Category Archives: 1987

Book Review: Withnail & I (From Cult To Classic) by Toby Benjamin

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The ‘Withnail’ cult shows no sign of waning. Writer/director of the 1987 movie Bruce Robinson spent some of lockdown discussing the film while co-star Richard E Grant posted regular line-readings on social media. And now there’s news of a long-awaited, Robinson-endorsed stage play.

So Toby Benjamin’s excellent ‘From Cult To Classic’ seems to have arrived at the perfect time. Authorised by Robinson and written with his full co-operation, it assembles a veritable cornucopia of ‘Withnail’ info.

The brilliantly blunt Robinson foreword almost had movingtheriver punching the air with excitement. Elsewhere letters from his personal collection show correspondence around the film’s financing and script editing. There are anotated script pages, detailed location administration and premiere tickets. We even see Robinson’s London to Cumbria train tickets for the shoot. Richard Curtis and Richard E also donate personal letters.

There are brilliant on-set photos, many by official snapper Murray Close, some donated by Robinson and the cast (including a great one of a clearly mullered Ringo Starr). All the main cast members give long, interesting interviews, as do many key bit-part players (The Irishman, the ‘Get in the back of the van!’ cop, Farmer Parkin) and the hairdresser, stills photographer, makeup artist, cinematographer, production manager, costume designer and soundtrack composers Rick Wentworth and David Dundas. We even hear from the owner of Crow Crag (Sleddale Hall).

There are a few minor quibbles – the book is dotted with ‘celebrity’ endorsements of the film but you’d be hard pressed to recognise any of them, outside of Matt Johnson, Charlie Higson and Diane Morgan, and no biographies are provided. Also the book’s ‘distressed’ interior design will probably divide opinion.

But if you’ve seen ‘Withnail’ more than once, you have to have this book. Absolutely unreservedly recommended to scrubbers and terrible c*nts everywhere.

Angel Heart (1987): The Motion Picture Soundtrack

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Which 1980s movies have soundtracks that are better than the film? ‘Diva’? ‘Betty Blue’? ‘Risky Business’? ‘Blade Runner’? ‘The Hitcher’? ‘Blow Out’? ‘Friday 13th Part III’? ‘Absolute Beginners’?

You could probably raise an argument for Alan Parker’s 1987 neo-noir/horror ‘Angel Heart’ too. The baffling but intermittently excellent – mainly due to Mickey Rourke’s star turn – movie was scored by South African keyboardist Trevor Jones who had worked on ‘Excalibur’, ‘Runaway Train’ and ‘Labyrinth’ before getting the nod from Parker.

He puts together a jazzy, menacing, enticing original soundtrack featuring brooding synths, sampled vibraphone, acoustic bass and horns, plus some muscular blowing from tenor saxophonist Courtney Pine. Jones’s original music for ‘Angel Heart’ was also very influential, reverberating through the erotic thriller and neo-noir genres of the late 1980s and 1990s.

But it’s the official soundtrack album, released on Antilles/New Directions via Island, that really pulls out all the stops. It’s beautifully compiled, a hallucinatory, engaging 40 minutes of music with ingenious cross-fades and key dialogue lines sprinkled in, many of which still raise a smile (‘I got a thing about chickens…’).

The album is fleshed out with some great deep blues and gospel from LaVern Baker, Bessie Smith and Brownie McGhee, while Glen Gray’s chillingly effective crooner classic ‘Girl Of My Dreams’ (alluded to many times by Pine during his solos) nods to the use of similar in Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’.

Jones reunited with Parker for the following year’s ‘Mississippi Burning’, then worked on the Al Pacino vehicle ‘Sea Of Love’, and his last notable major film seems to have been Michael Mann’s ‘Last Of The Mohicans’. But what a shame this superb soundtrack album is not in full on streaming platforms (but is available from Discogs). Glad I kept hold of my cassette…

Then Jerico: Now That’s What I Call…Not Bad

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Of course it was just teenage aggro/jealousy, but my schoolmates and I were always a bit suspicious of those late-‘80s pop acts who were much fancied by our female friends: Morten Harket, Richard Marx, Jason Donovan, the Goss brothers, Marti Pellow, Nathan out of Brother Beyond, those blokes from Big Fun.

But Mark Shaw of Then Jerico was probably their favourite, instantly putting his band’s music into the dumper, even though we probably all had a soft spot for their 1987 hit ‘The Motive’.

