A tape from the attic...

[Marca]

I was just looking through a box of old cassettes I had stored in the attic, and peering at the faded pencil inscription on one of them I saw 'Michael Moorcock Interview'. What's this, I thought?

It turns out to be a programme taped off the radio (BBC Radio 1 I'm sure) and it must be from around 1983 because there's an interview with Debbie Harry about Videodrome on it. The programme itself also includes interviews with J G Ballard and Brian Aldiss and is about sf in general.

I have no idea who the interviewer/presenter is but the links are pretty embarrassing (he talks about 'sci-fi' a lot and claims that 'if you've ever read a science fiction anthology it was probably edited by Brian Aldiss') :roll:

The interview with Mike is very short (about 5 minutes) and he sounds in good humour, although there's nothing at all profound in it. He talks about reading Alfred Bester and thinking all written sf was like that, also about Jerry Cornelius and The Final Programme film and how bad most sf cinema is. The interview ends with him trying to find words to describe what he thinks of Star Wars. :P

I'd completely forgotten I ever recorded this and found it a nice blast from the past from when I was first getting into Mike's work. Shame the interview wasn't longer or better.

Do you remember the interview Mike?

[Ant]

Re: A tape from the attic...

'if you've ever read a science fiction anthology it was probably edited by Brian Aldiss'

That's possibly quite accurate, at that time. Throughout the 1970s, Aldiss -- often in partnership with Harry Harrison, who I think was living in Ireland at the time -- edited a hell of lot of the sf anthologies published in the UK. (I might even be moved to look in the loft to see which I've still got.)

AV - Any chance of posting a transcript of the MM interview?

mfG,
Ant

[Whiskers]

Better still, any way I can get you to send that tape to Maren Gebhart, our resident audio Chaos Engineer, who can transfer it off tape into mp3 so that I can post it in the Downloads section. Maren has produced a couple of the mp3z we have.

You guys know about our Download section, don't you?
[broken link]

[Michael Moorcock]

Don't remember the interview. I've done an awful lot of them over the years. No objection to it being put on to this site, though!

[Marca]

Actually Mike, I didn't think you would remember the interview, to be honest. Berry, I'll try and get a copy of the tape to Maren if you give me the relevant details. I don't want anyone expecting it to be any more than it is though. It's a very minor interview since Mike isn't really given the chance say anything of significance and he spends most of his time good humouredly rubbishing the programme's user friendly notion of 'sci-fi' with his comments. It's preceded by an extract from the Hawkwind song Coded Languages, on which Mike performs and has an audio clip from The Final Programme in the middle of it.

[David Mosley]

I hope no one will mind me resurrecting this thread in order to ask my own question about a Radio 1 interview that Mike did a couple of decades ago. Yep, that's right we're talking early 1980s iirc, so I appreciate that this is probably a long shot, but here goes.

I reckon the year is 1981 or 82, possibly 83, and I was in High School at the time. Like most kids that age I was listening to a lot of Radio 1 stuff, and there was one weekly magazine show which had a title like 'the 5:15 Express' or something vaguely related to trains for some reason that I've not been able to fathom. (Or maybe my memory is simply playing tricks on me. :?)

Anyway, I caught one particular edition in which the presenter (female?) interviewed this guy called Michael Moorcock. I'd never heard of him before, although my father was (and still is) a SF reader with the usual Harrision, Asimov, 'Doc' Smith paperbacks in the house. Anyway, the interview (which I recall as being quite in depth and of a reasonable length, but perhaps it was just 10-15 mins) must have sparked something off in me, because the next day I went into the school's library to see whether they had anything by him. As it turned out they had the Hawkmoon novels in, and so began my fascination with Mike's work that continues to this day.

And so, what I'd like to be able to know is, what was that programme called, which was singularly responsible for introducing me to one of my all-time favourite authors? Can anyone fill in the blanks for me?

Many thanks,
David

[Marca]

No idea on this one I'm afraid demos.

Incidentally, while looking on a CD-ROM disc I have based on the Clute/Nicholls sf encyclopedia the other day I found that there's a very short video clip of Mike that I didn't know was there and also an audio one too.

I really wish the BBC would repeat the early 80s Time Out Of Mind TV programme on Mike and New Worlds. I'd love to see it again, but it was shown in the days before I (and I imagine a lot of other people) had VCRs.

[Michael Moorcock]

I know I had a tape of that programme at one point. I think mine came from Savoy. I could look for it, if you liked, and maybe someone who has the facilities to make DVDs from VHS tapes could make it available to anyone who was interested. Although I don't have them in any sort of order (John Davey might have copies, however, and his filing system is awesome) I have a fair number of tapes taken of TV stuff I've done over the years. There was an interview done at the ICA in The Guardian series of taped interviews which was commercially available from the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Pall Mall, London SW1 for quite a while.

[MikeH]

There was an interview done at the ICA in The Guardian series of taped interviews which was commercially available from the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Pall Mall, London SW1 for quite a while.

I believe that one's available 'free to view' on the web (together with talks by Ballard, Aldiss, and Chris Priest) at http://www.roland-collection.com/rol...rstalk/W37.htm.

Unfortunately, I couldn't actually get it to stream at high speed, so it may need a bit of patience to view it!

[Marca]

I know I had a tape of that programme at one point. I think mine came from Savoy. I could look for it, if you liked, and maybe someone who has the facilities to make DVDs from VHS tapes could make it available to anyone who was interested.

That would indeed be excellent if it could be done somehow.

[SardonicSquirrel]

dvd

I actualy have the means to copy VHS to DVD's if you are interested Mike.
Here is my email if you want to contact me about this.
[email protected]

I would love to do it for you!

The VHS transfer to DVD i have is actualy one of the more expensive one so don't worry about loosing any quality or anything like that.

[Michael Moorcock]

Cheers, pard. I'll get in touch! Got to find the tape yet!