Ep. 8: Tales from the Trenches
Tony Fletcher reunites with Bruce Dessau, Ross Fortune and Paul Davies, each of whom wrote extensively for Jamming! during its commercial heyday, 1984-85, and each of whom went on to further careers in journalism. As much as this is a talk specific to Jamming! magazine, it is very much a conversation about the music and media culture of the time - about how easy it once was to access the artists, about a time when publicists were friends with journalists, a time when alcoholic lubrication was considered par for the course, and about the blurred line between the interviewer and interviewee that resulted, to the point that Bruce Dessau recalls filling in for The Jesus & Mary Chain onstage while ostensibly covering them for Jamming! Other tales from the trenches involve interviews with:
- Joe Strummer
- Pauline Black
- Mick Jones
- Tony Parsons
- Robert Smith
- Mike Peters
- Roddy Frame
…Plus recollections about editorial meetings by payphone, editorial commissions by snail mail, editorial copy delivered via British Rail, and the time the postman folded a Lloyd Cole LP in half so it would fit through Ross’s letterbox. There is also the time that the Virgin Press Office brought The Pale Fountains to his hospital bed rather than pass up the opportunity of a feature in Jamming!
The three also discuss their subsequent careers at Time Out, City Limits, and Q magazines, Bruce Dessau’s migration into the world of comedy journalism, and Ross Fortune’s migration to Texas, where he now runs a saloon and is hard at work on three separate books.
Bruce Dessau is editor of www.beyondthejoke.co.uk
Ross Fortune can be found running www.thephoenixsaloon.com
https://www.facebook.com/thephoenixsaloon
Paul Davies is at twitter.com/longtimelurker
Up Yours is at https://bit.ly/3K4GOwil
Mike Peters interview on One Step Beyond podcast is at:
https://shows.acast.com/onestepbeyond/episodes/ep-27-love-hope-strength-with-mike-peters
For details about the book events mentioned on this episode visit
https://www.facebook.com/theTonyFletcher/events
The Best of Jamming!: Selections and Stories from the Fanzine That Grew Up 1977-86 is published by Omnibus Press
'The Jamming! Fanzine Podcast Theme' is by Noel Fletcher.
Editing assistance and art by Greg Morton.
https://shows.acast.com/the-jamming-fanzine-podcast
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