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This is the third and final part of Mick Middles' piece in Sounds, September 1980, after Steve Perrin had just left The Distractions and Arthur Kadmon stepped in.
DISTRACTIONS IN DEXY'S 'DEATH THREAT' SHOCKER
FOR THE uninitiated, The Distractions have, for the past year, been Manchester's most likely looking chart contenders. They seem perfect. An endless stream of intriguing, original and yet unbelievably instant pop tunes poured out of the Finney / Perrin partnership. The band should have broken the chart at the beginning of the year with the admittedly delayed 'It Doesn't Bother Me' but it didn't even cause a ripple. Next came the band's godawful cover of 'Boys Cry', which, although it gained extensive airplay, still somehow failed to penetrate the charts. I was almost relieved, had 'Boys Cry' succeeded we could have seen The Distractions moving away from their normal highly personal pop and into a much more bland musical environment. Then, of course, the album. Packed with the very best pop songs, the standard of which our pathetic chart never sees these days. However, on the album the songs merged together in one large, sweet, sticky mess. The production was like a layer of cotton wool, the effect muffled. Although the album has sold well, no-one seems over pleased with the finished result. The album contained everything except. . . .
Variation, experimentation and guts. The more I think about it, the more I understand that the answer may indeed lie with Arthur Kadmon. His brittle biting rhythm would have created a nifty diversion, added another dimension.
The three remaining band members, Adrian Wright, Pip Nicholls and Alec Sidebottom are the solid basic driving force of the band. They create the 'soon to be familiar' Distractions sound and hold it firmly together.
And Mike Finney, who writes lyrics directly from experience. Romantic depression, hopelessness, emptyness, coldness, loneliness. All the emotive subjects were filtered through the thick, fruity soulful voice of Finney and delivered neatly and sweetly. Are they still as excited about their future as ever?
Finney: "I'm very excited. We are writing more and better now. Steve was great but he wasn't particularly prolific."
The band, as you read this, are about to depart on a lightning five-day visit to America's East Coast. Whether or not their brand of English pop will appeal to the Americans is a matter of some doubt. However, Arthur is happy, he is going to finally realise one of his ambitions - to spend an evening inside a seedy New York jazz club.
I wonder if they'll serve him.
(c) Mick Middles, Sounds, 13th September 1980.
Part two of Mick Middles' article in the 13th September 1980 issue of Sounds.
DISTRACTIONS IN DEXY'S 'DEATH THREAT' SHOCKER
DISTRACTIONS with new man Arthur ('Don't call me the Northern Captain Sensible') Kadmon, second from left (pic by Kevin Cummins)
...In Cork the band found themselves sharing the tiny town with Dexy's Midnight Runners. Mike tells the tale.
"Dexy's were really cheesed off because we drew a bigger crowd. It was ridiculous because every P.A. in Cork had gone to Dexy's and we had to make do with this tiny tinny thing. Well, although they were big pop stars they only drew about two hundred compared to our six hundred. It was so silly when we got back to the hotel. One of their road crew kept ringing our managers during the night making false death threats, really silly."
According to rumour, the flamboyant Kadmon revelled in taking the piss out of Dexy's by playing in a donkey jacket and woolly hat kindly supplied by the towns youth.
BACK IN Manchester however, the feeling about Kadmon's arrival is strangely mixed. His onstage brashness tends to alienate many of the band's most loyal followers. This doesn't appear to worry him, although he does have a few misgivings. Sitting in the pub, guzzling Guinness and flashing his newly acquired Bing Crosby album, he talks frankly about his doubts.
"No, I'm not worried about fitting in. I'll last forever, but I'm very concerned about the whole popstar approach. I'm concerned about you and what you'll cast me as. I'm certainly not the new Captain Sensible or anything like that. I hate those people, I really do. Like Lou Reed, you say he is your idol. OK, he may have made some great music, but his attitude is pathetic. All this treating people like nothings, it's wrong and basically I'm worried that it might affect me. On a much smaller scale of course. I mean, look at Mike, it's unintentional but he's started to name-drop."
