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| The Records (publicity photo) |
Although he was born a big-city boy in London's East End, when Will Birch was 10-years-old his family moved to Southend-On-Sea, Essex, England — a quaint sounding address for a faded seaside resort community. Once a popular day-trip destination for Victorian Londoners, when Birch came of age in the 1960s, the town's remaining reminder of its glory days was a crumbling Coney Island-style amusement park with an odd German name: The Kursaal.
By the '70s, with tourism a long-forgotten memory, Southend had gained a reputation for something entirely different. Curiously, the sleepy suburb was home to many of the UK's top pub rock acts of the era. Dr. Feelgood, Wilko Johnson, Mickey Jupp, and Eddie and the Hot Rods all hailed from Southend. One of the most promising bands from the area was the Kursaal Flyers, who took their moniker from the little locomotive that occasionally still chugged its way around the rusting remnants of the amusement park.
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| Promotion for the Crashes LP |
"It was a stupid name," laughs Birch, the group's drummer and lyricist (the same roles he later filled with the Records). "No one outside of Southend or Germany knew the word Kursaal. It got misspelled everywhere. We turned up at a gig once, and the poster read: Tonight! A Case of Flies!"
Birch was quite possibly destined to make his mark in music from an early age. "My mum played the piano," he says. "She liked music a lot. Even before rock 'n' roll, there were always records in the house, stuff like Guy Mitchell, the Mills Brothers, and Bing Crosby — we had a lot of Crosby records."
The first records Birch wanted for himself were Elvis' early hits. "My mum would buy them for me. I got the 78s of 'Loving You,' 'All Shook Up,' 'Hound Dog,' 'Teddy Bear'... I still have those records. It started an obsession with record collecting!"
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Kursaal Flyers' single - "Little Does She Know"
CBS Records (1976)
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Greatly inspired by the skiffle stylings of Lonnie Donegan — "I wanted to
be Lonnie Donegan," he emphasizes — Birch got a ukulele banjo and formed his first band with a school friend.
Skiffle gave way to the instrumental sounds of the Shadows and the Ventures, and Birch traded the ukulele for a drum kit. "I wanted to play guitar," he reveals, "but it was too difficult. I had these few chords that I could play, but I couldn't get beyond that. I'm quite a lazy person, really, and playing drums
looked so easy."
When the Beatles and the Rolling Stones came on the scene, Birch became a devoted fan. "I had to have the long hair, the long bangs, and the clothes — leather jackets and pointy boots. I immersed myself in the beat group look. I can still remember my dad shouting, 'Get your hair cut!'"
Birch played in a succession of "absolutely awful groups" throughout the '60s, adapting his persona with each new trend. As a mod, he went to the Marquee to see the Who ("Fantastically exciting!"), the Small Faces, the Action, and the Move ("The best group of that whole period!"). Mod was replaced with a passion for the blues ("There was a blues boom with John Mayall and Fleetwood Mac, and I wanted to have a blues band!"), which in turn was replaced by a mania for soul music.
So it should come as no surprise that by late '73, when the Kursaal Flyers formed, Birch's new blueprint was based on West Coast country-rock with definite pop overtones. "We were very influenced by the Burrito Bros. and the Byrds, as well as the real stuff — Merle Haggard and Hank Williams. But when I started writing with Graeme [Douglas, guitarist] we became more poppy."
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This clipping for the Kursaal Flyers says
something along the lines of: "You're
only as good as your best single."
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A couple of years into their career, with two poorly received albums already under their belt, the Kursaals found themselves signed to CBS Records with a hit single called "Little Does She Know." But even cheesy
Top of the Pops appearances and thrice-daily radio play couldn't quell the dissension within the band. In the studio, Douglas quarreled with producer Mike Batt (whose other production credits included the Wombles), accusing him of over-commercializing the group. Shortly afterward, Douglas left to join Eddie and the Hot Rods for whom he wrote the classic power pop anthem "Do Anything You Wanna Do."
Birch seized the opportunity to overhaul the Kursaals and drag them, kicking and screaming if necessary, into the present. It was, after all, 1976. "I loved the Ramones and the Clash," states Birch. "I wanted the group to become more contemporary with what was happening. I really thought the Clash were the future of it all, and I wanted to be a part of that new world." Certain band members were told to shave their mustaches, and Vic, the pedal steel guitar player, was asked to leave. An ad was placed in Melody Maker, and auditions were held for a new guitarist.
When vocalist Paul Shuttleworth suggested they try out his mate John Wicks, an accomplished guitarist, singer and songwriter, Birch resisted: "He just didn't look right to me. He had long hair and flared jeans. I didn't particularly want a punky look, but I didn't want people who looked like early-'70s throwbacks."
