Stuart Jones chats to Jay Derrick:

In late August this year I was chuffed to receive an e-mail from Jay Derrick, who used to be one of the Parrots (later Vol Sec) in those now distant Attrix days here in Brighton. Jay asked me if it would be possible to help him: he had some ancient, dusty, deteriorating cassettes of various gigs, demos and rehearsals from his former glory years which he wanted to clean up and quickly transfer onto CD, before they self-destructed. Could I help?Of course!

After a further flurry of e-mails, we finally met up again, Jay coming along to my abode in Hove on Halloween. Inbetween carving a grotesque face on my small son’s pumpkin and making the tea, I listened to Jay as he described life in London, and his needs as concerns his proposed CD compilation. We caught up on a lot of reminiscing, and I showed him what might be possible for the sleeve packaging and digital-cleaning of sound files.

He left me with some faded old photos, the tapes, and a hearty farewell. In the next two weeks I was welded to the computer, carefully filtering out abnormal amounts of hiss, removing scratches, whacking up the sound level and generally brightening things up. The biggest challenge was making a one-channel only recording into double-channel mono. It was an eerie and emotional experience, listening to my old mentor, Rick Blair, singing so clearly and passionately on these great, vintage recordings.

The Parrots were a very fine band indeed – the musicianship was superb. It was odd: I felt like Jeff Lynne, cleaning up ‘Free As A Bird’ for the Fabs…the big difference being a non-existent budget and only the use of a simple home PC and CoolEdit Pro. Well, the job got done and the discs handed over…I only hope they like the result! What follows is an informal chat between Jay and myself.

SJ: Jay, tell me a little about that extraordinarily busy, creative post-punk time in Brighton.

Jay: During that period I was working part-time as an adult literacy and numeracy teacher at the Friends Centre, in the Lanes. I taught evening classes at the Resource Centre, above the vaults where the bands rehearsed, until it burned down in 1980. The Friends Centre is still going strong, as an adult education centre, as it has been now for nearly 50 years. I remember drinking with the Resource centre gang in the Windsor Tavern, and breakfast at Mrs Beetons, not there any more I think.

SJ: And since then?

Jay: I left Brighton in Feb 1981, and worked abroad as a teacher for a short time, before coming back and moving to London. I have worked in adult and further education ever since then, for most of that time in Islington, and mostly in adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL work – exactly what I was doing in Brighton. I’m now working independently as a consultant – if anyone is interested go to www.bluesky-learning.com. I now live in Hackney with Bridget who used to sing with the Devil’s Dykes, and two teenagers

SJ: A genuine rock ‘n roll relationship! So tell me Jay, anything interesting occurred lately?

Jay: It was weird to find out from an email to the Brighton punk site that someone had released a Parrots song on a CD compilation of British Ska, and this inspired me to put together a Parrots / Vol Sec compilation CD from a series of decaying audio cassettes I had in a box. Our thanks go to you, Stuart, for making this possible. If anyone is interested, contact me and I will send you a copy. It is dedicated to the memory of Rick Blair and Russ Greenwood, who have since died, both well before their time. They were terrific musicians, and lovely guys.

Love also to Nick, Col, Bren, Tom, Ken Hogg (the original Parrots drummer, on loan from the Dots), Hilary, Sandy, Simon, Alan, Titus, Tom, Heather, Pete, Paul, Sal, Debbie and everyone else who made those times such a laugh, in spite of Thatcher getting elected!

SJ: Last memories?

Jay: Best gig: Lewes Road Bus club 1977, with the Piranhas, Nicky and the Dots and Attrix.
Favourite lyric from a Brighton band composition: ‘I wanna go where they’ve never seen snow – send my giro to Cairo’ from Bloody by the Golinski Brothers. Most amusing moment: Radio Brighton playing our song ‘Home Sweet Home’ – probably the first time the word ‘fuck’ had been broadcast locally!