Facing the Other Way

by Martin Aston

  Hersh was also experiencing the gulf between the way 4AD and Sire operated. Across Europe, Pixies was handled by 4AD’s licensees while Warners attended to Throwing Muses – or rather, didn’t. To start with, each of Warners’ individual territories had to be persuaded to release House Tornado. Ivo could see the marked difference in effort. ‘I’d call Seymour [Stein] and scream, “You must do something for your band!” A chimp on acid could have done a better job than Warners did for the Muses. Ken [Goes] didn’t recognise that he’d failed them. It gave me the confidence to sign non-British bands to long-term deals because I felt 4AD could do a better job.’

  Tanya Donelly admits that the Muses, not their manager, had the final say on choosing Warners, believing the corporation’s European network was more advanced than that of 4AD. In Amsterdam, Narcizo remembers that the Warners representative didn’t even turn up. ‘The guy from [4AD’s Belgian licensees] Play It Again Sam even said, “I’ll do everything to make sure Pixies succeed and you don’t”. In another territory, a Warners guy said it was either our record or Prince’s. I remember thinking, we’re from Boston, we’re not thinking about Belgium! A lot of what we came to love about 4AD was our experience with other labels when we realised how unique and nurturing 4AD was.’

  Hersh: ‘Warners was like a million people, in their own little offices, and I’m trying to get my little memos in there. At 4AD, you talked to one person and they leant over the desk and asked the other person if it was true.’

  Pixies had no such issues, and revelled in the fact they were with sympathetic people who could out-party them. ‘It was the record label that was crazy!’ Kim Deal insists, recalling an inebriated Vaughan Oliver chuck a TV out of a Paris hotel window. ‘4AD looked more like rock stars than we did,’ says Santiago. ‘They had crew cuts, they wore black. Vaughan was just out there and Howard made you feel like you were the most exciting, important band in the world. They were serious, though, and hands on. We knew we were in the right place.’

  ‘Howard [Gough] was definitely one of the twenty-four-hour party people,’ says Thompson. ‘To him, no one could be better than The Clash, but we were a close second. If you were looking to party, he’d facilitate that. He’d be the guy at the Italian restaurant after the gig, rolling a giant spliff, acting like a rock’n’roller, and introducing us to rock’n’rollers like The Jesus and Mary Chain, like a traditional hustling publicist. His younger brother sold T-shirts for us for a while.’

  As for Ivo, ‘He was this older gentleman, classy, never loud, always polite,’ recalls Deal. ‘But for the longest time, I didn’t know what kind of person he really was. We played a show in Rhode Island and people came up after, saying “What’s Ivo really like?” They’d heard of him but not us! Simon Harper was like the nice uncle, in a Nehru jacket, very sharp-looking. Vaughan was the perverted uncle you wouldn’t leave the kids with. Deb was the heart of the label that everyone relied on, warm-hearted, happy to see everyone, sensitive and empathetic, with those big eyes and a desire to listen.’

  Kim Deal: ‘I remember The Wolfgang Press getting back off tour from Poland, all wearing their huge fur hats with shaved heads underneath, and all in black too. They looked like a faction. I liked that people at 4AD had artistic temperaments too. I’m sure some people wouldn’t think that was a good way to do business, but they had something other than living through each band and sale. They were doing art of their own. It was life-and-death stuff to them, and there could be tears over stuff.’

  Kristin Hersh would sometimes call Ivo and Deborah ‘Mum and Dad’.

  The thrills and spills of life with the new east coast family that was Throwing Muses and Pixies was a chance to forget issues with M/A/R/R/S and Cocteau Twins, and Ivo could afford to be more relaxed. He was also finding that 4AD’s newfound chart success, and the kind of people now employed at 4AD, had changed the mood. ‘One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t turn into the kind of fascist that a lot of people thought I was, and say, we’re not releasing singles, we’re just an album label,’ he recalls. ‘But I ended up playing the game. I was making a commercial decision. From Victorialand onwards, we were having top 20 albums, but singles were a different matter, and we wanted to get Pixies on to the radio. I’d also seen the impact of M/A/R/R/S on the staff, of the pleasure that success had given them, which was followed very quickly by Pixies’ explosion of popularity. It would have been absurd, me being this one person, not to do so.’

