TAF: So how did it all begin?
David: Do I do the honest version or the made-up one?
TAF: Can you do both?
D: The fake one looks much better than the original, real version.
TAF: What's the real version then?
D: I lived in a flat at 1 Divinity Road, with Phil, who is now living in New York in a
millionaire's palace. Which is what happens to drummers.
Woodie: I'm still waiting.
D: I had a broken amp - the only thing I knew how to use was the gain button - and a cracked guitar with three strings. Phil would drum on boxes using paint brushes.
Actually I seem to remember it being a telephone directory and a box. And we tried
to sound like the Swell Maps. If you're aware of the work of the mighty Swell Maps.
TAF: No. See, this is where Rory would be good.
D: Very basic punk rock. And the TV Personalities and that kind of thing. We had a
song called 'I Know Where Dan Treacy Lives' and we had a song called 'New Punk
Shoes'.
Jon : I have those on cassette. Which I must have gotten in 1990.
D: Just really crap songs. And then me and Jon were doing this thing called Mast at
the same time, which was a kind of dedication to our friend Dale who was in a band
called Blood Sausage. Mountain Mast is a northern lager, I believe. Or was it a
northern line thing? That was kind of long soundtrack music for stuntmen. And I
remixed it.
J: I've got several different remixes that you've done on tape.
TAF: Can you play them at the next Twee?
J: Yes.
D: Then Comet Gain was a band, and the name - which is the biggest regret of my
life… I liked those names like Chocolate Watchband with two words that had no
relation to each other. And 'gain', because it was the only thing on the amp that I
liked; it made things noisy.
TAF: How did you think of Comet?
D: Cause they go through the sky and...I used to lie and say it's because comets are
these brief things that burst into flame and disappear again, but it's because I like the word I think. It could have been Cheese Gain. We were asked to play a show at the Bull & Gate with TV Personalities and maybe it was Huggy Bear - can't remember. Me and Phil did it, and my friend George was supposed to sing, cause he's tall and looks like Michael Caine and is quite scary. I was so nervous - I had to write the lyrics on the way down - in Amelia Fletcher's car - she was the sensible person [laughs]. We were on stage at the Bull & Gate. And Phil refused to drum, because he'd never been on an actual drum kit - there were all these things -drums and he'd never used drums before - and we couldn't go on stage with telephone boxes, and I was using Will's (who then became a member of Comet Gain) guitar - it had all these buttons on it and I had to ask him on stage - "what does this do"? And the guy who was supposed to sing refused to sing cause he was too scared, so I had to sing. And I was too nervous to sing. I got my friend Dale to come up and I just gave him a piece of paper, and he just did beat poetry 'cause I was too scared to sing. And it kind of went downhill from there, really, didn't it? Fifteen years later...
TAF: How did you [Dave] and Jon meet?
D: We met before then many times. Shop Assistants gig, or a June Brides gig?
J: Some gig at The Falcon, in Camden.
D: I'd always see him- he had big hair then.
J: I have big hair now.
D: And we became friends...in a way. And I always thought Jon was the perfect
person to be in Comet Gain. But it just took a lot longer than expected.
TAF: How many years was it before Jon joined?
D: I'm not very good with years.
J: Do I really have to say the actual number of years? It was eleven years ago.
D: Fucking hell. I've been telling everyone that Comet Gain have only been going for
ten years for the last fifteen years. I don't remember and I'm really scared by the fact that we've been going for longer than the Rolling Stones or something.
J: But I've played in Comet Gain before that as well - just helping out now and again.
D: He did all the songs.
J: It's the band I've always wanted to be in. And then when I was in it, I was like;
"fuck this shit."
D: Over the years I've always tried to get Jon into it - cause Jon's the secret genius
behind Comet Gain. I was trying to get him to do his own songs. And he nearly did.
On City Fallen Leaves he had three songs. One of them sounded like a George
Harrison Beatles song. And they were great. We thought that could be an EP - the
Jon Slade/ Comet Gain EP.
W: You could have performed them at Indietracks, couldn't you?
D: And then we could have actually been something. We could have been
remembered for something.
J: Did you hear about Sean's idea that he's going to put out the recording of 'You
Can Hide Your Love For Ever' from Indietracks? With the version of 'Who Loves The
Sun' we did that night? With me recreating the cover - cause you know it's the dude
and the girl in the car.
D: Is that really his idea or is this a joke?
J: I thought it was a joke at the time.
D: Did you agree to it?
J: No I said it's a terrible idea.
D: He bought you a drink and you agreed to that. So it's a gentlemen's agreement.
J: Don't put that in.
D: Ah put that in fuck it [laughs]. The other thing is that Comet Gain was meant as
this kind of...we had...
J: Shall I get some more beer?
D: We need your humour Jon.
[ All decide to get more beer. Woodie leaves to drive home to his wife and son.]
D: It was not meant to be a band. It was meant to be a bit like The Style Council. We were trying to get as many people in...for instance if you played with Comet Gain for one gig, you are therefore a full time - always a member of Comet Gain. I wanted it to be this ever growing ideal, this community of people. It was meant as this kind of a collective thing. I made a list recently, and there's about seventy-five members of Comet Gain, many of which have only played once. More than The Fall. Like Jon said - kind of like the Style Council. It was this ideal, and it accidentally got turned into a band along the way. There was always meant to be things like a fanzine and all these other things, but due to laziness and sheer ineptitude of trying to organize things [it never happened] but the idea has always been there.
