Angry Bob, not so angry after all

This was one of the first interviews I did working for Time Out. Jeremy Lawrence, the editor of Time Out Dubai at the time, popped his head up over the computer screen and asked nonchalantly if I fancied interviewing Bob Geldof in, oooh, an hour? Cue 50 minutes of frenzied research on African policy, all of which led to nothing at all when it turned out he just fancied talking about his time as a music journalist.

I remember him being a bit curmudgeonly, but generally fairly gentle with me, perhaps sensing how green I was. I also recall that he left the conversation mid-sentence, pretty much hanging up the phone without even rounding off what he was saying. He was talking about Bono’s music taste at the time, though, so I didn’t feel I missed out on much.

My interview with Tim Robbins was always going to be a peculiar one. The actor-turned singer was in Japan for a week of concerts at the Blue Note Tokyo, supporting his 2010 album Tim Robbins & The Rogues Gallery Band, but I was warned beforehand not to mention any of his movies – a tough ask considering that the Oscar winner has been part of the Hollywood furniture for more than two decades – and it was politely suggested that he’d only want to talk about his music. No Susan Sarandon, then. I duly set about studying the man’s only album, and the music that might have inspired it.

I needn’t have been so meticulous. Tim Robbins is a walking encyclopaedia of musical minutiae (seriously, next time you find yourself in a lift with him, ask him about punk, folk, lo-fi…you get the impression he commits it all to memory like words from a script). And so I sat with him for 30 learned minutes, bouncing between family memories (his father was an admired folk singer) and his experiences of fame (‘It’s all in your head’), hearing about how he won’t be ‘going Indonesian’ on his next album, and the Robbins secret to ‘living free’. A wide-ranging interview, then, to say the least, and possibly his first since 1994 (I’m kinda proud to say) not to use the word ‘Shawkshank’…

No Alan McGee, no Oasis. How you respond to this simple equation is entirely down to you. But no Jesus and Mary Chain, no Primal Scream – you start to realise we’re talking about a man who howled with nascent indie in its cradle, was present at its birth, and probably severed its umbilical chord with his gnashing teeth.

One of the larger charity events to have taken place in the wake of the March 11 disaster was the Japan Benefit Concert at New York’s Columbia University, held on March 27. On a bill that included Yoko Ono, John Zorn, Sonic Youth and Mike Patton, the reunion of Cibo Matto – the influential J-girl duo that grew out of the NYC art scene in the early ’90s – gave punters an extra reason to dig into their pockets. A couple of days later, Yoko Ono pulled together a second event, this time featuring the Plastic Ono Band, Patti Smith and, again, Cibo Matto.

The following week, an email appeared in my Facebook inbox. It was from a delighted Miho Hatori, and read: ‘We raised 71,103 dollars on Tuesday. Amazing!’

Satomi Matsuzaki was a really fun interviewee. She’s as bubbly on the telephone as she is onstage, and I remember the interview as being one of those where you feel as though you’ve made some kind of personal connection by the end of it, rather than being something you had to do for work. Just a really chatty 30 minutes in which she spoke of her life as a ‘katakana character’, her psychic relationship with Paul McCartney, and her plan to trick teens into buying Deerhoof’s latest album.

The snake hips have gone, but the charm is all intact. ‘Just call me Tom,’ he laughs down the phone as I fumble with his title. This, after all, is the original Mr Jones: celebrated lothario, knight of the realm, Hollywood Walk of Famer… He’s clocked up more Vegas appearances than Sinatra, talked fitness tips with Elvis and been the target of untold items of flying underwear. Why, then, does it feel like I’m chatting with some jovial old timer in a pub at the back end of Cardiff?