  At least Ivo wasn’t planning to return to the strategy of plucking singles off albums as he’d done during the Modern English era. In 1987, Gil Norton accompanied Ivo to Boston to talk to Throwing Muses about the possibility of producing what became House Tornado, and was excited enough after seeing Pixies play to pitch for their next album too. To try Norton out with the band, Ivo commissioned him to re-record ‘Gigantic’ and ‘River Euphrates’ from Surfer Rosa and a version of ‘Here Comes Your Man’ from The Purple Tape, with a view to making Pixies ‘more polished’.

  Santiago: ‘Gil wanted everything tight, which we liked. But I still don’t like his version of “Gigantic”. I thought it sounded too perfect, which defeated the purpose.’

  If this move resembled the kind of commercial compromise that major labels encouraged, it was balanced by the fact that the most obvious commercial choice, ‘Here Comes Your Man’, was shelved for ‘Gigantic’ to be the new single. The new ‘River Euphrates’ became a B-side alongside live versions of ‘Vamos’ (again!) and a cover of ‘In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song)’ written by the American composer Peter Ivers for Eraserhead. Both Pixies and Muses sets had been recorded at The Town & Country show the same night, but Ivo felt the overall quality wasn’t high enough: ‘I wasn’t going to bung out records for the sake of it,’ he says.*

  Vaughan Oliver could always be relied on to deliver an anti-commercial blow. For the twelve-inch ‘Gigantic’ he chose a close-up photograph of a naked, screaming baby. It was actually Howard Gough’s son Josh, neatly following the man on the cover of Come On Pilgrim and the woman on Surfer Rosa. Oliver rendered the photo in such stark contrast it looked like Josh hadn’t washed for weeks (Oliver says he didn’t touch the photo). Kim Deal didn’t know whether to smile or be appalled: ‘People said to me, this is child abuse! Vaughan made it look awful, I’m sure.’

  In any case, ‘Gigantic’ still sounded too bold for daytime radio. Despite Gough’s efforts, the single stalled at 93 in the UK national charts, substantially lower than the likes of ‘Pearly-Dewdrop’s Drops’, as if Pixies fans already had the definitive version of the song on Surfer Rosa.

  4AD released another twelve-inch single on the same day, 22 August, which more definitively rang in the changes – the success of ‘Pump Up The Volume’ and the increasing domination of dance music had increased the numbers of remixes for any given single. The Wolfgang Press’s ‘King Of Soul’ came in three different mixes; a separate DJ promo version was to end up as the new album’s opening track – the first time that 4AD had followed the traditional industry procedure. Even the three singles found on Modern English’s After The Snow had been released after the album.

  The rise of independent labels, in dance music as well as the supposed sound of ‘indie’, showed the majors no longer had a monopoly on the mainstream. ‘Everyone was doing it – singles before albums, twelve-inch remixes, different B-sides, plectrum-shaped singles … all this formatting so that labels could compete,’ says Ivo. ‘Bands were under pressure to record extra tracks for B-sides, but sometimes it felt like I cared about the quality of those extra tracks more than the artist did. But it shows how traditional 4AD started to become.’

  4AD had made enough profit to hire another name producer besides Albini. Flood (real name Mark Ellis) had worked with Mute acts such as Depeche Mode and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and had stepped in when The Wolfgang Press’s original sessions with the classically-trained Simon Rogers came to nothing. Rogers – who could proudly boast of being part of The Fall and S
outh American folk troupe Incantation (one of Nick Austin’s stranger success stories at Beggars Banquet) – had just completed Pete Murphy’s second solo album Deep, but Andrew Gray says he didn’t suit them: ‘We spent too much, experimenting, which is the only time Ivo commented, saying it was extravagant. Flood remixed a couple of tracks and we realised we had to make the whole album with him.’

  It showed Ivo was still willing to support his friends, not a traditional record company manoeuvre this time. He also knew what potential still lay in the trio, and there was a sentimental reason: only Mick Allen and Mark Cox had been along for the ride since the very beginning. ‘Thanks to Ivo, those boys had a career,’ says Deborah Edgely. ‘I think part of him felt that if he took it away from them, what would they then do? But Ivo was pretty shrewd and he didn’t often indulge people with money. He knew when to take a risk or not.’