Born in Reading, Berkshire, Wicks attended St. Edward's Private School and had a proper English schoolboy upbringing. He recalls wanting a guitar after seeing a Tommy Steele variety performance as a small child, but it was the Beatles, he says, "that really changed my life. I would put elastic bands around my exercise books and pretend I was playing the guitar, and I got a bunch of kids to be my Beatles." He adds, "I was John Lennon. I thought, in my juvenile psyche, that Lennon was cooler than McCartney."
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Back cover of the Kursaal Flyers' LP - Chocs Away!
UK Records (1975)
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As the self-taught guitarist entered his teens, his future course was set. "When I was 13 or 14, I was desperately trying to write songs. I'd compile them and make liner notes like it was an album, five tracks on each side."
Like Birch, Wicks progressed through a series of forgettable and regrettable bands. In 1970, he joined his first professional outfit, New Horizon, which was followed by a four-year stint with a covers band. By the time of his Records audition, he was fronting a group called Blokes. "The idea was," says Wicks, "because there were all these glittery bands around, I thought the time was right for something that went against that image. We wore roadwork gear onstage. We went out late at night stealing all the traffic cones and the Men At Work signs. I thought everybody would get the point!" Maybe Blokes was just a few years ahead of its time.
While Birch may have had reservations about Wicks fitting in with the revamped Kursaal Flyers, the guitarist was just as hesitant to make the move, fearing the upheavals in the group spelt its imminent demise. "Blokes didn't have much success compared to the Kursaal Flyers," acknowledges Wicks, "but at least we were still a band."
However, Wicks was open to updating his image and cutting his rock star hair, and Shuttleworth convinced Birch to give him a second try. (Note: This was more than Wicks had been willing to do a few months earlier when he'd answered Malcolm McLaren's advert for a singer. When told he had to have short hair, Wicks adamantly responded, "Oh, I'm not getting my hair cut!")
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The Records - back cover of the "Teenarama" single
L-R: Huw Gower, Will Birch, Phil Brown & John Wicks |
Even though Birch remained "understandably skeptical," a newly shorn Wicks arrived dressed in tight jeans and spiffy pointed-toe shoes and passed the audition. "He looked totally great," says Birch, "so he joined the group. That's how superficial I am."
The Sex Pistols' loss was the Kursaal's gain! But unfortunately for Wicks' hair, the band did break up within months of his joining. Their final LP, Five Live Kursaals, failed to chart, as did their Muff Winwood-produced swansong 45 "Television Generation." A 1977 UK tour in support of the live album had them sharing the bill with teen punk sensations the Cortinas, who were scoring with "Fascist Dictator." Short hair and pointed-toe shoes couldn't save the Kursaals from running BANG! straight into punk rock. "I always said we were sunk by punk," quips Birch.
There were some cursory discussions between Shuttleworth and Wicks, who had begun a writing partnership during the last days of the Kursaals, about teaming up for another project. But Birch, who had found a kindred pop music fan, was just as keen to form a new band with Wicks. "Something got written in Melody Maker," states Wicks. "I don't know how they got word of it, but someone got the message that Will and I were going to do something together. Paul said, 'It would've been nice to have heard it from you instead of reading about it in the paper.' It was the end of a good friendship."
And the beginning of the Records.
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| "Starry Eyes" (Netherlands-issued picture sleeve 45) |
A partially finished bio on the Records' Internet site claims that the next few afternoons were spent listening to
Revolver, the Raspberries, Big Star, and Badfinger. And while Birch would "have a snooze on the couch," Wicks "grafted wonderful tunes" to some of the drummer's "more juvenile lyrics." Their earliest collaborations included "Teenarama," an impeccably crafted pop song about the downside of lechery, and "Up All Night," so evocative of
Revolver, it could have been an outtake.
"John and I had a kind of telepathy," says Birch. "Although we are quite different kinds of people, we gelled as a writing partnership. I was confident about my lyrics and equally confident about John's tunes. We trusted each other and respected our respective talents. We didn't analyze it; it just worked."
To pay the rent while they dreamt about forming their fantasy lineup (they "envisaged a classic four-piece of uniform height and head-to-body ratio," notes the website only half in jest), Birch and Wicks became songwriters-for-hire after a fashion. "We were writing songs for everyone we met," muses Birch, "they just didn't know we were writing songs for them."
Rock legend Dave Edmunds put some music to Birch's lyrics for "A1 on the Jukebox" and released it as the A-side of a 45. New wave teenybopper Rachel Sweet recorded the Birch/Wicks' composition "Pin a Medal on Mary" for her Stiff Records release. The aptly titled "All Messed Up and Ready to Go" was written with Wreckless Eric in mind, but he never recorded it. And although it was never used, an alternative version of "Teenarama" entitled "Coca Cola" was pitched to the US soda giant as a jingle.
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The Records perform in Walnut Park as part of a free
concert with local pop group the Flashcubes.
Bring your own blanket!
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Meanwhile, an ad was placed in
Melody Maker, and auditions for band members began.
