The name Jesse Hector may not be a household one but he has a place in the hearts of afficionados of garage and proto-punk.
The founding member of the Hammersmith Gorillas and Crushed Butler will hopefully now get more recognition after a film about his life as an outsider rock icon is being made.
‘Mutton-chopped Jesse Hector was a permanent fixture in the Englishmusic press of the mid-Seventies and the electrifying live performances of his band The Gorillas proved an inspiration to such faces on the burgeoning Punk scene as Paul Weller, Billy Idol, Shane McGowan and Rat Scabies.
Jesse has always believed in the revolutionary and rejuvenating power of music – the cover of The Gorillas album showed his band of space age Mods hurtling towards earth on a meteorite to save the world with rock’n’ roll – and his belief in music is as strong today as it ever has been.
He now works as a cleaner at Hackney Empire and The Royal HorticulturalSociety and this documentary follows him as he journeys around Londonand retraces his fifty years in rock n’ roll – skiffling at the 2 I’s in Old Compton Street at the age of 12, playing guitar with Mod/Freakbeat legends The Clique, fronting proto-punk bruisers Crushed Butler and The Hammersmith Gorillas – and attempts to find out, as the NME’s Roy Carr wrote in 1977, Whatever Happened To Jesse Hector?’
A Message To The World documentary is being shown at the Raindance festival on October 4th at 12.00 pm:
It is also being shown the following Tuesday October 7th as part of the Pop Mavericks season at the Barbican:
Coming soon on The Quietus: Jon Slade (Huggy Bear/Comet Gain) interviews Jesse about half a century of rock.
