Talent Is an Asset- The Story of Sparks

by Daryl Easlea

  It was during this period that another indie act came forward to declare their undying admiration. Franz Ferdinand had erupted in early 2004 with their angular art-rock and a breakthrough single, ‘Take Me Out’, a metallic update of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Trampled Underfoot’. With their asymmetrical haircuts and breezy Scots attitude, the band was everywhere. Alex Kapranos, their lead singer, did a piece in the NME entitled ‘Why I Love Sparks’. “It’s only after a few listens you really get into it. That’s what Sparks were like. You can go back and listen again and again. Then you really fall in love and bands change your life. Now I can’t imagine life without them.” When Franz Ferdinand were in LA, they had lunch with Ron and Russell. “We heard they liked our record,” drummer Paul Thomson told The Daily Record. “They didn’t eat anything and were so polite, while we stuffed ourselves with burgers. We’ve always liked them, because they are great songwriters” *

  Gered Mankowitz’s studio, London, August 1979. (GERED MANKOWITZ)

  “You’re laying in my space!” — a tramp admonishes Ron during the guerrilla photography for the sleeve of Terminal Jive, Victoria Station, London, 1979. (GERED MANKOWITZ)

  “The new album’s a hoot, I’ll tell you.” Ron grins and bears it. Unused photograph from Terminal Jive sessions, Safeway, Kings Road, Chelsea, London 1979. (GERED MANKOWITZ)

  Ron and Russell Mael at Sparks’ unofficial LA HQ, the Farmers’ Market, 1980s. (BARRY SCHULTZ/RETNA)

  Sparring before Whomp That Sucker launch, Park Lane, London, 1981. (SIPA PRESS/REX FEATURES)

  Taking it to the (big brass?) ring, May 1981 at the launch for Whomp That Sucker at the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, London. Viv Stanshall and Clem Burke were among the onlookers. (RICHARD YOUNG/REX FEATURES)

  Ron and Russell, back as a duo around the time of Music That You Can Dance To. (GEORGE DUBOSE/LFI)

  …doing his on-stage strip, 1983. Les Boehm can be seen in the background … (BOB LEAFE/FRANK WHITE AGENCY)

  As years passed, Ron’s caricature became more extreme on stage — a fun guy from outer space. Ron in his early Eighties stage outfit of his dressing gown …(BOB LEAFE/FRANK WHITE AGENCY)

  Rock, Rock, Rock. Ron’s miming of Jim Wilson’s off-stage guitar solo was a highlight of the Hello Young Lovers tour. (LIVEPIX)

  … Practice man, practice! Ron finding out the way to Carnegie Hall, Lil’ Beethoven tour 2003. (RICHARD C MURRAY/LFI)

  Ron Mael, dicking around on stage, 2006, on the Hello Young Lovers tour. (LIVEPIX)

  Ron Mael and Russell Mael, Cambridge Corn Exchange, October 2006. “They are charming gentlemen … I don’t need to know anything else about them than what is on the record.” — manager Sue Harris. (CHRIS BOLAND/REX FEATURES)

  “It became world-wide news — no-one had ever done anything like that before.” — Sue Harris. Sparks onstage at the 21 Nights, 2008. L to R: Marcus Blake, Russell Mael, Ron Mael, Steven Nistor. (ELLIOTT FRANKS/LIVEPIX)

  (ANDY WHITTON)

  After the indifference that met Plagiarism and Balls, it was a period of intense activity and fun. On Orbital’s Blue Album, released that June, two ‘synth duos’ met when Ron and Russell made a guest appearance on the track ‘Acid Pants’, described by the London Metro as being “goofy, faintly hysterical”. Another oddity at this time was Sparks’ cover of ‘We Are The Clash’, a very much unloved song from that band’s final album, Cut The Crap, for a free A Tribute To The Clash CD in Uncut magazine. “A delicious rock’n’roll irony,” as the magazine put it.

  In October, through the internet, fans mobilised to attend the International Sparks Conference 2004, held at The George and Pilgrim Hotel in Glastonbury and organised by fan Lynn Bastian. The brothers sent a filmed message and former members Trevor White, Martin Gordon and Ian Hampton turned up in person. Also in 2004 the publishing deal with Island Music, which John Hewlett had negotiated 30 years before, lapsed and saw the rights of over 200 Sparks songs revert back to the Maels. The brothers subsequently arranged a new deal with Warner Chappell on all their albums aside from Lil’ Beethoven, Balls and Gratuitous Sax…, which remained with Universal.

