Hola a todos!!

Aca copio esto que en realidad no se exactamente cuando se hizo
pero es muy interesante.

Salu2 !

Elisa

Games Without Frontiers-The Peter Gabriel Story (Part 2)
BBC Radio

Transcribed by laure

PG: Hi, this is Peter Gabriel, and twenty-five years ago I released
my first solo record. This is the story of what I've been up to in
that quarter of a century. It's called "Games Without Frontiers."

Narrator: Part Two. Gabriel at the Movies.

PG: I've always loved films, and had this original intention of
going to film school, but Alan Parker was the first person, really,
to invite me to take on a score. And Birdy, I thought, was a great
book, and then the film, I think, is still very underrated. Birdy
seemed to me to be about two guys trying to come to terms with their
war experience and their own relationship. This one character played
by Matthew Modine, the Birdy, is obsessed with flying from these
sort of Leonardo models that he reproduces, to eventually flying off
a building. And I think it's a very strong, simple story, and very
moving.

Daniel Lanois: Peter only had so much time.

Narrator: Daniel Lanois, producer, Birdy, the soundtrack.

Daniel Lanois: He said, "Let's see what we can get out of my already-
existing catalog." And he took me to a vault, a room maybe ten by
fifteen feet and stacked up with two-inch tapes and he says, "Well,
here it is. Just pull anything you want off the shelves and mix it
up, and when you've got something for me to listen to, just call me."

Alan Parker: So I went out to the country to his studio . . .

Narrator: Sir Alan Parker, director, Birdy.

Alan Parker: And he put everything up, and it was just
extraordinary. You suddenly realised that even though there was this
track and that track which you might have recognised from one of the
previous pieces of his own, it was a treasure trove of stuff. I
mean, just layer upon layer upon layer of the most beautiful sounds,
all of which, when re-mixed, had a totally different identity. On
the soundtrack album of Birdy he says, "Warning: This album contains
recycled materials."

Daniel Lanois: I love secondhand material, because all the labor has
been done, so things are already sounding good, and you end up
looking like a genius without doing too much work. (laughs)

PG: I've always liked the idea that music is a sort of fluid
material, and can be re-shaped and put together in different ways.

Alan Parker: I always thought Peter's music had just incredible
subtlety and integrity. He never ever takes the easy route. I mean,
it was extremely brave music that he was doing prior to So, which
was his commercial album. And I just thought that there was a
complexity and a subtlety which you actually didn't hear in other
music at that moment in time. With regard to what Peter did for
Birdy, I was one of the very few people to be privileged to see
Birdy without his music, and believe me, it's nowhere near as good a
film.

PG: When you see a piece of film and attach two very different
pieces of music to it, you suddenly read other meanings into that
film that you didn't expect. I think the average filmgoer, whether
or no they like music, rarely understand the emotional impact that a
good score can have, and often a good score will be transparent and
you just feel what's happening without really knowing that you're
being steered or manipulated.

Narrator: The Last Temptation of Christ. Directed by Martin Scorsese.

PG: I was a big fan of Scorsese's work, and so I was delighted to
get the chance to work with him, and on that film, which was very
much a labour of love for him. I mean, it was panned by the critics
and hated for the sort of Brooklyn accents on the Christ story, but
it was something that he was actually quite serious about, and even
though it showed Christ marrying and was very controversial at the
time, I think he was very devout in the way he approached the film.
For me it had been a chance to put together some of the music that
I'd always been interested in. Marty wanted this mix of Middle
Eastern music that wasn't trying to be true to the time or to the
place, but felt that it could somehow be an expression of that time
and place, but in a contemporary context. Those sessions were some
of the most memorable that I've ever done, and in some ways, you
know, it's certainly one of the pieces of music I'm most pleased
with. For me, you know, a really important time in changing the way
I did things and opening up to different people and styles.

Phillip Noyce: I'd really fallen in love with Peter's music for
films after I watched, and of course subsequently listened many
times, to his score for Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of
Christ.

Narrator: Phillip Noyce, director, Rabbit-Proof Fence. Due for U.K.
release, autumn 2002.