Listening back now on a good system, it’s a superb-sounding single – impactful, clean and shiny, with great instrument separation. It typified late-1980s British pop/rock helmed by excellent producers who had learnt their trade in the golden age of commercial recording studios, people like Tim Palmer, Rhett Davies, Peter Henderson, Andy Richards, Jon Kelly, Rick Nowels, Mike Shipley, Bruce Lampcov, Peter Collins, Julian Mendelsohn, Gary Langan et al.

Of course Trevor Horn was an overarching influence, representing the gold standard. It Bites’ Francis Dunnery mocked ‘Big Area’ (see below) producer Langan (collaborator with Horn on Yes’s 90215, Malcolm McLaren’s Duck Rock and FGTH) in a 2021 interview for PROG magazine: ‘Everyone who had ever walked past Horn was given a record to produce. I think Trevor’s milkman produced Then Jerico and had a hit!’

Yes, there was a fair amount of turd-polishing but these producers inspired the late-1980s rock comeback, generating hits for Breathe, Fuzzbox, Cutting Crew, Paul Young, Love & Money, Deacon Blue, Killing Joke, All About Eve, The Mission.

And Then Jerico. Maybe they were actually pretty good. Their best songs – ‘Sugar Box’, ‘The Motive’, ‘Big Area’ – marry a sort of U2/Simple Minds/Tears For Fears ‘thing’ with Shaw’s tremulous vocals to strirring effect, something akin to the sound of falling in love. When any of them come onto ‘Forgotten 80s’, it’s impossible to turn off. Though one is still slightly reticent about checking out a whole album in one sitting.

And guess what – Shaw has reformed the band, and they’re touring extensively this year. And he has rather a juicy/chequered recent past to tell of too.

 

Frank Zappa: London Symphony Orchestra @ 40

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In the last ten years of his life, Frank Zappa released a series of orchestral albums, now mainly forgotten by all but his most ardent fans. But they are vital constituents of his work, and may surprise listeners who only know him as a ‘rock’ musician.

A key artefact is the self-financed London Symphony Orchestra, the first volume of which was released 40 years ago (the second followed in 1987, before both were rereleased on CD and streaming platforms in 2012) and my pick of Frank’s ‘classical’ works.

It was recorded between 12-14 January 1983 at Twickenham Film Studios in South West London, on the banks of the Thames. The night before, on 11 January, the orchestra (plus Ed Mann and Chad Wackerman from Frank’s ‘rock’ band) performed the repertoire at the Barbican. Check out how the BBC reported that here.

Zappa has spoken candidly about the difficulties he had rehearsing and recording this music (percussionist Mann reports that the orchestra had a whole week of rehearsal – almost unheard of – at the Hammersmith Odeon and that he had been given his parts a month before rehearsals so that he could practice at home), and the myriad editing and studio tricks that had to be utilised before he was happy. ‘The Big Note’ tells the fascinating full story.

The music was split into premiere works and older material. The standout is probably ‘Bogus Pomp’, which reworks much of the orchestral stuff from ‘200 Motels’ to stunning effect. ‘Envelopes’ will be familiar to fans of the previous year’s Ship Arriving Too Late album.

It’s a blast of challenging, exciting music, even if you’re not a fan of ‘classical’ music. Excited by Varese, Boulez, Messiaen, Ives, Bartok and Stravinsky, amongst others, Zappa dealt in timbre and ‘blocks’ of sound, featuring big chords and big percussion sounds, bypassing cliché and having no truck with the notion that it was ‘difficult’ music. If you liked it, bitchin’. If you didn’t, there was a lot of other stuff out there.

Another bit of good news is that these two albums sound absolutely superb in their current incarnation on streaming services and CD, leaving the following year’s Perfect Stranger in the dust. All of those post-production tricks paid off. Thanks to Frank.

Prince: Sign “O” The Times Revisited

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It’s possible that ‘Sign “O” The Times’ (the single) had the same effect on one generation of music lovers as ‘Waterloo Sunset’, ‘Arnold Layne’, ‘Purple Haze’ or ‘Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields’ (all released between March and May 1967) did on another.

Released on 13 March 1987, it’s hard to think of another top 10 single of the 1980s with as much as space in it (and uncharacteristically deep reverb on Prince’s vocals, presumably utilising the famous Sunset Sound echo chamber). Apart from his guitar and voice, it was all performed on a Fairlight synth/sampler.