Mike: "There's nothing wrong with name-dropping, it's harmless really and pretty unavoidable."
Arthur: "But it's wrong. It shouldn't happen because it makes other people feel bad. It's wrong. There are people walking about whose sole ambition is to meet Debbie Harry or Sting and when they hear someone name-dropping it makes them feel bad."
Mike: "I agree to a point, but really, well, I really admire people like The Fall who just completely destroy the whole star system by turning their backs on it. I wish I could do that, I think it's incredible. It must be really hard to be that way."
Exchange over, Kadmon talks more about his mistrust of the workings of a pop band.
"Look don't get me wrong. I love being in The Distractions, it's just that I also feel a little guilty. I mean, I used to love working for a living, it was great fun. But now I'm earning more for doing a lot less and having fun at the same time. I'll just need time to grow accustomed to it. But listen, you can't label me as a northern Captain Sensible."
Actually, I never had the slightest intention of labelling Kadmon as anything, but as long as he continues to wear ski pants, orange socks, golf shoes and long red earrings. As long as he continues to remain hyper-enthusiastic, then he's obviously going to attract the kind of attention he deplores.
[to be continued]
Part one of Mick Middles' post-Perrin piece in September 1980's Sounds.
DISTRACTIONS IN DEXY'S 'DEATH THREAT' SHOCKER
by MICK MIDDLES
"I'M SORRY, but the landlord has told me not to serve you!" I perfected my 'goldfish' expression before turning to the two Distractions with a look of exasperation and total disbelief. "They won't serve us," I mouthed as Distractions' lead vocalist Mike Finney burst into laughter and pointed an accusing finger at the somewhat infantile new band member Arthur Kadmon.
"It's him, it's his fault," observed Finney rather cruelly, although I must admit I tended to agree. Partly because Arthur naturally emits an aura of innocent stupidity and partly because of the large red earring that dangled from his left ear. The Distractions, who recently have received letters from hotel managers complimenting the band on their good behaviour, are in danger of losing their nice boy image.
Twenty-four hours earlier, I'd met The Distractions in a grisly dark-oak ridden pub near their practice studios in Stockport. They looked happy and with every right. Only six weeks ago, following the release of their debut album, they suffered the loss of their main contributing songwriter and founder member, Steve Perrin. This surprising departure caused many doubts in Manchester about the fate of the city's favourite soul-pop outfit. Personally, in all respect to Steve Perrin, I wasn't over-concerned. The band had hit a dull patch. I found the album to be something of a disappointment and their live gigs were lacking in the bubbling charm that had made them such an exciting prospect. Something had to change and, if their recent gig at Manchester UMIST is of any significance, Arthur Kadmon was a godsend. I'd known him since his days spent in the sadly declining Ludus and, although his musical background seems ridiculously distant from the pop of The Distractions, a weird sense of belonging has already become apparent. Mike Finney talked about their decision to introduce the, um, colourful Kadmon.
"We were just about to audition people when I chanced upon him in Stockport. He agreed to come along for a trial and straight away we knew he was perfect. He's writing songs as well, plus we've already started work on two of his old numbers, 'Nighttime' and 'Heaven Can Wait'".
Now, I'm familiar with both these songs, which are attractively meandering lightweight jazz injected tunes of a highly personal nature - hardly archetypal Distractions fodder. However, after recently criticising the ban for displaying a lack of invention, I can see a neat half-way stage between the thick soul that is the band's norm and the thin coldness of the Kadmon material. Finney sounds happy with the prospect.
"I think they suit us perfectly. It's a much needed new direction certainly and the new two styles should blend together well."
Kadmon's acid test came when the band recently travelled to Southern Ireland for a short tour. The gigs were, apparently, the best The Distractions have played for some time. In Cork the band found themselves sharing the tiny town with Dexy's Midnight Runners...
Rumour and conjecture on The Distractions
project has been fairly public for quite some while. Here's what we can confirm right now.
The set – and it is
a set, not just a reissue of 'Nobody's Perfect' – is now at a fairly advanced
level of preparation. Preparation...? Yep... we've been working on this for
approximately two years now; 'cos to get 'em right takes time... a lot of time.
