THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.59 - MUSIC VIDEO TALES WITH TIM POPE

Episode Date: November 26, 2017

Adam talks with legendary music video director Tim Pope about his work with, among others, Iggy Pop, Neil Young and David Bowie.Adam Buxton’s Old Bits DVD is out now from gofasterstripe.comThanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support. Music & jingles by Adam Buxton Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how you doing listeners? Adam Buxton here. It is incredibly cold. Boy, I left it too late to come out and record this introduction on a Saturday night towards the end of November 2017.

The sun has gone down. I have my head torch with me, but I haven't activated it just yet. I'm challenging myself to see how well I can navigate these tracks without very much light at all. Rosie, the dog, is is up ahead boinging around. She's lucky she's got a furry coat on. Actually I'm lucky too because I've got a nice big ski jacket which I'm wearing to keep out the intense cold. My gloves are a little too thin and the tips of my fingers are somewhat painful as I hold my digital recorder in one hand and my phone which has some notes on it in the other. A little too much information for you there. You're very welcome. What can I say before I tell you about this week's episode? Well, just briefly because I gave these things plugs in the

last episode, I don't want to go too plug crazy because it's annoying, let's face it. Adam Buxton's Old Bits live DVD featuring lots of great, great videos and stupid bits and pieces I've done in the last few years is available now from gofasterstrike.com. That's all i'm going to say on that subject also don't forget to contribute if you wish to the adam and joe christmas podcast episode every year joe and myself try to get together and do some ridiculous swaffling to be uploaded for your podcast listening pleasure on christmas day and we'd very much like to hear from you with a view to reading out a few of your messages on the podcast. Any old crazy anecdotes, keep them short.

Don't forget, leave your messages as comments on my blog, adam-buxton.co.uk. Don't forget, your comments will not be published, even if it looks as though they have been. Don't worry, they haven't. Anyway, that's enough housekeeping. Let's get in without further ado to this week's episode. It's a conversation with the great Tim Pope, a director who was one of the biggest names in the music video world during its heyday in the 80s. He worked with artists like Suzy and the Banshees, Altered Images, Talk Talk, The Psychedelic Furs, Queen, Brian Ferry, and The Cure, for whom Tim created many of the videos that helped define that band for their audience.

created many of the videos that helped define that band for their audience. And Tim's reputation as a director who enjoys working in an unorthodox way has meant that at various points in his career, he's been called up by some legends of music who also like to confound expectations and do things their own way. I'm talking about Neil Young and Iggy Pop, to name but two. Great recollections about both those artists coming up in this episode. We also get to hear about Tim's working relationship with David Bowie, who had died just a few weeks before we recorded this conversation at the beginning of 2016, and Tim and I were both shocked and shaken up about it, as so many other people were, of course. So it was nice to be able to hear some stories about him from Tim.

Bowie was actually the person that suggested that Iggy Pop should check out Tim's work, although they hadn't actually met at that point. Bowie was just a fan of some of Tim's stuff and said to Iggy Pop, I think you should check out this Tim Pope fellow. I think you'd like him. And as Tim told me, he and Iggy ended up getting on very well, pretty much immediately, and their friendship led to Tim finally meeting Bowie in the flesh

and going on to collaborate with Javid on several projects, including the all-star concert at Madison Square Gardens that Bowie organised to celebrate his 50th birthday in 1997. Now, Tim's thoughts and anecdotes tumble out of him so speedily that you could be forgiven for thinking that he's either totally self-absorbed or on drugs or both. Actually, neither is true. He's just a naturally animated and engaging person, massively enthusiastic guy. But I started our conversation by asking if he ever had been a drug casualty. And that set us off talking about his early years,

how he got into making music videos, and then off we went on a windy rock and roll ramble. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here we go. Let's have a ramble chat We'll focus first on this Then concentrate on that Come on, let's chew the fat And have a ramble chat Put on your conversation coat And find your talking hat

La, la, la, la, la, la La, la, la, la, la, la La, la, la, la, la, la you see it's funny because i speak so fast which i do and i shouldn't really do that probably at my age or anything like that but i'm so in fucking enthusiastic about everything which is probably an endearing quality to some people i don't know probably annoying to others but I people always thought I was taking loads of speed but I never was because I just always wanted to do this film thing and so it was always about career or not really career but it's what I wanted to do that's what I always knew what I wanted to do and I was like when I was boring

old fuss the only thing that ever worked for me was when suddenly someone said try this and it was acid and I'd never done that before and it was Christmas and I remember the walls started melting and I thought yeah something is happening and then we went and watched The Wizard of Oz with someone's mum and I remember being in this room with this woman having no idea she was with eight tripping teenagers and we were like there and it was all in black and white and you know the bit where it goes through the tunnel it goes into color and then all six of us all at once go wow there's this thing as we go through the tunnel and but then it went all very tits up and very very and i remember sort of going home and crawling up my parents stairs and melting into the stairs and then the um oh god i remember the tv set i think the old grey whistle test and

this large breast shape thing came out the telly and lolloped onto my bed and i just kept writing i'm going mad i'm going mad anyway that was the only time i did it so i decided possibly made a career out of it but how old were you then probably like 16 or 17 but it's the only time i ever did that so no i never was the drug so did it really frighten you that experience beyond frightening and did you get flashbacks did you feel kind of never no i've subsequently i mean possibly part of my career has been sort of flashbacks in a way i think i always think my stuff's been fairly sort of trippy in a way but no no never had you know that stuff though i remember going to somewhere like a station it had a flecked floor with like white flecks on the floor and it was all swirling and moving and

i thought oh is this ever going to stop is it ever going to stop? In some ways it hasn't, I don't know. That kind of thing has always terrified me. I mean, I always felt as if my grip on reality was a little... A little fragile. ...shaky, yeah. Yeah. And I always, you know, my parents would tell me stories about acid casualties and... Oh, really? As warning stories, you mean?

Yeah, yeah. And then when I got into music, hearing stories about Brian Wilson and Sid Barrett... Oh, really? As warning stories, you mean? Yeah, yeah. And then when I got into music, hearing stories about Brian Wilson and Sid Barrett, there were so many examples of people who'd never really properly come back from that experience. So as attractive as it was from an exploratory point of view. Yeah, I mean, I know friends who've popped that stuff like champagne and it doesn't matter, it wouldn't affect them.