Adorned with a back cover featuring Cat Glover, the single drew lyrical inspiration from various news items read in The LA Times during the week of Monday 14 July 1986: Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ program, the AIDS crisis, the investigation into January’s space shuttle disaster and the inner-city drug wars.

Lisa Coleman reports that she heard Prince’s amazing programmed drum groove blasting out of the venue speakers during a soundcheck in Denver in early July 1986.

Famously barred from releasing a three-album set by Warner Bros. – a process outlined in detail in Duane Tudahl’s wonderful recent book – Prince regrouped, quickly creating new material and then making the title track his new double album’s centrepiece.

Sign became the sound of summer 1987 in my corner of west London. Prince had been on my radar before – Parade was a definite sleeper – but this was it. And yet it still seems one of those ‘classic’ albums that gets talked about more than listened to.

So I listened to it. In one sitting. Probably for the first time in about five years. It’s probably even better than I remembered it. Has anyone ever captured a ‘party in the studio’ vibe better than Prince on ‘Housequake’ and ‘Play In The Sunshine’? And usually he only had Susannah Melvoin and engineer Susan Rogers for company. Of course this was in a sense a throwback to classic Little Richard and Chuck Berry, as well as James Brown tracks such as ‘Get Up Offa That Thing’.

He begins each side with groundbreaking tracks for him that took a while to record. We’ve discussed ‘Sign’. Then there was ‘It’, actually his first song exclusively using the Fairlight (apart from his guitar and vocals). Then ‘U Got The Look’, which was drastically sped up at the eleventh hour, ratcheted up a few semitones. Then ‘The Cross’, written and recorded the day after the infamous Los Angeles earthquake of 12 July 1986. Prince’s drums on this track speed up a lot – Rogers reportedly noticed but decided not to point it out.

Rogers also reports that she occasionally badgered Prince about the seemingly ‘lo-fi’ nature of these recordings, but he didn’t budge, and the album benefits from that ‘unfinished’ quality, even if it features a lot less bass than most modern music.

Sign features probably Prince’s greatest music, but we could all debate which tracks could have been left off. I could do without ‘It’, ‘Forever In My Life’, ‘Slow Love’, ‘The Cross’, ‘Adore’ (and would have preferred ‘Power Fantastic’, ‘Dream Factory’, ‘Crucial’, ‘Sexual Suicide’ and ‘Good Love’, but Prince had long jettisoned them by early 1987…).

Also why does the superb album design get short shrift? It’s a key part of the package. Hail photographer Jeff Katz and graphic designer Laura (niece of Tommy) LiPuma.

The Cult Movie Club: Oliver Reed vs. David Letterman (1987)

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Actor Ollie Reed became a bit of a media ‘sensation’ during the 1980s and early ‘90s, wheeled out on various chat-shows and late-night discussion programmes looking a bit worse for wear and usually causing embarrassment on various levels.

Look up ‘toxic masculinity’ in the Brewer’s Dictionary and you might see a picture of Ollie. To some he is just poisonous. His brand of industrial hellraising was born in the 1960s but definitely belonged more to the 1970s.

He presents so many ‘red flags’ – in the irritating modern parlance – that it’s a wonder his TV appearances and media pronouncements haven’t been consigned to the dustbin forever.

Thanks goodness they haven’t, because they make events like his live TV meeting with David Letterman on 5 August 1987 particularly fascinating (coming hot on the heels of equally controversial appearances with Michael Aspel and Des O’Connor in the UK).

In interviews, Reed often revealed a ‘quiet’, sensitive side – he was an avid writer of poetry – and claimed he was just giving the public what they wanted. No one could accuse him of being thick though – he makes the current crop of media regulars seem particularly one-dimensional.

But during this appearance – around the time that he was good mates with Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, who once awoke in the sitting room of Reed’s home after a spectacular bender to find the actor brandishing an axe – Reed just seems hellbent on irritating Letterman, and does a superb job. The ‘Little Englander’ in me quite likes the way he sticks it to Dave (Reed reportedly referred to himself as ‘Mr England’!).

Is he doing a take-off of Sly Stallone, or generally ridiculing the all-American 1980s ‘action hero’? Who knows. He was chatting with Dave ostensibly to promote his 1987 movie ‘Castaway’ – another one that might seem fairly ‘toxic’ these days. ‘Enjoy’…

Further reading: ‘Hellraisers’ by Robert Sellers

11 May 1987: Talk Talk commence recording Spirit Of Eden

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35 years ago today, Mark Hollis (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Tim Friese-Green (keyboards, production), Lee Harris (drums), Paul Webb (bass) and engineer Phill Brown convened at London’s Wessex Studios (don’t look for it – it’s not there any more) to begin work on the Talk Talk album Spirit Of Eden.

