Keynsham—the first of their albums

of time. Earlier in the year it had seemed almost in­evitable ; soured by their sufferings at the hands of the business and falling apart as a band and within them­selves it seemed that they couldn't go on. But over the last two months things have changed. The positive step of rejected the major part of the American tour gave them new energy, intensified by Keynsham—the first of their albums with which they had been fully satisfied, and on which they felt they were truly doing 'their own thing'. Memory Cards

Friends talked to Vivian Stanshall late last year, when this new period of optimism was at its height. With newly cropped hair, to symbolise his movement from fun and laughter to hard work and all the problems entailed in managing the band alone, Stanshall talked with obvious bitterness about what had happened and how very bad things had become. Tempered with the bitterness was sadness. One could not help but sympa­thise. But then it seemed as his overpowering optimism could help the Bonzos win through. Now the opposite has been seen. Despite everything that has been said and done, the band has fallen apart. What its unique and very individual talents will do now is still unknown.

There's been no attempt to update the interview, that Stanshall claimed to have been his first'serious statement, and what must now stand as his last, certainly as a Bonzo. It is sufficiently interesting in its own right not to require the sensational immediacy of the latest 'frankest ever' out pourings. If you see it as a dream come distinctly untrue or as a sad irony it makes no difference. Camcorders

'We had an astonishing interview with a bloke in Cincinatti who came on a recording scene and he came along to say hello and he caught Neil and I in a particularly vicious and nasty mood.

We were standing up on our hind legs and bleating. And we treated him to a two and a half hour harangue about the role of the artist and the sickness of the system and the persecution and all of the stuff and at the end of this incredible dis­course he said 'We won't understand these people—they're artists'. We were dumbfounded by that. It came as an incredible revelation to him that we had artistic ideals rather than financial ones. People who are creative, people who are the sacks of potatoes for these people to sell, are by nature lost before they have begun. There's not generally speaking in the nature of creators of any kind to have business minds. You don't need to be a businessman. You have to be business-like about the way in which you're going to utilise what talents you have to get the best out of you and preserve you as a creator for later years. We just carried on through fiascos and ridiculous bookings and signing absurd bits of paper—I'd just sign them to get them out of my life and never see them again. I'd sign anything and tear it up. And at the same time I was still trying to make things and masks and do this, that and the other. Keynsham may not be interpreted as an attack on the system—on the surface it's just another happy little piece. In fact it's a particularly vitriolic condemnation of this maelstrom of hatred and greed. There is some fifties music in it. When I feel particularly aggressive as I have done for the past six months 1 use the most aggressive part of my life which I suppose was the fifties when I was a Teddy boy. I suppose there is quite a lot. Ho . . . We discover things about ourselves every­day folks ... In real terms the really sordid level of northern club that comes on the LP is a better place to play and sort yourself out than the ones we did play which were slightly smarter. Padded loony bins. Lots of red, cheap furnishings and muted lights. First year after we left school and decided to go professional we just went out to pasture on the club circuit and univeristies. As