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The Nik Turner Interviews
After a few wrong turns into some very muddy farmyards we arrive at The Cadillac Ranch with the car looking like it's been through the Paris-Dakaar Rally, and arrived last. The Ranch nestles amongst the rolling, lush hills of South Wales, one of my favorite places on this planet. An excavator is disembowling itself in a vain attempt to extract the rusting hulk of a motorcar out of the earth from where it seems to have rested since the Romans trod this land. Over the brow of the hill comes a ball of sapling branches, twigs and wood, but it doesn't roll down like a snowball. It has wheels and people inside it, turning a steering wheel, making it move. It is in fact a van full of, and covered in, materials to build a "bender", a traditional dwelling whose design dates back to the days of the ancient Britons. A festival is planned for the weekend, preparations have begun. The excavator falls silent to reveal the sound of children's voices tinkling over the rustling of the river down in the valley. They're looking for raspberries, faeries and mushrooms. "Where's Nik?" I ask. "He's doing the bin-run to the recycling centre... $id will take care of you... there he is..."
"... I thought you were Moose!", says I, astonished.
"That's what everyone says at first"... "Moose is uglier." he adds.
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"The Cadillac Ranch is named in honour of a place Nik stayed at for a while when he was on tour in the States once..." explains $id, "... it belonged to a famous millionaire. Everything was so huge... he had things like a giant pool table that covered acres of his land, bloody thing was so big you could only see it from his private jet as you came in to land, you had to play pool in jeeps, no cues... balls as big as bloody houses!""The millionaire?"
"No, the pool table." $id's face cracks into a wide grin as he continues, "... the ranch was so huge you could drive all day in a straight line and still not leave the estate."
"Yeah, I once had an old car like that too...!"
"Nik gave everybody there scabies!", chuckles $id proudly.
(What can you say to that ?)
"So you take care of Nik's business interests, $id?"
"Quite right!", I get back from him, serious now, this is what he's paid for after all. "Nik has a CD on sale right now in America and we're hoping to organise another tour there. I've got a video production company, a management company, a festival promotions company and several others to take care of too, I dunno how Nik ever managed without me, it's a lot of work keeping it all together. Here's Nik now, I've got to rush to call New York before the market closes. Give me a call if you find an interesting gig for us in Spain huh?...I'll be sueing you!"
"Don't you mean I'll be seeing you?" I ask nervously.
"Just make sure those photos are good, OK?!"
click on Nik's sax to navigate forward to...
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