For instance when Jon did that gig at Derby [Indietracks] without most of Comet Gain that was in every way a perfect Comet Gain action. When I was living in France with Anne Laure we had a French Comet Gain, with a couple of her friends - it was meant to be a girl band - and we played some shows. And I wanted an English Comet Gain, headed by Jon to do gigs and records. We were going to do a French Comet Gain EP, and an English one. We had an American Comet Gain as well. Let's have a New Zealand Comet Gain, people I've never met - that's still in the pipeline. It's kind of a cross between a cult, some kind of a socialist collective, an artist's commune and some kind of a stupid excuse for getting drunk and dancing to records.
TAF: What are the ideals behind Comet Gain?
D: It should be like those kind of groups where every six months the helm should
change to a different person. For instance Anne Laure should be in charge of Comet
Gain between the hours of nice and twelve, and Jon should be in charge twelve to
three. And whatever they decide goes, unless it's something like dressing up as
bats.
TAF: Has it ever worked like that?
D: No, not often. Not as often as it should. But there are ideals, most of them stolen
from other things. I was always into that Dadaist, Situationist thing. We should live
our lives as daydream, the kind of movie things, like Taste of Honey. It's hard to
make it sound like it makes sense - not do it in a linear fashion, not do it in a way
where it's just a band who form, make some records and want to get successful. We
kind of revel, almost, in the fact that we don't care about any records being
successful. Which is lucky, because we're not. Which is the reason why some of
original people in Comet Gain left, because they decided that actually we just wanted
to be in a band, they just wanted to get on Top of the Pops. I knew the end of the
band was nigh when in some interview they said they wanted to be on Top of the
Pops or something stupid like that.
TAF: Do you think this ideal of having a community that carries on is
something that can happen, or rather something you can chase for ever?
D: The thing is now, it's harder for the band, where we all have to have jobs; Woodie is married and has a child and everyone has their own responsibilities. Maybe not so much Jon [chuckles]. When you're younger, most of the people I knew in those days like Jon and Dale, we all met each other because we kind of wandered around streets trying to do creative things. Everything was cheap and done in an off the cuff way. There was a lot of adrenaline going through your heart. And now it's harder. It doesn't mean you suddenly become apathetic; the ideals are still there and the need to express these ideals, but now it's become tempered with a kind of melancholy of failure; which is what the last record was.
TAF: Do you think you can carry on as long as? How do you see the future?
D: I don't.
J: We don't even live in the present; we live in the past.
D: It was never ever ever ever going to be a successful band. Partly because I was
writing the songs and we couldn't really play our instruments. I had no interest
whatsoever in being successful. Not for a second. Even when we were on Wiija.
They would make us do all these things like make these expensive videos that were
never gonna get seen, and go on these tours where we'd be staying in swanky
hotels which we'd eventually have to pay for. And all these stupid things. And it was
pointless, and I would laugh about it, because we're not gonna be successful when
we don't want to be. And that's the reason why the other members left and people
with the same low sense of self esteem joined the band, because the best musical
things and film things and book things that most of us are interested in were abject
failures and didn't seem interested in being anything other than that. But in the end
they were picked up by a fair few people. It's almost like Comet Gain was an
exercise in abject failure. But at the same time trying to be as good as possible,
which is very hard when you're not actually very good at your art.
J: And never practise.
D: But you're trying your best. And then we kind of decided that there was a Comet
Gain way of doing things, which was to never practise, never do photo sessions, and
then we thought no...this should be something we should be proud about. I don't like
many Comet Gain records, so to me the whole point of carrying on is literally
because I would like to make one record, a full record where I think that is the way
Comet Gain should be seen. And it would have been perfect like Meat Whiplash,
who did a 7" on Creation Records. They were from East Killbride. They were these
Scottish thugs, they basically made this kind of a Jesus and Mary Chain cash-in
record and it was this kind of feedback, Phil Spector record. It was perfect. And they
had this really great cover - it's on my wall. It was this kind of brutal pop record.
J: Or The Tronics.
D: Yeah! They didn't exist for very long, but their sound is perfect. The only
disappointment I have in Comet Gain is we just kept going, ‘cause we tried to make
this one perfect single or one perfect album, but we kind of ruined it by making all
these other inferior records to get to that point.
TAF: Which one has come closest to sounding perfect?
D: I don't know. All my favourites are ones that no one remembers.
J: I'm embarrassed because my favourite one I'm not even sure if I'm on it. Woodie
told me about the recording session and said "you were there; you were playing
bass". But I don't remember even hearing the song before hearing the full recording. And it doesn't sound like me. It's 'Look At You Now You're Crying'.
D: I don't like 'Love Without Lies'. I realised that I'm a bit bored of writing punk rock
songs, which that is. And originally it was because I was listening to a lot of Clinic. I
thought it'd be nice to have a punk rock song, but that wouldn't have guitars; just
keyboards and lots of drums and shakers. If anything was written as a b-side - that
was written as a b-side. I like playing it because it's really easy to play. I don't hate it, I just of kind of ...I don't understand what it is.
TAF: What about ‘Books Of California’?
D: I had another band called Gospel Oak, which was a psychedelic country rock
band that played a few shows. It had some members of Comet Gain and some
members of Talulah Gosh and Eric who plays on 'You Can't Hide Your Love
Forever'. And we played some shows and that was one of our songs. And I liked that
song, because it was easy to remember. So we just did it as a Comet Gain song. But
then it got transformed into something I actually quite liked. Little things make it from something I don't like into something I do, like little harmonies and the guitar and all these little things. It's about a Californian melancholy writer. I wanted it to have a Californian melancholic sound, which I think it slightly does. But it's not one of those songs. No one's ever gonna have that as their favourite song. No one's ever gonna put that on a mix tape.
