John-Paul Mason reminisces on why Tomorrow Belongs to Me by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band means so much to him, with anecdotes on Paolo Nutini and Robert Smith.
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00:00 You just told that a pub you sent to the camera.
00:02 There it is.
00:03 And that is Sensation Alex Harvey Band's
00:06 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me' 1975, that was released.
00:09 Mm-hm.
00:10 And you stick that up.
00:11 I'm getting shivers looking at the tracklist then because
00:14 I just remember the first time I heard it and...
00:18 How did you get introduced to Sensation Alex Harvey Band?
00:20 Because it's obviously way before your time.
00:22 It is.
00:23 The tale was, you know, Alex Harvey playing, I think,
00:26 as a support act for...
00:27 The Who?
00:28 The Who as well as Apollo.
00:29 Celtic Park.
00:30 Yeah.
00:31 But how did you get into Sensation Alex Harvey Band?
00:35 Well, I grew up in Bathgate and I then...
00:39 Grew up in Bathgate and then we moved to a village called Turficken
00:44 and while I was living in Turficken I got my first job,
00:47 which was at a restaurant, and then I kind of got a bit tired of that
00:51 and I wanted to have a bit...
00:53 Something a bit more socially friendly, shall we say,
00:56 because I was always working nights in the restaurant.
00:59 So I got a job at an Iceland supermarket in Bathgate
01:03 and through a friend who was working there.
01:07 I got to know a guy in that supermarket called John Kilpatrick
01:10 and he was a really, really lovely guy.
01:14 He was an older guy but right into his music
01:16 and we would always just chat music.
01:19 I was...
01:20 What was I?
01:21 19?
01:22 I was 19 and he was...
01:23 And I know now, being the age I am,
01:25 because I'm probably the same age as he was then,
01:27 but I know now what it's like when I speak to a 19-year-old or a 20-year-old
01:32 or somebody that I've met in here that works in the bar or something
01:35 and you're talking music and you're like, "Have you heard such and such?"
01:38 and they're like, "No, I've never heard that."
01:40 So he brought in two records for me
01:42 and he brought me in Two Stories by Talking Heads
01:46 and this on vinyl.
01:49 And I remember he just went, "Take these home and listen to them."
01:52 And I was like, "Okay."
01:53 And I remember him taking them out of the plastic bag in the canteen
01:56 and seeing that cover straight away and just being like,
01:59 "This probably won't be any good."
02:00 I just had a...
02:02 I didn't have an immediate, "This will be good" feeling about it.
02:06 I just...
02:07 But I kind of trusted what he said
02:09 because the way that we'd spoken about music up until that point,
02:13 the things that he'd dropped in
02:15 were there's a lot of touchstones that I respected and knew
02:20 just because of my knowledge of music at that point.
02:24 So I went home and I went on my dad's old,
02:27 very old record deck
02:29 with really old brown wooden speakers
02:34 and I'd played records on that...
02:37 I'd played records on that since I was a wee guy
02:39 and usually my dad's records,
02:41 I'd never had a loan of a record from someone else.
02:43 It was quite a strange experience to have a new arrival in the room
02:48 because my dad's records were all there and it was like Beatles,
02:51 ABBA, John Denver, Rolling Stones, that sort of thing
02:56 and then suddenly there's this alien vinyl in my hand.
03:00 But I dropped the needle and I landed on Aktionstrasse
03:03 and just heard the first line and I went,
03:06 "Wow, OK, this is completely different to what I expected
03:10 "and also what..."
03:12 I didn't know that this existed,
03:14 that this guy from Glasgow, from Partick, I think, existed.
03:19 Had there been a lot of blues, jazzy kind of thing years before it as well?
03:23 Yeah, I just didn't have any knowledge
03:26 because if you think back then, you didn't have access to the internet,
03:30 you didn't have clips that are shared,
03:34 where you get old clips and you're like, "Oh, who's that?"
03:36 and you dig in and everything.
03:38 There was none of that.
03:39 You had to rely on someone with a bit of nose
03:42 giving you something physically and being like, "Listen to this."
03:45 So I listened to it all the way through
03:47 and I think I got to give my compliments to The Chef
03:51 and I was like, "This is already becoming one of my favourite albums."
03:56 And I just was blown away by it
03:59 and I went in the next day or the next time I was working a shift
04:03 and I said to John, I was like, "Man, that record..."
04:07 I was like, "I love Talking Heads. I knew who Talking Heads were."
04:11 I said, "But that Alex Harvick."
04:13 I was like, "Next time he's playing, we're going to see him."
04:16 And John just went, "Well, we cannae."
04:18 And I went, "Why not?" And he went, "Because he's dead."
04:21 And I went, "Oh, man."
04:22 I had no knowledge at all about him or anything.
04:26 And I was so gutted and I've always been so gutted
04:29 that he died before I had the opportunity to see him
04:33 because I love seeing bands that I love live.