  ‘Ivo knew we had the potential, but was still scratching his head about how to open things up for us,’ says Mark Cox. ‘He was this constant connector, putting people together. But we benefited from the fact budgets had gone up because of the success 4AD was having.’

  The band’s third album, Bird Wood Cage, again showed a slowly unfolding picture of deft songwriting, uncluttered arrangements, brusque tension and more contributors – among them Steven Young, Gini Ball, Peter Ulrich and Ruby James, all adding telling little details, from the bluesy sweat of ‘King Of Soul’, the nervy pulse and chorus chant of ‘Kansas’, the slow reggae skank of ‘Hang On Me’. It received great reviews in the press, even nine out of ten in NME (‘their songs are layered so deftly, each one a new gateau of ear-bending rhythm, silly words, Mick Allen’s MAD voice and irreverent noise from outer space’). And still the album didn’t shift public perception of the band, or increase sales.

  ‘Journalists want to know what’s coming next, rather than what’s not been successful,’ says Edgely. ‘And very few journalists supported The Wolfgang Press to begin with. We’d get a review here, a column inch there. Their gigs were never well attended, and they didn’t sell any records.’

  Perhaps America would be the land of opportunity? Rough Trade’s new US wing, based in New York, had taken the plunge and licensed Bird Wood Cage, as it had Pixies’ Come On Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa. But the album might still have a limited appeal if American retail or radio was unprepared to embrace an album dressed in a toilet bowl.

  Mick Allen’s tribute to Marcel Duchamp on the cover of Bird Wood Cage addressed the album’s themes of domesticity and taste, but it was still a toilet bowl on the cover, and an old, used model at that. ‘Vaughan wouldn’t have anything to do with the toilet bowl,’ says Chris Bigg. ‘And unlike Robin Guthrie, Mick Allen couldn’t be persuaded otherwise. He didn’t buy into what he saw as this ethereal wishy-washy stuff on 4AD; the band wanted to be more on the edge, to stand on the outside.’

  ‘Vaughan saw a record as his next sleeve,’ says Mark Cox, ‘whereas we saw it as what went around our music. Chris could entertain the fact that we had our own ideas.’

  Bigg: ‘Mick was complicated. He was gentle with me, but he could be very confrontational and angry, though I never worked out about what. He just didn’t want to join in, and that’s what most of his lyrics were about.’

  While The Wolfgang Press always struggled with critical acclaim, other bands were instant press darlings, like The Sundays. Ivo, usually highly suspicious of hype, didn’t even find out about the London-based quartet from the usual demo, concert or industry word of mouth, but from a salivating review in Melody Maker of the band’s second ever concert.

  The core of The Sundays was yet another couple. Vocalist Harriet Wheeler and guitarist David Gavurin had met at Bristol University and quickly found a signature sound; every major and independent label was drawn to check out the band based on the description of them fusing Cocteau Twins to The Smiths, though Wheeler’s wistful voice had nothing in common with Elizabeth Fraser’s, except for a beautiful tone.

  Ivo invited Wheeler and Gavurin to Alma Road and offered them a one-off album deal: ‘As they left the office, to visit Geoff Travis at Rough Trade, Simon [Harper] said, “How could you let them go? You know Geoff will do anything they ask.” The Smiths had split up so he didn’t have them anymore. Harriet and David were very cautious people and so they signed to Rough Trade for a single to begin with. It was the first time I’d been turned down and I was gutted.’†

  Ivo also acted out of character by not hesitating when he was confronted with another American artist to his liking. With The Sundays lost, Kurt Ralske, who called himself Ultra Vivid Scene, became 4AD’s third US signing in a row.

  At the time Ralske posted his demo, he was living in London. He’s now back in New York City, where music is a hobby again while he teaches video at the School of Visual Arts in the MFA (Master of Fine Arts) computer art department. He is also a visiting professor and artist-in-residence for the MFA Digital and Media department at Rhode Island School of Design. ‘I’ve always been interested in visual art, and I was always active in it on some level,’ Ralske explains.