J: No you put the ones that aren't obvious choices. ‘The Shining Path’ is my
favourite song actually. I didn't want to say that because that wasn't when I was in
the band.
D: The only two songs I like from the early era – ‘The Shining Path’ and ‘Sunsets At Your Window’, which is another b-side.
J: Which we cannibalised to make into a song, 'I Close My Eyes.'
D: Tigertown Pictures was shit. I like the ‘Tigertown Pictures’ song cause it's so
funny. It's so long. Anne Laure what's your favourite song, Mrs Quiet? You don't
know any of them, do you? See we're in a band where half the members don't like
any of our songs. I'm sure Kay hates all our songs as well, that's why she never
turns up.
J: Kay doesn't even like us as people.
TAF: When did Kay, Woodie and Rachel join the band?
J: Rachel came in same time as me - 1997. I left shortly after that because I can't
stand to travel, very much, at all, anywhere. And then they found Woodie
somewhere in Croydon. Kay joined as well when I wasn't in the band.
D: I honestly can't remember. I think it's because we had to go to America and we
needed someone to play in the band. Kay used to be the keyboard player for the first couple of years, Blair played the guitar and Jon played bass.
* * *
[On 'Twee as Fuck']
D: I didn't even know it was a phrase.
J: I think it was an American thing. I'm sure your friends The Bobby McGee's used
that phrase before you.
D: When me and Jon grew up, musically, as young men, the music scene we were
into...how do I put it into words...somewhere along the line, mainly due to Sarah
Records, the word "twee" started appearing...the music we were listening to was
mainly to us punk rock, or garage punk. But punk rock that was derived, rather than
from a macho way, more from people like Edwyn Collins, which is much more
sensitive, but not twee, in any way that you would regard. And now, one of my
bugbears is when people say it's like a twee thing, and I don't really understand.
TAF: The whole phrase is such a minefield...
D: It is. It's like "homosexuality". I was telling Rory when we were playing that
Dentists record - all those bands in those days, there was no budget, everything was
very lo-fi. And it's not just influenced by The Chocolate Watchband, but by bands like
Orange Juice and Postcard Records and The Go-Betweens, that has a certain
melancholy and sensitivity. But the tweeness thing is almost like a second wave of
these bands, like the Fat fucking Tulips or whatever they were called. And I
apologise if I'm going to mention bands that you like, but there was a certain kind of
deliberate kind of cutiness and it had nothing to do with the original thing...even
Talulah Gosh - Talulah Gosh was a punk band....The word 'fuck' is a helpful thing. I
didn't realise until recently, that Comet Gain have been going for a long time and
were suddenly seen as this kind of ancient Grateful Dead type carriers of the twee
torch. In the original Comet Gain, we had a singer called Sarah. And she was a twee
person, and she really was awful, it's true I'm sorry. The tweeness was a mask for
this kind of steely, cynical "I wanna be a popstar". And that's why we broke up ‘cause
her ego and her boyfriend, who played the guitar - they were only in it for...and then they would do these really over the top sentimental, sensitive songs, and it made me so angry because there was no integrity or honesty to it.
TAF: What music around now do you like?
D: I like Belle and Sebastian, I like The Clientele - just a classic band, but they
happen to be seen as carriers of this torch. Alistair just gets pissed every night and
listens to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. They're huge in America and
they're seen as these C-86 demi gods. You go over to America....like for us, when
we played there, there was the two crowds. This kind of cool Kill All Rockstars and K
Records crowd that was all like, this is lo fi punk rock in the same school as Make-Up
or Huggy Bear or Bikini Kill, and then you'd have the kids who would wear the 60s
clothes and be really into Sarah Records and Creation. Maybe we're somewhere in
the middle. And this is in no way a criticism of you or Twee as Fuck - I'm just trying to establish a word. That original scene was a mixture of things - there was a bit of riot grrrl, and some mods, a lot of people that were into northern soul, a lot of 60s influence, completely different to The Beatles and The Seeds or whatever, but also things like the films, and the imagery and the clothes obviously. And the whole postpunk thing. And I remember all those kids - well people me and Jon were friends with, would like things like Wire and Jonathan Richman and The Supremes and all these different things and books and films. And eventually I started meeting people who were into twee stuff and it was really fascistically directed down one thin line, and this kind of fake...
J: Like those fanzines, but not Hungry Beat because that was this brilliant thing that
stood alone and had a great writer, but then people who used to try and copy this
thing that came out twenty years ago, like that fanzine that Sarah Records came out
with, that kind of thing we didn't like. It was very earnest. Though Clare from Sarah
Records I think is great, but just that earnest and very male thing. Like when Sarah
Records started, I think The Field Mice were one of my least favourite bands of all
time; there was such an earnest, hopelessly male thing about it.
* * *
[Going through a list of bands and getting Comet Gain's reaction to them]
TAF: The Primitives?
J: I like ‘Thru’ The Flowers’. When I first heard that record it sounded like - oh Jesus
and Mary Chain with a girl singing - great!
TAF: Talulah Gosh?
D: It was like The Ramones and The Shangri-Las wearing 60s clothes. There were
gigs that would mainly just fall apart - 'cause they didn't know what they were doing.
Amelia, was a - I mean this in a nice way - privileged girl, who didn't have to do
music, like some of us did, because it was this kind of urgent need to do something.