04:37 Like, it's just something...
04:39 I mean, if I only ever see them once, that's fine.
04:42 I feel like then I've seen them and I've shared time with them,
04:47 obviously in a massive space with thousands of other people,
04:50 but I see a live music event or a live gig
04:53 as an opportunity to be in that person's company,
04:55 whether it's up close and personal in a 300-capacity room
04:59 or if it's in a 15,000 arena or something like that.
05:03 It's just like you've shared the moment with them
05:05 and nothing will ever change that moment, you know?
05:09 And I will never get that opportunity with someone
05:13 who, when you watch the footage back of him,
05:15 is such an intense performer to have seen him live.
05:20 You know, whenever I speak to older guys or girls,
05:22 women in Glasgow, they're like,
05:25 "Oh, yeah, I saw the Alex Harvey band."
05:27 I'm like, "No way. You saw the Alex Harvey...
05:29 "Like, that's wild that you saw them live."
05:32 And then Celtic Park supporting The Who
05:34 apparently blew The Who off the stage.
05:36 Like, that's a thing I've heard from several people.
05:40 That's not just, like, one person.
05:42 Quite a few people have said that he blew them off the stage,
05:45 which, having seen the footage, I'm not surprised at.
05:49 This knowledge of Alex Harvey from an early age
05:53 and then getting into his other stuff,
05:55 it led to a couple of conversations that I've had,
05:59 one in here and one in Denver, Colorado,
06:04 which I wouldn't have had those conversations
06:07 and been able to speak with any truth
06:11 about my love for the band or the love for the artist
06:14 or love for this album
06:16 without having been introduced to it at that early stage.
06:19 Like, it wasn't just, like, a passing phase.
06:22 It was like, I was completely into this record.
06:25 I listened to it all the time.
06:26 I went out and bought it.
06:27 This is the CD that I bought from Fop or Avalanche,
06:31 probably within a week of getting a loan of that vinyl.
06:34 But I was standing over there.
06:36 I was working a gig in here.
06:38 It was a four-band bill.
06:40 And, you know what it's like, the four-band bills.
06:43 It's just, like, 40 or 50 tickets for each band.
06:47 You know, guys in the band are trying to punt their tickets
06:49 and everything else.
06:50 And there was a guy that was still in the seats over there,
06:54 Scott Reid, he used to work here.
06:56 And he's friends with Paolo Natini,
06:58 and he was in with Paolo and a bunch of other people.
07:02 And I went over to say a right to Scott.
07:04 And then Scott got dragged away by somebody else.
07:06 And suddenly I'm having a conversation with Paolo Natini
07:08 that was just completely impromptu.
07:10 We'd never met before, but he knew what I was doing.
07:13 And in the middle of that conversation,
07:15 a wee guy came up and went,
07:16 "Paolo, we're a band. We're playing upstairs.
07:20 Do you want to come and see us? Here's a ticket."
07:22 And he went, "Oh, no, no, I'll not take your tickets.
07:24 I'll buy them."
07:25 He went, "Give us four."
07:28 And the wee guy was like, "No way."
07:29 And he gave him money for four tickets
07:32 and then gave them out to the other folk that he was with.
07:34 And went, "Well, go up and watch this band when they play."
07:38 And the wee guy went away, like floating away,
07:40 just going, "I've just sold Paolo Natini, like,
07:42 four tickets for my gig."
07:43 I mean, he'll tell that story probably till he's, you know,
07:47 he's 80, you know.
07:50 So I was chatting away with Paolo,
07:52 and then we got talking about a lot of things.
07:55 He gave me some personal information
07:58 that I didn't expect to get about a recent breakup,
08:01 but that's probably not for this.
08:04 And he then started talking,
08:07 we started talking about Alex Harvey band.
08:09 And just, I said, "Oh, you must be a fan.
08:12 I can hear Alex Harvey in your delivery.
08:14 I can totally, and if I didn't know Alex Harvey,
08:17 I would never know to say that."
08:19 Do you know?
08:19 And that immediately got his attention.
08:22 And he was like, "Oh, man."
08:23 He's like, blah, blah, blah,
08:24 talking about how much he loved them.
08:25 And I didn't know this at the time speaking to him,
08:28 but he would go into the clutha,
08:30 and if there was a band on stage playing Alex Harvey songs,
08:33 he would jump up and sing Alex Harvey songs with the band,
08:36 like, which would have been amazing to experience,
08:40 but it just would happen on occasion that that would happen.
08:43 And then he said to me, he's like,
08:45 "Oh, have you ever seen that video of him doing 'Framed'
08:47 at that festival in Holland in 1976?"
08:49 And I was like, "No, I've no."
08:51 And he went, "Oh, man, you need to watch it.
08:52 You need to watch it."
08:52 And he was like, "In fact, is there any way we can watch it now?"
08:55 And I went, "Well, I could watch it in my office."
