“Rewind to late seventies Birmingham when Pigbag-founder Chris Hamlin turns to me and says “What disco needs is a load of African drumming over the top”. Cut to early 1982 and Pigbag’s first appearance on Top of the Pops is fast approaching but playing pool down the pub means I never turn up.
Chris introduces me to ex-Duran Duran Stephen Duffy then girls from Turin so next stop is Italy with trombone and bass clarinet. Working out tunes in an old apartment is followed by London as fashion types talk about a new pharmaceutical while Stephen gets him and me an album contract.
Designer Beatnik by Dr Calculus mdma is greeted with silence in 1986, the money is gone and I get a job moving boxes in a warehouse off the Holloway Road. On the radio in the loading bay, pirate stations appear playing the Acid House. It’s the 1990s and back in Birmingham I start to build a conspiracy theory concerning Doctor Who, Kurt Cobain and Harry Potter.”