Mood Swings and Elevators / June 15 2008
Punk drummer Sonny Starr paid the studio a visit yesterday. I was incredibly busy as usual and did not have the time to pay him much attention or to patronise him in the way to which he has become accustomed.
After he’d finished telling me about how he’d had a ‘right good blow-job’ from a member of Amy Winehouse’s female entourage in an elevator in a hotel in Dublin, he began trying to cajole me into letting him book some studio-time for some spurious band of which he is now a member. ‘We’re called the Mood Swings,’ he told me. ‘It’s sorta punk-jazz.’
I was having none of it. ‘I know you’re trying to book the studio for the Dysons,’ I insisted. ‘They aren’t coming in – not after last time, Sonny.’
‘What do you mean?’ he whined.
‘Your guitarist, Staz. After he’d spent the day sitting in a corner sniffing glue and urinating out of the upstairs window on to passing black men, he took a substantial dump, if you recall, on top of the toilet seat.’
‘Oh, yeah, sorry about that. He ain’t with us anymore.’
‘You still aren’t coming in.’
‘We’ll pay you in speed.’
‘You definitely aren’t going to be recording in this studio.’
‘But we’re jazz, man.’
‘You have no conception of jazz, Sonny. You only have one style of drumming: fast and loud.’
‘No listen,’ he said, ‘it’s easy. You just emphasise the fourth beat of every bar.’ He drummed on the table with his hands to demonstrate. His technique sounded fairly accurate but for some reason, the moment seemed weighed down, depressed.
‘Go away, Sonny,’ I said finally.
‘You’ve changed. You ain’t my friend no more,’ he said quietly. I detected real regret in his words. Opening the heavy door to the control-room, he turned and asked me: ‘Wanna buy some speed?’
Filed under Amy Winehouse / Bands / Drugs / Jazz / Music / Musicians / Punk / Recording Studio / Sonny Starr
Comments
3 comments on “Mood Swings and Elevators”
Nelson Galaxy / June 16th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Good ridence. What a totally dispicable bunch of people. You should have a ‘no idiots’ policy in the studio. And a ‘no talent’ policy, but then that’ll be me buggered.
Napoleon Fantastic / June 16th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Relax, Nelson, no one is going to bugger you.
Well, maybe Hendrix Sickboy.
Nelson Galaxy / June 18th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I wear my special plug when he is around.
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