Phillip Noyce: I just thought this was probably the greatest film
score that I'd ever heard. Rabbit-Proof Fence tells the true story
of three young Australian Aboriginal girls who, as part of official
government policy, were taken from their families in outback Western
Australia in 1931 to be sent to an institution to be trained in
white ways. The girls escaped and embarked on an incredible journey
in search of the rabbit-proof fence that bisected the continent, and
if they could find it, would lead them home.

PG: I'd had a lot of film offers, which is a great thing because I
enjoy the process, and when Rabbit-Proof Fence came along it was a
really interesting, emotional, simple story. And it was, I think, a
project of love for quite a lot of the participants.

Phillip Noyce: I think that Peter's major contribution to the film
Rabbit-Proof Fence was not only to underscore the drama that is the
traditional function of the film composer, but Peter gave the film a
poetry.

PG: One of my favorite moments in the film is the end piece. There
are two actresses who play sort of grandmother and mother in the
film, and they are mother and daughter in real life. And they
provided some singing that we then laced into the track, and at a
certain point Ningali's voice has gone from a single position to
totally surrounding the audience in the theatre. And then in the
distance, the cavalry coming over the hill, The Blind Boys of
Alabama with this beautiful chant. And it's a magic moment for me.
People always say, "Well, you know, is that what you do all the
time, really," and the answer is no, because I had started off as a
songwriter. I love the freedom of working with purely instrumental
music or lyric-free music because it is a different canvas, if you
like, but songs when they work and when the words hang together with
the melodies, that's a different type of craft and a different
satisfaction. And it a bitch finishing them (laughs), I haven't
found any way around that. But at the same time I think that's still
the essence of what I am.

Narrator: Musical collaboration. A selection.

Tom Robinson: In 1978 the Tom Robinson Band was having its fifteen
minutes of fame, and so we were briefly at a status where we could
do a couple of nights at the Hammersmith Odeon, and that was going
to sell out and was going to be a big deal. And Harvey Goldsmith had
faithfully promised TRB that we could have Christmas Eve at the
Hammersmith Odeon to have a big party for our fans and everything.
And at the same time he'd also faithfully promised Peter Gabriel
that he could have the week running up to Christmas at the
Hammersmith Odeon, and he double-booked the show.

So when I turned up to Harvey and said, "Excuse me, I notice there's
this man Peter Gabriel playing there and you promised me that,"
Harvey's solution was to try and put us together and persuade us to
do a joint show, which on the face of it was an unlikely coupling.
Nonetheless, in the spirit of inquiry, which was punk, I went down
to Bath on the train to go and visit and meet Peter Gabriel and see
if we got on. At first I was taken aback by Peter's diffident
manner. The interesting thing about meeting Peter Gabriel to this
day is that he speaks very gently and quite hesitantly, which to the
casual observer would give you the impression that here is somebody
indecisive or was a bit kind of wavering in his approach. Well, it's-
the exact opposite is the case, that is, a man with a will of iron,
completely steely determination, who couches that determination in a
very kind of self-effacing sort of way. So with anyone else, if they
say, "Well, I'm not really sure if that quite works," you'd think
that you might be able to talk to them and persuade them. But what
he's actually saying is, "No way. Forget it." (laughs) And that's
just the Gabriel way of doing it.

So it took a couple of hours (laughs) to kind of get used to this
new mode of conversation. Over dinner the conversation was
interesting, with Jill Gabriel reminiscing about some of Peter's
wilder artistic excesses. And Peter's face lit up, and he went, "Oh,
yes, you get the most fantastic sound when you tie up a dry-cleaning
bag into knots and set fire to it over water. The noise it makes
when it hits the water is just brilliant." And without more ado, out
we troop into the cold and the wet and the rain at midnight, down
the lane to where there's a bridge over a stream. And Peter leans
over the parapet with this rope of plastic, sets fire to it, it
flares up and reaches the first knot, which then sort of explodes
into flame and molten plastic, and a little globule of flaming
plastic then drops down into the water and, as it goes, it
goes, "BRRrrrrr-thhppk. BRRrrrrr-thhppk. BRRrrrrr-thhppk."

