Facing the Other Way Page 20

  Brendan Perry shares Raymonde’s opinion. ‘The contracts were woeful, really antiquated deals that should have been thrown out years ago. I don’t blame Ivo; it’s more Martin. But that was the scale of our ignorance back in those days.’

  Guthrie also claims, ‘that Ivo agreed, after I’d hammered the point home: constant sales of This Mortal Coil, if “Song To The Siren” was ever requested for use in a movie, he would split the royalties three ways. But he won’t let it be used in a movie. You know the scene: when your record company boss is driving around in a Mercedes and you’re on the cover of the NME but still taking the bus. Chuck Berry or Motown artists will tell you the same story.’

  Deborah Edgely had a ringside view of Ivo and the Cocteau Twins’ relationship while retaining an outsider’s perspective. ‘Ivo had the mindset and mentality from a privileged background, with a start in life, like the money to buy his flat, for example, so you can afford to be slightly romantic about where your future lies and what it holds, which is not the same for a band without money and prospects,’ she says. ‘I feel it was partly my fault, as Ivo had this old BMW, and I said, go buy yourself a new car, so he did, and I’m sure a lot of bands didn’t like that. You always see in life those that share a bit of the cake and those that don’t, and some would have felt more deserving than others.’

  The problem was made worse by the fact Guthrie never raised these issues at the time, so resentment festered, while Ivo was oblivious to the existence of it. Looking back at their friendship at the time, Ivo recalls a comment by Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason: ‘He said, “Things got so bad that we almost spoke about it”. The Cocteaus and I never did speak about things.’

  The band, for example, was resentful of how, as Raymonde put it, ‘We were foisted with this image of what 4AD thought Cocteau Twins was, the Victorian gothic imagery, or us playing in a church, which made us look like a bunch of cunts. 4AD had become such a strong brand at that point and we had become part of what 4AD had become rather than our own thing.’

  Nigel Grierson says, ‘I’d always wondered why I never followed David Bowie, even though I liked a lot of his music, and I realised I was put off by the degree of idolisation, where something becomes a cult, almost a religion. In the same way, it irritated me when I met people who were more 4AD than 4AD – I didn’t want to be part of some little club. It’s an interesting subject, to want to be a part of something and yet apart too. The stronger the identity, the more specific it is and the harder it is to feel that it sums you up. Like no one wanted to be associated with “Goth”, because it’s too simplistic. So is saying “it’s very 4AD”. None of the bands seemed to have some big idea about themselves or what 4AD was; it was more what it bred, and yet ironically, that was a measure of its success.’

  Brendan Perry: ‘Robin and Liz wanted to maintain their uniqueness and individuality as much as possible and not have it diluted, psychologically, and lose themselves within a common herd or a stable within 4AD. We saw how every album was pushed in Vaughan’s direction to get this homogenised look, which we railed against. Those were the cracks that appeared in the general goodwill towards 4AD’s command centre.’

  Perry may have been a more confident personality than Guthrie; certainly he was more secure and unafraid of confrontation. He also wasn’t Ivo’s close friend and holiday companion. Like Guthrie, he recognised the implications of being part of the 4AD brand, and had withheld permission for Peter Murphy to cover Dead Can Dance’s ‘In Power We Entrust The Love Advocated’ for potential inclusion on It’ll End In Tears. ‘Our own EP had only been out a couple of months, and it needed a life of its own, to be associated with Dead Can Dance and not This Mortal Coil,’ Perry explains. ‘This Mortal Coil was also selling way more than we were, so our decision was solely pragmatic.’

  A stubborn individualist like Guthrie would never have felt comfortable as part of any family collective, happy or otherwise. ‘I hated the illusion that 4AD were a bunch of mates,’ he says. ‘The backstabbing that went on between the bands was incredible!’

  That’s not how Perry remembers it. ‘If there was competition, it was healthy, not backstabbing jealousy, and there was definitely a sense of mutual consideration between acts. We loved the idea of a central crucible, like a hub, where all acts intersected and cross-referenced. It was refreshing to see a record company boss being involved creatively and seeing the process from our point of view. We did feel part of an extended family.’

