THE BEATLES - BEATLES FOR SALE @ 60

Released on December 4th, 1964, the fourth LP by The Beatles, Beatles for Sale, turns 60 years old today. The album was not officially released in North America until The Beatles catalogue was standardized internationally for CD in 1987. Instead the US and Canada got Beatles '65, released concurrently with Beatles for Sale, and containing 8 of the latter album's tracks, with the remainder of the album's 11 tracks coming from a track excluded from the US release of Help, plus a UK non-LP single.

The overall mood of Beatles for Sale is markedly darker and more sombre than their previous albums, with the band shying away from the trivial love songs that were predominant on their earlier works. Part of the reason for this has to do with their trip to the US and their first meeting with Bob Dylan, who famously lauded their musical abilities while chiding them for their superficial lyrics. He encouraged them to use their influence to explore more meaningful and introspective subjects. John Lennon took his comments particularly to heart. But don't think the influence was only one way. It was shortly after Dylan's encounter with The Beatles that he made the decision to go "electric" and front a rock band, recognizing that the format The Beatles had popularized was where the future of pop music was heading. The group's trip to the US also influenced the album in its use of country and folk influenced musical styles, as the band were exposed to US country music radio and sought to incorporate that style into their sound.

The album also brought a new palette of sounds into the group, particularly in the use of more exotic percussion instruments, like tympani and African hand drums. By this point, the studio was also undergoing a transition as far as how the band perceived its use. Rather than being merely a place to document their live sound, they began to understand the artificial potential of the tools at their disposal. It was with this album that they truly began to take an interest in the process of recording and the techniques that could be used to alter their sound. With this, they began to augment their arrangements, stripping back layers and complexity and giving depth and space to their sound with the use of reverberation devices.

The other factor that influenced the end result for the album was the breakneck schedule that the group had been held to because of the unprecedented explosion of popularity that had happened in the preceding two years. They were worked to the bone by their label, and because of their naivety, didn't understand that they had any say in the process. The schedules of recording, touring and making personal appearances on radio and TV meant that the group's principal songwriting team of Lennon and McCartney were left with very little time to come up with new tunes for their latest record. With Beatles for Sale, they only had eight new original songs, plus a couple used for a non-LP single, so the remainder of the album's 14 tracks consisted of cover versions of songs they'd been playing in their live set. This was a bit of a step backwards given that the previous LP had been all originals.

Despite the lack of time allowed to work on the album, the band still managed to come up with something that demonstrated definitive progress, both as song writers and performers. There was a palpable evolution in the maturity of the music, its emotional scope and the group's willingness to push their own boundaries. They were reaching a point where they would soon develop a complete command of their abilities and the tools they used to realize their vision. Critics of the times were picking up on this as well, and the album received overall very positive reviews, and of course, it was able to continue the domination of the charts The Beatles had secured with their first three albums.
 

DUNE (1984) @ 40

 

Marking the 40th anniversary since its premier is acclaimed director David Lynch's third feature film, Dune, which had its first public screening on December 3rd, 1984. Attempting the near impossible task of adapting Frank Herbert's epic novel for live action, it's a deeply flawed, yet visually inspiring interpretation that has, regardless of its issues, still managed to become a beloved cult classic.

Frank Herbert published Dune in 1965, and it quickly became a game changer in the world of science fiction novels, introducing a deeply textured, complex and densely integrated world spanning epochs of time after humanity left for the stars to colonize a myriad of worlds, each with its own distinct attributes - from environments to cultures. The book even includes a detailed appendix of terms and definitions essential for comprehending its structure and story. As such, the process of adapting it into a story for the screen, big or small, required a Herculean effort in order to try to present it in a way that could make sense to viewers, particularly when many would have no concept of the book upon which it was based. Yet the success of the novel was enough to set off a protracted series of fraught attempts to bring it to life on the screen. It's a struggle that would even go on for generations after Lynch's troubled version hit theatres.

