[ March 1, 1995 ]
Audities: LFW Founder Sansbury on TBS and HM
Audities
Beautiful South and The Housemartins
March 1995
by Jen Sansbury
On the western side of the great pond separating North America and the UK, which is the Beautiful South's homeland, things have been rather disappointing. Elektra, the band's American label, dropped them during the 0898 era. A new album, called Miaow was released in the UK. Our northern neighbors in Canada were also treated to the album, courtesy of Polygram. For Americans, it is available on import only.
Many fans consider Miaow a bit of a departure from the earlier material. One of the most obvious reasons for it is the absence of Briana Corrigan, the red-headed female presence in the band. She apparently felt uncomfortable with her "victimized woman" role in many BS songs, particularly Miaow's "Mini-correct. Briana was replaced by Jacqueline Abbott, who has a beautiful, but much different, voice. As with any band member replacement, fans are divided in their opinions about her. Singles from the album were: "Good as Gold (Stupid as Mud)", "Everybody's Talking" (yes, it's a cover song), and "Prettiest Eyes". Each single was released in two parts with two extra songs each.
Miaow stirred up a bit of copyright controversy. The original cover showed a number of dogs, which closely resembled the one in RCA's long-standing 'His Master's Voice' logo, sitting in theater seats listening to a gramophone that is on the stage in front of them. RCA claimed it represented trademark infringement and the album was reissued with a new cover, which shows four German shepherds in a rowboat on a choppy sea.
In October, the band put out Carry On Up the Charts-The Best of the Beautiful South. It is a 14-song singles collection that includes several shortened single versions of album songs as well as one new song, "One Last Love Song". A limited edition version (with a run of 200,000) included a bonus CD full of 14 b-sides spanning the Beautiful South's career. "One Last Love Song" was also released as a two-part single, one of which has two of the most Housemartins-y songs in years. Carry On Up the Charts reached #1 on the UK album charts. It was scheduled for Canadian release, possibly with additional songs, on Jan. 25. Any US issues of these 1994 releases would likely be on an indie label.
List-for-whoever has proven to be a valuable way for American fans to keep in touch with what's going on with the band. Go! Discs, the Beautiful South's English label, has an Internet presence primarily through the World Wide Web http://www.godiscs.co.uk /godiscs. The Beautiful South page features images of the band and album sleeves. Fans were also treated to a 40-second audio clip of "One Last Love Song" several weeks before it was released. In addition, UK fans often post concert reviews and newspaper and magazine articles they come across.
* * *
The Beautiful South/Housemartins Internet mailing list, called "list-for-whoever" (a take on the title of a song from Welcome to the Beautiful South), is run by Jen Sansbury. She and Erik Brady (both Americans, by the way) began developing the list in the latter part of 1993, but it really took off when it became automated in November 1994. To learn how to join the mailing list point your browser at: http://www.healey.com.au/~eva/hm/lfw.html
Delores / Link to Here
Q: Bumming Elephants
Q Magazine
Bumming Elephants
March 1995
by Stuart Maconie
Courtesy of Richard Stevenson
"They're all shit!"
Don't do yourselves down, lads! The Beautiful South's greatest hits, Carry On Up The Charts, was aptly entitled: one million sold-ker-ching! Stuart Maconie joins them for a fragrant wander down Memory Lane: "This one gets on my nerves, it goes on and on. And the video is fucking crap..."
"Swerving east from rich, industrial shadows... the piled gold cloud/The shining gullmarked mud... Gather to the surprise of a large town". Thus did Philip Larkin describe a visitor's entrance to Hull. Larkin loved living there for it's isolation from the prying media. He claimed that when people found out how remote it stood on its spit of North-eastern coast, journalists would carry on up the motorway and go and see Newcastle poet Basil Bunting instead.