And according to Peter the really important thing is that "thhppk"
at the end where it hits the water. So this is my first exposure to
the (laughs) single-minded pursuit that is Gabriel in search of a
sound. The next morning we put our heads together to think what we
could do. We thought, "Well, maybe we could write some songs for a
start. We could write a couple of songs, one where I'd write a lyric
and he could put music to it, another where he'd write some music
then give it to me and I'd write the lyric to the music. So we'd
have a couple of exclusive songs for the show. I took with me a tape
of a piece of music that Peter was working on, which later turned
into the song "Bully For You." And I also went home and dug out a
lyric that I had had around for a while and hadn't been able to put
any music to. And I posted that to him, and that turned
into "Merrily Up on High."

Spencer Bright: I'm not sure quite what Peter had in mind when he
tried some of those weird collaborations.

Narrator: Spencer Bright, biographer.

Spencer Bright: I think it was more the fact that he was approached,
in some cases, rather than him looking for work. There was Jimmy
Pursey, Tom Robinson, probably most successful with Laurie Anderson,
because that was far more a meeting of minds. The rest, just the
fact is that simply Peter isn't a great collaborator, simply because
he's Peter and has got far too many ideas and a man of little or no
compromise.

Laurie Anderson: I'm pretty bad at this, like remembering songs from
a long time ago. (laughs)

Narrator: Laurie Anderson, musician.

Laurie Anderson: I'm trying to remember now the words to the
song "Excellent Birds," which is I think also called at some
point "This is the Picture." I think we started Thursday night, and
the video shoot was supposed to be Sunday, so we had to write a
song, record it, storyboard the video and show up at the shoot. And
I remember this so well. Peter was recording his part of the vocals,
and I'm sitting there with the engineer, we hadn't slept Friday
night, and we probably weren't going to sleep Saturday night. So we
were in another zone, you know, and just watching the meters. And
the meter level keeps dropping and we can't figure it out, and we're
pulling cables and thinking, "Why is the level dropping?" And then
we finally think, "Oh, let's look around at Peter." And we look back
at Peter (laughs) . . . his head was completely back, away from the
microphone, he was kind of singing in his sleep. You'd only catch a
word or two once in a while (laughs) and then his head would drop
back again. We were just so exhausted! And then we tried to lip
synch, 'cause this was when you were just always lip synching, you
know, your video clip. The playback would come on and we would start
trying to lip synch it. It was as if we'd never heard the song
before. So they had to have enormous cue cards for us . . . you'd
just look at them and the words would be a blur. I mean, they were
very large but they were very blurry, you know, you just had no idea
what they meant, or why you were there, it was . . . you know, when
you're up for a couple of days and nights the world is kind of
upside down.

David Rhodes: With So, I think Peter actually knew he was going to
have a big record.

Narrator: David Rhodes, guitarist for Peter Gabriel.

David Rhodes: I think he decided that he wanted to be successful and
set about doing it. He was very determined. (laughs) Sometimes quite
obstinate. And I think he just got more interested in dance music,
things which had a groove. It was a real determination to do
something that had more hips to it.

Spencer Bright: By the time Peter came to record the So album, he
had undergone a kind of transformation in himself. He'd realised
that, in fact, he didn't want to be this obscure, eccentric little
Englishman. He wanted to embrace the world of success. Kind of, it
was, although one is loathe to admit it . . . kind of a bit of the
spirit of the age, and of course it was the mid-Thatcher period.
Making money or success no longer was a dirty word.

Daniel Lanois: When I got invited to work on Peter's So record . . .

Narrator: Daniel Lanois, producer, So.

Daniel Lanois: I had a philosophy that I wanted to follow through
which was I wanted Peter's voice to come across in a very personal
fashion. I wanted his lyrics to come from his heart and for there to
be no veil between the listener and himself. So that was my personal
challenge. We decided it was time to reinvent the drums, and so we
brought in a great jazz drummer from Paris named Manu Katche who had
the opposite to that feel that Peter made famous in the Seventies
and early Eighties. I did get the sense that Peter was putting off
writing the lyrics, and I had to put my foot down, and so I came up
with a bit of a ploy to send him into the band room and lock him in
there.

PG: He was just at the end of his wits, too, and I tried to get out
of the studio and found the door nailed in. And I was furious at the
time, (laughs) as you might imagine.

Daniel Lanois: I almost got fired, of course. But I think he had a
sense of humor about it eventually, and I don't know, I like . . .
after that happened you gotta laugh and you gotta work, so that's
what we did.