  The relationship between the brothers and Sue Harris had proved an astute management choice for the brothers: “Managing Sparks is not something you undertake lightly,” she says. “It’s like a marriage; you put your heart and soul into it. They are extraordinary and unique. I don’t think anyone else in the world is like them — to manage them can’t be like managing anyone else. We have very defined roles. I don’t get involved in their recording process, their A&R process, to me it would be like working with Van Gogh and saying ‘I don’t like what you did with that sunflower, can you make it a bit yellower?’”

  * In his notes to a Songs To Save Your Life CD he compiled (featuring ‘Barbecutie’) given away free with NME, Morrissey took the opportunity again to say that Sparks were “Very, very clever. Ahead of their time. Lyrically astonishing”

  * It was said that Franz were going to compile a Sparks collection but aside from Sparks presenting Franz Ferdinand with their 2005 Brit award, nothing has since happened.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Can I Invade Your Country? Hello Young Lovers

  “We’ve drawn a line in the sand with our new album. If you’re coming with us, step right over the line!”

  Sparks, 2005

  “They make great art that is extraordinary.”

  Sue Harris, 2009

  At the outset of 2003, Ron Mael was clear that he would not be content to bask in the critical accord with which Lil’ Beethoven had been garlanded, stating, “We would like to elaborate on the general direction of this album.” In the past detractors had attempted to undermine Ron and Russell’s talent by suggesting that their best work had relied on outside collaboration: that it had been Martin Gordon’s arrangements or Adrian Fisher’s guitar playing that had sealed Kimono My House, or Giorgio Moroder’s co-writes and production that had made No.1 In Heaven. Now they had released an acknowledged masterpiece that was down to no one else.

  The Maels had devoted an unprecedented four years to one project — writing, recording, promoting and touring behind Lil’ Beethoven. In the same period, three decades before, Sparks had released six albums. With celebrity fans and critical respect, if their shows were not sell-outs, they were certainly operating on high-percentage capacities with new markets, such as Japan, opening up.

  However, from Roy Silver’s efforts in the early Seventies to Chris Blackwell’s later endeavours, widespread success in their homeland still eluded the brothers. But, for once, Ron and Russell didn’t seem to be that concerned. The seam they had struck in the late Eighties with their home recordings seemed to be bearing fruit so the pair retreated back into their LA studio to begin work on a follow-up, working with the regular supporting cast of Dean Menta and Tammy Glover with touring bassist Steve McDonald and guitarist Jim Wilson helping out. Working largely without demos, the brothers expanded the spectacularly singular sound crafted for Lil’Beethoven.

  In May 2005, a press release was issued updating fans on the album’s progress: “No time for play these days… Ron and Russell are feverishly working like mad scientists on their follow-up to Lil’ Beethoven [which is quite frankly, very hard to follow up!] However, the Maels are now fiercely challenging their former masterpiece and promise to equal, if not exceed, its brilliance. Dean and Tammy are working hard to make sure they out-do themselves on this one as well.”

  The advance word on the album Hello Young Lovers, taking its title from the Rogers and Hammerstein standard from The King And I, mentioned pieces that ran for up to seven minutes. Russell added it wasn’t for the timid and that it would be “elaborate, excessive, adventurous, more extreme, with lots of vocals! And there is much more diversified instrumentation on the new album.” For once, there was an air of expectation outside the Sparks hardcore.

  In the interim, Sparks certainly benefited from their new, raised profile in the UK. On June 25, they took a break from reco
rding to appear in London at the 2005 Meltdown curated by their one-time touring partner, Patti Smith. The evening was a tribute to Bertolt Brecht. Ron and Russell performed ‘The Mandalay Song’ from Happy End, accompanied by the London Sinfonietta, and returned for the encores of ‘The Solidarity Song’, joined by the rest of the show’s performers including Marc Almond, David Thomas and Smith herself. The Maels also attended the Q Awards in 2005 and presented the best album award to Coldplay. Liam Gallagher approached the brothers and paid his respects for ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’

  Sparks’ profile was boosted again by a cover of that very song by British Whale, a pseudonym for Justin Hawkins, the leader of British band The Darkness who had shot to fame in 2003 with their humorous-yet-sincere take on clichéd heavy rock. Hawkins’ version of ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’ rose to number six on the UK charts.

