Post by acidmintz on Nov 2, 2013 19:16:00 GMT
The first time you worked with The Fall was the Slates album. How did you first hook up with The Fall?
It was through the Rough Trade offices. They distributed all the independent records in Britain at the time. I met Daniel Miller there prior to his founding Mute. The Fall were doing stuff for Geoff Travis (Rough Trade label boss) at the time. They'd done stuff for Miles Copeland (brother of Stewart from The Police) on Step Forward previously. I was only 22 or 23 years old at the time -learning my trade so to speak. Geoff Travis said that I could help with additional production. I mainly contributed in the recording of the song 'Middlemass'.
Middlemass was apparently written about the soon to be fired from the band Marc 'Lard' Riley. "The boy is like a tape loop".
I didn't know that. Myself and Mark became friends later. My wife at the time became friends with Kay Carroll - Mark's girlfriend and The Fall's manager at the time. I think the song 'An Older Lover' is about her. Myself and my wife went to see The Fall in Berlin and that cemented the friendship.
I asked Paul Hanley and Grant Showbiz if they had any recollections of the recording of Slates.
Grant Showbiz: Does he remember setting up a speaker in the toilets at Berwick St studio during recording of Slates and why? (it was for a snare sound).
Paul Hanley: When we recorded with him he got the reverb he wanted on the bass drum by playing it through a speaker at the top of the stairs and then re-recording it at the bottom. Does he still do stuff like that or would he just press a button now?
What was almost unique about The Fall is that they never used any studio effects. It was almost anti-production. I didn't do that much on the record. The one thing I can claim is the idea to record through the toilet. It was in the boiler room so we had to switch the boiler off. Mark wanted it to sound crunching. He wanted it to sound like something on Sun records or a Link Wray record. I did it by using an off-mike recording of a speaker in the bathroom. He didn't want any reverbs or effects. He wanted it to sound 'dry'. I learnt a lot from him. I learnt less really is more.
The toilet recording sounds a bit like something Joe Meek would have done.
Not quite. He'd have put the drummer in the bath tub.
Tackhead covered The Fall's 'Repetition' as the B-side of Dangerous Sex. Dave Haslam (music journalist) maintains this is the Fall's most important song. Were you happy with the result?
Yeah that was my idea. I wasn't completely happy with the result but I'm glad we did it.
You've worked with three of my heroes - Lee Perry, Mark E Smith and Shane McGowan. All three individuals are beloved by music journalists because there are so many stories about them...so much you could write. Is Mark E Smith more like Shane McGowan or Lee Perry?
And yes there are some boring sods who sell lots of records. Well if I had to choose...I'd say Mark E Smith and Shane McGowan because they both like a drink. All three are alike in that they're incredibly creative and they don't suffer fools gladly. Shane McGowan has his Behan thing. Mark E Smith has his northern working class thing. Lee Perry is different in that it's not just the recorded output. He believes that every movement or emotion that he experiences is part of one huge work of art. He's like Salvador Dali or something. McGowan is obviously a poet and when you look at something like 'Deerpark' you realise what a wordsmith Mark is. All three are tied together by a sense of humour - they're mischievous madmen.
I recently heard the famous Tommy Vance Capitol Radio interview where John Lydon played his favourite records. Mark E Smith wouldn't credit it but surely he's got to have taken some influences from Lydon. Not many people back then or now like dub reggae, Can and the Velvets.
Oh you mean the show where he played Dr Alimantado. I think what everyone took from reggae was the lyrics, whether they were talking about 'babylon', 'bomb the church' or even 'don't eat pork'. It was completely revolutionary to British people's ears. If you were living in London or Manchester at the time you heard it. Whether you liked it or not - and a lot of people didn't like it. Even if you didn't like the "chickey chickey" reggae rhythm you absorbed it. Mark was a big fan of Big Youth and I would later turn him on to some other stuff. Whether he liked it or not he respected your enthusiasm.
Mark E Smith has recently taken to describing himself as a producer. Is this an accurate description?
Mark is the real deal. Something that I've always thought and you can quote me on it is this...Mark knows the album he's going to end up with note for note before he even steps into the studio. He's a one off in Britain that way. You're wondering whether Mark is correct in describing himself as a producer. He's a producer alright. In that respect Grant Showbiz was like a co-producer. I was just an assistant. He knows exactly what he wants the guitars and the drums to sound like. In those early 1980s records he wanted a tension.
He apparently would stay longer in the pub to piss the musicians off and make them tense when they played.
Well he might have done that, but I think he wanted to create a healthy tension and you can hear it on those records.
You also worked on the Fall's Extricate album. Did you work on 'Telephone Thing' (with Coldcut) or 'Popcorn Double Feature'?
No. I did stuff like 'British People in Hot Weather' and 'Extricate' (the title track). They tried a lot of new things on that record. I didn't really know Coldcut but they went to the same college as me. Sometimes producing is just about creating an ambience for other people to work in. I mean if I'm producing a dub record I might aim for the 'Black Ark' (Lee Perry's legendary studio) sound but that certainly wasn't what was required with The Fall. A producer should add his two bob when required...when things grind to a halt. But they never asked for my 'signature' sound and it wouldn't have worked with The Fall.
