Melody Maker, April 29, 1978

Bibliography   72 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 UK & Ireland weeklies UK & Ireland magazines UK & Ireland newspapers US newspapers US rock magazines US music magazines US magazines US alternative weeklies European magazines European newspapers Canada  •  Mexico  •  Asia Australia  •  New Zealand South America  •  Africa Blogs  •  Fanzines  •  Books Online publications Melody Maker   1974 April 20 1975 November 1 1976 August 14 1977 March 26 1977 June 4 1977 June 25 1977 July 23 1977 August 6 1977 August 13 1977 August 20 1977 September 3 1977 September 17 1977 October 1 1977 October 8 1977 October 15 1977 October 22 1977 November 5 1977 November 12 1977 December 17 1977 December 24 1977 December 31 1978 February 18 1978 February 25 1978 March 4 1978 March 11 1978 March 25 1978 April 15 1978 April 22 1978 April 29 1978 May 6 1978 May 13 1978 May 20 1978 September 30 1978 October 21 1978 October 28 1978 November 11 1978 November 25 1978 December 9 1978 December 23 1978 December 30 1979 January 6 1979 January 13 1979 January 20 1979 February 3 1979 February 10 1979 April 14 1979 May 12 1979 June 2 1979 September 29 1980 January 5 1980 January 19 1980 January 26 1980 February 2 1980 February 23 1980 March 8 1980 March 29 1980 April 5 1980 July 19 1980 August 23 1980 September 6 1980 October 4 1980 October 11 1980 November 22 1980 December 6 1981 January 3 1981 January 17 1981 January 24 1981 February 7 1981 February 14 1981 February 28 1981 March 7 1981 April 4 1981 May 30 1981 July 11 1981 September 5 1981 October 17 1981 October 24 1981 October 31 1981 December 19 1982 January 2 1982 January 9 1982 January 16 1982 March 13 1982 May 15 1982 May 29 1982 June 12 1982 June 26 1982 July 3 1982 July 31 1982 September 18 1983 January 8 1983 May 28 1983 June 4 1983 June 11 1983 July 2 1983 July 9 1983 July 30 1983 August 20 1983 September 10 1983 October 15 1983 October 29 1984 January 7 1984 April 14 1984 April 21 1984 April 28 1984 June 2 1984 June 9 1984 July 28 1984 August 11 1984 August 18 1984 September 1 1984 October 13 1984 October 20 1984 November 17 1984 December 15 1985 March 16 1985 April 13 1985 May 4 1985 June 1 1985 June 8 1985 July 13 1985 July 20 1985 July 27 1986 February 22 1986 March 1 1986 March 22 1986 May 24 1986 July 5 1986 July 12 1986 September 13 1986 November 15 1986 November 22 1986 December 6 1986 December 20 1987 January 31 1987 February 7 1987 May 2 1987 June 27 1987 November 28 1987 December 19 1988 February 20 1988 February 27 1988 May 14 1989 January 28 1989 February 4 1989 February 11 1989 February 18 1989 February 25 1989 May 6 1989 May 13 1989 May 20 1989 June 24 1989 July 15  1989 October 21 1991 April 13 1991 April 27 1991 May 18 1991 June 22 1991 July 13 1991 October 12 1991 October 26 1992 April 18 1992 May 30 1993 January 23 1993 February 6 1993 March 6 1993 August 21 1993 October 9 1994 February 5 1994 February 12 1994 February 19 1994 February 26 1994 April 9 1994 April 23 1994 April 30 1994 July 2 1994 July 9 1994 July 16 1994 November 12 1994 November 19 1995 April 1 1995 April 8 1995 May 27 1995 June 3 1995 June 10 1996 May 18 1996 July 20 1996 August 31 — What next after punk? John Orme In the first part of a three-week MM series, The State Of Rock, John Orme asks managers and the record industry how they see rock developing in the next year It was either late 1975 or early 1976 — the memory seems to fade regarding what were then unimportant facts — that Virgin Records managing director Simon Draper first came across a certain Mr P. J. Costello. "He had done an acoustic demo tape that was played by Charlie Gillett on his radio programme. I heard it, and was interested, and phoned Charlie to get hold of the singer. I met Elvis, or P.J. as he was then, Costello, and listened to more of his stuff. As a result I decided not to do anything about it." He had unwittingly turned down the singer and writer whom many converts are prepared to crown, as the closest you will get to the future of British rock 'n' roll and, significantly, the only musician to come out of Britain's musical turmoil of the last 18 months who looks likely to convincingly crack open the American market. Draper doesn't spend his nights crying over his lost opportunity and he is quite prepared to admit that Virgin might not have been the best company for the fledgling Costello. After all, he has had the sweet pill of the Sex Pistols and the prospect of post-legal Devo to ease the memory of his error. To start a postmortem on punk is to run into a bewildering set of conflicting and contradictory assertions. To those committed to the cause, such an inquest is untimely as they see the corpse still warm and the heart still beating. An involved insider like Clash manager Bernard Rhodes sees it as a matter of suspended animation, with the life-force of punk having been confused into a weakness that the music industry has taken for a willingness, even desire, to Conform. But don't be misled, warns Rhodes — punk has just been frozen for the next few years, ready to be woken when the need is there. The industry that he and the Clash used, and still use, to achieve their declared aims has adopted a kindly, almost benign attitude to the punk puppy that screeched around its feet and savaged its ankles until it took some notice and opened up its cheque book. Whatever you say about the music, insists the biz, punk was A Good Thing, stirring up a flaccid industry and injecting a dose of strife and steel into music that by general agreement (in hindsight) had a soft pot-bellied spread. Now that the business men have house-trained the pup (no more stains on the carpet), or smothered the youthful energy with its bland