Catherine Suleiman, Rusty Egan, Mount Street Gardens, 15 August 2017 [2017], pencil on paper
Rusty Egan:
‘If you are a painter you have these moments and you paint and then you wake up the next day and you paint on top of it … it’s just a moment so when you are creating something from absolute zero you have experiences like I thought, “I would never fall in love again”. Now you capture those experiences and then it might be with you for a year before it turns into a work.’
from a conversation with Mary McCaughey
Connaught Bar and Mount Street Gardens [15 August 2017]
Ballet Dancer … when it finally came out it took a couple of days but I had it started for like a year and like Glorious I had it done and sent it to Midge [Ure] and asked him to do a vocal and a guitar but he completely changed it … so what he didn’t like is now the verse of I thought that I could never find love again.
What I mean by that is that I had this beautiful verse and now … When you write something down — for example:
If I had anything,
anything at all
I would give it you
a lyric from U2 — if you had just that lyric, and then you are going through your notepad and you are writing a song and you think: I know what, I’ll put that lyric in it and it works perfectly …
Just one line like
Ich bin dann König, und Du Königin
[I, I will be king and you, you will be queen]
It’s so simple isn’t it, but when it absolutely works perfectly it’s poetry to me …
—
There are moments like that one I told you about [at Cannes Film Festival] when I saw a film about a boy who could fly … I did have that as a lyric
but I saw a film today, oh boy came into my head from the Beatles and put me off …
But that was really what happened … I did see a film about a boy who could fly when an angel fell out of the sky … that was my lyric about this girl. Her name was Oceane so I used that
I fell into an ocean of love
so I said to myself I can say that … so now I am back to
I saw a film about a boy that could fly
—
There’s no regrets
No tears goodbye
I don’t want you back
We’d only cry again
Say goodbye again
David Bowie was massively influenced by Scott Walker … and Scott Walker — if you listen to his music — it is beautifully romantic music …
—
If I was picking songs, musical pieces and music soundtracks (I would pick) Mahler’s Fifth Symphony … Mahler’s Fifth was [used in] the soundtrack of the movie of Thomas Mann’s book Death in Venice and I watched that movie produced by Visconti … so these romantic things and this influence was coming into my DJ booth. Who made that music? Where can I get that music? And then playing Mahler’s Fifth Symphony in my DJ booth (at the Blitz Club) …
—
I am in Venice for one night next month … I am so upset … I am not going to see anything … I am dj-ing to four in the morning and getting a flight again at 2pm in the afternoon …
—
I was a 22-year-old boy in a punk band who loves Ultravox …
We’ll never leave here, never
Let’s stay in here forever
And when the streets are quiet
We’ll walk out in the silence
[a song by John Foxx]
I mean I’m in a bar and playing odd, weird music that you cannot dance to … because I said no one wants to dance at 8 o’clock, 9 o’clock at night … and I love playing all my favourite songs before I drop the beat to make you dance … and I love playing Jean-Michel Jarre or Brian Eno or ambient music or film score music … so what I am saying really is (creating) the setting for a romantic setting was number one …
—
The 1940s were a very romantic time, as in film noir … Parisian red and black table cloths … candlelight … a candle with a bit of string … the lights are down … pictures of Churchill ‘your country needs you’ on the walls … a lot of green — they loved green in the 40s … tiles, wooden floors … and then you hear … synthesisers …
—
If you walk into any bar here, it’s just a pub, it’s just a pub. But, you know, you find a place where you hear Five Years by David Bowie — nobody plays Five Years by David Bowie … nobody plays Roxy Music …
—
Here as I sit
At this empty café
Thinking of you
I remember
All those moments
Lost in wonder
That we’ll never
Find again
Though the world is my oyster
It’s only a shell
Full of Memories
And here by the Seine
Notre-Dame casts
A long lonely shadow
These cities may change
But there always remains
My obsession
Through silken waters
My gondola glides
And the bridge, it sighs
It’s called A Song for Europe.
—
You hear words like Vienna … you hear words about Europe … Kraftwerk singing in German, singing in French … David Bowie singing in French … you hear Japanese music …
—
We looked at the Berlin of the 1920s and 1930s in an artistic and creative way to do with floor shows, and cabaret … I even went to the Romy Haag club and it was because of Romy Haag I made a record with a girl called Ronny, a beautiful song …
If you want me to stay
I’ll be around someday
to be available
for you to see
But I’m about to go
And baby then you’ll know
For me to stay here
I’ve got to be me
So beautiful … what it captured, brilliant … I only had a decade of music but all my music was innovative… what I mean by that is I didn’t just make a record — each record had a point and a story and an art that had something to do with culture … and, as you said, it was very inspirational to other people …
Green italics indicate words, lyrics or verses sung by the interviewee
The Romantic View gives its warmest thanks to Rusty Egan and additional thanks to Art Bennett.
Rusty Egan Presents … Welcome to the Dancefloor [May 2017] is the long awaited debut, released by Black Mosaic, on LP, CD and digital from the legendary original Blitz Club DJ and Visage’s founding member Rusty Egan — an electronic masterpiece, featuring Peter Hook, Tony Hadley, Andy Huntley, Erik Stein, Kira Porter, Emily Kavanagh,