Jon Spira is recently well known around Oxford – and, indeed, beyond – for his Herculean efforts pulling together the documentary feature film Anyone Can Play Guitar, covering the rich history of music in Oxford, over the past few years. Its tagline ‘The Story of the Oxford Music Scene’ pretty much sums it up. The film is nearing completion, and should be hitting the silver screen/TV screen/mobile phone screen/whatever-you-watch-movies-on-screen in 2011.
Jon will also be familiar to Oxford folks as the immensely film-literate (and genial) chap behind the dearly-missed Videosyncratic video shops, as well as a regular punter at no small number of Oxford bands’ gigs, both now and in the past. He put aside some time in his hectic schedule to answer some questions for us, about the film and more.
MIO: Where are things at with the film right now – in terms of finishing it off, releasing, plans for DVDs etc?
JS: Right now, I’d say the film itself is about 2 weeks away from being completely, totally finished. I’ve been tinkering with it a little bit to get it better, we have a final day on the sound mix to complete and then it goes to the colourist who will spend a few days getting it looking beautiful. The film will be fully locked by Xmas. We’re currently identifying and negotiating all of the music and footage clearances. Again, that should be done by Xmas, then we just need to raise the money to pay them. I think people will start seeing the film in February. That is hopefully when we’ll have the Oxford premiere and send out the limited edition DVDs to everyone who donated on indiegogo.com. I’m going to spend January selling the film – hopefully getting a UK TV broadcast and small cinema run. The film already has a deal in the US and will appear on Itunes and DVD there. I still haven’t decided what’s going to happen with the UK DVD release. I’m considering doing it myself. The quickest way of seeing it is to go to indiegogo.com and donating to secure a DVD or tickets to the premiere.
MIO: Besides yourself who else has been involved in getting the film to where it is?
JS: Well, the main single person who deserves a huge amount of credit is my best mate Ben Lavington-Martin. Ben and I went to film school together and when I announced that I was going to make a feature documentary with no budget whatsoever, he was the only one who didn’t tell me I was an idiot. He thought it but he didn’t tell me and he has done exactly what best mates do – mucked in and spurred me on. He’s a brilliant cameraman and editor and he’s co-ordinated the post-production. On a technical level, he’s got the film through every stage of production. Without his council and support, I doubt I’d have got this far. Then my executive producers – Hank Starrs, who’s a real fixer – he gets things done and has been there at every crisis, smoothing the way. Giles Borg – a brilliant film-maker, who not only gave me all the footage he shot of Oxford bands through the 90’s but sat down with me and watched every cut of the film and helped me shape it. He was kind of my mentor. Gary Shenton from OFVM, who gave me free camera and lighting rental and was enthusiastic and encouraging from day one. Ronan Munro – the editor of Nightshift magazine. I couldn’t have done it without his support. His name opened a lot of doors. People who wouldn’t have talked to me did because Ronan backed the project and stuck up for me. John Twycross, who along with Ben and myself edited the film had a huge creative input and was the person who kicked it into shape. He was the one who helped me get it down from four hours to an hour and a half. Drew Brammer is right now a huge source of help, helping work through the clearances and getting the press on board. I’ve been lucky the whole way along from having support from a bunch of really good people who believed in the film. But everyone has been really supportive. Although technically very few people worked on this film, the thank yous in the end credits are huge because it was the support locally that got it made.
MIO: What’s your background and how does it relate to films, music and Oxford?
JS: I’m an Oxford boy – Cheney School! I went to gigs a bit in the early nineties but wasn’t particularly aware of the music community. I went to film school in Scotland in ’95 and grew to love the Oxford scene from a distance after my sister sent me the OXCD. I’d spend most of my uni holidays at gigs. That whole mid-90’s scene was my era – Shifty Disco, Dustball, Beaker, ATL, Thurman, Beaker, of course The Candyskins – those were the bands I loved. I stayed in Scotland for a while and moved back to Oxford in late 2001. I was friends with Dustball so got into the scene really through them initially. I filmed a lot of gigs, made a bunch of music videos for local bands and when I opened my first video shop – Videosyncratic in 2002, basically employed most of the wastrels from the scene. At the point I decided to make the film in 2007, I’d say I was the main film guy on the scene.
MIO: Who gave the best interviews for the film? What about the worst?
