Conform To Deform

Wesley Doyle

Description

• Some Bizzare launched the careers of many of the biggest and most influential acts of their era, and the next few years will see a slew of fortieth anniversaries of important releases from the label’s back catalogue.

• The book draws on extensive first-hand interviews with those central to the Some Bizzare story, including founder Stevo and many of the key bands and artists who worked with the label.

• The profiles of many of these artists are the highest they have been in recent years, and many of them are currently active: Soft Cell have recently completed a US tour and will have their Some Bizzare albums reissued as deluxe editions in 2023; Matt Johnson is working on a new The The album; Stephen ‘Mal’ Mallinder of Cabaret Voltaire recently released a new solo album; and Stevo is finalising an extensive reissue campaign for the Some Bizzare back catalogue, including albums by Marc Almond, Einstürzende Neubauten, Foetus, Swans, Coil, and Psychic TV.

Sujets

• Musique
• Culture musicale
• Music
• Punk
• Multiple signal classification
• Business Aspects

Informations

• Publié par: Jawbone Press
• Date de parution: 14 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781911036968
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

A Jawbone book
First edition 2023
Published in the UK and the USA by Jawbone Press
Office G1
141–157 Acre Lane
London SW2 5UA
England
Volume copyright © 2023 Outline Press Ltd. Text copyright © Wesley Doyle. All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or copied in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews where the source should be made clear. For more information contact the publishers.

Table of contents
Introduction
Cast of characters
ONE Pre-1980 Redefining the prologue
TWO 1980 The tape is your voice
THREE 1981 Dancing, laughing, drinking, loving
FOUR 1982 I’m lost again and I’m on the run
FIVE 1983 (A) This town is a potpourri of disease
SIX 1983 (B) This is the day your life will surely change
SEVEN 1984 Then sometimes, someone, cracks down
EIGHT 1985 But people they don’t really listen
NINE 1986 I’ve flown around the world standing on the wing of a jet
TEN 1987 I only know where I continue to stay
ELEVEN 1988 We wanted an answer to our dreams
TWELVE 1989 Your life with me was ending, your new life had begun
THIRTEEN 1990–95 Misery, complaints, self-pity, injustice
FOURTEEN 1996–99 I’m not the kind of person to hide when I can fight
FIFTEEN 2000–22 All my exotic gestures no longer in demand
SIXTEEN Conclusion If you can’t please yourself you can’t, please your soul
Notes and sources
Acknowledgements

