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BLACK TIME (Capinch Zine - Jan.2005)
BLACK TIME is Lemmy Caution, Janie Too Bad and Mr.Stix. We've been together since early 2004 when we met up, got drunk, and recorded our BLACKOUT LP. We've played a couple of shows, but spend most of our time sulking on street corners or freaking out at the punk rock dance parties we hold in our basement. Janie also has her own band SEXAPHONE who have a great 7" e.p. out (mail midnighttosix@hotmail.com to find out how to get a copy). I play bass in the SUBWAY SLIMS (lo-fi grinding noise) and drums in LOS RAW GOSPELS (Gories-style trash - 7" e.p coming out on Dull City Records of Norway in 2005). Mr.Stix runs his own magic show for children. He used to be a professional entertainer but got thrown out of the magic circle for chronic alcoholism. What about your ‘vampire sound’? Garage punk, noise, punkrock, or whatever? What’s the stuff which you’re influenced? I like to think of you as kinda garage punk band that will be on some Pebbles #57 (!) in the distant future… It's all punk rock to me - the Monks, Crime, Black Randy, Pretty Things, Electric Eels, Birthday Party, Mummies, Black Flag, Standells, Clash, Pussy Galore - it's the same thing!! I guess I like stuff that's recorded in a certain trashy way so that makes it more 'garage' I guess. The vampire sound feeds on old records and spews out it's own demented and incompetent version!! Sometimes you reminds a pretty few of the Hunches. Then – as that band – influenced by as the early Jesus & Mary Chain as Pussy Galore. Am I wrong? There are something in common with their stuff? Well the Hunches are a modern band I really love - their sound is just fucking amazing. Live too they made me wanna piss my pants. More vacuum cleaners in rocknroll!!! My copies of "Psychocandy" and "Right Now" are scratched to fuck in their worn sleeves so guilty as charged! What about the Black Time’s song-writing? Really full of ideas. Is it all the band’s work or someone write most of the stuff? All our stuff is written by the ghost of Jayne Mansfield and transported to us via a moonlit graveyard ritual involving a pink vial of fresh virgin's blood.
Discomfort, awkwardness, elation, disappointment, desperation, sex, death and cheap alcohol, and that's just friday night. Why you decided to self-release your debut album Blackout? Did you tried to send stuff to any label? As for me it’s a perfect record of In The Red or something. It didn't really occur to us - I'd saved a load of money from doing shitty jobs and just wanted to put out all this fucked-up music I'd recorded. The last band I was in did their stuff on CD which I thought was a crying shame, so with this band putting out vinyl is the priority above all. Basically there's about 23 people in the whole world who like this stuff (and most of them know each other), so you may as well do it on a format that all those people love, and we listen to ourselves. Do you think so? I mean there are more people that appreciate your work (about 37 at least…eehhh…and I don’t know everyone) and everywhere most of people that are into garage punk knows well the Black Time thing. Well this record seems to have been picked up fairly well, especially thanks to folks like Evert at Grunnen Rocks and the Terminal Boredom website, who have done an amazing job of spreading the word. I’m really knocked out at the amount of people from different parts of the world that have got in touch to express an interest. I’m not being glib, I’m just saying it’s a fairly small sub-sub-sub-genre of people who dig 99% of the bands I like – but I’m very happy to be getting feedback from that sector ‘cos mostly they’re into the stuff I listen to myself. Is there some label wich you would have some record out right now? SHAKE...YOUR...ASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah! Black Time on SYA sooooon!!! Now talk us about your label – Concrete Life Records. You also put out a 10” by Hotwires (did you play with ‘em?). Any next issue in the future? Probably not, unless I win the lottery!! The label was just set up to put out the Hotwires 10”, and then I did the Black Time LP on the same label just ‘cos it was easier than thinking up a new record label name. BTW – the label name comes from a great British punk rock band of the 1990s called Huggy Bear who I really love. The song “Concrete Life” is a late night punk torch song classic – “It’s a temporary kick to alleviate constraint, how we fucked and robbed a cop she pissed into his face…”