It was through the Rough Trade offices. They distributed all the independent records in Britain at the time. I met Daniel Miller there prior to his founding Mute. The Fall were doing stuff for Geoff Travis (Rough Trade label boss) at the time. They'd done stuff for Miles Copeland (brother of Stewart from The Police) on Step Forward previously. I was only 22 or 23 years old at the time -learning my trade so to speak. Geoff Travis said that I could help with additional production. I mainly contributed in the recording of the song 'Middlemass'.
Middlemass was apparently written about the soon to be fired from the band Marc 'Lard' Riley. "The boy is like a tape loop".
I didn't know that. Myself and Mark became friends later. My wife at the time became friends with Kay Carroll - Mark's girlfriend and The Fall's manager at the time. I think the song 'An Older Lover' is about her. Myself and my wife went to see The Fall in Berlin and that cemented the friendship.
I asked Paul Hanley and Grant Showbiz if they had any recollections of the recording of Slates.
Grant Showbiz: Does he remember setting up a speaker in the toilets at Berwick St studio during recording of Slates and why? (it was for a snare sound).
Paul Hanley: When we recorded with him he got the reverb he wanted on the bass drum by playing it through a speaker at the top of the stairs and then re-recording it at the bottom. Does he still do stuff like that or would he just press a button now?
What was almost unique about The Fall is that they never used any studio effects. It was almost anti-production. I didn't do that much on the record. The one thing I can claim is the idea to record through the toilet. It was in the boiler room so we had to switch the boiler off. Mark wanted it to sound crunching. He wanted it to sound like something on Sun records or a Link Wray record. I did it by using an off-mike recording of a speaker in the bathroom. He didn't want any reverbs or effects. He wanted it to sound 'dry'. I learnt a lot from him. I learnt less really is more.
The toilet recording sounds a bit like something Joe Meek would have done.
Not quite. He'd have put the drummer in the bath tub.
Tackhead covered The Fall's 'Repetition' as the B-side of Dangerous Sex. Dave Haslam (music journalist) maintains this is the Fall's most important song. Were you happy with the result?
Yeah that was my idea. I wasn't completely happy with the result but I'm glad we did it.
You've worked with three of my heroes - Lee Perry, Mark E Smith and Shane McGowan. All three individuals are beloved by music journalists because there are so many stories about them...so much you could write. Is Mark E Smith more like Shane McGowan or Lee Perry?
And yes there are some boring sods who sell lots of records. Well if I had to choose...I'd say Mark E Smith and Shane McGowan because they both like a drink. All three are alike in that they're incredibly creative and they don't suffer fools gladly. Shane McGowan has his Behan thing. Mark E Smith has his northern working class thing. Lee Perry is different in that it's not just the recorded output. He believes that every movement or emotion that he experiences is part of one huge work of art. He's like Salvador Dali or something. McGowan is obviously a poet and when you look at something like 'Deerpark' you realise what a wordsmith Mark is. All three are tied together by a sense of humour - they're mischievous madmen.
I recently heard the famous Tommy Vance Capitol Radio interview where John Lydon played his favourite records. Mark E Smith wouldn't credit it but surely he's got to have taken some influences from Lydon. Not many people back then or now like dub reggae, Can and the Velvets.
Oh you mean the show where he played Dr Alimantado. I think what everyone took from reggae was the lyrics, whether they were talking about 'babylon', 'bomb the church' or even 'don't eat pork'. It was completely revolutionary to British people's ears. If you were living in London or Manchester at the time you heard it. Whether you liked it or not - and a lot of people didn't like it. Even if you didn't like the "chickey chickey" reggae rhythm you absorbed it. Mark was a big fan of Big Youth and I would later turn him on to some other stuff. Whether he liked it or not he respected your enthusiasm.
Mark E Smith has recently taken to describing himself as a producer. Is this an accurate description?
Mark is the real deal. Something that I've always thought and you can quote me on it is this...Mark knows the album he's going to end up with note for note before he even steps into the studio. He's a one off in Britain that way. You're wondering whether Mark is correct in describing himself as a producer. He's a producer alright. In that respect Grant Showbiz was like a co-producer. I was just an assistant. He knows exactly what he wants the guitars and the drums to sound like. In those early 1980s records he wanted a tension.
He apparently would stay longer in the pub to piss the musicians off and make them tense when they played.
Well he might have done that, but I think he wanted to create a healthy tension and you can hear it on those records.
You also worked on the Fall's Extricate album. Did you work on 'Telephone Thing' (with Coldcut) or 'Popcorn Double Feature'?
No. I did stuff like 'British People in Hot Weather' and 'Extricate' (the title track). They tried a lot of new things on that record. I didn't really know Coldcut but they went to the same college as me. Sometimes producing is just about creating an ambience for other people to work in. I mean if I'm producing a dub record I might aim for the 'Black Ark' (Lee Perry's legendary studio) sound but that certainly wasn't what was required with The Fall. A producer should add his two bob when required...when things grind to a halt. But they never asked for my 'signature' sound and it wouldn't have worked with The Fall.