Bassist Phil Brown, who listed his previous band as the Janets (a group which may or may not have existed as no one, including Birch and Wicks, had ever heard of them), was an easy choice.
"Phil took out his Rickenbacker bass," says Wicks, "and we just thought, Cool!" However, finding a lead guitarist was a bit more challenging.
It's alleged that Birch and Wicks auditioned 200 guitar players before they found the right one. According to Birch, the exact total was 211! "We ran the ad every week for four weeks. We were rehearsing at this place in London every day, and the ad just said: Come Down! And they kept coming and coming and coming."
"There were some ridiculous people," recollects Wicks. "There were people that had traveled across the country with an acoustic guitar in their bag. We had to send our manager out. We said, 'You know what we're looking for. If they don't look right, tell them to go.'"
Eventually, Huw Gower, late of Bristol's nicely named Ratbites From Hell, walked in the door. "Huw had this amazing technique," says Birch, "he could simulate a backwards guitar like the Beatles. We played around with all this psychedelic kind of stuff — Spirit, the Byrds, Moby Grape, Love... and Huw knew all of it." As an afterthought, Birch adds: "He looked great! So he joined, and we had a group."
Now they just needed a name. Preferably one that everybody could spell, that wouldn't cause any awkwardness, and would stand the test of time. And Birch was pretty sure he had one.
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"Starry Eyes" b/w "Paint Her Face"
(US-issued picture sleeve 45)
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"How's that group of yours?" inquired Clash frontman Joe Strummer, while he and Birch shared a drink one night.
"Great!" replied Birch.
"So, what're called?" asked Strummer.
"I think we're gonna be the Cuties," stated Birch.
"Is that spelled QTs?" wondered Strummer.
"No, Cute... like c-u-t-e," clarified Birch.
"Lose the name," advised Strummer.
"I thought Joe was the Oracle," says Birch, "so I panicked." Later that evening, while lying in the bath, Birch hit upon the obvious name (given his lifelong obsession) — The Records!
To secure their hold on the prized appellation, the Records quickly booked their first show. Perhaps they were a bit too quick. Making their debut at Bristol's Granary Club as openers for the Late Show in April 1978, the half-hour set featured an array of impressively obscure covers including Blue Ash's "Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)" and the Raspberries' "Play On."
Rounding out the setlist were "Teenarama" and "Up All Night," as well as a reworked version of the Kursaal Flyers' "Girls That Don't Exist" and the never-recorded "The Weather in My Mind." ("It's just embarrassing," says Birch of the unrecorded tune. "We were trying to be the Move.") They also included two new originals: "Insomnia" and "Held Up High" (which was later tweaked and renamed "Another Star"). Yet both Birch and Wicks agree that the fledgling band was "under-rehearsed." In an interview for the book
Power Pop! Birch recalled: "At one point in the show, I counted the song in, 'one-two-three-four,' and all four members of the group went into completely different songs."
The next several months were a busy time for the Records, as things started happening very quickly. In a highly complementary full-page
Melody Maker spread, writer Harry Doherty likened their sound to Badfinger, terming it "rock with sensitivity." And he quoted Birch as saying: "You've got to stand by what you believe in. You can't really do anything about the way people interpret you. You can only hope that people see that you've got the best motives for doing what you do. And we have."
The band was still unsigned (however, CBS had arranged for demos of "Teenarama" and "Up All Night," feeling that it had a claim to Birch's efforts given its contract with the Kursaal Flyers) at the time of the
Melody Maker feature, but that was soon to change. In the article, Doherty alludes to a deal being "in the offing," and for once, it wasn't just a line. EMI, Warner Bros., and Virgin Records were all vying to sign the group.
Although it wasn't the largest of the three and was still trying to build its rock roster, UK-based Virgin Records, with US distribution through Atlantic Records, ultimately offered the best deal. Virgin even made it look as if their initial 45 — a little number Birch and Wicks had recently penned called "Starry Eyes" — was an independent release on the band's own Record Company imprint. "Everybody had their own groovy little label," states Birch. "We wanted our own groovy little label."
While the Virgin contract was still being negotiated, the Records were put into Scorpio Sounds in London with producer Dennis Weinreich to begin recording what would become their signature song. (Birch is given co-producer credit with Weinreich, but that may be an overstatement. "I was in the room," he says modestly. "I got the drinks in.")
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The Records - cassette tape
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Originally nicknamed "Silver Song," "Starry Eyes" was meant to be a kiss-off to an ex-manager:
"While you were lost in France
We were stranded in the British Isles
Left to fall apart amongst the passports
and the files
We never asked for miracles
But they were our concern
Did you really think we'd sit it out
And wait for your return?"
Built around marvelous harmonies and a soaring Byrds-like guitar riff, "Starry Eyes" also bore an unmistakable resemblance to a certain Eddie and the Hot Rods' song. When
Creem writer Jeffrey Morgan cornered him on the subject, Wicks stated, "'Do Anything You Wanna Do' was a great single." "I agree," said Morgan. "How did it end up on your album?"