But I think if you're of a certain disposition, I absolutely agree. And I am not of the right disposition no i'm way too a lot of people i know seem to have mental illness in their family and i just think i'm on the edge of that and i just think you know or there's stuff like that in my family and i just think maybe i'm just not predisposed for that that's right that way of being i think some people are too much in their own heads anyway yeah yeah yeah and that is just going to tip them right over but also with me i think it's possibly and probably a control thing as well that losing that sense of control yes freaks me out totally and so i wouldn't be able to go there and i so i'm quite sad about that in some ways i'd like to have arrived at a point

where i maybe could explore yeah yeah a bit more maybe so now you have to tell your children about all that now to tell my kids you have to probably say to them which is what i would say and i have said to my children is that you know probably we are not the kind of people that are going to get on well with mind-bending drugs yes i've had to say that sort of thing exactly when did it become clear to you what you wanted to do very early on about the age of four my mother who is still alive still talks about me directing i was always one of those people in fact my daughter who's nine now i think has inherited that she's a control freak and directs endlessly and i used to direct and apparently i'd be in the street directing people what to do and so it was a

thing and then i think when most other people were engaged in pornography towards their teens, I was sort of looking at camera manuals and things like that. And so to make that happen, you do morning film classes at Hornsey College of Art. Yeah. Well, first of all, I sold a stamp that I had. It must have been quite a valuable stamp, probably worth a lot more than I sold it for. And I think I sold it for that I had. It must have been quite a valuable stamp, probably worth a lot more than I sold it for. And I think I sold it for five quid. And I bought on the Strand, somewhere down the Strand, I bought near Charing Cross Station, there was a stamp shop, and I got five quid and I went out and bought a camera called a Jelco camera.

But then I had to save up for film. And so then I used to stand in boots in Enfield Town and just sort of look at this roll of Kodak film with this yellow package. And I just was desperate to buy this film. Kodak film with this yellow package and I just was desperate to buy this film and then it would take me three months to save up for like a roll of film sort of thing always I was I was just waiting to buy this roll of film and then yes I ended up going um I must have heard about this Saturday morning thing that I could go to run by this lorry driver called Stuart who was a really really nice guy who I haven't seen

for many years but there I used to go there and I used to nick bags of film there was a cupboard with film and you know there's a smell that film has you probably know that smell it's like a vinegary smell it's this wonderful smell and there used to be this cupboard with shelves with piles of these yellow boxes so I used to lick loads of super eight film and then I used to go out and I went through a sort of experimental period of filming skies and jumping around and and then I made a film called canine excrement probably inspired by the John Waters film where divine ate the dog poo you know that film sure yeah pink flamingos pink flamingos yeah yeah and I met divine many years later and spoke about that at disco somewhere in north London anyway then I made a short film I got alex camera, which this guy Stuart lent me,

and I went out and made this film, which was to an Emerson Lake and Palmer song called Endless Enigma. And I was sort of endlessly enigmatic at that point. And I made this film. It started with a heartbeat, and I sort of did this zoom in and out thing. And I used to cut them in camera, and I wasn't really aware of editing.

So that was the first time I shot on 16mm, if you like. For those people who aren't filmmakers themselves or video makers, the concept of cutting in camera means simply pressing stop. Stop. And then starting again at the beginning of the next shot. And in many ways, I took that technique onto much of my later work. See, I think I'm quite producer-friendly in the sense that I never burned huge amounts of film.

And that's a very good political thing to do because if you haven't got the material for people to recut it, that's a great thing. So it was a great discipline to have. In other words, I'd shoot like a train set. So this piece of track would go here and then another piece of track would go here, then another piece of track.

I mean, I've seen the little things. You know, your things must be shot like that. Indeed, Joe and I always used to just press pause on the VCR. Really? I just start. But there's something nice and honest about that. I like that. I like that. I think it's really unpretentious and really sort of straightforward.

You're right, and it does indeed force you to be economical. And the problem nowadays, and I suffer from it as much as anyone... You can just burn stuff. You can just record and record and record, whether it's audio or video or whatever you want. Take as many pictures as you want i mean i still and in these days where you can sort of roll like we are here i i still i'm very disciplined about what i shoot i don't shoot too much stuff i like to prepare the

situation and then shoot it and then be quite disciplined in how much i shoot because there is something to be said about you can have too much stuff to put something together and I like the discipline of that. And does that mean that you are storyboarding a lot or writing notes? It would depend on what the specific project is but some things I would storyboard pedantically and to the frame whereas other things depending on what the project is no I wouldn't do that you know. So you're making short films on your Bolex camera aged around probably I was probably about 15 and in fact there was a bit of a bowie connection here because then I went to this place called Ravensbourne College which is where David had been to college in Bromley

yeah in Bromley that's where he went so this would be about 74 to 76 and it was a bit of a crap course frankly but in a way it gave me a wall to bang my head against. But the one thing I did really brilliantly with was we got given a music project. You could choose a song and you had to come up with the visuals. And I chose this Frank Zappa song called I Am The Slime. Do you know that song? Oh, from Overnight Sensation. Yeah, yeah, which is fantastic.

I am the slime oozing out from your TV set. And I loved all this stuff. So I came up with this idea and someone else filmed it. And it was the one thing I got a triple plus, plus or whatever I got the best thing you could ever get and what visuals did you create for that oh god it was some dystopian world of the future or something with this tv set and this big close-up of this mouth and just talking and so I came up with this it was quite a visual thing then I sort of kind of video drone before video yeah kind of video droney absolutely absolutely but anyway so I come out in the late 70s and I couldn't get a job

so I ended up being a bank clerk wearing a suit like a Brillo pad and I'm in there and it was horrible, it was absolutely horrible because I just wanted to make film but in those days you needed a double barrel name really to join the BBC or something and I used to write to the BBC and beg them so I could go and work on Blue Peter or whatever, anything. I just wanted to be around cameras and things like that. And that never really happened. And then I ended up at this company called Hivision. And this was a company which trained politicians to go on TV.

So I used to go to Number 10 Downing Street a lot. This was the year that Labour lost and Mrs Thatcher got in. So we used to go to Number 10. And I remember being in the cabinet room one night with this dodgy little black and white camera and we'd just filmed Mr Healy. He was about to go onto Panorama to be interviewed by Robin Day.

And there I am sitting there and Mr Healy had gone off to have a bath before he was going to go to TV centre to be on Panorama. And then suddenly he appeared really red-faced and flustered. I don't know if you remember what he looked like. Big eyebrows.

Sure, giant eyebrows, yeah. So he appears at the door and I found this document and it had top secret written on it. And this is genuinely true, I'm not making this up. And it had like nuclear this and this and that. So I'm thumbing through it, sort of reading all this stuff. And then Mr Healy appeared at this door and he goes to me, has anyone seen top secret document?