If they were truthful, The Beautiful South think something like this. Even now, when the world is beating a path to their door thanks to a greatest hits album that was troubled only by Jon Bon Jovi, The Stone Roses and The Beatles over Christmas and, frankly, no-one over the New Year period. This fact can be read from the large album chart that the landlord has thoughtfully placed over their corner of local hostelry, The Mainbrace. We asked how it makes them feel, singer Paul Heaton and guitarist Dave Rotheray answer as one man - "embarrassed" - and are more than keen to get on with the task in hand: a lunchtime pint or two and sashay through this odd, curmudgeonly, excellent little group's history with Carry On Up The Charts as our guide.
MADE IN THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH - 101% VOLUME
 
Song For Whoever Song For Whoever
Your first single and it got to Number 2 in June, 1989. Did you expect such a big hit straight off?
Rotheray: We can answer these questions with some accuracy because we've always played a game of predicting how high the singles will go. I thought this would get to Number 30. Paul won. He thought it would get to Number 8. Go! Discs wanted another song called Under The Covers as the first single but Paul was quite adamant...
Heaton: I didn't think that was catchy enough. I'm surprised I was so confident about Song For Whoever though. It's one of those songs that's either going to be a bit hit or a flop. It nauseates me now a bit actually. I just felt that you have to point the finger to all those people who cynically trot out a different girl's name for every song. Ray Charles did a whole album called Dedicated To You where every track is a different girl's name - but at least that's honest.
Rotheray: It does sound like a piss-take of us, the barbed lyrics and the nice tune. The bitter-sweet thing. I think the sweetness in the band is...
Heaton: Your arse.
Rotheray: My arse, obviously, and the fact that we don't just use guitars. We're not averse to pianos and acoustics. There's an assumption that you can't be angry unless you've got 20 kilowatts of arse ballet behind you.
You Keep It All In You Keep It All In
Rotheray: You used to sing this to me in the chip shop.
Heaton: Did I? That sounds a bit sad.
Rotheray: Yes. If you remember, we were slightly worried that our first album was too shit. Too many shit sings on it - and it only had nine. And you said well, I've got another one. And you sang it to me and I said, That's shit too.
Heaton: I remember jumping out of bed and having to record the words and the tune. The first and last time I've ever done that. So later I sang it to Dave and he worked out the chords...
Rotheray: Chord.
Heaton: Really? Shit! Well, anyway my girlfriend heard it and said, You bastard, that's about me! Which is not strictly true. A review said that it was about emotional constipation and I would agree with that.
I'll Sail This Ship Alone I'll Sail This Ship Alone
It's a bit of a torch song, isn't it?
Heaton: It is a bit. It's quite straightforward really, apart from a slight twist at the end which is just about dying. We never really play it live 'cos it's a real bummer to sing and play. Apart from the seated-at-the-piano Val Doonican version on the album, we've never really got a decent band arrangement of it.
Rotheray: We all expected I'll Sail This Ship Alone to be a Number 1 record. (In fact it only got to Number 31). It's one of those songs that sounds familiar even though it's not. It seems to have been around forever. So, yes, I thought it would be a big hit, but it never got played on the radio and it was our first flop, which, in some ways, was a good anal banana for us.
A Little Time A Little Time
Rotheray: At the time we were listening to Nanci Griffith and Randy Travis's third album a lot. But it's not intended as a country song.
It got you tagged as a Radio Two pipe-and-slippers outfit.
Rotheray: We were never going to be cool. We're a bit old for that and we weren't a new band even when we started. If there'd been a big easy listening wave at the time or something, maybe. But it's cultural snobbery to use Radio Two as an insult. The Sunday it went to Number 1 we went in The Grafton and drank champagne. We did it the other week when the album got to Number 1.
At home with The Beautiful South
Paul, you don't mind that it's your biggest hit and the one you sing least on?
Heaton: No, I quite like that. (Eagerly and beginning to chuckle at the memory) Can I just say when we started the band, it was Dave who actually...
Rotheray: Oh bollocks, don't start with this one again.