Not really in Tottenham – some rockin’ folks live round there like PJ who runs the legendary Dirty Water Club (where we can be found propping up the bar most Friday nights) but there’s more bands and stuff up the road in Hackney or Stoke Newington. I’ve actually moved to Camden in the last few months, which is full of washed-up relics from the Britpop era – haha!! What about the real UK’s garage situation? Is it easy to play shows and tour the country? What about its audience? Do they have fun listening to noisy garage music? Is there some cool zine? The UK garage scene is really tiny. There’s pockets of folks who are really into the music dotted around the country, but not really enough of an audience so that you can do a tour. We usually arrange gig swaps for weekends away in different parts of the country – so for example the Real Losers will put us on in Leeds for a weekend, and then we’ll return the favour in London. It’s embarrassing when bands from outside visit the UK ‘cos generally bands get treated really well in the rest of Europe but in the UK the conditions are shitty – you don’t really get paid for shows, there’s no food or drink or accommodation or anything like that. Did you plan some tour in Europe? I really would like to see you playin’… Definitely – especially for all the reasons mentioned above! I’m not interested in making money out of music, but would love to go some places where you at least get somewhere to sleep! All going well, we should be visiting Sweden in March to play the Savage Magazine 10th anniversary bash, and Yakisakana Records are trying to get us over to France in April. Anyone who wants to invite us to Italy please get in touch!!! Do you often play shows there? What happens in a Black Time’s gig? Black Time shows are short and sweaty and intense. It’s not really so much about doing an accurate representation of the songs as converting a certain type of energy into blocks of sound to drop on the audience.
Oh boy there’s so many – I’m probably missing a few here, but at the moment I’m digging the Magnetix, Tyrades, Fatals, Volt, TJ and the Lipstick, Gossip, Hunches, Motorama, Manikins, Henry Fiat’s Open Sore, Functional Blackouts, Hello Cuca, Mr.Airplane Man, Cheeraks, Holy Shit, BBQ, Flying Dutchmen, Teenheat etc. I love Japanese garage-trash as well: if I ever got the chance to play with Guitar Wolf or the Mad 3 I think my eyeballs would explode!! What are you favourite drinks? What the drugs? What the best mix??? This is a tough question for me to answer ‘cos I’m on my ‘dry’ month at the moment i.e. I’m taking a month off from drinking (‘cos I drink far too much the other 11 months of the year!) and just thinking about it is making me gag for a pint ! I take a one month holiday from alcohol every year, but the rest of the time it’s practically my best friend. Like most other folks, I work a dull soul-destroying job 9 – 5, Monday – Friday, and if I didn’t drink a few beers or sink a bottle of wine in the evening when I get home I’d turn into one of those people you see on the news who runs into McDonald’s with a machine gun and starts shooting down innocent bystanders. How’s that for a lame excuse? I’M DRINKING TO SAVE THE COMMUNITY FROM MY VIOLENT URGES!! Ha ha!! Drugs I don’t really touch anymore. I went through a very self-destructive stage when I was younger and I would do anything and everything at that time, but I’ve stopped all that for the sake of what’s left of my brain. What are the records you could never live without? And what – as for you – those which the Human people really cold do without? I have trouble answering this too ‘cos I don’t want to just reel off a list of ‘classic’ records which I love, and that kind of answers the second question as well – I think people should maybe spend more time seeking out esoteric little pockets of stuff rather than the obvious rock canon. It’s like, I fucking love the Velvet Underground and the Rolling Stones, I probably play them every day, but the last thing the world needs is more column inches devoted to those bands, or someone dropping their name in an interview (oops!). But anyways, go and check out some records by the Mekons, John Fahey, Harry Pussy, Fish Turned Human, SSD, Brigitte Fontaine, Screamers, Last Poets, Homosexuals, Johnny Kidd & the Pirates – there’s a whole wide world out there!
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Well,
let’s start. Please introduce the BLACK TIME. How long is it since you
play? What about its members? Do you have some spin-off bands/project right
now?
Do
you think your music ‘s most related to depression, or to rage? Both at the
same time? 
You’re
from Tottenham, right? Is there some noisy garage punk scene? Any great band
to mention?
What
are the eur/us current bands you would like to play with?