And I said, oh, is this it, sir? So I gave him this thing about, anyway, he goes off and then loses the election. But what I used to do was I used to nick the camera of an evening. My bosses didn't know. And I used to go to places like Guildford, where the specials were played. They're still with the afterburn of Dennis Healer's eyebrows on these camera lenses, because they were these really old, laggy, black and white cameras, you know? So there I was in Guildford with my old friend Charlie,

and the stage was invaded by skinheads. And suddenly, like, I'm on stage with the specials, with like a thousand skinheads, with this nicked equipment, with me looking like a long-haired, sort of not like a skinhead, the opposite to a skinhead. So me and Charlie had to, like, leg it out the back through Guildford, get on a train when loads of skinheads came, and I was so worried the equipment was going to get smashed up. So this just post-punk if you like weren't they the nice skinheads at a

specials show no no they were not nice skinheads they were not and also the other place where where I was actually working on was Neil Street which is where the Roxy Club was which was the famous place where the Sex Pistols started up so there I was sort of with this running out every week to buy the new musical express and to read about music and such like and this was all happening in front of me sort of thing but I was never a punk why were you filming the specials then I don't know I just filmed it to just to do it really just why not why not if you could be on stage because I had this thing about music and for me it was always Iggy Pop that I wanted to work with so that's where I was headed in my mind so I guess I just maybe wanted to make

I liked live bands I've seen loads of so why not incorporate film? I don't know You wanted to combine your two passions Yeah absolutely and why the fuck not you know so it was great

and then I became very friendly with this band The Psychedelic Furs and I remember going I've never seen a band rehearse before I remember going up to the Caledonian Road and seeing them rehearse and it's all been very mysterious and then I ended up filming them,

and I'd been dumped by a girl in High Wycombe, Liz, and she'd given me the elbow. Liz? Yeah, and Liz. And so I end up on stage. I've got a picture here again. Let me find it. I know, just so I can talk.

Yeah, there I am. I'm on stage there with the psychedelic furs. Look, there's me with a pink jumper, and there's the psychedelic furs. There you are, filming away on the side of the stage. And Liz was in the audience. So I was doing this in a way to say... I'm friends with the psychedelic furs!

There you go. In your face, Liz! Yeah, in your face, Liz, is exactly what I was saying. That's exactly what I was saying. So there was a little bit of that going on as well. Sure. So that was the start of my career from a bust-up of a relationship. But isn't that always the story?

They were great, the psychedelic furs they were fantastic and so soon after getting margaret thatcher into power um you are so you're starting to hang out with these bands then you get hooked up with soft sell yeah so about this time videos were really starting to happen so beginning of the 80s now yeah yeah so beginning of the 80s and um so videos had sort of started to happen but everyone was making these big sort of posh uh let's pretend i'm making a feature film sort of videos russell russell russell marquai and i used to hang out in all these places actually very near to where we are now very very near to where we are and i used to sort of want to go to these companies that were making videos. But at that point, there were like four or five video directors. And it was this

market that you just could not break into. So basically, I was storyboarding song after song, being disappointed endlessly. Finally, this song came in for Soft Cell. And I just met up with the band. And I just lied about what I'd done. And I said, I've made all these videos. And I'd not made any of them at all. I remember sitting with Mark Ullman, the singer of Soft Cell. And I'd done. And I said, I've made all these videos and I'd not made any of them at all. I remember sitting with Mark Ullman, the singer of Soft Surl, and I'd storyboarded this song called Bedsitter, which was great.

It was this really great sort of... Fantastic. Loved it, man. Yeah, I mean, man, when you listen to this stuff these days, the genius of this stuff that I was exposed to when I think compared to what a lot, you know, of course there are exceptions these days, but it's just's just fantastic stuff so anyway I came up with this kind of film noir-ish sort of idea and I storyboarded it and I just had this principle of

not letting people out of the room without them giving me the job what I used to do is I'd put the song on and I'd talk over it and I would not let someone out of the room until I got the job sort of thing. So that's what I did with Soft Seal and that was my first job. And then in those days, there were no places for this stuff to be seen at all. There wasn't MTV, there wasn't anything. Were they not playing videos on Top of the Pops? So Top of the Pops was the one place

and Saturday Superstore on the BBC. These were the only places, so it was quite rare for this stuff to get on there. But somehow or other, my video got on there. And I remember sitting and watching it. I was in a squat. And I remember watching this thing on the screen and thinking, shit, if I never do another video, I've done this one video.

And it was like it had come out of my head onto the screen exactly. And that was brilliant. But you also did some stuff that I would imagine did not get shown on TV, specifically Sex Dwarf. So later with Soft Cell, they decided to make a video album, again, much of which was recorded around here. And one of the songs that was on that video album was a song called Sex Dwarf, which you chose to show, which I thought was genius that you chose to show that. Well, you were our guest at Bug a few years ago. And in the course of looking at some of your videos before I spoke to you, I re-watched that one.

I think I'd seen it, like a clip of it before on the tube or something like that years ago. But it still is quite a shocking thing. When you showed it, and I was quite pleased that you chose to show it, I thought it was great. I thought this guy's all right because you chose to show that I thought it was great, you know, I thought this guy's all right because you chose to show that video. But what was great, the thing was,

I noticed a couple of people left and I thought that was fantastic. I thought, and you know, just previous to that, someone had actually made a video program on Channel 4 or something about banned videos and my video was still not shown, which was, and you know, that video was very much a response to like um

films like jiran jiran's girls on film where it had loads of close-ups of ice cubes on nipples i thought that was way more offensive than what i did i just chucked milk and maggots at the band and turned the music up so loud that it was so distorted and the floor warped because of all the maggots and milk and meat and everything and it was literally it was rank in there it was right and i turned up the heating so so it stank in there. And none of these people realised that I chucked all these maggots in. And I got through four takes. And then they suddenly realised all this meat had maggots in it.

And they all ran out of the studio, never to come back again with their pimp. But anyway, that was great. So what was the idea for the video? Just to create a kind of vision of debauchery? Well, I mean, Sex Dwarf, leuring disco dollies to a life of vice fantastic uh it was you know just a proper song wasn't it and i i what do you do you're not gonna make a sunday i mean the record company weren't thrilled with me and it was great it was a great adventure because i got chased down the street by the news of the world but i'll tell you really funny bless his heart the little guy he was in the film he was

only about two and a half i'd never really met um someone so small i think and you're quite a tall guy i'm quite a tall guy yeah and i'd never really met anyone like that so i think i was quite nervous about it and i remember i got the giggles but the bless his heart um one thing i'm really keen on is time keeping and he was late for the shoot and i was really fucked off. I was really, really annoyed. And then I saw, I remember standing there waiting and finally he appeared through this doorway and he came towards me. And the poor guy hadn't been able to get off the train because he hadn't been able to reach the handle.

