Encounters

I first saw Jackie at the Duchess of York pub in Leeds, West Yorkshire, in 1994, when he was singing songs from the Mystery album. My mates and I had heard one track on a sampler CD and decided to take a punt. I remember it as a typically cold midweek night in a rainy northern town and it was a small room with around 30 people in the audience.

To this day I can still see him sitting there playing Gylen Gylen - you could hear a pin drop, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and despite having over 20 years of national and local concerts under my belt I don't think I'd ever seen anything quite like it before. I remember him getting a drink at the bar afterwards and then going round shaking everyone's hand and asking what they thought of it. It's really hard to find words to describe the experience but the music - and the man - left a seriously deep impression on me. Intense? Passionate? Emotional? Big and Fierce and yet somehow Soft and Vulnerable? Plus- a REALLY good singer. Anyway, I  remember the atmosphere as being totally electric and still regard it as one of the best concerts I've ever been to.

I was lucky enough to catch Doll by Doll in 1978 several times and more than a few times after. I struck up a correspondence with them via the Haunted Valley at Maida Vale. They were fairly mad times. I was 17 and really felt I could do anything anywhere, anytime.

Punk had a huge effect on my life, it still influences me today in every aspect.
Anyway, I was writing for a punk fanzine Kingdom Come from Dunfermline in Fife. I decided an interview with DBD would be great. Wait for them to come up to Scotland you say? No, I hitched to London and with an A to Z and sheer luck found them.
I spent four days there. Interviewed them and very drunk with them, watched them rehearse for an upcoming tour.
I was very struck by Jackie’s warm welcoming manner. Jo Shaw was also very kind. They basically fed me for four days.
I headed back up to Scotland.

Jackie Leven’s album “Fairytales for Hard Men” from 1997 is by far my absolute favourite album. Not just among Jackie Leven’s albums, but in general. It even beats Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”, “So Far, So Good, So What…?” by Megadeth, “Killers” by Iron Maiden or Antonin Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony “From the New World”.

Not a week goes by without me listening to it at least once. Besides the songs “Listening To Crows Pray” and “Kirkconnell Flow”, that is also down to “Poortoun”. A song Jackie Leven seems to have played at just about every concert – if you listen to the countless live recordings. The song must have meant something very special to him.

Rodja