Features

Jordi Valls

Living through the revolution

'I recorded the tapes of the punk groups in the summer of 1976 and 1977'
'I am sure that punk wouldn't have existed without the Sex Pistols'
'I know that something new will always emerge, I am sure about it'

Jordi Valls (Barcelona, 1945) moved to Lon­don in 1969 after a few vis­its to the UK cap­i­tal. In 1976, after years of prog rock, he wit­nessed the emer­gence of punk, which would go on to in­fect the cap­i­tals of the world with rage and hu­mour. Valls made record­ings of the first gigs by bands like the Sex Pis­tols, the Clash, Gen­er­a­tion X and the Damned, and these tapes later formed the basis for the ex­hi­bi­tion, The Lon­don Punk Tapes, which was shown at Santa Mònica in 2010. A tire­less ac­tivist, Valls founded Vagina Den­tata Organ in the 1980s, which built up a sig­nif­i­cant discog­ra­phy on the World Sur­re­al­ist Net­work Sys­tem label. He re­turned to Barcelona a decade ago and went to live in his par­ents for­mer home in Gràcia, which is filled with books, pic­tures, sou­venirs and records. His brother Marc, a graphic de­signer and ed­i­tor, joined us for the in­ter­view.

When punk began in 1976, you had al­ready been in Lon­don for eight years.
I first went to Lon­don for six months in 1963 and ended up stay­ing a year. I was taken by the cli­mate of free­dom there the en­thu­si­asm on the streets.
With the ‘Bea­tle' dic­ta­tor­ship in full swing?
Some of us saw straight away that the group had been set up to ap­peal to mums and dads, but then the Rolling Stones and oth­ers ap­peared and every­thing changed. I first met the Stones in 1964. They were still with Brian Jones and it was be­fore they had recorded their first album. This meet­ing is one of the high points of my life. It was as im­por­tant an ex­pe­ri­ence for me as tak­ing part in the emer­gence of punk, the ap­pear­ance of the music in­dus­try and young British artists. I guess they are all part of my re­search. I have spent my life search­ing and I have al­ways found some­thing new, even though things be­came more dif­fi­cult some years ago. I know that some­thing new will emerge, I am sure about it.
What was the Lon­don scene like, when there was still in­dus­try and work­ers?
See­ing the min­ers' demon­stra­tions in the early 1960s was amaz­ing. I had never seen any­thing like it. There was a rev­o­lu­tion­ary spirit, which was break­ing all the old mod­els. Peo­ple began to let their hair grow long. It was com­pletely dif­fer­ent from here. When I got back to Barcelona I worked for four years at SEAT, where when I crossed the fac­tory they called me 'poofter' and threw bolts at me...
But, that changed...
Oh yes. When I later saw my for­mer work­mates from the fac­tory all of them had long hair. Even the older chaps had long hair. That's life...
I was once told that punk came out of months of hav­ing to put up with Mike Olfield's ‘Tubu­lar Bells'.
It was ter­ri­ble be­cause we lived in squats and dur­ing the par­ties this ob­ses­sive and repet­i­tive music never stopped. We hated it but didn't think there was an al­ter­na­tive. I didn't know how to sing or play, but I wasn't going to just put up with it.
So how did you get into the music world?
It must have been around 1977 or ‘78 [he gets up to find a diary and checks that it was De­cem­ber 17, 1977]. I read an in­ter­view with Gen­e­sis P-Or­ridge (Throb­bing Gris­tle and Psy­chic TV) and it opened my eyes. Soon after read­ing the in­ter­view I came across him in Lon­don, 10 min­utes from Pic­cadilly. He was look­ing for a hair­dresser's be­cause he wore his hair re­ally long with a tri­an­gle shaven into it. There was good chem­istry be­tween us and we spent 20 min­utes chat­ting. Gen­e­sis in­vited me to his next gig and we have been friends ever since.
That was around the time of punk's ap­pear­ance...
There was a lot going on at that time. I recorded the tapes of the punk groups in the sum­mer and au­tumn of 1976 and 1977.
Where did you get the idea to record the gigs?
I liked them so much I de­cided take a recorder with me. The first time I saw them was in my local cin­ema, Screen Is­ling­ton Green. They played all night until six in the morn­ing. On stage were the Pis­tols, the Clash and the Buz­zcoks, for a pound. All the punks in Lon­don were there.
Did they get on or were there ri­val­ries?
Not at all, they were cor­dial. When you went to see the Pis­tols the per­for­mances were very quick and other bands also ap­peared. The mem­bers of the Pis­tols and the Clash would stand at the back to see the other groups per­form later.
It's strange such a rad­i­cal style should emerge after years of the likes of Gen­e­sis, Wake­man, Old­field, Pink Floyd, Tan­ger­ine Dream...
I only con­tin­ued buy­ing Stones' al­bums be­cause of their re­bel­lious at­ti­tude. Peo­ple are now used to it but the Stones rep­re­sented a break with the par­ents' gen­er­a­tion. Until then, chil­dren wanted to be like their par­ents, to grow the same mous­tache, make the same recipes, to be car­bon copies. The rock­ers and the mods pro­duced a rev­o­lu­tion for the first time: we lived through the gen­er­a­tional rev­o­lu­tion. The mods, for ex­am­ple, looked down on the ted­dys boys be­cause they con­sid­ered them to be from the past.