So he'd had to go past his stop by four stops and then had to come back. And so that's why he was late on the day. So it wasn't a great start to the day. And then we dressed him up in all this bondage. He knew what he was in for though right oh yeah yeah well not according to what because then he went to this magazine called titbits and said that mark orman and i had taken him back to this hotel and made him perform strange sex acts which was absolutely well it wasn't from

my point of view anyway anyway and we'd done all this weirdo stuff with him but um i wonder what it was that made those audience members walk out if if it was the way that maybe they felt that that fellow was being exploited? I don't think so, because I don't think he was exploited. I think he exploited the situation. Interestingly, I went to a lecture by Quentin Tarantino many years ago who was talking about the use of the colour red in film and how emotive that is. And we chucked loads of blood,

although it was probably paint and such. I think it's to do with the redness of the video. And it has a broken-down, under-the-counter, degraded sort of feeling. I think, literally, the colour red creates an emotion in people, and I think that's what it was about. And when you couple it with um people of restricted growth in bondage gear and semi-naked women and well most of most of them were actually transgender

people actually yeah yeah most of them were it was great day out and I thought god if I can make a career out of this this would be absolutely fantastic great day out it was it was a fantastic day out rotting milk and maggots but But I think Mark, bless his heart, because he was being mooted as a bit of a pop star because he'd done Tainted Love. And I remember he was a little bit upset. It got shown in a public place once and he had to climb out through a lavatory window to escape

because the crowd went mad. That was the only time it ever got. And then it went underground. The way, not completely, it's a Clockwork Orange, but the way Clockwork Orange did for years, you couldn't get a copy of it. And the same happened with Sex Dwarf. It absolutely went away and no one could get a hold of it.

I didn't even have a copy of it for years. Where can people see it now? I think you can find it on YouTube these days. You can find anything on YouTube, can't you? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and how did you come to be working with him? I suppose first of all I should talk about is my association with The Cure which is what a lot of people associate. So I met Robert Smith actually very near to here in a place called Berwick Street and we were both pencil thin in those days and I met him on,

funny enough, I didn't really know of The Cure and I'd been given this album by an actress called Leslie Sharp who, amazing, this is by an absolute coincidence, she was a friend of a friend of mine before she was an actress. And she had her 21st birthday party up in Haringey in North London. And she gave me this Cure album. I've still got it. I must give it back to her at some point. Anyway, I've got this album, 17 Seconds. And that's how I first heard the Cure. And then I'd never really

met a musician properly apart from Mark Allman. and I met Robert Smith on a roof nearby here in Berwick Street and um all I could think to say to him because I didn't know what you said to musicians I didn't really know what you said and I just kept going on about a great drum sound or something that's all I kept talking about great drum sound great drum sound that's I couldn't think anyway so then we started so I started my association with The Cure at the beginning of the 80s if you like I'd started to make videos then I'd made a few the psychedelic furs I made some videos with them again very near to here this area that we are in in Soho in London was so much the start of my career and where I began and everything and then Neil Young phones me up from America and I remember this I'd moved out of home and I moved on to a boat with

seven women which was my summer of love it was fantastic and it was fantastic and I moved to this boat and I wanted to make videos I used to go to a pub near here and watch ashes to ashes because there was there was a place with a video jukebox and um I knew Neil Young as this guy that people rolled smelly cigarettes on his big 12 inch um you thingies. This geezer came onto the phone with this sort of crackly phone line and said to me, he sent me this song called Wondering, and would I come over and shoot this video? So this is 1983? 1983.

So I get the plane over to, I didn't even realise in those days that Hollywood was in Los Angeles. I don't know. I don't know why that hadn't joined up in my head. But anyway, Neil met me at the airport, which was amazing. And this big fuck off car with big white fins. And I thought that's what happened to everyone. I thought you got off the plane in Los Angeles and Neil Young met you in this car that was like a jukebox on wheels. I thought that's what happened. I don't know. Then I met him a few days later in San Francisco. I went up with his manager

and I'd never been to America, obviously. And I was sort of there to take the piss, frankly, because I didn't know who he was or what he'd done. And I think he really liked that, you see. Ah, so you weren't a big fan? Oh, no, I didn't know who he was. As I said, I thought he was someone who just... Right, he was just a weird old hippie guy.

Yeah, yeah, some old hippie fart. I didn't know he had any air to it. And he had seen, presumably, your Cure videos. Well, his manager phoned up, who I'm still presumably your cure video well well his manager phoned up who i'm still very friendly with elliot and and elliot phoned up and he'd referred to me as gorilla and i thought you meant like someone in an ape suit but i think what he meant was guerrilla as as in the uh you know the uh subversive the subversive sort of thing because i guess i was because everyone else was making these sort of i want to make feature film kind

of things and i was doing different sort of stuff if you you like. So I go up to Neil's Ranch, and we go up from San Francisco two hours out to this place called Bear Gulch Lane or something. And then there's a code and this door opened up and we went down this path, 2000 foot drop either side, come to this valley. And I remember his manager saying to me, it's good for a man's soul to own a valley, you know, and there were like mountain ranges. And there was this little house, this little redwood house off in the distance, and llamas were walking around and everything like that. So we go down towards this house with a lake. Subsequently, because I ended up going there a lot, you know that this place is the vibe of his music. And pictures, all the pictures of Neil were all shot around this ranch. And famously,

he had a lake there where he had the big speakers that would change their stereo orientation as he went around so he could be on a boat in the middle of this lake you know by this redwood house so i go to this redwood house and neil comes out with mirrored shades on and so i'm there to take the piss because i didn't know this bloke was so i came up with this idea which you couldn't do in those days of running the camera at half speed and playing the sound i'm sure you've done it a thousand you know whatever cranking yeah yeah so you run the camera at half speed and playing the sound out i'm sure you've done it a thousand you know whatever cranking yeah yeah so you run the camera at half speed play that play the soundtrack so neil's going i'm wondering you know he's going at half speed and i said this is this is an idea about this guy who's out of touch with everyone and the world

goes around him fast and so i'm there sitting taking a piss and i go into one and neil's sitting there opposite me cross-legged with no shoes on with his mirror shades going, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. So I'm telling him this, I'm doing this big pitch to him, which goes on for about half an hour. I'm over-talking, I'm doing, you know, over-compensating, I'm doing all this stuff. And then I finished, I ran out of steam.