  John Fryer had a more objective view: ‘I was working with lots of 4AD bands, and Ivo would bitch about them and they’d bitch about him, like they had to use Vaughan for the artwork. And Ivo could have tunnel vision, like it was his way or the highway. But that’s why 4AD sounded like it did. 4AD was like a club that you bought into and people would buy 4AD because it was on that label.’

  Vaughan Oliver could also see both sides. ‘I was a layman where business was concerned, but my impression was that it [the scenario with Cocteau Twins] was less financial and more about ego and status and resentment about this concept of branding for 4AD. We were growing at the same rate, at the same time, and Robin could never see how the success of 4AD could help them.’

  But Guthrie didn’t want to be part of anything communal, especially the musical identity of This Mortal Coil. He says he hated the original songs that It’ll End In Tears covered: ‘All these earnest, bearded men with acoustic guitars. I was trying to take Cocteau Twins to new places, sonically, and I found This Mortal Coil pretentious and miserable, and I now wish I’d never done it. Thirty years on, it still follows me around and it’s nothing to do with anything I’ve ever done.’

  The tension was further compounded by the times that ‘Song To The Siren’ was erroneously attributed by parts of the music press to Cocteau Twins – that the Cocteaus were This Mortal Coil, and had even changed their name. Nor did it help that Cocteau Twins had played ‘Song To The Siren’ in their live set.

  ‘I know now I should have released “Song To The Siren” as a Cocteau Twins song,’ says Ivo. ‘I loved them virtually unconditionally, more than anyone. I loved their music, their attitude, and I felt protective towards them. But had they themselves recorded “Song To The Siren”, it would never have sounded the way that it did. I know it hurt them that the track got more attention than “Sugar Hiccup”, that it stuck around the indie chart for ever, and that Robin grew to resent that 4AD became more important than the names of the bands on it.’

  Guthrie: ‘I was really sick when I heard it [‘Song To The Siren’] played on the radio all the time and the Cocteaus had never been played,’ Guthrie told The Offense Newsletter in late 1983, as if there had been a conspiracy against the band. ‘So the only way we could get played on the radio was to do somebody else’s song under a different name.’

  Deborah Edgely: ‘When “Song to the Siren” was released, Cocteau Twins hadn’t had that much exposure, so to record a song that wasn’t theirs, under a different mantle, was very hard for them to cope with. Bear in mind how Robin and Elizabeth were totally in control of their own musical destiny. It was their world, they made music without anyone else influencing anything, and then they agreed to this thing that Ivo had chosen, a vocal performance that was the most obvious that Elizabeth had ever sung in terms of words. Whatever she thinks, it sounded fantastic, and Robin produced something spellbinding. But it wasn’t theirs. Their unhappiness was never spoken at the time.’

  It wasn’t only Cocteau Twins who had its doubts. ‘I could tell that This Mortal Coil was difficult for some people to bear,’ says Edgely. ‘It caused issue with Mick Allen, for example, with Mark [Cox] being part of it and getting close to Ivo. He had a hold over everyone, to a greater or lesser extent. It would have had some emotional impact, because he was the boss who would be shaping and influencing their futures.’

  Ivo was not just Guthrie’s friend, mentor and boss, but also his artistic peer, and a perceived rival potentially drawing interest away from his own band.
More than one 4AD artist recalls being approached by fans with the question, ‘Who is this Ivo?’ And Cocteau Twins had inadvertently contributed to the growing cult of Ivo by naming a song after him, which showed their admiration for him.

  The cult of Ivo, and the advancement of a 4AD brand – and a 4AD ‘sound’, with Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil and Dead Can Dance at the core – was no different to that of Tony Wilson at Factory, who also signed bands of a similar nature, in the slipstream of both Joy Division and New Order. But Wilson was much more the self-promoter than Ivo, and was interviewed almost as often as his artists. At least Ivo was trying to keep a low profile; he didn’t know that This Mortal Coil would take off, in the same way as he hadn’t planned for 4AD to be in such a strong position by the end of 1984.

  To celebrate the achievements to date, and to tie up the artistic venture that was dividing the artists, 4AD’s last release of the year was a catalogue of releases, designed by Oliver. Like most everything on 4AD, it was bought by the growing legion of fans.

