The cult legend that is Mike Westergaard, the creative brain behind TMR's "Ghosts" album...

basis for the tracks. We recorded well over 20 tracks, many more than the final running order of ‘Ghosts’. In fact, ‘Poltergeist’ was our favourite track, but never made the final cut. We worked fast, a track a day, recorded & mixed! Kept it fresh without getting bogged down with studio technology. The result was awesome. It got to a couple of major labels on the back of the ‘Dark-Beat’ scene, but we declined as it was supposed to be fun & not commercial.

MM: There’s another aspect of your life I’d like to touch on a little bit, that being your interest in the UFO phenomenon. We’d talked quite a lot back in the day about your abduction experiences, which you’ll recall from the headline of the New Year ’99 Music & Elsewhere Newsletter, was a subject I treated with great sensitivity and the utmost respect. This is clearly something that had been a big part of your life for many years, your forming the Woolwich UFO Research Group (WUFORG, which ironically sounds like an alien from Doctor Who) with Dave Bowden in 1987. What was it you hoped to achieve by setting up a group like this, how much of that original ambition was realised and is it all still active today?

MB: I’ve been interested in UFO’s/ET’s & the paranormal since I was a young kid. In the 70’s I founded the Eltham UFO Research Group, which went on to be WUFORG. We had many members and held monthly meetings & sky-watches. I went on to work with the Witness Support Group (Alien Abductees) and be the editor of their mag ‘Rapport’ for a few years (before I was too ill to continue in 2007/8 with AML). Until Jonathan Ross hi-jacked the Roswell 50th  Anniversary TV show with ‘The Aliens Are Coming’, I regularly did media work….. I was a consultant for both BBC & ITV. Even made friends with people in the M.o.D like Nick Pope. Both these groups still continue, but without me…… but I do still organise regular sky-watches to places like Rendlesham Forest & Shooters Hill etc….. and give the occasional lecture to UFO groups.

There are strange things in the skies over Plumstead (photo by Marc)...

MM: There was a period in the late 90’s when some very strange things were happening in your life, undoubtedly related; the apparent poltergeist activity of books being thrown violently from Zit’s bed, your oversleeping when your clock jumped two hours forward (if you know Marc, the very notion of him staying in bed a second longer than he has too is seriously weird!), balls of light appearing in your living room, strange dark shadows in the studio and Jane’s contraceptive pills vanishing. Okay, I think everyone can come up with an alternative explanation for that last one ☺, but it all sounds quite unnerving really. At the time, it seemed you were hardly off TV. Okay, maybe Live TV wasn’t the best you could have chosen, I think it was better known for ‘Spanish Archer’ and ‘Topless Darts’, but I hope you at least felt you were getting the message out there. People can point fingers, cite things like temporal lobe dysfunction and autistic spectrum problems, and maybe zine writers shouldn’t really dub your kids Zorg and Galaxina (ahem), but how do you feel about it in yourself? How convinced are you of what happened and have you ever got any closer to a definitive answer as to what it was and why?

MB: These events have happened since I was a young child and continue to this day. A lot of it is well documented in the media (esp: DVD’s & books on the subject). The strangest was a ‘time-slip’ when I was in my early teens….. I vanished overnight while staying with my grand parents near Old Woking. I remember entering an old house on the edge of Westfield Common with some other ‘children’ in strange

MM: “Ghosts” (M&E 337, May ’96) was always my favourite Thamesmead Rollers album, but considering all the others are complete shite (except that track “Armageddon Time”, love the E-Bow and synth FX on that), that’s not really surprising. Bizarrely, it only made no.3 in the M&E charts. Although a track from it found its way on to our United World Underground compilation CD in 2001, to the best of my knowledge, you’ve never gone that dance route again. What did you think of the finished product yourself, and do you think you are ever likely to experiment musically again, or do you simply plan to turn out the same old crap until you die?

MB: Actually I thought ‘Ghosts’ was a great product and quite a creative high point. But it wasn’t something we could really do live and a number of our fans openly expressed concern. At the time we had just been picked up by Candor Records and were snowed under in pre-production for the first album with them. This ended up having a heavier ‘R.E.M’ type feel and sold well. Out of interest ‘Sister Jodi’, the track on the UWU compilation CD of 2001 was re-recorded for a short film sound track and featured at the Cannes Film Festival. Yes I do have plans to experiment like that again, but it would only be available to the Underground Scene. Until that day I plan to keep turning out the same old crap, ‘coz that’s what people like, eh?

MM: Case in point… “Nothing’s Sacred - Live In London” (M&E 474, January ’99). Actually, I’d love to see you guys live one of these days (can that word be applied to Derek?), the album sounded like great fun. It must be great being able to just relax and enjoy yourselves on stage, not worrying about little trivialities like whether or not you’re singing in the right key, tuned your guitar or remembered your plectrum. What was your favourite of all your gigs, are you still playing live currently and what are your future plans for The Thamesmead Rollers, apart from hijacking our M&E Showcases?

SOUNDCHECK:. COVER YOUR EARS, THEY'RE GOING TO START PLAYING!

MB: ‘Nothing’s Sacred’ was actually recorded on Mike Westergaard’s mobile rig over about 5 nights. I think we were the support act on his final tour? Apart from the take of ‘Secrets’, that was recorded live (on an 8-track) the previous year & edited into the album. (We fucked up that song on all the nights for some reason!). Back in those days, there was no Auto-Tune for vocals and the stage monitors were shit. Live, I used 2 Telecasters & they stay pretty much in tune with heavy strings & a light pick (no clip on tuners back then!). If you listen carefully to the take of ‘20 Odd Years’ on that album, I actually broke a string on the solo & carried on anyway.