PG: Life has a habit of throwing paradoxes, and at the downest
moment in my life in some ways-in many ways-divorce, separation from
family and all the rest, I still came up with some quite positive-
sounding music. And I think it was later on, probably, that I dealt
with the "down" more effectively.

Spencer Bright: He was ready to embrace success, and that, of
course, is reflected in a song like "Sledgehammer," which is a very
forthright, life-affirming, funky number which is just about sex but
is actually about having a good time and enjoying being alive.

PG: It was obvious that "Sledgehammer" had a great feel to it and
was going to attract people. It was not obvious that was going to be
the single. You know, it felt like a great groove song and a great
feeling, sort of sweaty, dirty riffs, but it didn't say "hit record"
all over it.

Steven Johnson: I think unlike most people in his position, that is,
being a rock star, from my prior experience they had very little
patience for doing music videos. They were just something that was
sort of a necessary evil that had intruded into their realm as
musicians.

Narrator: Steven R. Johnson, director, "Sledgehammer" video.

Steven Johnson: Peter, on the other hand, was game for anything that
was visually interesting. During our discussions we'd shot off in a
lot of different directions, and I'd been to Harrod's earlier that
day and had seen all manner of fowl in all sizes, and I realized
that they could be phased-that's an animation term, when you replace
one smaller object with a slightly larger one-I realized we could do
phased chickens, and just as a joke I said to Peter, "How out there
do you want me to be? I mean, Peter, I could do dancing dead
chickens." And he went, "Fine! That sounds lovely!" And I didn't
know whether he was being serious or not, but I decided to take him
at his word, and either make him regret it or make him enjoy it. All
through shooting we had talked about doing the sparkly bit at the
end, which is Peter in a suit of Christmas tree lights.
Unfortunately it was plugged into the mains, and Peter got shocked.
And he danced like I've never seen him dance before.

PG: It was really hard work, and some of the scenes where you see
clouds move across my face, each scene was painted one after the
other. So my skin was extremely raw and red by the end of the day.
And I was lying in decaying fruit for some of the fruit shots, and
what was a lot worse was the decaying fish, which started off
smelling okay, but by the end of the day under hot lights it was
pretty uncomfortable.

David Rhodes: Generally the lyrics are written last, so nobody
actually knows what the songs are about. They're pieces of music. I
mean, occasionally he'll have one word of a song. When we used to
play "Sledgehammer," all he'd sing was "sledgehammer . . . " and
then mumble. We'd fill up a reel of tape just jamming on it.

Spencer Bright: If Peter's fans thought he'd kind of sold out, as it
were, what they should have done is really looked back and seen on
the earlier albums songs like "Solsbury Hill" which are very melodic
and very commercial songs. There just happen to be more of them on
the So album. And it attracted a whole new audience for him,
particularly in America, where the album was a huge success. In
looking back at the early stuff, you can see it was So trying to get
out.

PG: I've had extraordinary letters in just the story of "Don't Give
Up" from people all over the place, particularly people in trouble.
One very well-known American comic who I was a big fan of whispered
to me at one gig that he thought that song had kept him alive at one
point. And you have no idea when you write these things that they're
going to mean a lot to people.

Narrator: This is "Games Without Frontiers" on Radio Two. The story
of Peter Gabriel's solo career.

Tony Levin: There's one piece called "Don't Give Up" . . .

Narrator: Tony Levin, bass player with Peter Gabriel.

Tony Levin: We recorded it in 1986, because . . . I remember the
year because my daughter was born that year. And she was only two
months old, and I brought her with me to the sessions. And being a
typical American, I guess, I didn't know that they had what we call
diapers. I didn't know you had those in England. (laughs) Of course
you have. You call them nappies. And my suitcases and my bass cases
were all full of nappies. And when it came to the second half of
that song, "Don't Give Up," I was looking for a bassier sound, and
one way I get that in the studio is to put dampening material,
usually foam rubber, under the strings of the bass. Well, there
wasn't any foam rubber, and I looked around and what there were
plenty of were diapers, or nappies. So I put the diaper under the
bass strings. It's the only time I've ever done it, and we got a
wonderful, very bassy sound. And we named it the "Super Wonder Nappy
Sound," which I think we looked for on other albums but never quite
reproduced.

