Paul Bower

Manager, promoter and musician

NAO IN-DEPTH Interview

LONDON BASED manager, promoter, musician and more https://youtu.be/SJNfjMW3_JU

Topic: the music business

After being booted out of High Storrs Grammar in 1973 for laziness Paul joined the ground-breaking Youth Arts workshop Meatwhistle where he took up guitar duties with proto punk anti-group Musical Vomit.

They were joined on stage by 16 year olds Ian Reddington later of Eastenders and Coronation Street on percussion & posing and Glenn Gregory on 3 string bass (they could not afford to replace the missing string) later of Heaven 17 and backing vocalist to Tina Turner. Musical Vomit split in 1974 after their 6th gig at Bath Arts Festival where they were canned off stage by hippies shouting ‘Play some music man!’ Of course that was the point. They couldn’t . A young Poly Styrene of X-Ray Specs was in the audience and later described them as ‘ the first punk band I ever saw’. The one gig Musical Vomit splinter group ‘Underpants’ featured Martyn Ware on stylophone with Paul on guitar playing his first composition, “Wimpy Bar Magnet’. 10 years later Martyn produced Tina Turner’s classic comeback multi-platinum hit ‘Let’s Stay Together’. Amazingly, they are still close friends.

In 1976 Paul went on to found punk fanzine magazine – one of the first outside London – with conceptual artist and ex Meatwhistler Adi Newton who later went on to cult fame with his band Clock DVA. The magazine was distributed by Rough Trade and reached Japan and the USA . IIssue 4 contained the first interview with Cabaret Voltraire. He went on to form new wave agit pop punk trio 2.3 who released double A side Where to Now?/All Time Low on indy label Fast Product. Paul took a cassette demo of early Human League (Paul had been on the mixing desk at the League’s first gig at Sheffield Art College) tracks to label boss Bob Last who then signed them and released the iconic Being Boiled/ Circus of Death single 3 months later.

2.3 split in December 1979 and whilst getting a degree in Spanish at Sheffield University he managed Sheffield soul outfit Floy Joy and secured them the production talents of Don Was (later Oscars musical director) Don Was by waiting for 9 hours outside the offices of Geffen Records in Manhattan until A&R would speak to him.

After leaving university Paul was the co-ordinator of Red Wedge the Labour Party music campaign led by Paul Weller and Billy Bragg and then moved on to manage Sheffield legends ABC for their comeback single ‘When Smokey Sings’ and their 4th album Alphabet City. His management career came to an abrupt end in an all night drinking session with a Dutch karate instructor

Paul now works as the Business Development Manager of the British Ecological Society the world’s oldest community of academic ecologists. Divorced with two adult children he lives in Camden Town with his collection of hilarious anecdotes.

He regularly plays on the London open mic scene. His most popular self-penned song is ‘You Won’t Miss Me When I’m Gone’ about his impending death.