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Behind a closed door at the top of the stairs, something very nasty indeed is going on. I can already hear the muted sounds of a scuffle as I put my foot on the first tread. As I gingerly ascend, the noises get progressively louder and more violent, culminating in a series of short, piercing, possibly female, screams. A brief, suspenseful silence is followed by what could be chopping and the grinding of machinery.
Convinced that the worst is now over, I pass quickly into the room to be confronted by a large spherical television (the sort that I recall used to be considered well hip in the late '60s along with those lamps filled with floating globs of oil that doubled as Dr Who special effects). On the screen, several pussy cats are contentedly chomping their way through a plateful of Kit-E-Kat. No sign of trouble here, I think, until my eye alights on the videocassette case on the floor. On the back the legend: "What was the grizzly secret of the unbranded cat food?"
I realise now that for the last couple of minutes I've been listening in to a scene from Corpse Grinder, some low-budget epic that I later learn has attained cult status among Stateside horror aficionados. And in case you haven't yet guessed the "grizzly secret," then the clue subtly implied in the film's title, is that the felines are actually feasting on most of the film's human cast. Or to put it more succinctly, Bodiz Meanz Whiskaz.
This short encounter with horror proves a suitable prelude to the entrance of Steve Nieve, though not because he comes in wielding a Moulinex Magichef. As it happens, he's carrying nothing more harmful than a video containing a selection of clips from films directed by that master of the soft-porn genre, Russ Meyer. And if I tell you that the compilation is called Bosomania, you'll no-doubt twig on just which part of the female anatomy Meyer's plots tend to hang.
If all this is beginning to sound a little suspect, let me explain that we're not actually in some dingy back room in the heart of Soho, but in fact, in Nieve's "programming suite," nobbut a cat's throw up the Caledonian Road. As he's currently involved in writing the soundtrack for a documentary on the likes of Meyer and other kings of the B-movie, his choice of daytime video viewing reflects not the indulgence of some wicked fantasy, but the need to undertake a spot of serious academic research.
"I decided that I really wanted to capture the essence of these soundtracks, like the very chintzy big band sounds that Russ Meyer uses, for example. So for the last few days I've been watching all these crazy videos.
"It's just great," he adds, with the true scholar's enthusiasm. It's clear he takes it all very seriously.
Nieve's interest in producing music for film is the latest stage in a career which began in 1977 when he fell into line behind Elvis Costello as one of the three Attractions. Costello and the band parted company in 1984, after notching up eight albums and a string of Top 20 hits: 'Watching the Detectives', 'I Don't Want to Go To Chelsea', 'Oliver's Army' and 'Good Year For The Roses'. Their considerable following was a little puzzled by the 1981 release Almost Blue which carried the label, "Warning. This album contains country music."
"Actually, I think that country album was the change of direction which I instigated," pipes up Nieve. A burst of shrill laughter follows, then the explanation.
"We were on this tour in America with Squeeze and my wife was just having her first baby, so I was really getting involved in country music which has lots of good songs about having babies and things like that. I was playing this stuff on the bus all the time and eventually the whole band was into it. Then we stopped off in Nashville and recorded this track with Billy Sherrill, one of the country producers, just to see what it would sound like. We enjoyed it so much that we did the whole album, though that Nashville track was never actually released."
Post-Costello, Nieve has been making a nice living, thank you very much, doing sessions for a variety of people, from Madness and McCartney to Wreckless Eric and Tom Jones. Aficionados should however check out the Attractions LP, Mad About The Wrong Boy. There are also a couple of Nieve solo projects to collect too: Keyboard Jungle (1983) and last year's Playboy. Of course, you can also tune into repeats of the second series of The Last Resort on which Nieve was keyboard player and resident MD. (He's due to be in the third series as well). Among other duties, the spot involved providing backing music for a wide variety of guests — although not all of them musicians in the conventional sense of the word.
"That's probably the most enjoyable thing I've ever done, certainly more enjoyable than playing in a touring rock 'n' roll band," he comments. "I like the variety of playing with different people. Like that woman who played the bedstand and things. She was amazing... and such an incredible musician. Like she just knew everything about those stupid objects and what harmonics they produced. I'd like to have more instrumentalists on the next series, people like Hank Marvin or Yehudi Menuhin."
Meanwhile, Nieve is devoting his energies to his studio. Trivia fiends may note that
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