Monocled Alchemist

Article published in Sounds, 10th November, 1979

The Records | Radio Active | THE ROOM is small and could easily be a monastic cell if not for the bright lighting — a large window aided by 50 watts of neon — the clusters of electronic equipment and the Meat Loaf promotional sticker.

There’s just enough space for the four people, two of whom have reached that point of perpetual tiredness where the only sign of fatigue is a constant blankness to the expression and a delayed reaction to even the simplest question — almost like a schizophrenic, they can take up to a couple of minutes to decide how they want an egg boiled.

Another is putting on a fine display of nervous bonhomie, a welcome so gushing it can only be there to hide a potentially awkward silence and a stream of questions of such instant friendliness that the talker must have done half a semester of ‘The Art And Technique Of The Chat Show Host’ — this is the tape op.

Me, I’m just jet-lagged and convinced I’ve got flu. The tape op switches on, letting the machine run on continuous flow. After their normal pause, the two performers begin to perform.

“Hi, I’m John Wicks —of the . . . ” A cough, a splutter and the tape isn’t even halted before it’s take two.

“Hi, I’m John Wicks of the Records and you’re listening to WGCL Cleveland.

Hi, I’m John Wicks of the Records and you’re listening to WGCL Cleveland.”

The Records | Radio Active

Next Will Birch clears his throat. “This is Will Birch of the Records and you’re listening to . . .

“His thin weedy voice slips into the dog whistle spectrum. ” . . . Fucked it up, do it again . . .

Hi, this is . . . ”

Doing station IDs is a way of life for bands touring America. The power of the equation is quite simple.

AM stations don’t have time to fit interviews into their claustrophobic, frenetic format (WABC-AM in New York has a playlist of something like a dozen records; they play ’em all once, they read the news, they play ’em all again) but they do like to present an image that implies they’re like that with the faces behind the names they rotate.

The big, big names they’d love to have plugging their spot on the waveband are understandably reticent about endorsing someone else’s product with such benign enthusiasm but the bands with singles on the way up could always do with a little helping hand and so it’s “Hi, this is Will Birch . . . “

Tubular Bells

Another small step for Virgin Records’ campaign to ‘break’ the Records in America. Until recently, whatever Virgin’s achievements in Britain, their standing world-wide could be measured in inches rather than feet.

Only ‘Tubular Bells’ had really sold significant quantities in America and all along their distribution deals had failed to gel.

Earlier this year, however, Virgin entered into a pressing and distribution deal with Atlantic for acts that they reckoned would sell well in the US and a less high-powered distribution deal with Jem for . . . the less high-powered acts?

Accordingly, the Members got the Jem treatment and the Records the Atlantic treatment. An almost perfect reversal of [article missing a couple of sentences]

The Records | Radio Active

encore, the Members have yet to make an impact on the US charts. The Records however have crept ever onwards and upwards in the charts. As of now, the album’s 41 in Billboard, 67 in Record World and 56 in Cashbox while the single’s 56 in Billboard, 70 in Record World and 76 in Cashbox.

Of course, that could be mostly a compliment to the clout of the WEA distribution system that Virgin are hooked into through Atlantic, a mere self-fulfilling prophecy of efficiency.

THE RECORDS were the first Virgin act to have their album dealt with by WEA so there is obviously an element of the new gang in town flexing its muscles, flashing its biceps and the Records do make wonderful radio music —hearing ‘Starry Eyes’ every couple of hours made me feel better anyway.

Tailor-made for radio? Well, yes, if you mean they’ve got a piercing toppy sound and sweet harmonies that slice right through the Dutch deodorant ads, the sounds of frying bacon and train whistles and what must be speeches from Polish train drivers’ conferences that clog up the radio every time something you want to hear comes on.

Well, no, if you mean calculatedly wrought for mass appeal. Will Birch was musing on something entirely separate when he cleared up any doubts about that. “In England, if people like your music, they say your songs are really great. Over hey say ‘You guys make a lot of [sentence missing]

the only criterion. I think that’s really duff because it blands people out, people start creating music that they know is gonna sell. When people put bands together in America, it seems their first consideration is commercial success.”

In search of a hit

For all his veneer of detached cynicism, Will Birch is really just an old-fashioned boy in search of another old-fashioned hit single (the Kursaals “Little Does She Know’ did it one time for him before) with the kind of old-fashioned morality that puts first some sort of intangible ethic, a belief that you create music without fully considering whether you’ll be able to live off the proceeds —such is art; can you imagine a plumber who put aesthetics before economics?