I've heard they shared the same clubs, sep­a­rated by a white line on the floor.
You only ever heard about the fights on TV pro­pa­ganda, iso­lated in­ci­dents that the media ex­ag­ger­ated, but I didn't see any­thing of that.
Is it true what they say about punk being a scheme in­vented by Mal­colm Mclaren?
I think so [he laughs]. He had his shop with Vivi­enne West­wood, who was great. He came up with the slo­gans and she the de­signs, with trousers that had zips all over them. Can you imag­ine it? They went into it to make an im­pres­sion with the safety pins, the mag­a­zines, the whole fash­ion scene. Punk lasted for two years until the Clash went to war and sad episodes like the death of Sid Vi­cious. What I am sure about is that punk wouldn't have ex­isted with­out the Sex Pis­tols. There also ap­peared in­ter­est­ing groups like Joy Di­vi­sion, with their com­poser and singer Ian Cur­tis.
Did you meet them?
Yes, be­cause they were good friends of Gen­e­sis. They were from Man­ches­ter and used to be called the War­saw Pact. They played in Lon­don on oc­ca­sion and I saw them in Man­ches­ter clubs. We stood at the front. His sui­cide was a great shame.
Did Vagina Den­tata Organ be­come fi­nan­cially vi­able.
That was not the aim. I was keen to do things, as I said. At that time the sub­ject of vagina den­tada was not as well-known as it is now. For ex­am­ple, when we went on Paloma Chamorro's pro­gramme, La edad de oro, he asked me how he should in­tro­duce us, whether to pro­nounce it in Span­ish or Eng­lish.
You also made a film with Derek Jar­man.
Yes, it was an in­tense time be­cause Derek was very in­ter­ested in the punk phe­nom­e­non and some of his films took di­rect in­spi­ra­tion from it. Christo­pher Hobbs also came along, who was Ken Rus­sell's right­hand man, the one who did all his tricks and ef­fects. If you needed a skull, he would im­me­di­ately make one for you; he was phe­nom­e­nal. For the film I did with them, Cata­lan, he made the scenery.
It was a shame to lose Derek Jar­man, or per­haps if he had sur­vived he might have ended up like Peter Green­away, out of the loop?
He al­ways had a tough time get­ting his films made. Just when we were about to go on La edad de oro TV pro­gramme was when he was look­ing for money to make Car­avag­gio. We were in Soho in Lon­don, with Gen­e­sis and Derek, and we went to have a cof­fee in Old Comp­ton Street. He began to cry like a kid be­cause he just couldn't find the money to make the film. It later turned out to be a mas­ter­piece, but the dif­fi­cul­ties were enor­mous.
A Fellini-like film...
Even more so was the film he made in Latin, Se­bas­tiane, also at that time, 1976. When he came to Barcelona, he came up to the attic and put the video of the film on for me, just to lis­ten to it, to hear the music of the Latin.
Why did you de­cide to come back to Cat­alo­nia after a life spent in Lon­don?
The fact that my chil­dren had fallen in love and had kids with peo­ple from here has some­thing to do with it. They came to live here be­fore we did.
Your per­for­mances al­ways have a touch of hu­mour, such as in the Buñuel trib­ute in Lon­don's Tate Mod­ern.
I al­ways do the drums, as in the Tate Mod­ern, even though I don't play my­self. I can't get away from the Ca­landa drums, al­though I had to tone it down in Lon­don for safety rea­sons. Yet, the Pom­pi­dou, after ini­tial reser­va­tions, al­lowed it. We were pre­sent­ing Al­bert Serra films in both cities. I got to know Serra in Cadaqués when we were in­tro­duced by Eliseu Huer­tas Cos, who played Drac­ula in Història de la meva mort. Huer­tas had been on Un chien cata­lan, one of Vagina Den­tata Organ's al­bums.

The safety pin With TVE in Portobello

“The iconography of the safety pin was la quick way of identifying groups in the punk community. It was a paradox to be anti-racist and wear a swastika”

“At the Portobello Road carnival, by chance I bumped into a TVE film crew who had come there to record the appearance of punk. I offered myself as a guide and interpreter, and they ended up doing an interview with me, before they went on to visit the house of [exiled Cuban novelist] Guillermo Cabrera Infante. That is true surrealism”

Industrial pioneers

“In this photo I am with David Tibet, Steve Stapleton and William Bennett, members of some of the bands at the forefront of English power electronics”

A touch of the divine

“I was with Whitehouse at the Barcelona 666 in the early 1980s. They were at the crossroads of the sorollisme style with divine touches of the Marquis de Sade”

Vagina dentata The diaries

“Vagina Dentata Organ's actions can't be separated from our discography. Our first record, Music for the Hashishins, was recorded in the Trident Studio”

“I have always gone everywhere in my every day life accompanied by my diaries (examples pictured above). The diaries have ended up acting as guides along the routes of my past, which is like a labyrinth, in which I come across concerts, appointments, journeys, recording studios, friends, my family, and an infinity of surprises”

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