Pop Psychology: Part 3

<< Part Two: The Classic Band (Cardiacs)

In addition to my note in part 1 about Jerry being upset that day, I should add a further comment: I mention him a fair bit in this blog, but that’s because I owe him a great deal. We’ve never agreed much on music, but he taught me well: don’t lie. Don’t ever lie. Even if it gets you sacked (which it did); even if you get death threats (which I did); even if you lose friends, or have to resign rather than face saying yet again how much it sucks. There’s a bias, sure: after eight bad albums, you’ll pan the ninth because you’re so worn down. If the tenth is great, you’ll gush because of the contrast – but don’t say it’s good if it’s not, or your opinion is nothing. His opinion is worthy because he’s honest, even when he’s wrong. More people could learn from him …

THE JOURNALIST – EVERETT TRUE

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Everett True is the Acting Editor of Melody Maker. His career began as a fanzine writer in 1982. He ran the fanzine with Alan McGee, but acrimoniously split with McGee when the Creation boss wanted him to edit an issue featuring True’s most hated – The Smiths. True started his own fanzine, and then talked the NME into hiring him as a journalist. He worked there until the end of the 1980s, when he was sacked by former fanzine colleague James Brown for what Everett describes as his own journalistic incompetence. He got better, and went on to become a staff writer at Melody Maker. Pretty soon, he was the most famous music journalist in Britain, and entered what he describes as the highlight of his life:

ET: I always used to write in my fanzine that I felt that music journalists don’t give a s*** about music. It was the most disappointing day of my life when I got to the NME and found out it was true. Sure, they cared, but not as much as I did. Mind you, I was pretty fanatical at the time.

Then I got to Melody Maker, and I can’t ever imagine having a better job: going to America, hanging out with really famous and really cool people, going to see any show I wanted – f***ing brilliant shows – and I had a beautiful teenage girlfriend. I can’t imagine how life could have been any better. I suppose I could have had money, but who cares about money when you’re having a good time?

Pop Psychology: Part 2 (Cardiacs)

<< Part One: The Publicists (Revolution PR)

THE CLASSIC BAND – CARDIACS

Tim Smith has been a Cardiac for 20 years. That’s 20 years of incalculably influential experimental jazz-tinged punk pop. Almost every band in Britain can be linked back to Cardiacs through around three degrees of separation. The band – Tim, Jim, Bob and John – all have various side-projects, including other bands, production credits and advertising jingles. The Cardiacs fan base is a legion of dedicated nutcases who will follow the band around the country. Their reward is the fact that Tim manages to make time to maintain good friendships with every single one of them – and we are talking a very large number of people here …

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Tim: I personally have never had any expectations about anything ever … so … um. I saw that comet that’s been hanging about for the first time yesterday – Hale Bopp or whatever – I was thrilled, it actually looked like a real comet. Cardiac-wise, I personally have passed any ambition or expectations inasmuch as we still record and play any old stuff which we think is OK. We like to think that no rules surround music so … if we think a noise sounds good to us, then so be it. Music is a really great big thing, which should not be boxed in by people, whatever the f***ness, who think it is just a trinket to decorate a style or way of life, etc.

Music is wonderful and should be rejoiced as being such. But going back to your question about expections … the answer is … it has and it hasn’t. It has, inasmuch as we still do it (and some other bands do something similar inasmuch as the being-out-thereness is concerned). And it hasn’t, as far as, the people that dig this kind of s*** are still few and far between purely for the reason that it is an ignored art form, blah blah.

Did you choose the style you play or did it just happen?

Tim: It just happened and still does for some reason.

How has being in a band affected you in terms of how you treat people and are treated?

Tim: Doing what we do – I do – I forget to keep answering personally – OK – what I think – my mind is stupidly open to anything now. I will look at a door knob and see the art/design/thought and heartache that has gone into that work.

Pop Psychology: Part 1

After an interview in ’96 with Martin Atkins so disastrous that he walked out, I was losing credibility. I needed to recover – fast – so hit upon the idea of writing the sort of “feature” that you’d find in a proper magazine. I was fascinated by the difference between expectations of how the music industry worked, and the reality, and whether personal misery in return for music success was an inevitable trade. I’m not sure whether my experiment was successful in terms of generating solid conclusions, but I started being offered freelance work after that, so in that sense it worked.

This is the abridged version. The original piece had a rather obvious preamble showing how “success” changes people, and highlighting the difference between public personas and the real person behind them. I interviewed a band starting out – Ojo, who never really got anywhere – and Three Colours Red, a band who were in the charts at that time. Their answers were brief and not particularly insightful so I won’t include them here. However, the answers from The Publicists (Revolution Promotions); The Journalist (Everett True); and The Classic Band (Cardiacs) – were very interesting so I’ve uploaded them here.

Everett – or Jerry, as I knew him – was in an agitated state when I saw him at Melody Maker HQ that day. I think it’s actually the day he found out he hadn’t been given the editor’s job – a critical mistake, if you’ll pardon the pun, since the 70 year-old magazine didn’t survive long after that. Tim from Cardiacs’ contribution deserves a special mention since I’d handed him a list of questions to which he responded in the form of a lengthy handwritten letter, including all the “umms” and “ahhs”! Mark and Fred from Revolution were friends with whom I’d lay informal bets on the following week’s chart positions over a beer on Sunday evenings. I probably spent more time in their office than I did my own bedsit.

THE PUBLICISTS – MARK AND FRED OF REVOLUTION PROMOTIONS

Mark: It’s very rare that a band gets to make their third album. If you want to make money in music, you might as well put your money on the 2:15 at Chelmsford. The odds are up there with the lottery.

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Revolution’s hit band Mansun, with one of the cleverest videos ever made

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dEUS interview, c. 1996

This is another extract from the fanzines I found in the attic last night. It’s not “connected” to the others, but I thought it was a pretty cool memory of hanging out with some really sweet people, so preserved it for posterity.

IN A BAR, UNDER THE SEA (SOMEWHERE IN SOHO)

It’s all going horribly wrong. The interview was scheduled for seven o’clock, but the Legendary Bastard Security Guards (just ask Manhole) at the Astoria won’t let me through. I send three dEUS-related people to look for the tour manager, but he is nowhere to be found. Eventually, I give up and just go to watch the show. Tom Barman is propping up the bar, and we head for the aftershow party.

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Tom, like all of dEUS, is sweet, good-natured, unassuming, genuine, and – above all – lots of fun. At the party, the implausibly gorgeous Klaas and Danny dance enthusiastically to every song, even though Klaas dances like John Travolta on crack. Jules de Borgher giggles with everyone and Tom is sitting in the corner, having intelligent conversations with the few people not paralytically drunk. Stef stands quietly by the door. Everyone is happy.

dEUS are from Belgium. Ish. Actually, Craig’s from Scotland. The rest of the band hail from all over Europe. They’re based in Brussels, but for the last month they’ve been in Britain, supporting Placebo in a month-long tour that has seen few breaks. When Worst Case Scenario came out, dEUS were one of the most critically-acclaimed bands in the world, enjoying the sort of exposure Placebo had just before Nancy Boy came out. In short, they were dead certs. Since then, there’s been the odd lineup change, with Stef leaving to concentrate on Moondog Jr, and Craig (longtime friend of the band) was drafted in as a guitarist. Danny Mommens replaced Rudy Trouve on bass, and sales of another album (In A Bar, Under The Sea) have been poor, a factor that Craig puts down to changing British tastes:

Craig: Because we use a wide variety of styles in our music, it was always a worry that it might all end up a directionless mess.