DRONGOMALA INTERVIEW WITH ANONYMOUS BOSH (JAN 2001)

Where were you brought up and where are your family from?
I was brought up in Manchester until I was six and then in Scotland and Ireland. My mother is Irish and my father is Scottish.

Do you remember when you were first aware of music?
The first music that I would have heard would have been played by my parents and it would have been Celtic music.....Chieftans, fiery Irish tunes and country records. My dad used to sing folk songs in pubs and clubs - it's probably the backdrop for me being a musician.

What were your favourite kinds of music and musicians as you were growing up?
The first couple of tapes that I owned - would have been The Beatles, Top 40 and Prince. Those tapes kept me going for ages. I used to 'liberate' records from my friends dads pub jukebox as he had access to the keys - it was a grab and dash so the records were pretty random. That lead me to hear eveything from New Edition's 'Candy Girl' to Queen's 'Seven Seas of Rye'- a mixed bag. A tape with 'Off the Wall' by Michael Jackson and some Motown tracks was a favourite. At 15 the film "Breakdance The Movie" helped me to dance and spraypaint badly. I recognised Prince as being very creative in his recordings. The Beatles and their songbook compendium was a magical thing to delve into aswell as it still is. Yearly three month migrations to Ireland for the school break would let me hear my first live music in Irish folk pubs - the Chieftans still remain one of my favourite groups of musicians. I got into bands that began to play live and started listening more to music that suited the line-up of the band which was guitars and drums - The The, Julian Cope, The Doors, Hendrix and whatever else the rest of the band liked. I started listening to bands like dEUS, the Velvet Underground, Tom Waits and then back to their roots of Beefheart and finally Howlin Wolf and Gospel music. Clubbing introduced me to electronic music afresh - Public Enemy had the same affect on me as the Beatles. For me, all music has its roots in the most simple of sounds.

Was there a moment when you realised that you would like to be a musician,or not?
More instincive. My first acoustic guitar. Recording things on a tape recorder and playing over them. Learning all the lyrics to "The Message". The 'Thriller' songbook and learning a few chords. A small casio keyboard later and from then I've been writing and recording with my wee orchestra ever since. Music is like a garden - it's always there.

How did you get involved in recording rather than just playing live?
I did recordings before I ever played live. Two tape recorders in the house. Sessions with schoolfriends in local studios then got a band together and made lots of demos and played live in a variety of guises for many years which allowed me to focus on song-writing and performance. Over the past three years I have been building up my studio - a larger mixing desk and a more reliable computer. The past year it has been possible to move projects between studios and it opens up so many possibilities. I've learned alot from the Navigator about studio voodoo.

How did you meet Dave and get involved with the Radio Wonderlust album?
I met Dave in a recording studio - he was tasked to record a few bands that had won a competition. One of them was a band I was in called Bartok which were doing great as an indie rock band - it was my vehicle for songwriting and performing for a good few years. As hot as the band were I was looking to work with samplers live at that point. After the sessions I knew that Dave was hearing me better than the band and it wasn't long after that that the band split. At that point my music was moving away from the traditional band situation due to instrumentation frustrations and I spent a year and a half in my studio at night while working during the day. It wasn't until a year or so and much expeirmentation in the studio that I managed some to get some demos together that were getting close to what I wanted to say with music. My first call when I had some tracks ready was to Dave because I intuitively trusted him in a way that I hadn't in other recording situations. Dave suggested we do Radio Repair Girl and we had great fun - Storm Gordon helped me by singing vocals on that track. From then on we've worked together very closely. Radio Wonderlust Vol 1 was what happened when we all got to know is other.

Has your involvement in computer technology influenced your music?
It has. The computer is a big asset but like all big knives you run the risk of cutting yourself. Connecting all the computers together makes things stroboscopic and it has a hum the same way electricity does. It can be confusing. I'm excited by it.

