Damien Page And I never listened any rockabilly either. After I read your review I remember saying to my girlfriend of the time 'who the f**k are the Stray Cats???' I get it now of course!
Magic Moments At Twilight Time Really? That is a huge surprise, so who WERE your big influences then? Oh, and you can hear why I thought of you for the "Lights Turn Blue" solo, can't you?
Damien Page Megadeth, who were my all time favourite guitar band. Hangar 18 for me is still the greatest metal song of all time. I remember listening to the Mart Friedman solos and just being blown away. Could never play it in a million years but the dream was there. Other than than the rock side, my first musical love was Nina Simone believe it or not. 12 year old kid from Kent listening to Strange Fruit...
Magic Moments At Twilight Time I think Strange Fruit almost describes the world of Magic Moments to perfection! So, next step was dragging you all the way across to London (well, guess the A2 is a reasonably straight and easy journey) to sunny Plumstead and Marc Gordon Hendley Bell's Brain Dead studio. And you asked where I got the picture from, it's right outside his house, taken just after you got out of your car!

Magic Moments At Twilight Time I don't remember the nice young lady's name.
Magic Moments At Twilight Time I struggle with my own sometimes... :)
Damien Page Her name was Julie. She lives in in the north now too, still in touch with her. Ah yes, my first experience of Thamesmead... I saw you mention the beans earlier and I seem to remember being offered them when we arrived. That and someone saying 'if you smell something we've put rat poison down in the basement'. I knew it would be a day to remember
Magic Moments At Twilight Time Oh shit, yes, the rats! Poor Marc, I think it took him ages to get that under control. I don't know about the beans though, I survived a couple of years on them, mind! So let's have a listen to what we got you there to do, "Lights Turn Blue", and I remain convinced you have extra fingers to this very day...

Magic Moments At Twilight Time And here ya go, plucking them strings...

Magic Moments At Twilight Time I remember when you'd finished, Marc and I looked at each other and said, "Yeah, great." You just shook your head and said, "I can do it better." And then you did, that's the second and final take we're listening to.
Damien Page This was the first and only time I'd ever played on someone else's songs. I remember the tape turning up and just listening to get the first riff that was at the beginning and end of the solo. rest was improvised. Tried to keep to the spirit of the track
Magic Moments At Twilight Time Which I think you succeeded in doing brilliantly. I've just got to the little run-off solo you did at the end now.

Magic Moments At Twilight Time Of course, once we had you there and realised how skilful you were at improvisation, it seemed churlish not to try to get more work out of you! Next up was "The Torch" which you added that little improv bit to at the end, recall you just sitting there and doing that off the cuff. We can talk over the track coz time's not doing us any favours here. Is it a lot of practise that allowed you to do things like this?

Damien Page Liked the challenge of playing on these songs. I had one Hawkwind album to use as inspiration!
Magic Moments At Twilight Time That always helps. Do you find you miss music these days?
Damien Page Every now and then. My wife was just listening to the songs with me and she can't believe I don't play any more. I definitely miss the performance side. That first time of playing a new song with a band and it just works and it sounds how you imagined. That I really miss

Magic Moments At Twilight Time So tell us something about the job you do these days as Professor Page (ex rock god), do you actually get to teach et al?
Damien Page I haven't taught for a couple of years now. I supervise doctoral students and still do research but most of my days are spent on spreadsheets, budgets and committees. Far cry from rock god... I like to think I still bring a bit of the attitude to senior management though...
Magic Moments At Twilight Time That's never any bad thing! So what about the future, has anything we've talked about today made you think about picking up your guitar again?
Damien Page You never know! I don't even have calluses on my fingers any more so I'd need to build up slowly. Perhaps something more sedate than busy now. I still get the odd riff in my head that I want to play. Not sure I could face the pub circuit again though. The drinking, yes, but not the grind
Magic Moments At Twilight Time That's something I shall look forward to the possibility of. Well, our hour is just about up, so I am going to say many thanks for talking to us this evening, been a real joy listening to Hecate's Dreams again, and may I wish you both every success and happiness with wherever the future may take you. I'm going to play out with the last track you did for us, "Rock & Roll Lifestyle". Ladies and gentlemen, the lead guitar of Professor Damien Page...

Damien Page Ah, nice way to finish - that was a fun song to play on. It's been an absolute pleasure Mick, great to see the revival! Take care

FREE DOWNLOAD:

Hecate's Dreams - "Rape Of The Fly" (M&E 256, 1994), 40 minutes of finger blistering joy, just click on the image...

Magic Moments At Twilight Time And thus ends another marathon from me, though I got off at only 6 hours this week, half an hour light from last! I'm off to spend a couple of days remembering myself to my wife and child, enjoy the Bank Holiday, hope to see you all back here in the coming days. Thank you and goodnight!