Grace Jones: Inside Story 30 Years On

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Grace

Flicking through Grace’s well-received memoir recently, I noticed that she rates Inside Story as her favourite album – pretty surprising considering the likes of Nightclubbing and Living My Life nestling in her discography.

But close reading of the small print reveals why it’s her most personal project – she co-wrote every track (with ex-Camera Club/’Slave To The Rhythm’ co-writer Bruce Woolley) and also co-produced the album with Nile Rodgers.

And while hardly a classic, Inside Story‘s a much more wholehearted and successful record than the previous year’s Slave To The Rhythm.

It seems pretty inevitable that Nile would end up collaborating with Grace. They were long-time acquaintances on the NY party scene since the Studio 54 days. On paper, he would seem the perfect fit for her, though she barely gets a mention in his excellent memoir ‘Le Freak’ (though he has promised a sequel which will presumably feature her a lot more).

Inside Story‘s lead-off single ‘I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect For You)’ surprisingly didn’t make much impact on the US or UK charts but was a minor hit all over Europe. Its Keith Haring-directed video is particularly striking though, featuring cameos from Andy Warhol and a load of other NY art figures, and there was also an interesting 12″ mix by early house pioneer Larry Levan.

The album is great when it sticks to short, sharp, frivolous pop tunes but comes a bit unstuck when going for something more ambitious.

‘White Collar Crime’ is very much the son of ‘Slave To The Rhythm’, sneaking in a few of that song’s chords and an almost identical two-note verse, but it’s let down by asthmatic synths, a puny drum machine and Nile’s sketchy bass playing, though Lenny Pickett’s punchy horn arrangement is a winner.

The title track is weirdly reminiscent of Leonard Cohen’s ’80s output while ‘Victor Should Have Been A Jazz Musician’ is possibly the standout, namechecking Nina Simone and featuring some lovely Wes Montgomery-style guitar from Rodgers.

Inside Story‘s rhythm section sounds in general are slightly disappointing – Rodgers’ guitar is too low in the mix and a Linn machine takes care of all the drum parts. This suits the mechanized grooves of ‘Barefoot In Beverly Hills’ (almost an example of early house music), ‘Party Girl’ and ‘Scary But Fun’.

But the jazzier tracks are crying out for a real drummer. I wonder why Nile didn’t enlist the services of Mr Steve Ferrone, seeing as they’d recently worked together to superb effect on Al Jarreau’s L Is For Lover and Duran Duran’s Notorious.

Inside Story was not a hit, reaching only #61 in the UK album chart and #81 in the US. It’s unlikely to ever get the re-release/remaster treatment, but sounds pretty good these days.

Hiram Bullock’s From All Sides: 30 Years Old Today

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hiramIn the mid-’80s, London seemed to be Hiram Bullock’s second home.

The late great New York-based guitarist was in David Sanborn’s band at the Wembley Arena in November ’84 (alongside Marcus Miller, Don Grolnick and Steve Gadd, one of my first ever gigs) and also appeared in town regularly with Carla Bley and Gil Evans during this period.

At a Sanborn Hammersmith Odeon gig in February 1987 (see the comments section below), Hiram embarked on a solo, and, with the aid of a wireless unit, promptly jumped off the stage to serenade the stalls.

He then vacated the auditorium, soloing all the while, and a few minutes later appeared in the front row of the balcony, still blazing away, illuminated by a single spot. Such shenanigans would earn himself column inches in the jazz magazines and a cult following but sometimes overshadow the fact that he was one of the great guitarists of the ’80s or any other decade, effortlessly mixing up the blues, funk, bebop and rock. You might even call him the Jaco of guitar.

By mid-1986, he had enjoyed ten years as a first-call session player (Steely Dan, Chaka Khan, Brecker Brothers et al) as well as being part of the famous ‘Saturday Night Live’ and ‘Late Night With Letterman’ bands.

He had also recently hooked up with his one-time bass student Jaco in the PDB trio (with drummer Kenwood Dennard) and produced Mike Stern’s excellent Upside Downside (guitar-wise, they have a lot in common).