over-financing — as another view would have it — where goes music now? Where are the money men placing their bets by investment over the next few years? Gather close, and you will hear. Former top racing cyclist John Fruin worked in just about every area of the British music business "before returning to the scene" in 1976 as managing director of WEA Records in Britain. After taking a hard look at the music business he agreed with the American side of WEA not to invest any money in British music for the following 12 months because he believed WEA had a wealth of American talent that had not been developed sufficiently in Britain. "As punk started to explode, I stayed out of it from WEA's point of view because of our interest in the American side, and instead decided to reorganise our British base in terms of distribution, pressing etc. I did not get involved in the emotional rush after punk — and possibly saved the company half a million pounds doing so, because that is the sort of money other companies were throwing around and losing. "Certainly at that time, the media did the business a considerable favour by the amount of attention it focused on punk, developing it as a new British form of music — or at least, new for this market. Some of what was written was factual, some was journalistic hype, but it all made a big impression on a very, soft market. "There was a considerable interest in sophisticated American music at the time, but the stimulus that the punk side gave to British music was great. A lot of money was thrown away, but a lot of talent emerged through it, although with cases like Elvis Costello it might not have been directly linked with punk," said Fruin. For the future, Fruin sees a closer concentration on British music. "We as a business have started to invest heavily into British music. After the stimulation of punk rock by the press, there has emerged a great deal more interest in the British scene, a scene that was fairly dull 18 months ago — and certainly one that WEA had very little investment in. "Now that is all changing, and having spent last year and this year building a foundation for the next ten years with a revamped distribution system, building and equipping a pressing plant, installing computers and so on at a cost of a few million pounds, we now see two main areas of investment, both about equal. "One is the exploitation of the American repertoire that has been broken by the American company, with people like Fleetwood Mac, George Benson and so on, and the other area is investment in British talent with an eye on worldwide sales. Countries like Australia and Japan look to Britain for talent to hear and see, and there are vast markets in such places." Fruin is looking at two ways of putting his company's money into the back pocket of British talent — first by direct signing to WEA. and secondly by setting up more 50/50 investment deals with production companies like Radar, currently boasting Costello, Nick Lowe and Pere Ubu on its books. "I am planning more deals like the current one with Radar, where you have an extremely creative person like Andrew Lauder who I can use as a pair of eyes to spot the talent for the future. I couldn't employ someone like Andrew — there is nothing I could offer him. The only way that someone like that can be successful and stay in Britain is to work on something they can build that can be sold to make a capital gain." While admitting that his strengths lie in the marketing rather than talent-spotting areas of music, Fruin sees two distinct trends over the next few years. "First, I think the whiter, cleaner edition of punk with bands like the Pleasers and Tonight will find a very wide acceptance around the world — there is already a lot of American interest in Tonight, for example, with Jerry Wexler, the old man of American music, having signed them to WEA in America. "America is still open for today's version of the Dave Clark Five, and so there is much potential in that area. "The other trend for the future lies with today's editions of Bob Dylan — the people like Elvis Costello and Tom Robinson. This is the area where lyrics are listened to rather than the emphasis being purely on visual impact. "I am sure there is a long lease of life in someone like Ian Dury, although whether America will take to him I don't know because they find it difficult to understand him over there, and most of his songs have to be listened to, to understand his cynicism. I am sure he could be very big in Australia, where I am sure they will understand him." While his investment in British music is heavy over the next few years, Fruin is convinced of one fact — it would not have been there without punk. "Whether we sign direct to our label or through more companies like Radar, if the punk thing had not come up, I would not be investing like this. I would have stuck to our American material." Maurice Oberstein is head of CBS in Britain, the company that has the Clash and the Vibrators side by side with Tina Charles and Cafe Jacques. He is. certain of one fact: "Every star of the Eighties is in a punk band today." His belief in the staying power of his CBS signings is mirrored in his view of the future of music — it is all in the hands of the groups that are playing and learning now. While there are plenty of record buyers around who would say that bands like the Clash have had their day, Oberstein sees a continuing growth for Joe Strummer and the lads. "You look for every artist you sign to be with you for 20 years at least. The commitment is wider, deeper and heavier than just the signing money — you also have to spend money to make the public aware of your art, on subsidising tours and such like. Very often the