From: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org (seven-seas-moderated-digest) To: seven-seas-moderated-digest@smoe.org Subject: seven-seas-moderated-digest V2 #259 Reply-To: seven-seas@smoe.org Sender: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org Precedence: bulk seven-seas-moderated-digest Thursday, October 23 2003 Volume 02 : Number 259 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 23:15:04 +0100 From: "shaz" Subject: seven-seas-moderated Early interview Behind the camouflage netting a new force is emerging. Ian Pye peeps at the plans of ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN. It's not just the first chill winds of winter that make Essex seem so cold. The Echo and the Bunnymen show - "I hate the word gig but there's really not many substitutes," says unassuming guitarist Will Sergeant - is inside the bowels of the nightmare conglomeration of steel, glass and concrete that is the county's university. With glowing high rise blocks and supermarkets it's a complete living complex in itself, like Goddard's "Alphaville", which means the journey there could be through the outer limits of hyperspace and on into the eerie labyrinths. Space travel is something very close to Will Sergeant's inculpable heart. When a travelling businessman watching another channel prevents him from seeing Kate Bush on the tube he rushes off to get his collection of Star Trek novels and, the most treasured possession next to his Telecaster, an Enterprise manual. "I think it was just great you know, the programme. Look at this," he murmurs with customary reserve, "it even tells you how to play three dimensional chess". Thick-layered drapes of camouflaged (camo) netting cover the stage and fierce angles of the uni's main hall to form a long ragged tunnel within which the band play. Camo is the mythic clothing adopted by the entire entourage for this tour. It's a concept that's evolved rather than contrived and serves as an outward expression for the inspiration, dedication and sense of common destiny that binds this loveable legion of charlies together. Certainly there seems to be something in the air on this tour - a flickering magic that grows from the knowledge that you're involved in something frighteningly exciting. As well as camo, an exclusive terminology has emerged in keeping with the spirit of discovery: Weird= good, dude = stiff, scummy= bad, and game of tennis = sex. Any new town is judged by the quality of its camo shop, the availability of good charcoal cooked burgers and the state of play on the tennis court Isn't it dangerous, though, to flirt with military images in such times of studied fear and conservatism? "Well I think it's just good fun really," Will counters with a half smile, "Les and I wanted to wear our cowboy gear but the others laughed at us, you know. " In reality, everyone concerned seems to have thought about all the implications. "This isn't militaristic in the strict sense of the term," explains artist and roadie Kit Edwards. "It functions on so many different levels. On one it's undermining a heavy institution like the 'Kelly's Heroes' line; it also contributes to a feel of being underground or separate and it gives the whole tour an aesthetic continuity." Well yes. In other words, coupled with the lights and other stage devices it looks dazzlingly impressive. Somehow Bill Butt, an extraordinarily gifted lightsman with a background in the theatre and a partnership with manager/producer Bill Drummond, has wed the gothic doom and epic splendour of Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" with Spielberg's white light as a metaphor for rebirth technique, to produce the most sympathetic setting for a rock band I have ever seen. Using a huge commercial fan at the end of the camo tunnel, the crew led by Harry DeMac can suddenly push out blankets of white smoke that, coupled with heavenly pointing lights leave the band in silhouette like the aliens in "Close Encounters", crossed with a matrix of light shafts. It's stunning. Everything comes off with a professional artistry, always in perfect. synch with the music which has at last come near to reaching its live potential. Despite a cold, Ian "Mac" McCulloch's voice still reached the ethereal peaks of the album, while Will's understanding of electronic sound (this is his first band) can be sublime on either attack or reflection. Les Pattinson's bass lines are becoming thunderous in places, always original and cleverly at variance with the twin guitars that look for anchorage in Pete De Freitas' rushing drums. Never have they played so well as a single unit and at their best are capable of awe inspiring, shimmering magical, warp factor ten rock. At Essex the sort of gang that like the UK Subs repeatedly spit and hurl cans at the band. If anything it spurs them on to greater heights and afterwards Mac considers the version of their unusually incisive "Pride" was one of the best yet. When they sing on "Monkees" "Boys are the same brains in their packet/Girls are the same knock it and rock it" - the glaring irony is inevitably lost in a sea of human oscillation. "I wish more people would listen to the lyrics," Mac complains later. "I mean, I don't want them to all stand round analysing things but I don't see why you can't move around a bit and listen as well." BREAK COVER Overt intellectualism is something Mac most definitely does not approve of. If you're pursuing mystery and adventure or looking back with a splintered vision why should you want to catergorise your art, especially if you're working in a field whose ethos frequently demands the sacrifice of those who break cover and reveal themselves. "I'd say I'm more interested in atmosphere and the spaces between the obvious, you know. I can't understand why people want to go to university; there must be better things to do." Contrary to his past press personna Ian McCulloch is not aloof and difficult, just a little dreamy and sometimes introverted. As long as you don't try and cram him into a restrictive category for the sake of easy consumerism - ie Echo are the new whatever - he can be warm, funny and intelligent. He could also be rock's Howard Hughes. Scummy really comes onto its own in Mac's vocabulary because for him