Another Roundup of Posts
Hugh Padgham is smiling. He's not working on anything at the moment because he's "in Greece." It's a very different environment from 1980s England where he worked as an engineer and a producer.Padgham's smile returns for a second time when he remembers a funny anecdote about Paul McCartney. "It was weird," he chuckles,"because when I first went to meet him at his manager's office which I think was at Manchester Square, we were discussing musicians. I suggested Jerry Marotta on drums [for the album]." The Beatle chimed in to ask who should play the bass, which amazed Padgham. "Are you kidding me?" Padgham laughs.
Invariably, McCartney played bass on Press to Play (1986), although he would "get into a tizz about it, and fiddle for hours". "It's not that he lost confidence," Padgham says, "but probably thought he could do it better." Padgham pencils himself as an "amateur bass player", and gushes at McCartney's bass prowess with The Beatles. The album was largely co-written by Eric Stewart of 10cc fame. "Eric and I seemed to differ wildly on the circumstances on Press to Play," Padgham says. "I remember it in a different way to Eric, and I kind of regret the way he talks about me. I had mucho respect for him, because I grew up listening to 10cc. I thought he was a brilliant engineer, guitar player and musician, so it's a shame.Eric always seems to talk about [Press to Play] in a sort-of-sour-grapes way, which I don't recognise. But that's by the by."
No one, not even the creative team, considers Press to Play a triumph for the solo Beatle. Nevertheless, Press to Play is noteworthy in that it features 'Pretty Little Head', a bouncy, giddy track that incorporates faders and abstract rhythms. Indeed, the track could easily have slotted into Peter Gabriel's jauntily produced So, a record that contrasted the nocturnal, compressed grooves on the third Gabriel album. "I never thought of it like that," the producer responds. “I do know from my point of view, I was about twenty-four when I recorded [the third album.] The sessions were on and off; nearly a year. Unheard of! The XTC album Drums and Wires was done in four weeks, which was hard work and fast. A year to make [laughs] ..." Patience has its rewards: Gabriel's third album has a sonic energy that has aged remarkably well, and it might be the most satisfying album he made, inside or outside the Genesis sphere.
Padgham developed a trebly drum sound on Gabriel's 'Intruder', which likely netted him a gig as a producer on Phil Collins' Face Value. His drum treatments must have won him favours with Stewart Copeland, considering the way snares cut through the monitors on Synchronicity. "Stewart must have been aware of the drum sound on the Peter Gabriel album, and on Phil's album, Face Value," Padgham admits. "I loved his drumming; he's absolutely brilliant. A total one-off. I tried once or twice to get him to play on sessions, but it wasn't easy. Unless he did his own thing, it didn't work. A session player is a different animal. But I love a lot of Stewart's film stuff; very talented."
Conventional wisdom indicates that rock music should pander to an established form, a philosophy clearly confirmed by Paul McCartney's desire to complete a follow up to two disparate records that were based on adventure and reckless spirit. It's difficult not to disengage from McCartney III's propensity to satisfy older fans over younger ones; a distinct contrast from the spontaneity that rippled through his 1970s work with such giddy realisation. The newly released Welcome to Toytown rectifies some of that, by completing a series of disparate musical segments as one towering whole, reigniting much of the creative energy that went into recording pop albums during the 1970s.
Ken Sharp's trajectory feels like it took over from McCartney in 1982, who abandoned enthusiasm and experimentation for something more organised and angular in the wake of John Lennon's murder. In many ways, Welcome to Toytown arrives fully formed from another dimension, tipping its hat to Bolan, Beatles and glam as it does so. 'Happy Day Happy Dream' gets the ball rolling , suggesting that the "chords set the scene", positing a reality where music forms a currency and rock a language. 'Up In The Clouds', all chiming arpeggios and happiness, furthers the expression, as if creating a novel for audio. ('Up In The Clouds' is punctuated by a shrill, soulful solo.)