She did it as a hobby, and it was never really meant as anything other than a hobby,
because she was a very rich lady. As her groups progressed, with Heavenly for
instance, it just got more like an action in this is what people want from me, so I'm
gonna do it. She asked me and a friend of mine Jon from Yummy Fur, to write her
fucked up punk rock songs about drugs and sex, because she couldn't do it, so she
wanted us to do it for her. When Jon McKeown was in Comet Gain we did that record that everyone hates, Tigertown Pictures, that was partly because we wrote letters to each about things we were interested in, and I decided we should make an art punk record. I think Jon's a great talented boy, who should be reaping his rewards right now. I think Yummy Fur were one of the great lost bands. And The Male Nurse. And The Country Teasers
J: I hate The Country Teasers.
TAF: lungleg?
D: lungleg I love. It's when they started learning their instruments that it went horribly wrong.
TAF: Spearmint?
D: The Cribs of their time - they would always ask us to play with them. They would
always give us their records. I really love that one record, the one about failure -
'Sweeping The Nation'.
TAF: The Associates?
J: I think they're fantastic.
Anne Laure: There's only one band who I really can't stand, you'll never agree - Felt.
D: For the record I hate Mark Bolan, I hate The Clash, I hate The Smiths. And most
of it is to do with singing.
TAF: Hefner?
D: I like their first record. We had an interesting evening with Darren Hayman in
Bologna on New Year's eve, when we tried our best over beers not to insult each
other.
J: He insulted us, with this joke - "if I wanted to go see a bunch of people who
couldn't play Comet Gain songs, I'd go see Comet Gain" [referring to Indietracks].
Which I thought was a pretty good joke.
D: If I wanted to go see some whiny fucking genius cunt, who plays songs about how
crappy he is in bed, I'd go see him.
TAF: The Wave Pictures?
D: I kind of thought they were a bit earnest.
J: See it's the earnestness I think that we don't like.
D: He was really happy - do you remember that?
J: What's he got to be happy about?
D: Yeah it was all Jonathan Richman this and that, but he's too wordy and too
happy. I reckon there's a dark undercurrent to that guy.
[About the Twee as Fuck All-dayer]
D: There was a large portion of the all-dayer where we were upstairs, trying to
discuss what the fuck we were going to do. I regret that gig in many ways. Because it was all so fast. I didn't want to do...it's only afterwards you think, you know, I really wanted it to be good, to show that we could do sad songs. For most of the gigs we do are a kind of rock and roll gigs but [in an old man's voice] "there's a lot more to Comet Gain than that" . Most of the songs are actually quite melancholic songs and the next record is probably just going to be all melancholic songs.
J: So like all those wordy earnest songs, like all the things we've been slagging off.
But, I tell you what the difference is. Done with some charm, and a bit of humour,
and all completely meant. And completely real, and something to do with what we're
all, especially David, about.
TAF: Essential Logic?
J: Really fucking annoying.
D: Don't like anything with saxophones
[Anne Laure shudders]
J: What do you do to that kind of music, apart from get anxious?
TAF: You dance?
J: What do you do to dance to that kind of music? To Essential Logic or Red Krayola
or something like that? Do it.
TAF: I go like that [bops her head back and forth]
D: When you go like that you look like some kind of a mental patient who's had a
breakdown who's trying their best to keep their sanity intact, which is how I feel when I listen to things like that.
TAF: What about ESG?
J: Fantastic band.
TAF: What about Love is All?
J: I think they're brilliant. I've loved them in the past.
AL: It's ok.
D: But the thing that isn't ok, is the element of saxophone. I'm enjoying it, but then
the saxophone starts and I start getting a bit anxious.
TAF: Do you have a fear of saxophones?
D: Yeah, I think so.
TAF: Does that mean you don't like Lisa in The Simpsons?
D: Well, no I don't particularly like Lisa from The Simpsons. It's mainly the
saxophone but also because of the sanctimonious kind of straightness.
TAF: The Fire Engines?
D: Fantastic. One of my favourite groups. Because of ‘Get Up and Use Me’ - one of
the greatest. What I was saying about the Meat Whiplash record. If the Fire Engines
just brought out that one record with that incredible cover, that would stand as a
perfect thing, as something that could never be tarnished in any way. That album as
well, that stood out from everything else - sounded like nothing else, completely
bizarre record, an incredible record. The Fire Engines can't go wrong - they should
have stopped then. 'Get Up And Use Me' - a perfect record.
TAF: Dolly Mixture?
J: They write great songs.
TAF: Shop Assistants?
J: That was a band that was a huge influence on me personally.
D: And me.
TAF: Are they an influence on Comet Gain?
D: Not really. There are some records that you love and that you play over and over
again, but they have no influence on the songs you make. Though we've done a
cover of ‘Somewhere in China’, many times. Because it was easy to play, mainly.
TAF: Camera Obscura?
D: Camera Obscura make me think of beer. When I lived in Bordeaux our local bar
was this English pub run by a Scottish friend of ours who was in this band called The
Secret Goldfish. And all he did was play Teenage Fanclub over and over and over
again. So we'd sit there drinking every night and every drunk night would be
associated with Teenage Fanclub. Then he discovered Camera Obscura and he'd
just play that a lot. 'Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken' in that pub context sounded really fantastic. I just bought that CD because of that song. And every time I hear it I feel like I'm sitting in a French pub with a Scottish indie kid shouting at me, with some drunk Frenchmen. Which is always a good thing.
J: David, how do you feel about the fans? You know what I'm saying? It seems like
you have a very much love hate relationship with some of the people that like your
band the most. It seems like you’re a total whore for....
D: What are you talking about????
J: You know what I'm saying?
D: No, I dont! I wish I did.
J: Well Comet Gain is a punk rock band, we've established that.
D: No, I don't think so.
J: It's a metal band. It's an indie band. It's a twee band.