In short, he had paid his dues. It was time for a solo album. Though From All Sides is in many ways a classic ‘journeyman’ record, covering all the bases from funky fusion (‘Window Shoppin’, ‘Cactus’, written by Randy Brecker) through R’n’B (‘Funky Broadway’) to smooth Sinatra-influenced balladry (‘Really Wish I Could Love You’), it’s never boring, helped also by some good guest spots – Kenny Kirkland supplies a classy solo to ‘Window Shoppin’ while Sanborn lights up ‘Say Goodnight, Gracie’.

On the witty ‘state of the world’ blues ‘Mad Dog Daze’, Bullock even comes over a bit like a Johnny Guitar Watson for the ’80s. The album also benefits greatly from mostly sticking to the same excellent rhythm section – Charley Drayton on drums, Will Lee on bass, Clifford Carter on keys – which gives some consistency from tune to tune.

Hiram plays some brilliant solos, even on somewhat cheesy material such as ‘When The Passion Is Played’ and ‘Until I Do’. The production is state-of-the-art for ’86, ie. extremely high on treble and compression but short on low-end.

But From All Sides is still mostly a blast, driven on by Hiram’s irrepressible energy and good vibes, though the followup Give It What U Got was a big improvement – more on that later.

Victor Bailey (1960-2016)

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Victor in 2008

I was really sad to hear of Victor Bailey’s passing today.

Born in 1960, he was part of the illustrious Philly bass fraternity alongside such luminaries as Christian McBride, Alphonso Johnson and Stanley Clarke.

He replaced Jaco in Weather Report at the age of just 21, teaming up with Omar Hakim to make one of THE great bass/drums team in music history. They featured on the albums Procession, Domino Theory, Sporting Life and This Is This, and appeared regularly on each other’s solo projects. They also toured with Madonna together in the mid-1990s.

I’m pretty sure I saw Victor five times in concert – first in an outrageous Weather Report gig at the Dominion Theatre (26 June 1984), then in a very cool jazz/funk/groove unit with drummer Lenny White at the Subterania, twice at Ronnie Scott’s with an electrifying Zawinul Syndicate, and finally about ten years ago in a trio with Larry Coryell and White at the Jazz Cafe. At all times, Victor’s playing was tasty, expressive, exciting.

I was pleased when he was recently the subject of a long, excellent feature in JazzTimes magazine in which he talked frankly about music, his bass playing and illness. I hoped the piece might be the start of a healthy, fruitful period for Victor. Sadly it wasn’t to be.

Victor Bailey (27 March 1960 – 11 November 2016)

Hipsway!

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hipswayThe 1980s spewed out a lot of cool baritone vocalists: Ian McCulloch, Ben V-P, Matt Johnson, James Grant, Nick Cave, Edwyn Collins, David Sylvian…

The list goes on. But one name that doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue is Hipsway’s Grahame Skinner, possibly because the Glaswegian band’s tenure was so short, consisting of just two studio albums and a few tours including a high-profile jaunt with Simple Minds.

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Hipsway’s Pim Jones and Grahame Skinner

A shiny new re-release of Hipsway’s 1986 debut album, complete with B-sides, outtakes, remixes and excellent Skinner liner notes, shows why they were briefly one of the most highly-regarded Scottish acts of their day, during a golden period for Caledonian pop.

It also shows Skinner to be one of the most distinctive vocalists of the era, apparently an influence on everyone from Mansun’s Paul Draper to Marti Pellow.

Hipsway’s star shone briefly but brightly, with one UK (#17) and US (#19) hit ‘The Honeythief’, a track that still sounds like a classic ’80s floorfiller. The accompanying debut album just sneaked into the US top 60 but was a bigger hit in the UK, reaching #42 and staying in the chart for 23 weeks.

