FILM Q&A with Robert Watts, a production maestro on the original ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ films.
By Adam Locks
Born in 1938, Robert Watts is one of the most respected and successful British producers in the film industry. Although his name is most well known for his association with the first three ‘Star Wars’ films and first three Indiana Jones movies, he has been involved with many other high profile projects. As the saying goes, ‘A picture speaks a thousand words’, and so does Robert’s CV: it’s an astonishing list that shows him having worked with many of the most significant players in the history of British and American cinema. He’s worked with the likes of Roman Polanski, and Stanley Kubrick, through to being the Production Supervisor on ‘Star Wars’ (George Lucas, 1977) the list really is endless. In a room full of movie props Adam Locks meets a man whose films have been the largest cinematic influence on millions of children from the 1970s and 1980s. (more…)
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DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!!!
Those words must haunt, and amuse actor Bill Mumy in equal measure. Mumy played young Will Robinson in the classic TV series ‘Lost In Space’, kick-starting a career as child actor. Somehow, instead of crashing out early like so many child actors, he has managed to create even more iconic characters in classic Sci-Fi shows, from Babylon 5 to The Twilight Zone. Will tells Beatmag’s Khalid Mallassi, his first love has always been making music. (more…)
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Lost and Found Interview
When you consider the term ‘hunger’ in hip-hop nowadays your thoughts can’t help but lurch clumsily towards memories of a sturdy Big Pun on stage, spluttering out rhymes punctuated by short rasping breaths, the ever-cuddly Fat Joe with his belt-bendingly massive jeans that could be converted into a denim pigeon-loft or the Notorious B.I.G making an ungodly racket on his debut album, thanks to the combination of a headboard, a wall and a shrieking grateful recipient of his apparent morning-glory. (more…)
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Beatmag interviews… Nathan Fake
“You should never really ask a musician what music they make or you get a really vague, ubiquitous answer.” One can’t really be surprised that someone of Nathan Fake’s calibre would come out with this gem of information when describing techno. (more…)
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A Q&A with the recently revitalized emperors of electronic dance, The Prodigy
The Prodigy have made a spectacular comeback. Some would argue they’ve never been away as they consistently tour, however, they’re now back at the top end of the UK charts and a new generation has embraced their rave-rock beat-blast. (more…)
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Gary Numan
Although David Bowie is well-known as the artist who changed his image time and time again, Gary Numan has also been a pop chameleon: from alien-chic to Mad Max pastiche; from white-faced/blue haired mannequin to white-suit with red bow-tie gent; and from blonde cyberpunk to current industrial Goth. Numan was born in 1958, London, his father a baggage handler at Heathrow airport, a psycho-geographic space that would have enormous influence for him. From an early age, Newman possessed an enviable ability to know exactly what he wanted from life; he knew that music and planes were central to his plans. (more…)
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Bomb The Bass interview
On listening to Future Chaos you’d be forgiven for assuming it’s another in a long line of tidily produced electronic albums dropped by a twenty-something bedroom producer this year, but in fact what you’re hearing is the latest chapter in the rather long story of Bomb The Bass. (more…)
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Stereo Mc’s interview
Mix tapes, baggy jeans and funk fuelled hip hop are the nostalgic memories of the boys from Brixton. A firmly established yet unique outfit spawned during the hedonist years of the 80’s. Still pushing the limits, they know how to mash-up it up. Fresh from back to back touring in the Ukraine, Beatmag and Rob Birch – the enigmatic front man of the Stereo Mc’s’ chew the fat over the new album “Double Bubble”, having the Mrs on tour and what’s burning a hole is his record bag. (more…)
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Visage – Rusty Egan
In the recent popular sci-fi/cop drama ‘Ashes to Ashes’, a group of detectives go under cover at a London nightclub. Since the narrative is set in 1981, the venue is frequented by (what became termed that same year) ‘New Romantics’. It’s a scene that’s a homage to the Blitz club, a London location where, back in 1981, Steve Strange and Rusty Egan ran a new kind of night club that stridently moved away from the spitting and brawling of the entropic punk scene. The music and fashions were sophisticated, cool and danceable. This wasn’t a clientele in clothes appropriated from bin liners and toilet chains. Such a grouping celebrated the flamboyant, the narcisstic, and the eccentric as exemplified by the dandified Regency designs by Vivienne Westwood which were seen later with the likes of Adam Ant. The bands under this journalistic label – Spandau Ballet, Visage, Ultravox, Japan, Culture Club, Duran Duran – offered up a new style of synth-pop that was as bombastic as a box set of Sky albums and as pretentious as Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s Swiss apartment in Klosters. (more…)
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Juggaknots interview
The Juggaknots are Breeze Brewin, Queen Herawin, Buddy Slim and DJ Boo. Their second album ‘Use Your Confusion’ got joyful reviews in Beatmag a while back and since then we’ve been trying to track them down to squeeze some further info out of their busy heads. It’s been quite a mission but we eventually made it, and they’ve even been kind enough to donate a free download (link below). Beatmag hip-hop heads – get your teeth into this; (more…)
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