We look forward to reading your comments and questions regarding Jack Green and his fine music and wish to take this opportunity to wish Jackie, Jack & Digby the very best Hallowe'en ever!
Here is this year's 2011 Winner of The Jack Green Hallowe'en Zombie Award. Our 2011 Winner 'Z' won against 23 other competitors!
Congratulations Z, we're sure Jack will have something to say and likely a prize of some sort!
~ The Jack Green Appreciation Society ~
Email your thoughts, comments and info for Jack to: jackgreenmusic@yahoo.ca
Thank You!
~~~The Jack Green Appreciation Society~~~
We picked the best ten questions for Jack and he answered them in his usual charming way. Which is how we like reading his replies. (And here they are :)Questions for Jack
1. If you could go on a UFO, assuming they fully exist, would you go with 'Them' ?
Yoshi
Jack's reply is 'Hi Yoshi,
The answer would be emphatically NO. I wouldn't get in to a car with someone I don't know, so to get in to an alien spacecraft would be out of the question! I mean, if aliens do exist, to travel light years and then abduct a Colombian farmer or to buzz old ladies on the Norfolk broads doesn't seem to make any sense. Mind you, if I was from another planet and I looked at Earth and realised that everything on it eats each other, I would probably think twice about landing. My wife Jackie has just read this and she reckons she would get on it. (Anything to get away from me!!)
2. What is the best/most unique place you've ever written a song?
Rob Morse
'Hi Rob,
The best place I've written songs is where I am now. In my studio I can look out of the window and see the boats going up and down the Solent and watch the seagulls wheeling through the beautiful sunsets. I had the same in Ibiza when I lived there but I didn't have a studio then.
3. What are your best and worst encounters with fans during your long career?
Wendy
'Hi Wendy,
My best encounters with fans were in Canada where I played to full houses of people who had come to see me and not just as a member of a band. I've had some strange encounters with fans over the years though. One I can vividly remember was when I'd just joined T-Rex and was leaving the office in New Bond Street to buy some shopping before I went on tour. As I came out of the front door there was a crowd of fans standing there. As soon as they recognised me they sort of grabbed hold of me. I had one on each arm, one on each leg, one clinging to my back and one clinging to my front. the rest just pressed up against me. I was on my own and I had no idea how to handle this, so I just kept walking. I remember walking with much difficulty into Boots the chemist and kind of dragging this throng around with me. It was hilarious but I've got to admit that I thought it was great.
Once, in Canada a girl was injured when someone threw a bottle from the balcony into the stalls. The next day we went to her home arriving in a fleet of limo's . We sat and chatted for a while and then left. I think I embarrassed the hell out of her but I think she forgave me and I'm glad I did it.
Another amazing encounter happened when I was 19 and in the cast of Hair. I played the part of Neil "Woof" Donovan and we were touring around England with the show. A huge crowd had gathered outside the theatre and we had to walk through them in order to get out. As I got to the door, a member of the cast turned to me and said "Do you hear what they're shouting?" I couldn't believe it when I realised they were repeating over and over "We want Woof" I felt slightly embarrassed but immensely proud.
4. Are you allergic to anything?
'Big Ben' & Shep
'Hi Ben and Shep
No, as far as I know I'm not allergic to anything. Except some types of people. Mostly the type that you have to explain the joke to. Humourless people can really annoy me.
Where would we be without humour?...Germany!
5. What is the best meal you have ever had while travelling playing music? Please tell us where it was and possibly describe the moment you knew it was the most memorable. Thank you Mr. Green
Allison
'Hi Allison,
I'm not so hung up about food that I will remember a meal forever but I have eaten in some really outstanding restaurants in my time. One of the best things about eating in great restaurants while touring is that somebody else would be paying for it!! I've found merits in most countries' food. In Japan the food was excellent but really expensive. In Spain the food is simple but so fresh that it will have been picked only a moment before it's put on the plate. The meat in Australia takes some beating. Nowadays I'm very wary of restaurants and always wonder how clean they are. I used to like the restaurants in the Canary Islands where they didn't have a menu and would invite you into the kitchens to choose whatever you liked.
Nowadays I prefer to cook for myself, so that I know what all the ingredients are, just how much carbohydrate is in it and how much salt and fat have been used.
One of my favourite meals is a simple dish my mother used to make. It's a slow cooked pot roast with lamb shanks and butter beans and potatoes. Cooked for between 4 to 8 hours in a very low oven so that all the flavour of the meat goes through the potatoes. Lovely.
6. Did you ever know Paul McCartney and Wings guitarist Jimmy McColloch? He sure looks like like you in some photographs and he is also from Glaskow, Scotland as well.
Davis Edward Roy
Hi D.E. Roy,
Jimmy McCulloch was a face on the Glasgow scene when I was young. He was playing in a well known band called The Jaygars with his brother Jack when he was only 13. Although I never met him, I knew of him, as did every other young musician in Glasgow at the time. A tragic loss at such a young age.
7. Is green your favorite color because of your name and do people assume that?
Anonymous via J-GAS site
'Hi Anonymous,
Yes people do seem to think green is my favourite colour. Some people also assume that Jack Green is my stage name. I always think that if I'd have taken a stage name, I'd have used one that was a bit more flash. Like Johnny Silver or something. However, all said and done, I'm glad that I didn't!
