Mark Stewart Unedited Transcript

The Wire: Let’s talk about the film. How did that happen?

Mark Stewart: Basically what happened was Tøni Schifer, the filmmaker, approached me and wanted to document what’s been happening. It’s difficult for me to analyse my own work. They seem to be telling this story that I’ve made all these connections between Jamaica, No Wave New York, English dance music, Indian Desi music, hiphop, Bristol, Berlin.

What’s interesting is that we have been doing a lot of the filming in Berlin. A couple of weeks ago we were talking to Vernon Reid, because I was living in New York when the whole No Wave thing was going on and I was really interested in this thing called the Black Rock Coalition, which Vernon was really heavily involved in. Vernon was saying that black kids couldn’t get into any of those galleries and gigs. We were playing in those things but I was hanging around in the Bronx, hanging around with Keith Hudson and street parties and stuff. The No Wave New York that they are talking about was quite closed. I was in and out of New York living with this guy making a film, The Pop Group played out there and then we kept on going back and we were playing with DNA and Mars and stuff but what happened is that we were suddenly, Bruce the drummer found this radio station called WBLS and there was this DJ called Red Alert and we knew nothing about what was the beginning of hiphop at that stage, this was 78-79, and Red Alert was doing these radio shows on WBLS and we would stay in at a certain time every night in New York to copy these tapes. We were interviewing Daddy G from Massive Attack the other week in Bristol and he was saying those tapes were copied and copied and copied all round Bristol, and people started getting decks and it’s crazy and Nellee, from the Wild Bunch started doing little graffiti drawings on the tapes and stuff. Hiphop hit Bristol much faster than anywhere else in England. Nothing was happening really in London, there were some funk clubs and stuff, but because of the West Indian heritage in Bristol a lot of my friends had cousins in New York, people had moved to England and the states and Jamaica and they would move back and forth. The connections between Bristol and New York were quite strange.

The strange thing is that I don’t analyse what I do, I just do it. Quite long periods of time when I don’t think about making music, just knocking about with my friends who are builders or whatever, I don’t analyse the role of what I’m doing. Making this film, having to look back, I had never looked back at anything, I’m not even the sort of person who would look back at yesterday, having to look back at this film is quite bizarre and for the first time in my life I’ve had to answer the questions in the interview and not try and steer the rudder somewhere else. The vivid memories I have are Allen Ginsberg, I was having a big argument with and he was saying that I was exaggerating the apocalypse in the early 80s, and having high tea with Sun Ra, in Holland. The strange thing is that it’s like a circle, I get stuff off other people, I feed off music and knowledge like a nutrient and I pass it along down the line. Tøni is talking to people like Nick Cave, Bowie is talking about The Pop Group in the film. Tøni wanted talking heads and for me I’m pushing more, my favourite filmmaker is Chris Marker. He’s getting all these talking heads and I can’t see the person talking on the film is me. It’s important for me to protect my innocence and my excitement about things. Now I’m as much excited about all this Desi stuff I’m into, this Desi stuff is like the first proper English multi-culture youth movement ever, every time I get a new tape or a new movement or a new rhythm it’s invigorating, it’s a pleasure for me, Asian friends of mine in Wembley are making the most wicked stuff and there’s a wicked Desi scene in Canada.

So I’m as excited now finding weird things or parapolitics as I ever was. I have vivid memories of the past, all I can remember for this film was Sun Ra and Ginsberg and we took Patti Smith to go and see one of the crucial points in my enlightenment – going to some early Clash gigs. Just before punk we were listening to lots of dirty R ‘n’ B music like pretty things and b-sides. My best friend in Bristol had this R ‘n’ B band called the Cortinas and they were supporting Patti Smith on one of her early shows at The Roundhouse. The same night The Clash were doing this thing called ‘A Night Of Treason’ at the ICA and we were knocking about backstage (we were about 15) saying to Patti Smith if she wanted to go and see this punk band and to her, she didn’t understand that there was an English punk thing going on. We took her to go and see The Clash at the ICA, Shane Macgowan was there and he bit some girl’s ear off near the stage, there was this big Observer thing about The Pistols, the Anarchy tour, The Pistols got banned everywhere and we went across to Wales.

I had this saying ‘there is the arrogance of power and what we got from punk was the power of arrogance’, anybody can have a go, seeing people just like us on stage not really knowing what they were doing, that spirit, changed the world to an extent, people realised you didn’t have to go cap in hand, it really democratised, you can do anything.