Independence Days

by Alex; Ogg

  Another stain on Island’s reputation – and that of U2’s – followed the hideous court case against art mavericks Negativland, which occurred while Blackwell was still at the helm. In 1991 Negativland issued its ‘U2’ record, featuring samples of a recording by America’s Top 40 host, Casey Kasem; the band’s logo displayed in large type on the packaging. The music was based on parodies of ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’, with kazoos used to deconstruct the sampled original. Kasem’s rant (“These guys are from England and who gives a shit?”), drawn from a fraught rehearsal, was the real motivation behind the collage. In the run-up to the release of Achtung Baby, Island’s lawyers issued writs against the band for violation of trademark and copyright law. Negativland were forced to settle out of court on the basis that they could not afford to defend the action. Had they done so, the band still believes, they would have established a new precedent for fair use. But this was a case where those with the financial resources rather than the moral high ground dictated events. Negativland maintained (most famously in an interview with Mondo magazine where they were able, via a little chicanery, to question U2’s guitarist The Edge) that they had been given no opportunity to withdraw the offending release. They also made the perfectly legitimate claim that U2 themselves had glorified indiscriminate copyright infraction by playing a series of clips from satellite TV stations when they set up their Zoo TV tour.

  Island pushed for costs, which covered the efforts of an expensive legal team. The fallout meant that SST, one of America’s most distinguished independent labels (though not one that has been removed from harsh criticism itself from the artists it has worked with for non-payment of royalties, including several notable court cases), went into a tailspin. The term ‘pro bono’ has rarely taken on such conceptual duality. Moreover, the incident was testament to the extent to which the Island brand had become an avaricious entity, in thrall to corporate concerns, and incapable of recognising the validity of ‘art’ outside of the money chain.

  And yet, certainly in the 70s, it would be a mistake to underplay the role of Island Records in establishing the foundations for an independent label culture – both in terms of its A&R reputation and its pioneering work in logistics. “Chris Blackwell was the role model for a lot of people,” states Richard Scott, then manager of reggae act Third World, and later head of Rough Trade Distribution. “If you think about what they achieved, not only did they have their own distribution, but they did their own manufacturing too; they had their own pressing plant and reps round the country. Island is much more important than Virgin. Island did all of Virgin’s distribution, and Branson knows nothing about music. Blackwell does. When Third World signed to Island in ’75, I spent a lot of time with Chris. I can remember a day we spent talking about whether he should drop Virgin. I spent another day talking to him about whether he should drop Roxy Music! He was using me as a sounding board. But I learnt a lot about the distribution business and how things worked through Chris.”

  There is no more justifiably loved figure in the evolution of independent music than BBC disc jockey John Peel. Always a fierce but mostly intuitive advocate of the outsider, without his patronage this book would not exist. As an adjunct to his eyrie at the Beeb, he began the Dandelion label in 1969, alongside Clive Selwood, to offer an outlet for artists he liked who lacked any other means of exposure. Yet the part that Selwood played in the development of ‘Peel’s Dandelion Records’ is often overlooked. Trevor Midgley, aka label artist Beau, traces that back to the development of American independent Elektra and its forerunners. “In the mid-60s, Jac Holzman [Elektra’s founder] took the key decision to diversify and re-focus the catalogue. In came the Doors, Love, Carly Simon et al, and away went Theodore Bikel, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs and the rest of the troubadours. Jac also launched the highly successful Nonesuch classical label to run alongside Elektra. At just this changeover point, the man who was charged with promoting the new Elektra/Nonesuch identity in Europe was Clive Selwood. When Dandelion was conceived in 1968, I don’t think John or Clive were consciously trying to produce an Elektra Mk. II. And of course, in the event, Dandy had neither the artist roster nor the longevity of Elektra.

  However, it is interesting that even with its limited number of signings, in its three years Dandelion issued folk, art-rock, old-time rock ‘n’ roll, hard rock, proto-punk grunge, psych-folk, avant-garde jazz, and classical albums, plus sets in a couple of other genres that even now are tricky to categorise. Without John’s inquisitive and restless musical mind, none of this would have come about. But I’m also sure that Clive’s years of involvement with Elektra made him the perfect partner for Mr Peel. Extreme diversity within a label might be new in the UK, but it wasn’t strange to Clive. In a slightly different way, he’d seen it done before.”