Heaton: (Corpsing a little) Dave... dear oh dear... Dave wanted to be know as...
Rotheray: This is not true...
Heaton: (With some difficulty) He wanted to be known as Mr X, because his mum and dad didn't know that he'd stopped doing his PhD and...
Rotheray: (Defensively) Don't you think I would've thought of a more original pseudonym than Mr X?
Heaton: (Tearfully) Just think of what it would've looked like on records: "All songs Heaton/Mr X". You could have been a rock myth. Like The Hedge.
Rotheray: (Brightly) Fuck Off!
My Book My Book
This, er, stiffed, didn't it?
Rotheray: Yes, but in fairness, it's a plucky little single and it did, unfortunately, come out while A Little Time was still in the chart and selling quite well. We were going on tour and we wanted something out that the audience might know. It limped to Number 50-odd. (43 actually). We still got sued for it though.
Heaton: Bumble Bee of Soul II Soul sued for the "Back to bed, back to reality" bit. He got a quarter of the writing royalties. So it could have been credited to "Heaton/X/Bee".
Let Love Speak Up Itself Let Love Speak Up Itself
Rotheray: I remember Paul doing the vocal take. There were just the two of us in the studio and I was really ill with flu and spaced out on cough medicine and he came through really angry and impassioned with tears in his eyes and shouting, "That's the one, eh, Dave?" and O, frankly, hadn't been listening but I jumped up and shouted, "Yeah, right!" so that I could go back to the hotel and go to bed.
Heaton: I wasn't crying. It got to Number 51, our biggest flop. One of those records everybody pretends they bought. Also, it was at this time that Steady (drummer Dave Stead) broke his leg.
In a bizarre onstage accident, wasn't it?
Rotheray: (Sheepishly) Er, no. Jumping off cars in Brussels while pissed actually, but he told everybody that a gong fell on him on stage for insurance purposes.
Heaton: I remember we had a good laugh doing the video. We did it around here in a church and a pub. The director said, "Treat it like a wedding", so we did. We ended up having to bring Hamster (Dave Hemingway) round with smelling salts.
Old Red Eyes Is Back Old Red Eyes Is Back
Rotheray: You had a different tune originally and you used to get mixed up and sing it at gigs occasionally. You wrote the lyrics in Gran Canaria, the first time, when you went on your own.
Heaton: That's right, I went by myself to do the lyrics for 0898 (the South's third album), It's not really autobiographical. I don't know. I can imagine someone like me ending up that way. I probably am that way, except younger. But it's not a moral tale. It's looking at the more humorous and sad side of being a drunk. Perhaps it's a little too romantic. It sold respectably but the radio didn't really play it. I don't suppose they like songs about alcohol abuse.
We Are Each Other We Are Each Other
Heaton: I don't really like this song. From the very start of it, I don't like the sound on Dave's guitar. The chorus is annoying. I always forget the lyrics live. What else? The video is fucking crap. And it was my idea. My script as it were.
Rotheray: You liked it when we wrote it.
Heaton: I know. But the "Said we'd be true" bit sounds like Just One Cornetto, doesn't it?
How about you, Dave?
Heaton: He loves it, doesn't he? It's guitar-based rock, mate!
Rotheray: You always say that: "Guitar-based rock works well live!" I did like it but I've been infected by his cynicism. I dunno.
It's quite a nasty lyric.
Rotheray: I think the sentiments are quite common though. Feeling sick at seeing couples all over each other. (To Heaton) It's quite similar to Tonight I Fancy Myself (from second album, Choke), isn't it?
Heaton: It is yeah. Thanks for pointing out that I repeat myself every two albums. Cheers.
Bell Bottomed Tear Bell Bottomed Tear
Heaton: I quite like this 'cos I don't have to sing it.
Rotheray: It gets on my nerves though. It seems to go on and on. It's one of those with the same tune for the verse and chorus.