Was it an intentional lift? On the Records' website, Birch calls the song "a shameless rewrite." And during this interview, Wicks told me: "Eddie and the Hot Rods used to say we stole their song and had a hit with it."
"Basically," says Wicks, "we heard the Hot Rods' song and were knocked out with it. I thought, 'Wow! I'd love to write a song like that.' But it wasn't like, 'We've got to copy that because they did it.' We
didn't steal it. But it is the same vibe, and it uses the same kind of chords, just in a different order. I've always liked those jangly chords. I've always played that way. Will had the lyrics written down, and I just started playing those jangly chords, and it just fell into place. I said, 'Hey, I've got something! This is gonna be really good!' It took five minutes, and it was done."
In October '78, with work on the single almost complete, Birch and Wicks received a phone call from Stiff honcho Dave Robinson, who remembered them as the writers of Rachel Sweet's "Pin a Medal on Mary." As Wicks recalls, "He said, 'We're gonna do this tour. There's going to be half a dozen Stiff acts going out. A package tour sort of thing. Would you like to back Rachel?' Will put his hand over the phone, and I said, 'We're not a backing band. We're a band in our own right. Tell him we'll do it if we can do our own set.'" Much to their amazement, Robinson said, "Okay," and the Records were on the train for the infamous Be Stiff tour.
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Shades in Bed - Virgin UK cover
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The group couldn't have wished for a more ideal launching pad. For six well-publicized weeks, they traveled the UK in a hired Brit Rail coach with the likes of Wreckless Eric, Lene Lovich, Mickey Jupp, Jona Lewie, and Rachel Sweet. And each night, they opened the show with a 20-minute set that included "Teenarama," "Starry Eyes," the just written "Affection Rejected," and a cover of Tim Moore's "Rock and Roll Love Letter."
By the time the tour concluded in New York with eight shows in four nights at the Bottom Line, the first copies of "Starry Eyes" were pressed. "We took 'Starry Eyes' with us," says Wicks, "thinking maybe they'd play it at the club. That's how it all started. We came home, and Will got a phone call saying WNEW were playing it three or four times a day. The next thing we knew, we were getting messages from our management office saying it was spreading right across the States. Johnnie Walker at KSAN [in San Francisco] was screaming for it."
In February 1979, the Records entered the newly built Townhouse Studios to begin work on their first album. Primarily produced by Robert John (Mutt) Lange and Tim Friese-Greene,
Shades in Bed (retitled
The Records for US release, the LP also sported an alternate cover and a reconfigured track listing) was a piece of pure pop (for now people!) perfection showcasing Wicks' sophisticated tunes and Birch's witty wordplay. "Almost every track could have been a single," enthused Ira Robbins in
Trouser Press — and he wasn't exaggerating.
"Teenarama," "All Messed Up and Ready to Go," "Girls That Don't Exist," and of course, "Starry Eyes" (the UK release featured Lange's production; the US release kept Weinreich's) were all standouts. But the tracks on which the songwriters clearly displayed their influences (the Badfinger-esque "Affection Rejected" and Cheap Trick-infused "Girl," for example) were equally remarkable and proved the Records weren't just a one-dimensional pop group, but a multifaceted band.
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Advert for the Records' self-titled US debut LP
(back cover of Trouser Press #43, October 1979)
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While
Shades in Bed was a confident and oftentimes brilliant debut LP, it didn't come without some behind-the-scenes turmoil. In 1979, producer Mutt Lange was just beginning to make a name for himself. Although the group had hoped to work with either Todd Rundgren or Tom Werman, when Virgin suggested they use Lange, who had just completed a Motors' album for the label, the guys consented. Even though it meant sharing his attention with another project: AC/DC's
Highway to Hell.
"Mutt didn't have time to do the whole album," says Birch. "He was flying here, flying there. He'd say, 'I can give you two days.' But what he did do was pick the four songs that he thought might be singles, and he did those." In the end, Lange's production credits only extended to "Teenarama," "Girls That Don't Exist," and "Starry Eyes." The fourth song, "Rock and Roll Love Letter," was dropped at the last minute when the 45 "bombed." No doubt everyone was still recovering from the Bay City Rollers' sugar-coated '76 version.
That left the bulk of the production duties to Friese-Greene, who Birch feels did an admirable job. "Tim turned out to be far more attentive than Mutt," observes Birch. "He spent a great deal of time on the tracks, layering the sound. Tim really cared a lot." Nevertheless, Birch feels the overall quality of the record was marred by serious glitches with the studio's sound system. It was an unfortunate situation that Friese-Greene was unable to sort out.
