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Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD
Martin Aston
The first official account of the iconic record label.An NME Book of the Year 2013A Rough Trade Book of the Year 2013A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2013This Mortal Coil, Birthday Party, Bauhaus, Cocteau Twins, Pixies, Throwing Muses, Breeders, Dead Can Dance, Lisa Germano, Kristin Hersh, Belly, Red House Painters.Just a handful of the bands and artists who started out recording for 4AD, a record label founded by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent in 1979, a label which went on to be one of the most influential of the modern era.Combining the unique tastes of Watts-Russell and the striking design aesthetic of Vaughan Oliver, 4AD records were recognisable by their look as much their sound. In this comprehensive account concentrating on the label’s first two decades (up to the point that Watts-Russell left), music journalist Martin Aston explores the fascinating story with unique access to all the key players and pretty much every artist who released a record on 4AD during that time, and to its notoriously reclusive founder.With a cover designed by Vaughan Oliver this is an essential book for all 4AD fans and anyone who loved the music of that time.
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Copyright (#u07d22796-56d0-5413-918d-fa0dabf912b5)
The Friday Project
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First published in Great Britain by The Friday Project 2013
Copyright © Martin Aston 2013
Martin Aston asserts the moral right to be
identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is
available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007489619
Ebook Edition © September 2013 ISBN: 9780007522019
Version: 2015-12-03
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ALSO BY MARTIN ASTON (#u07d22796-56d0-5413-918d-fa0dabf912b5)
Björkgraphy
Pulp
Acknowledgements (#u07d22796-56d0-5413-918d-fa0dabf912b5)
In the category of Indispensible, I have to start with Ivo Watts-Russell, for resisting his normal impulse to let the music alone do the talking, and for granting me so much time, commitment and unexpected copy-editing skills. And to Tate, Moke and Emmett, for their part in hosting me. To George, for his part too. Thanks also to Vaughan Oliver, for dedication and contributing extraordinary artwork. To Mat Clum, for his patience and endurance over the course. To the Mieren Neukers of Ladywell, for insight and encouragement. To my HarperCollins editor Scott Pack, for commissioning this book, and project editor Rachel Faulkner, editorial assistant Alice Tarbuck and copy editor Nicky Gyopari, for the finesse. To 4AD, especially Steve Webbon, Rich Walker, Annette Lee, Simon Halliday and Ed Horrox, for assistance/archive. To Madeleine Sheahan, for advice and Spanish translation, and Craig Roseberry, the one and only 4AD Whore – I know what this means to you. And finally, to three 4AD fan websites, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen’s eyesore.no, Jeff Keibel’s fedge.net and Maximillian Mark Medina’s themysteryparade.com, for comprehensive listings.
Thanks to my two families – in London, Mum, David, Penny, Katie, Vicki and Christopher, Louis, Tess, and in Michigan, Mom Clum, Doug and family, Liz and family, Nate and Bruce, Mindy and Tom.
Many thanks to everyone I interviewed for the book, but especially Miki Berenyi, Mark Cox, Nigel Grierson, Robin Guthrie, Kristin Hersh, Robin Hurley, Matt Johnson, Brendan Perry, Simon Raymonde, Chris Staley and Anka Wolbert. Special thanks to John Grant and John-Mark Lapham, for sound and vision.
Thanks to my nearest-and-dearest: Brenda and Trish, Kurt, Mark, Pixie, Eloise and James, Sara, Will and Harriet, Merle and Gary, Joanna MLNOV, Laura, Yael, Meir and family, Duncan, Amanda, Madeleine, Mary Pat, Gordon, Catherine and Arvo, Nicole, Angela, Hop, Sarah and Foster, Cat my foxymoron, Dr John and Michael, Kat, Peter, Gabby and Trixie, Emma, Jessica and family, Clare and Antoine, Yas, Lauren and Sam, Jesper, Christine and Naomi, David, Yvette and family, Christina, Olivia and Bif, Patrick and Karl, Justin, Lisa and family, Cushla, Felicity, Dean and Britta, the Nervas, the Dutch, Jon and Patricia, Diana and Tim, cousin Jenny, Jim Fouratt, Steve, Mr Stroopy Mumblepants and Spencer, Bob and Jeff, Pat, John, Lynn, Siuin, Debbie, Jude, Sigrid, Amy, Laurence, Miriam and Viva, Jane, Richard, Huw and Dan, Edori and family, Susie and Mark, Lisa, and my Nunhead pals (Karolina, Lukasz, Hugo and Hannah, Claire, Andrew and Eva, John and Katrina, Carolyn, Jeremy and Max).