Beginning in 1971, film producer Arthur P. Jacobs optioned the rights on agreement to produce a film within nine years, but he died in mid-1973, terminating that attempt. Next, in 1974, the option was acquired by a French consortium led by Jean-Paul Gibon, with surrealist Mexican film maker, Alejandro Jodorowsky, attached to direct. He'd made a name for himself with cult films like El Topo and The Holy Mountain, and saw in Dune the opportunity to use the film's narrative as a way to elaborate on his own metaphysical beliefs and mysticism. His vision for the film rapidly bloomed into outrageously ambitious overreach that included grandiose efforts to involve the likes of Salvador Dalí as the Emperor, Orson Welles as Baron Harkonnen, Mick Jagger as Feyd-Rautha, Udo Kier as Piter De Vries, David Carradine as Leto Atreides, Jodorowsky's son Brontis as Paul Atreides, and Gloria Swanson. Jodorowsky also approached Pink Floyd and Magma for some of the music, Dan O'Bannon for the visual effects, and artists H. R. Giger, Jean Giraud, and Chris Foss for set and character design. The plans for the film ballooned to the point where it collapsed under the weight of its ambitions, with the budget evaporating at the proposal for a 10-14 hour film! All of this history is wonderfully captured in the remarkable 2013 documentary, Jodorowsky's Dune.

By late 1976, Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis purchased the rights for Dune from Gibon's consortium. De Laurentiis commissioned Frank Herbert to write a new screenplay in 1978; the script Herbert turned in was 175 pages long, the equivalent of nearly three hours of screen time. De Laurentiis then hired director Ridley Scott in 1979, with Rudy Wurlitzer writing the screenplay and H. R. Giger retained from the Jodorowsky production. However, the death of Scott's older brother Frank from cancer put Ridley in a state where he wasn't prepared to commit to the project and backed out. By 1981, the rights to the book were about to expire, so De Laurentiis renegotiated with Herbert for a deal that added rights to sequels based on any other Dune books Herbert would write.

After seeing The Elephant Man (1980), producer Raffaella De Laurentiis decided that David Lynch should direct the movie. De Laurentiis contacted Lynch, who said he had not heard of the book. After reading it and "loving it", he met with De Laurentiis and agreed to direct and write a new script. Lynch worked on the script for six months with Eric Bergren and Christopher De Vore. The team yielded two drafts, but split over creative differences. Lynch then worked on five more drafts. Initially, Lynch had scripted Dune across two films, but eventually it was condensed into one.

When it came time for casting, Tom Cruise, Kevin Costner, Kenneth Branagh and Val Kilmer either auditioned or were screen-tested for the role of Paul. Kilmer was the top choice until Kyle MacLachlan screen-tested and snagged the lead, making this his feature film debut. The cast was filled out with Patrick Stewart, Brad Dourif, Dean Stockwell, Virginia Madsen, José Ferrer, Sean Young, Sting, Linda Hunt, and Max von Sydow.

On March 30, 1983, with the 135-page sixth draft of the script, Dune finally began shooting. It was shot entirely in Mexico, mostly at Churubusco Studios; De Laurentiis said this was due in part to the favourable exchange rate to get more value for their production budget, and that no studio in Europe had the expansive capabilities they needed for the production. With a budget over $40–42 million, Dune required 80 sets built on 16 sound stages, and had a total crew of 1,700, with over 20,000 extras. Many of the exterior shots were filmed in the Samalayuca Dune Fields in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Filming ran for at least six months into September 1983, and was plagued by various production problems such as failing electricity or communication lines due to the country's infrastructure, or health-related problems with the cast and crew.

The rough cut of Dune, without post-production effects, ran over four hours long, but Lynch's intended cut of the film (as reflected in the seventh and final draft of the script) was almost three hours long. Universal and the film's financiers expected a standard, two-hour cut. Dino De Laurentiis, his daughter Raffaella, and Lynch excised numerous scenes, filmed new scenes that simplified or concentrated plot elements, and added voice-over narrations, plus a new introduction by Virginia Madsen. Contrary to rumour, Lynch made no other version than the theatrical cut. Any subsequent versions were never approved by, nor involved Lynch, and he insisted on his name being removed from the credits for those edits. Ultimately, the lack of control in the process of finishing the film would lead Lynch to distance himself from it forever afterwards, with the director rarely commenting on the production, other than to lament that he'd made the mistake of "selling out". The result of that disconnect between the film and its director would become the central flaw at its core, with the end product being a distant echo of what Lynch had tried to create.