  “It’s hard to cover a Sparks song,” Sue Harris says. “When Ron writes, he’s writing with Russell in mind, and Russell has this incredible ability to interpret Ron’s writing in a way that no one else can — which is part of the reason they are so unique. Often when you hear covers of their songs, they aren’t very good and frequently artists give up because it’s too hard… Justin Hawkins took it to the most preposterous level with ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’— he out-falsetto’d Russell.”

  Ron and Russell were touched by Hawkins’ tribute and appeared in the video, which was set at that most un-American of events, the World Darts Championship. “We’ve plundered and plagiarised the Sparks catalogue shamelessly throughout our career,” Hawkins admitted. “It’s a true classic.”

  With the new album finished, Harris visited UK record companies to see if the goodwill of recent years could be turned into an attractive deal. Leading UK independent Gut Records snapped Sparks up. Founded by Guy Holmes, Gut had enjoyed great success with Tom Jones at the end of the Nineties, and had recently enjoyed a huge British hit with the novelty record ‘Crazy Frog’. Although Sparks were less ‘pop’ than the label was used to, with Harris working the promo, it was obvious that the album would be launched with enough fanfare. Gut MD Steve Tandy agreed that “it would never be easy taking the normal routes with someone like Sparks in terms of radio and TV because they are obviously in a different genre, but so far we are really pleased with everyone that has come on board.”

  Hello Young Lovers was released on February 6, 2006, with a Dave Park-designed sleeve full of pink and fluffy rabbits (the ‘young lovers’ of the title). For the first time since 1983’s Sparks In Outer Space, other band members (Dean Menta and Tammy Glover) were pictured in the booklet; more strikingly, the band were all shown in the same picture — the last time that had happened was 1975.

  Ron and Russell had become two-man Tony Viscontis recording their own Indiscreet. With little modesty, Russell called it “the modern equivalent of Sgt Pepper”. It was, in the sense that it followed a better record (Revolver in The Beatles’ case), but it took that formula of progression to a higher plateau. The walls of vocals are not quite in such evidence as in Lil’ Beethoven, yet the instrumentation is more complex and there is also a great deal more guitar and drums.

  The album starts and finishes with epics — ‘Dick Around’ and ‘As I Sit Down To Play The Organ At The Notre Dame Cathedral’, which meddle with form and convention. The former, a paean to leisure time, was later released as a single. The tracks act very much as bookends to the whimsy and invention inside. To these ears, they work the least.

  ‘Waterproof’ contains a mixture of recorders, violins, thrash metal guitar and clattering drums. ‘Rock, Rock, Rock’ retains a similar theme to ‘What Are All These Bands So Angry About’ but everything seems more extreme and mannered. ‘Metaphor’ and ‘Waterproof’ too are complex, funny and innovative, while one of the best examples of vocal trickery on the album can be found on the cat’s chorus of ‘Here Kitty’. Most notably Hello Young Lovers contains two of the best songs — ‘Perfume’ and the remarkable ‘(Baby, Baby) Can I Invade Your Country’ — that Sparks have ever recorded.

  ‘Perfume’ is gorgeous. A warm, synthetic pulse underscores another of the brothers’ occasional love songs. Menta’s nagging guitar propels it further, and Russell’s understated vocals, singing through a list of some 30 perfumes, are among his best. ‘(Baby, Baby) Can I Invade Your Country’ is a mass of overdubbed acoustics creating a marching rhythm (without drums), with Ron’s synthesiser and Menta’s guitar. The group overlay vocals while Russell sings Francis Scott Key’s ‘The Star Spangled Banner’, before asking the title’s question. Written at the height of America’s War On Terror, the global campaign in the wake of 9/11, Ron would introduce it on stage by saying that Sparks previously had ‘apolitical’ tattooed across their chests for years. With this song, it was removed, marking the first overtly political song written by the Maels. With its jazz trumpet breakdown and extreme use of repetition, it further demonstrates how far the brothers had come as producers/arrangers.