During May, June and July 1987, this core unit worked five-day weeks from 11am until midnight, in near darkness apart from an oil projector, a gentle strobe lighting effect and three Anglepoise lamps.

Tim Friese-Green on the Hammond organ, Wessex Studios

Basic tracks laid down, they took a break. On 19 October 1987, work resumed with instrumental overdubs; first woodwinds, then a coterie of world-class musicians including David Rhodes, Bernie Holland and Larry Klein, whose contributions would end up on the cutting-room floor. But those whose performances did make the cut include Nigel Kennedy, Danny Thompson, Robbie McIntosh, Martin Ditcham and Henry Lowther.

Lee Harris’s drum booth, Wessex Studios

Almost a year in the making, Spirit Of Eden was finally released on 12 September 1988 (after a long delay while EMI panicked – it was actually completed on 11 March 1988) and remains one of the most influential, least-dated ‘rock’ albums of the 1980s.

Thanks to Phill Brown for use of his photos.

‘Mark Hollis: A Perfect Silence’ is published by Ben Wardle.

The ‘Spirit Of Eden’ master tapes

Eddie Gomez: Mezgo/Power Play 35 Years On

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Even amidst this digital revolution, there are still classic jazz and fusion albums which just resolutely refuse to appear on streaming platforms, due to copyright problems, label problems or whatever.

Eddie Gomez’s excellent late-1980s albums Mezgo (later rereleased as Discovery) and Power Play are cases in point, recorded for the Japanese arm of the Epic label and currently residing in the ‘where are they now’ file (glad I held onto my cassette copies).

Bassist/composer Gomez is probably best known for his stellar sideman work with pianists Bill Evans and Chick Corea, as well as being a co-founder of jazz/fusion supergroup Steps Ahead, but his solo work sometimes goes unheralded.

Perhaps most relevantly, given Bill Milkowski’s major new biography, both albums feature some of saxophonist Michael Brecker’s best-ever recorded work. And they are crucial items in drummer Steve Gadd’s discography too.

1986’s Mezgo is mainly a trio album, Gomez on bass and keys, Gadd on drums/percussion and Brecker on saxes and EWI. It’s a stunning potpourri of styles, starting with the Weather Report vibe of ‘Me Too’, calling in at the fast bebop number ‘Puccini’s Walk’ (poorly covered by Corea not once but twice!) with some superb Gadd, and ending with a very moving version of Henry Purcell’s ‘Cello Sonata In G Minor (1st Movement)’.

Power Play, released the following year, had more concessions to commercialism, with some romantic ballads featuring syrupy alto sax from Dick Oatts and a few Latin-style groovers featuring Jeremy Steig on flute.

But the title track was a stunner, featuring double drums from Gadd and Al Foster. There was also a superb duet with guitarist Jim Hall, ‘Amethyst’, and an excellent fast bop track ‘West 110 St.’ featuring Foster and Brecker.

Shame you can’t hear Mezgo or Power Play (I can’t even find half-decent streams on YouTube). Beg, borrow or steal them if they ever appear in those proverbial ‘bargain bins’…

The Crap Movie Club: Robert Altman’s ‘The Room’ (1987)

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Robert Altman, director of ‘Gosford Park’, ‘The Player’, ‘Nashville’ and ‘The Long Goodbye’, ‘doing’ Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter?

It could have worked. Two shrewder observers of human nature there have seldom been.

But Altman’s 1987 take on Pinter’s 1957 debut play ‘The Room’ was a bona fide stinker. A car crash. It doesn’t even warrant a single mention in Michael Billington’s rigorous Pinter biography.

Though a couple of Altman’s ‘80s films are well-regarded now (‘Fool For Love’, ‘Come Back To The Five And Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean’), the great director was mainly forced to scrabble around for one-off deals during this period, probably cursed by the critical mauling handed out to his 1980 version of ‘Popeye’.

‘The Room’ certainly continued Altman’s reputation as a provocateur par excellence. In ‘Altman On Altman’, he claimed it came about when the TV network ABC offered him carte blanche to film any stage play he wanted. His choice of ‘The Room’ amazed, annoyed and confused them, as did his casting of Annie Lennox, Julian Sands and Linda Hunt.