  Raised in North Bellmore on Long Island, Ralske had inherited his parents’ musical nous, learning piano and trumpet when he was just five. A diet of jazz and classical appreciation had left little room for pop, ‘Which I wilfully decided was not for me,’ he says. However, his sister (ten years his senior), Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane changed his mind, and at the age of fourteen, he took an adult decision: ‘The suburbs felt like death, a void, so I started going by myself to New York City, which was something like the Wild West then. I walked straight into jazz clubs and nightclubs, and no one would say a word.’

  Ralske was in time for the city’s No Wave post-punk craze, playing what he calls ‘messy avant-garde guitar’ among a crowd of older jazz musicians. As Ultra Vivid Scene, he pressed up a hundred copies – with expensive covers in silver leaf – of a seven-inch single while living in New York. He also befriended singer-songwriter Mark Dumais and formed Crash, a more conventional C86-style guitar band imbued with a dark, dreamy and sad core. Ralske’s guitar drew from The Velvet Underground and Jesus and Mary Chain songbook: ‘It was incredibly intelligent, but as simple as pop music,’ he says. ‘I felt this incredible wash of noise, which I can now describe as [German playwright and poet Bertolt] Brecht alerting the audience to the idea that all is not what it seems on the surface. It was like putting quotation marks around the music, which I found very exciting. I wanted to make music that seemed simple and direct but wore its intelligence on its sleeve.’

  With the support of Rough Trade distribution manager Dave Whitehead, who had started his own label Remorse, Crash moved to London in 1985. The band lasted three singles and an album, then Dumais went solo and signed to Creation while Ralske resuscitated Ultra Vivid Scene (or UVS). A demo got offers from One Little Indian and Cherry Red. ‘But 4AD was my first choice,’ Ralske says. ‘I really enjoyed Cocteau Twins, other groups less so, but the label put a huge importance on the packaging. It was the complete artistic project that interested me.’

  Ivo was particularly struck by Ralske’s ‘The Mercy Seat’. ‘But once Kurt was back in New York,’ he explains, ‘I got a completely different version, like slow Suicide instead of fast Velvets, which suggested how good the song was to begin with. Kurt wore his influences on his sleeve but he had a great understanding of melody.’

  Ivo could sense something in Ralske of the sharp, inventive psychedelia of his youth, and he subsequently lent him albums by Fever Tree. ‘Ivo thought I used guitar sounds similar to theirs,’ Ralske recalls. But Ralske was looking beyond psychedelic; the B-side of his new-wave-jittery 4AD debut single ‘She Screamed’ was a cover of ‘Walkin’ After Midnight’ – made famous by Fifties country queen Patsy Cline – turned into a slow, druggy dirge with the sense of ironic quotation marks around it.

  Vaughan Oliver, meanwhile, was wearing his naughty hat for the occasion, lining up a series of centrefolds from the porn magazine Hustle
r, though you’d need a sharp eye to see the row of clitorises down the spine of ‘She Screamed’. The head of current British monarch Queen Elizabeth II on the front is much more obvious. ‘I think that’s the first time those images have been juxtaposed,’ he says. ‘Yes, it was a laddish sense of humour but exciting too, to disguise it except to those who know it’s there. But we eventually all grow up.’

  Ivo quickly organised a two-week session at Blackwing for an Ultra Vivid Scene album with John Fryer co-producing, but like Brendan Perry, Ralske was too experienced for guidance. ‘I was used to working by myself, in total control,’ he says. ‘The experience of collaborating, and working so quickly, fell apart after just two days. I told Ivo that the demo he’d liked so much had been recorded in a friend’s New York studio, which I could do again, and make the record I wanted. The sonics aren’t those of a commercial pop record, but I was never anxious for commercial success.’

  Rough Trade US licensed his debut album, perhaps anticipating Ralske would emulate Pixies’ success and Throwing Muses’ profile after both American bands had first broken in the UK. Ultra Vivid Scene warranted the attention, full of melodic nuggets, all quicksilver guitar and drowsy moods, particularly the serpentine ‘The Mercy Seat’ and the delicate ‘The Whore Of God’. For all his clear influences – the Velvets, the Mary Chain and the adenoidal tone and narcotic ballads of Peter Perrett (frontman of Britain’s brilliant new wave rockers The Only Ones‡) – Ralske fulfilled the 4AD brief: Ultra Vivid Scene didn’t seem to belong anywhere.