Thanks also to Tony Bacon, Ralf Henneking, James Nice, LightBrigade PR, José Enrique Plata Manjarrés and Andy Pearce, and to anyone I have inadvertently missed out, and also not credited for quotes, which I’ve done my upmost to do.
I finally want to thank Tim Carr, one of the insightful people I talked to for this book, and one of 4AD’s greatest supporters, in memoriam.
Dedication (#u07d22796-56d0-5413-918d-fa0dabf912b5)
This is dedicated to my father Basil, in memoriam, and to my mother Patricia. Thanks for not insisting I pursue a career in merchant banking.
To Moray, in memoriam. I hope you are grooving in your home disco, reading, writing and meditating, looking forward to tralaalaa o’clock.
Epigraph (#u07d22796-56d0-5413-918d-fa0dabf912b5)
Imagine a scene on a beach. A barbecue for friends and colleagues. Some of them like each other and some of them don’t. The man in charge, responsible for inviting them all, and responsible for feeding them, suddenly self-combusts. In his confused, mad dash to reach the water, to put out the flames, he ricochets into those closest to him and knocks them down, even starting minor fires over their bodies. Before he reaches the ocean, he passes through a pile of fireworks lying on the beach for use in a display later that night. All hell breaks loose, with everyone on the beach scattering, trying to save themselves. The man has now reached the water and finds he has gone out too far and has forgotten how to swim. He is drowning but unable to call for help. He is totally aware of the chaos on the beach that he is responsible for and has left behind but, because he’s drowning, can do nothing to prevent the destruction. He is puzzled as to why no one is coming to his rescue. Meanwhile, everyone to a man back on the beach is thinking, ‘You stupid cunt. What did you do that for, you’ve ruined everything’ and ‘For fuck’s sake, just swim’.
(George, 2013)
Contents
Cover (#uc87fe1e7-f944-54d1-94d9-f3681a66d6ae)
Title Page (#ulink_016cd898-bcfd-589a-8adf-70e894d302c4)
Copyright (#ulink_ffb534d2-d213-5de5-9e02-3839ef6bdcec)
Also by Martin Aston (#ulink_8a20cebf-141c-5215-b2b6-c71ca1539e5f)
Acknowledgements (#ulink_f2fe626f-4a71-5992-8f1d-0fe10dc4b596)
Dedication (#ulink_0e216507-bf6d-5710-b69e-2c16a2a6f2d9)
Epigraph (#ulink_7c7ca4ff-32d2-5d26-a381-63139fd1262b)
Introduction (#ulink_756fd1ee-cf2b-52d7-9843-2ea1255e6281)
1 Did I Dream You Dreamed About Me? (#ulink_71fe4f1f-7b06-5860-8e9b-f97649541087)
2 Piper at the Gates of Oundle (#ulink_2095c489-bf64-5720-9840-5a49d862dfa8)
3 1980 Forward (#ulink_df37f2a0-79fb-56f3-b2ed-4fbab3caaf12)
4 Art of Darkness (#ulink_6f03723e-36f7-56e2-bb29-c80f2799d054)
5 The Other Otherness (#ulink_70f65a22-171b-5efb-a493-8db20d23edb8)
6 The Family That Plays Together (#ulink_42b42d6b-d24a-510d-ba8c-7ec31f92c99c)
7 Dreams Made Flesh, but It’ll End in Tears (#ulink_e09f3e8b-bcdc-5d20-93d3-c67fb775ea50)
8 The Art Shit Tour and Other Stories (#ulink_fdbe9438-56d9-594b-b427-44033b07f774)
9 Le Mystère des Delicate Cutters (#ulink_9f33857b-ac4c-51dc-9cae-dab837249bda)
10 Chains Changed (#ulink_85025adb-0b34-5ef2-a65c-c2854a2fb350)
11 To Suggest is to Create; to Describe is to Destroy (#ulink_7d940042-73c8-5cf7-9b68-50dbf2444598)
12 With Your Feet in the Air and Your Head on the Ground (#ulink_4b0b20c7-6acb-5f72-b825-59b88c9af91d)
13 An Ultra Vivid Beautiful Noise (#ulink_e068182c-8125-5762-8531-09de38e7220a)
14 Heaven, Las Vegas and Bust (#ulink_54bdd82a-1dda-599a-84fd-77b301588119)
15 Fool the World (#ulink_e62f0894-1595-57ac-a389-8ea0f81f052d)
16 A Tiny Little Speck in a Brobdingnag World (#ulink_d9a1573a-66ae-5fe4-bf83-2675678964f2)
17 America Dreaming, on Such a Winter’s Day (#ulink_10a1cc3f-678b-5075-b35a-b514db193708)
18 All Virgos are Mad, Some More than Others (#ulink_09b55cba-4a2f-518d-906b-0a8b86807e20)
19 Fuck You Tiger, We’re Goin’ South (#ulink_7a3d3897-1b82-51ca-9bee-52d395ebb7fe)