Many of the studio tricks arrive during the songs, but the ultimate desire is the endgame; the symbolic end goal music, commercial and abstract, drives to. 'We Are Timeless' pleads to the listeners to absolve each other of past transgressions, earmarking a new society based on harmony and good-will. Here, Sharp's guileful eccentricity sparks against the stereo system, as is evident on 'Broken Down Heart', a work of sonic detail and dimension. As with everything on the record, it's the minutae that propels it forward. 'And I Don't Mind At All' tears everything back, to the roots of music, a plaintive guitar accentuating Sharp's lilting voice.
“My mother presented me with three fathers,” he chuckles. “My third father was Dónal.” Mann is calling from Sweden, where he is a resident. “I learned a phrase in Swedish, which has been a total failure: jag talar inte svenska. It means ‘I don’t speak Swedish.’The trouble is you’re saying it in Swedish, so they think you do speak Swedish.”
Manfred Mann is erudite and speculates on whether the Beatles worked with a synthesiser. “I don’t think there were any synthesisers on Abbey Road.” Clarifying the year, he says: “I wouldn’t have thought they had them in 1969, because I bought mine in 1973. I may be wrong.” Intrigued to discover more, he types Abbey Road ballad “Because” into a search bar before looking up the information. “I would be surprised if they had one,” he admits. “Making sounds on a synthesiser isn’t playing it in my view. I’m talking about playing it as an instrument. If you’re going to go [imitates maniacal sounds].” He sighs and shakes his head. “There may have been some early moogs at that time,” he concedes.
He happens upon a discovery that pleases him: “The earliest use of synthesiser is Vera Lynn in 1939. That’s hard to believe. Early polyphonic synth. Those sort of things where you might call electric productions of sound, they were horrible instruments, those things.”
Manfred Mann prides himself as a synthesiser player. “The harder you hit a note on the piano, the louder it sounds,” he explains. “On the early synthesisers, you had no touch response; no matter how hard you hit a note. It’s different [now]: you have controls, and can move those controls on a synthesiser while you’re playing. It just so happens that I developed a style on the synthesiser which is a style that is me; the moment I play, you know it’s me.” He reiterates that he doesn’t consider himself “the best player in the world”, but highlights his trademark playing. “I’m not down about everything I do at all,” he chortles.
There’s dysfunction, there’s depravity, and then there’s the family in The Sparrow in the Chimney, a group who engage in adultery, animal abuse and occasional mutilation. Leon (Ilja Bultmann) is a cuisine-obsessed son that is regularly beaten up by local thugs; Markus’ (Andreas Dohler) is the patriarch, a man fervently cheating on his wife with the lodger staying in the cabin; and the rake thin Karen (Maren Eggert), who is desperately trying to reconcile her decision to live in the house where her father committed suicide. They are visited by Karen’s sibling Jule (Britta Hammelstein) who is visibly irritated by the presence of her mother’s possessions, and although her buoyant attitude cheers up teenager Johanna (Lea Zoë Voss), it serves to create more chaos in a house driven by noise and negative energy.
The Sparrow in the Chimney is a tragicomedy of sorts, not least because some of the lines are very funny indeed. Johanna, headstrong and outgoing, bags many of the funniest lines, but Leon – a child who places crockery in microwaves and pets in the washing machine – is also noteworthy. But for every amusing anecdote comes a darker alternative, particularly from Karen, a mother of intense loneliness and quaint despair. She stands outside the hut where her partner is fellated by another, walking by the gardens her parents once tended. In a rare moment of confession, Karen admits that she can feel the ghost of her matriarch, displacing her influence on the family.
Seemingly the only one who can see Karen for the person she aspires to be is eldest daughter Christina (Paula Schindler), a girl who has left the house for another life. Christina knows deep in her heart of hearts that she belongs here in this house, but admits to Johanna that she can only qualify her memories of her childhood from far away. Compared to the more rational Christina, Johanna seems wild, blatantly flirting with men her mother has taken a fancy to.
Gallagher’s playing belies an energy stemming from his native country. Recorded throughout the 70s and 80s, it presents a rebellious showcase that could only have emanated from a place that had seen vast changes and overcome turbulence. Gallagher put his soul into his instrument, which is why these recordings practically fly off the audio in this new collection. He wasn’t slow like Clapton or idiosyncratic like Hendrix. Gallagher was reverent of the blues, engendering a new form of rock rooted in his gut. He was pure and particular. In other words, Gallagher was Irish.