D: I don't classify Comet Gain.
J: It's a psychedelic band.
D: No.
J: Well we had to put three things on that MySpace that says psychedelic/indie/punk.
D: Yeah you put that.
TAF: Who does the MySpace?
D: He does
J: We both do.
D: You do. Honestly you do.
J: Well you never complained about the psych/indie/punk thing.
D: I didn't think it was up to me to complain.
J: I wish you would take more control.
D: I don't mind.
TAF: What kind of fanmail do you get?
J: Well none at all, once every couple of years we get someone saying they like us.
D: But I don't KNOW who our fans are, don't know that we have fans.
J: You do know. I'm not talking about Kevin or Twee as Fuck or Sean or Jervis or
anyone like that.
D: Then who are you talking about?
J: I'm talking about, you know.
TAF: I have no idea what you're talking about.
D: No I don't either.
J: [Mock huff] I was just trying to help out with the questions.
TAF: Anne Laure, do you have a question for Jon and David?
AL: What are you doing?
D: You want to go to bed.
AL: No, that's not what I meant. What are you doing? In general.
D: Well tonight, Anne Laure, I've been doing this. Tomorrow, I intend to… me and
Jon will go to the Serpentine and get a little boat. Once a week, we rent a little boat,
roll up our sleeves and we discuss - and we go very fast, we're renowned for going
very fast and we do it as a kind of power meeting - and we discuss music, we
discuss where we're going as people, as friends, and as a musical group. Then we
feed the pigeons for about half an hour, go and see some exhibitions, meet up with
Anne Laure, get shitfaced till four in the morning. And we meet our fans in a little
cabin by the Serpentine.
AL: A cage!
D: And we have a little discussion.
TAF: Can I have another beer?
D: Yeah.
J: I was trying to alienate us from all our fans. I was thinking that if you print this
everyone would be like, "Oh - they're talking about me!"
D: Occasionally we do try and alienate anyone who once might have liked us.
J: That was my feeble attempt at that.
D: But I've decided now that maybe we shouldn't.
J: I've noticed this! That's why I brought it up because remember when you recorded
that thing for my birthday, which is like a vicious attack on people that have helped
us out over the last 10 years. And I was like, well if I'm doing this Indietracks thing on my own then I’m going to play that over the PA.
TAF: What happened with Indietracks?
J: That's not really a Comet Gain story.
D: It is - it was a Comet Gain gig! For fuck’s sake.
J: David when I was talking to you on the phone about it you were like "no - don't do
that."
D: Do what?
J: Play this vicious attack over the PA.
D: I didn't say don't do that.
J: You DID!
D: I said DO that.
J: You didn't!
D: I said I would do something else for you.
J: Exactly! Because it was too close to the knuckle.
D: No, not because of THAT, because I thought it wouldn't sound very good.
J: It would have sounded brilliant. Anyway I didn't do it.
D: Did you use all the things I recorded for you on your answering machine instead?
J: No I couldn't get them off - I didn't have the technical know how.
D: Then why did I do it? Why did I waste all that time calling your mobile phone
leaving these RANTS?
J: [mock sigh] If we're going to have a fight now.
TAF: And how come no-one [Comet Gain band members] turned up?
J: It was just circumstance. Basically everyone agreed apart from Anne Laure and
David, but everyone else was like, yeah and got back to me but I didn't really expect
David to get back to me because he never really does get back to me on the
computer and you [Anne Laure] certainly never do because until recently I didn't
have your email address, but I figured David could relay the information to Anne
Laure, and I was convinced the show would happen because they asked us months
and months ago. Rachel said “yeah I'll do it”, Kay was going to do it, Woodie was
going to do it and then one by one they all dropped out.
D: I never dropped in.
J: I know you didn't drop in. I never said you did drop in, but I took your silence as
tacit agreement.
AL: A gentlemen's agreement.
J: So basically it was just up to me and I really didn't want to do it, but then I got
there and I saw the other bands that were playing and I thought 'fucking hell it's got
to be better than this.” So I did it and I thought it was actually a pretty good show.
AL: Pretty, pretty good. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!
TAF:What was THAT?
AL: Larry David!
TAF: Is that Larry David?
AL: If you don't believe someone you go Mmmmmmmmmmm-mmm!
TAF: I love Larry David
D: But Anne Laure actually IS in love with Larry David.
AL: Yeah, Oh Yeah!
D: If Anne Laure was lying in bed between me and Larry David I know which way
she would turn.
AL: The bald one.
TAF: Really? I think we have quite similar taste in music and men.
D: What - you both hate Felt and love Larry David?
AL: She loves Felt [To Pavla] you like Felt?
TAF: I do now, but I didn't for a long time when I started listening to them.
AL: I didn't and I don't and I won't.
TAF: Black Tambourine?
J: I don't know them. That's too obscure for me, is that modern?
TAF: No, early nineties.
AL & D simultaneously: That's modern.
J: That's modern to me, man.
TAF: How did you spend your childhoods?
D: Fucking hell! Anne Laure spent her childhood drinking champagne and eating
cheese.
J: I ate cheese as well.
D: Me and Jon spent our childhoods rooting around dustbins of rich men's houses.
J: Yeah it was basically digging through fucking dirt and rubbish.
TAF: Dumpster diving?
J: In a way, yes.
D: I played a lot - they used to have these things that you'd get in packets at in WH
Smiths.
J: Crisps?
D: No! No, little soldiers, little knights. You remember - little boxes. You'd get green
ones and blue ones, big ones and little ones. I used to get the little men. You'd get
the Germans against the knights of the medieval ages. I used to re-enact - well not
re-enact, just act, battles. I did that for about ten years. And drew pictures.
