Acquitted by Mirrors, Issue 3 (1982)

It was all filmed in and around Wakefield, on black and white film stock and it contains references to films by David Lynch and Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dali. Very subtle references but they are there all the same. It is heavily influenced by all three (smiles) Plagiarism? No references, No, actually there are no immediate rip-offs, it's just that the style owes a lot to that era. It features Jan and myself mainly and several foil wrapped mannequins. Part of it was filmed at the very first school I ever went to , which was The Collegiate School in Wakefield, which is now no longer a school. There is a sequence of Jan dancing in the school hall, a very small hall, and in the very same hall when I was small they had ballet - it was a private school,65 guineas a term it was then. So the whole point of it is that I did ballet in this same room. We also filmed in a derelict Victorian colliery just outside Wakefield, in what was the old generator house. We filmed in a very strange warehouse that contains l96O type office furniture. We also filmed at a place called the Coliseum in Leeds that was built as a permanent circus in the 30s or even earlier,20s. Eventually it became a cinema, now it is derelict, we filmed up in the attic there which was strange! We filmed a sequence at Bretton Hall Sculpture Park. We also used a controlled studio type situation, we used what was a factory floor that has all been cleared and painted black. So there are several locations

Bill met up later that day with John Leckie, who was his long time co-producer and with David Claridge, part time actor, Invisibility Exhibitor and boss of the Mobile Suit label. As he started to describe the video to them whilst chatting - a tape machine appeared on the table......

It starts in a room of indeterminate nature..there is basically a table, a chair, in a pool of light., there is a circular globe lamp and a book of Cocteau's drawings, a Cocteau ashtray and a photo of me and Jan. I come in sit down, take a cigarette case out, but there are no cigarettes. Put the cigarette case back...pick up the drawings and start reading...the camera moves around so you get to see the drawings as it passes..and then these two false hands appear, which are shop window plastic hands. These two false hands appear in animation. One is holding a key and one a cigarette. I chose the cigarette which is lit and smoking and there is this scene of me doing the smoking bit, and then there is the scene which we might have to cut because it did not turn out too smoothly, where I am just sitting reading a book and Jan's hands come in, picks up the key from the hands. She is sat on a dolly(camera trolley) that dollies back so that the whole movement is un-natural it is in a huge warehouse that is completely unlit. There is just a pool of light in the centre of a huge area, and the first time you get any idea that it is all in this huge area is when the camera dollies back. So it just Jan's hand and the key going away. Then there is a door which is painted, again in a Cocteau style, with white. It is a real door in a flat, a theatre flat, but it has been painted round the edges in white and the key hole has been painted white, and this key actually bursts into flames as she picks it up. We coated it in lighter fuel and then locked the camera off, lit it and started the camera off again. So the thing just bursts into flame.

So she carries this burning key and we put it in the keyhole...and behind the door we made a light trap and put really intense white light into it so it is all streaming out this keyhole and through the cracks under the door and behind it there is a guy blowing smoke through the keyhole, going green. She stands back the door opens of its own accord, she walks into it, turns round and there is just this silhouette with Close Encounters type light coming out from behind it, and I am sort of just watching this. The next thing is she is in this dream world. She is leading me on into this dream and the whole thing is a chase from then on...through these surreal dreamscapes and her costume changes. She has this black taffeta dress on at the beginning then as she goes through this door she has this Victorian night gown.. it's like masses of material and lace..it's beautiful.. and she is just running through and walking through all these weird situations with me following her. There is stuff going on that we are both oblivious to...there is one where we go down this corridor and we got these people in as extras, they are really odd people. There is one guy who is an astrologist...he writes books on it and is a very intelligent guy...but his quirk is he writes songs on the ukulele and they really are bizarre little songs about local quirks about astrology and stuff...he is middle aged this character and John SunderIand who arranged everything said you have got to meet Joe you will love him he is really eccentric, he is very intelligent, he actually is quite wealthy, he has lots of books published on telepathy, astral projection and this kind of stuff. He did not tell me he was going to be one of the extras....When we were on location he just walked through the door Bill, this is Joe...Oh Hi....and the guy starts playing his ukulele.......and he starts doing this whole thing..and I'm thinking he's mad....and he's doing his thing...and then he stops and says I have got to come up with a line for that, do you have that trouble when you are writing?..and I have never met this guy before.

