by Martin Aston
Yet Ivo’s commitment did end at Rev. He claims Ultra Vivid Scene’s sales didn’t warrant renewing the contract: ‘It was traditional record company business, which is not what 4AD was supposed to be about. I only had myself to blame for doing such deals.’
The Wolfgang Press had had continuing support, creatively and financially, but that was before the Warners deal came into effect, bringing in a new fiscal arrangement based on progressively higher advances for each album. Ralske recalls Ivo explaining this, ‘And though Rev didn’t have unreasonable sales in America,’ he says, ‘the advance required to do a fourth album wasn’t worth it, and Ivo said he didn’t have the finances either. My guess is that, when he didn’t get any validation for his own support, he felt he was beating a dead horse.’
Nineteen ninety-two proved to be the most transitional year in 4AD’s life, even more than 1987. For every depressing scenario – Spirea X, Swallow, Ultra Vivid Scene, Pixies – there was an artistic watermark – Heidi Berry, Red House Painters, His Name Is Alive, the birth of Belly, the return of Throwing Muses, the making of Lush and the delights of Michael Brook – to show something was worth doing for its own sake. The baby with the quiet smile in the Lilliput artwork, gazing up at the gargantuan world around, was still a figure of hope, just as Warners could be the way for 4AD to establish a stronger foothold for its artists.
Though no one knew it at the time, part of that story had already been written. In the summer, The Breeders had played some shows, first at Kurt Cobain’s request, supporting Nirvana at two Irish shows (Dublin and Belfast) in June 1992. On a short European tour in early autumn, they’d started playing a new song with an irresistible stop-start momentum and layered hooks. Kim Deal had named it ‘Grunggae’. ‘The name was a joke, combining “grunge” and “reggae”,’ Josephine Wiggs explains, ‘because Kim thought the accented riff resembled the accenting in reggae.’
Though no one knew it at the time, Ivo still had a hankering to spend more time in America. He may have been encouraged to actually make a move by a meeting during that summer, at the Lollapalooza show outside of LA. Backstage, he had bumped into Lush’s drummer Chris Acland holding hands with a girl he found incredibly attractive. ‘Later on, in the dressing room, we got chatting, and we got on well enough for me to want to track her down in LA.’
Brandi Machado had met Acland at a party in Los Angeles on tour while Lush was opening for Cocteau Twins, and they’d met up whenever he was passing through LA. Beside Warners, Ivo now had another reason to spend time in LA. For now, he was heading off to Thailand, alone, for a dose of hopefully regenerative winter sun, probably feeling like a tiny little speck in a Brobdingnagian world.
* One of the more maverick contributions to the 4AD catalogue was the free single included with initial copies of Pale Saints’ In Ribbons, with two band songs covered by the Tintwistle Brass Band, which was based in a small village in the county of Derbyshire. It was Masters’ idea, and he knew the band’s conductor so was able to set something up quickly, and inexpensively.
† Pale Saints had first heard of ‘Blue Flower’ from an existing cover by David Roback’s new alias Mazzy Star, with new singer Hope Sandoval replacing the absconding Kendra Smith. Around this time, Robin Hurley talked to David Roback about releasing an album that he had previously produced by Sandoval and acoustic guitarist Sylvia Gomez, under the name of Going Home. But Ivo says that Roback’s requested $75,000 advance was too high, and the album remains unreleased (though tracks can be heard on YouTube).
‡ Beside samples on Queer, The Wolfgang Press also couldn’t get clearance to use Snowflake the albino guerrilla for the cover, only to find UK dance duo Basement Jaxx use the very same image for its 2001 album Rooty.
§ Geoff Travis at Rough Trade offered the duo a lifeline, but after one EP for the label, Hush, in 1994, Travis lost his financial backer (One Little Indian co-founder Brian Bonnar) and control of the label. ‘It was the second big blow to everything we were trying to do,’ Mike Mason says. ‘Even though [Louise Trehy and Mason] had a daughter by then, our relationship fell apart, and we split up.’