  Without knowing the depth of Guthrie’s discontent, Ivo remembers this period as ‘glorious’. In his words, ‘Everybody liked each other, they were mostly happy to work with Vaughan and Nigel, and people helped each other, like Robin produced The Wolfgang Press and Dif Juz too for their new album.’

  There was a triumphant end to the year in December when Cocteau Twins played a one-off show at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London’s premier home of ballet, supported by Dif Juz, certain members of whom subverted the grandeur of the occasion by sticking their bare arses through the stage curtain. There was a palpable sense of arrival in the air, reflected in the label’s standing in John Peel’s third annual Festive Fifty listeners’ poll, where Cocteau Twins had seven entries (‘Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops’ at number 2, ‘The Spangle Maker’ at 4, ‘Ivo’ at 15), as many as poll-toppers The Smiths. This Mortal Coil had two (‘Kangaroo’ and ‘Another Day’).

  ‘It was impossible not to be affected by the creativity around, and everyone was sharing in it,’ Ivo concludes. ‘I’d always loved the tail end of the Sixties and the early Seventies when artists such as David Crosby would record with Paul Kantner and Grace Slick and other musicians, and their record labels didn’t tell them that they couldn’t. We were young and everybody was being creative, we all hated “the man” and it all felt real. It felt fantastic to be at the helm of all that. But that was before things changed.’

  * Oliver recalls a memorable night in Brendan Perry’s company: ‘I gave Brendan my bed after he’d totally gone on some sort of fucking weird trip – not drugs, just Guinness – and he went into this whole one about Lisa and throwing herself out of a building, and the police arriving, which felt all designed to freak me out. And then he started calling me an idiot, and ignorant, in my own flat!’

  † Ivo wasn’t alone with his concept and tastes. Around the same time, David Roback, the core songwriter of LA band The Rain Parade, had put together a similarly styled collective drawn from the city’s psychedelically inclined bands (such as The Dream Syndicate, The Bangles and The Three O’Clock) that had been grouped under the label The Paisley Underground. An album of covers was also released in 1984, under the band and album name Rainy Day. The nine tracks included ‘Holocaust’, sung by Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith.

  chapter 8 – 1985

  The Art Shit Tour and Other Stories

  (BAD501–CAD514)

  With Cocteau Twins’ grievances unaired, Ivo and Deborah paid a New Year visit to the band at Jacob’s Studios where the trio was recording a new EP. ‘The pattern was to record an EP after an album,’ says Simon Raymonde. ‘Four tracks were easier than ten, and we loved the format.’

  After basing most every Treasure song title on a person’s name and singing in her own indecipherable private language, Elizabeth Fraser further expanded her wordplay with a dictionary and an encyclopaedia – from ‘Rococo’ and ‘Kookaburra’ to the imaginary ‘Quisquose’ and the title track ‘Aikea-Guinea’. One of Cocteau Twins’ finest recordings, reactivating the levity and joy from Head Over Heels, Aikea-Guinea saw Robin Guthrie eradicate the problem of Eighties production clichés, Simon Raymonde appeared settled in the mix, and the manner in which Fraser broke into ‘Quisquose’ nailed the mercurial sound that NME described as, ‘a cross between Piaf and a bird sanctuary’.

  The indefinable alchemy of Cocteau Twins’ music continued to mask the unhappiness that seemed to fuel the band, with Guthrie increasingly prickly and unpredictable. Ivo recalls the mixing session at Blackwing for Aikea-Guinea: he and John Fryer were making subtle adjustments without Guthrie – ‘I think he was packing up some gear, before a tour,’ says Ivo – in order to make Fraser’s vocal clearer. As the band was going on tour, Ivo was elected to approve the mastered version in their absence: ‘Robin said, “Use whatever version you think is best”. So I used our mix, but when Robin heard the test pressing, he burst into tears! Of course we changed it back to his mix.’

  Another example of his contradictory behaviour was that his resentment towards ‘Song To The Siren’ didn’t mean that he wasn’t prepared to allow the track a longer shelf life. When David Lynch unexpectedly requested permission to use the song – as well as Guthrie and Fraser – in the anticipated prom scene to Blue Velvet, Ivo informed the pair about the offer. ‘I said that if they didn’t like the idea, I wouldn’t take it further. But they said, “Yes, absolutely”. I pleaded my case to the lawyers for Buckley’s estate, saying it would give Tim’s music exposure, but they didn’t give a fuck about art, they just wanted their $20,000. I was heartbroken. In the end, the prom scene wasn’t in the film either.’