But after we had done the shooting and I sat down with this guy and started talking...he is incredibly bright...he has just got this...he believes in fairies and elves and goblins and was giving me all this information about them. He exorcises things and was telling me about how to get rid of evil spirits. So he is in, well what happens is I go down this corridor and it is like a waiting room or something and there is this woman sat down the end. She is a real Hilda Ogden type, sat at the end with a fag hanging out of her mouth, there is a guy with string vest, really hairy arms, toothless and stupid, and then there is this Joe sitting there, and I walk in this corridor. I am looking for Jan you see, previous scene she moved out of shot, and I come in look at these characters...and they are not looking at me..they are looking straight ahead across the corridor, and there is a room on one side and I am sort of one eye on them and I go up to the room and peer into the room.... and we did it by double shots..they are in the room as well, the same people, and there is this guy walking around playing his thing. The warehouse we did this shot in which sells second hand office furniture, there is this guy that runs it , he's really wide and he's a beard and he stinks horrible, his hair's greasy and he's semi-inarticulate. He's horrible....frightening to look at..and we said we've got to get him in this. So we said what's your name...and he grunted Andy....Right Andy, we have got a part for you, would you like to do it?....Yuh...so we've got this floor polisher and we just want you to stand here. So we explained what the camera would do. The idea of this huge guy with the floor polisher was great. So we set up the rest of the shot, doing this, doing that, it all took about 15 minutes. We turned round and he had been doing it all the time standing there practicing polishing the floor. Then I walk down the corridor, and the woman who is sat there is done up as a secretary and she is sat at the office furniture typing away, but the typewriter has a photo of me in it, that's on fire, and I look in and she gives me a real severe look and I back away out the door. Then there is another sequence in a colliery outside Wakefield called Walton colliery. It is one of the big old Victorian collieries and it's being pulled down.

They have their own generating house, which is huge, big chimney on it, arched windows, but it is like a palace to look at, but incredibly derelict. It has huge marble steps going up to it, they turn a really simple thing into something really grand, and it's full of rotting machinery, the machinery really is an astonishing sight. They said we could film around it, but not go inside it because it's dangerous., but we went inside it. We had these two big mirrors which we beamed sunlight onto Jan and she is down the end of the corridor. These mirrors are soft mirrors so they flicker and the light shimmers. She is completely enveloped by this shimmering light and it burns out on the film so she just disappears into light at times, just flashing. The whole thing is lots of sequences like that. We went in this loft above the old cinema and the loft is suspended by hundreds of iron bars that come down. You know how big an area that is so it just goes on into infinity.

We filmed up there, pigeon shit everywhere, and we found a little room and we caught a pigeon, and we daubed on the wall one of the lines - ice into fire - and then hung a surrealist photograph of a little girl with wings on the back of a horse...splashed paint across that. It is at the end of the projection room you know howithey had long projection rooms?.... well up to the projection room is this long corridor with stairs. So we lit this room from inside with the lighting out the way, we got a guy in a hole holding this pigeon. I start coming up these steps, it's all dark and spooky, and derelict and I look at the wall, scratch my head and as I turn around this guy releases the pigeon which flies round like mad and I am standing there with this pigeon going round. We only wanted to do it once for the pigeon's sake, we planned it all and it was really like..action, camera.. and they had to talk me through it because I could not see because it was this long travelling shot. We were frightened the pigeon might not go in front of the camera. It went perfect..right in front of the camera and across the front of me..everything...and everyone applauded afterwards. We have got a still from that, the stills photographer caught a photo of that as well. The final sequence, I do catch up with her...and is in this loft and she is stood with her back to me. But when I get to her I expect her to run away or disappear so I put my hands on her..and the camera is tracking..coming around the front..and as I do that she has got a Japanese mask held in front of her face, and I can't see that...and she is holding that porcelain mask so that you don't see her face and the final frame I just look to camera - cut! Two days solid work,9 am start shooting, finishing at midnight - just a small break for lunch...really hard work though..but great fun.

All the footage for the film was shot o black and white 16mm stock which was then processed and transferred onto vide tape. The whole footage was then time coded and viewed. Editing was then done in two days in a video editing suite in London on 11/12 October, one week prior to Bill leaving for Japan.

Turn to Fiction

We must spend some time away from the house today nothing clears the air like a change of atmosphere

Your worried glance my worried mind your nervous hands my nervous eyes

Turn to Fiction build a dream before addiction comes to call we all return to fiction turn to fiction

Truth is blind or to put it another way it's our point of view well it's my right to say another place, .another time a change of pace a change of mind

Turn to fiction dream your dream before addiction comes to call we all return to fiction Turn to fiction.

Love in the Abstract

Tossin and turning over and over burning the yearning love under cover kissing and missing laughing and falling loving and leaving destiny calling... moving pictures illustrating tongues of fire articulating bodies burning muscles aching nervous tension something shaking... Love in the Abstract.

