I Was There – Neil Innes’ final recording session, RAK studios, 17/11/19
Memories of the Rutles, Monty Python and Bonzos legend in action
On a Sunday afternoon in November 2019. a group of musicians gathered in the historic Rak Studios in St John’s Wood, record a cover of the T-Rex classic ‘Get It On’ with its original producer Tony Visconti at the helm.
The studios are steeped in history, having been built by 70s production giant Mickie Most in 1976. ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ by The Smiths, The Jam’s ‘Down In The Tube Station At Midnight’ and The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale In New York’ were all recorded there, and that’s really just for staters.
The musicians, who’d been corralled by Micko Westmoreland of Micko & The Mellotronics fame and visual artist Harry Pye, sailed under the flag of convenience of The Spammed – a tribute to three of its alumni, drummer Rat Scabies of The Damned, Horace Panter of The Specials (who coined the band name) and Neil Innes, a frequent co-conspirator with Monty Python, whose Spamalot musical was riding high in the West End when they were named.
That only goes part of the way to describe Innes, who also created the loving Beatles satire The Rutles. had a UK top five hit with ‘Urban Spaceman’ as part of notorious anarcho art terrorists Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and successfuly got Oasis to cough up for the similarities between his 70s solo track ‘How Sweet To Be An Idiot’ and their 1994 single ‘Whatever’.
Juno Daily’s Ben Willmott was lucky enough to be invited in to attend the session, which also included Spammed regulars Horace Panter of The Specials, actor and comedian Kevin Eldon, Terry Edwards (PJ Harvey/Gallon Drunk) and one off guests Kristeen Young and Jon Klein (Siouxsie & The Banshees/Specimen). He recalls sitting listening to Scabies telling the group he’d once bought a mixing desk previously owned by Bob Marley and discovered a pile of weed shavings that had fallen through its gaps when he took it apart to maintain it. Did he smoke it, we demanded to know?
No, came the answer, as he’d given up on smoking weed. Luckily, Lee Mavers of Scouse indie legends The La’s, who came in for a recording session at his Kew studio, and a few mates, were more than happy to do the honours.
Likewise, the studio’s green room also became home to a fascinating debate between Innnes and Panter over the lines in the T-Rex song “Well, you’re built like a car / You’ve got a hubcap diamond star halo.” “I’m not sure my wife would be very happy to be compared to a hubcap,” Innes was heard declaring, with typical dry humour and a mischevious twinkle always in his eye.
Tragically, this would prove to be the last ever session for Innes, who died of a heart attack at the age of 75 little more than a month later in France, where he’d made his home. John Cleese and Michael Palin were among those who expressed their shick and sadness at his unexpected passing.
On November 28 of this year, an all star cast including musical director John Altman, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, The Rutles, Tommy Emmanuel, Ade Edmondson, Phill Jupitus, Tom McGuinness, Elliott Randall, Roger McGough, Yo La Tengo, Terrafolk, John Halsey, Andy Roberts, Ricky Fataar, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Larry Smith, Brian Patton and Micky Simmonds will pay tribute to Innes at Indigo at the 02 in London. The Spammed are delighted to announce they will be joining the line up, with Michael “Woody” Woodmansey, drummer on David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album guesting.
Here, in their own words, the band look back on that final session and Neil’s generous contribution to the group, which recorded a cover version a year for the Specialized project, raising cash for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Horace Panter: “The main objective was to record a song for a charity record but that became secondary to just being able to sit around with Neil and listen to his war stories , which always included an excess of humour. Then it was decided we were going to record a Marc Bolan tune and Tony Visconti was going to produce it! Shit got real, as they say. I rehearsed considerably. Neil Innes AND Tony Visconti. To be able to be a fly on that wall was good!”
Micko Westmoreland: “It had a golden glow to it, a truly tremendous day, as sessions go, what a great one to bow out on. As primary organiser of the recording, getting everybody in the room is always tricker than it looks. Neil had flown in from France for that Sunday, the only time when everyone was available. The Spammed sessions are always busy and it can be the case that you don’t always get the chance to speak on the day. This had been the case on the previous two sessions with Neil, but thankfully not this one, more on that later.
“I think I can say how impressed we all were with Tony (Visconti), he somehow managed to make you feel totally relaxed when in high pressure situations, one of his many secret talents, to draw the very best out of the players to then commit to tape. Tony loved meeting and working with Neil, you could tell that he got a great kick out of it.
“With Visconti’s help recording, the track never felt like a problem. We finished before six and piled off to the pub after photos and a quick tour of the gold disc-adorned RAK studio. I spent a long time speaking to Neil that night, could of been a hour, pretty much one to one. I was a relatively new father and without a shade of condescension, he gave me his take on parenthood. ‘You start to realise what we were put here for’, he said. ‘To make more of ourselves’, Neil was very down to earth and also to the point. I think the thing that he really got and which permeates his work, was a grasp of humanity. He could truly objectify, he wrote a book on economics but within that there was a deep understanding, an empathy if you like. To quote a line from a song on his last album ‘Nearly Really’ , ‘We are but flesh and blood after all’.
