Jed Southgate - Vinyl Stories

  by Dave Goodwin

published: 23 / 10 / 2015

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In Vinyl Stories Dave Goodwin speaks to Deerstock Festival organiser and serial vinyl collector Jed Southgate about some of his favourite albums in his collection

Over the last few years we have published a lot about the small but excellent boutique festival Deerstock which takes place in the fine Nottinghamshire countryside every July. This month we have returned to a chap that we visited right at the very start of Vinyl Stories. Once again we are locked away with Jed Southgate, the organiser of the festival, in his 'man cave'. Now in its fifth year, Deerstock was once again a great success and it is continues to go from strength to strength, raising valuable money for local charities in the process. It is attracting better and better acts, and keeping the festival as a small concern is proving more and more difficult for Jed. Jed himself has his own business working in stately homes around the UK, trying to stop the sun bleaching everything that shines through their windows and beyond. He lives on the East side of Nottingham near the River Trent with his wife and family. You can often find him either at his local, in a curry house or at a gig. When we last caught up with Jed. we pondered through his punk 45's. As the man himself has such a great knowledge of the music industry, we decided to nail him down again and this time delve into some of his favourite albums. Joy Division/'Unknown Pleasures' This is the album that no-one really talks about. They all talk about 'Closer'. Neither had 'Love Wiil Tear Us Apart on It' but for some reason a lot of folk think it was on this album. 'Closer' was the darker of the two albums but I thought this was the best for the music itself. It has got 'Shadowplay' on it and my favourite Joy Division track, 'New Dawn Fades'. I first saw Hooky around eight years ago and more recently at the Rescue Rooms in Nottingham. I thought he was really good. I couldn't believe it. 'New Dawn Fades' was one of the first songs he did. I was right at the front with hardly anyone else there at the time, and I was fucking mesmerised. He really knocked me out. Rolling Stones/'Exile on Main St', 'Goats Head Soup and 'It's Only Rock 'n' Roll' This one involves three albums of around the same time in my life. I have all the Stones' albums. All of them. Not the compilations but all the full albums. When I was fifteen or sixteen and I came out of boarding school, these were the bollocks. I was obsessed with 'Goats Head Soup' and in fact all of their albums. It has 'Angie' on it and the cover was weird and it was all a bit strange. This was when album covers were just artwork. This reminds me always of a really good part of my life. I had just got back from boarding school. My mum and dad decided to pull all these regimes on me and I decided - fuck that - and I moved out and went to live in Chelmsford! I moved into a flat where I could have the music on as loud as I wanted it. This album and the next 'It's Only Rock 'n' Roll' were never off the turntable. Both of these albums are well thumbed and played to death. The vinyl is shagged. It was played on a real animal of a record player. It was one of those single things with a built in speaker. We played that fucker to death until it needed a new needle and then carried on some, so most of the records are fucked! When it used to sound shit, we used to plough the bit of dust off the stylus that was making it sound rough and carried on. When the Stones brought the 'Exile on Main St.'album out, everyone thought, "What an appalling album" but it was just what they wanted to do. They were in the south of France when they made it and they were at that time of life when they couldn't give a fuck. There are so many influences on that album. It has got 'Tumbling Dice' on it. For a bunch of not well known tracks, they play them all on stage now. I was, at this time, discovering weed and I became a bit hippyish and drifted into prog rock with Genesis and such like. Genesis/'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway' This was their concept album. It was an absolute smash but for all the wrong reasons. It became a sort of dinosaur for the record company. It is all about a man that gets lost in himself. It's a fantastic story. It's like a big theatre production but on vinyl. I was quite lucky at boarding school to be fair because they were quite progressive, and they used to take us to gigs. They would take us as part of our studies. I got quite a good musical education because of it. And also they would let us out at weekends to go to local gigs, and I managed to go to places like Knebworth to watch Pink Floyd and the Stones. This is like most of my albums now - flat! There's not a groove on them! If I am a little bit down, I play this and it takes me on a journey again. This is the album that Peter Gabriel left the band afterwards. I think it killed them doing that. I think this was his masterpiece, but it fucked the rest of the group up. Patti Smith/'Easter' I went to see Patti Smith once and she had the Stranglers supporting her. I had never been so impressed with anyone on stage as I was with her. You didn't have at that time any women that were rockers. You had female singers, but no-one came out and rocked except for Patti Smith. She is a rocker. She was on at Glasto this year and she is still as good as she was back then. She brought the Dalia Lama on stage and everyone sang 'Happy Birthday' to him. She is a lovely woman but I had never come across a woman that was a rocker, so that did it for me. Ultravox!/'Ultravox!' Just before the original punks hit us, this came out. It was in a bargain bin in Woolworths. I loved the cover. I saw John Foxx at the Bristol Thekla not long ago. They were like a punk version of Roxy Music, and when he left and Midge Ure came in they totally changed direction. John Foxx is a very clever guy. I saw them at Reading years ago and they really smashed it and everyone was going ape-shit. He didn't want to do it enough, I reckon. He wanted to do his own stuff. Iggy Pop/'TV Eye Live' This has the best beginning to an album ever. I have seen him a couple of times, and he is the ultimate rock and roll performer. People like him and people hate him, but you've got to hand it to him. For a bloke with a club foot to be as mobile and to throw himself around, that is some going. He is staggering on stage. I was never really into live albums until I heard this for the first time. I liked 'Raw Power' and a lot of the earlier stuff because that's where punk came from I think, from Iggy. Psychedelic Furs/'Forever Now' These ironically enough are quite good friends of mine as it turns out. There are only two of the original band members left, the two brothers, Richard and Tim Butler. They live in the States now, but I see them quite regularly. This is their very first album and it has been played to death, but what else did you do when you were that age? You used to sit in your bedroom and play your records because you couldn't afford to go out and get pissed because you didn't have any money back then. In those days I was on £11 a week wages, and my rent for the flat was £7! I got this from Woolworths for £3.29. That was a great shop for records back then. I just loved the concept of Richard Butler being this drama Bowie-esque character, and the band steaming along behind him with sax and keyboards and guitars and this great wall of sound. Dr Feelgood/'Down by the Jetty' This takes me back to my childhood as they were my heroes back then. I used to go down the local, and they used to be set up in the corner playing. It was around 1974, and this was Essex all over. They only made this in mono and everyone was saying it was so retro, but they flogged it to death and in the end smashed it and went on to head the likes of Reading and became enormous. And then as history tells it poor old Lee Brilleaux keeled over. That was a massive moment for me. I used to have a beer with him. He was the bloke that used to be in the pub at Chelmsford.Someone would say, "Are you going to come down and see Lee's band?" and we would all go down and spend the night there. You weren't going to see Dr Feelgood. You were going to see Lee's band. They were a local band and you used to buy their records in the pub they were playing in off some well dodgy-looking bloke. Sensational Alex Harvey Band/'Next' Alex Harvey was probably my first hero other than Mick Jagger, and it destroyed me when he died. I was devastated because he was like your bad uncle. He used to to come on stage and say, "Good evening, boys and girls." You knew your mum and dad didn't like him, but you just couldn't help but like him. He wrote a hell of a lot of songs and he was in 'Hair' the stage show before he formed the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. All he wanted to be was a star. The Faith Healer' is just phenomenal. So, there we have it. Another small but informative insight into the cluttered, retro and humorous mind of Deerstock's Jed Southgate. It was a most enjoyable and laid back hour spent in his man cave. If anyone out there fancies having a go at Vinyl Stories, just drop me a line through the website or on Facebook and we'll get it sorted.

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