¶ After In Camera split, singer David Scinto, bassist Jeff Moore and Moore’s then girlfriend formed Deflowered, but the trio never released any music. In 1991, Scinto, Moore and In Camera guitarist Andrew Gray reconvened to record four tracks, but without drummer Jeff Wilmott, who had moved to the US. Given Gray’s Wolfgang Press commitments in the interim, and the producer was Wolfies associate Drostan Madden (he co-produced the band’s last two albums), the new material sounded more like Gray’s current band than his old one. ‘It was a failed experiment,’ says Scinto. ‘Jeff wasn’t there, and In Camera was the four of us. And Drostan was a lovely guy but he was too anal, fiddling with little bits of tape!’
chapter 17 – 1993
America Dreaming, on Such a Winter’s Day
(BAD3001–BAD0017)
Formed a band and had loads of good songs like
‘Love Froth Tuesday’, ‘Pancake Candy Shoes’
Got a good guitarist, but he’s got a sad barnet
‘Kiss Cream Carnival’, ‘Lime Sky Spooky Pills’
It’s me 4AD3DCD
And I’m on a foundation course
Playing eerie madrigals
On the campus egg slicer
I’m a pop sensation
I’m an all-round icon
Thank God Cardigan
Laugh Crash Sunday School
Kiss Cream Carnival
Lime Sky Spooky Pills
The flotsam, the jetsam
The cherubim and seraphim
On me foundation course.
(‘4AD3DCD’, Half Man Half Biscuit, 1993)
Returning to London from Thailand, Ivo caught up with 4AD US staffer Robin Hurley. ‘He could tell that I was confused and struggling. Robin suggested I work out of LA for a month. He said it would be great for the relationship with Warners and the new 4AD office in LA.’
Ivo was not about to abandon London; at the time, he told me in an interview for the independent trade music monthly The Catalogue, ‘I’m going to work in LA half the year. But in my mind, it’s pretty likely that, after about a year, I’ll move there. It’s purely personal reasons. I want to get away from England.’
In any case, Ivo had big plans in London for another label landmark, to draw a line under 4AD’s achievements to date as Lonely Is An Eyesore had in 1987. This time, it would be a live event, staged in the summer, which Ivo had christened The 13 Year Itch – being thirteen years since Axis/4AD had started. ‘It’s like the traditional marriage, “seven year itch”, but mine’s been going for thirteen,’ he said. ‘But it’s not a celebration, more that it seemed a good time to do this.’
The itch, he’d explained, was a love-hate relationship with the music industry: ‘I need a different perspective on my response, and what I believe my position is within it, and whether it has any relevance. I can get that in America for a while. Part of the reason for moving is that I will have to create a “me” in the UK, which will distance me from the industry, and hopefully give me more time and desire to focus on making music, to be more involved with people making music, to be more creative. I still get the same buzz from a demo, a finished record or a great gig, but I get less and less satisfaction from wondering what to do with it, how to market it, if it’s appropriate to put a sticker on, or wondering why someone who is a delight to work with suddenly becomes an utter pain in the arse! It’s me, probably. Artists probably wonder the same thing about me.’
He talked particularly about the desert to the east of LA: Joshua Tree and Death Valley. ‘It’s the space there. I feel spiritually more focused there, and therefore happier, and I hope I can get recharged. Since the Cocteau Twins episode, I really have withdrawn from my relationships with artists but I’ve found it easier to open up in America, as people are more open. There’s that “good day” bullshit but that’s far more preferable to grim, oppressive, depressive London.’
He talked of having ‘brilliant people’ in both offices. ‘The only thing missing right now is the person to effectively fall into my shoes here, so that I can be freed up. It’s possible the move is happening internally.’ He thought 4AD would benefit from somebody who was less of a soft touch than he was financially, who could control it better than he had. ‘There are lots of Americans to deal with – His Name Is Alive, Charles, Belly, Throwing Muses, The Breeders, Unrest, Red House Painters, Ultra Vivid Scene, and one or two who may get signed in the future.’
In a comment about how American artists also inspired him, it wasn’t hard to imagine Robin Guthrie was still on his mind. ‘Rather than a drive and a passion to make music the British generally behave as if it’s their God-given right to be in a group, and that working with a record label is potentially a chore, and that the label is potentially the enemy. The majority of Americans I know in groups pick up guitars – if there’s one in the room, they’ll play it. If groups come over for promotion, they ask for a guitar. The British almost have to be forced to think about writing songs and making demos. It’s just not in their blood in the same way. There’s an “I’m owed” attitude. Apart from the British musicians I’m working with, of course!’
