I had a lot of fun interviewing John from Brown Tower. Interviewing is perhaps a big word, let’s say that ideally we drank a couple of beers at the pub.
Luigi: “Hi John, what would you like to drink? I’ll have an India Pale Ale. You?”
John: “Well, it’s funny but I’ve had a very nice red pale ale that was brewed by a small brewery in Bamberg recently. It really is a nice drink. But now I live in Würzburg , in the middle of a big wine growing area, so I’m going to say I’ll have a Silvana.”
Luigi: “I love beer, all styles. The Reinheitsgebot has always terrified me a little. Will I find an India Pale Ale in the city where you live now? Or will I have to settle for a weiße?”
John: “The Reinheitsgebot is not there to frighten anyone. It’s our friend and helper. I sleep better at night, knowing that it’s out there. If you want a pale ale in Würzburg you’ll probably have to go to the Beerhouse 111 in the Juliuspromenade. They sell 11 beers on tap and 100 different bottled beers. They also have screens to watch football so you could watch Inter lose against Villa in the Champions League, he he. I am personally a big fan of Zoigel beer. Traditionally it comes from the east of Bavaria and is an unfiltered beer made in small amounts. A zoigel pub opens for as long as the beer is available. Once the batch of beer is sold the pub shuts again until the next batch is made. Pubs like this are open for ten days a month. The beer is great and costs half the price of normal beer.”
Luigi: “What are you doing in Germany? And why aren’t you under a parasol in Weston-super-Mare?”
John: “I’ve been living in Germany now for 30 years. I came here because of my wife who is German and can only work in Bavaria. It was a bit crazy at first but it’s gotten normal for me now. I got the German nationality about 12 years ago, so I am an anglo kraut. Weston-super-Mare is the neighbouring town to Burnham-on-Sea, which is the real home of Traumatone . Everyone involved lived in this little seaside town. Mike Newman and I moved there (separate to each other) with our families from the Birmingham area. My parents still live there. Wizard Ho Ho will always live there.”
Luigi: “Weston-super-Mare became part of my imagination years ago when Mike Newman of Traumatone gave me a treasure, a box containing around twenty cassettes. Inside I found, among others, albums by Wizard Ho Ho, Spacehopper and Brown Tower, as well as various compilations. I then fell in love with the English hometapers scene. What can you tell me about those years? Reading the liner notes I find your name everywhere.”
John: “Traumatone had already started before I got involved. My school friend Andrew Barney (Wizard) introduced me, and I must say that it changed my idea about what making music is all about forever. You didn’t have to be able to play an instrument, or have any band experience. You just had to want to express yourself. If it sounded odd that was good. If it sounded good that was a nice surprise. Brown Tower was made up out of three bass players. Paul Stradling was the best bass player (probably the only person in the Traumatone group who could play his instrument well), I had to sing my songs so I ended up playing guitar. But I didn’t own an electric guitar so I played a borrowed one. Andi Roberts (Spacehopper) then played drums. I would play a new song once, we’d practice it once and then record it in Mike’s bedroom. Some months later I’d hear that some people in California had covered one of these songs. And so it went on. Everyone played on each others stuff. Mike and Wizard sang on Brown Tower songs. I would do the music for a couple of Wizard songs etc. In fact his recordings were more like a circus with him in a top hat in the middle. It was a most lovely time. And of course, Mike Newman is also responsible for introducing bands like Brainiac or Lambchop to a larger audience. He had a vision that looked like an accident. Or was it an accident that looke like a vision? A lot of people thought that Traumatone was an accident. But it was great.”
Luigi: “On “AHTung!” Brown Tower are present with a cover of a song by Ton Steine Scherben. Do you like kraut rock, is it something you listen to regularly and is it a genre you can normally listen to on the radio on a common station?”