I think I was jet-lagged and probably had about 12 coffees. And then Neil suddenly lowered his mirrored shades and I saw the most fuck-off eyes I've ever seen in my life, like these steely eyes which burned into me. It was that moment where I'm thinking, oh no, I've just got this horribly wrong. This guy is not the guy I thought he was. And he said, no, I like this character you've created for me.

I was like, yeah, this is good. So anyway, we ended up shooting this video in Los Angeles and Neil has this ranch with, he's got the biggest train set in the world, which is brilliant. Not many people have asked to play with their train set, but he's got this fucking train set with like mountains built of crystals.

And he owns this company, which is the equivalent of Triang out there. And he went around for a year with his manager and recorded the sounds of all the local dialects of all the guys on the foot plates. So he's got all the correct liveries on the train sets. And so I went and played with his train set and Neil also invented the puffer.

He has the patent. You know that thing, I don't know if you've ever owned a train set, but if you have a train set, you put oil in it and it puffs. But the problem is if the train is going slowly um it doesn't puff in sync with the movement so he invented this thing which the puffs increased and he has got the patent on that right so he's also got this barn full of cars he's got like al capone's car he's got like 200 cars or he did

have whether or not he has now al capone's actual car because it had bullet marks in it and stuff like that and anyway so yeah i, it was totally bonkers. And all these cars were covered. He had four guys maintaining them. And all these cars had white sheets. And he said, which car do you want for the video? So we walked through this cathedral to cars, this aircraft hangar. And I said, oh, we'll have that one.

So then we drive down to LA. I think I drove down with Neil in the car and stopped off at a few diners. Always had a right old laugh with him. Yeah, so that was 1983. And then that became a huge hit on MTV, you know. Yeah. I'd never seen the video before I met you for Bug. And it's very good.

I mean, it's an absolute peach because it's so strange. And he's got a great kind of starey face that he does in the video. And that combined with that effect of slightly speeding everything up so strange and he's got a great kind of starey face that he does in the video yeah and that combined with that effect of slightly speeding everything up just makes him look really crazy in an enjoyable way and yet the song is this um really very straightforward doo-wop yeah type thing from an album of his that was not well liked by no no anyone everybody rocking, I think. But it was really great because in his biography, he described this moment where me and my production designer, this guy called Al, we were sniggering all the time. And I remember Neil said, yeah, there's this moment I looked

over and saw these British guys and they're sniggering at this Polaroid of me, this looking like fucking mad, like Jack Nicholson or something. And he said, I knew these guys were all right. So it was great. And you know, Neil's one of the people I still work with these days I mean I shot a live show for him a few years ago and there's so many great stories on that he's just a brilliant geezer he's just a very very funny man I love him he's brilliant well if people listening to this haven't seen the video for wandering I really recommend you either pause this and watch it right now or watch it later. You did a whole bunch of other videos with him, as you've alluded to, and they're all, you get a great, strange variety of performances out of him. And he really is throwing himself into

these kind of narrative videos that you made. Yeah, I could have got it so wrong, I guess. I guess I would have gone there and been politer these days. But yeah, he always liked to play a character. I'd had this character lurking in my head called the pig farmer, which was this inbred kind of deliverance type character. And Neil always knew, every time I saw Neil, we always used to laugh about the pig farmer. And so then finally, we made a film with the pig farmer. And we went to this town called Pear Blossom on the edge of the Nevada desert. And Neil has a theme of borrowing some of my clothes for videos so he borrowed my czech shirt in wondering he borrowed my police hat uh for a live concert he did anyway there's many times he's borrowing my clothes i know it sounds like a bit weird

relationship but it's not really like that but anyway we shoot this video in pear blossom and what we didn't know is we're right near this meat place and they were really fucked off that we were playing the music loud and suddenly these wafts of bad meat started coming across because they were fucked off so they opened these doors of these big refrigerators and let all this rotting meat which they chucked out to tell us to piss off so anyway i had great fun I'll just tell you one other quick last story about him. So about three or four years ago, I'd had lunch with Neil,

which I quite often see him in London, and he's just a very engaging man. And I realised, see, subsequently, albums like, what's that album? Harvest Moon. What a great album. I mean, amazing. I mean, that's like a sort of hunky dory almost it is actually

what a great parallel and to do it at that stage of his career and that saved me a really difficult point in my life that album and suddenly so i had a different relationship with his and um but then finally recently so i i ended up having lunch with neil and my son was at school in brighton at this point so i go down to quiz night at my son's school and I spent the day with Neil having a brilliant lunch talking about failure and also a brilliant philosophical conversation. And he suddenly decided he wanted me to shoot a live show. Him and his manager had gone into one. And so I go down to quiz night and I'm sitting there and the headmaster of the school said, right, we've got a musical section now. And he said, I'm not really

excited but if it was about Neil Young I'd be quite excited right so this is what the headmaster says so my phone rings and I wasn't going to say anything that I'd see Neil obviously but my phone rings and it's Neil on the phone so I go out to this quadrangle and I get quite infused and he said oh could I shoot this live film and I'm shooting this um yeah he's saying he wants me to shoot this show in three days time or something so we start having

this conversation about this and meantime quiz night is finished and I'm seeing the headmaster come out and he comes past me and I'm just winding up

the conversation with Neil so I had to do it so the guy goes past and I said oh Mr Melia his name was Mr Melia I said I've got Neil Young

on the phone so it's a total coincidence that the headmaster had just mentioned him. Absolutely true. Not a madey-upy, I promise you. So he comes past. And I said, Mr. Melia, I've got Neil Young on the phone if you'd like to speak with him. So the headmaster of this school is saying to him, yeah, yeah, love your stuff, Neil.

You know, like, I wouldn't have believed it if it had been me. But anyway, it was Neil Young. And Neil's going, ah. So they're having this chat. So I then took the phone from the headmaster and said, oh, I said to Neil, I said, all right, so I'll speak to you in the next couple of days. Hung up the phone. The headmaster said to me, he said, that was great. That was Neil Young.

I said, yeah, it really was Neil Young. And he said, that was so exciting. I shall mention that at the staff meeting on Tuesday. It's good enough for a staff meeting mention. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's, I suppose, often the way with people like Neil Young, who are complicated artists, the last thing they want is to work with someone who's a super fan, who sees them the same way that everybody else does.

So for most fans, they would go off and they would say, OK, Neil, here's the idea. You're sort of sitting on a log and you're gazing off into the distance and you're emoting for us these lovely lyrics. But instead, you're dressing him up like a lunatic and make him... Absolutely, or just being mad. And he likes...