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"Teenarama"
Virgin UK picture sleeve 45 (1979) |
"The speakers were playing things back that weren't really on the tape," asserts Wicks. "We'd take the tape home, and the bass guitar would disappear. It would go to a certain frequency, and it would disappear! The studio was flattering what you heard, so what you thought was really exciting was actually drab and lifeless. Tim agreed that there was something wrong, but he didn't want to step on Mutt's toes and remix it. I said, 'Can't we get Mutt back?' But he'd gone off to produce
Highway to Hell. It wasn't Mutt's fault that the record sounded bad, but we were miffed because we thought he just didn't want to come back. Of course, there was no way he could. Things got said in the press that we were disappointed with the record, and it sounded like we were badmouthing him. We really weren't. But he was furious about it. To this day, it's a situation that I desperately want to put right. Essentially, he did everything correctly. He just didn't know that the studio was bad."
To make things worse, a crack was starting to develop in the band itself, with Birch and Wicks on one side and Gower on the other. While the lead guitarist was credited as co-writer and producer for "The Phone" (for which he also provides the vocals), apparently it wasn't enough. When bassist Phil Brown was given co-writer credit and 20% of the royalties for providing a Rick Nielsen-worthy opening guitar riff to "Girl," Gower demanded the same for a chord change he'd made to "Affection Rejected." It's something that still irks Wicks: "We gave Phil 20% of 'Girl' because his riff was absolutely integral to the song. We gave Huw 20% for 'Affection Rejected' just to shut him up. That's how much of a fuss he made."
Gower was also credited as producer for a bonus four-track EP of cover songs that was included free with the album (the UK pressing featured a 12" disc titled "High Heels"; in the US it was an untitled 7"). An interesting concept, like David Bowie's
Pin-Ups before it and the Ramones'
Acid Eaters after it, the EP paid tribute to some of the group's own favorite tunes and included "Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)" by Blue Ash, "See My Friends" by the Kinks, Spirit's "1984," and the Rolling Stones' "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby? (Standing in the Shadows)."
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| The Records (publicity photo) |
In May, with the album done, the Records embarked on a short UK tour as support to the Jam.
"The Jam were
massive," says Birch, "and they had a very young audience. I wouldn't say it was totally the right audience for us, but it all went quite well."
"We never had anything thrown at us," Wicks states with evident pride.
But it was just preparation for what was coming next: their first full American tour. "This was the realization of a long-held dream," Birch writes on the website. "Eight whole weeks in the land of neon."
Wicks recalls the ride to the airport: "We got in the minibus going to Heathrow, and our manager said, 'The album's just gone in the
Billboard chart at 99 with a bullet.' And we just went silent. It was like, 'Nah... it can't be.' It was an
awesome feeling!"
With the Virgin/Atlantic promotional campaign in high gear, the tour kicked off on the East Coast, where the Records opened for the Cars in New York's Central Park. "That was amazing," declares Wicks. "I remember we played everything really fast because Will was really nervous. I was spitting the vocals out. Just looking at this sea of people, 15,000-plus. I loved it!"
Birch describes a typical day as the tour advanced across the States: "We would visit two radio stations, there'd be an in-store, three local press interviews, a phoner with Australia or someplace, and then the gig, and then the party, a couple of hours sleep and on to the next city."
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| Crashes - Virgin Records (1980) |
Predominately headlining mid-size clubs (although there were also several dates with Joe Jackson), Birch also found himself gobsmacked by the support groups. "My heroes were opening for
us. We'd get to these gigs, and the marquee would say THE RECORDS! And underneath, in tiny little letters would be the people whose records I'd been collecting for years. The dB's opened for us in Long Island, the Rubinoos in San Francisco..."
The Midwest was "patchy." A show in Kansas was canceled before the band got there. ("They'd sold three tickets," confides Wicks.) But shows in Dallas, Houston, and Austin were "quite good"; St. Louis "wasn't too bad."
While taping a segment for
The Midnight Special (hosted by the Cars that week, the other performers were Iggy Pop and Suicide), Birch finally got to meet Frank Secich. The former bassist for Blue Ash and writer of "Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)" was in LA working with ex-Dead Boys vocalist Stiv Bators. "We were in this TV studio in Hollywood," says Birch, "and he walked in and said, 'I'm Frank. I wrote that song.' I couldn't believe it!"
And through it all, "Starry Eyes" provided the soundtrack. "We heard it all the time!" exclaims Birch. "Every time we turned on the radio, we heard it. It was just wonderful!"
"I came out of a club on Hollywood Blvd. and got into a convertible with this girl," remarks Wicks. "It was a warm summer night, and we were just driving along Hollywood Blvd. with the top down, and 'Starry Eyes' came on the radio. I've never felt such a high in my life! That's what I had always wanted so much. That night, it was like everything was possible. Everything was right with the world."
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"Hearts in Her Eyes"
Netherlands-issued picture sleeve 45
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In fact, there was really only one unpleasant episode on the entire tour, and it led to Gower being fired from the band. The evening began in an English bar in Detroit. "It was a rare thing at the time," says Wicks, "to find a bar that sold Bass Ale."