‘The Honeythief’ still stands up 30 years on, but does the rest of the album? Yes and no. With producers Paul Staveley O’Duffy (Swing Out Sister, Was Not Was, Lewis Taylor, Amy Winehouse) and Gary Langan (ABC, Art Of Noise) onboard, a slick, pristine mix and selection of solid, attractive grooves are guaranteed. The wider problem is memorable hooks.

The good stuff first: ‘Long White Car’ is a richly-chorded, jazzy bossa-nova which sounds like a hit even now (it only got to #55 on initial release). The excellent ‘Broken Years’ ends with Skinner quoting from Talking Heads’ ‘This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)’ while ‘Forbidden’ initially comes on like something akin to Frankie Goes To Hollywood on downers before breaking out into an unexpectedly resplendent pure-pop chorus.

‘Ask The Lord’ is also initially attractive and distinctive but lacks the killer hook that might have made it a hit. ‘Bad Thing Longing’, ‘Tinder’ and ‘Upon A Thread’ borrow Roxy Music’s Avalon template with their swooning synths and intricate bass/drums/percussion, but they are decidedly flimsy songs.

But overall this is an impressive debut album of funky mid-’80s pop and it’s worth a reappraisal.

Winter Music

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Richmond Park, UK, winter 2016

So the evenings draw in, Christmas clogs up the telly and hygge is all over the Sunday supplements. You contemplate your navel and your age and comment on how quickly the year has gone by…again.

And if you listen to music a lot, chances are you’ll probably notice how your tastes change as the season eases from autumn to winter. This may have happened when winter turned to spring too, but something a bit more introspective might be called for when your football team starts sliding and the heavy stuff comes out of storage and into your wardrobe.

Here are nine ’80s tracks that instantly say winter to me, calling at Ambient, Eerie and Lovelorn:

9. Pat Metheny Group: ‘Distance’ (1987)
This is the only track from the Still Life (Talking) album I can listen to these days. Lyle Mays’ composition sticks out like a sore thumb on that 1987 collection, a challenging, spooky piece with a touch of serialism that suggests Very Bad Things… A soundtrack for a movie that never was.

8. Roxy Music: ‘To Turn You On’ (1982)
Ferry’s tale of long-distance love for someone very unsuitable. He’s in London, she’s in New York. She possibly has some kind of ‘ailment’ – drug addiction? Mental health problem? (You may be reading too much into this… Ed). He is hopelessly and rather tragically smitten. One of Ferry’s finest ballads with a crackerjack band (Paul Carrack, Rick Marotta, Alan Spenner, Neil Hubbard) bringing it to life.

7. David Sylvian: ‘Pop Song’ (1989)
I could have chosen any amount of Sylvo tracks but have settled on this stand-alone 12” single, his cheeky response to Virgin Records’ request for one more solo hit (which never materialised). It paints a fairly bleak portrait of late-’80s Britain as a nation of clock-watching factory workers numbed by banal pop music, featuring microtonal synths, Steve Jansen’s clever drum layering and close-interval piano work from the late John Taylor.

6. U2: ‘4th Of July’ (1984)
Ostensibly a duet for bass (though surely that’s not Adam Clayton?) and ‘infinite guitar’ (The Edge put through Eno’s processing systems), U2’s first bash at pure ambience was a minor masterpiece. To say one doesn’t miss Bono’s voice would be an understatement. As far as I know, the band have never attempted anything similar since – more’s the pity.

5. The Sundays: ‘Skin & Bones’ (1990, recorded in 1989)
The unforgettable lead-off track from the classic Reading, Writing & Arithmetic album. The Cocteau Twins meets The Smiths? You betcha.

4. Mark Isham: ‘In The Blue Distance’ (1983)
Isham’s plaintive trumpet and atmospheric keyboard playing create a sombre yet uplifting winter masterpiece.

3. Joni Mitchell: ‘Chinese Cafe (Unchained Melody)’ (1982)
I first heard this nostalgic classic in late 1983 and it was my first exposure to Joni’s music. I’ve never forgotten it and will forever associate it with this time of year.