8. Funniest thing that ever happened in the studio? From Jenna
'Hi Jenna,
Finding the funniest thing that happened in the studio would be difficult, as there were so many. But here's a few.
Gordon Edwards and me barging in to a Rolling Stones session, not realising it was the following Thursday we were supposed to be there. Mick Jagger standing with a half rolled joint in his hand and a very surprised expression on his face. Engineer - Sorry Gordon but it's next Thursday you're booked. Gordon - Oh fuck a pig. Mick Jagger - If you like.
Mixing a track with Jimmy Miller. Wondering why the right side was getting louder and realising he'd passed out on the mixing desk with his fingers still on the faders and pushed them all up.
Watching Marc Bolan jump around in front of the mike as if he was on stage.
Marc Bolan telling Mickey Finn that he had to play drums on a track. (Mickey had never played drums.) He got so drunk that before he'd played a note, he sat on the drum stool and collapsed backwards unconscious.
Getting a phone call from Tom Petty's manager, during the Humanesque sessions, saying that he and Tom had listened to Walking in my sleep and what it needed was a sonar noise on it!!! It was quite hard to sound unsurprised. I said "A sonar noise? All the way through? "Yes" he said.
9. What is your worst guitar or equipment malfunction while playing in a concert setting? - Jeff Willis
'Hi Jeff,
Having an equipment malfunction on stage is always annoying. When it's no fault of your own it can be even more so. The one I'll always remember is when I was in the Pretty Things. The Pretties were always the kind of poor relation on the Swansong label. Led Zep and Bad Company were huge, we weren't. I had come from the excesses of T-Rex where money was not a problem, ever! It was quite a marked stepdown in the quality of life on tour. The first gig I played with the Pretties was at some seaside venue, where we had been booked in to spend the night at a fleapit bed and breakfast. That was bad enough but to then be told we were sharing rooms was quite a shock. I had been allotted a room with John Povey, a man I hardly knew. All I knew was his reputation for screwing anything that moved. Imagine how I felt when we walked into said room to find a double bed. This type of thing was par for the course on a Pretty Things tour. As on all tours the representative of the record company (The A and R man)
would come with us. His job would be to liaise between the record company and the group but more often than not he had been sent there to watch expenses and make sure the group was not spending too much money. He would reprimand us for having eggs for breakfast (Too expensive) or make sure we didn't change our strings too often.
As you could well imagine, these people would not command too much respect from the band. Such was the case with this particular A&R guy. He had annoyed us so much during a tour of the UK that during dinner one evening Skip our drummer had emptied an entire hotel sized bowl of fruit salad over his head, and another time we drove off and left him in the middle of the Welsh countryside. We'd got used to the fact that no matter what you did to him he would always laugh and say "That's OK guys, I can take a joke." By that time though, we weren't joking.
(This seems quite a build up for a story that's not even that interesting, but I'll carry on anyway)
We were on a US tour. I was playing bass but I only had one bass guitar. I had asked repeatedly to be bought another as a spare but up to that point, no one had listened. We were on tour with the Kinks and had been going down really well every night. I had asked the A&R guy that very afternoon for the money to buy another bass, in fact I had pleaded with him asking him what would happen if I break a string? And once again was told "Don't worry about it Jack, you'll get one soon enough." Sure enough, that night I broke a string. This was on the last night of the tour and the biggest place we'd played so far. Losing the bass half way through a song could only be topped by losing the drums. The group will be totally thrown. I handed the guitar to a roadie who then started the laborious process of changing the string and tuning. To my relief, the bass player of the kinks, who was watching our set, saw this happen and ran backstage to get me one of his. This was then handed to me and we carried on. Unfortunately what he handed me was a Rickenbacker bass, good as they are, they have totally different sound to a Fender precision. Much more toppy and thin. In order to have the same sound I would have had to have a different amp as well. I was so angry. When we left the stage at the end of the set, I grabbed the A&R man by the collar, dragging him on to the middle of the stage and flung him down in front of the audience. Let him feel the embarrassment for a change. The audience yelled their approval. I felt vindicated. 'nuff said.
Question 10 is.... Hi Jack Green! What is your favorite photograph of all time, historic, personal or otherwise. And is it color or black and white? And what makes it your favorite photograph? (Hope I'm not being too nosy.)
Carol Staley, London
Jack replies, 'Hi Carol,
You're not being nosey; asking me how much I have in the bank is nosey but talking about my favourite photograph is a pleasure. My favourite photographs in general are by Henri Cartier - Bresson followed closely by Man Ray and Diane Arbus. All of which, as you must have realised are in black and white.
If you mean which is my favourite photo of myself. It has to be of me as a 16 year old mod taken by my friend the actor Brian Pettifer on a foggy night in Glasgow in 1967. I like it because it was before I had done anything and it's a glimpse in to a more innocent time. It's also in black and white.'
Thank you so much for sending these questions. I still think it is amazing that people are actually interested in my thoughts on anything.
Jack Green
