Portsmouth cult act Renaldo and The Loaf have career-spanning documentary 23rd Century Giants screened at No.6 Cinema | Interview

And now they are the subjects of a feature-length documentary, 23rd Century Giants, taking in the twists and turns of their career – from their early days as a pair of students bonding over a love of Marc Bolan’s band Tyrannosaurus Rex, to their early attempts at music-making, to their time on the influential American record label Ralph, their friendship with fellow travellers The Residents, and their one and only proper live show in 2018.

Through their use of unconventional instrumentation and tape-loops the avant-garde duo built an international following over the course of five albums, before going their separate ways in 1987. They have since reunited and released 2016’s Gurdy Hurding album.

The documentary is now going to have a one-off outing on the big screen in their hometown at No.6 Cinema.

Brian ‘Renaldo Malpractice’ still lives in Portsmouth, while David ‘Ted The Loaf’ Janssen now lives in central Wales.

American film-maker Alex Wroten has known the pair since he was a high school student back in 2007 when he tracked them down and invited them to contribute some music to a film project.

Brian says: ‘He did an interview with us remotely which he made a YouTube film of, probably about 2010, and he'd been speaking with us on and off ever since. He'd been interested in doing a more professional version of it, and his original intention had been to do a 20 minute short, take it around some film festivals, that kind of thing.’

Dave adds: ‘We got an email from him in 2019 to say him and his wife [the documentary’s producer and co-editor Lindsay Wolfe-Wroten] were coming to Britain to record some interviews for another documentary they were doing about an American singer, Shawn Phillips, and they said: “While we're there, can we interview you and Brian?”

‘Somehow, from 20 minutes it grew to 80.’

‘They were only in Portsmouth for two nights,’ recalls Brian, ‘they stayed at my house, and David came down to Portsmouth. We arranged to gather certain friends together at The Coastguard Studio to be interviewed, it was all very condensed.

‘When they came to edit it and give it a story arc, they found they had so much material, not just from what we had said, but also from what friends had added to it.’

Alex was also able to interview key figures from Ralph Records back in America. Brian adds: ‘The people he got to talk about us was surprising!

‘There's one guy, Jay Clem, he's like the business manager of Ralph Records, and it was he who came over, saw us and did the contract with us.

‘He's never really allowed himself to be interviewed before. He actually filmed himself, so he was able to keep control over it. There were certain things between him and Ralph which didn't end in a nice way, so there's a sensitivity there, but since the discussion was about us and our records with Ralph, he was happy to do it.’

‘They had so much material, when they started putting it together as a story it got longer and longer.

‘Then we were able to delve into our archive and send them over as much visual material as we had, and Alex could then use that to sprinkle through it to illustrate the story they wanted to tell.’

When Renaldo and The Loaf initially went their separate ways, they fell completely out of touch for many years. Brian worked as an architect, while David had a career as a bio-medical scientist.

When they were reunited in the noughties they began to work sporadically on new music, ultimately leading to 2016’s Gurdy Hurding album, their first since 1987’s The Elbow is Taboo.

Since they were now living in different parts of the country, their working method was somewhat different to first time around.

David says: ‘I don't think we set out to record an album. I think I sent Brian something and said that I thought it could be a song. It gradually snowballed. Brian was on a visit here one time and he said: “Do you realise we've now got about 30 minutes worth of music? That's almost an album...”

Brian adds: ‘It was very organic – it sort of happened progressively, from a sketch, to a song, then we had another one. We just had things bubbling away in the background.’

‘By that time we were heavily into the Klanggalerie reissue series, during that time we created some new remixes and reimaginings of some old pieces, which were fun and gave us direction.’

Austrian record label Klanggalerie repackaged and reissued all of the duo’s early works with bonus material. Label head Walter Robotka is a big fan.

‘Then we played Walter those 30 minutes we had, he was very enthusiastic, and that spurred us on to finish the album.’

‘Up until then it was very much like the early days,’ says David. ‘We were working in a bubble again – we hadn't played it to anyone, we didn't know if anyone would like it or not and Walter said it's definitely Renaldo and The Loaf, but it's 20 years later, it's moved on, and he'd be interested in releasing it.’

When it came to putting the reissues together, the two were able to tap into a well of previously unreleased material.

David says: ‘One thing that surprised me about doing the rereleases was that they all came out as a double CD – I had no idea there was so much other material we hadn't used.’

‘In the ’80s when we were recording, we'd invariably be recording it in Dave's house,’ recalls Brian, ‘so I would have a cassette copy of whatever we'd done that day to listen to it.

‘I built up these 20-odd cassettes of works in progress and things we chose not to use, and then sort of forgot about them.

‘We went back to them, digitised them, and went: “Actually that's not that bad!” and ,”That sort of works”, so we were able to create second albums which our fans found really interesting.’

Their association with Klanggalerie led to Renaldo and The Loaf’s sole proper live show. They were invited to perform at the label’s 25th anniversary shows in Vienna in June 2018.

‘It was a lot of hard work,’ says Dave, 'it took six months to put it all together.

‘We were very fortunate to have the help of [artist] Poxodd in America and Jez Stephens who put all the videos together – there was a video for every song. But the actual performance was great – I can remember when we did the thing back in 1980 we were very nervous about the whole thing.

‘This, though, we weren't. We got up there and enjoyed it and the audience were just fantastic.’

The only other time Renaldo and The Loaf had been on stage was to play an improvised piece for the launch of the Portsmouth bands compilation South Specific.

Brian adds with a laugh: ‘I’ve got to admit, I'd only ever sung it all the way through once before without making a mistake, and I'd never sung before for 45-50 minutes. The only time I'd sung before was for a recording.

‘I was nervous, I was thinking: “I hope I don't blow it.”

‘The audience were already on our side though, and a lot of people had travelled from around the world, Canada, the US, other places in Europe – which was amazing. The adrenaline kicks in and it was all a blur.’

A live album of the show, Long time Coming, was released soon after.

Dave jokes: ‘I think we should be in the Guinness Book of Records for being the band which has released a live album after the fewest number of performances.’

While there have been offers of other live work, Brian admits that ‘the moment has probably passed.’

They are, however, still working on new music, but as Brian explains: ‘We’ve been working on things separately. We've been cross-fertilising. It's getting there, but slowly.

‘Dave has given me various sketches and ideas to work on. I must admit, I get distracted by other projects!’

23rd Century Giants is being screened at No.6 Cinema, Historic Dockyard on Friday, April 1, 7pm. Go to no6cinema.co.uk. Roy Hanney will be VJing in the bar beforehand.

The film is also available to buy on DVD and Blu-Ray with deleted scenes, extended interviews and other bonus material, and to rent through Amazon Prime.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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