2. Love & Money: ‘Inflammable’ (1988)
One of many great torch songs penned by James Grant, featuring on the late-’80s classic Strange Kind Of Love. ‘I go looking for what I want in the wrong places’ – there’s a winter mantra for urban singletons right there…

1. Lloyd Cole: ‘Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?’ (1985)
Let’s face it, winter can also be haunted by ghosts of failed romances, stolen moments and disastrous Christmas flings. This classic covers all that stuff very efficiently with a nice line in black humour.

Check out the playlist on Spotify (a few tracks not currently available).

Gig Review: John Carpenter @ The Troxy, 1 November 2016

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Carpenter (centre) and band overseen by Jamie Lee Curtis and Nancy Loomis in ‘Halloween’

It’s surprising that John Carpenter has taken so long to perform his own music in concert.

The director of ‘Halloween’, ‘Assault On Precinct 13’, ‘The Fog’ and ‘The Thing’ is well-known for his incredibly effective, synth-laden soundtracks, and he’s also been known to let his hair down in after-hours rock band The Coupe De Villes with movie biz friends Nick Castle and Tommy Lee Wallace.

But it’s actually a perfect time for him to be fronting his own band. Watching Adam Curtis’s impressive ‘HyperNormalisation’ documentary last week, I was struck how many current bands are clearly influenced by Carpenter’s music (which has also frequently turned up in Curtis’s docs). The dark, pulsing synthscapes of worriedaboutsatan and Pye Corner Audio particularly owe him a large debt.

Though apparently not in tip-top health (it’s hard to resist quoting that great line from ‘Assault’: ‘He don’t stand up as good as he used to…’), Carpenter was clearly having a ball on this short UK tour, bopping around behind his keyboard and booming out pre-rehearsed lines like ‘Good evening, London, I’m John Carpenter!’ and ‘Horror movies will live forever!’.

The beautiful Art-Deco Troxy venue was specially decked out like the ‘Escape From New York’ set, while a large screen behind the stage projected key scenes from his many classic movies.

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Carpenter mixed up tracks from his soundtrack work with some from recent non-soundtrack albums Lost Themes 1 and 2. The theme from ‘The Fog’, embellished with some baroque church organ, sent a chill down the spine while ‘They Live’ and ‘In The Mouth Of Madness’ were graced with some great, sleazy noir lead guitar from Daniel Davies.

‘Halloween’ and ‘Escape From New York’ were greeted like hit singles by the near-sold-out crowd. Newer track ‘Vortex’ showed how distinctive a musician Carpenter really is, the opening piano chords instantly recognisable as his soundworld. Other tracks had hints of Metallica, The Knack and even The Police at their rockiest.

A couple of bum notes: the venue sound was not great and the band were a bit brittle at times – you occasionally wanted a bit of double-bass-pedal mayhem from drummer Scott Seiver. There was also a bit too much DX7 and not enough booming Moog in the synth department. And where was the video for ‘Night’?

But all in all this was a great way to pay one’s respects to a master of mood and texture and a damn good musician to boot. Go ahead, John. We await the Coupe De Ville’s debut London gig with anticipation.

Nik Kershaw: Radio Musicola @ 30

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The rather despairing NME headline during October 1986 said it all: ‘When The Little Girls Have All Grown Up…’

After releasing two albums in the space of barely six months, Kershaw took his time over the third. He settled in to North London’s Swanyard Studios for most of 1986 to work on the self-produced Radio Musicola, employing the cream of the English session scene (The Kick Horns, Charlie Morgan, Mark Brzezicki, Wix, Andy Richards, Simon Phillips etc).

Yes, Musicola was Kershaw’s chance to take on the Trevor Horns of this world and deliver a big-budget, endlessly-fussed-over studio ‘project’… Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his meteoric rise to fame, the main themes of the album are press intrusion and tabloid sensationalism.

