HAIRY HI-FI: What were the first shows you went to see? Rock’n’roll shows?

MOE: I never really went to rock’n’roll shows, I saw Bo Diddley of course, he was playing about forty miles away, I had to go. That was about ‘63. I’ve seen the Stones, I went through all that bullshit to see the Stones, and I saw the Beatles but I don’t go to concerts, it’s too much trouble and it never sounds good. Oh, I saw Chuck Berry once and was really disappointed with his attitude and his music. He had a pick-up band. It was too “fuck you” is what it was, he had to get his hundred bucks or whatever. I don’t blame him, he’s been ripped off for I don’t know how long, but Bo has been ripped off too and he’s the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet, he’s as nice as he he can be. Chuck is just a little too much, it was very disappointing because I love his music, it was like “Oh shit!”.

Today I had a great experience. I was walking through Camden and there were all these people with tapes and every one of them had these Velvet tapes that I had to have. I couldn’t afford to buy them all of course and I was saying “God, I wish I could get some of these things” and the guy who was with me, our driver, who’s English, he said “You have the right to walk up and tell ‘em you want them.”

HAIRY HI-FI: Yeah, of course.

MOE: “..No really, ‘cause you’re in the group.” So I said well maybe I’ll try it, and I’m not into that stuff so I’m really surprised I did it. I went up to one and he had two different tapes, I didn’t take all his tapes, I just wanted a copy of each for myself, so I said “My name (ha) my name is Moe Tucker and I’m in this group and I want these tapes” and he said “Okay.” It was as simple as that, I was amazed! So I wound up with six tapes, ones I’d never heard.

HAIRY HI-FI: What was there? Cleveland? Boston Tea Party?

MOE: Yeah, and one that said ‘Berlin Radio’, John, Lou and Nico playing Paris, and some Philadelphia stuff. It’s really interesting.

HAIRY HI-FI: One of those Cleveland tapes [La Cave, October 4th 1968] has got some fantastic stuff on it, the guitars are really dirty and there’s a great version of ‘Jesus’ that’s about twice as long as the record.

MOE: Really, well this is going to be fun! One guy too, he had records and we looked through the V section and he had one called ‘Sweet Sister Ray’ which has four ‘Sister Ray’’s on. And someone had just told me about it yesterday, they said they’d seen it but couldn’t afford it, and I said I couldn’t either, he said it was £18! One of the guys found it and said “Oh, here it is Moe”, so I said to the guy “This is...”, “Okay!”, then he said “D’ya want a bag?”. Ha ha, it was great!

HAIRY HI-FI: I was amazed when I was in New York by all the Beatles bootlegs, stacks and stacks of them.

MOE: Well Lou told me about three or four months ago, we were talking about bootlegs I guess, he said he gave up long ago, when he comes over here, trying to purchase all these bootlegs. It’s just nice to have them for all the different covers and stuff, but long ago he gave up on this so I’m going to have to tell him “Lou, all you have to do is walk up and say give me it and they give it to you”, ha! Of course, people bring records for me to sign and I must have seen fifteen that I’d never seen before and I’d like to have that stuff.

HAIRY HI-FI: Your new LP, ‘Life In Exile After Abdication’, it’s the first time you’ve written your own songs...

MOE: Yeah.

HAIRY HI-FI: Was it fun, did it come easy to you?

MOE: Well, these five songs did come easy to me, I was trying to decide how come, all of a sudden, I was able to write five songs. The thing that always stopped me before was thinking “Well what the hell am I going to write about? I don’t know what to write about.” Which sounds ridiculous but... When Andy died I was watching the news and it just came on, it was like “Oh, that’s a drag, blah, blah, blah”, and a couple of days later I wrote the first couple of lines and then I thought “maybe I can make a song out of this?” And that worked well. Two of my songs are about working and not getting enough to earn a living and that comes from... experience. So I decided maybe I have to have something I’m really pissed off about to write a song.

HAIRY HI-FI: Judging from ‘Hey Mersh’ you love shopping though.

MOE: Oh yes, and boy was it fun shopping for free. Ha ha ha... Those songs really worked out okay and when Lou gave his seal of approval I figured they were alright.

HAIRY HI-FI: What about other members of the Velvets, do you keep in touch with Sterling at all?

MOE: Yep.

HAIRY HI-FI: Is he still teaching English?

MOE: No, he’s getting his Mariner’s license, he’s going to be a tugboat captain! His wife is my best friend and has been for twenty five years and Stirling, I’ve known Sterling since I was twelve, so we’ve always kept in very close touch.

HAIRY HI-FI: He’s no intention of picking up a guitar again?

MOE: Well, that’s what he keeps saying. I think he’s crazy but... he finds my little escapades very, um, amazing. When we were first going to do this little one week tour that I was telling you about, he says “well what are you going to do, how are you going to do that?”, “Well I’ll sing some songs, what’s the big deal?”

HAIRY HI-FI: It’s a real shame...

MOE: It’s a terrible shame, he’s a great guitar player I love his guitar playing. I had invited him to play on the album we just did, oh, a year before we did it. I just knew I’d be recording sometime so I asked him once on the ‘phone “next time I record would you like to come up and do something?”, “Well, I don’t know, what if I don’t like it?”, “Well if you don’t like it we won’t put it on.”, “What are you going to record?”, “Oh never mind Stirling, forget it.”