Iain mcnay biography of michaels

Cherry Red is a born survivor. They currently release over 30 CDs every month and while much of that is catalogue it also includes new recordings by artists like The Fall, Hawkwind, Van der Graaf Generator; Luke Haines, Jah Wobble and The Residents — most of whom are mavericks with whom they have long-term relationships. He brought it round to my house and I thought they were brilliant — that was just before Love Me Do came out, so I was turned on to The Beatles at an early stage.

But somehow back then, if a girl let you hold her hand, there was a certain intimacy to it. They had the courage to stay with who they were in terms of creativity and not necessarily filling a formula. It was no more than half full, maybe people there, and was two weeks before Ziggy Stardust came out. Epsom was a pretty conservative part of South-East England, and here was this guy outrageously dressed.

He played the whole Ziggy Stardust album, and the songs were so good — the whole thing just blew me away. I bought every Bowie album when it came out. When Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the group it brought something very different. The recording of Rumors was beset by drugs, break-ups, tortuous relationships and heartbreak… and yet those extraordinary songs came out of it.

I am Iain McNay, and

It was interesting because the first time I heard Holiday In Cambodia was as a demo which was much slower. The album enabled me to change from being a one-man-band to get offices in Bayswater and transform into a proper independent record label. It meant it was possible to start an independent label with no money — so long as your singles sold okay, you could just keep putting out singles.

Overnight, there was independent distribution, independent marketing people, independent promotion people — it became something anyone could do; anyone could start a label and anyone could start a band. I love the depth and the strength in his voice, and the emotion he gets across.