When the film was finally released theatrically, despite heavy promotion and merchandising, the movie was an unequivocal flop. Critics ravaged the film with the consensus branding it as "the worst movie of 1984". Some of the more scathing comments included those from TV's Siskel and Ebert, with the former writing, "It's physically ugly, it contains at least a dozen gory gross-out scenes, some of its special effects are cheap, surprisingly cheap because this film cost a reported $40–45 million, and its story is confusing beyond belief. In case I haven't made myself clear, I hated watching this film." Roger agreed, "This movie is a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time." Most other critics were similarly unkind.

Being a fan of Lynch's work on Eraserhead and The Elephant Man, I went to see Dune in the theatre when it was released, and was similarly baffled. I didn't know Herbert's novel at all, so I was lost for the whole thing. Yet there were things that struck me about the art direction and visual effects, things that would become iconic soon enough in my mind. The Guild Navigators were the most mind blowing. I loved the whole idea of them, and the way they were realized for the film still impresses me to this day. Then there was the majestic scale of the ships leaving Caladan to fold space, where the enormous scope of it captured my imagination. Then there was the grotesqueries of the Harkonnen, with the vile ugliness of the Barron, his sadistic vulgarity, and the hellscape of their industrial home world. These things stuck with me, and as the age of home video rentals was hitting full steam, once the movie came out on VHS, it was a popular selection for those extended evenings of heavily altered states, where the movies with the most bizarre visuals went down the best, and Dune surely had plenty of those to keep it coming back to the VCR, again and again.

Over the years, it became a movie I'd keep returning to, just to enjoy its many assets, while most of its flaws became something of an amusement to poke fun of or simply tolerate. The awful music by Toto was something to simply put up with, but the constant whispering dialogue became a source of ridicule and humour. Ultimately, the film has become something I just love, warts and all. Even in the context of the very successful and sophisticated new generation of films and TV series, there are aspects of the Lynch version that will always be stamped with his own, unequalled idiosyncrasies. Even though the director himself has effectively disowned it as no more than a lesson learned when it came to not selling your soul to big Hollywood money, I still have to wonder if Lynch doesn't have a secret corner of his heart reserved for it. I mean, you can't put so much work into such an astonishing failure and not have some parental love and regret for it. Perhaps the pain of the folly is why he never wants to talk about it. But I'll still keep coming back to it every few years for another viewing, just to remind myself of the flashes of brilliance that linger in its frames.

THROBBING GRISTLE - A SOUVENIR OF CAMBER SANDS @ 20

 

Marking 20 years since its release is the official live recording of Throbbing Gristle's second re-union performance, which was executed and immediately released on December 3rd, 2004. The event was part of a festival held by All Tomorrow's Parties at the Camber Sands resort on Britain's southern coast. The event had originally been planned to occur in May of that year, though it had to be cancelled at the last minute for reasons related to the organizers, having nothing to do with TG. TG still went ahead and performed a reunion show at the Astoria in London, on May 16th, honouring any ticket holders for the cancelled festival. The results of that show were recorded for the RE:TG video, which was eventually released in the TGV box set of the TG video archive in 2007. The initial intent of the RE:TG event was that TG would perform a single, "one and done" concert, with the band returning to their various other projects after that. However, with the festival rescheduled, TG were persuaded to regroup yet again for "one more" show, also promoted as the group's "final" appearance together.

The timing of the show was somewhat cast in a shadow thanks to the unexpected demise of Peter Christopherson's creative and life partner, Jhon Balance (Geoff Rushton), who had fallen to his death from the balcony of their home on November 13th. In the video from the Astoria gig, Balance can be seen at the foot of the stage during the finale of Discipline, rocking back and forth, evidently in the thralls of some transcendental moment. One can only imagine how difficult it was for Sleazy to perform so soon after that tragedy. In the video for the Camber Sands show, also included in TGV, Sleazy wears one of the infamous Coil fur suits that the band had recently used for some of their own live shows, as a tribute to Balance. You can also observe at one point in the performance, the emotional intensity of the moment becomes too much for Sleazy and he is overcome with grief and begins visibly sobbing. It's an incredibly touching moment of vulnerability.

