Jim Sclavunos is something of a rock’n’roll legend, and is the impossibly tall, bearded figure responsible for the pounding beats that drive both Grinderman and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds...
Jim Sclavunos is something of a rock’n’roll legend, and is the impossibly tall, bearded figure responsible for the pounding beats that drive both Grinderman and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Over the years, he has been a sideman to a cabal of idiosyncratically brilliant artists including Alex Chilton, Wreckless Eric and Lydia Lunch, and he has recorded with the likes of Sonic Youth, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, Marianne Faithfull, The Cramps and Iggy Pop. As if that wasn’t enough, Sclavunos is also a celebrated producer and has worked with Gogol Bordello, The Horrors, Beth Orton and the boogie woogie sonic explosion that is The Jim Jones Revue, among many others (his production team Silver Alert recently did a remix of Grinderman’s Evil featuring the The National’s Matt Berninger on vocals). Here, he tells John-Paul Pryor how Mo Tucker changed his life.
Jim Sclavunos: “When I was very young -- before I could afford to buy records, or was even allowed to buy records, or tune the family stereo to a radio station I liked -- I would sometimes spot a record cover in a store that would set my imagination ablaze. I would fantasise so intensely about what the unheard record might sound like that I would have recurring dreams in which I’d be listening to an imaginary playback. The Velvet Underground With Nico with its provocative banana cover was one such album -- although I do remember a vague sense of disappointment when I finally heard the real thing, as it didn’t quite measure up the amazing album of my dreams. When I got a transistor radio for Christmas I no longer had to imagine what the records sounded like. I would go to bed and hide under the covers with my tiny radio and a flashlight and tune in to the underground FM stations and listen all night long. One night I fell asleep with the radio on. When I awoke, an incredible driving distorted and discordant song was playing: something about a sailor getting shot and sucking on a ding-dong and somebody named Sister Ray. Even though I had woken up mid-track, the song seemed to go on forever and just get more and more weird and exciting. When it finally ended, the late night radio announcer with the lugubrious baritone said it was a song off the new album White Light/White Heat by The Velvet Underground. It took a couple of years for me to track it down, but I found a copy (in the library of my Catholic boys high school!) and stole it. The album absolutely blew my mind: I’d never heard rock music sound so brutal and the dark disjointed poetry and sordid stories entranced me. But most importantly, Mo Tucker’s minimalist drumming was an absolute revelation – not in the least because I thought to myself, "I could do that…" A few years later, I actually met Lou Reed hanging out at the back of CBGB’s. It was very early on in the club’s existence, when they still had the little old stage and a pool table side by side. Lou was moping around the pool table, looking bored, so I walked up to him and had little chat, told him how great he was, etcetera. Much to my surprise (and despite his rather formidable reputation), he was not impolite, just a little awkward, but still friendly enough. I didn’t really know what to say to him and didn’t want to gush, so after a brief conversation, I bid him adieu. Years later, I met him again backstage when we were co-billed at a festival. His bass player at the time was an acquaintance of mine and despite my reluctance, he insisted Nick and I come to their dressing room and say ‘Hi’ to Lou. In fact, Lou wasn’t so nice on that occasion; but, whatever.
Text by John-Paul Pryor
Grinderman's new single Palaces Of Montezuma is out now on Mute.
