Nine Questions with the Blue Giant Zeta Puppies

Photo by Bunz.

What was the first record you bought? "Fire Brigade" by The Move, a compilation LP on the extremely cool 'Music For Pleasure' label, a budget label you used to find in supermarkets, which is where my copy came from...I still have it and still play it!

What was the Last record you bought? 
"I Hear A New World" by Joe Meek and The Blue Men.....again.....this time on rather lovely vinyl....

What's one thing about you that very few people know? 
I once bought Noam Chomsky a drink.....I was taking photographs at a meeting he was speaking at, and he was in the bar afterwards, he seemed rather bemused at having this random stranger buy him a drink and thanked me a little warily...which I suppose anybody would...

If you could record with any one artist, who would it be and why?
Probably Joe Meek.....although I suspect I might well live to regret it! There are so many conflicting stories about him, I'd like to find out for myself what he was like to work with, and just how he did get all those sounds...I have done some electronics and can hold a soldering iron, I'm totally at home recording in sheds, front rooms, bedrooms and lean-tos......I think it could be an interesting....if maybe sometimes stormy...experience...

Who Should we be listening to right now? 
Hmmmm....OK in no particular order.....Link Wray, Topos Locos, Goat, The George Dorn Quintet, Dick Dale, Vince Taylor, The Phantom IV, Davie Allan and The Arrows, The Striped Bananas, Busy Wigs and The Shadows......and The Move, always....

Vinyl, CD or digital? 
They all have their place.....we are pretty lucky to live in a world where we can choose! Digital formats not only allow you to carry a whole collection around with you in a way you never could have done with a vinyl or cassette collection, they let you sequence your music as you want and (for me the most important thing) they allow no-budget outfits like The 'Zeta Puppies to release and distribute our music in a way that would have been completely impossible before..... CDs allow you some of the convenience of digital with some of the permanence and class of vinyl.... They have sleeve art, they have liner notes, you can hold them in your hand, you can play them in the car.....they are just a bit ....small..... There is something about vinyl, it's not just that the format allows the packaging to become an art form in itself, or that it is the format that so much great music was first issued in, I think you listen differently.....I guess vinyl makes you work a little, it's much harder to use music as wallpaper if you have to choose an album or single, put it on, drop the stylus....wait...it's like a ritual, you get a feeling that this music has a value, someone worked on this...they imagined it and struggled to make it real... There is an idea around that what we want is music coming at us like water from a tap....you wont have a collection, even a digital one, you will subscribe to a streaming service that will decide what you want to hear based on your profile.....you want music? hit "play"........wallpaper......

Tell us about your latest releases
We have a track on the new Fruits de Mer members only CD "Strange Fruit and Veg", which is out for review at the moment, rather pleased about this one, as it is the first time we have had an original track (Martians Don't Surf!) included on a Fruits de Mer release... We also self released a three track download EP in January "The Devil is in The Detail", currently a free download from our Bandcamp page. And most recently, we have brought out a limited edition CD of our Active Listener Records album "12 Theories of Time Travel" as an exclusive release for the goody bags at the Mega Dodo/Fruits de Mer "Games For May" festival....

What's next for you, musically? 
The next thing we have happening is the unveiling of our new EP "Semyorka". This is planned as a vinyl release, but we are having a limited run of a CD version pressed as an exclusive for the goody bags at the Fruits de Mer "13th Dream of Doctor Sardonicus" festival in August, with the vinyl version planned for early next year (...with the lead time on vinyl pressing being what it is...). We hope to fund the vinyl release via a Kickstarter campaign....so get ready to raid your piggy banks! (More seriously, we have some nice inducements planned for that one....so keep an eye on our Facebook!) Before that, we will be joining the mighty Topos Locos (who made their Fruits de Mer début on "Strange Fruit and Veg") in a vinyl only split single, releasing in late September early October. Again, look out for news of that one on our Facebook!

What's for dinner? 
A cheese roll.....

https://thebluegiantzetapuppies.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Blue-Giant-Zeta-Puppies/273796656058088