And I think he's a really humorous guy. Yeah. And last story I'll tell about him, but I just... I ended up filming this concert and so I put a camera on the end of a pole that I said to Neil, is it all right if I come on stage tonight?

Because yes, he wants you to do something totally mad. So I know what happened. This red mist came down over me. I started going bonkers on stage at Hammersmith. And I started bouncing this. And it was really pissing the audience off. And I'm swinging this lens across the heads of the audience and smashing it, shoving the camera up between Neil's leg. it's the best rock and roll footage you've ever seen and his manager

meantime Elliot is in the wings trying to get me off going no come off come off and I conceal it's freaking Neil out and then there was this song about this mate of Neil's who died from a drug overdose and something in me needle in the damage done no no no another one uh Bruce thing he was a friend of mine it It's this real... Tonight's the Night. Yeah, yeah, Tonight's the Night. See, you know all this stuff far better than me as well. I love about you, see.

You're much more of an anorak than me, which I think is brilliant. Anyway, yeah, Tonight's the Night. So, which is this song that was ripped from the soul. And then I found myself, like, pressing this camera into Neil's forehead, like, looking down, and I'm, like, slamming this camera into his

forehead. And I got the best rock and roll shot any fan would ever want to see, like from Neil's forehead, like looking at his hands as this song is ripped from him. And I'm like pressing this thing into his forehead. And then I sort of tried to sort of move the thing away, but it kind of stuck to his forehead slightly. And then finally, finally, I moved the thing away. And there's a dent in his forehead. And I thought, oh, moved the thing away and there's a dent in his forehead and I thought, oh shit, I've gone too much over the top here.

This is, there's a dent in Neil Young's forehead, which is not a great thing to do. And anyway, I saw him after the show and I said, oh, was that all right, Neil?

I felt sort of vaguely apologetic then. And, and, and so I said to him, you know, was, was that okay? He said,

yeah, man, kind of freaked me out for about the first four songs. And he said, but after that, I kind of got into it you know Look at my fingers dancing all on the strings. And then it's ha, ha, ha. Solo.

Hand the solo. Check out my hand. Playing the solo. Hey, kid. Were your fingers struck by lightning? That's what Jimi Hendrix once said to me. Professional guitar man He's got skills coming out of his fingers

He makes that wife look like she Oh, it's embarrassing Professional guitar man Oh, doodling Look at his fingers dancing All on the strings of the guitar I'm doodling I'd gone to the Rainbow Theatre in North London in Finsbury Park

when Iggy was touring Lust for Life in 1977. And Bowie famously was on keyboards. And I was obsessed, as I believe you are. So the lights go down and just the amp lights were there. I can see it like this cathedral of lights in front of us. And then the figures came on and I recognised Bowie's silhouette coming onto stage. And I thought, that is David Bowie.

Because I'd seen him in Man Who Fell to Earth. I'd seen him in everything. Of course, I was obsessed by him. I knew everything about him. And so he comes on stage and then they started playing Lust for Life. Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum. And the lights come up and Bowie's there

and he's in fucking profile and looking gorgeous. You know, it's David Bowie. He's got a Czech shirt on a red Czech shirt. He's making his point that I'm the keyboard player. He's in profile. This gig turns out to be a very famous gig. Robert Smith, the singer of The Cure. Everyone was there. I've worked out retrospectively. Anyway, David's playing keyboards and suddenly this demented dwarf came on stage uh iggy pop and i didn't really know he was and he had his shirt off and he's got this devil's tail on and he just goes fucking mad and he runs across the stage and he leaps up to the speakers pulls the speakers down throws himself uh smashes some glass and this is before he's sung blood

everywhere uh smashes the mic into his face, I'm in, I'm in at this point, I'm thinking this is Iggy Pop, so I didn't know Iggy Pop was, so anyway, I'm seeing this, and I'm thinking this is amazing, so then this was the best show, possibly the best show I've ever been to, because you've got David Bowie on keyboards, and you know, you're playing this amazing album, and then one day, because of the video thing had taken off for me, I get a call my producer says Iggy Pop wants to meet you well those were the words I'd always wanted to hear and in fact I met him very near there was a cutting room in Marshall Street and they said Iggy Pop's coming

up to see you I couldn't believe it Iggy Pop coming to see me you know what year was this then do you remember it must be like 85 because videos had really I was doing videos for Queen all sorts of people I was doing all sorts of stuff, right? So Iggy appears in my cutting room, you know, I'm towering over him. I'm quite tall, as you say. And we go down to a pub called the John Snow Pub and it's a proper, I like old man pubs. That's what I go to in New York.

I like proper old man, boring fart pubs where they don't play music. So I'm in there with Iggy Pop, loads of old men who look like Toby Juggs around me. And I'm in this thing and i and i was like i'm trying to provoke him to talk about the stooges you know the fucking best garage band in the world so i get him talking and i'm standing over he put looking at the back of his teeth seeing the blackness behind in those days i'm sure his teeth are better these days and he's going

yeah man you know it's fucking stooges it's like i grew up in detroit and it's the sound of card or smashing and i'm in this pub i'm trying to provoke him to do like a stooge anyway i got him man, you know, there's fucking stooges. It's like, I grew up in Detroit and it's the sound of Cordo smashing. And I'm in this pub and I'm trying to provoke him to do like a stooge. Anyway, I got him a little bit. Anyway, so we became friends. It gets to the point where whenever I go to New York, I sort of phone up Iggy.

So we used to go to this restaurant in Alphabet City called Krua Luang, I remember it. And Iggy, by that point, I hadn't worked with. And he always said to me, every time I went to a show or something he'd go yeah man we will work I remember he always and I was like but when when are we gonna do something he's the only person I chased you know and he was like we will work so he just got in touch with you on spec yeah yeah because and I believe David had told him

about me because I read a quote online and David had said there's this very intense guy in and and you'd like him so Iggy says to me we're going to go and see this band called X would you like to come and he said I've got a couple of mates showing up and I was like okay fine that'd be great you know so we go to this gig that um and no seats yeah we we go in and we get the best seat in the house and there's a couple of chairs opposite us and there's this band X from LA and I'm sitting there next to Iggy and then I realised who his mates are and I look over and it's Mick Jagger and David Bowie sitting opposite me.

