Make My Day

I am absolutely mindblown.

Here is the latest product from The Podcast Of Jeff - Episode 1 of a series I call Whatever Happened To...? The band I chose for the premier outing was INTAFERON.

http://jeffhickmott.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-06T10_32_00-07_00

Simon Gillham (L) and Simon Fellowes (R) aka Intaferon.

You may or may not remember them - it really doesn't matter (although if you don't remember them, you missed out big time). What does matter is that I did some extensive research (or so I thought) and put together a show in which I talked about the band's output and what became of them after they broke up in 1985. All of which you can hear about if you listen to the show (link above - hint, hint).

Simon Fellowes is now a novelist and has published two books which are available via his publisher's website at http://www.stratabooks.co.uk/store/ 

It turns out, through reading about Simon F on the Strata Books website, that last year he recorded a new album called Live It All Again. The website included links to the album at https://soundcloud.com/strataentertainment/sets/simon-f-live-it-all-again.

When I went there and listened, I clicked 'like' on one track, which then pinged to my Twitter feed. Strata Books noticed it and sent me a tweet saying had I read a short true story by Simon entitled Woodwork & Psychos on the website about the making of the album? http://www.stratabooks.co.uk/read/woodwork-and-psychos-by-simon-fellowes/

I tweeted back and said yes, I had, and sent them a link to the podcast.

Well.

Simon Fellowes then gets wind of it, and messages Simon Gillham, who as far as I knew had retired from the music world and was now teaching philosophy. 

Simon Gillham then sent me an email. When I saw the name Simon Gillham in my inbox, I was giddy with delight. One half of Intaferon was writing to me!
If you'll indulge me, here are some highlights.

"Simon F told me about your podcast. Nice to hear it. You may be interested to know that I've started making music again too, under the name used to. You can see the video for the latest single Festival of Disappointment at this link. Interestingly, the second verse tells the Intaferon story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcaftXXss7o

It's out in a couple of weeks but available on Spotify now. There was also a single earlier in the year called We Can Deal With The Detail Later. 
Most of the first used to album is finished and when we get round to mixing it we'll put it out. There's a fairly rubbish website at www.usedto.co.uk. 
 And yes, I still teach philosophy at Colchester.

Nice to know there are some actual Intaferon fans out there. I'm still one myself.

Cheers, Simon

PS, if you can post links on your site I'd be grateful."

Well Simon, consider the links posted. I wrote back to gush say how amazing it was to have him write to me, and I am still, several hours later, in awe. How amazing is that?