Boards
remember that Ghostface story...
... this one, yeah? http://popmusicology.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/ghostfaceless/
well the other journalist due to interview GFK too offers his side of the story and some interesting insight here:
"Heheh. As the other journalist referred to above, all I can say is that I’m pleased I left early. I’ve seen him live before, once in London at the Coronet where the girls-on-stage-at-end thing also happened but where he at least seemed to give a damn, and twice in the US when he was touring with Rakim, Brother Ali and a fantastic band who backed all three artists, and there he was exceptional. Maybe they just don’t care when they’re not playing to an audience back home. Then again, he’s been over here as part of Wu-Tang for gigs and always given his all.
Incidentally, our interview situation was similarly surreal but without the threats and shouting, and had the same result. The tour manager gave us a contact number and told us to call him on the following Monday, when they’d be in London for the night between the Manchester gig and heading off to the continent. We could meet up with them on a day when there was no gig and get to do something then. The TM didn’t know where they were staying at this stage (odd, for a Tour Manager, mid-tour, to not know what hotels they’re booked in to for five days hence) but said it would be near to Euston station.
I emailed to confirm this the following day, and left a voicemail message too, but heard nothing back so on the Monday I called around 2pm. I was told they still weren’t sure yet where they were staying, and that they’d call me by 4. They didn’t call, obviously, so at 5 I gave him a ring back, explaining – as I had done in the earlier conversation, and in the email – that I needed a couple of hours’ notice to be wherever they wanted me to be because I don’t live in London. I was told at 5 that if I could be at the K-West hotel in Shepherds Bush “now”, I could get an interview. I explained, for the fourth time, that it would take me approximately two hours to get there, and that even if I had been sitting on a park bench in London waiting for his call all day (which, since he hadn’t confirmed anything at all, I wasn’t keen to have been doing) I’d have needed a good 40 mins as I’d have been in Euston based on what I’d been told previously. I said I could be there by 8, and the TM said he couldn’t be sure that he’d know where Ghost would be at that time. So I said “OK, no problem, enjoy the rest of the tour” and went back to chalking it all up to experience.
The shame of it is that, contrary to what someone said (in jest, I’m sure) above, when you get him to focus and concentrate he’s actually a very fine interviewee – almost as good as he is an artist. Yet with hip hop entering its fourth decade as a commercial product the same bullshit – bad advice, bad advisors, inability to see that communication is in most circumstances A Good Thing – prevails. I’ve been through this and similar enough times not to be surprised, or particularly bothered, really. I’m certainly not sore because I’m a journalist and I think I’m that important, or owt like that – I’d have had absolutely no problem at all if they’d just said at the outset, “No, sorry, we don’t want to do this, there won’t be time, and we can’t be arsed in general.” It’s the being messed about which is totally unnecessary, and just results in souring everyone on the thing that we’re all here because we care about, which is the exceptional music.
Cheers,
AB"