. WHO’S YOUR FAVORITE POLITICIAN?
Joseph Arch – Agricultural Workers Union in 1800’s..a bright spark..
20. DESCRIBE YOUR LATEST DISC.
Suit of Nettles accompanied a show of art
see here to see and listen
http://www.sahunbelcher.com/suit