J: It's easy to get into that. I did the same thing with farm animals.
D: You did what with farm animals?
J: Re-enact battles.
AL: Oh yeah - the farm animals!
D: Is this why we are what we are?
TAF: Could be. What else did you do during your childhood - we might get to
the bottom of it.
D: I used to lock myself in a cupboard and beat myself up with a big stick.
TAF: What did you think of your mother?
D: I didn't see her much because she was on the streets most of the time to pay for
my, you know. I had a lot of uncles, apparently. I never met any of them. Er... She
was all right, she was a mum. She liked The Beatles too much.
J: My mum is different from - we have different mothers.
AL: That's not what you told me.
J: I love my mum. She's lovely.
D: Our mothers weirdly, had a lesbian relationship that they don't much talk about, in the 60s. They met at the Kit Kat Club on the Charing Cross Road where they were
watching The Yardbirds. They bought each other a few drinks. And you know, both
resolutely straight women, and had a bit of fling that night. And me and Jon were
born a year and a bit later.
* * *
TAF: [to Jon] What were you saying? Fans that message you?
D: Fans that massage me? I'd think get your fucking dirty hands off me, you.
J: We can't bear to be touched.Apart from Rachel, who's very tactile. That's why we
seem rude and defensive.
D: We're not. We're actually very sweet people, but we're just very insular. While
Rachel - she's out there running amok, grabbing everyone.
TAF: Who does what in the band, apart from playing different instruments.
What's their character, role?
D: Woodie is the organisational, talkative one.
J: And also, for the last few records he created the sound- actually not the last
record, but on the Realistes record, he really put the sound together. I think Realistes is the record I'm proudest of.
TAF: Why is he called Woodie?
D: Because he's the drummer. Wooden sticks.
J: Also because when he drums he has a huge erection.
D: He used to be a psychobilly and they were all called things like Woodie.
TAF: What's his real name?
D: Malcom. Woodie's better than Malcom.
TAF: Does Malcolm have an equivalent in any other language?
D: French...there's a Malcolm in French.
AL: No! Never. It's English.
TAF: What's your role?
D: Mine?
J: What IS your role, David?
AL: Grumpy. The grumpy dictator.
D: Yeah. And I was there from the very first minute, until the last gig. I’ve handed
over the baton to Jon now.
TAF: What is Jon's thing?
D: He's the leader.
J: I've been waiting for my time.
D: He's the aesthetic one.
TAF: In what way?
J: The reason they got me in, was because I was very cute. You don't know this
because you're very young, I was so hot. I had a lot of hair...I couldn't play guitar for shit, I had nothing to offer, couldn't write a complete song.
D: I noticed that...
J: But what I did have at one point...fantastic hair...
TAF: You still have. I don't know why you wear all these hats.
AL: Yeaaaah! You look like you have something to hide.
TAF: It makes you look like you're bald.
J: I am bald. That's what a lot of people don't know about me.
TAF: At the Comet Gain video shoot, he took off his hat and Rachel just went
through all of his head to look for bald patches, and there were none.
D: That's part of the video?
J: That's the whole of the video. Just three minutes of Rachel going through my hair.
D: Anne Laure what's your role? You're partly the pin-up and partly the bouncer.
TAF: Did you start playing keyboards?
AL: Lapsteel. I lost it on the train. It was nice.
TAF: Are you all cat people?
J: Fuck off! Thats so twee! I killed a cat once.
TAF: Have you written a song about it?
J: No, but I will.
TAF: You should. Anne Laure do you have another question for David & Jon?
AL: What you doing? In a metaphysical way?
D: Do you have another question?
AL: Why?
J: Why are you doing this?
AL: Why are you doing that?
D: Because you told me to.
AL: Why are you wearing a hat? [to Jon]
J: Because I'm growing my hair. Is that ok?
TAF: But you always wear a hat, regardless of your hair.
J: I've known you for less than a year.
AL: No no, he didn't always use to wear a hat.
TAF: That's true, I feel like it's been longer than that.
D: Jon's hair used to be explosive.
J: You know why?
TAF: Because your hair is so long?
J: Because we're really good friends. I feel like we've known each other for a long
time.
TAF: I know, it feels like years.
J: Word up.
D: Did you just say word up? Fuck you.
J: That's not an unusual thing to say.
D: That's why you need to get out of Brighton.
* * *
D: I have a picture of you [Jon], where you were young, maybe sixteen or seventeen. And your hair...wow. It was on the back of a letter that was sent either by you or Joe. It went in every direction.
J: My hair grows mainly out.
D: But it's all straight. Incredibly straight. You have to see this picture.
TAF: Weird. How big was it? When you say big, I imagine an afro.
AL: A straight afro.
J: My hair has always been a constant source of...
TAF: Inspiration?
J: No, anxiety.
D: I liked it when you had the skinhead.
J: I loved the skinhead! That's what I wanna go back to. I was in a Skrewdriver
tribute band.
TAF: There are a lot of people who really like men with shaved heads. I don't
get it.
D: It grows back.
AL: What's the point then?
D: It gives you a feeling of independence. I think as a band we should all get
skinheads.
J: It's nice. Well for one thing...
AL: You don't need to wash.
J: Actually you're a lot more inclined to wash your hair when it's very short.
D: is this going in the interview? Is this some kind of world wide exclusive interview -
our hair?
* * *
D: Jon what is it you like about Comet Gain?
J: I think you're really good in it. I love you. As a person...
D: I love you too Jon.
