The following is an interview I performed with Nick Straker himself via email 4 April 2001:

"Most of us went to the same school (Spencer Park in South London which no longer exists) this also includes Dennis Bovell and other members of the original Matumbi. I joined a 'disco' band in 1976 called Limmie Funk Limited (Limmie was from Limmie and the Family Cooking) Pete Hammond was the bass player (he was pretty good actually), Phil Towner was the drummer and Tony Mansfield actually became our 'Roadie' for a time!! The intention was for myself, Tony, Phil and Tony Hibbert to form a band and start putting down some tracks at a studio (TMC) where we had a deal to record and pay later.

"I seem to remember playing on a few tracks; 'On Islands' i know was one (i played the 'beatleesque' piano), and 'Straight Lines' where i played string synth. at about that time i wrote 'A Walk in the Park' ( i don't know where it came from as i was into Herbie Hancock etc. at the time!!) and recorded the track with Tony, Tony and Phil with the intention of including it in the same group of songs that we were putting together. however it was played by accident to some people at Pinnacle records, they became interested and i decided to go it alone (although they all played on the disco version produced by Jeremy Paul). Because of this Clive was brought in to replace me (He was already a friend of ours).

"I remember the recording sessions as being quite boozy affairs: both myself and Tony had come into a bit more money than we were used to (after we'd got our respective deals) and were quite eager to let everybody else know it too!!(Champagne, Fine Cognac etc...).

"i think the first time i realised the depth of tony's talent was when i first heard the finished version of 'straight lines'. you can be involved in the recording process and yet find it hard to envisage the end product; not all the parts are necessarily laid down and the balance and effects have yet to be set. i'm pretty certain that we were all at tony's flat in balham and i'd just played one of my tracks which i was quite pleased with, and he put on this final mix of 'straight lines'. i remember this terrible sinking feeling, realising that this track was in a different league from my own, which now sounded feeble and like a demo in comparison!! i went away feeling more than a bit deflated!!! (straight down the pub probably!). i think there probably was some rivalry between us (encouraged somewhat gleefully by some of those around us!!) although, even though i made a couple of records that i was proud of ('a little bit of jazz' and 'straight ahead'), he went off into the stratosphere and more or less left the rest of us for dead!

"One of the reasons I decided to go it alone was that, although I liked him personally, I couldn't stand working with Tony M. in the studio! It all seemed so pretentious and I was convinced it was going nowhere!! Naturally, when it all came together I realised I'd made a rather monumental misjudgement. Tony knew exactly what he was doing and had his finger firmly on the pulse of what was happening. I myself, of course, famously went on to release a series of highly acclaimed major works: "The Last Goodbye" (No.98 in Canada), "Like Dust" (Mayday Hospital Record of the week), and, my finest hour, my personal contribution and homage to Post Punk Modernism, "Leaving on the Midnight Train". Subsequently, working with artists like Dennis Bovell and Linton Kwesi Johnson has at least given me back some self respect!!"

I think Tony played on one more of my tracks, called "Sleeping Alone" (not one of my better efforts) where he played a kind of guitar theme in the chorus. This would have been around the end of '79. After this time we were both too busy with our own projects (especially Tony, who had many production committments) to be involved with each other musically. He definitely didn't play on or have anything to do with "Straight Ahead"; all the guitar ideas were entirely Andy's, and the 'framework' for the production was created when we laid the demo in June '81."

Copyright (c) 2001-04-04 Nick Straker and Jonas Wårstad.

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