Anyway, so later that evening, they decided it was not a cool gig or whatever, whatever, for their own reasons, they decided to leave and they all go out and I'm like left with my film editor friend Pete and Iggy said, oh, come and join us join us this restaurant so we go uptown to this restaurant and there were two seats for me and my film editor and we arrive and I'm sitting at this round table and there's a couple of other people but there's basically Mick Jagger opposite me and Bowie and Iggy next to me and I sat next to Iggy

Iggy goes off for a pee. I'd never met Bowie or said anything. It was all a bit awkward at first. And then Bowie turns to me and he goes, the fact that he knew about me again was pretty amazing. Then he goes to me, he goes, Tim Pope, he goes, you're a funny little arsehole, aren't you? Those were the first words he ever said to me. And I went, yeah, David Bowie and you're a complete cunt. Anyway, this is what I said to him. And there was that moment in his face. And in a way, that was the template for our relationship because I think I always wanted to shock him.

It's like what you said earlier on. These guys don't want to have yes men around them. So I said to him, you're a complete cunt. And then suddenly I'm sitting in this restaurant and I took him with David Bowie. And he's telling me about being the thin white duke. And he's telling me about, I can't remember seven years of his life.

Anyway, we got on great. And then I got the call for it, which was kind of inevitable that I was then going to go over and work with him. And, you know, it probably wasn't the best part of his career. I don't think I ever worked, but I always found him such an engaging and daring man, I've got to say. And I found him as someone who was always kind of like a laugh, basically. I always had like a real laugh. But around me, for some reason or other, he always turned into a bit of a London cabbie. And we would talk about London. And these streets around here, he told me about coming up from Bromley with the speakers on the top of his car, coming to the marquee.

So I did this video with him first. I do this video. And I remember I flew over. Is that Time Will Crawl? Time Will Crawl. And I thought the song was kind of like Bowie, but not amazing. Well, it was from Never Let Me Down.

Yeah, which was the ironically titled. Let Everyone Down, right? Which was Let Everyone Down. But, you know, like Neil Young, you can make a decent video to something that maybe isn't someone's best moment, and you can then hope that you build a relationship with them so that the great moment happens later on.

Which it did for me. It's 50th, which I'll come on to. So I remember going into Central Park and because I was going to go and meet him at a hotel he was staying at on the top floor. And I was going to meet David Bowie and I thought, I'm going to really do a pitch on this video. I'm going to be really strong on this. I'm going to do something that will be refreshing for you. And he was quite, I remember he opened this door and it's David Bowie standing there. It was our first sort of one-to-one sort of moment,

if you like. And it was funny because I'd done this song, I Want To Be A Tree. His son, Joe, or Duncan rather, I think had told him about me as well, maybe. And I remember he opened this hotel door and he's standing there and he goes, I want to be a tree.

Anyway, in the end, I had this fantastic idea for it, but I couldn't, I could see I wasn't going to get the job. So I had to shoot this around his rehearsals for The Glass Spider. I remember then going to that show because I'd always told my mother I would work with Bowie. I'd always told her. I said, I will work with David Bowie.

This will happen. But I just remember this frozen moment behind the stage in, I think it was Sydney. And he put me beside the speakers because he wanted me to see the show close up and and he was he was out doing the thin white juker where station you know so he's out there doing all this stuff and he came to me halfway through and he was looking shocked and slightly one about something over and i couldn't i knew something was affecting him

and he came out to the side of the speakers and he says to me fucking i'll have a look out the front and there was this woman standing there in the front lifting up her dress with her foot up up on the up on the security barrier with nothing on underneath oh and you i always think pop stars are up there and they're just seeing just sort of a glazed miraculous thing or something but he wasn't he was seeing this woman he was and it was so sweet and i had so many great times with him you know just amazing because another documentary I'd grown up on was the um Cracked Actor made by Alan Yentop and suddenly I found myself in that in that documentary because I remember being in Chicago with him and we took off this ramp in Chicago and I was in the car with him and suddenly I was in

Cracked Actor with him and I couldn't quite believe it it was a bit like I was in the car with him. And suddenly I was in Cracked Actor with him. And I couldn't quite believe it. It was a bit like I was in Cracked Actor. And we go across Chicago and there's a plane. And he was sitting there with this blue dressing gown on. He had these white socks on, which had red stains from these red shoes on his toes. I remember it. And he's sitting there. He goes, do you want a drink then?

So I go, you do a much better voice than him. Your voice is scarily accurate. Your voice, you're in person. You must do some for me in a bit because I. Your voice is scarily accurate. Your voice, you're in person. You must do some for me in a bit because I find your voice so scarily accurate. Oh, wow. And he's sitting there in this chair with this cocktail bar and we're taking off going to Toronto or something.

And he's sitting there and with these... And I want a drink then. So the plane takes off and we go to Toronto. And then I had this real kooks moment because one of my favourite songs was Kooks. Yeah, I love it. If you chuck the books on the fire, go downtown. Anyway, and as we're coming down into Toronto, he comes and sits on this plane seat next to me.

And he goes, you know, my boy's doing his O-levels tomorrow and I'm really worried about the results. And all I could see was this kooks. I could only hear kooks because there's David Bowie the person, you know. And so I just had so many great and engaging moments with him and then I ended up shooting loads of videos with him with Tim Machine and I remember going to see him in Rotterdam and I walked into the room and having really profound conversations with him about mental illness as we talked about earlier on we both had family where this was an issue and um he and I said I said to him is tim machine i just got to ask this question

david is tim machine serious or not is it is it serious and he was like yeah so i was like okay i just need to know because anyway you know but the best thing i think i ever did with him was his 50th birthday party which was the dream job you could ever have as a bowie fan so i go to new york in um i don't know, it must be 97 or something. Yeah, and by that time he started to get himself creatively back together after stretching his legs with Tin Machine and having fun there. Absolutely. But then he was, was it Earthling he did?