J: ...as a front man, you're a fantastic song writer [heavy mock sigh]. And did you
design this record? You and Anne Laure did it, right? Well this is fantastic....all the
record covers are fantastic.
AL: You like it? It's dedicated to you.
D: Anne Laure what do you think? She doesn't lie, she tells the truth.
AL: That's why I'm not saying anything, because I would tell the truth.
D: You probably didn't get enough beer. The perfect thing about Comet Gain is if a
member of Comet Gain says something bad about being in the band. Which is your
job.
AL: My first impression - I wasn't sure of it, but now it's ok. Felt - never gonna be ok
with me.
D: But we're not in Felt.
TAF: How did David and Anne Laure meet?
AL: On a pirate ship. Sean [from Fortuna Pop] was there.
D: As with most moments in indie rock history, Sean is responsible. We were playing
a rock and roll show on a pirate ship on the Seine in Paris with The Butterflies of
Love and The Chemistry Experiment.
AL: And The Lucksmiths. They were my friends.
D: And I saw Anne Laure yonder in the bar and I thought she was fairly...
TAF: Attractive?
D: Yeah...and then we had a conversation, and we discussed things for a few
months.
AL: It was quite boring.
D: And eventually we became…
AL: Friends.
D: Friends, after years.
AL: After a few years.
D: And now we enjoy sometimes hanging out, accidentally...
TAF: In your house...
D: We live in the same house by accident. She moved into this teaching job, so she
wanted to live in Muswell Hill, and I was moving there and we both got this room in
this house, exactly the same day. I turned up with my stuff and ahhh - there's my
flatmate.
AL: And someone rang the bell - ahhh black and white cat, with a mini suitcase.
D: Obviously we share a bedroom, but have different sides of the bedroom. I have
the left side, she has the right side, and we don't touch each other in any way.
TAF: Because you don't like being touched....
D: No, neither of us likes being touched. And the cat goes in the middle, because
she's not sure...
AL: The cat doesn't like being touched either.
* * *
D: Jon what do you think of the legacy of Huggy Bear in the general indiepop thing?
Cause you know Jon was a celebrity before...
TAF: Yeah, why did you quit Huggy Bear?
J: Because I don’t like to travel.
TAF: What is this about you travelling?
J: I don't like it.
D: Unless there's a girl involved. Shall I not mention the Tobi Vail incident?
TAF: Did you used to go out with Tobi Vail?
J: Yeah.One of the most horrible things I ever did to David and Comet Gain
was...the first time I went to America was with Comet Gain. Huggy Bear had been
there and I refused to go, and I joined specifically to go to America because I was
dating Tobi, and she came to England to me, so then when I was in Comet
Gain...anyways. It was amusing to my friends at the time that I would go to America. But I wasn't just going to see Tobi.
D: You did actually play a bit of guitar.
J: I did a good job. I swapped over with Blair - we played guitar and bass together. It was great - I loved it.
D: You missed out a bit. Up until the night before we got to Olympia - cause we did
the whole country - Jon was rather...he had one bag. I don't know what was in the
bag. And your beard was growing, and the smell was increasing with the heat....then
strangely the night before we got to Olympia, he emerged from a toilet in a truck stop with a wonderful suit that we hadn't seen for the entire trip, clean shaven, smelling of beauty and purity, and that was like - that's weird...
J: That's not a bad story.
D: It's just a story. I'm not saying it in a bad way. This interview is going to sever all
friendships.
J: That's what I always wanted from Comet Gain. To fuck off anyone who ever gave
us anything, who supported us over the last fifteen - sixteen years...
TAF: I still don't understand why you don't like travel.
J: I just don't like to fly. The worst thing I ever did to David, when I returned back to
England, and David was going to do an East Coast tour with Girlfriendo, Kevin's
thing. That's when you hooked up with Kevin. You were calling me and I really was
freaking out - I was like, "I can't get on the plane, I can't get on the plane" and
eventually I didn't.
D: I really didn't remember. You shouldn't have said anything.
TAF: So you didn't come.
D: No, but Kay does that more often than you. We've done gigs with Kay where we
were playing in Spain in the middle of nowhere, in this huge hall in a place called
Zaragoza, literally in the middle of the desert in Spain. And Kay just didn't turn up.
And we kept calling her and calling her.
AL: Till two in the morning.
D: And she was drunk. Which was a brilliant excuse for a Japanese bass player.
TAF: Is she a bit of a lightweight?
D: No she's a heavyweight when it comes to that. She sits in The Mixer drinking
pints of Stella. And the band was only me, Anne Laure - first or second gig, Steve -
Rachel's husband, I think it was his first gig...and we did this thing - where we had
driven over these terrains of this kind of Spanish outback kind of thing, the guy who
was the driver turned out to be the main policeman of the town - that's how small it
was. The back of the hotel was also a venue, which was this huge hall. It was like a
two day thing, we had to eat in the hotel - there was nowhere else to go, we couldn't go for a walk - the hotel was the centre of the village, and all these friends came over from Barcelona and various places. And because we had no bass player, and we were headlining - till one in the morning, and we had to get people from other bands to come play ‘Louie Louie’.
TAF: What did you do at the all-dayer when Kay didn't turn up?
D: Jon played bass.
J: It's a misconception I always play bass - I never played bass in Huggy Bear, I
don't really play bass in Comet Gain unless Kay doesn’t turn up. I do love playing
bass.
TAF: Is bass easier than guitar?
J: [ chuckles] - yeah.
TAF: So why didn't Kay turn up for the all-dayer?
D: She was measuring the world's largest curry or something. That's what she does.
