Apocalypse Soon
A year behind closed doors and the Psychedelic Furs are ready to move.
The Nashville, defiantly displaying the scars of its firebombing, is fair bursting with a cross-section of punks and their peer groups, awaiting some kind of excitement to enliven an otherwise dull, muggy Bank Holiday Sunday. How many are actually there primarily to see the Psychedelic Furs is debatable, seeing as they're the only viable alternative to a night out with the mods on the other side of town.. But, given the mod menace at the murky musical mysterious of the Furs, I'd say they made the right choice.
Earlier, Gary Numan is spotted inding alone across the road from the queues, now stretching around block. He was also present at Furs' abortive attempt to open the West End niterie as a punk venue, which is somewhat ironic of what the band tells me later. Despite his lonely presence out here, Numan is not seen on the inside. Knowing his distrust of crowds, he’s probably lamenting the loss of other band he would rather see in e relative comfort of obscurity. Because, like so many bands nowadays among them the Human League, Madness and, earlier this ar, the Gang Of Four and the Mekons the Psychedelic Furs' growth rate is phenomenal. The speed with which they have amassed following is about to throw them to that void which occupies the space between the clubs and the smaller halls.
The Furs rise is as enigmatic as it is deserved. Up until Christmas they'd played only a handful of gigs, hampered before that by an astounding wastage of drummers and lack of business drive. Despite their few gigs, they managed to dig early foundations in the splintered fragments of the punk ovement, who warmed to their shaky yet forceful songs, which waged on metronomic "Waiting For The Man" and "Sister Ray"-style.
Thanks, however, to the persistence of managers Tracy Collier and Les Mills (an early champion of the band during his tenure as the Banshees' road manager), the band suddenly became aware of their own potential and, duly encouraged, set about fulfilling it.
Accordingly, record companies who had previously displayed only a fleeting interest in the band began fighting for them. Now the Furs have finally signed up with CBS. For once, hard work is rewarded. Before, it was possible to feel an affection for their lazily performed Velvets reruns, if you shared similar tastes. But the new no-nonsense approach inspires respect and fascination for their recently evolved urbanised swamp music.
By "swamp" I'm not trying to imply some Cajun connection. talking more about the consistency and flavour of the music, which swirled around the dank confines of the suddenly claustrophobic Nashville.
Theirs is very much a city music, but unlike the constrictions of all those apocalyptic Mancunian groups, or the concrete shapes of the Pere Ubu set this is a technicolor mesh of gaudy Soho neon and Fifties New York-style black and white movies, in which the city theoretically comes alive. Above firmly punched out rhythm, two guitars and portentous sax spill and ooze through porous foundations, neatly accumulating little improvisations. This band never feel the urge to shriek; there's no need…
Singer (Richard) Butler Rep intones and half speaks in a taut and tuneless voice a series of songs which collectively evoke a familiar half-world of drowning figures, pretty things and sullen sailors, all draped ni a pall of death. Though their studied decadence sounds passé, it somehow adds to their overall effectiveness familiarity breeding content. They fit the role, too. The vanguard of Rep, saxist Duncan Kilburn and bassist Tim Butler (the singer's brother) have lanky stick insect appeal about them, which they once used to highlight with makeup or silly gestures (mainly in Rep's case); no more, though.
They are flanked by the two guitarists the relatively normal, stoic Roger Morris and the chirpy spiv John Ashton who alternate contributions of chiming, echoing phrases and runs with nagging little lines which accentuate the rhythm. It's all firmly battened down by Vince Ely, present incumbent of the oft vacated drumseat; but judging by how well they get on and the brisk efficiency with which he does his job, it looks like he's here to stay.
The camp of yore has been replaced by a sensibly subdued presentation, which relies more on their naturally weird presence; the combined effect of music and looks is mesmerising, infatuating. It's not perfect, but the band's newfound direction and strengthened purpose point to a healthy future, as those lucky enough to hear a groundbreaking John Peel radio session will concur. That session turned out to be something of a vital point in the band's fortunes, as Rep explains: "When we went into the studios. to record songs for the session, we played them back and realised that we could take some parts out and tighten things up, improve them with a bit of pruning." Butler adds: "We also thought that it would be more effective to cut back on the one and a quarter hour set to a 35 minute set, which would carry more impact and leave people wwantip mere rehber ther sing they're glad we've finally finished."
Duncan Kilburn remarks: "And the one benefit in having so many new drummers was that it forced full rehearsals on us far more often than we would've done otherwise." The presence of a sterling drummer certainly helps. Previously I had credited short stay disco drummer Rod Johnson as being the prime motivator in the band's unheard of solidarity something which they refute vehemently. Ely, they claim, is the first man to actually contribute something more than a steady beat to the Furs.
Butler says: "Previously, it had always been the Psychedelic Furs and a drummer, but since Vince joined the band is complete for the first time." "Yes," Rep takes up the theme. "Drummers are notoriously idiots, I think (laughs). People who hit things with other things. Vince is the first one to really work with the band, you know? If the band sits down to discuss things, then he puts in ideas and suggestions, like every- one else…
Ely (mock surprise): "He can speak! The drummer can actually speak!" "Which means he deserves to be credited equally along with the rest of us, which is the first time we can say that about a drummer." Ely’s permanence has liberated the band from the constraints of uncertainty, giving them the freedom to experiment with a new rhythmic formation. Rep is trying to work his voice around the rhythm, leaving the guitars and sax free to weave and interlink separate melodies. He says: "We've begun to use the bass and drums really heavily as a rhythm section, and now we see the vocals more as an additional rhythm instrument.”
