3. Isaac HayesHot Buttered Soul
There’s a lovely Silver Jews lyric: “Punk rock died when the first kid said ‘punk’s not dead’”. By 1978, punk rock was pretty much dead, even though 1976 and 1977 were very exciting for me.
I loved punk rock, and we weren’t rich. I said to my mum: “You’ve got to cut these trousers and stop them being flared”. So she made them straight leg. My dad used to have a motorcycle and she used to ride in the sidecar. She had a leather jacket and gave it to me so I had a leather jacket which, sadly, I put safety pins and things into.
Even though I loved groups like The Clash, groups like The Raincoats carried on making great music. A lot of punk rock died out in 1978 and the bands that were trying to do punk or were ‘bandwagon jumpers’, which was awful. I started looking for different things. I was still at school when I discovered Stax, and I bought a couple of albums. I think they were The Best Of Stax, volumes one and two. There were a couple of Isaac Hayes tracks on there and I was like: “Wow, what’s this?” I bought Hot Buttered Soul when The Commotions were getting started.
I loved the idea that somebody would take a song and make an eight-minute intro with it; one chord, talk over it, and what happens with that? If you’re willing to go with it and listen to it, the minute that chord changes is huge! ‘Walk On By’ is maybe the best cover version ever. Isaac Hayes is an amazingly smart guy who had a vision for what he wanted his music to be like, and was able to pull it off.