His attitudes might be almost quaint but his music’s far from being old-fashioned as a friend suggested to me. OK, the Records’ tunes are unashamedly based on the elements of Sixties and Seventies pop and they can sing the lyrically ludicrous ‘Rock And Roll Love Letter’ (‘exploding jeans’?) with a straight face.

But most of the Records’ lyrics — and that’s Will’s main ministry — are far more sophisticated than all but a few pop songwriters, love songs that Pete Shelley might write if he was as old as Will and was more worried about wearing his emotions on his sleeve.

Boy meets girl they might be but in the Records’ world it never stays that way for long. I’m assured that I saw the Records play two shows at the Bottom Line in New York.

The Records | Radio Active

Apart however from a kinetic memory of sitting at a table and traces that tell me the first show was the best I’ve ever seen them play (restraint plus passion equals true power) and the second show was energetic but very sloppy, I can hardly picture a detail of the whole evening.

An early morning arrival in New York plus being woken a couple of hours later by a baby screaming in the next room had left me in a state where I could walk and talk and give the impression of being alive while really I could have been six feet under for all my brain knew.

I also have a vague recollection of a small, informal party for the band after the shows at Kenny’s Castaways where they looked almost as somewhere else as me —New York for them was interview, interview, show, show, and more interviews and photo sessions.

THIS TIME the radio station has a thick blue carpet, white furniture, a glass wall and a black receptionist. M105, Cleveland’s second biggest FM station, and they really do look and act like they try harder.

Teenerama

This time it’s an interview proper and the DJ only looks slightly surprised when John tells him that “Songwriting is like the digestive system — you can get constipation but it can’t last forever.” ‘Teenerama‘ as a product of diarrhoea anyone?

Off to the sound check and switch roles for the last radio stop of the day —only a TV interview backstage at the gig to go — at WMMS, the radio station with the largest audience share in the whole of the country.

Denny Saunders interviews them and he’s a real fan, even knowing that ‘Abracadabra’ which was on the free EP with the Records’ wonderfully titled ‘Shades In Bed’ album was originally done by local boys, Blue Ash.

I wonder if the promotion men arranged the schedule this way deliberately, leaving the best till last. I notice a sign on the wall. ‘Buzzards Attack. Keep the energy level up! Play the best music: new and oldies! Cross promote. Positive up raps. Only five weeks to war! Kill now!’

The Buzzard is the WMMS symbol and ‘war’ refers to the audience share rating figures — you get the picture? The Agora ballroom is a large club that looks from the outside like Hitler’s bunker.

The Records | Radio Active

Inside, it’s cheap chandeliers and red everywhere with a sign on the wall ‘There is nothing more frightening than ignorance in action’. The show is solid, if too restrained and marred by John’s worn-out throat.

The Records look so suited to their music that they’re almost a parody of an English rock and roll band playing poppy music. Stylish jackets and hairstyles blending in with the chiming guitars and steady one-two on the drums. I think they play a song called ‘Hots In Her Eyes’ and, as a girl walks past in a red satin jacket, I think ‘How appropriate’.

Later, I learn the song’s really called ‘Hearts In Her Eyes’ — still, it’s got an instantly memorable chorus. Even Phil Brown’s notoriously gauche stage announcements pass me by without raising a hackle —in Cleveland, they seem subtle and intelligent.

As Denny Saunders told me, “It’s a town where there’s not much else to do except sex and drugs and rock and roll”. I’d put it another way —Cleveland is the most uninteresting city I’ve ever been to, the only interesting thing I’ve ever seen there has been a rock’n’roll show.

The band play on, through most of the album and a haunting, slightly haunted ‘Starry Eyes’ and on to an encore with the Move‘s ‘I Can Hear The Grass Grow’ and their own ‘Girl From France’. As they leave the stage, ‘The Logical Song’ creeps up through the speakers.

BACK AT the hotel the band have finally got enough time to do an interview with me. Not even bothering to hide the complete exhaustion in his voice, Will explains the schedule.” . . . Five radio stations, three interviews, two phone interviews every day, non-stop.”

John raises his body to semi-consciousness. “I had half an hour lie down last Friday — it was really magic.”

Clams up

We talk about the Beatles writing songs in the George Cing in Paris and the unheralded genius of Wreckless Eric and they’re all a bit drunk and very tired and Will shuts up — talk to him casually and he’s a bottomless well of opinion, ideas and comments; switch on a TC 44 and he clams up and makes me wonder why such a close observer of the music press doesn’t see how he could maybe use it to his own advantage.

All he would be assertive about was the merits of the Records. “There’s no rule that says you’ve gotta be an overnight success. Like, if we stick together and write better songs and we can play better and get better and better, in three years time we might be amazing.”

Will had just turned 29. Who’d argue with a birthday boy?