John: “Kraut Rock isn’t something that I normally listen to, although everybody recognises Can and Kraftwerk as real innovaters. I do like Ton Steine Scherben very much, as they are quite punky in a Stooges kind of way. For me the attraction is in the choice of German as a language to be used in rock music. I love bands like Element of crime or Tocotronic, who are completely unknown to any of my English speaking friends. This year I have begun to try to write songs in German and it’s very interesting to see that the language forms the music one writes. It’s not just a different language, but a very different lyric language with a different rhythm and feel. The songs are about people who don’t live on the sunny side of life. There’s a lot of smoking, alcohol, bad diets, and stained grey jogging trousers involved. I might put this out sometime, and I’d like to form a band for it, if anyone will have me. I would like to call the band ASSITOASTER, which is the negative word for a sunbed.”
Luigi: “Do you think “AHTung!” is an answer to the question what is kraut rock?”
John: “I think that “AHTung!” met the challenge of being about Kraut Rock pretty well. The relentlessness of the music can be found in all lo-fi music and found it’s way back into the normal radio music since the 1990’s. My fave track is from Will Simmons, who I love since “I love Orkney” – my fave Traumatone tape. But Goosewind? He’s SO Kraut Rock. Amazing. No one listens to Kraut Rock in Krautland. It’s a crying shame.”
Luigi: “In “A Tuzzo Lanto”, the collection of songs sung in invented languages, at a certain point in your song I have the sensation of hearing you pronounce the word Schillaci. Unfortunately Totò left us a few days ago. The 1990 World Cup is perhaps the one I remember most fondly and much of the credit goes to Schillaci. What do you think didn’t work at Italia 90 for England? And what is that expedition remembered for in England? Is Glenn Hoddle’s hair your hand of God or Schillaci’s eyes?”
John: “Another crying shame was the death of Schillaci. He was a real bright star and he caught the hearts of his country, even though he didn’t win many titles in his life. His name sounds like a mixture of German and Italian, even though his name really was some subconscious thing in the song. The title of the song “Filimento” came from my earliest childhood. My Dad was learning Italian for his job (he worked in Italy for a while) and the word Filimento was my made up way of speaking Italian with him. There are recordings of me speaking with my Dad around the age of five and it`s all Filimento. To be honest I think that England did everything right in 1990. They had the best song with New Order. Bobby Robson was the trainer, straight from Villa, Gascoine cried and became an icon (like Schillaci). A missed penalty is nothing against all that. And Germany won in the end so by the law of football fans, so did I. As to Glenn Hoddle’s hair; I read a poem about his hair recently. The stand out line was “ You can’t help but stare at Glenn Hoddle’s hair”. There’s some real truth.”
Luigi: “”Birkenstock Retreat”, Brown Tower’s last album is out on Almost Halloween Time Records, where does your obsession with these shoes come from? Are you wearing Birkenstock shoes now?”
John: “When I lived in Kent between 1989 and 1991 a lot of the people around me were very into Birkenstocks. It was a very important formative time in my life and also quite intense. I met my future wife there for instance. So when I moved back to Burnham I wrote quite a few songs about this time. The Chicken was one, or Beetroot. And I had to do one about these awful sandals that people thought were so cool. Sandals as such are not the problem. The summers are very hot in Würzburg and you can’t wear DM’s all the time, I think. But Birkenstocks are never ever cool to look at. It seems to me that my Birkenstock thing is not something that I can control. Even the German language songs have a mention ( Deine Birkenstock Sandalen tun mir leid). I think it`s nice to obsess about some stuff. It doesn’t hurt anyone and I bet if the people at Birkenstock knew the original song they would use it for an advert. But I wouldn’t accept the massive amount of money for it and would donate it all to charity. I can’t accept the Birkenstock big bucks.”
If you want to know more about Brown Tower, click on the links below:
Here‘s Brown Tower’s cover of “Warum geht es mir so serving”
You can listen to “AHTung!” in its entirety here.
Here are “Filimento” and “A Tuzzo Lanto“.
Here’s “Birkenstock Retreat“.
More Brown Tower’s albums are available on Traumatone‘s bandcamp.