And, in a neat irony, the rise of technology-led, assembly-line music was also in Kershaw’s sights, despite Musicola making liberal use of all the latest sampling and synthesizer technology. So let’s get Musicola‘s duff tracks out the way first – ‘What The Papers Say’, ‘Nobody Knows’ and ‘Running Scared’ are jarringly overproduced, though the latter had real potential.

But there are loads of treats elsewhere – ‘Life Goes On’ is a musically-rich, very pretty ballad with swooning chord changes and fine vocals from Kershaw. ‘LABATYD’ is pure class, a half-time shuffle with tasty Mark Brzezicki drums, an excellent Kick Horn arrangement and soaring synth by either Wix or Andy Richards.

The title track blew a lot of musicians’ minds back in 1986. It really was state-of-the art and still sounds pretty novel today, as striking as the title track of Level 42’s World Machine a year before. I remember eagerly tuning in to ‘The Tube’ to see Kershaw performing the song live. You can hear a lot of the ‘little girls’ turning off their TVs as he lays into the opening guitar solo…

‘Don’t Let Me Out Of My Cage’ is pretty damn ambitious fare for a pop album, a fast swing number featuring some cracking Phillips drums and effective close-harmony backing vox from Mrs Kershaw (Sheri). The excellent ‘James Cagney’ chugs along with a Level 42 groove (and features an interesting ‘New Man’ lyric) and great Felix Krish bass part that sounds uncannily like Mr King.

‘When a Heart Beats’, an excellent, intricate slice of pop/prog in the It Bites mould, gave Kershaw his last top 40 chart appearance (peaking at a disappointing #27) when it was released in November 1985.

The closing ‘Violet To Blue’ is possibly Kershaw’s finest and most ambitious recording to date, featuring some rousing vocals from the London Community Gospel Choir and superb, driving drum work from Phillips (much imitated in my music room back in the day).

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An interesting album which clearly fell between the stools of art and commerce, Radio Musicola reached a barely believable #46 in the UK album chart, just over a year after Kershaw had played Live Aid. It disappeared without trace in the US.

The little girls had definitely grown up. Or maybe it was the new haircut. But 18 months is a long time to leave between albums when you’re hot, though Kershaw didn’t seem bothered about his new ‘selective’ popularity; in fact, he seemed genuinely relieved, but wondered how MCA were going to sell him now that he was focused on being a musician rather than a pop star.

Despite the poor album sales, Kershaw embarked on a sold-out UK tour in early 1987 including three nights at London’s Town & Country Club. And he would be back once more before the ’80s were out to deliver perhaps his finest solo album to date.

XTC: Skylarking 30 Years Old Today

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xtcVirgin Records, released 27 October 1986

Produced by Todd Rundgren

Recorded at Utopia Studios, Woodstock, upstate New York

UK album chart position: #90 (!)
US album chart position: #70 (!)

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Terry-Thomas in ‘School For Scoundrels’

Side One:

1. ‘Summer’s Cauldron’

Andy Partridge (composer): ‘Something about the words reminded me of Dylan Thomas. Not that I’m saying I’m a Dylan Thomas. More of a Terry-Thomas, really…’

2. ‘Grass’

Colin Moulding (composer): ‘A lot of people think the song’s about marijuana – it isn’t. Todd said: “Don’t sing so deep. You sound like a bit of a molester.” So I just did the Bowie thing and added an octave above it…’

3. ‘The Meeting Place’

Moulding: ‘Because the riff was a bit like “Postman Pat”, we were just figures on a Toytown landscape viewed from above. It was me meeting her (future wife Carol) at the gates for a sandwich in The Beehive pub, embroidered with the suggestion of a lunchtime quickie…’

4. ‘That’s Really Super, Supergirl’

Partridge: ‘I’d go into his (guitarist Dave Gregory) little room, smelling of aftershave and guitar wax and dead mice, and he’d be rehearsing this solo over and over again. I can still see him playing it. I remember when we were recording the song that Todd was trying to master it on keyboard, and Dave whispered to me, “He’s got the chords wrong!” He thought the chords were major, and they’re not. I was hearing it a lot more clangorous…’

5. ‘Ballet For A Rainy Day’ (Partridge)

6. ‘1000 Umbrellas’

Partridge: ‘There was very little time to do the strings. They had one run-through and then recorded it. Their balls were on the line but they turned in a pretty fine performance…’

7. ‘Season Cycle’

Partridge: ‘I felt that I had maybe laid the ghost of Ray Davies ‘fore me and written a song that could stand up against “Shangri-La” or even, dare I suggest, “Autumn Almanac”.’

