ALAN JENKINS
(THE DEEP FREEZE MICE , CORDELIA RECORDS)
answers the MUSIC WORKS Questionnaire
ALAN JENKINS
1. QUALIFICATIONS?
I have a degree in Politics from Nottingham University. I can’t tell you how useful it’s been.
2. CAREER HIGHLIGHTS?
I think probably the years of the Cordelia Records recording studio c. 1996 – 2009. I made a DVD called “The last days of Cordelia Records” which illustrated it nicely.
3.AMBITIONS?
I always wanted to record a legendary album comparable in stature to Pet Sounds or Sgt. Pepper. I think I’ll do that next year.
4.SONGS YOU WISH YOU HAD WRITTEN?
“Someone keeps moving my chair” by They Might Be Giants, “I wanna be your dog” by The Stooges. Also “Rumble” (Link Wray), “Apache” (The Shadows) and “Penetration” (The Pyramids). Oh, and “Hotel California” (Only joking, I’m glad I didn’t write that one.)
5. DESERT ISLAND DISCS?
Some of my favourite albums are Uncle Meat (and other Frank Zappa ones), Trout Mask Replica, The Faust Tapes, The Magic City (Sun Ra) (I made an album of my own called “The Magic City” recently – Sun Ra and I are both originally from Birmingham you know.) … L A Woman, Dolly Mixture Demonstration Tapes, Raw Power, the first Bartlebees album, Ventures in Space. etc
6.FAVOURITE ARTISTS/BANDS OF ALL TIME?
I just asked my girlfriend Lesley who my favourite artists of all time were and she said I liked Frank Zappa and the Beatles and loads of “terrible prog rock crap from the ’70s” and I said “no I don’t” and she said “yes you do, we had about two years of prog rock crap when you put music on at tea time”.
7. WHAT MUSIC ARE YOU LISTENING TO NOW?
This week I have mainly been listening to a compilation of funk 7″s on the Daptone label. I read an interesting article by a bloke called Gabriel Roth, who produced them, where he detailed all his retro recording methods and it sounded interesting so I thought I’d check it out. And a record called Maledictus Sounds which somebody just recommended and it was recorded in 1969 but I hadn’t heard of it before.
8. THE LAST BOOK YOU READ?
I am currently reading Paul Revere’s Ride by David Hackett Fischer, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North and Jimmy Carl Black’s autobiography.
9. HOBBIES?
Just the music really. I play trombone (really badly) in a couple of brass bands as well has the guitar oriented stuff.
10.VINYL, CASSETTE, CD, MP3, WEB STREAMING?
I don’t like vinyl because it doesn’t sound very good and neither do cassettes. I like CDs ok but often use mp3s or streaming in the form of youtube because I can’t be bothered to get up from my desk. That device that Neil Young invented that looks like a Toblerone looks interesting.
11. (INDIE) MUSIC IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET?
It’s been gratifying to see the destruction of the music industry of course. I can see that people must find it frustrating to try and get their band noticed but one should probably see that as an incentive be better and less boring. People that want to find interesting music can find it more easily these days. Take dub reggae. Back in the ’70s, when the classic stuff was being recorded it was very hard to find – all the record shops I knew about would only stock a title if, by some quirk of fate, it happened to be very widely distributed – but most of it wasn’t. Now you can go on the internet, read an overview of the best dub reggae ever recorded, and download it, all without having to stand up. I’ve been able to review my listening habits from the last 40 and locate all the things I should have been listening to at the time but I didn’t because I didn’t know about it. I never listening to “The Blank Generation” by Richard Hell till this year, or “Behind the Magnolia Curtain” by Tav Falco’s Panther Burns. I now realise I should have been listening to that in 1981 but I didn’t know about it.
12. PERSONAL MOTTO?
I just asked Lesley again and she advised me to pretend I’d misread the question as “what is your personal otter”.
The “I Love You Little Bo Bo with your Delicate Golden Lions” album by The Deep Freeze Mice is being remastered at the moment. Here is a comparison between the new version and the CD that Rafffmond/JAR music put out in the ’90s:
https://soundcloud.com/…/most-people-arent-fit-to-live-part…
“Bo Bo” is the fifth and, arguably, the best Mice album – the remastered version may well be released later in the year. Meanwhile a new version of the fourth Mice album, “Saw a Ranch House Burning Last Night”, will be out very soon.
http://www.cordeliarecords.co.uk
Contact Music Works Record Store