08:57 So the next thing, me and Paolo are in my office upstairs
09:00 watching 'Framed' at a festival in Holland,
09:04 black and white, 1976,
09:06 full blast volume, and singing along with it.
09:09 And then we're just chatting away about life and other stuff.
09:12 And it was amazing.
09:14 And it was kind of all from this.
09:17 And then the other one was,
09:20 I was on tour with the Twilight Sad,
09:22 which we'll come to later.
09:25 And we were in a backstage hospitality room in Denver.
09:30 And it was basically us, Robert Smith,
09:33 and a couple who we were friends with,
09:35 who were there on the tour.
09:36 And that was it.
09:37 There was no other leggers, nothing like that.
09:41 You know, quite often with these after show things,
09:43 it's full of people that
09:46 Robert doesn't even really want to be there.
09:47 Do you know?
09:48 He's rather just hang out with the people
09:49 that he wants to talk to.
09:51 And he went away and came back with his little,
09:54 he had his iPod and he's got,
09:56 I think he carries about three or four iPods
09:58 that are full of music,
09:59 all of which that he's actually physically put on the iPods.
10:03 So they're all full of his tunes.
10:05 And he's done it himself.
10:06 He's not got someone to do it.
10:08 He enjoyed the process, he said,
10:10 of actually transferring all his CDs onto iPods.
10:12 Anyway, he goes away, comes back
10:14 with a little docking speaker thing.
10:17 It's like a little mini Marshall amp
10:19 when he plugs his iPod in.
10:21 And we were standing talking,
10:22 I was like, "That's Robert Smith's iPod.
10:24 That's amazing that we are listening to his tunes
10:26 that are his choice."
10:28 And T-Rex played about two or three T-Rex songs
10:31 played on the spin.
10:32 And I was like, "I'm going to go over and choose a song."
10:35 I mean, this is, we're not in a,
10:38 we're not in a, yeah, we're not in an official,
10:41 no, but we're not in an official kind of scenario
10:43 where it's like, it wouldn't be cool to do that.
10:45 And I'd already kind of had a bit of chat with him,
10:47 so I didn't feel uncomfortable doing it.
10:49 So I went over and I picked up the iPod
10:52 and I was like spinning around the tunes
10:54 and going through, like going, "Wow, he's got like that.
10:56 And he's got like all of their albums."
10:58 And then you go on to the next artist,
11:00 he's like, "Cocktail Twins, everything."
11:01 Like, you're just seeing in front of you
11:04 a guy's music taste.
11:06 And it was amazing to see, well,
11:08 one of the greatest songwriters of all times,
11:10 music taste right in front of you.
11:13 And then it was getting to the end of that T-Rex song
11:16 and I was like, "What can I put on?"
11:17 And the DJ in my head was thinking,
11:19 "What song can I put on that will go with T-Rex,
11:22 that will sort of follow on?"
11:24 And I was just like, the sensation Alex Harvey went.
11:27 And I was trying to find "Action Strassa,"
11:29 which is track one on this.
11:30 And I couldn't find, for some reason,
11:33 I couldn't find "Tomorrow Belongs to Me"
11:34 and I was panicking because the song was running out.
11:37 So I just went, bang, and stopped on "The Faith Healer."
11:40 And I just put it down.
11:43 And it's got quite a, if you listen to "The Faith Healer,"
11:44 it's got like a long intro.
11:47 And by the time it properly became apparent what it was,
11:51 he turned and looked at me,
11:53 'cause he must've seen me with his iPod,
11:54 and he just went, he floated over to me
11:58 and he just went, "Did you put that on?"
11:59 And I went, "Yeah."
12:01 And he went, "Oh, we wouldn't be an effing band
12:04 without these guys or this song."
12:07 And he was just like, he hadn't listened to it
12:09 for maybe years.
12:11 And he just was taken right back to being a wee guy.
12:14 And then he started telling us all this chat
12:16 about how he would go and see Alex Harvey or David Bowie
12:20 and how he wanted to be like them.
12:23 That was his goal.
12:24 And he wanted to be like, he said, "I wanted to be them."
12:27 And he went, "No, I didn't want to be them.
12:28 I wanted to be like them."
12:30 And we were like, "Well, you kind of are."
12:33 Like, no, he just played to 20,000 people in Denver.
12:36 Like, this is reality.
12:39 And it was just amazing.
12:41 And then straight after we finished,
12:44 straight after Faith Healer, he went,
12:46 "Put Action Strassa on."
12:47 And I went, "Are you kidding me?"
12:49 That was the track that I was going to put on.
12:51 He asked me to put that on.
12:53 So I found Action Strassa and put that on
12:55 straight after Faith Healer.
12:57 And it was an amazing moment that all came about
13:01 from a guy handing me a vinyl in Iceland, in Bathgate,
13:04 in probably about 2000 and... 2000? 2000, 2001.
13:09 Something like that.
13:11 So that's my Alex Harvey.
13:15 - Just stop. - Yeah.