HYPNOTIZED

-- No.1, 17 November 1984

Paul Bursche waves his gold watch in front of Green and listens to his life story...

Now just close your eyes and listen to the sound of my typewriter keys. You're getting very sleepy...

"Sometimes I ask myself, why are you setting yourself up? Why are you getting yourself into record contracts?

"Nothing exposes you as much as putting your voice onto a record and then selling it to the public for judgement. It's a terribly perverse thing to do, especially for someone as nervous as yourself."

The subject sits back, deep into the leather armchair.

"And I have no answer. I just do it. It's a very strange paradox."

LEEDS

Twenty-eight-year-old Green Gartside takes a slightly more sideways look at pop than most of his peers. Deeply concerned about music he may be, a muso he definitely isn't.

Green is not so much interested in what noises the latest synth can make, more with the history of pop itself. It's this very care and attention that first led Green into music whilst a disillusioned art student in Leeds in 1976.

"I hated college," he recalls. "Everyone just presumed that what they were doing was meaningful and purposeful. They assumed that everyone would just know what their paintings meant -- which was nonsense.

"I started reading. I wanted to find out what there was in an abstract painting that was meaningful.

"There was no point in just painting a black canvas and being all happy and smug with that. You had to know how events had come to pass that such a canvas could become relevant."

So Green read, and when the examinations came round he put in a piece of blank canvas on which he'd written his ideas on abstract art.

He passed, but still couldn't wait to get out. What finally made up his mind was witnessing the energy of the Sex Pistols as they blitzed Leeds. Scritti Politti were formed soon afterwards.

WALES

The group in its original form was a hotchpotch of musical styles and political stances. Scritti were regarded as the archetypal Rough Trade band, a company renowned for its proliferation of eccentric acts.

"We just sat around for most of the time," says Green. "Rough Trade didn't try to make us do anything. We just read and got sick."

In fact Green had a history of worry-related diseases and then, en route to a Scritti gig one evening he collapsed. He was paralysed and couldn't speak for four hours.

This trauma gave Green the inspiration to finally clear out from the slowly rotting situation he was in. He retreated to his home in Wales and spent a year brooding, reading, "and getting my head together".

He came out fighting in the summer of '82 with the acclaimed LP 'Songs To Remember', which was literally that. An LP full of three-minute, carefully crafted pop songs.

And Green's voice had changed from harsh English to a mid-Atlantic, silken burr.

The Rough Trade bug had emerged a butterfly, ready to fly solo. All he kept from Scritti Politti days was the name.

NEW YORK

A trip to New York brought about the next big change in Green's career. He was amused and excited by the antics of the hip hop brigade. Well, sort of.

"The first time I heard Bambaataa I wan't immediately arrested, he says. "In fact I thought it was a load of shit. But it grew on me, and I wanted to try similar things."

Thus were sown the first seeds for the hip hop diversions of 'Woodbeez', 'Absolute' and now 'Hypnotize' -- three songs which Green regards as the best he's ever written.

He now has a synth and drum machine arrangement in his London flat on which he "tries to see if I just can't make a wickeder rhythm than this month's releases!"

Also imported from New York are the striking Nike tracksuits, now his trademark, which he first saw on the backs of New York's hip hop crews.

He has a honed-down system of work which means he takes care of all his business concerns in London, then flies to New York to record.

"I do like New York," he says, "but I can imagine tiring of it pretty quickly for the simple reason that it's laid out like a grid, and Manhattan's just a place, and Soho's another, and once you've been to all the clubs you've been to all the clubs, and so on.

"I prefer London really. I like the feel and shape of it. You can live in London for a lifetime and still not be totally familiar with it."

LONDON

Ask Green where home is and he'll refer you to his quiet London flat, "decorated like a doctor's waiting room", from which he masterminds his career.

His old sloth-like days are a thing of the past. He now has numerous meetings to contend with, requests for appearances on television -- even modelling assignments for Italian Vogue.

He is exceptionally busy, but sad to admit it has led to sacrifices in his personal life. He has a girlfriend, but puts his work first.

"My work has always been very important to me at a very emotional level," he says. "It's always been much more than a job -- and while it is, relationships will have to take second place.

"Whether that sort of sacrifice has been worth it, I don't know yet. I've had two successful singles, maybe after a third I'll really start to believe in myself.

"I'm not losing sleep anymore, worrying like I used to, but deep down I know that my subconscious is still pretty neurotic."

Another hit single? Say no more.

When I click my fingers, you'll awake.

Click!