“Neil was very much of this life, he expressed to me that he thought that once you’ve had your chips, you’ve had your chips. ‘Nevertheless’, to use a title from a another Innes song, he sent me a poem called ‘How long does a man live’ by Brian Patten when my father died, I read it at Dad’s funeral. In it the author expands on the notion of living on through the lives of others. Neil lives on as a result our love and respect for him, I can’t wait to be a part of that celebration at the 02 indigo in November. So many amazing and talented people, lives crossed by his talents in those 75 years. From that I’m sure you’ll agree that he’s likely to be very much in the room.”
Kevin Eldon: “Sadly, I’m one of those people whose brains don’t store memories with any clarity. My recollection of that last session with Neil is, predictably for me, hazy. I do however remember the main vibe of the day and it was very good. He had a very nice grand piano to play and was dressed rather suavely all in black. I’m pleased to report that that day he was on really good form. He was happy. He was a generally smiley bloke anyway and that smile was always a very good thing to have in a room. He was a great punster and he was cracking some good ones. It was rather moving to see how pleased Tony was to see him. At some point Tony said ‘I’ve met Ron Nasty!’ And incidentally, getting to work with Mister Visconti was a dream come true. I’ve been listening to his brilliant work for most of my life. It was a double bonus to discover that he’s a really really warm and friendly man.
“One moment that sticks in my mind is when I was sitting next to Neil in the control room and we were listening to the playback. He quietly threw me this kind, positive comment about the way I’d sung a bit of the vocal. A compliment from anyone always brightens your day but a compliment from a hero really makes your heart soar. Typical of his generosity of spirit of course.
“Having completed the track we of course went to the nearest boozer, as was always the tradition after a Spammed session. Part of that tradition was to get in buckets of red wine and just sit, quaff and natter. That night, as always, he was a fine drinking partner. He would tell these amazing anecdotes; funny, fascinating, often involving near mythical characters from the world of pop and show biz. I’d be sitting there thinking things like ‘remember this, remember this’ but it’s a bit hard when you’re hearing them after twenty nine glasses of Merlot. He was never grandstanding when he was telling these stories by the way. They were always matter-of-fact, often self-deprecating and inevitably with an eye on the gag. Do I remember him recounting tripping with Jimi Hendrix? I honestly don’t know. I might very well have wined that into existence but I wouldn’t have put it past him.
“He also spoke passionately about politics. He was on the side of fairness and justice and honesty and he was against greed, corruption and mistreatment of the vulnerable. So you can guess which party he had absolutely no time for. He wasn’t just on transmit though, he was a great listener, genuinely interested in hearing what you had to say.
“So that was the last time I saw him. I got a hug at the end of the night, as did we all. I’ll always be sad it came as soon as it did but if there had to be a last time I ever saw him, I guess that last day and evening couldn’t have been much better.”
Harry Pye: “When Neil arrived I remember he handed everyone a copy of his new CD Nearly Really which he was proud of. Although I loved the T-Rex track and was delighted to meet the famous producer Tony Visconti, I wished we had been recording one of Neil’s songs – old or new.
“After the session we went to a local pub. I asked Neil about how Nearly Really was going to be promoted and distributed. The film maker Gordon Beswick and I made a video for Neil’s cover version of Mike Nesmith’s Rio some time ago and Neil had asked us to work with him on a project called Show Me The Sanity. We talked about the possibility of making a video for my favourite song on Nearly Really which is called Old Age Becomes Me.
“Some of Neil’s best solo songs were parodies of famous hits. Geoffrey Daniels is obviously Neil having fun being Elton John – but the magic is that he could do it in a way that would make Elton laugh too. And Neil was also able to listen to a Ringo song like Don’t Pass Me By and come up with a better Ringo song such as Living In Hope. In one of our last e-mail conversations I asked him about Old Age Becomes Me and he said: ‘It was written for my 65th birthday- it just came together. I have always enjoyed a certain vintage of songs – 50’s kind of witty lyrics – like the ones Harry Nilsson covered so beautifully. I wasn’t thinking of anyone in particular, just following the chords and allowing the words to fall into place. One of the “lucky” ones!’
“I think there was much more to come from Neil. I think he had a lot of good songs left in him. I’m sad we wont get to hear them but I feel happy that I introduced him to the other members of The Spammed because I know they loved him and he loved them. I think that being with the boys in The Spammed brought back some happy memories of other bands he’d been a member of in the past. That last night in the pub was good fun and Neil seemed to be a very happy chap.”