20 Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (#ulink_49d73242-20ac-5502-9423-1b1c200f3870)
21 As Close as Two Coats of Paint on a Windswept Wall (#ulink_50eac9f9-b5f7-5ac9-97c4-2798d79300b3)
22 Smile’s OK, a Last Gasp (#ulink_68657299-7571-5955-bf2e-1bba58c15620)
23 Everything Must Go (#ulink_e65003ad-e18d-5c7f-b0ce-4d77dd035788)
24 Full of Dust and Guitars (#ulink_0fa0a5bd-af9b-5c7c-9847-bdfc6d621ddc)
25 Facing the Other Way (#ulink_1bf774db-505b-5193-943c-1cc764fdba54)
List of Illustrations (#ulink_1d2a2d57-ffb4-569a-83b8-a3e41603aef5)
Illustrations Insert (#ulink_62a91afd-34cd-5b2d-9039-f68d761572dc)
About the Publisher (#u559be047-9a04-5375-bc72-bc3c3e196718)
Introduction (#u07d22796-56d0-5413-918d-fa0dabf912b5)
When a fan of 4AD, and of the British independent label scene of the Eighties in general, heard I was writing this book, he asked me, ‘Is there much drama in the 4AD story?’
True, the story of 4AD doesn’t feature a TV presenter-cum-entrepreneur who starts a record label whose most iconic frontman commits suicide and initiates a Che Guevara-style cult; nor does it involve the decision to invest heavily in a nightclub that goes on to become an epicentre of the biggest dance music boom in UK history, rejuvenating both youth and drug culture, the combined legacy of which soon enough bankrupts said label.
That would be the suspenseful saga of Manchester’s Factory Records, 4AD’s principal peer in the world of pioneering, inventive and maverick independent labels. For both labels, the visual aesthetic was as crucial as the music, yet, in many ways, south London’s 4AD, formed in 1980, was the anti-Factory: its spearhead, Ivo Watts-Russell, was more of a recluse than a media-savvy self-promoter, and 4AD had no recognisable ties to the zeitgeist – nor to any cultural trend, in fact. All of that, Ivo felt, was irrelevant; only the artefact mattered – the music and its exquisite packaging. In the mid-Eighties there were constant references to ‘the 4AD sound’: a beautiful, dark, insular style. If the 2002 fictionalised film about Factory Records was called 24 Hour Party People, what might a film about 4AD be titled – Eight Hours Chilling, and Then Bed?
But whilst 4AD’s story may be less sensational and populist than Factory’s, it is equally gripping, the label’s A&R vision being that much greater, and its subsequent cast of characters even more fascinating and beguiling. Under Ivo, 4AD’s vision chimed with a rare era in British pop history when there was a sizeable market for innovation and experimentation. The artists he was drawn to were trailblazers, outsiders whose unique perspective invariably included a troubled, sometimes irreconcilable relationship with the mainstream (scoring the UK’s first independently released number 1 single was as much the beginning of the end for 4AD as it was the start of a new era), and with each other, like a dysfunctional family – and that includes the staff at the record label.
Like the motion of the swan’s legs beneath its ineffably elegant glide across water, below the surface of 4AD’s dazzling and enigmatic artwork and music the human drama unfolded. 4AD’s journey began as a shared discovery of a new world of sound and opportunity in the aftermath of the punk rock revolution. But its community was progressively fractured by splits, rivalries, writs, personal meltdowns, addiction, and depression – not least of the victims being 4AD’s most iconic artists Cocteau Twins, Pixies and The Breeders, and the label boss as well.
Though 4AD became increasingly popular in the first half of the Nineties, the shifts in the cultural climate and music business practise, as the major labels and the mainstream sought to exploit ‘alternative music’, was enough to shatter Ivo’s dream to the point that he sold up in 1999 and disappeared into the New Mexico desert, cutting all ties to the music industry.