True to form after my comments about EMI deleting the old BeBop material. Phonogram now appear to have followed suit and deleted those 12" singles I listed. You will have to take pot luck with your dealers as to whether they have any stock. Maybe one day soon we will get a chance to re-issue The Red Noise album, Ritual Echo and Beauty and the Beast. As you can see the box set changed shape a little. You can order all the singles as separate items on the enclosed order form.

Please note that your membership number appears on the label on your envelope. Please treasure it and quote it to me when you write in case I cannot read your writing! Likewise please pass on any change of address.

Issue 4 will be assembled as soon as Bill returns from foreign parts, then you will be able to see his snaps and read his prose.

Do not forget that if you want to write into us, please put the information on a separate piece of paper and put your membership number on in case I cannot read part of your address.

Even if you do not have the records requested, I suggest you write to anyone listed if they are local to you and say hello. And anyone who lives further away who sounds interesting.

Various members have been writing in with further information on the availability of books records etc. So I thought I would print them:

Chris Hester recommends "Cocteau's World" an anthology by Margaret Crosland Published Peter Owen Ltd

K.S.Eden says further to Bill's article on Erik Satie in NME the most readily available Satie recordings are by John McCabe on Saga 5387 and 5472 and two on EMI Aldo Ciccolini ASD 2389 , Covent Garden Orchestra ESD 7069

Nigel Machin says you can get Cocteau's Diary of a Cure from the Welsh Art Council shop 'Oriel' as it is now available as an American publication. It is about £5.00

Barbara Crane would like you to know that Peter Owen also have stock of all the other Cocteau books it appears. They are at 73 Kenway Rd, London SW5 You can send an SAE for their 'books in print' catalogue.

Nigel Machin points out that you can get the two screen plays - Blood of a Poet and Testament of Orpheus printed by Manion Boyers of 18 Brewer Street London W1 ISBN 07145 and 05803

QUESTION AND ANSWER TIME

What has happened to all the various musicians you have played with over the years?

Well Charlie is still playing with Tandori Cassette as far as I know. Simon was with The Pretty Things but I think he jacked that in, last I heard he was driving a delivery van, so I don't know what he is doing. Andy is doing session work and doing jingles. From the first line up of Bebop; I think Nick Dew is playing in a band called Biffo, but he is a Headmaster, Ian Parkin was playing in a cabaret band in a drag club, Rob Bryan, I don't know what he is doing I have not seen him for years. He was not playing the last I saw him anyway, which was when we did that guitar festival in Nottingham. Steve Peer that played on Red Noise Live, not on the album, is in a band called TV Toy in New Jersey in America. Pinky Ford who played bass live with Red Noise is also living in New Jersey and probably playing in a band there, but I don't know who. Ian (Nelson) is sort of playing with several bands, mainly Fiat Lux. That's it really

I seem to recall years ago reading that the original BeBop was formed by EMI just to get Bill on the road, is that true?

The original BeBop, N0 the original BeBop was formed by myself in Wakefield just to be a purely hobby kind of fun band, it was after we got the deal with EMI after the first Axe Victim album that I split the band and reformed, firstly with the Cockney Rebel people and then with Simon and Charlie and then Andy eventually, and that was more at EMI's, not request, but they encouraged me to look for better musicians

When Bill teamed up with the ex-members of Cockney Rebel was it just to play a couple of gigs or was it something that could have been permanent?

Well they were going to be in Bebop Deluxe as a permanent fixture but after ten gigs they were just not pulling their weight and they got the elbow.

Something that has never been explained as far as I am aware is what happened to Red Noise and why did they split up?

Red Noise was not originally intended to be a permanent line up, it was intended to be a permanent band as such. A band is a name, and it was supposed to give me the flexibility to change the musicians around, but the reason we split up was because we did not get the Quit Dreaming album out. Because that was going to be a Red Noise album originally, even though Red Noise as a band were not on it, but it was going to come out under the title of Red Noise. So it was purely because of the contract.

On "Haunting in my Head" third verse there is a distinctive pan pipe sound is played. Could you tell me which synth and what model?

I can't remember.... It is either the Mini Moog or the Casio V L-l, the little one. It could be the VL-l I mean I used that quite a lot in those sessions, I did not have that one the Casio MT-30. It must have been the VL-l

A brief explanation on how the E-Bow operates and where you can get them?

