Then it’s the spring of 1997 and Nikki and I are driving up a Moravian mountainside in my ancient Škoda 120. Somewhere near the top of the mountain is a pub with a recording studio in the back room, where the bass guitarist of The Golden Angels has arranged a recording session. We’re more than an hour late because the Škoda has been overheating all the way from Prague – a notorious design defect that every Czech motorist is familiar with – necessitating frequent stops to top up the radiator with cold water.
 
Nikki is oblivious to these mechanical concerns. He’d rather talk about his musical heroes such as Marc Bolan, Bob Dylan, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Rod Stewart – all of whom he’s on first name terms with. Especially with Ron (Wood), who he’s been trying to get an interview with for the book he wants to write. He considers himself on equal footing with these icons of rock and roll, and he can’t understand why nobody else does. He reckons it’s down to luck and timing, that if he’d been born ten years earlier he’d be up there with them in the rock and roll pantheon. He may well be right. But as things stand, he’s had to settle for cult status, accepting it with a certain sense of bafflement that he isn’t a household name.
 
One of the songs we wrote last year is called “Broken Glove”. We’re due to record it with The Golden Angels, if the Škoda can hold up for another few kilometers. What, you might ask, is a broken glove? Normally you’d say a torn glove, or a glove with a missing button, or a glove with a hole in the finger. But “broken”? I’d say my Škoda 120 was broken, but I wouldn’t say it about a glove. Anyway, I wrote the music and Nikki wrote the words, so it’s his business, not mine. And he’s such a smart and agile individual that I hesitate to ask such a dumb question.
 
Finally we come steaming around a hairpin bend and there in front of us is the Black Horse pub. It’s a typical Czech village pub full of cigarette smoke, the sour smell of goulash onions and beer impregnating the greasy walls. The patrons are mostly sclerotic old alkies who spend their days gossiping and playing cards. A few surly looking younger characters with boots and shaved heads are lounging about, and Nikki, with his green velvet jacket, bangles, rings and scarves, is drawing a fair bit of attention. But he’s so excited at the prospect of recording that he’s totally oblivious to the effect he’s having. Either that, or he doesn’t care.
 
We meet The Golden Angels – so named by Nikki – who’ve lugged their amps and drums all the way up the mountain from Brno. They’ve already set up their equipment in the studio out back and are impatient to get started. They don’t look much like angels to me – just stolid Slavs with long hippy hair, tee shirts, sneakers and beer bellies. Not exactly ethereal types, they look more like garage mechanics than members of the heavenly host. But they’re good musicians and are relishing the chance to record with Nikki, who to them is a legendary rock and roll figure.
 
Nikki’s got a rare talent for attracting people whose one desire in life is to record with him. Partly it’s the accessibility of his music, partly it’s because he’s so friendly and amenable. Germany, in particular, seems full of bedroom troubadours who will set up – and pay for – a recording session at the drop of a floppy hat. The deal is that they earn kudos and street cred by getting a rock and roll cult figure to play on their demos. In return, Nikki gets free studio time to record his latest batch of songs. And as I mentioned earlier, he’s nothing if not prolific. Since he showed up at my place on his latest visit, we’ve come up with another ten songs. Each time he goes to the loo, he takes his guitar along for company, emerging five minutes later to announce the creation of yet another indie gem.
 
I love Nikki’s songs. They’ve got the melodic simplicity of traditional English folk music and the dirty, hip-thrusting grind of New York rock and roll. “Broken Glove” is a ballad, though, and I’ve persuaded Nikki to cut the lyrics down from the original thirty verses to something a little more concise.
 
We run through the number with the Angels and they quickly learn the arrangement. Like most Czech rockers, they cut their musical teeth on Frank Zappa, King Crimson and Jethro Tull. Nikki’s songs, with their 4/4 time signatures and verse-chorus-bridge arrangements, are a piece of cake for them. Nevertheless, they respect him as an exotic musical import from the West. They’re familiar with all the Jacobites albums and most of his solo ones too.
 
Nikki tells the engineer to fire up the machine and we immediately go for a take. I’m a little surprised to learn that he doesn’t intend to do any mixing. The track is to be recorded live, and after we’ve listened to the first take he shifts the microphones around to get a better sound.
 
A couple more attempts and he’s satisfied. The finished recording is transferred onto DAT, a mere twenty minutes after the first run-through. A few months later “Broken Glove” will turn up on an album of rarities called Egyptian Roads.
 
I walk through to the pub and order a beer, while Nikki and the band record a few more songs. By the end of the session, he’s got half an album’s worth of material recorded, for not much more than the price of a plate of goulash. And what’s more, it all sounds great. Very rough and grungy, but it certainly hits the spot. With the session over and the DAT in his pocket, Nikki waves goodbye to The Golden Angels, jumps in the Škoda, and we head off down the mountainside in the general direction of Prague.