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We mentioned a couple of months ago that, as part of the forthcoming Distractions box-set, Hidden Masters will be including a re-mastered pressing of the debut album:
Currently untitled, the Distractions retrospective is being planned for release Autumn 2013 as 1 x vinyl + either 2 or 3-CD set, presented in a 12″ hard back, casebound book format and will include their one and only Island album as a re-mastered 180gsm pressing – about which, the final line in Paul Morley’s July 3rd 1980 lead review for the NME stated | This is heart beat music that bruises the soul.
Judging from the tantalizing snippets heard thus far, the re-mastering process - which is being undertaken with full blessing of The Distractions - will undoubtedly enhance the record. Meanwhile, over on the respected Rate Your Music site, Nobody's Perfect has been the subjected of a couple more reviews from collectors.
popphil - 08 Dec 2010
The Distractions
are sometimes assimilated with the mod bands that were rife at the time their
sole album was released. However, they completely escape categorization
and that's what makes them unique, of course, but also timeless although none
of their songs has ever made much of an imprint on the pop-rock fan's musical
memory.
"Nobody's
Perfect" includes fourteen songs, among them a fantastic cover of a
little-known song written in 1964 by Buddy Kaye and Tommy Scott, called 'Boys
Cry'.
Three of the band
members contributed to the song writing and it is striking to notice that even
though Steve Perrin is credited on most of the songs - whether individually or
together with main vocalist Mike Finney - the best song might well be Adrian
Wright's '(Stuck in a) Fantasy' which opens side two of this rich and varied
record which does not sound outdated at all even thirty years later.
When It Does Ring
Jingly rock songs may hardly sound more natural than on the Nobody's Perfect album. Songs are catchy and upbeat like they made them in the sixties when the rock
was still young, but nonetheless the album is filled with punk spirit as the
time demanded it then. To my great delight the album isn’t smooth at all; it
sounds agreeably rough and rebelliously boisterous.
As well as receiving the Single of the Week accolade, The Distractions also featured in NME's album of the year poll. 1980's end of year list saw Nobody's Perfect at number 37, sandwiched between Captain Beefheart and Stevie Wonder. Label- and tour-mates Joy Division topped the list with Closer, and groups present who The Distractions knew and played with included Echo & The Bunnymen, Simple Minds, Magazine, John Cooper Clark and OMD, highlighting the global stature of the North West's post-punk scene.
As well as now including the end of year lists on their website, the NME also host a video of a track from Nobody's Perfect, courtesy of David Quantick at YouTube, the maudlin epic Looking For A Ghost. Lest we forget, it was this track which led directly to the creation of this site, the reunion, new records, gigs, and yes, the forthcoming boxset, via the original post on The Granite Shore website...
The Distractions - Looking For A Ghost video
From the album Nobody's Perfect, and some World In Action footage of Hulme.
After recording 4 tracks for TJM at Arrow Studios in Manchester
– somewhere near Bootle Street, in November 1978, we had struck-up a friendship
with their house engineer, Brandon Leon. This EP (You’re Not Going Out Dressed
Like That) was released in March 1979.
Brandon
asked us to record a couple more tunes in free overnight sessions, so we
recorded 'Pillow Fight' and the first song of Adrian’s, 'Time Goes By So
Slowly'.
Steve
Perrin - Pip Nicholls - Mike Finney - Adrian Wright - Alex Sidebottom
In May that year Tony, who we had long known from the Factory at
the Russel Club, had asked if we would like to record a couple of songs for a
Factory single. To save on costs we used the two we had, offering 'Pillow
Fight' as the A-side and as then untested on stage 'Time Goes By So Slow' (‘Slowly’ becoming ‘Slow’ because the tape title had that written on it. Due to
the long title, 'Slowly' would not fit…)
Tony was very pleased with the recordings which he had discussed
with Rob and Alan asking if they could flip the sides and have 'Time Goes By So
Slow' as the A-side, to which we happily agreed. (In the ‘flipping’, Steve and I
were credited as writers, Adrian shown as writing ‘Pillow Fight’. This was not
corrected when Island re-pressed…)
A sleeve was designed by Pete Saville and FAC12 was released in August 1979. It received
critical acclaim with our second Record of the Week in NME among others. Tony
had been setting us up for a deal with CBS, but Island Records beat them to it
in September. Island pressed another 5,000 copies, but would not press more. The
cynically minded would suspect that was to create interest for the first Island
release.
The recording session for 'Time Goes By...' took place at an
overnight at Arrow, but as this was intended to be the B-side, recording was
‘live’ with very few overdubs. The drum and bass bridge to the choruses was
arranged in the studio, based on an idea by Alec, which adds a dynamic
previously missing. I sang it with one light on in the studio, I would have
sang it in the dark for atmospheric reasons, but needed one light to see the
words. The whole thing was finished in about 3 hours, including the lead guitar
and vocal overdubs and the backing vocal track, which was all of us following
Steve’s harmonies. Ah well, Nobody’s Perfect!
Adrian tells me that the song is a Pygmalion analogy with his
girlfriend becoming a statue in Albert Square devoid of the senses... by George, I think he had it! Here's the hand-annotated
lyrics to 'Time Goes By So Slow':
Here's the third and final part of the amusing interview by Betty Page in Sounds in July 1980:
Honesty And Feeling With Smelly Feet
The Distractions tell Betty Page: "It’s tough at the side!”
Consensus was finally
reached; if The Distractions must be filed under “group identity”, this is what
it’s to be: “Honesty and feeling with smelly feet.”
The debut elpee “Nobody’s Perfect” treads
a fine line between pure pop with character and pap, as in disposable. Steve
recognised the danger of crossing that line: “When the pressure’s on to do a
second album, meet deadlines, then you start writing second rate stuff, drivel. It’s very frustrating as I see my main job as writing new songs. They just get
stockpiled and I go stale.