She works for Guinness - she's trying to make us the most unsuccessful band for the
longest time, so she can put us in the Guinness Book of Records. Sometimes she
doesn't turn up because she doesn't want to tell us she doesn't want to come. But
that story ends...it ended up with us at like four in the morning and the audience was basically the mayor and all these children, and punks and goths and kids and we
were playing a song called ‘Sleeping Gas’ - one of the greatest 45s ever made and
slowly we all slunk off and all the other bands started coming on, until Comet Gain
had just disappeared and the band was all these people from other bands and they
played like forty-five minutes while we stole alcohol from the back and started
dancing. With the mayor at six in the morning, and we had to go back to our hotel
room - we snuck off to our hotel room at 7am...while the false Comet Gain was still
on the stage. And the cop who drove us was the security guard and he drove us
back the next day.
* * *
TAF: Back to fans. You do realise you have these young fans, right?
D: I didn't know we had fans.
TAF: People, who came to the all-dayer would say to us "I can't believe you got
Comet Gain" they think of you as obscure and like they discovered you. What
do you think of the young ones?
J: That's my question!
D: I never met these people.
TAF: They think of you as mysterious.
J: That's good.
D: I'd like to think of us as New Order a lot, when they first started they were really
fantastic. And a big influence on Comet Gain. We actually ripped off some of ...yeah!
there was this song called ‘Kids At The Club’, and the bassline off that is just stolen
from a New Order song. Well the song existed, and it wasn't very good, and I can't
remember if we heard the song, and I then just thought that's a really good bass riff. I was playing bass for that song. I started learning guitar by playing along to New Order songs, because he was a terrible guitar player like me. I used to mimick his guitar lines.
TAF: Is that how you learnt to play?
D: By playing along to things like The Who, TV Personalities, things like that, really
simple.
TAF: How did you learn to play? [to Jon]
J: I haven't learnt yet.
TAF: How did you start learning?
J: Probably same as David. I had a guitar with three strings on it, I didn't know how
to tune it. And actually, when I saw Sonic Youth when I was sixteen or seventeen, I
thought that sounded like what I was doing with a guitar I didn't know how to tune, so I thought actually I don't need to know how to tune a guitar.
D: Anne Laure plays the keyboards and she's done a really good job, but it's perfect
that she's not doing it in a proper way. Well, the proper way, by learning it slowly, by
learning to play songs that she likes. There was this record...and you tried to play
along with it - a 60s pop thing that was on a keyboard and that's how it was going to
be. Same with the lapsteel, you did the same thing and that's how it should be.
TAF: All these young people love you, but they don't know much about you
because they're from a different era. What would you say to them?
J: We're very mysterious people, don't fucking try and talk to us.
AL: Don't touch us!
J: Don't touch. Don't even look.
TAF: What would you say to demystify your history?
J: Why would we do that? I thought that's what we've done in the last thirty minutes.
D: It's only recently that I've suddenly realised that we're still going, first of all - I
forgot we were still going. And that people actually gave a shit. Not many, but you
know, some. All right, so we can still get gigs, that's kind of nice. And we can still
make records. And it's all very nice, and I'm very happy obviously, but it's all very
mystifying, cause we don't know where it's coming from. But in a way, if there's any
kind of meaning to Comet Gain other than the kind of gibberish we've said already,
it's to be one of those bands that me and Jon and Anne Laure and everyone in the
band...the bands we hold dear and the bands that actually make us care about
music, the bands that got lost and that people found about later, like Yummy Fur or
the ones that weren’t so great, like Tronics or Shop Assistants.
J: I think Tronics are the best band ever.
D: You know what I mean. And if by some chance or luck we become that kind of
band, then the mission is - not complete, but the mission has been worthwhile. So
it's a brilliant thing, and we're happy, but I have this constant thing of...you have to
live up to it. I want a good record. You want actually some kind of legacy. I don't
want to spend twelve years or whatever - twenty years, being in a band and then
realise there aren't actually any good records. So it's kind of this thing - ok the next
record will be the one, the next record I'll like and I think sums up everything and I'm going to stop, and take a rest, have a nap. But it never happens so we just keep
going.
TAF: What's next, are you going to keep recording and playing?
D: Oh yeah. There's lots of things.
J: The Mast records.
TAF: There's two reactions we got from people - one was....
D: It's shit.
TAF: No, one was - "I used to play Comet Gain on my student radio station
twenty years ago and I'm really excited they're playing again" and the other
was "I can't believe you got Comet Gain" - they don't seem to be aware of you
playing other gigs. Cause you've been playing gigs right?
J: But in the last couple of years not so many. Not in London.
D: Every gig that we'd done lately, I really do go over and feel ashamed for. ‘Cause I feel like now there are people that think we have a legacy or something and we
never live up to it and we're just terrible. I always just go home thinking "fucking hell, we fucked it up and were terrible and people are gonna hate us from now on" and I feel ashamed.
TAF: Would you say you're a perfectionist?
D: Not at all.
J: Nono, this is actually the point I was trying to make to David. Maybe you should
turn the microphone off by now and just remember it.... [Jon tells us something very important and mysterious about Comet Gain that we’ll never print and David and Anne Laure head home...]
* * *
J: [on the phone] Oh my god, it [photoshoot] went on forever. And then there was an interview afterwards, which was one of the most ridiculous fucking bullshit things I've ever been part of. Yeah I'll be back tomorrow. Give my love to Helen. What's she up to? How are your feet today? My back feels much better....exactly! Exactly! Guess what? All of Comet Gain turned up - even Kay! Full set, Woodie, everyone. It was the first set. All right. I'll see you tomorrow. See ya bye.
Interview c/o TAF
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