Much of the analog
/ digital work is complete; although there is probably just another day, maybe
two days worth of that still to do. And, what remains are the live tape
transfers. Live tapes? Oh yes... we've got desk tapes from places like The
Venue and Dingwalls (in London); a show in Newcastle and others.
A couple of things
simply don't exist on analog reel(s). They've either been lost, skipped or
maybe even taped over. Annoying, but hardly the first time this has occurred. One example is the original reel that should contain the four tracks from 'You're
Not Going Out Dressed Like That'. The tape box exists and there is a 1/4" reel inside it, but what's on that reel doesn't correspond to... anything that it should. There's
just the one track on that reel and it isn't The Distractions. Quite what
happened (all those years back) is anyone's guess. Perhaps one reel got
substituted for another, who knows? But, we do have a virgin vinyl copy and, if
needs finally must, needs must. We're still quite a ways away from mastering
so, the missing reels may turn up in time... maybe.
Oh... and IF anyone
who comes by this page knows of where a copy of the one and only BBC session
(three tracks / Autumn 1980) is, I really would like to know! (It doesn't exist in
the BBC archive and is presumed to have been taped over – grrrr).
Anyhow, the artwork
– as Mike Finney has confirmed elsewhere here – is now at an advanced stage. And, yes
the set will be titled 'Parabolically Yours'.
The whole package
will be contained in a 12" casebound hard-back volume and the inside
booklet is currently running at 80 pages. Substantial... yes! Also, the first
edition will also be strictly limited – 500 copies only, worldwide.
Release date? There
is a strong possibility that we'll be starting the pre-order process on Pledge Music before [and just in time for] Christmas. From which, my best guess right now is that we'll have finished
copies probably May, or thereabouts, 2014.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed the widget (a technical term) above. By simply signing up to the mailing list for The Distractions Hidden Masters project on Pledge Music, you'll be able to download a free mp3 of a previously unreleased track. You won't be bombarded with emails, just occasionally kept informed of the progress of the project, whilst enjoying 'Something For The Weekend'.
If you so wish, the widget can be used freely elsewhere on your site or blog by using this link or the embedding code therein. You'll see an option to get the widget once you've downloaded the track too.
Finally, if you aren't a member of The Distractions Facebook group, you might have missed that the curator of the project, Neil Storey, recently revealed the title of the book-set... Parabolically Yours.
The image adorning the widget and the front cover of the book-set (there's a sneak preview on the Facebook page) will be explained soon, for those of you who don't recognise it.
By way of a taster, here's a reminder of who will be involved in making the soon-to-be-announced Distractions retrospective collection a reality:
Hidden Masters explained
HiddenMasters is a pioneering contemporary music archive
service – established to serve an important but neglected market.
Many artists who were popular 30
to 40 years ago have extensive musical legacies that have never been properly
documented. Indeed, in many instances, only a small proportion of their
recordings have ever been digitised.
By combining specialist knowledge
to exhaustive research and digital renovation, HiddenMasters facilitates the
discovery of long-forgotten music within these artist’s catalogues that
masters’ rights holders in many instances don’t even know exists.
Further to which, by working
exclusively with PledgeMusic’s direct-to-fan pre-order methodology,
HiddenMasters are able to create limited run 1st Editions...
HiddenMasters ‘legacy sets’ are career defining, with
exemplary design and packaging being standard.
This short but very complimentary review of The Distractions' debut LP, Nobody's Perfect, appeared in the somewhat unlikely location that is Vogue magazine.
The Beat are from Birmingham, and they share honours with Manchester's The Distractions for best debut album of the month. Nobody's Perfect (Island ILPS 9604) is light but serious: frothy, melodic pop with a stimulating, bitter after-taste. Vocalist Mike Finney has a deep, pained voice which provides an intriguing contrast with the sweetly psychedelicised backdrops concocted by the rest of the band and at least two of the songs, Waiting For Lorraine and Leave You To Dream, contain sufficient passion and ingenuity to catapult The Distractions into the front ranks of British pop.
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