As promised, here’s the interview with Alexander G Muertos that really should’ve accompanied the session posted below. Drums please…

It was only on walking into a crèche that I realised I was in the wrong place all together. Though at the time I’d yet to meet Alexander G Muertos in the flesh, I knew the following to be true: he was a man in his twenties, with a liberal daubing of jailhouse tats and more than likely he would be behind or around a guitar. The middle aged woman who opened the door matched none of these descriptions, so with more than a couple of ‘beg yer pardons’ I made good with my legs and disappeared double pronto. A quick phone call confirmed that I was in the wrong part of West London altogether, and should actually be in Westbourne Grove. Thirty-five minutes later I was.

Shortly after introducing myself I was presented with a steaming brew of a strong brown temperament, the kind you only find in recording studios and building sites. I wolfed it down like the asbestos throated guzzler I am and got on with the business of interviewing Mr Muertos, who although cheerful (a trademark characteristic I l was soon to learn) was reasonably bleary in the eye department

‘Thanks to a rowdy flatmate, I didn’t get much sleep last night. She piled back with a load of mates at god knows what time, so I’ve spent the morning sleeping on that sofa over there. I’m normally bright as a button, but today’s been a bit of a struggle’ As that may be, everyone else in the studio seemed full of beans: the unmistakable whiff of enthusiasm hung heavy in the air like fairground candyfloss and as they listened through playbacks it soon became apparent why.
‘They’re a really great bunch,’ said Al of the team he’d been working with for the previous couple of months, ‘completely down to earth, what you see is what you get y’know? I’ve never written with other people or worked this intensely with other people, so I was concerned at first, ‘cus I’m a right miserable bastard!’ The size of the laugh that followed made me suspect otherwise.

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Good Night Irene

“There’s 12 bars in Ragtime, and I’ve drunk in every one of ‘em”

Alexander G Muertos is a good lad. He smokes fags like they’re going out of fashion and plays Blues like he’s bringing it back in. Emerging through the acoustic circuit, the native South Londoner is in the process of recording his debut album, and has been good enough to let us drop by on more than a couple of occasions and shove a camera up his hooter.

Listen through the finished material and you’ll hear influences that range from Stax to Studio One but nothing beats a man on his J’s with a flat cap and a six string, so we talked him in to a quick rendition of an old Leadbelly favourite.

There was an interview as well, but somewhere along the line the microphone must’ve got mixed up with a Mars Bar because, try as we might, we just can’t find the audio! Once my lip reading is up to scratch I’ll transcribe it in it’s entirety. Until then… like the man says:

Enough talking, let’s Yentz already!