JS: Haha. Every interview was different and every interview was awesome and illuminating. Obviously interviewing members of Radiohead was great because I knew that the things they said would carry a lot of weight with the audience and to tell this story properly it depended on them participating in that way. The film has a Radiohead section but it isn’t about any one band, so for me having Radiohead talking about The Candyskins was probably the most thrilling part. I mean, when one of the biggest and most respected bands in the world talks passionately about a band who never got success, you know that the audience is going to really engage with it. Likewise, hearing Gaz from Supergrass talking about The Nubiles and Yannis from Foals talking about Dustball/Dive Dive. There really were no bad interviews. There are well over 100 hours of interview footage and it breaks my heart to trim that down to 90 minutes. The DVD will be packed full of extra stuff.
MIO: How much research did you need to do – or was it all from personal experience and memory?
JS: A lot of research! Even the stuff I thought I knew going in, it turned out I only had a tiny amount of knowledge. I started by spending a lot of time talking, and emailing, with Ronan – who has the best general knowledge of the whole thing. Then he sent me to meet Richard (Godfather of Oxford music) Ramage and the legendary Tim Turan, who has mastered tracks by or played in every band in Oxford’s history. They filled me in on the 80’s and early 90’s. Then Sam Williams (lead singer of The Mystics/Supergrass producer), who had been a customer at Videosyncratic and Chloe Horner, who I knew socially and had worked behind the scenes in Oxford music for years both spent hours with me getting me through the mid to late 90’s. Chats with Nigel Powell helped a lot too. Then I sat down and read every issue of Local Support, Curfew and Nightshift. The rest I kind of knew and pieced together as it went along. The way I conducted the interviews wasn’t normal – they were long interviews – generally at least 2 hours long, so the gaps of knowledge all got filled along the way.
MIO: How did you get access to some of the ‘bigger names’ that are in the film?
JS: I was only ever one person away from anyone. So, although I held off from approaching Radiohead and Supergrass initially, by the time I was ready to they knew all about the project and had been expecting the call. Sam Williams told Gaz to do it and Gaz shares management with Radiohead and put in a good word. Executive producer Gary was friends with Mark Gardener and got him to agree to do the intevriew the day I first announced I wanted to make the film. Mark obviously put in a good word with Andy Bell. Yannis used to come into Videosyncratic all the time so he was up for doing an interview anyway. It was very organic and I think everyone wanted to be a part of it because they were proud of the scene and liked the idea of being able to big up the bands they had been friends with. The only band to decline were The Young Knives but I guess they were pretty busy at that time. At one point they offered me a last-minute 20 minute interview but it wasn’t enough and wasn’t possible.
MIO: Is it frustrating that by the time the film is released, there will doubtless be even more bands that you’d like to have featured?
JS: The frustrating thing is more that it took so long to finish. The film was always supposed to end with the closing of The Zodiac. Had I had a budget, the film would have been finished and released in 2008. Putting the newer bands in wouldn’t have added anything to the story. I mean, the film is a story, not a chronology. Although the scene carries on, the film’s story finishes when The Zodiac got bulldozed.
MIO: What is it about Oxford and its music that inspired you to make this film?
JS: Well, it’s not Oxford. I don’t think the town itself really has that much effect on the scene. It’s the community. This is the work of a handful of people – Ronan, Dave Newton, Mac, Nick Moorbath and the people around them who set about creating this infrastructure. It’s unlike anything else in the world. Oxford music has never been defined by genre or a specific period in time. It’s always changing and always good, that’s because of the mix of inspiration, competition and support. It’s truly unique. The catalyst for making the film was the Zodiac being bought by the Academy Music Group. I knew everyone was going to be in a reflective mood that summer when it closed for refurbishment and corporatisation. It was the right moment to make the film.
MIO: Now that you have context of Oxford’s musical heritage, how do you think the current local music scene stands up?
JS: I think it’s as good as it’s ever been. Foals have become the elder statesmen, we’ve got Little Fish, Stornoway and A Silent Film out there in the world now, Dive Dive have just been signed and this Blessing Force thing seems to be gaining momentum. The bands all still socialise and support each other, Nightshift still holds it all together like glue. On any night of the week you can still see a great gig and meet some good people and that’s pretty fucking ace.
MIO: What do you have lined up after this film is done and dusted?
JS: Well, in the period this film has taken to make, film-making has suddenly become very affordable so I want to try to make a micro-budget non-documentary feature film next. I’m writing that at the moment and plan to shoot myself, with no crew sometime in the new year. Once that’s done, I hope to make another documentary, this time about alternative comedy.