  Dandelion’s name came from one of Peel’s pet hamsters (as did the allied publishing business, Biscuit), at the suggestion of his then flatmate Marc Bolan. The label effectively exhibited his personal tastes. As well as attempting to revive Gene Vincent’s career, it released material by new artists including Beau, Medicine Head, Bridget St John, Clifford T. Ward, Stack Waddy, Tractor and Kevin Coyne (with his original band, Siren) amongst others.

  Medicine Head provided the label with its only hit single, 1971’s ‘(And The) Pictures In The Sky’, which reached 22 in the charts (although Beau’s ‘1917 Revolution’ had topped the charts in the Lebanon a couple of years previously). While commercial returns were never a motivating factor, a respectable level of sales were required to keep the ship afloat. The label was successively distributed by CBS, Warner Brothers and Polydor, but closed its doors in 1973 when the latter deal ceased. The eventual loss of support from the major labels was, according to Midgley, inevitable. “The Dandelion ethos was at a tangent to the mainline record industry of the time. John’s name and reputation were vital when it came to getting CBS, Kinney [for a brief period the holding company for Warners] and Polydor to play ball, but there really was a culture clash which in the end could only have one result. But by the time the plug was finally pulled on Dandelion, foundations had been laid and blueprints established for future independents to take up the baton. As we now know, many did, with a vengeance.”

  Dandelion released 28 albums and a dozen singles that, collectively, evade easy classification. There’s no doubt that Peel was somewhat dismayed by the way some of the artists on the label expected more than he had resources to provide. Speaking to me in 1991, he obliquely referenced this, when I asked if he tended to avoid music that was pompous or the result of overly inflated ego. “Yes, that’s right. I always find it quite laughable, really. It doesn’t irritate me. There might have been a time when it would have done, but now it just seems to me to be comic. Nobody’s that important. I suppose it’s one of the aspects of the ‘rock’ industry that I’ve always disliked. I’ve disliked it for lots of reasons, in that in the past it’s removed some very good friends from my orbit. In that they’ve become ‘rock stars’, and they start to live such a bizarre life, through no fault of their own. Most of them are not particularly bright, and they’re surrounded by people whose jobs depend on telling them how wonderful they are – so that they lose all touch with reality.”

  “Whether John was sanguine about things that were going down, I can’t say,” admits Midgley. “What I can say is Peely loved to please, and didn’t like aggression or confrontation. If frustrations ever turned into argument, I can’t think he’d have found that agreeable. I personally didn’t have an issue [over promotion], because I knew Dandelion didn’t have bottomless coffers. I also appreciated John’s position at the Beeb, and of course I had another career outside music. I never had reason to discuss lack of promotion with either John or Clive because, quite honestly, I had enough on balancing the demands of two careers as it was.”

  Nowadays Dandelion is remembered as one of the ultimate cult labels but, as Midgley suggests, it would be a mistake to simply consider it ‘Peel’s i
ndulgence’. “To characterise Dandelion [in that way] would be to misunderstand a basic – and revolutionary – tenet of the label; that of artist control. In giving control of the recording process to those of us on the label, John and Clive sowed seeds, the fruits of which others would later reap in spades. It’s no coincidence, for example, that Richard Branson launched Virgin Records almost as Dandy exited the scene. Richard had that one tremendous slice of luck when one of his artists – Mike Oldfield – broke very, very big. If he’d been asked (and I don’t know that he ever was!), I’m sure John would have attributed Branson’s success with Mike and Tubular Bells to the promo budget Virgin was able to muster. Not to put too fine a point on it, Dandelion promoted on a shoestring, and John’s privileged position at the Beeb was only of limited benefit when it came to pushing Dandy and its artists. Though as I’ve said at another time and place, ‘the simple fact that John was associated with (Dandelion) gave the label a stamp – not just credibility, but also the cachet that a lot of people felt about Peel himself. It was quality stuff Peel would have played on his ‘Perfumed Garden.’”