Which musicians do you feel you are most influenced by now?
I listen to alot of music - it's such a great joy to have and I discover new things all the time. Recently longer pieces of music have been a good guide for me. Eastern music as a source just keeps opening up and the rhythms in tabla playing have taught me alot. At the moment I listen to various records for various reasons. When I need more space I listen to Indian, Nepali, and Bulgarian music...curves from Motown and Soul ...when I'm primal and swampy I listen to Beefheart and Howlin Wolf....gospel music when I'm skint ...Rachmaninov for dark moments and funk music when I want to dance. All the emotions and records inbetween. The NHS should have certain albums available on prescription it would save money in the long run.

Same question for Stone Against Stone...
On electric guitar though a tiny amp the size of my hand playing along to a drumbreak - the original version was lost. The second version was where Dave and myself tried to do some recording between the two studios but computer synchronisation problems stopped it. There was a bit of gap as I went to India which was when the kit drummer Neil came in to do a session with Dave - I heard his session on a mobile phone in Dehli which was funny. The third version was a result of the previous two and when I came back Dave and myself finished it at Spooky Electric.

Ditto for the Waves...
I was looking to do an instrumental for Radio Wonderlust and a suggestion was made to finish a something I had demo'd a while ago. After working with it for a while I decided to re-build it with a more dreamlike hypnotic feel - a pre-hankering for the sea. I wanted the track to remind being next to the sea but the chord structure didn't warrant the 12 minute length. We wanted waves of sounds with the tempo of waves and The Navigator came up with a beautiful mandalla structure. The spoken word poem was from a tape I made of my friend Rebecca four or five years ago. Colin Steele played trumpet in the backhalf.

What other music have you been enjoying recently?
I work from home so I'm lucky to be able to listen to alot of music in a week - no-one specifically.

Have you had a chance to write any new material recently?
I've written quite alot recently - I write constantly and I have a very big backlog of demos and ideas to go through. There is great donkey work to be done in getting a label off the ground and it can take alot of time. I'm feeling my way around which track to do next and my minidisc is a great way to get ideas down.

Do you enjoy live performance and do you hope to do any performing in the future? If so, do you have any ideas as to how you would like to do this?
Ideas for the future of playing live would probably revolve around practicality - the flexbility to have a blend of live musicians, machines and singers in a travelling circus costs alot. I'm always on the look out for musicians, VJ's and anyone creative to work with in a collective way. i.e. trade skills with them rather than pay them!

Do other art forms such as poetry, films and painting etc. give you inspiration?
The artist Philip Laffoley seems to be taking art in a fresh direction and I would like to work with him on some film things. Ultimately it is complete expressions that can't be broken down to their parts that thrill me - like nature. Words are never what they describe and pictures are never what they represent - the lucky thing about music is that it is what is is.

As a creative person which form of expression drives you the most? For instance, if you had to make a choice and give up everything else, what would that be?
<laughs> - I let everything else inform one another - there's great energy and freshness in it. I'm lucky to have friends that push me to finish things but I don't tend to think in terms of giving up anything. For me, music is the best language and words come a close second and if I can manage to do the two together whereby they become one thing then that is the one thing that I would like to do.

Which records are guaranteed to get you feeling alright?

"A Meeting By The River" - Ry Cooder & Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, anything by the Chieftans, "Rhenium" and "Standing on the Verge of Gettin It On" - Funkadelic/Parliament, What's Going On - Marvin Gaye, "Rubber Soul" - Beatles, "Many Rivers to Cross" - Jimmy Cliff, "The Black President" - Fela Kuti, "Smokestack Lightnin" - Howlin Wolf, early recordings by Mahalia Jackson, "Magical Moments of Rhythm" - Zakir Hussain, Arkology Collection - Lee Perry, "The Spotlight Kid/Clearspot" - Beefheart, "Shahbaaz" - Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Qawwal & Party.....blah blah lots...

Its difficult to make plans but musically-speaking do you have any?
I love the phrasing of this question. To keep finishing records.

Fin.