Through a Glass, Darkly

I saw that it was Philip Glass’s birthday recently and was trying to remember when I interviewed him and for whom. No idea. I just remember that he was a lovely guy, possibly my favourite interviewee.

It was a sort of turning point in my life. I felt, for once, he was interested in me and what I had to say. From that point on, I never really wanted to be an interviewer: I wanted to meet people as an equal. I wanted to be Phil’s friend, to hang out with him in New York and have him introduce me to his artistic friends. We could gossip, chew the fat, and maybe even work on projects. I’d eat with him and he could show me the places where he’d worked as a cab driver and a plumber. It would be great.

Dream on.

Anyway, it turns out I wrote the piece in 1986 for a free magazine called Making Music. An enterprising character called Ben (I don’t known his other name) has just put this and a lot of my other music writing from that era on a site called Muzines. You can read some of my other pieces here. I am particularly proud of the little squib tweaking the tail of Robert Fripp. Killler punchline, if I say it myself.