Introduction
ON JULY 15, 1983 , the electronic duo Soft Cell appeared on the Channel 4 music show Switch . The pair—Marc Almond and Dave Ball—had scored a massive global hit two years previously with their cover of Gloria Jones’s ‘Tainted Love’, but since that initial success they seemed unconcerned about maintaining a career as pop stars, and their music had become darker and consciously less commercial. For their Switch appearance, they appeared as they always had done: Almond up front with Ball on keys at the back. They rattled through a ramshackle version of forthcoming single ‘Soul Inside’ before Almond introduced saxophonist Gary Barnacle and guest vocalist Clint Ruin. Sat in front of the TV, my fourteen-year-old self was unaware that his life was about to take a turn.
Ruin—resplendent in leather jacket, aviator shades, and gravity-defying quiff—emitted a blood-curdling scream before the drum machine kicked in and he and Almond began trading lines. Ball abandoned his keyboard for some heavily distorted guitar, and Barnacle seemed to be playing a different song entirely. The reverb on the vocals soon made whatever words were being sung indecipherable, and Almond and Ruin ended up in a heap on the floor, entangled in microphone leads, screaming into each other’s faces. Five minutes in and, with the cacophony showing no sign of an end, the producers ran the credits and the screen faded to black. It was the most incredible thing I’d ever seen.
I was already a big fan of Soft Cell. I’d liked ‘Tainted Love’, but I didn’t properly fall for their seedy synth-pop until the follow-up single, ‘Bedsitter’. I was given their debut album, Non Stop Erotic Cabaret , for Christmas in 1981 and eagerly followed their exploits in the pages of Smash Hits and occasionally Sounds or Record Mirror . As much as I loved Soft Cell, though, it was the 1983 album Untitled by Almond’s side project Marc & The Mambas that really expanded my musical horizons. It wasn’t just the other artists’ songs he covered—Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Syd Barrett; all new to me—it was the people he worked with: Anni Hogan, the preternaturally talented pianist who would be at Almond’s side for much of his 80s solo work; and Matt Johnson, who co-wrote and played on several tracks. Johnson also recorded as THE THE, and when his ‘Uncertain Smile’ single was released a few months later, I bought it on spec. It remains one of my favourite records. Soon, I started to notice all this new music had the same two words on the sleeves: Some Bizzare.
They also had cryptic messages, signed by the mysterious ‘Ø’. ‘You can only have 100% trust in yourself.’ ‘Destruction is not negative, you must destroy to build.’ ‘With every kick in the face and every hurdle you pass the rewards get greater.’ Through the music press I discovered ‘Ø’ was in fact Some Bizzare boss Stevo, who, despite only being a teenager, was managing these artists and brokering deals with major record labels on their behalf. The more I read about Stevo, it became apparent that he was as much a focus for the press as his artists, and he was heavily involved in how they were presented to the world.
Part of that presentation was the artwork that adorned the records—all Some Bizzare releases had the most incredible sleeves. Whether the vivid images captured by photographer Peter Ashworth, the evocative design and brush work of Huw Feather, the beautifully grotesque paintings of Val Denham, or the twisted and disturbing art of Andy ‘Dog’ Johnson, the visual side of Some Bizzare was as striking as the music.
The uncredited song Soft Cell played on that Switch performance was ‘Ghostrider’ by Suicide. I also discovered that ‘Clint Ruin’ was an Australian called J.G. Thirlwell, who recorded under the name Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel—you can imagine how that went down in my local Our Price. I set about seeking out not only the music of other Some Bizzare artists but the bands they aligned with: Nick Cave, The Cure, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Danielle Dax, Sex Gang Children. I also caught the Batcave tour when it came to the neighbouring town of St Albans. I’d found my tribe.
When Marc & The Mambas’ second album, Torment And Toreros , arrived later in the year, it shocked and elated me in equal measure. It was dark, passionate, vicious, tortured, beautiful, and damned. Johnson wasn’t on it this time, but the name Frank Want was. That name also featured on THE THE’s debut album, Soul Mining . Frank, it transpired, was another pseudonym for J.G. Thirlwell. The pieces were falling into place.
Nostalgia was a notable absence in the early-to-mid 80s; there was no looking back, the momentum was always forward. I never bought a record from a previous decade—why would I? There was so much going on right in front of me. Everything about Some Bizzare was new—the artists, the attitude. It was transgressive but courted the mainstream, it was oblique but wanted to communicate, it was niche but didn’t see why it couldn’t be incredibly successful. I made many a blind purchase during this time. As a teenager, this was a great financial risk: £5.49 was a lot of money, so you had to commit to your purchases. Not that I ever had any problem with a Foetus or Cabaret Voltaire record, but I’d be lying if I said there weren’t some worrying moments when Psychic TV and Einstürzende Neubauten first hit the turntable. And as for Swans … But I persevered, and through Some Bizzare my ideas of what popular music could be kept expanding.
So who were the people who brought these new sounds to us? I was endlessly fascinated by Stevo and the Some Bizzare family. On record-buying trips to London, I would wander through St Anne’s Court, past the Some Bizzare offices at Trident Studios, and look up at the windows. What is going on up there? I’d wonder. Plenty, as I’ve since found out.
Much has been written about maverick record label bosses from the 1980s, including Creation’s Alan McGee, Factory’s Tony Wilson, and Postcard’s Alan Horne, all of whom were, to varying degrees, headline-makers in their own right. Stevo and Some Bizzare had a roster to rival them all, yet his tale remained untold. His label released music that was challenging and credible yet still capable of serious commercial success. Both as record label and management company, Some Bizzare not only brought the world Soft Cell and THE THE but also gave left-field acts such as Cabaret Voltaire, Psychic TV, and Einstürzende Neubauten a decent crack at mainstream success. Yet for all the incredible music Some Bizzare produced, the impact these releases had on popular culture, and the cast of colourful characters—not least of all Stevo himself—no one had been prepared to get that story down. I couldn’t understand why. So my reason for writing this book is simple: I wanted to read it, and it seemed no one else was going to do it.
Once a publishing deal was in place, it was a case of tracking the relevant people down and convincing them to contribute. It became apparent that Stevo’s complex business relationships with the artists and major labels he licensed them to might just be the reason this book hadn’t been written before. It would surely take a lawyer, not a music writer, to unravel all the contractual disputes and labyrinthine legal wrangles that plague the label to this day. But that would have made for a very dull book indeed. Instead, I channelled my fourteen-year-old self and wrote the Some Bizzare book he would have wanted to read: light on litigation, heavy on the music and the mavericks who made it.
The process of writing this oral history has given me the opportunity to talk with those mavericks. It’s been a labour of love, and I hope I’ve done them and their work justice. A few key artists are sadly no longer with us, and a couple didn’t want to be involved. But of the eighty or so individuals I interviewed, most had happy memories of the time when the Some Bizzare offices—wherever they happened to be—became not just a workplace but a home.
As for Stevo—who initially took a lot of convincing to be involved, then eventually tried to take over—he was everything I could have wanted and more. A complicated, contrary figure who feels shut out from the industry in which he made his name, he is the Peter Pan of post-punk. His desire to correct the record and right wrongs as he saw them left me with hours and hours of audio to work with. And despite the bluster and obfuscation—intentional