“Hey Guys, here’s Johnny, looking like Iggy Pop” The wonderful Johnny Hatch, from Gosport legends Secret Corners. I loved that band. It was a crime that their music didn’t get the exposure it deserved. The very first Paul Groovy & The Pop Art Experience gig was supporting them, drummer Steve Kirk played with us twice (with a 23 year gap in-between!), keyboard player Mick Horton produced our last recordings, and, in 1994 Johnny joined Steve & myself in a one-off combo called The Secret Groovies. Anyway....Johnny went through a spell of being besotted with Iggy-when he found out I had some Stooges bootlegs he was round like a rocket with a pile of blank tapes-including dyeing his hair blond “just like Iggy”.
“Up there is Merrick, hanging from a tree-top, baby” Remember the protests over the Newbury by-pass back in the 90’s? Merrick was one of the protesters, and chronicled the events in his book “Battle For The Trees”. We were huge Cope-Heads, and Julian introduced us to Merrick and the rest. When they were finally evicted Merrick came and stayed with us for a few days, before going to London to appear on Question Time... a real Mofo.X
“Julian’s down in Wessex, having a great time at the Stones”...and speaking of Julian Cope....it was around this time that we would frequently bump into Julian & Dorian at Avebury. There was a cafe there called “Stones” that did some amazing soups.
“And Stevie’s living “2000 Light Years From Home” Steve Clarke had just moved out to Alresford, and it was a Rolling Stones song-thought it went with the previous line....
“Jane & Keith live in the Hornets Nest” Jane & Keith were both in The Green Hornets, and they called their fan-club “The Hornets Nest”.They were one of my favourite local bands of the mid-90’s, and we reformed the Pop Art Experience (with Barry from the Mild Mannered Janitors on drums in place of Jo-she had emigrated to Australia to run a sheep farm!) in 1997 just to gig wth them at the Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth.
“Neil’s writing love songs so Divine” Neil Hannon/The Divine Comedy-a great songwriter and lyricist-also a very sly sense of humour...
“Tony’s doing just what he does best” Tony Rollinson-he wrote a book on the Portsmouth music scene(20 Missed Beats) which featured us quite a bit so I was repaying the compliment. He also formed a band called With No Encores with the sole intention of supporting The Prisoners and ourselves at a gig. What does he do best? Being Tony.
“And Jimmy? Well I guess he’s doing fine.”Jimmy was the bass player for the Pop Art Experience after Steve Herlihy left in 1987.Amongst his friend he became known as “Illness” after he threw up on producer Steve Hoff when we were mixing the Andy Watch Out single. He was prone to over-indulgence-the last I heard of him was tale told by a mutual friend of Jimmy thinking he was a gunner in a B52 bomber over Berlin when in fact he was sitting in the back of a taxi.....
