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[ May 23, 1990 ]
NME: Goodbye to the House of Fun
NME
Goodbye to the House of Fun
23 May 1987
by Adrian Thrills
Courtesy of Kipjaz Savoie
From across the Humber The Housemartins came to become one of the more bolshy stars in pop's bright firmament. Adrian Thrills travels to Hull to hear their reflections on the politics of success and plans for a new offensive.
The Housemartins' brand new nest in Hull could never be called spectacular. Flanked by the gable ends of rows of red-bricked tenements, a disused railway line and a high street fashion shop by the name of Trendy, their headquarters have only recently been converted from a traditional corner store.
Now a nerve centre and rehearsal room, the building's function is hidden from the outside world by a whitewashed frontage. The only clue to any musical activity comes from the soul-sonic syncopation emanating from bass player Norman Cook's personal Rhythm Factory on the ground floor.
His def doodlings audible from the pavement outside, our trainee gangster of the groove is attending to his electronic gadgetry as the NME contingent trudge in exactly on cue. From the look on the faces of Norman and the dapper guitarist Stan Cullimore photographer Derek Ridgers and I might just have beamed down from the Planet Sex.
"Er, you're a bit early," says a startled Norman.
We were told to be here for six.
"Yes, six o'clock tomorrow," smirks Stan from beneath a pair of regulation NHS specs. "You're a day early!"
Now this is taking punctuality just a little too far. Welcome to the house of fun.
It has been an eventful 12 months for The Housemartins. From jokingly deriding themselves as no more than "quite good", the Fish City foursome have inexorably risen throughout the year. They have had three hit singles including a Christmas number one in "Caravan Of Love"; they have released a classically-simple and critically-acclaimed LP in "London 0 Hull 4", they have won the hearts of a nation's teens and incurred the wrath of Fleet Street; they have scored goals at Goodison Park in the celebrity Soap Cup and met the cast of Brookside; they have replaced their original drummer and grafted the Hornsea Horns onto their line-up; they have come closer than any other band to assuming the Madness mantle of bittersweet cartoon nuttiness and been voted the best new band in Britain by the readers of NME. Not bad going for a band who never claimed to be anything more than "the fourth best band in Hull".
For The Housemartins, success came abruptly and caught them unaware. From serving a rootsy two-year apprenticeship on the smalltown college ‘n' club circuit, they were suddenly capitulated onto the stage of teen and the tabloids. The subsequent disorientation has undoubtedly left its mark.
Convening in singer Paul "PD" Heaton's local alehouse after hastily abandoning their previous plans for the evening, the four masters of the Humber rhumba thoughtfully review the past year's events.
It seems like a good time to take stock. Their first single of a new campaign, "Five Get Overexcited", is already stealing into the charts, new drummer Dave Hemingway is being gently eased into the band and Paul is on the verge of celebrating his 25th birthday. It is a watershed of sorts.
At the core of the matter lies a certain schizophrenia. The Housemartins, never averse to the occasional football metaphor, really are a band of two halves, Brian. They have their wit and wisdom, their wackiness and their worthiness, their "fun" side and their "serious" side. They are desperate to maintain that equilibrium. These polarities can be loosely represented by the two publications whose readers have taken the band most emphatically to their hearts, the soaraway Smash Hits and your loving NME. It is an unlikely mixture and one which has led to some confusion in the ranks.
"If there are two poles to our audience, then it is probably because there are a lot of different shades within the band", asserts Stan The Man. "There is a heavy side and a lighter side. It's hard to balance the two extremes, so we sometimes walk a pretty thin line. It's hard for instance, to get serious points across in the pop charts".
According to Norman, the sheer breadth and diversity of their audience has caused certain problems for their record label, Go! Discs, and distributors Chrysalis.
"Ideologically, Go! Discs are a pretty label. With us however, they have to try and market a potentially difficult band. We're a strange group, probably much harder to market than Billy Bragg. He has an identifiable audience that the record company can basically play to. We have a much wider audience. We probably get some of the people who go and see Billy Bragg, but we also get everyone from housewives to ten-year olds!"