The Camber Sands performance offered much of the same sort of mix of old and new material as the Astoria show, though there is a moment when the band acknowledges the loss of Balance with a brief tribute from Genesis. The principal innovation of the show was the fact that it was being recorded for immediate release on a double CD-R set that would be instantly duplicated at the show for those who wished to purchase a copy on site. Additional copies of the recording could be ordered directly from Mute Records. The resulting double album would be something of a rarity afterwards, until it was finally reissued in 2019 in a properly mastered, professionally manufactured double CD set, complete with track indexes, which were missing from the CD-R version. The benefit of proper mastering also remedied the issue of the overall lack of loudness on the CD-Rs.

Though this was supposed to be the final TG reunion show, it would not be long until the temptation to continue resulted in additional live performances, along with the group returning to the studio to record a new album, 2007's Part Two. The reinvigorated TG would continue on for six more years, until abruptly coming to an end again at the end of 2010, first with the sudden departure of Genesis P-Orridge after the first gig of of an EU mini tour, then with the sudden death of Peter Christopherson.

As a document of the band at the threshold of a new era of activity, A Souvenir of Camber Stands offers up an exceptional collection of music from a collective feeling the surge of creativity from a fresh influx of inspiration. The fact the group managed to reconnect at all after 23 years apart was something of a minor miracle. That they could find a new kind of relevance for themselves, completely sidestepping any blush of being a nostalgia act, was a testament to their integrity and artistic abilities.

PINK FLOYD - THE WALL @ 45

 

Released on November 30th, 1979, the eleventh studio album from Pink Floyd, The Wall, turns 45 years old today. Perhaps only second to Dark Side of the Moon in terms of defining a peak of the band's career, it also served as a harbinger of what would cause the band to splinter during its production and after its release.

The Wall, like many of the band's LPs, is a concept album, but for this release, the concept hit much closer to home than some others. By the end of the 1970s, Pink Floyd had reached a kind of status as a band that ultimately put them at odds with their fan base, something that would directly contribute to the creation of this record. Throughout 1977, Pink Floyd were on their "In the Flesh" tour to promote their album, Animals. Bassist and lyricist, Roger Waters, despised the experience – angered by the audience's rowdy behaviour (such as setting off fireworks in the middle of songs) and convinced that they were not really listening to the music. On July 6th, 1977, at the Montreal Olympic Stadium, a group of noisy and excited fans near the stage irritated Waters so much that he leaned over and spat on one of them.

For Waters, the experience was something of a wake-up call, highlighting how degraded the relationship with the audience had become. Instead of the crowds being a source of inspiration and an adrenaline rush, it was all feeling very adversarial and confrontational. The intimacy was completely gone, swallowed up in the grotesque size of the stadiums and driven by corporate profits over artistic merit. It ultimately felt
sadomasochistic, like some kind of perverse torture. Immediately after the experience in Montreal, Waters spoke with producer Bob Ezrin and a psychiatrist friend about the alienation and despair he was experiencing. He articulated his desire to isolate himself by constructing a wall across the stage between the band and the audience. The concept was an instant source of inspiration.

As far as the band were concerned, the situation internally was crumbling, with tensions exacerbated by the fact the band were in dire financial straights. They had hired an investment firm to manage their money, but the firm had put much of it in high risk ventures that did not pay off, so instead of helping with the band's tax burdens, they were facing severe tax penalties, which forced the band to leave the UK to protect what little money they had left. They urgently needed a new record to set their house in order again.

Waters produced a couple of demos with two distinct concepts, one was a 90 minute suite called Bricks in the Wall, dealing with the idea of an isolated rock star struggling with a corrupted relationship between him and his audience. The other demo was about a man's dreams on one night, and dealt with marriage, sex, and the pros and cons of monogamy and family life versus promiscuity. When presented with the two options, the band chose the first, with the second eventually developing into Waters' first solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (1984).

For production on The Wall, Waters insisted on hiring Bob Ezrin, who had previously worked with Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, Kiss, and Peter Gabriel, among many other high profile acts. Throughout the recording of the album, Bob would become a critical mediator within the band, as tensions continued to drive the members apart. He also helping develop the album's narrative. Ezrin presented a 40-page script to the rest of the band, with positive results. He recalled: "The next day at the studio, we had a table read, like you would with a play, but with the whole of the band, and their eyes all twinkled, because then they could see the album." Ezrin broadened the story-line, distancing it from the autobiographical work Waters had written and basing it on a composite character named Pink.

