CHAPTER 5 A VIDEO NASTY

Another element takes place..we need proper rehearsal rooms and a hang out place, just like in a Cliff Richard film., the pistols had their place, the Clash all the greats have a base, HQ to plan and hang out....Martin calls and says he and Yana have found somewhere..its 500 yards from where Magenta and TJ are living..18 rooms for a ludicrous small rent..just needs decorating...its fate..392b harrow road is born... the whole band take to paint brushes and Tj and X build a special rehearsal room soundproofed with pink plastic walls..you can see it in the South of Watford program...the best feature is the word ELVIS painted on the carpet in 6foot letters...when we rehearse we will walk in his name!!! he will bless us....Degville is still there... Harrow house of Horror we called it later... everyone lived there at one stage. living with Sputnik and my grandfathers old billiard table...

One other element was to shape the future of Sputnik...
I was sitting at home one Saturday when i thought we needed something visual to accompany the songs..I set about editing across F111 onto some video tape and compiled a video by just bouncing sections of our favorite movies onto another VHS machine, bits of Terminator, Fire Fox, Desperate Living, Long Good Friday, Assault on Precinct 13, and loads of bits off TV....when i did the tape copy i accidentally hit play/record on the cassette machine..thats why just at the start on the jungle album u can here a slight glitch just before the vocals come in!..id fucked up the master copy!!....Anyway another twist meant that when i did a dub copy from the video master i realised that if u flicked the sound monitor across u could lay the sound of the overdubs on as well, explosions and gunfire..so the sound of these effects became the final element in the Sputnik sound!..it was at 2 am the next day i finished after 16 hours straight work , but that video tape was to shape the entire sputnik sound and its video impact on Rock and Roll...it was this video that i took to record companies to watch, not a demo audio tape.....we had to play it in the room outside the AnR mens offices because they didn't have video machines in their rooms then... this meant the whole company would see it..the office girls of course were appalled by the sickening scenes of violence and rape depicted on that tape..we loved it of course... it all became part of the magic.. a company could call us up and we would go in and play them the video, we got an expensive lunch and then left without leaving a copy..I always figured that the idea would grow in their minds as they described it to others in the company and the myth would grow...EMI only got their own copy when they signed us and gave us the money.....thanks

I was looking thru my archive of sputnik photos the other day and i found an early pic of one of the bands first London shows which we played at the Electric Cinema in portobello road..i remember it well ,especially as I filmed the whole event..Dan Donovan and don Letts also filmed the show while we were on stage..it was a legendary event..we'd done one of our first pieces in the NME with a brilliant photo shot at the Hippodrome nightclub where we used to hang out, listening to thriller and idols songs, waiting our turn.. anyway there was a 2 page piece in NME out on Thursday, the gig on Friday..that Thursday afternoon 11 record companies, all londons majors, phoned us up to ask to be on the guest list, I've got film of all those AnR men trouping in to see the show being filmed arriving by me..anyway the gig was in this old cinema in portobello road the Electric screen and as support act we showed the S&M film "Maitress"..well there in the front row of the gig is a deathly white face staring up at X playing guitar..it was Thunders himself giving his seal of approval....

...the rest they say ...is history