  Although it may have not had the impact of Lil’ Beethoven, Hello Young Lovers did not disappoint. The product of 18 months’ work, it is a record that the group feel duly proud of. “We’ve attempted to push the parameters for those who thought Lil’ Beethoven was about as far as things could get pushed,” Russell said. “Yet, we think the whole Sparks world will now live in peace and harmony with the scheme of the new Sparks album.”

  A six-page special feature was published in industry magazine Music Week entitled “Sparks fly into the future”. Elsewhere, the album received the now customary platter of glowing reviews. “Sparks retain a mythic corona which few other than Morrissey continue to possess. Sparks remain a puzzle, but how refreshing is that?” David Buckley said in Mojo. “The most out-there pop record by fiftysomething Americans… ever” long-term fan Paul Lester declared in Uncut. “Be prepared to be welcomed back into their parallel universe,” the author wrote in Record Collector.

  A British tour supported the initial release of the album — a six-date jaunt from Glasgow to London, commencing February 12, 2006. The live band — Steven McDonald on bass and Steven Nistor on drums — was augmented with the presence of LA legend Josh Klinghoffer, the producer/guitarist who has played with a variety of acts from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Beck. A new concert was devised with Hello Young Lovers played in its entirety in the first half and the now customary ‘Sparks Show’ in the second.

  When Klinghoffer had other commitments, Jim Wilson returned to the band. “At the same time we were doing our Mother Superior tour so Josh and I would cross over. I played in Paris for that tour, I played at Guilfest. It was weird because Josh and I were literally passing each other by. I went to Russia because he couldn’t.”

  The band had formed into a tight touring unit and the balance of theatre and concert was by now near perfect. The show opened with ‘Rock, Rock, Rock’ in which Ron mimed to Klinghoffer’s offstage guitar, throwing rock shapes. Behind his horn-rims and dressed in black, he had honed his nearly 40-year-old routine to perfection. This was the Chaplin of The Great Dictator, not of Easy Street. Projections by Shaw Petronio and Eiko Fujimoto were used throughout, most notably on ‘The Very Next Fight’ where Ron boxed with himself on the screen onstage.

  On May 20, Sparks played LA’s Avalon Ballroom, followed by various well-received festival dates including the Isle Of Skye Music Festival in June and Guildford’s Guilfest a month later. The one misstep occurred when Sparks headlined the Saturday night of The Big Chill festival at Eastnor Castle on August 5. Despite great anticipation, the show didn’t quite come off and the crowd dwindled. “The weekend was crying out for big names who could unite the 30,000 crowd for a defining moment,” said The Guardian. “That was well beyond the capabilities of Sparks who topped Saturday night’s main-stage bill playing their new album to a tiny audience.” The Daily Telegraph added “Their arch and rather brittle sound jarred in the warm glow of the big chill ambience. By the end t
hey were just playing to a handful.” Perhaps headlining a festival whose whole reputation has been based on mellow vibes was not necessarily the most obvious fit for Sparks. In many ways, it was akin to them playing the Whisky on Sunset early in their career. The hardcore adored it, but the rest moved on.

  As an interesting sideline during this time, the Maels selected tracks for a Motown compilation in its Made To Measure series. The brainchild of Universal’s UK office, the idea was for compilations of personally selected material from the Motown vaults by artists not immediately associated with the iconic label. British actor Martin Freeman had the first go; Sparks were next. Released on June 6, 2006, Russell and Ron were interviewed by journalist Paolo Hewitt for the sleeve notes at their Kensington hotel. Theirs was a catholic selection that paid no mind to conventionally received wisdom and saw established Motown treasures such as The Supremes’ ‘Back In My Arms Again’ and The Temptations’ ‘Get Ready’ next to ‘uncool’ selections such as ‘Ben’ by Michael Jackson or ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ by Thelma Houston.

  The world of radio had changed beyond recognition from the days when Motown got singles played on the medium. Getting Sparks heard over the UK airwaves was a huge issue and a wall of indifference met ‘Perfume’, the first single to be taken off the album.

  Sue Harris: “Back in 1974, people said that ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’ wasn’t a hit. Then Tony Blackburn played it and off it went. German radio got behind ‘When Do I Get To Sing “My Way” ‘. It doesn’t matter if a song is off the 20th or the third album. If Sparks got airplay they would sell more records. No doubt about it. They might not be like James Blunt — but they do write pop songs.”