Heaton: I know the reason for not liking it. So you remember the movement "shoe-gazing?" Well, we're arse-gazers. Dave gazes at my arse all the way through the concert, so when I go off, he's got nothing to look at. Steady gazes at Hamster's plump, rotund arse; I gaze at Sean's tight, cheeky arse. Dave, when I go off, has nothing to look at.
It's not one of your best, is it? I wasn't keen.
Heaton: You're being honest. Nah, I wasn't either.
It's sort of son of A Little Time, isn't it?
Rotheray: That's a fair comment, fair appraisal. Hmm... yeah, it's shit.
Heaton: It is, it's shit. I hate it. In fact, they're all shit.
36D 36D
You decided soon after writing this that you'd changed your mind about the subject in question (Page 3 Girls), didn't you?
Heaton: I just listened to what Brianna (Corrigan, ex-vocalist) had to say about it and agreed with her. If Sean was here, he'd argue in favour of it but I though if you're offending one woman by it and a woman I consider pretty intelligent then...
Rotheray: I've come round to Paul's way of thinking, though I think it's clear from the song that it's not the model but the industry that's being attacked, What changed my mind was blokes coming up to me and saying they thought it was funny and shouting the chorus.
Heaton: We tried, unsuccessfully, to balance it with a video that was never really shown and that people wouldn't have understood anyway. It was my idea and I don't understand it.
Good tune though.
Rotheray: Rousing. Good ending. Good drumming by Steady. Good bit of guitar by me.
Good As Gold Good As Gold
Heaton: This is my favourite of them all, I think. I really like the sentiments.
Rotheray: My favourite song is probably Let Love Speak Up Itself. Unfortunately, the recorded version sounds like a tribe of baboons vigorously bumming an elephant. Good As Gold is one of the Miaow ones that we didn't write in Gran Canaria. This was in the front room in Grafton Street.
Heaton: We had a pretty good routine in Gran Canaria though... We'd get up and go for a quick half and then lock ourselves away for the afternoon writing. Then in then evening we'd enjoy the social life.
Everybody's Talkin' Everybody's Talkin'
Rotheray: I'm a bit sick of this. It's not that good really. We just wanted to get a song out with Jacqui (Abbot, new vocalist) on it. It's not any different from the original apart from a woman singing.
Why did you do it?
Rotheray: I don't know. The reason was that I'd been accused of ripping it off for another song I'd written and I challenged whoever it was to bring Everybody's Talkin' in and let me hear it and from there it became something we'd do when we were warming up. It did alright but there's no real sense of achievement in doing a cover version. But it was a good feeling for Jacqui being new and she enjoyed it and we enjoyed her enjoying it.
Prettiest Eyes Prettiest Eyes
Rotheray: That's another Gran Canaria one.
Heaton: I know where the idea came from, it came from an argument in this pub when someone made a comment about me having loads of wrinkles around my eyes and I was saying, Well, they're all paid for, they're all from good times not bad. So I extended the idea to 60-year-olds counting their wrinkles and remembering all the times they've had. Pop music tends to still centre around teen angst because that's the way it started in the '50s but I would have thought middle-aged angst is much worse and no-one ever addresses it in songs.
One Last Love Song One Last Love Song
Rotheray: This didn't make the album because it didn't really work, but we re-recorded it and Paul wrote different lyrics. It's a confident, catchy song but it didn't do shit. It failed to trouble the scorers.
Heaton: It got to Number 14! It's a hearty song, quite Irish. We'd been listening to Tom Waits and I can imagine him singing it. Bit commercial for him though.
Arms are put squarely between shoulderblades and The Beautiful South's songwriters agree, with some reluctance, to leave the warmth of The Mainbrace and have their photograph taken in the park. Before doing so, Rotheray offers us his opinion that the group have got better over their decade and a quarter but only because "we couldn't have got any worse". It's a nice, self-deprecating line but one possibly disputed by Jon Bon Jovi esteemed friends.
Delores / Link to Here
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