there's a lot of scum about. Understandably he goes to great lengths to wash the gob out of his hair following the night's performance. "I had to use nearly, a bottle of shampoo you know." Bui while we're all sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for him to appear (it has become his prerogative to be late and the others accept this with a shrugging resignation) it emerges that Mac inspects every bed before sleep for bugs and with some problem, taking hours through deliberation and poor eyesight. He must wash his hands at regular intervals and seems almost terrified of flies and dirt. "I mean, you should have seen the last hotel we stopped in, it was really scummy." In their own way, Will and Les are just as concerned with the odd, the weird and the wonderful. Aside from wanting to ride in a UFO, Will once told his careers adviser that he hoped to be a zoo keeper while Les wanted to be a racing driver and settled with driving the band from town to town. Only on the grounds of excessive heat accumulation can Les be persuaded not to buy a rubber immersion suit in Norwich's five-star camo shop. Both wear headbands on stage, with Will adding conkers to keep everything down to earth. Perhaps because he was the last to join, Pete - who replaced Echo the drum machine - is often on the periphery of the band's conversations about spontaneous combustion, sci-fi and music. But when it comes to the "Formal Interview" he seems assertive and clear about what the band should be doing. The others are less reluctant to sit down and talk but they do and it's all over quickly. What about the Liverpool scene? Mac: "To a certain extent it's been manufactured by the press. We don't like being associated with it. I don't think people would say there was any similarities between us and Wah! Heat or the Teardrops if one was from Doncaster and the other from Scunthorpe, except that Wah! Heat desperately want to be Echo and the Bunnymen." Mac once played, albeit very briefly, with Pete Wylie now of Wah! Heat in the garage band The Crucial Three and interestingly it is Wylie who is accused of doing Jim Morrison impersonations by Mac. Anyway, Wylie "is just a dude, a super stud in Liverpool," according to Will. As for the spectre of Morrison, Will thinks he's still alive in Greece and Mac's says: ,"I saw him as a leather clad dude and a bad poet." The production on their debut album, "Crocodiles", by David Balfe and Bill Drummond seemed to be to be as magnificent as the songs and music, though surprisingly the partnership looks like ending. Mac: "I don't think we'll work with them again. It worked on some of the songs but on others there wasn't enough power. Also I think they played it safe on 'The Puppet' (their current single with the far superior B-side "Do It Clean") and I think they spoilt it a bit." Pete interjects: "I think they realised they played it safe. I don't think they really knew what to do with it. That's why they're also pushing for us to get another producer because I think they've run out of ideas for us." So who will take up the envious task of producing the most exciting band to come out of Liverpool since the Beatles? Will: "Well we've got people in mind but they don't know we've got them in mind so we can't really say . . . There's one that really sticks out though that would suit us." Says Mac: "I still think a lot more could have been made on some of those songs on the first album but it was partly our fault." Pete: "I don't think you're ever going to come out of the studio being totally happy. At the time it seemed like the right production." MATURITY "Crocodiles" only took around three weeks to record but the next will take longer, primarily because those earlier songs had a decent period over which to mature, whereas touring has eroded their time to develop new material. Even with these restrictions they present few problems in view of their approach to writing. Usually Mac comes up with the lyrics, though Will wrote those to "Happy Death Men" and the rest literally materialises from the catalystic musical communications that develop in the studio. The Bunnies got their name from a friend. They were almost Mona Lisa and The Grease Guns, Glycerol and the Fan Extractors, and The Daz Men, "because it stood up and was funny," according to Mac. It was also a reaction against post modernist names "that have to be serious and have no sense of humour". Strangely it's a name that has attracted other meaningless labels usually associated with American West Coast bands like Love and The Doors. The connection is purely random. Mac likes The Velvets and Leonard Cohen and Will likes Syd Barrett and even "D.I.S.C.O." by Ottowan. Grinning under his overgrown fringe Will suggests: "You've gotta laugh about these labels sometimes. We've been called whacky, post modernist, Neil Young, electric folk, bleak industrial. We're just fish and chip holders really." . "Most bands pigeonhole themselves because they're so obvious. We won't do that but other people seem to want to do it for us . . . I don't know, what can you do?" Mac pleads. After leaving the independent Zoo for the WEA subsidiary Korova, some hardcore fanzines criticised them for selling out, but on this Mac and the rest lose no sleep. "For a start, Zoo wanted us to do it. If we hadn't signed we wouldn't be doing this tour and have all these lights and things. It's just a job, right? Would you criticise a bloke who works for Ford for not making his own car?" Judging by the Norwich set, it's hard to see the band going anywhere but forward. Hampered by an especially high ceiling the crew, despite a Herculian effort, fail to construct the "Heart Of Darkness" camo tunnel, and settle instead for an ornothology theme with added foilage in the netting, Once the exotic strains of Eno and John Hassall's "Possible Musics From The Third World" die away the band take over, leaving a capacity audience dumbstruck by their power and imagination. Reproduced from Melody Maker, 18th October 1980. ====================================== The Official Seven-Seas Web Page. www.bunnymenlist.com ====================================== ------------------------------ End of seven-seas-moderated-digest V2 #259 ******************************************