  Midgley remains convinced, too, that the label’s legacy should include an acknowledgement of the soundness of Peel’s tastes. “Personally, I always thought the David Bedford and Lol Coxhill discs were both adventurous and brave. This was the sort of stuff you mostly picked up on scholarly labels like Deutsche Grammophon; yet here they were, happily sitting alongside the rock offerings of Stack Waddy and Tractor and folkies such as myself and Bridget St John. For me, David’s and Lol’s releases epitomised the eclectic nature of Dandelion. They still do. All that said, I believe the greatest album to come out of Dandelion on so many levels – the one that will endure – is Kevin Coyne’s Case History. Quirky, soulful, heartbreakingly honest, I don’t think Kevin ever bettered it. That record just couldn’t have been made by any of the ‘corporates’ of the day. Many have said Dandelion was a great A&R resource for other labels. Indeed it was. And some of the music was truly innovative, deserving its place in the discography of the greats. Then there’s the spirit. Yes, it should be remembered for that. Dandelion was born out of John’s personal ideal, which was a kind of delightful (if naïve) confidence that if you produce something worthwhile, the world will beat a path to your door. But most of all, Dandelion was a trail-blazer. It wasn’t recognised as such at the time. But in the light of all that followed, Dandelion’s influence is plain. Without Dandy, the great British independent labels of the 70s and 80s would have had a very different look; if, that is, they would have existed at all.”

  If Midgley makes the case convincingly that Virgin Records was influenced by Dandelion, the contrast between the two labels’ founders is acute. It’s hard to disassociate the rise of Virgin Records from its founder and relentless publicist Richard Branson, one of Britain’s most celebrated wealth-creators. The son of a barrister, and a veteran of Student Magazine, he established Virgin Records as a mail order chain, then retail outlet, alongside his second cousin, music buff Simon Draper. Virgin’s logo featured naked twins designed by Roger Dean, the centre-hole in the record placed between the crossed legs of the girl. It was a concept built on the casual misogyny of the era, but indicative of the boy’s club mentality Virgin embraced. After purchasing the Manor studio complex for £20,000, the label simultaneously released four albums on 25 May 1973 – Gong’s The Flying Teapot, a compilation of improvised music by friends including Robert Palmer and Elkie Brooks titled The Manor Live, Faust’s Faust Tapes and, most significantly, Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. The latter would clock up sales of over five million. It established Virgin as a commercial force, even though the notoriously publicity-shy Oldfield proved hard to handle – the sole live appearance he made at the Queen Elizabeth Hall only came about after Branson promised him keys to a brand new Bentley. That early release schedule was an enterprising mix of traditional hippy fare (Gong), Oldfield’s extended arias, some messing about in the studio and Krautrock. And instantly there was much about the roster that reflected the ‘everything goes’ times – Faust once picked up a labourer from the roadside and installed him, on lead pneumatic drill, as an attraction at that evening’s show.

  Subsequent prominent Virgin artists included Robert Wyatt, Ivor Cutler, jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill, Kevin Coyne and Henry Cow – significantly, souls cast overboard when the good ship Dandelion hit the rocks. They also signed Captain Beefheart from America, alongside the likes of Link Wray and Yellow Dog. For a time Virgin was the de facto home for mavericks, left-field progressives and those who’d arrived too late for the 60s but fully endorsed its creed. But the transformation of Virgin from hippy bastion to the label with by far the most influential cast of punk characters was radical, and affirmation of Branson’s ability to shift gears. Of course, they lucked out on the crown princes the Sex Pistols, by dint of having the patience and fearlessness that it took to sign them in the brimstone days of 1977. So it was that, after the chairman of EMI got cold feet, Virgin upturned the jubilee crockery with the release of ‘God Save The Queen’. WH Smith left a blank at number two in their chart survey, and insiders are credited with ensuring the record did not overtake Rod Stewart’s ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’ in the week of the festivities. It was followed by the release of Never Mind The Bollocks as the media fires were fanned further by a court case over the linguistic nuances of the title. Yet Virgin also prospered as a home to a clutch of punk/new wave groups beyond the Pistols, including the Ruts, Skids, XTC, Members, Penetration etc, and later Magazine and Lydon’s Public Image Limited in the post-punk era. There was no finer catalogue assembled in the period.