Well the E-Bow is just a small metal handle, curve handle, part of which you hold in your hand. It contains a battery and an electro-magnetic driver that sets the strings magnetically vibrating when you hold the E-Bow over the guitar pick-up. The interaction between the magnet in the guitar pick up and the E-Bow magnet sets the string vibrating and so it creates an infinite sustain so the note will continue as long as you hold the E-Bow over the string. But you can only play one string at a time, it does not play chords, and you fate in and out by moving it off the pick-up, the nearer it is to the magnet of the pick-up the more it will cause the string to vibrate, as you back it off away from the pick up the magnetic vibrations lessen so the string volume lessens and the string fades out. I had my first one given by the man who designed it, Greg Heet in Los Angeles. I think you can get them somewhere in Denmark Street in London, they are about £ 40 now they were about £ 100 when they first came out.

What do you think of you Fostex A 8 desk as far as recording performance and over all competition with the Teak 88 or 3440.

Is that desk or machine? Well I find the whole Fostex system amazing value for money! The thing that I find limiting with the desk for me is that I am only recording six track demos at the moment with it because I have my Harmoniser and my delay line and I bring those back up two channels on the desk so that I can pan them and EQ them. There are only eight channels on the desk so I am using two channels for effects returns whereas if it had an extra two channels I could use then all eight of my tracks, so it is really being used as a six track machine at the moment. I could record on eight tracks and bring eight tracks back up through the desk but then I would not be able to bring back.... you know how you send one track off to the echo unit and then you the return back, separate, just the return, the echo, and I have two delay lines, one is the harmoniser and one is the Fostex Digital Delay and to get those back into the desk I have two options: it's either bringing it back up the auxiliary centre which are just little volume pots and that's you say how loud it's going to be. But if I plug it up two of the channels I can EQ the echo and make the echo a different tone to the original sound and I can also pan the echo to one side or send to one delay here one delay there and the original sound in the centre, so I can get a bigger spread. The Teac I have still at home is the A 3340 which I did the Ritual Echo album on. I think the Teac eight track machine is more expensive but I cannot see it being that much better that the Fostex

When is Bill's music for the Viking Exhibition in York going to be available?

Work is going to start next year on recording.

Is it possible to write direct to Bill?

I would love you to but I never have time to reply. All your letters do get sent to me even if I don't get a chance to reply.

Where was the video of Do You Dream in Colour done?

That was done at my home. Jan appeared in it with myself, Wayne Stringer and Janet Huddleston. I always call her Janet Planet. Jan and Janet were the people attending to me when I sit up in the bed. The other person when I am playing piano accordion is Ian, he plays Marilyn Monroe. I play the werewolf in Superman

Question and Answer session was held in a break in Recording the mini album in London.

NEWS* NEWS* NEWS* NEWS* NEWS* NEWS*

The Monsoon single as mentioned last time has now been released by Mobile Suit. It is the old Beatles number "Tomorrow Never Knows" Corp 6 / 612. Bill plays guitar and as they would have us believe Base.

The Ippu Do record that Bill played on has been released by CBS as a solo album by their guitarist Masami Tsuchiya and also includes Steve Jansen and Mick Karn

I trust you have spotted all the mistakes in previous issues including in the discography the claim that Do You Dream in Colour was released on Harvest It was of course on Cocteau.

As so many of you seem to want to know, Bill's birthday is 18th December. If you want to send him a card please remember that it will have to be forwarded, so allow a few extra days.

We are currently negotiating with the BBC to release a complete video package of material that they have shot of Bill over the years. This would include BeBop on the Old Grey Whistle Test and in concert. Red Noise on OGWT plus the Do You Dream in Colour film, the new Flaming Desire and some specially shot footage. If this historic package does come off alright, then I imagine it would be on sale around the March / April period

As you have gathered from the amount of time I say things will happen, and when they actually do happen - I am hopeless at estimating time. I am sorry life is running a little late.

In the middle of October Bill left for Japan, where he is working with Yellow Magic Orchestra on their new album. It is intended that Bill will write the material with them and that the album will be released in the new year

Bill's own mini album that I mentioned would be released this autumn, has been delayed until the New Year as well. The recording was fraught with delays of all kinds. Firstly Bill had to go to the States to do some promotion work on the Love that Whirls. Then when recording started, we suffered all kinds of studio breakdowns, sick engineers and musicians not being available. Recording has now stopped although almost complete and will continue upon Bill's return from Japan

We have decided to arrange a little get together some time in December. But rather than try and run a competition or stuff like that. We have decided that we will draw 12 cards out of a bag. And arrange for the winners to meet Bill all at the same time, to ask questions, take photographs or whatever. We will arrange the time when I know when Bill is back and notify the winners. Entries on the double please to Club Draw. PO Box 134A, Thames Ditton, Surrey. UK Phone number if you have one please . If this works we will do some more next year. Any other suggestions please...

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