A truly wonderful account Richard, I recall he was known as Simon van Dyne in early telegram days as well..also being dragged round every record shop in brum because he was looking for a particular Helen Shapiro vinyl, going to the 'Opposite Lock' club in gas street the day 'hand in glove ' by the Smiths came out, and arguing over which Cocteaus album was the best in the Harborne Stores pub, he also played guitar on a song called 'the room" when we played Aston University in my band Sigma. Cheers!
This moved me to tears. Thank you so much for summing up Simon in this beautiful piece and the times he influenced with his unique personality and worldview. We were good friends in the early days of Dog Food, as my brother Jim played with them.
That’s a beautiful memory. I knew very little about Dog Food, except when I started working at Birmingham Polytechnic in 1990, I worked with a guy naned Tony Parris, who with his wife formed two-thirds of The Kittenbirds, and often played gigs with Dog Food. Tony slipped me a cassette called “The Live Dog Food”, which I played to death. Somewhere along the way, that cassette disappeared, but Simon’s songs still rattle around my head to this day. He was a wonder, and It was sad news when he passed. Did any CDs or buyable downloads ever appear? I’ve searched many times and never found anything, apart from a few precious YouTube clips.
There are CDs and downloads - doubt we'd bother charging these days though. It was never really a money thing.
The SoundCloud linked in the article has a bit, but DM me and (if I can figure out SubStack DMs) I'll see if I have CD duplicates of anything or figure a way to transfer digital copies.
A truly wonderful account Richard, I recall he was known as Simon van Dyne in early telegram days as well..also being dragged round every record shop in brum because he was looking for a particular Helen Shapiro vinyl, going to the 'Opposite Lock' club in gas street the day 'hand in glove ' by the Smiths came out, and arguing over which Cocteaus album was the best in the Harborne Stores pub, he also played guitar on a song called 'the room" when we played Aston University in my band Sigma. Cheers!
This moved me to tears. Thank you so much for summing up Simon in this beautiful piece and the times he influenced with his unique personality and worldview. We were good friends in the early days of Dog Food, as my brother Jim played with them.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful...much like Mr Simon himself. Bravo xx
Excellent piece!
That’s brilliant. Thanks for writing this.
That’s a beautiful memory. I knew very little about Dog Food, except when I started working at Birmingham Polytechnic in 1990, I worked with a guy naned Tony Parris, who with his wife formed two-thirds of The Kittenbirds, and often played gigs with Dog Food. Tony slipped me a cassette called “The Live Dog Food”, which I played to death. Somewhere along the way, that cassette disappeared, but Simon’s songs still rattle around my head to this day. He was a wonder, and It was sad news when he passed. Did any CDs or buyable downloads ever appear? I’ve searched many times and never found anything, apart from a few precious YouTube clips.
There are CDs and downloads - doubt we'd bother charging these days though. It was never really a money thing.
The SoundCloud linked in the article has a bit, but DM me and (if I can figure out SubStack DMs) I'll see if I have CD duplicates of anything or figure a way to transfer digital copies.