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++_biography Jimmy grew up in the London suburb of Walthamstow. He had a childhood fascination with his older sister's collection of 45 rpm singles by original American rockers like Elvis and Eddie Cochran as well as their English emulators Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard. Later influences ranged from the Beatles and the Clash to the Human League and the Shamen. Jimmy is reported to have been born in a converted mental hospital in London's East End. As a child, he wanted to be the "Coca Cola Kid off the telly", "Kickin' up, showing off and living in the sunshine". He sketched his imaginary life out, drew scuba diving pirates underwater, felt "spookiness" lurking in the corners of rooms. Then the lies began, a carefully spun web of deceits wherein he'd tell his school pals, aged 7, he'd been up all night with his dad watching "Tales Of The Unexpected" before going down to the boozer to smoke cigars. Outside his window at nights, he could smell the "hamburger-flavored outer space". He was also moved up a year in school. They called him "Boffin" (a nerd) - he didn't care because he'd discovered Rock'n'Roll, the Classics, Incredible '45s left lying around the house, like Tommy Steele's "I Left the Lighty On" the one about the guy who lives in the fridge. This was the stuff! He made a pottery model of a rock'n'roll renegade in red and white baseball jacket, turned up jeans, boots and a huge blond pompadour.He loved Abba, The Clash, Dr and the Medics, Fred Flintstone and Eddie Cochran. |
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His big sister was a rockabilly and her friends came round, dudes with jibs cut to cool called Pierre Elegant who parked their 40's Mickey Mouse hot rods outside the house while Mother placed newspaper on the backs of sofas as the grease-haired influx descended. Jimmy gawped and saw it was good. "I knew then", he glimmers, "that this little world I lived in was real." With pals he invented a band, "The Cutting Room" - they were "embarrassing, it was the Walthamstow vibe, nothing there..." So he worked for a while, as an usher at the Walthamstow Granada because that's where Gene Vincent used to play. He discovered The Beatles - "All that...trickery !" The Shamen's 'Boss Drum' LP - "All those...bits!", moved to London and went techno-berserk with a bloke called Gypsy who owned a "studio from outer space". They became a band called A.V, signed with S2 and made a "brilliant" album which never saw the light of Mars. Undefeated, Jimmy grew stronger! taller! "I refused to end up selling newspapers at Walthamstow Central wearing great big sideburns in twenty years time". So he picked up his guitar, started strumming and plotting, wrote songs and teamed up with Con Fitzpatrick of Shampoo. Fast forward to today and here he is with a bunch of tunes that can only be described as Souped-up Kaleidoscope Club-class Psycho-pop Handclap Groovey for the Sunshine of your Lives. "If you're going to get up there", he hollers. "get them moving - incite a riot ! That's what it's all about". How did he arrive at the surreal sonic crossroads of his self-titled debut (Epic), which punches blipping techno rivets all over the barn door of traditional Elvis/Sun Sessions twang? He wasn't aiming for the vibrato/slapback/dancefloor swagger of his smash overseas single, the shamelessly self-promoting "Are You Jimmy Ray?" In fact, Ray still recalls w hen his punky teen outfit the Cutting Room got its first major nightclub booking, which wasn't quite the ego boost he'd imagined. "I ran into the store with the tickets, going `Who's gonna buy a ticket? Who?' But it was like, `Oh, sorry, I can't. I've gotta wash me hair.' Everyone who worked there had some sort of musical ambition-employees would be sitting in the store canteen, playing harmonica and stuff like that. Everyone was supportive of you, but I guess the majority of employees knew that none of us would ever make it." After discovering the trancey thrum of the Shamen, Ray adds, he understood that technology and songwriting could cut a nice little rug together. He began piecing his new sound together on his home computer, revolving around the echoey guitars of his pet bygone era. "My approach was, `Hey! I know a few chords! I can write a few songs!' And if you don't have the natural ability, that, in a way, makes you more determined to succeed." Pardon? Ray doesn't believe his record genuinely rocks? No, no, he sighs. It's not like that, exactly. "See, I wanna do this more than I'm actually made to do this. You know, just as a human achievement." He writes songs about the way things should be, Iike "Goin' To Vegas" - "All about snippets of life - and if your life was made up of these it'd the best life ever." Jimmy also loves his heroes - "Huckleberry Hound! The day no-one appreciates Huckleberry Hound is a sad day for mankind." Once he wore Crisp 'n' Dry in his hair- today it's Brylcream: David Beckham ? Jimmy wuz robbed. "It's about being... Fred Flintstone", he gleams, "a diversion, a silhouette, a cartoon ! If I get hit on the head with a hammer I want a big "BOING" coming out the top of me head. If I walk into a room I wanna go... " His index finger reaches inside his mouth and prangs the inside cheek "POP!!! Oh God.... I 've got a bubble-gum stuck in me cavity." Jimmy's job at the Virgin Megastore (interview): There are quite a few jobs well suited to the aspiring rocker-positions in coffeehouses, bookstores, secondhand clothing outlets. But none is more perfect, according to peg-slacked, pompadoured pinup Jimmy Ray, than a gig in a music retail. As a rockabilly fan just out of high school, Ray landed a job at the massive Virgin Megastore in London. "And it was great", he purrs. "It was a job and music at the same time, so it was right up my street, and there was an actual radio station in there, and I used to be constantly on the run getting records for the DJs and begging 'Play this! Play this!'" Ray was also constantly bumping into local luminaries. One of his favorite customers was the "Absolutely Fabulous" creator Jennifer Saunders. "And I met the drummer for Spandau Ballet once," he snickers. His favorite retail experience? The shop's annual dress-up day, when folks mistook his `50s retro duds for a carefully assembled costume. His worst? The day the B-52's popped by for an in-store concert. "I got told off for standing on the counter because there was such a crowd," Ray growls. "You know how a head of security, if it's a woman, tends to be a complete bitch? She lectured me, told me to get down off the counter because I was setting a bad example." His response was shouted loud enough to ring the rafters: "`Man, this is rock `n' roll! We've got the B-52's here! Gimme a break!'" ● |