According to Wicks, "Huw wasn't really a drinker. He was into
serious stuff, like cocaine. So, we went to this English bar and Huw drank three-and-a-half pints of beer. And because he normally didn't drink, he subsequently got very drunk very quickly. He then proceeded to get into an argument with the promoter because he hadn't gotten him any cocaine."
Onstage, things only went from bad to worse. "Huw threw a complete wobbler," Wicks continues. "He walked up to the mike... There were people from Virgin and Atlantic in the audience who had flown in from New York especially to see us, and Huw decided to introduce one of the songs by saying, 'This is a song that sums up the whole
fucking business. It's called 'The Same Mistakes.' The comment probably wasn't directed at them, but it sounded like it was. And that's what they were going to think."
"We were all cringing with embarrassment," adds Birch. "John and I looked at each other, and we knew Huw had to go. We couldn't risk that happening again." Backstage, the drama resumed. "Our manager grabbed Huw by the neck," relates Birch, "and pushed him against the dressing room wall, shouting, 'What's your problem, Gower?' Huw said something like, 'I'm getting to think that me and Phil are just sidemen for Will and John.' He was partially right, of course. Although Phil and Huw were both encouraged to contribute material, the truth is, they were not natural songwriters, whilst John and I could turn out songs by the bucket load."
When Wicks became ill near the end of the tour, the final gig in Vancouver was canceled and the band flew home. Work began on a second album, and they commenced a European tour as support to Robert Palmer. But when Palmer's tour was cut short after three dates, they returned to London, and a group meeting was scheduled at the management office. Only Birch, Wicks, and their manager Peter Scarbrow knew what was up.
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| The Records/Shades in Bed - CD reissue |
While Birch allows that Gower "was a great guitar player, and he contributed greatly to the sound of the Records," his fate had been sealed in Detroit. "John and I were resolved to let him go," states Birch. Gower turned up last to the meeting and quipped, "Sorry I'm late. You're not going to fire me, are you?"
"It took the wind out of everyone's sails," says Wicks. "We were thinking, 'Shit! He just said it as a joke. Now, what do we say?' Pete just told him... I remember exactly what he said because the atmosphere was just terrible. He said, 'Well, Huw... the Records, that is John and Will, no longer require your services.'"
Gower's work on the album was shelved and towards the end of '79, the three remaining Records, with onetime Kursaal Flyer Barry Martin filling in on guitar, returned to the studio to cut the backing tracks for what would become
Crashes. (The recently released On the Beach CD reissue of the LP restores two songs featuring Gower on guitar.)
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"Hearts in Her Eyes"
Virgin UK picture sleeve 45 (1980)
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A third trip to the studio in early 1980 incorporated guitarist/ vocalist Jude Cole into the band. Introduced to the Records by
Crashes producer Craig Leon, the 19-year-old Moline, Illinois, native had been playing with Moon Martin. "Jude's strength was more vocal than guitar," explains Birch, "although he was a fair player. He brought a youthful vitality to the group, and our vocal sound improved immensely. We liked him a lot, and he was a good chap to have on tour."
After surviving the highs and lows of the preceding year, the Records had matured as a band. Many of the songs that Birch and Wicks were writing at this point expressed a more grown-up outlook. Only two Mick Glossop-produced tracks — "Hearts in Her Eyes" and "Man with a Girlproof Heart" (the former a delicate Birch/Wicks' composition originally written for the Searchers; the latter a rewrite of the Kursaal's "When You Meet Your Hero") — evoked the radio-friendly pop of the first album. And both were late additions as Virgin looked for 45 material. On the whole,
Crashes was much more complex. It was a conscious decision on the part of the songwriters to move away from their trademark melodic sound.
Birch recollects telling Wicks, "Let's try to write songs that are a bit more subtle, less choursy." And two of the album's strongest tracks were the result: "Rumour sets the Woods Alight" tackled the conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Brian Jones over a decade earlier while "Girl in Golden Disc" had Birch fantasizing about rigging the charts to reflect his own taste in music. Meanwhile, "The Same Mistakes" — a mid-tempo bout of manic-depression — caught the attention of
The Face, which poetically called it "an anthem to their own dishevelled melancholy... as battered, wistful and wise as the people who made it."
Two other exceptional tracks, "Spent a Week with You Last Night" and "I Don't Remember Your Name," found them still trying to recreate
Revolver. And lyrically (especially with "I Don't Remember Your Name"), Birch proved to be just as capable as Lennon when it came to sarcastic wit:
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And then there were five!
Back cover of the "Imitation Jewellery" 45
featuring new frontman Chris Gent and
guitarist Dave Whelan.
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"There we were in the middle of a room
at a hotel somewhere in the West End
A man that I'd not met before
introduced me to my best friend
Nobody thinks I need a drink,
I'm not asking you to buy
You may smoke a fat cigar,
but if you don't show me to the bar
I'll die..."
