The Great Indie Discography

From Martin Charles Strong's 2003 Great Indie Discography (with fellow Mancunians, The Smiths adorning) comes this history of The Distractions (complete with errors):

 (c) Google 2011. Google Books.

DISTRACTIONS

Formed:  Manchester, England... late 1977 by students MIKE FINNEY and STEVE PERRIN-BROWN, who had played several live gigs in the previous two years with the rhythm section of LAWRENCE TICKLE and TONY TRAP.  These originals were replaced by ADRIAN WRIGHT, PIP NICHOLLS and ALEC SIDEBOTTOM (former drummer with 60's combo, the PURPLE GANG), after their jubilee year resurrection.  During a hectic touring schedule supporting the likes of MAGAZINE, The BUZZCOCKS and just about every Mancunian New Wave act around at the time, The DISTRACTIONS signed a one-off deal with 'T.J.M.' and unveiled their debut EP, 'YOU'RE NOT GOING OUT DRESSED LIKE THAT', early in '79.  That year also saw the lads sign another one-off contract, this time to Tony Wilson's 'Factory', the results coming in the shape of the strongly melodic double-header, 'TIME GOES BY SO SLOW' / 'PILLOW TALK'.  At the turn of the decade, The DISTRACTIONS' critical stock had risen to the extent that 'Island' offered them an album deal.  Preceded by a re-recorded 'IT DOESN'T BOTHER ME' (originally from the debut EP) and a re-vamped version of (Eden Kane's 1964 Top 10 hit) 'BOYS CRY', 'NOBODY'S PERFECT' (1980) was surprisingly disappointing.  One further single for the independent 'That' outlet, 'AND THEN THERE'S', surfaced the following year, singer JULIE FINNEY replacing PERRIN-BROWN before their attention was diverted to other activities.

Album rating:  NOBODY'S PERFECT (*4)

MIKE FINNEY - vocals / STEVE PERRIN-BROWN - guitar / ADRIAN WRIGHT - guitar / PIP NICHOLLS - bass / ALEC SIDEBOTTOM - drums (ex-PURPLE GANG)

Mar 79.  (7" ep) (TJM 2) YOU'RE NOT GOING OUT DRESSED LIKE THAT EP - T.J.M.

- It doesn't bother me / Waiting for the rain / Do the.

Sep 79.  (7") (FAC 12) TIME GOES BY SO SLOW. / PILLOW FIGHT - Factory

Jan 80.  (7") (WIP6533)  IT DOESN'T BOTHER ME. / ONE WAY LOVE - Island

Apr 80.  (7") (WIP 6568)  BOYS CRY. / PARACETAMOL PARALYSIS - Island

May 80.  (lp) (ILPS 9604)  NOBODY'S PERFECT - Island

- Waiting for Lorraine / Something for the weekend / Boys cry / Sick and tired / Leave you to dream / Louise / Paracetamol Paralysis / Fantasy / Nothing / Wonder girl / Untitled / Still it doesn't ring / Looking for a ghost / Valerie

Sep 80.  (7") (WIP 6650)  SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND / WHAT'S THE USE - Island

Apr 81.  (7") (THAT 1)  AND THEN THERE'S / 24 HOURS. / GHOST OF A CHANCE / LOVE IS NOT FOR ME - That

- JULIE FINNEY - vocals; repl. PERRIN-BROWN

- changed their moniker to FIRST CIRCLE, although there were no records

(c) The Great Indie Discography, Martin Charles Strong (2003).

(c) Google 2011. Google Books.

A teaser

The Distractions' new album will be with us in 2012 (along with the eagerly anticipated compilation - more on that soon).  In the meantime, there may be a taster in the form of some acoustic versions of album tracks.

"Girl of the Year"

A pop song in that great tradition, a song about you-know-what.  Louise, Valerie, Josephine, Nicole, or are The Distractions Waiting for Lorraine?  

"Too Late To Change"

A darker, more folksy number with driving rhythms from The Only One's drummer, Mike Kellie.

"Wise"

Destined to be a Distractions classic, this is a tear-jerker in the vein of Looking For A Ghost and Black Velvet.  Except this time it's written by part-time Distraction, Nick Halliwell, and the lyric includes a cameo from plucker Perrin to complement his friend Finnney's glorious lead.

Occultating

This discussion on the Go Betweens forum sums up The Distractions' modern day fan base... keen and eager to spread the word; perhaps slightly obsessive.  New converts have usually had their head turned at the extraordinary Factory Records single, Time Goes By So Slow, then go on to discover the album, its beauty and its limitations.  

skulldisco:

"The Distractions – Nobody’s Perfect.  Long-forgotten classic Manchester band from 1981.  I wish I still had the single they released on Factory Records, it's probably worth a small fortune.  Who would have thought Factory would have a power pop, '60s influenced band on their roster!  The album is on Island Records, my copy is pretty scratchy having been in transit so many times over the last 29 years or so."  