Side Two:

8. ‘Earn Enough For Us’ (Partridge)

9. ‘Big Day’

Moulding: ‘I’d been messing around with the chords of Labi Siffre’s “It Must Be Love” and, with a little moving around, it became this sort of fanfare to a big event, a ticker-tape parade for a big day.’

10. ‘Another Satellite’

Partridge: ‘I regret writing it because things turned out so marvellously with the person (Erica Wexler) it’s all about. The story had a happy ending because Erica and I finally got to express the emotional bond that was always there.’

11. ‘Mermaid Smiled’ (Partridge)

12. ‘The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul’

Partridge: ‘It just says you’re born, you live and you die. Why look for the meaning of life when all there is is death and decay? Todd said, “Let’s do a John Barry thing” and, literally overnight, came up with his arrangement with brass and flutes. It’s bang on. Cod spy music.’

13. ‘Dying’ (Moulding)

It frightens me when you come to mind
The day you dropped in the shopping line
And my heart beats faster when I think of all the signs, all the signs
When they carried you out your mouth was open wide
The cat went astray and the dog did pine for days and days
And I felt so guilty when we played you up
When you were ill, so ill
What sticks in my mind is the sweet jar on the sideboard
And your multicoulored tea cozy
What sticks in my mind is the dew drop hanging off your nose
Shrivelled up and blue
And I’m getting older, too
But I don’t want to die like you

14. ‘Sacrificial Bonfire’

Moulding: ‘There was a touch of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and a bit of Arthur Brown’s “Fire” in it, I suppose. But I wasn’t moralising. It was just that this was an evil piece of music and good would triumph over it. (The strings) were a bit too Vivaldi for me, but it had to go somewhere, I suppose…’

Further reading: ‘XTC Song Stories‘ by Neville Farmer

‘Complicated Game’ by Todd Bernhardt/Andy Partridge

Courtney Pine’s Journey To The Urge Within: 30 Years Old Today

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courtney-2Island Records, released 25 October 1986

Produced by Michael Cuscuna and Roy Carter

Recorded at Angel Studios, North London, 21-23 July 1986

UK album chart position: #39

Gifted saxophonist Courtney Pine‘s career is one of British jazz’s great success stories. Starting out in the early ‘80s as a sideman with reggae act Clint Eastwood & General Saint and various Britfunk bands, he became disillusioned with the outlawing of jazz as a respected, popular music in the climate of the early ’80s London scene.

As he memorably put it in the BBC’s excellent ‘Jazz Britannia’ doc, ‘I would add different notes in the scale the way Sonny Rollins did and people would say, “No man, we don’t want that.” They were saying to me, “If you’re black and you want to play jazz in this country, you’d better go and live somewhere else!”’

But all that changed when he caught US trumpeter Wynton Marsalis on TV one afternoon. Marsalis’s professionalism and dynamism were a revelation to Pine (not to mention his youthfulness); if Marsalis could bring jazz to a wide audience, he could too.

A period of intense woodshedding paid off – soon Courtney was guesting with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and The Charlie Watts Big Band, blowing all over the ‘Angel Heart‘ soundtrack and blowing people away with his solos in Gary Crosby’s groundbreaking Jazz Warriors and Jazz Jamaica groups.