Spencer Bright: When Peter recorded "Don't Give Up" on the So album
with Kate Bush there were rumours about an affair. Of course there
would be, but in fact there never was any romance between them.
Peter married very early and had a family, and the marriage finally
expired with the weight of his divided loyalties between his wife
Jill and the actress Rosanna Arquette.

Jill Gabriel: I've had to do a lot of learning about what ended our
relationship. We both know we will always love each other. We were
too confluent, too close, I think. I hadn't found myself at all. I
lived through him, I lived through his life, his career, and in
having children everything changed. Because I had to stay at home
with the children, I had to look at "Who am I?" and I see that that
was the change for us, was when I started to realise I had to find
myself. And didn't, I think, do a very good job until Peter finally,
thank goodness, made the move to leave, because however painful it
was, if it hadn't I don't think we either of us would have grown up.
We both know that now, which makes us good friends. When I look back
and I think about finding myself on Solsbury Hill thinking about
wanting to die, I realise how desperately unhappy I was, and I think
I was depressed anyhow. I often think we were both depressed,
actually, depressed people. It was a place that was really special
to us, but in retrospect, looking back, I guess it was a really
angry move of mine, now that I know and understand about suicide
being an angry gesture, inward as opposed to outward. It seems like
the perfect angry gesture to have made because, of course, it would
have been publicised as his song and I could have been the real
drama of the victim.

PG: Even though I think it was a place that Jill was drawn to, I
mean she was in a terrible way and trying to take her life, that was
a place she aimed at. But I don't think, in a way, it changed the
feeling that I had for the place. When a place is a real live place,
it has good and bad present. If the place has power, it isn't
destroyed.

Jill Gabriel: What was difficult was the press after he'd separated.
There was one particular picture of Rosanna with my name underneath
it, and that was very hard. That was tortuous, actually, that . . .
that period of time.

Rosanna Arquette: I was attracted to his work as an artist. I still
think he's a great, great artist.

Narrator: Rosanna Arquette.

Rosanna Arquette: You meet people that are meant to be in your lives
for some reason, and I think that at the time we had quite a strong
connection that was nothing that you can really describe or talk
about. It was maybe a karmic thing at that time. I think that the
press dirtied the relationship. I mean that's how it felt. Because
no one really knew the truth, and at the time we were, you know,
very, very much in love with each other. But circumstances around us
made things really difficult and he was really, really struggling
very hard with the guilt of leaving a marriage. I did absolutely put
the relationship before myself. It took me down a path that I really
needed to go for self-healing, growth, and looking at myself in a
way that I probably would never have had, had I not gone through the
pain of that time. So I don't resent it, regret it, in any way. I
just acknowledge that I did give myself up to be with him, as Jill
did. A movie has come from this experience in my life. It's
something I'm going to direct. It's inspired by that relationship,
but not really autobiographical. It's inspired and taken from many
people's experiences of what happens when a woman gives up herself,
gives her power away to another person, and that's kind of a theme
that many, many women go through that I'm very interested in
exploring.

PG: With Us, Rosanna Arquette felt that I'd written an album about
that relationship. And although certainly there was lots of that
there, there was also some of my marriage in there as well, and I
think it was me in relationships, which included that one. So
the "us" was more general, and it was also an "us" because I'd read
this quote that the point at which we separate "us" from "them"
defines how civilised we are. I can't remember whose quote that is,
but it was something that had registered deeply at the time. So that
was the sort of macro, and the micro was the relationship stuff.

Rosanna Arquette: He wrote a lot about our relationship and
everything he was going through in his very sad divorce, and I think
relationships have always inspired him to write. I think it's
cathartic, you know, and it was great, and I think that it's
wonderful when people can turn their pain into art. It's funny,
because right before I came here on my computer I have randomly, you
know, all these albums that I put in, and the song that came up
was "Secret World," which was interesting (laughs) right before I
came here.

