Street Talk and Jason Tilley, by Ollie Wilson

I first met Jason Tilley in 1987 when he approached me at my desk in the Coventry Evening Telegraph (CET) newsroom where I planned and wrote the thrice-weekly Street Talk pop and fashion column, which I edited from March 1987 to November 1988. At that time I was known as 'Chris Wilson' and worked as a recently qualified senior reporter on the paper's staff. I’d been given the column by the CET’s Editor Geoff Elliott, after I got drunk one night and turned up for 'early calls' the following day some six hours late! Expecting to be fired, I was summoned to see Mr Elliott and felt unable to turn down his kind offer of the Street Talk column. Initially, I was clueless. Although I'd DJ-ed at Hull University and had helped to discover The Housemartins (as the first journalist to review them) while a reporter at the Hull Daily Mail, I had fallen out of love with pop, and knew nothing about fashion, and had my heart set in becoming a Daily Telegraph journalist. Street Talk was to take my career in a very different direction.
The lead story in my first column, 'Fans demand refund over late arrival' wasn't an auspicious start, published on 19 March 1987, detailing the annoyance of people at a Coventry social club when a virtually unknown group appeared on stage an hour-and-a-half late. I desperately wanted to make the Street Talk column less parochial while bringing on the best of the local pop talent. At first it was challenging. I didn't even own a record player but was expected to review the numerous new releases that arrived in cardboard envelopes every day. After a few weeks, I gave up critiquing them on the basis of what I imagined they sounded like - and invested a fiver in a second-hand mono record player, which made life far easier! However, to my great surprise, I found I could get interviews - on the telephone and in person - with pop stars and free review tickets for their national tours. I worked incredibly hard to give Street Talk greater impact, driving all over the place in my Fiat Uno to bring the big names to my pages: Whitney Houston, Madonna, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Lionel Richie, The Beastie Boys, Run DMC among many others. I also tried to talk to all the emerging pop stars, holding their interviews until their records hit the Top 10. It worked a treat! Some months into this metamorphosis of Street Talk, Jason appeared beside my unruly desk, proffering beautiful monochrome prints of a Coventry band called Splash With Sonya, with whom he'd attended secondary school. I recall Jason was fresh-faced, aged 18 and, although still a trainee, naturally brilliant at photography. Up until then, I had been relying on the paper's posse of experienced lensmen, particularly Paul Gilroy with whom I covered the 1987 Glastonbury Festival, taking in Elvis Costello, The Communards and The Proclaimers among other stars. But for much of the time I was working on my own. Jason became my partner in crime, not only taking great photographs at gigs but also giving me the confidence and contacts to provide meaningful coverage of the Coventry music scene. Jason was the missing ingredient that made the column special. We befriended Lynval Golding, star of The Specials and Fun Boy Three, who was then managing a funky Coventry band, After Tonite, who we championed in the column, along with two very different groups, hippies Tubilah Dog, and Jason's friends Splash With Sonya. With these three Coventry bands and Jason's help, I eventually promoted the very successful ‘Cov Against Apartheid’ fundraising gig at the General Wolfe pub, on 19 August 1988 - in my view, Street Talk's greatest achievement. Above all, working with Jason was fun. Before he came on the scene, I'd occasionally attended gigs with then CET trainee reporter Jeremy Vine, who went on to national television and radio stardom. But it was Jason who shared my insatiable appetite for going out to see bands, regardless of the distances or difficulties. Alongside Jason, I got drunk with The Pogues, in their dressing room after a gig, and I recall, later that night, helping out one of the band who I found lying in a heap in the car park! Jason and I interviewed and photographed Godfather of Soul, James Brown, shortly before he went to prison. And together we pursued Coventry popsters The Primitives, after they hit the charts. Superstar Prince (whose security men chased Jason), Donny Osmond, All About Eve, George Benson and Napalm Death were among our many triumphs. After gigs, we'd return to the newsroom in the small hours. I'd bash out my review and then join Jason in the darkroom, where he showed me how he printed the spectacular images he'd taken that night. Jason was a perfectionist. We'd be surrounded by piles of discarded '10 by 8' prints before Jason was finally satisfied, going home for a few hours of sleep before returning to work. Of course, words made up the majority of Street Talk: the interviews, exclusive stories, reviews, comment pieces. I broke the story of The Housemartins splitting up and bassist Norman Cook's move into DJ-ing (as Fat Boy Slim), covered Michael Jackson's London concerts of 1988, and backed the Acid House craze. But without my friend, companion and photographer Jason, the Street Talk column would have been different. I left the paper in November 1988 to help run the Daily Star's pop column. Jason stayed and worked with my Street Talk successor Alastair Law, taking more of the iconic pictures you'll see in this book. As I write this, in May 2024, I've stepped back from the media to start a new career as an actor. And once again I feel the raw excitement of pushing yourself to do something daring and new that I felt in a bygone era when I was worked with Jason on the Street Talk column.