"If you've got four people working on top of the bass and drums, it all sounds a bit unbalanced. But if you use the vocals in rhythmic way, that counterbalances it by having three people working on the melodies as well." This restricts his writing, which he is contrarily trying to convert from an abstract to a more narrative style. The former would've fitted more easily with the outlined experiment, yet Rep revels in the discipline of forming narratives in such odd shapes. "Writing abstract songs is easy, but they don't necessarily mean anything to anybody. I'm trying to write more clearly, to apply a narrative to a song, which for me is harder.
"But the lyrics are no more important than any other component of the band and I don't like to talk about them. I basically write about the human condition, which sounds pompous as a cold statement, but that's what my songs are about..." Whatever, the Furs' lyrics are firmly part of a whole and when their new songs, written in the described style, work they sound great. The rapidly intoned phrases urge the songs forward, in a way not unlike Roxy's "Bogus Man" in effect, not content or feel.
The Furs' players are now better equipped to exploit this new freedom to improvise, having a firmer idea of what they want. Before, they were content to overlay further riffs onto an already overbearing base. The sheer density of the sound probably helped pull the punks, despite the lengthy songs... much to the band's surprise.
Rep says: "We deliberately called ourselves the Psychedelic Furs as an objection to punk rock. We didn't really fit in with all that, because it was all too negative... The Sex Pistols were stupid, thinking that anarchy meant destroying everything. It doesn't. They unfortunately got the wrong word for what they were talking about and it made them look stupid. Musically, though, they were another thing altogether. What they did to the music business and music itself was great."
Their past involvement with punk hasn't done them much credit, as when Jock McDonald asked them to open Billy's in London's West End. What's more confusing was the club owner's willingness to open this newly decorated, mises to reputedly heathen hordes, then turning away a large percentage of the more extreme looking of the Furs' fans. The disaster could be attributed to inexperience and the eagerness of manager Tracy Collier to get the ball rolling.
Coming from a middle class stockbroker belt, the two Rep brothers and close friend Kilburn cut their teeth on a diet of Bob Dylan and Bavarian drinking songs. They couldn't have felt much affinity with the mushrooming punk movement. Had their background something to do with their distance? Rep: "Yeah, in the way that we don't want to align ourselves with some prat who goes around saying (in broken nosed voice) 'I'm really into anarchy, man' and taking swings at people. And in that we think about what we are doing maybe more deeply than some of the punk bands. But I don't think that our background as such had anything to do with it." The climate must've helped them survive earlier on.
Kilburn: "It didn't really help us survive... we were doing that anyway. But it did help us succeed. Still, while all these movements have been going on, we've been playing our music for two and a half years." Two and a half years? Where've you been hiding? Rep credits manager Collier with getting them onto the streets: "She did get more involved and into playing regularly she did put that into band. “We got better then and began taking it more seriously..." Tracy came in towards the tail-end of last year. She and Ashton have gone to see the Furs in a pub. Ashton: "I only went out want to get a few drinks on my birthday but I thought they were great; they asked me to join after I played a number with them and the next day asked Tracy to manage us."
She threw them back into the rehearsal studio where they had already spent a year doodling away time in rehearsal and writing. A year spent developing an aptitude for loose structure, and giving the three soloists improvisational reins. Kilburn: "I don't think it occurred to us for the first year that we were ever presentable. Hobby's the wrong word, really, but it was something we just wanted to do. And we did it behind closed doors, if you like."
Once in the public eye they kept up their desire for perpetual change, at the same time tempering it with the demands of the audience. They accepted sensible limits by maintaining an eminently danceable bass/ drum pattern, no matter what the rest of the band got up to.
"Then if anyone gets lost, they can always return to the rhythm," says Morris. Rep: "We really dislike the bands who want to educate people, saying that they've got a new way of making music and people should learn it. We just want to entertain them." Kilburn: "I react against any expectations that people might hold for the band. People should never expect anything from an artist."
At the moment they're enjoying the flexibility of anonymity they haven't recorded anything yet, sc people have nothing on which te hang their expectations. Whatever, Rep asks: "What de people go to concerts for? To see people play note for note what's on a record? Even when we've recorded something, it won't necessarily be the final, definitive version. It'd be stupid to look back on a song and go on singing it in the same way, just be cause it's down on record." Kilburn adds: "Our aim is to work within a form and to improvise above and around it."
Nevertheless, their limited studio experience has brought about a more realistic, disciplined approach, Rep: "Once I thought I had to go out on stage and do something diffe rent to attract the audience's attention. Then I realised that what I was doing wasn't that different at all. So we've decided to be more workman like about our music, though we obviously have to do something or stage.
"It's no longer important to tear things up. Now it's more like work more disciplined. And I finally feel like I'm doing something." The Psychedelic Furs are a work in progress. They haven't got there yet, but they're rapidly making it.