Jill Gabriel: I love the fact that he wrote about his private self.
It was one of the times I really got to find out about him (laughs)
because he's a very private person. I mean, he expresses himself so
much more now, but I was always really touched that he would feel
that strongly or that he would write something. And that's where his
art form of communication was, I think, and still is. He writes
beautifully, I think, about himself and his relationships. What he
wrote in his songs never worried me. I mean, "Digging in the Dirt"
was shocking to me in a sense, of the power of his feelings, of how
hurt he actually was. I really heard his anger and pain in that
particular song in a way that I hadn't in him verbally talking to
me. And I think Rosanna and I kind of always used to hope that the
song was written about us, but were never quite sure. (laughs)

Daniel Lanois: At any given time an artist will be going through
something emotionally.

Narrator: Daniel Lanois, producer, Us.

Daniel Lanois: Whether it's bliss or disappointment or . . . that's
human nature, you know. People are always going through something or
other. And it's part of the responsibility of the producer, myself,
to make sure that you keep a door open so that those feelings can
come in because, in fact, that's what's going to be true about a
record in the end.

PG: With "Blood of Eden," Sinead O'Connor was singing the vocals
there, and because we were involved at that time I think there was
something in that in there that you can hear. And it was a sort of
wonderful and crazy time, but in the end, you know, I don't think it
was going to work for two artists. But I loved then and still love
what she can do with her voice, 'cause I think she, like few great
singers, can actually take you right inside the place of the song
and allow you to feel it from the inside.

Spencer Bright: Peter did have a brief relationship with Sinead
O'Connor, and it was kind of a case of her, as far as one could
tell, really being infatuated with who he was, and him allowing it
to be when it probably wasn't a good idea. And she threatened
suicide, and did swallow a load of pills and drink, and was revived.
So it was all very difficult and painful for both of them at that
time.

PG: For the last seven years I've been with Meabh, and she was
actually someone who was working at the studio and was employed
while I was away on tour. So I came back and saw this very
attractive woman and thought, "I'll probably marry this woman" the
first time I saw her, and that looks likely to happen. And we now
have a baby, which is doing things slightly wrong-way-around, but
I've been very lucky. She's a sort of strong, independent Irish
woman, and it's been a real source of happiness. And now we have
this beautiful baby boy, Isaac. It's round two, and full of delight
and sleepless nights.

Spencer Bright: Peter agreed to get involved with the Dome because
he was fired up by the ideas of Mark Fisher in particular, who was
the architect and designer of rock stage sets for people like the
Floyd and the Stones.

Mark Fisher: What I understood was that the thing needed to be a
cross between a football match and a rock show.

Narrator: Mark Fisher, creative director, The Millennium Show.

Mark Fisher: And at that very first meeting I said the sort of
person I would really want to work with would be Peter, because he
would bring that artistic vision, and also of course because his
music is uniquely wide-ranging culturally, and thus seemed entirely
appropriate to the endeavor.

PG: It was like a giant sandpit, the biggest sandpit in the world,
and someone else was giving you a chance to play out some dreams you
had. So that was part of the attraction.

Mark Fisher: There was the huge issue of what the show represented
to the various political and cultural overseers of the enterprise.
But overall, to a remarkable extent the show was what Peter and I
talked about and created. I don't think we were helpless victims of
political interference, and I think for that reason the show was
very successful.

PG: The process was extremely difficult, the most trying
collaboration I've ever had, and I think part of that was from the
way things were being run. And there were a lot of inherent problems
with it being such a political football.

Mark Fisher: The story of the show could be summarised as the sort
of birth of innocence. Adam and Eve, the innocent world corrupted by
the combination of personal ambition and technical development, and
then a kind of finale, resurrection, rebirth of hope, looking to the
future.

PG: I still think it's a magnificent building in a great location
and a fantastic facility. And most things in life, if you don't get
right the first time, you don't just throw away. You do it again,
and you keep going at it until it's good, until people really
respond to it. Ovo was the name given to the Dome show and the music
from it because in the letters O - V - O you have two eyes and a
nose, and so the human face. And the music was this hybrid of
contemporary British influences, but on a background of sort of
songs and fable.

Spencer Bright: Ovo doesn't work on its own as an album. It isn't
very satisfying, probably because it's not personal enough. It's too
universal, and the Peter we kind of love is the Peter that is
expressing his inner passions.