The Wall was recorded in several locations. Super Bear Studios in France was used between January and July 1979, and Waters recorded his vocals at the nearby Studio Miraval. Michael Kamen supervised the orchestral arrangements at CBS Studios in New York in September. Over the next two months the band used Cherokee Studios, Producers Workshop and The Village Recorder in Los Angeles. A plan to work with the Beach Boys at the Sundance Productions studio in Los Angeles was cancelled (although Beach Boys member Bruce Johnston does sing backing vocals on "In the Flesh?", "The Show Must Go On", the side 4 version of "In the Flesh", and "Waiting for the Worms").

As work continued on the album, the relationship between Roger Waters and Richard Wright became untenable. For a time, attempts to mend it had Wright taking more of an active role in the production, but the results were not satisfactory to Ezrin and Wright was initially consigned to working only at nights before Waters insisted he be out of the band entirely by the time they got to doing the final mix in LA. Wright ended up quitting the band in the end, only returning to tour as a hired musician, though he would eventually rejoin the band after Waters departed, following the tour for The Wall.

For the album's cover design, it was the first LP by the band not to have a cover by Hipgnosis since the band's debut LP. Waters had fallen out with lead designer/photographer, Storm Thorgerson, a few years earlier when Thorgerson had included the cover of Animals in his book The Work of Hipgnosis: 'Walk Away René', without consultation.

When the album was finally released, it became one of the group's biggest sellers. The album topped the US Billboard 200 chart for 15 weeks, selling over a million copies in its first two months of sales and in 1999, it was certified 23× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It remains one of the best-selling albums of all time in the US, having sold over 19 million copies worldwide between 1979 and 1990. The Wall is Pink Floyd's second-best selling album after 1973's The Dark Side of the Moon.

The critical response to the album, on the other hand, was decidedly mixed. The Village Voice critic, Robert Christgau, regarded it as "a dumb tribulations-of-a-rock-star epic" backed by "kitschy minimal maximalism with sound effects and speech fragments", adding in The New York Times that its worldview is "self-indulgent" and "presents the self-pity of its rich, famous and decidedly post-adolescent protagonist as a species of heroism". It's an opinion that I very much agreed with at the time of its release, finding the "poor little rich rocker" concept indicative of a kind of bloated rock star life that had been exploded by the immediacy and poverty of punk rock.

It would take many years before I could give this record a second chance and actually discover myself enjoying it. Indeed, the critical reservations at the time of its release have since given way to a general sense of reappraisal and appreciation for its merits. After 45 years, it has stood the test of time to be secure in its place as one of the band's most important and recognized works.

THE ROLLING STONES - LET IT BLEED @ 55

 

Celebrating 55 years on the shelves today is the eighth studio LP from The Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed, which was released on November 28th, 1969, in the US, and December 5th in the UK. While the record contains some of the band's most iconic staples, the period of its creation was fraught with turmoil as founding member, Brian Jones, spiralled towards his ultimate demise.

The album continues the group's move back to revitalizing its blues roots after its dalliances with psychedelia and baroque pop on albums like Between the Buttons & Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967). Their previous LP, Beggars Banquet (1968) had adjusted the band's trajectory back to the basics of the blues, though with this album, they were also dabbling in other forms of traditional Americana, including gospel and country influences. And while the majority of the group were on point with their contributions, Brian Jones was on his last leg.

Issues with Jones had come to the fore during the Beggars Banquet sessions, with Brian often showing up to the studio heavily inebriated, and grossly unprepared for the work ahead. He had become disillusioned and disconnected from the group, and by the time of the Let It Bleed sessions, he was nearly incapable of contributing at all. He only ended up participating in two of the LP's nine tracks before he was fired from the group. It was only a month later that he was found dead in the swimming pool of his home. It was a horrifyingly tragic and controversial end to the wildly creative spirit who had been responsible for getting the band off the ground in the first place.

