Jonny Trunk
is In Wild Air
Jonny Trunk is an English writer, broadcaster and DJ as well as the owner and founder of Trunk Records - a British independent record label. Trunk Records which specialises mainly in lost film scores, unreleased TV music, library music, old advertising jingles, art, sexploitation and kitsch releases.
Founded in 1995, Trunk has since gained a cult following as a result of the releases of highly influential material from scores for films such as The Wicker Man, Deep Throat, Kes, The Blood on Satan's Claw and George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead.
Other releases include soundtracks for 1970s UK Television series such as The Tomorrow People, UFO and Vernon Elliott's score for Clangers and Ivor the Engine. As well as film music and jazz, the label has also brought to public attention the lost or unreleased works of electronic pioneers such as Tristram Cary and John Baker, artists such as Bruce Lacey and avant-garde recordings made both by and for children, including the work inspired by radical free thinker and educational pioneer John Paynter.
Founded in 1995, Trunk has since gained a cult following as a result of the releases of highly influential material from scores for films such as The Wicker Man, Deep Throat, Kes, The Blood on Satan's Claw and George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead.
Other releases include soundtracks for 1970s UK Television series such as The Tomorrow People, UFO and Vernon Elliott's score for Clangers and Ivor the Engine. As well as film music and jazz, the label has also brought to public attention the lost or unreleased works of electronic pioneers such as Tristram Cary and John Baker, artists such as Bruce Lacey and avant-garde recordings made both by and for children, including the work inspired by radical free thinker and educational pioneer John Paynter.
Culture
Records
Records. All records, 7”, 10”, 12”, good and bad, old or new, cheap or expensive, music and non-music. I first came to records through my grannie’s hi fi, and a Burt Bacharach LP. I still remember the strange spine tingle I experienced throughout his instrumental version of Do You Know The Way To San Jose. I played that LP again this week and I still get the tingle. I have bought, sold, and collected records now for about 35 years and they have educated and enthralled me everyday. They have given me knowledge beyond my wildest dreams, provided joy, dancing, solace, passion, anger, sadness, and a career. I love the fact you can buy records for next to nothing, and they can provide instant entertainment on many levels. I’ve just moved thousands of my old LPs into a new office and now have a pile of about 1000 that I have to sell. The fact these LPs will be moving into new homes, to new hands, to new ears is exciting for me and them — yes, I think LPs have lives just like toys in Toy Story. They all want to be played with. Records are great. Full of culture. I think records make the world go around.
People
Ludovic Kennedy
I read a lot of harrowing history, biographies and travel writing, always preferring fact instead of fiction. So here I’d probably highlight Ludovic Kennedy. He was a journalist, broadcaster, activist and was married to Moira Shearer — the ballet dancer from The Red Shoes. I love this man because of his passionate writing, often based on miscarriages of justice. Kennedy even helped abolish the death penalty here in the UK. I first came across him reading his astounding 1961 account of 10 Rillington Place, a most extraordinary multiple murder story that unfolded in Notting Hill in the 1950s. For me it’s his effortless style of prose that is anything but effortless – a mass of tireless investigation, detective work, laborious research went into all his amazing books, and the results are moving on so many levels.
Places
Markets
My favourite place is in bed with my wife, but my favourite places are markets. Old markets. Markets selling old stuff. I remember being at old markets from an early age because my father had an antique stall every weekend that we had to stand behind and behave ourselves. A few decades later I worked behind a stall at Portobello Antiques market every Saturday for five years. I visit markets every week. Even if I’m abroad I will sniff out a market, hungry for new old things to see, enjoy, learn about, and probably not buy. Over the last few centuries the world has created amazing, mind-blowing things — be it clothes, artworks, glass, books, kitchen utensils, jigsaws, toys, signs, medical instruments, records, souvenirs, everything! And an old market is where many of them come out and show themselves. You just have to be good at looking. And want to look.
Things
Military Watches
I’ve never been in the army, navy or air force, but the services have always had products that do a job and do it well. During the second world war and for two decades following it, the British MOD commissioned several watches for several different purposes, whether it was for deep sea mine sweeping, navigating accurately at high altitude or simply to aid regular radio broadcasting. The watches had to be pared back, functional, then engraved with store numbers, dates, MOD stamps etc. I’ve watches from 1941 that would have been on pilot’s wrists, watches that have been on covert missions in the late 1960s, and watches that were made to see action but remained unissued. For me they represent history and fascinating design collaborations between master watch makers of Switzerland and men from the ministry. These watches are often strangely charismatic and nostalgic, but best of all, they tell the time and they tell it well. It’s now 11:45.
Thoughts
Live Free or Die
Live free or die. I saw this, written in French (Vivre Libre Ou Mourir), on a statue in a small town in France. I believe it was a Revolution motto. Obviously this can be interpreted in many ways, but I do see it as if you do not live free, you can die inside, certainly on a creative level. I would. And life is very short, so live free now.
Wildism
Self Employment
I left "normal" work back in the mid '90s. I’d trained as a copywriter in advertising and was hoping it was going to be a most exciting and creative life. For me, it turned out to be nothing of the sort, so after five very average years I left with no job to go to. Since then I have done just about anything I have wanted to try — made records, books, prints, clothes, art, parties, theatrical events, film, music, I’ve done both badly and done well. But I’ve had a wild time not being tied to a desk or to any one job or person or company, and learnt as I went along. My days are often full of strange adventure, meeting lost folk, investing in daft ideas (I just bought the largest archive of ballroom dancing pictures in the world) and I have no idea what I may get into next. To everyone I meet who seems bored with their job I say “do something else, do what you want and feel, not what you have to – and by the way, you haven’t got long”. I really think it’s possible for many people to give up jobs they don’t enjoy and release themselves into a world where they are in charge. If I can do it for 20 years, anyone can. And I don’t have to be afraid to ask my boss if I can have some more time off, because I don’t have a boss.