money spent on recording an album is one of the smallest costs overall. Marketing costs up to three or four times as much as recording an album, so our faith in an act is as a long-term investment. "For example, we have spent in excess of £250,000 on Cafe Jacques, while their album has not sold anywhere near that amount, but we think the band has genuine talent and a future. "The Clash album has sold 100,000 records, but that is not successful financially. We all lost money over that because of the money that went into it — they toured up and down the country, and lost money with every gig. The members of the band are still on £50 or £70 a week — and that is terrible. But we have no reason to doubt that their next album will not sell three times as much as the first. "When I think of the Clash, I look at the early Pink Floyd. Could you tell me how far down the road that band would have gone in ten years time? No. "I feel a similar thing with the Clash. Within the band there is a great musical creativity, and they have the musical strength to be making great music for years to come. If they want to do it I think they will be making great records in ten years time. History tells us that the originals will stay — and the Clash and the Pistols were in there at the start." With a stable of about 40 British acts to concentrate on — and a promotion and marketing team of 87 people working on them and the American CBS artists with an annual budget that goes well into seven figures — Oberstein is well aware of the effect that money has on the success of music. For the past four years the total number of records sold in Britain has not just remained stationary but has fallen slightly since a peak in 1974 — which means that all the record companies, either the huge international groups like EMI, CBS and WEA or the small independents, are fighting for a larger slice of a pie that is not growing. Oberstein has a direct businessman's answer to where music is going in the next few years. "At a time when there has been no growth in the unit sales of records, the biggest growth area has been in those records promoted on television, whether it be the K-Tel type of compilation albums or the ELO types that have a massive promotional push behind them. "If you look at the charts for the last two Christmasses you find that a good 50 percent of the records that made it were either specifically made for TV promotion or were heavily advertised for that medium. "That inevitably means the market has moved towards the middle-of-the-road with retrospectives of the Supremes or Buddy Holly, the 20 Greatest Hit-type compilations being the big sellers. The market has moved directly towards where the money is being spent, and not particularly with the music. "A situation like the Stranglers selling 150,000 albums and a Nat King Cole retrospective selling 500,000 plus indicates that the market has not moved with the new talent. In terms of the overall market I would say that we have not broken any new ground with the new wave." Reflecting John Fruin's assessment of the importance of foreign markets to the British music business, with particular emphasis on America, Oberstein was adamant. "If we had to live off the UK artists and sales, we would go broke. "What we have to look at is the people who are going to sell outside the UK. An act like Tina Charles will not sell spectacularly in Britain, but she has sold five million records outside the UK. We have to look at the potential of an act for the rest of the world." While that appears to be a prophecy of a continuing curve towards middle-of-the-road accessibility a-la-ABBA, Oberstein is still strong in his commitment to the long-term potential of talent. "The new wave gave musicians the opportunity to express themselves. I remember seeing Tom Robinson playing in pubs a long time before he became a new wave hero, and I suppose his potential was there then. At one point CBS had Robert Plant and David Bowie with them, and if we had been able to look into the future we would have seen their talent then. "What the press did accomplish was to make a market for the new wave musicians, both by making people aware of them and by indicating to people that there was money to be made by opening up pubs and other venues for it. "Because of the atmosphere at the time and the great competition that suddenly started up, the deals for punk bands were unreasonably expensive, and I am glad we held back — I see nothing wrong in following the pack, after all, there was not just one definitive new wave band, but more where the first came from. I can only feel slightly sorry for my rivals who are signing up third and fourth-rate pogo bands." Simon Draper will be celebrating with the rest of Virgin the fifth birthday of their company next month. Those five years have seen the growth of a business that started as a discount mail-order record chain that thumbed its nose at the rest of the music business and has developed into an influential record company that recently locked horns with WEA, one of America's biggest businesses, in battle over Devo. Virgin's image has changed from a woolly-hat "peace, man" outfit to a company headed by powerful business motives and prepared to work with a dogged ruthlessness. Gone are the days when obscure and less than successful bands were able to drop anchor in Virgin's peaceful backwater in order to concentrate on getting their music together — acts such as Henry Cow, Wigwam, Can and Ivor Cutler have been dropped "regrettably" by managing director Draper in order to keep the company running with the Seventies. "In 1976 we realised that we had 25 people signed to us as long-term deals who were not selling many records — they were