England got sadder after Thatcher

He recalls: "I was producing some British artists, so I'd be in England for that.

- BY CASEY COOPER-FISKE

"I knew the guys, they were actually American, but they owned [psychedelic boutique clothing store] Granny Takes A Trip on the King's Road, and I used to come and live with them for about two weeks and do my clothes shopping for a whole year.

"I'd go to the warehouses and buy half a dozen pairs of crushed velvet pants.

"The thing that really changed England was the Thatcherite administration, and everything kind of got much sadder after.

"London was the cultural centre of the world, it's like everybody wanted to be in London at that point (in the late-1960s and early-1970s), and then the whole Conservative agenda is like, money, money, money, money, and so they started selling off all of London.