Ultimately though, the band was unhappy with the LP. Birch terms it "an unrealized record." In his interview for
Power Pop! he places the blame on the songwriting, saying: "There's about five [songs] on
Crashes that aren't thoroughly routined, rehearsed, recorded, even written. It's like a demo, an album of demos."
During our interview, he also tactfully points to problems with Craig Leon (best known for his work with the Ramones): "I think the songs have more depth than the first record. But they, therefore, needed a deeper production gloss to reach the public's ears. This wasn't achieved, mainly because Craig, bless him, wasn't the sort of guy to spend endless hours in the studio, like Tim Friese-Greene did, layering the sound. Craig was a feel merchant, but we weren't a feel group."
Wicks, on the other hand, is much less solicitous about Leon. "Craig wanted to engineer and produce," he says, "and get as much money as he could for both things. So, the studio engineer figured it wasn't his job to line the tapes up in the machine. And Craig thought, 'I don't want to do that; that's
his job.' So no one did it, and we ended up with an album with no treble on it. Which is why it doesn't sound very good. That is just unprofessional." Attempts were made to salvage the sound with remixing, "but we couldn't do anything with it," says Wicks. "It just wasn't on the tape."
If there were any UK or European gigs in support of
Crashes, Wicks can't remember them. "We just thought, 'Let's go back to America!' That seemed to be the sensible thing to do."
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| Music on Both Sides-era publicity photo |
Or not. In 1979,
Shades in Bed/The Records had been the first album released in the US under the Virgin/ Atlantic pact, and the band had enjoyed all the attendant hoopla that implies. A year later,
Crashes was the last album released under the pact, with all the disinterest on Atlantic's part that implies.
In effect, US distribution and publicity for the LP disappeared. And the difference was dramatic. "When we arrived at JFK for the first tour, there were two stretch limos to meet us," says Birch. "When we arrived at JFK for the second tour, we were pushed onto a bus, carrying all our gear."
On the first tour, their days had been filled with one interview after another, in-store appearances, and national TV shows. But the second time around, says Birch, "promotional work was relatively non-existent." And where it seemed as if "Starry Eyes" was constantly on the radio during the first tour, Wicks doesn't recall if "Hearts in Her Eyes" was getting airplay or not. "I think it probably was. I'm sure some stations were playing it. We were so caught up in thinking, 'Jesus Christ! Everywhere we go, we have to drive 500 miles.' We weren't really concentrating on whether or not we were on the radio."
Four weeks into the six-week tour, Virgin's tour support ran out, and everything screeched to a halt. Birch's tour diary supplies the details: "Arrived JFK 12th July and flew down to Florida for rehearsals at Criteria Studios, Miami 14th-17th. First gig Boca Raton on the 18th. Our van was involved in an accident on the freeway (no one hurt). Then on through Florida, Georgia, Washington DC, NY — gig at The Ritz on 29th July, Philadelphia, NY, Boston, New Haven, Dover, Buffalo, Toronto, Montreal, Detroit, Chicago on 13th August — a great gig opening for Alice Cooper. Today we were advised the tour would be finishing. West Coast dates cancelled. Live recording at Pierce Arrow Studios on 14th August. 'Rebel Rebel' was the encore. Home 16th August. Jude returned to LA."
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| Music on Both Sides - Virgin Records (1982) |
"It's funny the things you remember," says Wicks about the Records' final US show. "It was the Chicagofest, and it was
huge! The stage went right around the lake. And it was pouring rain. We came running out... You're not that far from the water, and you've got all this stuff that you're plugged into. Electrocution is only one step away! Phil came running out, slid on his arse, and very nearly went into the lake with his bass on!"
After the show, Wicks continues, "Will had come to the realization that it was all going wrong and he got insanely drunk. He was crawling around on the floor whining and groaning and almost in tears. He ended up swilling Listerine from the bottle."
(Birch also managed to take in a Coasters' show that evening. The song "Tired and Emotional (and Probably Drunk)," which Birch co-wrote for Billy Bremner's 1984
Bash! LP, memorializes his drinking binge.)
"It was a really painful night," states Wicks. "We just knew it was all over. It was like, where do we go from here?"
"We blew it," reflects Birch. "We were in a very strong position at the end of '79, and we blew it big time. We made a couple of really big mistakes. I wouldn't say we were arrogant, but we got a little bit carried away with ourselves. We thought we knew everything. We said, 'We don't want Mutt Lange to produce the second album.' Which was mistake number one. We kicked Huw out of the group because he was being an asshole. But that was mistake number two. I think whenever a group tampers with the lineup, the chemistry changes, doesn't it? It was certainly a lot more pleasant without Huw around, but it was his edge that gave the group its edge. Maybe these difficult people should be tolerated. Put them in a different hotel; make them ride in a separate bus. But those were our two big mistakes. I can see it all now! I couldn't at the time."