in effect totally non-productive. We did say when we started that we weren't going to become a hire'em and fire'em company, but we found we had to do it. The only one we really kept out of that batch was Kevin Coyne, and that was because everyone in the company loved him and believed in him." Now, with a staff numbering about 35 including its salesmen, Virgin Records (the label, not the shops), concentrates on about 15 long-term signings on Virgin and ten on the recently-created Front Line reggae label. Those signings include the Sex Pistols as individuals, Devo (the Warner Bros case permitting), Magazine, XTC and the Motors, plus a wealth of Jamaican reggae talent. All of which looks like a considerable foothold in the music of the Eighties. Draper agrees. "Although Devo can be seen as being well ahead of their time, I think that it is clear that the traditional pop values will continue to hold good, and I am sure that visual spectacle will have a very big effect — much more than at the moment. "The way Devo have presented themselves is important, I think, from the way they dress to the way they package themselves and the promotional film they made themselves. The whole impact of the band is important. "Even the Pistols found that. They were very forceful in their condemnation of the big established acts and the staging they used, but as soon as the Pistols played larger venues they found exactly the same problems as the bands they were knocking. The Pistols were great as themselves in a small packed club, but to get the same impact in a big hall you need the better equipment, lighting and so on that they scorned in others)* Alongside Virgin's sleeker, more aggressive policy as a record company has come a further main change — its attitude to singles. "We have had to come to terms with the boom in the singles market. We now have a 21 per cent share of the singles market, and that is as a company that started off completely with albums. I am sure that the importance of singles in breaking an artist will continue. "People are looking more and more towards singles, largely as a result of the small independent companies selling records by artists who never got any airplay, which was something of a revolution in itself. "Also, the state of the overall records market has had a lot to do with the rise of the single — as the market has contracted slightly people were more prepared to risk their money on a single rather than an album, both from the recording point of view as well as the buyer." Along with Draper's adamant views on the importance of the single, he also insists on a far greater degree of involvement by the company in an artist's work. "In the old Robert Wyatt days the involvement of Virgin itself was minimal — the acts made the recordings and we manufactured and sold them. Now we have a lot more involvement, from my demands for singles to my insisting that they work with an appropriate producer, especially the new bands who need advice from someone who can tell them about music. Draper's view of the importance of the single is mirrored by WEA's John Fruin, who says that like Virgin, his company was album-dominated three years ago. Over the last 18 months we have made very conscious efforts to get into the singles market, and that at a time when the singles business was re-emerging. "One of the real reasons for the growth of singles is radio play — if you produce an album, a costly item, you can expect maybe a week of airplay unless it is the new Eagles or something. After that, it goes to the radio station library. But you get a single into the playlists, and you are getting exposure for a month or so." Back at Virgin, Simon Draper has his eyes on far more than the 'British singles market. He is sure the importance of reggae will continue to develop, and will bring with it an interest in other countries' music. "We decided at the end of 1976 to have another go at reggae, which led to the Front Line label, and we have found considerable success in new markets like Nigeria, where there is a huge potential for British record companies. We are currently looking at Africa and South America." Whatever music Virgin does put out in the next few years, Draper has one concern — that the company does not expand faster than it can adjust to its success. Remaining text and scanner-error corrections to come... << >> Melody Maker, April 29, 1978 John Orme write about The State Of Rock in part one of a three-part series. Reader J.J. Meadowcroft writes about the Roundhouse gig, Sunday, April 16, London. Images 1977 photo by Barry Plummer. Not fazed away J.J. Meadowcroft In the April 15 edition of MM under the Pick of the Week's gigs' an anonymous writer said "We've yet to hear of anyone who's caught Elvis Costello and the Attractions on this tour who hasn't staggered away completely fazed by the intensity of the group's performance." I however, was far from 'fazed' by Costello's Sunday night Roundhouse gig. For me the whole performance emphasised how Elvis' total lack of "on-stage presence or charisma" can only damn the efforts of the band as a whole. Granted that his songwriting is nothing short of brilliant, I feel that it is a great shame that nothing is added by a live performance, especially when the essence of punk/ new wave music or whatever label is pinned to Costello is the vitality and raw power that the music impresses upon an audience live. Incidentally, I was greatly impressed by the Mickey Jupp Band as support, especially as they were received so well by the audience, despite their brand of music being "old wave," r&b/boogie. — J.J. Meadowcroft, Rockcliffe, Sowerby Bridge, Halifax, Yorks. Cover and page scan.

External links

• Wikipedia: Melody Maker