PG: When I first went to America as a young man I'd always wanted to
go to Disneyland, and thinking that from childhood, that it would be
in some beautiful mountain location. And instead I arrived at this
giant car park. You know, they still do what they do very well, but
it was different from how I'd imagined it. And so then I became very
interested in seeing if we could establish an alternative which was
going to be called "Realworld" instead of "Disneyworld." So that's
how the name Real World originated, and when the park thing, which
has been sort of hovering for many years, didn't actually get into
gear I still thought I could use the name, as our dominant interest
at the time was in world music. So that sort of begat Real World
Studios, Real World Records. We spent about three years looking for
different sites for the studio. I've always been drawn to water, and
I was so in love with the site here and the amount of water around
the mill that I tended to blot out the railway, which clearly we
knew was there. And we got some estimates for how much it would cost
to sort of soundproof the studios. They were heavily underestimating
the cost. But in the end I feel pretty good about it even though,
you know, we have a lot of Great Western trains on different
recordings now. There is a sort of workmanlike attitude to this
place as well as it being in the country with the flowers and water.
So I feel better about this place being an old place of work and by
a railway, that it has these associations with real life.

Thomas Brooman: I think it's a fantastic record label. I would say
that, wouldn't I, as somebody involved in the label.

Narrator: Thomas Brooman, director, Real World Records.

Thomas Brooman: But I think it is a fantastic vehicle and
opportunity for artists still, I think, releasing a very interesting
range of music. The Afro-Celt Sound System, I think, are a great
example of a very developed recording project produced by Real World
Records.

Narrator: Sheila Chandra, Real World recording artist.

Sheila Chandra: Real World were in at the start of what might
officially be called world music. And I think for them to have
carried on as long as they have and to have artists that are getting
such amazing receptions like Afro-Celt Sound System in America and
so on-for them to have secured such high profiles, and to have done
it in such a fair way, I think is a huge, huge achievement. I think
if you wanted to make a lot of money very fast you wouldn't go into
a risky area like world music. So I think when people accuse Peter
of being a cultural imperialist they really are completely reversing
and rewriting his motives about it. I think he just fell in love
with musics of the world.

Ayub Ogada: As a, in parentheses, ethnic musician . . .

Narrator: Ayub Ogada, Real World recording artist.

Ayub Ogada: Real World has done a lot of good in that it has exposed
artists and given artists an opportunity on, well, kind of a world
stage. Because it's not really the world stage, but kind of a world
stage. It's given an opportunity that would otherwise not exist.
Cultural imperialism, from my point of view, exists at every level
where companies from the northern hemisphere are dealing with
individuals or groups from the southern hemisphere because a lot of
the times we are not consulted or asked. We might be asked, "Are you
interested in the project?" but we are not asked, "Do you have any
inputs?" and "Should it be done at all?" I think that consultation
process would cancel out the word "imperial." I think that the way
the world is set up, it's impossible to avoid. If you want to get
things done you have to deal with what is there.

PG: I'm finishing up this long-overdue record now, and it's been a
lot of fun working in many different areas, and one of those is
guitar, where I played my first guitar riff song. I'm the world's
worst guitarist, but having studied air guitar many years, I have
some of the moves down. One of the new songs on the album is "Signal
to Noise," and I think it's quite a big cinemascope journey, which
not all the album is. I was very lucky to work with Nusrat Fateh Ali
Khan, who I think was one of the greatest singers of our time. And
this was a piece we managed to record with Nusrat, and I
think "Signal to Noise," in part, is a cry for activism in the sense
that there's a lot of noise out there, and the signal would be a
solid goal at the end. I think we have thirteen tracks mixed. A
wonderful feeling. It's a strange sort of moment you get to in the
process, where you think, "Okay, if I get hit by the bus tomorrow
there will be an album to put out." And I've reached that point, and
it's a great, great feeling to get there. We're intending to release
in September. You see, I never specify the year.

PG: It's a funny thing, because I go away traveling or on holiday,
and can't wait to get away, and then after about ten days I'm like a
dog with the tongue hanging out looking for a piano. It's addictive.

Narrator: That was Part Two of "Games Without Frontiers."

PG: I know I'm going to be making noises 'til I drop, and some of
them will be musical. (laughs)

Narrator: The audio captions were read by Alex M. Reid. "Games
Without Frontiers" was produced in association with Real World, and
is a Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 2.