The suits had a point. Hunt, best known for her Oscar-winning role in ‘The Year Of Living Dangerously’, is nothing less than a disaster in the film. Her London accent is appalling and she fudges the key line: ‘That’s this room.’ The emphasis should be on ‘this’, not ‘room’. You wonder why co-star Donald Pleasence didn’t raise any objection.

Lennox’s beauty beguiles but the Eurythmics star doesn’t deliver a classic performance. As for Sands, you only ever expect over-the-top weirdness from him and he doesn’t surprise here, suffice it to say that his Cockney accent is also a travesty.

Pleasence – predictably – is the only actor who emerges with any credibility, his turn a fidgety comic masterpiece. You wonder what he said privately about this mess to Pinter (they were good friends).

Altman shot ‘The Room’ back-to-back with another Pinter play (and equally appalling/must-see) ‘The Dumb Waiter’, starring John Travolta during his career doldrums. They were shown separately during the 1987 holiday season and then released as a double bill under the banner of ‘Basements’.

The lack of critical or commercial success didn’t surprise anyone. But Altman seemed to like it that way. He didn’t get out from under until 1992’s ‘The Player’. It was a long, cold 1980s for the great director.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood @ Wembley Arena: 35 Years Ago Today

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35 years ago today, on 12 January 1987, Frankie played the first of two nights at Wembley Arena on their final European Tour.

It’s oft forgotten that, even at their commercial peak, they played live. A lot. In fact they were on the road pretty much non-stop between autumn 1984 and summer 1985. And, make no mistake, they were decent musicians.

It’s not surprising they were so eager to show that they could cut it live. ‘Relax’ and ‘Two Tribes’ were mainly made in the control room by Trevor Horn and associates (Steve Lipson, JJ Jeczalik, Anne Dudley, Gary Langan, Andy Richards et al).

And vocalist Holly Johnson was getting most of the publishing royalties (fair enough, his Reagan-baiting lyric for ‘Two Tribes’ is brilliant: ‘Cowboy number one/A born-again, poor man’s son/On the air America/I model shirts by Van Heusen/Working for the black gas…’).

As Holly told NME in November 1983: ‘We were wary of being Trevor’s puppets at first but as soon as we met him that all went out of the window. He’s just a human being. He’s that little guy that used to be in The Buggles’!

So, initially at least, there wasn’t much bad feeling – they occasionally even let Uncle Trevor play live with them, as in this excellent performance on ‘The Tube’ from June 1984, augmented by Luis Jardim on percussion, a couple of keyboard players (wearing interesting shorts) and an extra guitarist (names please?):

According to (ZTT strategist/sleevenote-writer/A&R man) Paul Morley, Horn and his label boss/ manager/wife Jill Sinclair were convinced Frankie could break America, becoming something like The Village People! After all, ‘Relax’ made #10 in the US pop charts.

But surely the Sex Pistols is a better comparison (Frankie as punk’s last gasp? There’s a whole book there…). After all, Horn had just worked with – and hugely admired – Malcolm McLaren. For his part, Horn allegedly hoped the band would split up after ‘The Power Of Love’, their third UK number one in December 1984.

But Frankie didn’t split up. Instead, on their US tour of 1985, they would often open their set with Springsteen’s ‘Born To Run’. In the new Bruce-obsessed/Reagan-blessed America, this didn’t go down too well…

By 1986/1987, the thrills and spills had gone but Frankie had drastically improved as musicians and became a very slick live unit. They toured second album Liverpool extensively, using a lot of pre-recorded backing tracks and retaining an extra keyboard player and guitarist.

The very good quality tape of the first Wembley gig is well worth listening to. The crowd seems made up of screaming teenage girls and there are excellent versions of ‘The Power Of Love’ and ‘Two Tribes’.

‘Maximum Joy’ becomes a whole new thing even if the rest of the Liverpool material doesn’t deviate much from the album. And it’s always a laugh hearing Holly’s laconic between-song banter.

Rumour has it that backstage after this first Wembley gig the band had the mother of all fall-outs. But somehow they got through their 1987 European tour, and found time to play again on ‘The Tube’ for the last time (Faith No More were definitely watching, at least from a sartorial point of view).

Maybe they could they have carried on but it didn’t seem enough to be a ‘good band’ any more – people wanted events, sensations. Also Holly was itching for a solo career, still smarting at the terrible deal the band had signed with ZTT.

Anyway, we hope Holly, Paul, Nasher, Peter and Mark are OK. And hopefully still playing music, in some form.

Did you see Frankie live? Leave a comment below.