In the next few months, Domino are planning a big reissue series of the Robert Wyatt back catalogue, and the arrival of the first batch the other week compelled me to dust down this interview transcript from the summer of 2007. I visited Wyatt at home in Louth, a little before the marvellous “Comicopera” was released. An edited version of the interview appeared in Uncut last year but, if you’ll excuse my indulgence, I thought the whole thing was worth putting out there. An incredible man, I think.
Click on the links for Part One and Part Two of the interview.
That “Rock Bottom” was partially written before accident is fascinating, because it’s so often stereotyped as a post-traumatic record.
It’s a funny thing, I always feel embarrassed to say this, but I don’t mind being in a wheelchair.
Click on the links for Part One, Part Two and Part Three of the interview.
Is it fair to see the last three LPs of a piece? They seem to sit together as a sequence.
Yeah I think what I found, funnily enough, is sometimes you get what you want when you stop trying to get it.
I’m chatting to Kurt Wagner, who I’ve just bumped into at the back of The Borderline and because I haven’t seen him for years, I’m gabbing away and don’t realise that I’ve actually interrupted him on his way to the stage for his headlining appearance at another great Club Uncut night.
A bit of a sketchy bunch this week, as you’ll see. But the TV On The Radio album is getting played daily at least once, and there’s an auspicious new Mystery Record for me to be all cagey about.
When Klaus Dinger died a few months ago, I mentioned in an obit here that I had an unpublished interview with Dinger and Michael Rother, from when they briefly reunited to promote the Neu! reissues in 2000.
It’s the moment half way through the set when she arrives, with a swish of the curtain, on stage astride a giant silver skull, wearing a flowing red trouser suit and cap, that we realise we just aren’t in Kansas any more, Toto.