If singer Heaton has a fear, it is that the band's harder edges will be sandpapered down by their teen popularity.
"I know what I want on a personal level, I want us to be a band that people can take seriously. I want people to look at our lyrics in an adult way. I never want people to accuse us of selling out, even though we have undoubtedly left ourselves open to that in past".
He is referring to Mistake Number One, the saturation media coverage via which the band promoted "Caravan Of Love" around Christmas. It gave them a number one single, but they wouldn't want to go through it again.
"We took practically every kids' television show that was offered to us, and it probably did us more harm than good in the long run. Sometimes, we compromise ourselves through our own naivity, appearing on a programme like The Wide Awake Club simply because we enjoy performing in front of young kids.
"But if you do too many programmes like that, the wacky image of the band gets pushed forward too much and that is ultimately pretty damaging. Now that we've had a bit of a breather, we've decided on a change of policy".
New boy Dave, who joined on the recommendation of departing drummer Hugh Whitaker who is now at music college, agrees with the singer. He suggests that The Housemartins will now lean more to the bitter than the sweet.
"I've only really known the other members of the band for about two months, so I can still speak more or less as a member of the audience. I've always seen through the wacky side of the band and looked to the lyrics. I've always gone for the socialist message that the group are trying to get over. The people who take the wackiness at face value are missing the point".
Please don't let us be misunderstood is the plea from The Housemartins' camp as their spring offensive begins. Some hope. Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan has already criticised their new single over the airwaves for its "fun, fun, fun" hookline, failing to pick up on its heavily ironic tone.
Just as "Happy Hour" lampooned white-collar sexism, "Five Get Overexcited" viciously parodies the pleasure principle. The inanely jaunty Monkees-on-Postcard musical arrangement only increases the song's incisiveness.
"That lad from Depeche Mode got it completely wrong," says Paul. "The song is very firmly tongue in cheek. I actually feel sorry for retards like him who can't understand it. I don't know how clear you have to make things to people like that. To me "fun" is a dirty word and that song is a stab at all the clichéd, happy-go-lucky twats who are just into fun.
"The song is also about the way that complete idiots are sometimes glamorised and held up as examples of how to live our lives. Take James Dean, a crappy American import who has been pushed down our throats for the past 20 years. He was a complete disaster, an absolute idiot in the way he lived his life, and yet he is always portrayed as some king of hero and role model".
Norman selects another example.
"It's the same with Billie Holiday. I hate those trendy idiots who go on about here as the voice of jazz or whatever. The only reason most of them like her is that she did a lot of drugs and died. What an irresponsible waste! And yet, because of that, she is lauded".
The Housemartins, so often portrayed as squeaky-clean popsters from the happy house, are now into their stride. But it is not only deceased icons who come under fire. Decidedly ill-at-ease in the role of chartbound hound, Heaton reserves his most venomous bits for his contemporaries on the pop podium.
"The problem with this industry is that it was designed for weirdos. It's full of them! Look at half of the people in the chart. They're all nutters, especially when there is a camera on them. Why do they have to behave like such idiots? I'm sure a lot of them are pretty average, normally-dressed human beings before they go into the recording studio.
"I can't believe that people still go on Top Of The Pops and make idiots of themselves. When I was about 12, I used to think that I would really go mad if I ever got on Top Of The Pops, but any ordinary person would actually be embarrassed and even humbled if they ever appeared on a show like that. When we do it, I just want to get through the whole thing without making a fool of myself".
"When you are a pop star, you have to take a certain amount of responsibility. Avoiding drugs is one part of that. Pop stars that set a bad example to the youth of the country should be taken out of circulation. Their records should be taken out of stock as examples of just how backward pop music can be."
The Heaton mind is now racing.
"There should be a code for pop stars laid down by the Musicians Union. Pop stars should be made to adhere to certain guidelines in the same way that superheroes have to abide by a code in comics. Pop stars should not be allowed to take drugs in the same way that Superman is not allowed to smoke. If they don't adhere to the code, they should be taken off display".