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Cutting from Hartbeat #21
Courtesy of the Records Facebook page
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A lawsuit brought by the Records against manager Peter Scarbrow took up the remainder of 1980. (It seems that some of their equipment, including Wicks' Gibson guitar, decided to stay in the US and hang out with another Scarbrow-managed band. Birch wrote "Not so Much the Time" in his honor.) "We won," says Birch, "but it finished us."
Only if you don't count
Music on Both Sides. And given its complete lack of promotion and limited distribution through Jem, many Records' fans didn't count it simply because they didn't know it existed.
Produced by Birch (although the liner notes don't make it clear, he chose not to play drums; Sinceros drummer Bobby Irwin plays throughout), their third LP was a confused and half-hearted affair. Recorded in early '81, but not released until a year later (by which time Birch and Wicks had parted company),
Music on Both Sides finds Birch still trying to keep pace with the latest trend — new wave with a hint of European techno-pop. "I was listening to a lot of Kraftwerk," he divulges.
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No Sleep Till Canvey Island: The
Great Pub Rock Revolution - first
published in 2000 by Virgin Books
|
The
Trouser Press review states that the LP "sounds like
Rubber Soul with a crappy rock singer." Which isn't completely true. Sometimes it sounds like the Cars ("Heather and Hell"), and sometimes it sounds like Big Country ("Selfish Love"), and sometimes it sounds like early U2 ("Clown around Town" and "King of Kings").
As Birch's tour diary noted, when the second US tour came to its abrupt end, Jude Cole (whose exuberant guitar playing and McCartney-like lead vocals on "Hearts in Her Eyes" and "I Don't Remember Your Name" had fit perfectly) returned to LA. Dave Whelan, vaguely described as "a South London boy who was playing in semi-pro bands," replaced Cole on guitar for
Music on Both Sides.
And whether it was a bow to record company pressure or Wicks suffering from what he calls "a crisis of confidence," the third LP sports a five-piece lineup featuring frontman Chris Gent — something that went against the very foundation of the Records. "Getting a frontman was a desperate move," concedes Birch, "a last-ditch attempt at survival."
As far back as their first Melody Maker feature, Birch had told Harry Doherty: "I'm really frightened of frontmen. I don't like them at all... We just want a four-piece group, really. I like the number four. Four guys. It feels like a group. Five is a bit ungainly, isn't it?" In our interview, Birch again stressed: "We wanted to be the Beatles, copy the whole thing. Three guys across the front with guitars. That was the shape we wanted. It was a concept from the start. In my imagination, it was like the Clash meets the Beatles. I wanted four guys!"
One almost feels sorry for Gent, the poor guy probably had no idea what he was walking into. Surprisingly, neither Birch or Wicks seem to know much about Gent's history or how he came to be the Records' lead singer. "Chris had been in a group called the Autographs, I think," offers Birch. "I think Phil Brown knew Chris," guesses Wicks.
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Rotate - John Wicks and the Records
Kool Kat Musik (2007)
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It's also a bit unfair for
Trouser Press to call Gent a "crappy rock singer" (he isn't!) when there's so much not right about the third album.
It could have been Birch's lyrics. "I don't feel too great about Music on Both Sides," he confesses. "If you listen to the lyrics, there's a general pissed-off quality to it and not much humor." Or maybe it was Wick's tunes. "U2 were really starting to happen," he says. "Everybody was talking about U2. So, I started messing around with this new wave idea. I felt we were being modern. What we should have done was stuck to what we were." Or possibly it was the production job. "After the Crashes debacle, I thought I could make a good record," states Birch, "although I now accept that it wasn't that great."
"Imitation Jewellery," which sounds like a generic, semi-synth Euro-pop band, was the only 45 release, and then only in the UK where it "flopped." Two pub gigs quietly heralded the LP's release. "I seem to remember they were a disaster," says Birch.
"We did one gig that was unannounced, in a basement somewhere," mentions Wicks. "We started to play, and Dave Whelan was so wound up to show us what he could do, he overdid it to make sure it went across. He started working like a clockwork dummy, just going berserk. And Chris was at the front jumping up and down all the time, to the point where it was like, 'Please stand still!' Will and I were horrified. Then we played the Greyhound. It's a fairly sizeable club, and it was packed. We played really powerfully that night. We were all playing really well. I was thinking we were AC/DC. But I looked at Will and he looked at me... We never said anything, but we knew it was all over — this is rock; this is not the Records. And that was the end of the band. We never did another gig."
Wicks eventually moved to the US and formed a new version of the Records. He's currently putting the finishing touches on Rotate, a new CD featuring songs recorded between 1991-2004. Birch went on to produce LPs for Billy Bremner, the Long Ryders, and Dr. Feelgood, as well as becoming a noted rock 'n' roll historian. His book, No Sleep Till Canvey Island: The Great Pub Rock Revolution (Virgin Books), has recently been reprinted.