That didn’t mean Ivo only wanted to sign American artists. ‘It goes in phases. The period when I enjoyed more English music was around 1989, the whole shoegazing concept with Lush, Pale Saints, Slowdive and Ride,’ explained. ‘They were taking influences from the Sixties but being as experimental as people were then, from one album to another, a classic example being The Byrds. But it didn’t happen here. It seems that those groups very quickly influenced American bands to take the next step, like the Swirlies. They sound too derivative of My Bloody Valentine and Pale Saints, but their album is better than the majority of things I’ve recently heard. I’ll probably hear more British demos when I’m in America because I’ll have the time to listen.’
Our interview concluded by Ivo saying he wasn’t worried about change. ‘My attitude is, things are meant to be. It’s got nothing to do with zooming down with twenty-five other A&R men, which puts me off more than anything. I don’t see myself as someone with their finger on the pulse. When I got the Red House Painters demo it took me weeks, months, before I called. Fuck the instant thing.’
Throwing Muses hadn’t been an instant addition to 4AD either; but were a band that continued to press ahead and break new ground. Tanya Donelly’s decision to leave the band to forge her own path was part of that progress, and Belly’s debut album was the fulfilment of a decade of the kind of songwriting dedication that Ivo was talking about. ‘I think that as long as I’m in somebody else’s band, I’ll never become a good songwriter,’ she told me in 1992. ‘I needed to learn the hard way.’
The suitably titled Star exceeded the promise of Slow Dust and ‘Gepetto’, with a weighty 51 minutes (though a third of the fifteen tracks were already available) of grit, fragility and classic pop tropes. Donelly says that she wrote most of the songs when Throwing Muses were about to record The Real Ramona. She says the solo country lament ‘Untogether’ was ‘a goodbye song’ in three verses. She wouldn’t say who the second verse was for, but the ‘frog who was endlessly testing my faith/ He made out outrageous demands’ could well have been Howard Gough. The last verse was definitely for her old band: ‘Now the bird nest on my back keeps me turning and straining to see/ We threw outrageous parties, we were golden/ Now the bird keeps her distance and I keep my speed/ Sometimes there’s no poison like a dream.’
‘I felt like I had to dance around my departure from Throwing Muses for a couple of years, because it wasn’t a good subject matter for Kristin,’ says Donelly. ‘Star was a transitional record for me, representing the time when I was completely revamping my life. New band, new relationship, new everything.’
For once, Ivo’s choice of lead single worked a treat. ‘Feed The Tree’, one of four tracks Gil Norton had produced, became the first 4AD track to win MTV’s highly coveted Buzz Bin slot, and off the back of that guaranteed exposure, Star sold half a million copies in the US alone. In Britain, it had the same impact, and was only kept off the top of the UK national charts by Beggars Banquet’s hard rock renegades The Cult. ‘Nobody expected Star to chart so high,’ Colleen Maloney recalls, ‘or Beggars would have moved The Cult album to a different week.’
A remixed ‘Gepetto’ was released with six new B-sides split over two EPs. The new cover versions showed Donelly’s distinct halves: fizzy Tanya (Tom Jones’ Sixties pop belter ‘It’s Not Unusual’) and heart-achy Tanya (The Flying Burrito Brothers’ lovelorn country ballad ‘Hot Burrito #1’), but it was the kind of marketing ploy that Ivo should have vetoed. ‘Formatting was what was needed to keep your head above water during a campaign,’ says Maloney. ‘And we’d hire a proper plugger for proper pop songs like “Feed The Tree” and “Gepetto”. You might want to put all the attention on the album but the media didn’t work like that. Bands like Lush didn’t want to be known for wonderful artistic albums, they wanted to be in the charts.’
Success by playing the game was no success for Ivo. ‘He told me that Belly’s success was the beginning of the end of him with 4AD,’ says Donelly. ‘Our success, and what was to come, meant that everything ballooned out for him. It was exciting for everyone but stressful too. All of a sudden, there were many more employees at 4AD, and as things grew, the experience wasn’t as sweet.’
