9. Cocteau TwinsBlue Bell Knoll
It reminds me of when I first moved to London with Nick and Paul from Sowing Seeds magazine. Nick had a bedroom that was painted black; black bedding, black everything. We used to sit in the dark in that room, listening to Cocteau Twins, Nick Cave and so-on. How can two people meet and make such amazing music?! Liz [Fraser]’s vocals and the beautiful guitar playing! I still can’t believe how people make music for a start! Seeing them on TV with that reel-to-reel tape drum machine – it was just other worldly, phenomenal music. It still blows my mind that these two people met and made all this music.
Years later, I ended up being the label manager at Bella Union [Robin Guthrie’s imprint]. I had no idea that Cocteau Twins had set this up. I really connected with Robin – over technological problems! He was living in France at the time, so I used to have long phone calls with him: “Have you pressed this? Restart this! Go into this folder.”
I remember one day he took control of my computer, and he pretended to send an email from someone else in the office saying “I love you Vinita!” I knew he was messing around, but for a split second I was panicking! He’s very funny, and we really did connect over boring computer talk. We drank together and partied together too. I ended up doing lots of solo records on Rocket Girl with him. I got him a publishing deal and helped him out a lot for free. I was more than happy to.
I don’t think these bands got what they deserved. When I was at Bella Union they were going to reform and make millions. They could be doing what bands like My Bloody Valentine are doing now. The Cocteaus were going to headline Coachella, but it never happened. However, I was still really blessed to work with Robin.