  Guthrie also had a strange relationship with the press, wanting attention but then being difficult once he got it. Ivo had seen him rip into inexperienced journalists, such as a reporter for a Manchester newspaper who ended up in tears, telling Ivo, ‘All I asked was how Robin got the name for the band and he said it was none of my business.’

  The guitarist equally invited trouble when NME’s Danny Kelly turned up at Ivo’s flat to interview Guthrie and Liz Fraser for a potential front cover. Deborah Edgely left them to it – Ivo stayed on, in the kitchen – and later returned to find, ‘Robin and Danny red in the face, with real hostility in the air. Danny took me aside and said, “If you’d only told me, I’ve just wasted my time, I’ve got nothing out of them”. I don’t know what he expected as they usually didn’t communicate.’

  Ultimately, Guthrie was on much safer ground when he was creating music, and Ivo’s trust in his blossoming studio skills had reunited Guthrie with The Wolfgang Press to produce two more EPs. With someone else handling the technical burden, the Wolfies could attend to refining their sound, and the four-track Water showed a marked advance over Scarecrow. There was more breadth, from filmic instrumental ‘The Deep Briny’ and delirious ballad ‘My Way’ to tribal waltz ‘Tremble (My Girl Doesn’t)’, while ‘Fire Eater’ rectified the stiffness that blighted the duo’s ‘Respect’ cover with a stealthier fusion of artful London and Motown rhythm.

  The four-track Sweatbox was even better, benefiting from the return of Andrew Gray, this time for good. ‘I could hear a funk element coming into The Wolfgang Press and more movement, like in reggae,’ he recalls. Gray’s addition meant there was another opinion in the mix, and as the band grew increasingly confident with their greater rhythmic stealth, they found Guthrie returning to his intransigent ways. ‘Robin was very controlling and forthright in what he thought was right,’ says Mick Allen. ‘For example, I was adding various vocal layers on Sweatbox, to find out what worked, and he’d say, “No, that’s the mix and we don’t touch that”. But he did bring things round to make it sound more palatable.’

  ‘That was me being an idiot,’ Guthrie recalls. ‘I wasn’t mature or experienced enough to allow other people to make their own record, so I was very much putting my stamp on it. It was me thinking that The Wolfgang Press was left field, and Mick’s attitude would have stopped
them at times. He was an old punk, and angry all the time, at everything.’

  Guthrie could so easily have been talking about himself. In any case, Water and Sweatbox – and Gray’s permanent addition to the ranks – indicated that Allen was able to subjugate his headstrong nature, to collaborate freely and remove the darkest elements of Mass and The Burden Of Mules.

  Guthrie wasn’t the only one taking time out to produce; Ivo had been at Palladium studios overseeing his new signing, Xymox. Nothing showed more than the arrival of the Dutch band that Ivo didn’t care for categories, or that goth was unfashionable. The band, as they now exist, with only founder member Ronny Moorings remaining, are even more goth than they were upon signing to 4AD – all black clothes and hair, and po-faced expressions. These days, goth is called darkwave (one online site describes Xymox as, ‘goth industrial electro’, but it’s clear where Moorings’ roots lie – the band’s 2012 covers album Kindred Spirits includes Joy Division, New Order and Cure songs.

  Moorings (born Moerings) has been the band’s driving force since he conceived Xymox in the late Seventies. More than thirty years later, he still persists, without a single break between line-ups. His driven personality is revealed via an email (his choice) response to questions for this book that totalled over twenty-one thousand words. ‘I know I wrote a bit more than I should have,’ he emails again, with classic understatement. ‘It was also good for me to put things in order before I really forget all :).’

  Born in Roosendaal in the south of Holland, Moorings says that, even at the age of six, ‘I was a very opinionated little munchkin concerning music.’ He formed his first band at twelve; his second was named Zymotics after an ancient medicinal term referring to acute infections. Clearly Moorings was not your average teenager. He only changed it to Xymox, ‘because it looked better on paper, with a logo that resembled barbed wire’.