Donelly was one of the sanest among 4AD’s club of fragile creatures, but even she struggled with the concept of success. ‘It threw everything into turmoil, because Belly was still coming from this position of integrity. Like, what is pure, and what is cool? Do we appear on magazine covers? That stuff fell by the wayside years ago, but back then people still obsessed over doing the right thing – no ads, no corporate sponsorship … we constantly and agonisingly soul-searched every decision.’
Fred Abong had already left Belly by the time of Star (the band photo in the album’s booklet suggested Belly was a trio like Throwing Muses), choosing to train as an Ayurvedic astrologer and nutritionist. ‘Fred and I were very close at that point, and we’d co-written a song [Star highlight ‘White Belly’] and I wanted us to write more,’ says Donelly. ‘I was amazed he’d walk away when it was obvious things were going upward. But he felt it wasn’t the lifestyle for him.’
Abong’s replacement was Gail Greenwood, a change of sex and of attitude. The artwork that Chris Bigg designed included photos supplied by Chris Gorman (like Throwing Muses, Belly had a drummer with artistic ambitions), there were images of tiny ballerinas and a sea of nuts and bolts; Greenwood, a former member of all-female grunge band L7 in Doc Marten boots, was tough as nuts’n’bolts, right down to her goofy heavy metal stage persona. ‘I thought, let’s do the opposite of what people expect, let’s rub up against the preciousness,’ says Donelly. ‘Gail was extremely charismatic, charming and fun, and we loved having her on board.’
After Star’s ascent, came Ultra Vivid Scene’s decline following the release of the Blood & Thunder EP. It was only four and a half years since that hugely promising debut album. The sublime trinity of albums he left behind was tainted by the feeling that Ralske didn’t appear to enjoy his experience, as he only released a minimal amount of music again, preferring production and then the visual side of art.
Another ending took place before Ivo had even booked a flight to America: news of Pixies’ split broke during Charles Thompson’s interview by the BBC Radio 5 show Hit the North. ‘The last show we ever did was in Vancouver, at the end of a tour, and we all just went home,’ Joey Santiago told me in 2003. ‘Everybody was under the impression that we were taking a year off, like a sabbatical, but it never came to that. Charles started his own album, and Kim had The Breeders. Three or four months later, Charles called, out of the blue, at my girlfriend’s house, to say he was splitting the band, and that he’d faxed Kim and Dave [Lovering].’
Ivo says the myth that Thompson inf
ormed the other Pixies by fax still annoys him. ‘It’s true Charles wrote a fax, but also that Ken [Goes] refused to send it, saying he wasn’t paid enough to do something like that.’
In 2012, Santiago says the only fax was the one Thompson sent to Ken Goes. Kim Deal recalls getting a call while in the studio recording a new Breeders album. ‘I had no reaction other than I wasn’t surprised,’ she says. ‘It had clearly run its course.’
‘You’d really have to ask Charles why,’ says Santiago. ‘But I’m sure the tension between Kim and Charles had something to do with it. Charles hasn’t even discussed it: it’s not his style to analyse. It wasn’t like we ended up fist-fighting or arguing constantly, it was more unspoken tension. Kim phoned me and said, “Did you know that the Pixies just broke up?” and I replied, “I’d be more surprised if we got back together”. I was shocked but what could I do? I thought it was premature because I really thought we could do more. Ending that abruptly was weird.’
Thompson says he has had enough therapy since 1993 to be philosophical about Pixies’ demise, though he noticeably doesn’t refer to Kim Deal: ‘Apart from writing anthems, the only other thing Ivo encouraged us to do was make records at a regular pace. I’d say that was one of the factors that ultimately broke Pixies up. I wasn’t looking for advice, and I’m not blaming 4AD, but it would have been great if they’d had an A&R guy whose job it was to sit artists down and help plan the next move, or had said, “Slow down or you’ll burn out the band”. A good manager would have done that too. In the end, it was too much of a treadmill, of being on the road, at that pace. But 4AD was thinking, “How do we sell more records?” And we were one of many bands on 4AD. If Ivo was the father figure, he had lots of children, and he couldn’t give all of them the same amount of attention.’