After the dismissal of Jones, Mick Taylor was brought in to fill his slot on 2nd guitar, though his contribution to this album was also limited. As he had done for the previous album, Keith Richards stepped up as the band's workhorse to provide nearly all of the guitar parts. In addition to the rest of the band, who were also involved in nearly every track, guest musicians included percussionist Jimmy Miller (who also produced the album), keyboardists Nicky Hopkins and Ian Stewart (himself a former member of the band), and Ry Cooder.

As already mentioned, the focus was back to basics, with a heaviness and darkness pervading the overall mood. Journalist Jann Wenner described the lyrics as "disturbing" and the scenery as "ugly". When asked if the Vietnam War played a role in the album's worldview, Jagger said: "I think so. Even though I was living in America only part time, I was influenced. All those images were on television. Plus, they spill out onto campuses". Of the album's songs, the standouts include Gimme Shelter, Midnight Rambler and You Can't Always Get What You Want, all of which became staples in the band's live sets going forward, and though there were no hit singles, those songs received regular rotation on the radio, helping to establish them as mainstays of the band's repertoire.

For the LP's packaging, Mick Jagger originally asked surrealist illustrator, M. C. Escher, to design a cover, but he declined, so Robert Brownjohn was approached instead. His design displays a surreal sculpture with the image consisting of the Let It Bleed record being played by the tone-arm of an antique phonograph, and a record-changer spindle supporting several items stacked on a plate in place of a stack of records: a film canister labelled Stones – Let It Bleed, a clock dial, a pizza, a bicycle tire and a cake with elaborate icing topped by figurines representing the band. The reverse of the LP sleeve shows the same "record-stack" melange in a state of disarray. The artwork was inspired by the scrapped working title of the album, "Automatic Changer". The album cover was among the ten chosen by the Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps issued in January, 2010.

Upon its release, it was generally well received by critics and shot to the number 1 slot in the UK, and peaked at #3 in the US. In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone magazine, music critic Greil Marcus said that the middle of the album has "great" songs, but Gimme Shelter and You Can't Always Get What You Want "seem to matter most" because they "both reach for reality and end up confronting it, almost mastering what's real, or what reality will feel like as the years fade in." Robert Christgau named it the fourth-best album of 1969 in his ballot for Jazz & Pop magazine's annual critics poll. In later commentaries, he has said the album "still speaks to me with startling fullness and authority", with the quality of the "playing" alone "fantastic", and that despite some "duff moments" on side two, every song "stands up". Contextually, it is at the centre of what many feel is the band's high water mark of classic albums, from its predecessor, Beggars Banquet, through to the two LPs that followed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street.

THE RAINCOATS @ 45

Marking its 45th anniversary today is the debut eponymous LP from post-punk's most renown girl group, The Raincoats, which was released on November 21st, 1979. Following hot on the heels of The Slits, The Raincoats took the music of the punk scene and gave it a distinctive stamp that earned them the reputation as one of the UK's most innovative new bands in the late 1970s. While Johnny Rotten was notoriously tight-lipped at the time, when it came to praising other bands, he made a notable exception for these girls, stating, "The Raincoats offered a completely different way of doing things, ...and all the books about punk have failed to realize that these women were involved for no other reason than that they were good and original".

The origin of the group goes back to 1977. Ana Da Silva and Gina Birch were inspired to start a band after they saw the Slits perform live earlier that year. Birch stated in an interview with She Shreds magazine, "It was as if suddenly I was given permission. It never occurred to me that I could be in a band. Girls didn’t do that. But when I saw The Slits doing it, I thought, ‘This is me. This is mine.’” For the band's first concert on 9 November 1977 at The Tabernacle, the line-up included Birch, da Silva, Ross Crighton (guitar) and Nick Turner (drums). Guitarist Kate Korus (from the Slits and later the Mo-dettes) joined briefly but was replaced by Jeremie Frank. Nick Turner left to form the Barracudas, and Richard Dudanski (ex–the 101ers and later Public Image Ltd.) sat in on drums, while filmmaker Patrick Keiller replaced Frank on guitar.

Late in 1978, the Raincoats became an all female band as they were joined by the ex-Slits drummer, Palmolive, and the classically trained violinist Vicky Aspinall, with this line-up making their live debut at Acklam Hall in London on 4 January 1979. Geoff Travis, the founder of Rough Trade Records, recruited Mayo Thompson of the Red Krayola to produce the band at this time. They suggested that Aspinall approach her violin in the style of the Velvet Underground. Managed by Shirley O'Loughlin, the band went on their first UK tour with Swiss female band Kleenex, in May 1979 after Rough Trade released their first single, "Fairytale in the Supermarket".