Island Records came calling, and Journey To The Urge Within made the Top 40 in the UK, an almost-unheard-of state of affairs for a jazz album. This writer fondly remembers the day when, on opening the NME, he unexpectedly found Pine and Miles Davis sharing the album chart. Happy days.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood: Liverpool 30 Years Old Today

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frankie_1309776451It’s well known that FGTH’s deal with ZTT was one of the worst recording contracts in pop history (outlined in embarrassing detail in vocalist Holly Johnson’s ‘A Bone In My Flute’ autobiography).

But the band were already starting to show signs of subordination by late 1984 – they refused to record the Velvet Underground’s ‘Heroin’ as the B-side to ‘The Power Of Love’, part of ZTT ideas man Paul Morley’s bizarre plan* to get the label’s acts to write a history of pop through cover versions.

FGTH also scuppered ZTT’s plan for them to star in a sci-fi movie which was to be scripted by Martin Amis and directed by Nicolas Roeg (actually, that sounds brilliant…).

The band then insisted that they actually play on their second album Liverpool rather than let session players lay down the basic tracks, a request that seems to have been granted. Guest players this time were few and far-between, and it’s quite hard to identify Trevor Rabin, Steve Howe and Lol Creme.

Sensing trouble, Trevor Horn took the role of ‘executive producer’ and passed production duties over to the gifted Stephen Lipson, who clearly had his work cut out. A schism was opening up between Holly Johnson and the rest of the band, or ‘The Lads’, as he dubbed them (Lipson discusses the making of Liverpool in this excellent podcast).

Tensions were also running high in the UK – by mid 1986, unemployment had topped three million and anti-Thatcher feeling had reached its peak. Oxford University refused her an honorary degree. So the frivolity and epicurean excesses of Welcome To The Pleasuredome were definitely out.

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Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford

Still, Liverpool is a sumptuous-sounding album, with immense care taken over recording, mixing and mastering – apparently to the tune of a whopping £760,000.

It stands up pretty well today especially if taken as a separate entity to Pleasuredome, even if the songs – not surprisingly – are not as memorable as the debut’s.

Lipson pulls out all the stops, playing some superb fuzz-toned lead guitar, particularly on ‘Maximum Joy’ and ‘Rage Hard’, and piecing together an album of musically-rich, prog-influenced hard rock.

Synth players Andy Richards and Peter-John Vettese contribute intriguing intros and outros, often involving backing vocalist Betsy Cook too.

And though Liverpool is obviously a more ‘serious’ album than Frankie’s debut, there are still amusing spoken-word inserts in broad Scouse (‘In the common age of automation, where people might eventually work ten or twenty hours a week, man for the first time will be forced to confront himself with the true spiritual problems of livin”!).

‘Warriors Of The Wasteland’, ‘Rage Hard’ and ‘Kill The Pain’ are tough techno-rock tracks which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on It Bites’ debut album. ‘Rage Hard’ was also subjected to a fantastically overblown extended mix featuring Pamela Stephenson (doing her best Thatcher impersonation?) taking us on a tour of the 12” single.

‘Maximum Joy’ is superb; pure ZTT bliss, while ‘Lunar Bay’ is also brilliant, balls-out prog/pop in the style of Propaganda’s A Secret Wish.

‘For Heaven’s Sake’ is a completely barmy anti-Thatcher ballad (‘She should buy us all a drink’) in queasy 6/8 time, featuring a melody that wouldn’t be out of place in a classic Broadway musical, some Native American chanting by Holly and a weird music-hall middle section.

‘Is Anybody Out There’ is a fitting end to Frankie’s recording career, a majestic, distinctly Suede-like ballad (the guitar solo is totally Bernard Butler) with some beautiful Holly vocals and a subtle Richard Niles string arrangement.

The album was not a commercial disaster, reaching #5 in the UK album chart and the top 10 in many other European countries, but a disappointing #88 in the US. And Thatcher still had four years left in Downing Street.

*Morley’s influence was apparently running amok, evidenced by Liverpool‘s fairly ridiculous liner notes (‘Best wishes to Stan Boardman’) and a choice of album title that suggested he was pretty certain the band would soon be returning to their hometown, banished from pop’s high table. Holly apparently hated the title…