WE CAN – MEET – HEROES. JUST FOR ONE DAY
February 3rd, 2005 by rui
This week two of our regular DJs, Paul Hartnoll (Orbital) and Lol Hammond, met Terry Hall (The Specials) and Chas Smash (Madness) at the The Union Private Members Club in Greek Street.
The event was a photo shoot for the Out to Lunch and Back to Mine tsunami fundraiser taking place at Cargo (Sun Feb 13). Chas played the piano and showed us a few magic tricks, Siobhan Fahey wowed everyone with her beauty, and Terry Hall was just plain cool.
Sam Sofa asked Paul and Lol to gush at will about their heroes.
Paul Hartnoll says:
My first two years of secondary school were dominated by my love of music, especially Madness and The Specials. And it was because of Chas and Madness that I bunked off school for the first time when I was 12/13.
When I saw NME advertising an HMV signing by them, the opportunity to meet some of my greatest idols had to be had. These people were on my bedroom wall for chrissake!
I tucked my One Step Beyond single in my bag, went to the bus stop to meet my friends and announced "come on, we’re off to the train station!"
What a day we had. Unfortunately I got a taste for bunking off, did it twice more that week, and got caught on Friday afternoon by the truant officer!
But I still have a signed copy of One Step Beyond, minus Woody’s signature for some reason. I must have missed him in the excitement, so Chas if you could bring him along on the 13th, I might just play your record!
Lol Hammond says:
As soon as I heard the first Specials single ‘Gangsters’ I was hooked! They sounded so cool. So cool and so real. They spoke our language – the music, the look, the clothes, they were the coolest band to hit the planet since The Clash. I loved the way the band were multi-cultural too. They embraced everything that was good and positive about being young in the 80s a real tonic against Thatcher’s Britain.
And Chas Smash is another geezer! Again we could relate to Madness, they were just like us. Chas always looked so cool, a real dude. A dude from Camden Town. The nutty boys, London boys, with ace songs to boot! I always wanted to be Chas or Terry!
photo (left to right):
Siobhan Fahey, Paul Hartnoll, Lol Hammond, Carl Madness, Terry Hall
