Music: Public Service Broadcasting
Jeff Hemmings spoke with one J Willgoose Esq.
Formed only four years ago, mssrs J Willgoose Esq and Wrigglesworth have just released their debut album, Inform-Educate-Entertain, probably the only album to feature the likes of Marie Slocombe, a BBC secretary of the 1930s and Thomas Woodrooffe, a Royal Navy lieutenant commander, author, and commentator at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
“When we put the live show together we wanted to make it as live as possible, so even though there are only two of us I play guitar and banjo, there’s keyboard work and sample triggering, there’s behind the scenes looping, then the drums, which is always good to watch, and his electronic triggers to loop stuff with. We operate on the principle that it could go quite badly wrong! Behind us we have the footage that we’ve edited to fit the music, and we’ve also got some old TV clips. In a way the footage becomes the frontman and we play the music around it. It works quite nicely.” So says J Willgoose, who declines to give me his real name…
“I made the first song about four years ago, using samples and an old BFI film. Typically, we write a song based on a sample from a film, and then we re-edit the film. It looks like they fit together quite naturally, but it is a time-consuming process.” Using film footage from the British Film Institute, Studio Canal and various American public broadcasting films, the duo have forged a relatively unique concept that has seen them quickly develop a cult following.
“We’ve always had a good relationship with the BFI, ever since I first called them up and mildly battered them with requests. We do pay them royalties but it’s done at a mutually beneficial basis.”
It was the French based Studio Canal hat they procured the Conquest of Everest footage, and used for the single of the same name they released at the end of last year. The footage they use is mainly culled form the ‘30s–’70s period of the last century, ensuring that there may be no-one at their gigs who can actually remember being alive then.
“It’s nostalgia in a sense, for a bygone era… certainly, looking at the footage for ‘London Can Take It’ [a song off the album], there’s the segment where the gent is smoking a pipe and looking extremely unperturbed, in the middle of a neighbourhood that had been leveled by German bombers the previous night. I can’t see that happening nowadays!
“One thing that has become clear after starting this four years ago is how lucky we are able to operate now. It wouldn’t have been possible even just ten years ago. It’s been a series of lucky events that has got us to where we are; it would be churlish to abandon this for the olden times!”
The Haunt, Tues 21 May, 7pm, £10, and Meadowlands Festival, Sun 26 May