It was Earthling, it was around the time of Earthling, which I don't think is one of his, but he was starting to re-find himself. Yeah. And this was wonderful to be around so i had he asked me to be his eyes and ears on this show that he was putting together and he was having loads of guest people including robert smith who i you know had worked with and and we had sonic youth there foo fighters frank black i was standing next to him the first time the foo fighters played he had three drummers on stage and i'm standing next to david they played this, not my favourite song, Hello Space Boy. Anyway, this song, but with Dave Grottle playing and I'm standing like three foot away with these drummers like playing and we just all stood there gobsmacked. It was amazing. So I

put the show together with him and the most endearing moment was we were one night in Philip Glass's studio, very late at night, and and he always planned everything he had this little cardboard theater with this little figure of himself and with this scrim where he and I was hand holding the projector like in a room like this size and we're singing in harmony we're singing you know so we're singing this and I've got this projector and I'm projecting the image onto the screen and he goes that's me that's me and this little figure walks out and we're singing this and I've got this projector and I'm projecting the image onto the screen and he goes that's me, that's me and this little figure walks out and we're planning this show and it was just brilliant just seeing that

really endearingly sort of human side to him but of course the best moment on that show was when Lou Reed came in of course which was an album probably for you, Transformer was an amazing album so he said to me oh lou's coming in this afternoon and i was like lou who you know joke joke um and we're at philip glass's studio but

he was really nervous around lou reed because i think lou reed was quite an edgy bloke and i think yeah they'd had fisticuffs in in famously uh not that well actually no 25 years towards the end of the 80s wasn't it yes absolutely no i think that. And I think they hadn't spoken for years. So I'm in the room when they came together again. And I think they'd met previously and had spoken. But anyway, and I look over and Lou arrived in this black jacket. I remember David was really being quite nervous. I remember him being a little bit nervous that things might be,

would go a bit awry or stuff. And so they're standing in the kitchen. So I thought I'll sidle in and I'll probably get some insight into, into like the words. Yeah, yeah. Hear something. So I go in and I sort of make this prolonged cup of tea, you know, sort of. I've got David Bowie standing there and Lou Reed sort of leaning. And anyway, Lou was going to Africa the next day with his missus.

And David was talking about fruit bowls. And it wasn't the conversation I thought. reed sort of leaning and anyway lou was going to africa the next day with his missus and david was talking about fruit bowls and it wasn't the conversation i thought and lou reed saying uh yeah man you know we're going to africa and you know and david said yeah well of course the markets are fantastic aren't they i won't do the voice like you but he goes the markets are just fantastic they've got some wonderful fruit bowls there there There you go. Brilliant. Absolutely good. I'm back there. Flashback. Then I did have a flashback. So anyway, and then he's talking. He said, but the only problem is when you get the fruit bowls back,

because of the change of the climate, they warp. And it's not the conversation you expect to be hearing with David Bowie and Lou Reed. Anyway, and then later on, they go into this tiny studio. We're in a small room as we speak now. And I go into this little room, and they are singing songs like queen bitch and waiting for my man and i couldn't sort of believe it part of me had to pinch myself you know to actually see this stuff unfolding in front of me and then they came out and i used to have a dodgy eye it used to be 60 degrees over and bowie i suddenly had this moment with bowie looking into my face and he's's going, he goes, look, look, Lou, he's got a dodgy eye.

And I said, I'm not the only one around here with a dodgy eye, right? And I've got this moment where they're both looking down. I've got Lou Reed, like, peering into my face like some dinosaur just looking into my face. With David beside him, like, looking into my eyes. So that was a pretty amazing experience, I guess. Oh, wow. into my eyes so that was a pretty amazing experience i guess oh wow wait this is an advert for squarespace every time i visit your website i see success yes success the way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes it looks very professional I love browsing your videos and pics and I don't want to

stop and I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash Buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code Buxton to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. continue oh boy oh boy hey welcome back listeners it is brass monkeys out here that's probably an

offensive term isn't it it's one of those phrases that you use and you don't necessarily know the etymology. And when you find out, it turns out that it was either incredibly hostile to animals, women or minorities. I'll look it up when I get back. No doubt you can tell me whether it's a phrase that I should avoid in the future. But listen, thanks to Tim Pope. Hope you enjoyed that. And thanks as well to David Knight and Phil Tidy, part of the team that put together the live bug shows that we do every few months at the BFI. And that's how I first met Tim.

He was a guest a few years ago he came along and we showed some of his videos and talked about his career and I really enjoyed meeting him then thanks also to the locomotion post house in Soho where we recorded our chat and I hope if you enjoyed our conversation and you're still listening that you will be inspired now to look up some of Tim's music videos and remind yourselves of them but I really want to direct you to one that he did for Neil Young a track called Wondering if you've never seen that before and I've talked about it before in in various places i think and said how much i enjoy it it it's so great i love it if you're a neil young fan as well i think you'll get a kick out of it because it's not what you

would expect at all from neil young i mean it's a track from one of his least popular albums 1983's everybody's rocking which earned him some of the worst reviews of his career. I think in 2006, Q magazine listed it amongst the all-time 50 worst albums ever recorded. I'm paraphrasing now from Wikipedia about the album. Wikipedia about the album. Young himself expressed fondness for the album, of course, comparing it favorably to his acclaimed 1975 album Tonight's the Night, yet also acknowledging the truth of some of its harsher criticisms. What am I, stupid? Did people really think I put it out? This is how Neil Young speaks. Thinking it was the greatest fucking thing I'd ever recorded? Obviously, I'm aware it's not.

That was a good impression, wasn't it? And Everybody's Rockin', this is a little tangential side note. Everybody's Rockin' is also the album that made Geffen sue Neil Young at the time because it was such a commercial flop. So they sued him for $3.3 million on the grounds that this record and its predecessor were not commercial and musically uncharacteristic of his previous recordings.

Young filed a $ million dollar counter suit alleging breach of contract since Young had been promised no creative indifference from the label. The suit backfired against Geffen with label owner David Geffen personally apologizing to young for the suit and for interference with his work the lawsuit repelled prospective signees rem who were preparing to work with geffen but upon hearing of the young lawsuit signed with warner brothers instead quite right i mean god that tells you all you need to know about the music industry, doesn't it? Has that ever happened in movies, I wonder, that someone's been sued because the studio didn't agree? Well, I guess the studio wouldn't let them put it out, would they, probably?

It's all a bit more hands-on when it comes to movies. it's all a bit more hands-on when it comes to movies the idea that an artist can be sued because what they put out wasn't sufficiently commercial especially someone like neil young it's just so bizarre isn't it i guess nowadays a lot of artists are desperate to be commercially successful anyway so they don't need a label to uh sue. They police themselves. What do you think, Rosie? I think you're boring and I want to go home because I'm so cold. Fair enough. Let's go. I can hardly see anything.

I'm navigating now just by the lights in the distance. I don't even have my glasses with me, so they're just blurry points. Oh, the moon's quite bright. It's casting a moon shadow. Moon shadow, moon shadow. That's one of the words that if you say you have to sing the song, you can't just say moon shadow and then not sing a bit of the song. All right. Take care, listeners. Thanks so much. Hope you enjoyed this episode and tune in again another time when you wish. I love you. Bye. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when my bum's up.

Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when my bum's up. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when my bum's up. Give me like little smile and a thumbs up Nice like a pat and put me thumbs up

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Give me a little smile and a thumbs up Like and subscribe ស្រូវាន់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រ Thank you. Bye.