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like, once we found how we could blend the two musics and the characteristics of the music, then we
flew. I'd wanted to do that for 30 years before I met
those guys. Yeah, it's a unique thing that record.
Chaz Jankel perform-
ing live with the BiTS: Well, thank you for that, Michael. Let's move

Blockheads at The on to the new record. First of all, tell me how you
met Chaz Jankel.
Water Rats, 2011
MM: I’ve known Chaz Jankel since 1978. I met him
through his girlfriend at the time, who was the
cousin of a friend of mine, and I met Chaz that way.
Ian Dury and the Blockheads were just exploding
onto the scene. “New Boots And Panties” had just
come out and it was really taking off. That was the
time I met Chaz. We became friends pretty quickly.
We used to hang out together and I would go out and
see gigs and was around the Blockheads quite a lot
at that point in time and having fun, basically. It was
an important part of my character building, if you
like, because although I'd always played and had
friends that played music, I didn't have friends and,
as I said, my brother was in the music business, but
I was a lot younger than him, so I wasn't around him
very much doing that.

What I found myself in the middle of was, if you like,
a tribe that I related to. Not just the Blockheads, but professional musicians and the scene. I found
myself thinking, these are my people. I like this. You know, I'd go to gigs and in the dressing room,
hanging out and talking to people, whether it was the sound engineer, the drummer or whoever. I
just felt they were my tribe.
That time played a big part in me wanting to be a musician professionally. Chaz and I saw a lot of
each other in the late 70s, and then our lives went off in different directions. He went off to America.
I went off to North Yorkshire, did what we did with our lives and just occasionally, through the
following decade we would maybe have a phone call, maybe meet up. But it was really just very
sporadic. Just occasional, but always whenever we did get together, there was always a closeness, a
friendship and a mutual respect. I think we both felt that always. Back in 2020, in March 2020, just
before lockdown, we were having a conversation on the phone and Chaz said, you really want to come
over sometime. Bring a guitar. We'll have a jam. Oh, great, okay. Yeah, I'll do that.

So I go over there first week of March or so and when I get to Chaz’s house, Chaz being the creative
source, the creative soul that he is, rather than just sit and jam on two guitars over a cup of tea, he'd
recorded some ideas on his computer. Little grooves. Chaz is a multi-instrumentalist, he has a little
studio in his house, so he put together some things that he thought I would enjoy playing with and
to. Bluesy type grooves that’s just, you know, five minutes long or whatever, just ideas. So we plugged
the microphone in, and I jammed some guitar and did that, maybe four or five of those. That took us
through to the evening and then we walked down the road to his local pub. We had a bite to eat, and
we had a couple of beers, and we went back to his house and then we sat with two guitars and had a
jam and we recorded that as well. Just on our phones, really. Just because it was nice to have. Next
thing was I'll see you soon. That was great, fun. Lovely to see you, talk soon.

We go into lockdown and I'm listening to these recordings and thinking, damn, this is pretty good. I
never realised because I always thought that our musical tastes were fairly different. Although I do
love soul music and a lot of what Chaz loves, I didn't know about his passion and love for the blues