  Many of the punk set were nevertheless signed to contracts in which royalties were cross-collateralised against dubious recording expenses. XTC, the Ruts and Penetration have all countered that they were badly informed and exploited. There are members of XTC, in particular, who are given to bouts of near psychosis whenever mention of their original contract with Virgin is made. It took a seven-year ‘artist strike’ to extricate themselves from that deal (though that has similarities with the situation that another punk-era legend, Joe Strummer, found himself in with CBS). It doesn’t seem outlandish to speculate that a subliminal mistake was made by many artists in thinking that the new age/new look ‘independents’, especially the affable hippies at Virgin, had their interests at heart any more than the old school did. “I think that it was definitely the public schoolboy mentality that they shared,” notes Poly Styrene, who was briefly signed to the company with X-Ray Spex, “that the artists were the workers and that is just the way it is. You work for peanuts and make the boss rich. But artists on music labels didn’t get the same protection as workers, in terms of pensions etc., because they have supposedly entered into a business deal.”

  Others, like Bruce Findlay, formerly head of Scottish independent label Zoom and manager of Simples Minds, counters that Virgin simply employed the same tactics as everyone else, albeit under hippy camouflage. “Simon Draper is the best A&R guy I’ve ever worked with. It’s like any record label. If they’re into you, they’re the best label in the world. If they’re not, or they fall out with you or go cold on you, they’re the worst record label in the world. My experience of Virgin was nothing but pleasure. Virgin were as good to me during the 80s, as Island had been as a retailer in the 60s or 70s. I got very close to Virgin – but then we sold 20 or 30 million albums for them, so of course they liked us!”

  As for the cross-collateral approach. “EMI, Warner Bros, they all did that, all record labels,” says Findlay. “To be honest, Virgin were a wee bit like that. When I did the deal with Richard Branson, I had two different deals on the table. EMI and Polydor were both after Simple Minds, and I’d managed to split with Arista and we were free. Richard’s deal was very good, but not quite as good as the Polydor deal, but I liked them. I said to Richard, ‘Your deal’s not as good as Polydor’s, there are a couple of points I don’t like. You say we have to use your studio, I’m not
doing it. We’re NOT using your studio. Put it this way, Richard, we might use your studio, we might use the Manor.’ Richard was being business-like, he was saying, ‘I want to recoup, there’s more than one way of recouping. If we’re going to spend a fortune on recording, I’d rather our recording studio was making the money. So let’s have the best recording studio. If songs are going to get published, let’s see if we can get our company to do the publishing.’ But all the record companies did that. That expression – cross-collateralisation – until that period, as a manager, I hadn’t heard of that before, but I was learning quickly. There’s a terrible naivete about bands who say, ‘You got us into expensive studios. Why did you not say no?’ Why did you accept the expensive studio? Why did you accept the expensive director to make your videos? Why did you accept the expensive photographer? Why did you never question the cost?” Presumably because of the naivete Findlay alludes to. “Well, their managers should not be naïve. As bands get more sophisticated and managers became more sophisticated, they got to know better. I’m being defensive of Virgin, because I don’t think they were any better or worse. I can tell you horrible stories about independents.”

  Virgin continued to prosper through the auspices of Phil Collins, Culture Club and Human League as the eighties dawned, but in 1985, a private placing of 7% of convertible stock with 25 English and Scottish institutions prefaced the company’s flotation a year later. This saw all Virgin’s musical, retail and property assets become public property, thereby ending any pretence to independence. Over 100,000 private investors applied for shares in a company that now employed in excess of 4,000 people, with an annual turnover of close to £200 million. “In many ways going public was an attractive option,” Branson recalled in his autobiography. “It would enable Virgin to raise money which we could invest in new subsidiaries. It would swell our balance sheet and so enable us to enjoy more freedom from the banks and use our expanded capital base to borrow more if we wished. It would enable me to issue shares, which they could easily trade, as incentives to the Virgin staff. It would increase Virgin’s profile; and a thought lurking at the back of my mind was that, in due course. It would enable us to use the Virgin shares as currency to make a bid for Thorn-EMI, the largest record label in the country.”