Is that a wonderfully novel idea or the rant of a lunatic? It might be a bit of both, although when one begins getting into the realm of written rule books, the question of who actually assumes the "big brother" role of moral guardian goes begging. And what of the tradition of showmanship that has always been a part of pop? Not everyone who dons a fancy dress is automatically an idiot. Ultimately, the individual has to be responsible for the example that he or she sets.
The current Housemartin single, their sixth for Go! Discs in a sequence that dates back to 1985's magnificent "Flag Day" debut, is no radical departure from what has gone before, a ploy to try and regain some ground the band reckon they lost with "Caravan Of Love". It is a single for the fans who bought "Sheep" and "Happy Hour".
"Five Get Overexcited", however, does preface a new musical chapter for the no-so-cherubic quartet. There is a meaner streak to the songs previewed at the start of this month on a short tour of small venues in Kilmarnock, Warrington and Sheffield. If the mood on "London 0 Hull 4" was often wistfully plaintive, the newer material is angrier, the verbal sniping more embittered. These are not love songs, the lyrics remaining exclusively social and political.
"Nothing has changed on the political side," proffers Paul. "The new lyrics are harder politically. We still think the Tories can rot in hell. We still think the National Health Service has been run down by people far too rich to ever have to use it. And we still think the Royal Family should be abolished. If the Royal Family truly are to be representatives of the people, they should have to put their kids on YTS schemes. That would be fair. Otherwise they should be disbanded".
In terms of mixing music and politics, The Housemartins now lean more to the legacy of bands like The Redskins and Easterhouse than the "softer" option of Labour's Red Wedge platform. With the election campaign now underway, though, will they not be throwing their support behind the Labour Party?
"We are in a position where we do have a certain amount of influence, " says Paul. "I'd like us to be able to use that power in a positive way. But, on a personal level, I've been terribly disappointed in the Labour Party and Red Wedge. As a band, we've always stood on pretty radical ground and we've found it hard to align ourselves with people who don't go that far"..
"But we'll still be voting Labour. There is no real alternative in Hull. We are a solid Labour band, votewise. But like a lot of people around us in Hull, we're cynical about the Labour Party. I don't really trust them".
If Heaton's political faith were to be placed anywhere, it would be in the beleaguered trade union movement.
"For the Tories to be able to boast in their election manifesto about having crushed the unions is horrendous. They have failed to deliver on the two tickets on which they were elected. They were elected on an unemployment ticket, but they have created the worst dole queues ever. Then they had the law and order ticket, but they have done more than anyone to help create a lawless society. Until we have a society that is based on education, the whole thing will be worthless.
"I suppose I'm just like a lot of people. I'm just pissed off with parliament and party politics in general. I think the whole thing is crap. It might be better if the whole thing were scrapped".
A year ago, The Housemartins probably didn't think too deeply about the contradictions that fame might bring. They were blissfully unaware of what Bono Vox has called the "hollow head" of pop success. They were hungry for a hit single and were not particularly perturbed at being portrayed as cartoon characters in the video for "Happy Hour". They were, after all, smirking on the other side of their faces. Things have changed now.
"The glamour of the pop charts is just the icing on a slimy turd," re-iterates Paul. "There's nothing hard there. There's no substance. It's all pure fantasy. We've written a song called "Top 30, Blah, Blah, Blah!" I'd like to release it as a single just to see what the reaction was".
Just as the initial nutty storm of Madness abated to unveil a more thoughtful, sometimes even morose style, so The Housemartins are pausing to think for a minute. One only hopes that their infectious enthusiasm and vibrant pop sensibility remains intact in some form. It probably will.
"I put across the more serious side of the group, because I think people concentrate too much on other, more boyish aspects," concludes Paul. "At the same time, however, I don't think anyone in The Housemartins has fully grown up as an individual. If we had, we probably wouldn't be in a pop group at all".
Delores / Link to Here
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