“Everything in rock ‘n’ roll happens six months
later, which is a stupid system if you’re supposed to be halfway creative. I
don’t reckon anyone can last longer than three albums unless they’re
exceptionally talented.”
The release of the latest single, Eden
Kane’s “Boys Cry” was by no means a calculated move, it transpires.
S: “I didn’t want it out – Pip and I were
dead set against it. I saw it as grovelling to Radio One. We can’t do Eden Kane
songs forever more.”
Mike: “It was done as a joke at first, in
one day, for a B-Side.”
Alec: “It turned into a monster, kept
growing and just took over, but it’ll be the last cover version we do.”
Band/label democracy ruled, despite
Steve’s feelings that it was a duff song with embarrassingly cloying lyrics.
Apart from such minor disagreements, The
Distractions are at peace with Island and most of The World. Happy with the
album too – and please note producers Phil Chapman and Jon Astley did not
produce The Sweet (tsk, tsk, DMcC). Mr Chapman is, however, Manchester’s
equivalent of Phil Spector, I’m told.
The next single must be a new song, not
another from the album like “Stuckina Fantasy” which Pip (lady bassist) says
Island decided was an instant song after they'd had the album for three months.
When I ask if anything else should be set
straight, Pip gets her oar in: “Yes, I’m not gay. Everyone keeps saying I’m
gay.” This remark stuns the rest into silence until Mike pipes up: “I’d better
go break the news to Joanna.”
Seems a
good place to end... except for one thought. Ponder the image problems they’ll
have it they carry out their threat and produce a scratch ‘n’ sniff kebab
concept album...
(c) Betty Page, Sounds, 12 July 1980.
Fans may be well aware that Time Goes By So Slow was named 'single of the week' in NME by Paul Morley in 1979 ( "I could do nothing but make Factory 12 single of the week"). However, the NME website now lists TGBSS as 1979's single number 37, alongside label-mates Joy Division and OMD, and (then) peers The Fall and The Undertones, amongst others [1]:
The NME site also hosts this terrific YouTube clip of FAC12 [2], which was actually uploaded by David Quantick a couple of years ago.
The Distractions - Time Goes By So Slow video
Their great Factory single, visual by Mitchell and Kenyon and Granada TV.
Of course, The Distractions' previous release, the You're Not Going Out Dressed Like That EP, was also named 'single of the week' by Paul Morley a year earlier in 1978, but sadly there is no modern record of this.
Part two of the Sounds interview with Betty Page in 1980:
Honesty And Feeling With Smelly Feet
The Distractions tell Betty Page: "It’s tough at the side!”
In various attempts to pin tags on this
band, descriptions have ranged from “poppy soul band” to “soulful pop band”.
Which is it to be?
Steve: “I can quite honestly say neither. This thing about us being a soul band is really strange. What’s meant, I think,
is feeling rather than soul. But people might come and expect the Q-Tips. And
we’re better at playing country and western than we are soul. We’ve never done
it straight but we’re all getting Dobros and Framus Nashville guitars and I’m
changing my name to Chet Perrin!”
Alec (Sidebottom, drummer/kebab expert):
“Seriously, we always try to put feeling into what we do, put a little depth in
there.”
Steve: “It's more important than technical
perfection. Touring can push you the other way and make you keep a constant
standard, like a machine does. It can be like watching a lathe when you see
bands that've been on the road for years: the must-go-to-soundcheck
syndrome."
How do they propose to maintain the
hand-on-heart, frog-in-mouth emotion?
Mike explains: We think about dying dogs. I think about my rabbit that died. Called Skippy, it was. I was six. They sent
me to Blackpool while they buried it!"
Steve: “It's a difficult question;
sometimes we don’t keep it up. When you get a critical audience it keeps you on
your toes, but an easy audience is easy money. Nobody’s perfect...”
A careful observer of Distractions music
may notice a discreet early Searchers influence tucked away somewhere. The ever
ebullient Steve wasn’t convinced:
“We don’t really have conscious
influences. At least we don’t sound like Talking heads or Joy Division like
every other band nowadays. It’s like a bloody ghetto – I hate bands like that. Most recent success stories have been due as much to inability as ability;
having to choose certain styles to fit into. We don’t and can't do this.
Mike: “I can see The Searchers resemblance
– The Searchers at their peak, mind you!"
Steve: “We’re not a sixties band, though –
that’s crap. I was ten when the sixties finished.”
The Distractions view themselves as a
non-rock band with no tangible image and so damned Joe Bloggs normal that they
often wonder what a real group should look like. Average Steve says:
“We all look totally different. I can’t
think of another band that looks less like a rock band than we do. I’ve been
refused entry to loads of our gigs. People don’t believe I’m in a group. Up at
Manchester Poly I stood playing guitar chords in the air just so they’d let me
in. We’ve tried to do things together but it’s no good, after ten minutes we’re
driving each other up the wall.”
Adrian (absent half of guitar duo/plastic
trousers and pose) is the only one “getting into it”. He and Steve had decided
recently that the former would join Thin Lizzy, the latter PIL and the rest
would become bank clerks and carpet fitters.
Lack of popstar charisma is compensated
for by warmth of character – image shmimage. The Undertones made it on
anti-image, proving you don’t need white suits and smiles to be a success. Steve: “But they made a point out of not having an image. I refuse to make a
point out of not having an image.”
(c) Betty Page, Sounds, 12 July 1980.
This is the master of It Doesn't Bother Me b/w One Way Love, produced by Chapman/Astley for Island Records at Pye Studios in November 1979:
This is clearly side one of Nobody's Perfect, and finally, what appears to be the master of the debut EP, TJM2... well, it's the box, at least:
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