Opium Flower

In late 2002 John Peel played 'Opium Flower' by Cass McCombs A LOT. I remember a couple of repeat plays near midnight as i lay in bed in the dark recording it on cassette.

The name of who was doing the song i didn't get, it sounded good, Kassma Cooms? Cazz Mac Ooms? I imagined it was a band of Velvets obsessed waistrels, maybe in a garage in Glasgow...or a basement in New York...that was what i loved about listening to radio late at night then, he'd play something totally unheard and all you got was a name & the song, who these people might be and all the rest of it was up to you to imagine.

Then i bought the E.P. 'Not The Way' by, as it turned out, Cass McCombs. And it was fine. I wrote a fanzine back then and wanted to interview him. After being in regular contact with a chap called Brian Pork-Leg at Monitor Records it didn't happen because Cass was working in a New York Deli 12 hours a day and was real hard to get in touch with. Cooooooooooool.

I used to play my cassette recording off Peel as I drove 6 hours a day up & down the M1 delivering photographs & picking up films from odd middle aged men in knitted jumpers, singing this most of the day. This & 'I Could Drive Forever' by Smog. I never made in-roads to contacting Smog though, i couldn't think what to ask.

'Opium Flower'-Cass McCombs (From the 'NOT THE WAY' e.p. ,Monitor Records, 2002)



'I Could Drive Forever'-Smog (From 'Knock, Knock', Domino, 1999)