Also unlike Factory, 4AD has survived – some even claim that in the twenty-first century, the label, under new stewardship, has reclaimed its former glory. However, it is the Eighties and Nineties, the years under Ivo’s tutelage, that are the real story. This is the period that Facing the Other Way concentrates on: a time in which the word ‘4AD’ became an adjective, when 4AD was the most fanatically appreciated and collected of record labels, whose legacy casts a long shadow over contemporary music, from dream-pop, goth, post-rock and industrial to Americana, ambient, nu-gaze and chillwave. Not forgetting Pixies’ indelible influence on Nirvana, whose impact pushed alternative rock into the mainstream, after which there was no return.
There was no return for Ivo either. His non-existent profile since the end of the twentieth century means that one of the great sagas of British-label history had not been told. That is, until I went looking for him in 2010.
I’d been a 4AD fan throughout the earlier years, from Bauhaus’ early singles to The Birthday Party and Cocteau Twins, and as soon as I started writing about music, in 1983, I’d had a close working relationship with Ivo. Over the years, I’ve covered numerous 4AD artists, and been beguiled and exhilarated by the procession of sounds and names: Dif Juz, This Mortal Coil, Dead Can Dance, Throwing Muses, Pixies, The Wolfgang Press, His Name Is Alive, Lush, Red House Painters, Tarnation … But, in the wake of Ivo’s retreat, our last correspondance was in 2002 (regarding some sleevenotes I was writing about one of Ivo’s favourite 4AD signings). Arguably, a book on 4AD could have been written then, but it makes more sense now, with the label’s reputation, and myth, increasing year on year. This is a testament to a label that existed purely on its own terms, out of time and place with the rest. Facing the other way. Sometimes it’s the quiet ones you have to look out for …
chapter 1
Did I Dream You Dreamed About Me? (#u07d22796-56d0-5413-918d-fa0dabf912b5)
Creativity is a product of a diseased mind.
(Dee Rutkowski, 2011)
I have the strangest dreams every night … been going on for months. Unlike my waking life, the dreams are full of strangers that I am forced to interact with. I’m not sure whether I experience greater feelings of alienation asleep or awake.
(Ivo, by email, 2012)
Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
(Oscar Wilde, sometime in the late nineteenth century)
May 1985. The phone rings at Ivo’s home on a Saturday afternoon. ‘It’s David Lynch’s assistant: are you free to talk to him?’
The American film director behind the startling, surreal Eraserhead and the dramatically different, but equally affecting, biopic The Elephant Man had a new film in pre-production, titled Blue Velvet, and he’d fallen for a song that he wanted to use for the opening sequence, set at a high-school prom.
The song was a cover of Tim Buckley’s ‘Song To The Siren’, a mercurial, exquisite ballad that described, in aching and elaborate homage to the ancient Greek poet Homer’s epic The Odyssey, the inevitable damage that love causes. Buckley’s original, which the Californian singer-songwriter had written and first recorded in 1968, wasn’t at all well known, even by 1985. Between 1966 and 1974, he’d recorded a startling array of music over the course of nine albums, from folk rock to jazz to avant-garde to funky soul and AOR. It all ended with a snort of heroin at an end-of-tour party. With rock and pop culture yet to turn nostalgic, Buckley’s reputation had died with him, and punk rock’s Stalinist purge of the past had ensured that Californian singer-songwriters of all pedigrees were discourteously dismissed.
But this new cover version of ‘Song To The Siren’, by a studio-based collective named This Mortal Coil, had sprung up in a very different climate. Punk had given way to its more experimental, artful offspring, post-punk, alongside the new electronic sound, and the synthesised pop called New Romantic. ‘Song To The Siren’ had spent more than a hundred weeks in the British independent music charts during 1983 and 1984, and its fame had reached America, as David Lynch’s interest illustrated. He regards TMC’s version as his all-time favourite piece of music: ‘That song does something to me, for sure,’ he told the Guardian newspaper in 2010.
In either version, ‘Song To The Siren’ was an easy track to be infatuated with, given its sorrowful, elegiac mood, and its lyrics haunted by images of the sea and of death. The singer of This Mortal Coil’s version was Elizabeth Fraser, whose performance – supported in spirit by the guitar of her musical and romantic partner Robin Guthrie – suggested that she was the siren of The Odyssey personified, luring sailors/lovers to a watery grave.
In their daily lives, Fraser and Guthrie were known as Cocteau Twins, recording artists for the independent music label 4AD. It was 4AD’s co-founder, and singular leader, Ivo Watts-Russell, that had taken Lynch’s call that afternoon. ‘As happens,’ Ivo recalls, ‘when the film went into production, my friend Patty worked as an assistant to the producer on Blue Velvet. She’d call me, whispering, “David and Isabella [Rossellini, the female lead] are in the corner again, listening to ‘Song To The Siren’,” before shooting a scene.’