With the release of their debut album, the group were something of a best kept secret, though their impact would be significant in later years, winning cult followers like Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. "An all-time great", The Raincoats LP is seen as a landmark in indie pop, new wave, and post-punk music, as well as one of post-punk's best albums. Charles Ubaghs, in articles for The Quietus and Tiny Mix Tapes, lauded the band and their album as exemplars of new musical exploration in the wake of the late-'70s punk movement. He dubbed it "a passionate new sound that screamed of possibility", noting the band's fusion of "oddball rhythms", use of the violin, and more that lead to "forward-thinking" music. Their cover of The Kinks, Lola, took a song that already tied the listener up in gender-defying knots and pulled a double reversal on it, twisting its gender-bending right back around on itself. Kind of a neat trick to play on a song that's already playing a trick on the listener. And this decades before anyone ever mentioned anything about "personal pronouns"!

HUGH CORNWELL & ROBERT WILLIAMS - NOSFERATU @ 45

 

Celebrating the 45th anniversary of its release today is the one-off collaboration between former Stranglers main man, Hugh Cornwell, and then Captain Beefheart drummer, Robert Williams, with Nosferatu being released on November 16th, 1979. Intended as a kind of soundtrack to the classic 1922 silent film of the same name, it's a jagged collection of often atonal tunes that failed to make much of an impact commercially, but lingers with Stranglers fans looking for neglected deep cuts from the band's early history.

This collaboration began when Cornwell, after a North American Stranglers tour, attended three consecutive Beefheart shows in San Francisco, in April 1978. Cornwell and Williams struck up a friendship after the shows and kept in touch. Later the same year, when Cornwell had a break in his Stranglers schedule, he contacted Williams just before Christmas 1978 and invited him to record an album. "As far as the motivation to make the record goes, Nosferatu was pure whimsy," Cornwell said in 2014. "I mean [Stranglers bassist Jean-Jacques] Burnel had just recorded Euroman, so I thought, why not have a go?" As the 1922 film Nosferatu had been a silent movie originally, Cornwell decided that "a good starting place would be to try to approximate a soundtrack for it."

Robert Williams was told that it would just be the two of them recording without a band, and that the songs would be written in the studio. Williams then booked some of the best recording studios in Los Angeles and invited his friend, Joe Chiccarelli, along as their recording engineer. Cornwell flew out to Los Angeles to begin the recording sessions just after Christmas 1978. With such short notice, they had to move around from studio to studio every few days, which made the recording process longer than necessary. Recording from late December into January 1979, they continued the sessions in March and April after a two month break due to Cornwell's touring commitments with the Stranglers. Cornwell has stated that Nosferatu was an "extremely expensive" album to make, and that it has never made any money. His record label, United Artists, was unaware that he was recording the album, until they started getting invoices sent to them from the recording studios. However, they still paid them all.

Various guests from the Los Angeles area were invited in to play: woodwind and keyboard player Ian Underwood from Frank Zappa's the Mothers of Invention, Devo's Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh, and Williams' guitarist friend David Walldroop. "Wrong Way Round" features Ian Dury as a fairground barker (listed as "Duncan Poundcake" on the album credits). Williams said of the writing and recording process: "Hugh and I made the songs up in the studio usually starting with the drum track ... Hugh did not have a demo before starting Nosferatu but he had a few little riffs on guitar for just a few songs that we both fleshed out. Then we would bring home cassettes from the sessions to study and come up with subsequent parts. We spent daylight hours sleeping and worked throughout the night, very much like vampires."

The album was released to little fanfare, with poor sales resulting, and critical response mixed to negative, on the whole. Yet for my own tastes, I have always felt an attraction to the album's idiosyncratic & ugly awkwardness. It has a kind of angular, jagged dissonance to it that is just the right kind of wrong. I love the drumming and the quality of the production. Overall, it's got a sort of quirkiness that makes it entirely distinctive when placed in context with the rest of the Stranglers catalogue from the late '70s and early '80s. It's definitely its own "thing", owing little to anything that preceded its release.