Jeff Whiteaker: 

"Kevin, I think Time Goes By So Slow is an incredible pop song, but I could never really warm up to their album."  

skulldisco:

"Jeff, I know where you are coming from.  It probably sounds a bit dated now to be honest, but I think the songs are of a high quality, it's the production that dates it.  It may be more up Randy's street, I’ll send him a couple of songs on the off chance he doesn’t already have them."  

Michael Bachman:

"Time Goes By So Slow is a great pop song.  I like the guitar break; it was almost heading into Tom Verlaine territory there for a second or two.  I must admit I've never heard of them.  Why wasn’t Nobody's Perfect ever released on CD?  Were the vinyl sales too small?"  

Randy Adams:

"I had never heard of The Distractions.  The end part of Time Goes By So Slow is when it starts to really happen for me.  Thanks for sending it, Kevin.  In your mail you'll find the answer to your question about the other song you sent.  Michael, my observation is that a lot of small-selling things released in the early '80s – shortly before the introduction of CDs – never saw CD release.  Most of them were now just yesterday's news but not old enough to be revived and if they weren't earlier releases by artists enjoying continuing success they disappeared."  

Note the discussion about Occultation label-mates, The Wild Swans' Revolutionary Spirit, later in the thread.  Also mentioned is The Fall's Extrictate, which featured none other than Martin Bramah, returning founder member of The Fall and now leader of Factory Star.  To complete the Occultation links, the Go Betweens themselves are name-checked on Jonathan Beckett's beautiful EP, She's a Vampire.

Toons

The Distractions played at Newcastle University on 17 May 1980 supported by The Members (actually listed as the "Dismembered"). There are some terrifically obscure song intros from Adrian committed to tape here. For example: "This one's about a Mexican who Steve met in a takeaway in Manchester - it's called Wonder Girl...  This is our new single. It's a song about the effect of plastic, glue and ice on the environment - it's an early ecology song.  It's called Boys Cry."  The encore is Sick And Tired, followed by a raucous version of the Velvet's Waiting For My Man and the impressive PA finishes by playing out with the new single, Boys Cry.  The set list reads as follows:

1.  It Doesn't Bother Me

2.  Something For The Weekend

3.  Something New

4.  Wonder Girl

5.  Boys Cry

6.  (Stuck In A) Fantasy

7.  Leave You To Dream

8.  Still It Doesn't Ring

9.  Time Goes By So Slow

10.  What's The Use

11.  Louise

12.  [Untitled]

13.  Waiting For Lorraine
- - - - -

14.  Sick And Tired

15.  Waiting For The Man

Song number three here is Something New, an unreleased track that will be new to those fans who didn't  get the chance to catch The Distractions live. It may appear next year in some form though...

Mystery video

There have been a couple of mentions of an alleged Time Goes By So Slow video that was filmed by Charles Salem in Albert Square (where else?). Sadly, Charlie doesn't recall filming this - but admits that doesn't mean it didn't happen!

We do know that Salem worked as Factory Records' video man during the time that The Distractions were associated  to Tony Wilson's label.  He worked with friend of The Distractions, Liz Naylor, on 'No City Fun'  with music by Joy Division.  'All Night Party' and 'Red Dress' were music videos by Salem featuring soundtracks from A Certain Ratio and Ludus, respectively.  These three videos were packaged together as FAC 9 [1].

Salem was supposed to work again with Liz Naylor in September 1979, in a video project entitled 'In Search of the Lost Chord', a "sojourn through the mathematics of Western tonal mathematics" with music supplied by Martin Hannett.  Unsurprisingly, this never happened due to "...misgivings on the part of Miss Naylor on the question of this all-pervading concept of 'product.' She wants to know when we're going to market toilet paper next.  Good question [1]."

Unfortunately, it's probably more likely that FAC toilet roll will turn up before footage of The Distractions in Albert Square with FAC 12 as the soundtrack...

Here's the original, beautiful, colour image of Albert Square by Andy Cooke that inspired Mark Cooper to take the shots which resulted in the artwork for The Distractions' two 2010 EPs, Black Velvet and Come Home. The below image is a rough mock-up of what became the Black Velvet EP sleeve.

(c) Andy Cooke (andy.cooke) at flickr.

1. http://news.cerysmaticfactory.info/2004_10_01_archive.html.

Peel & Fanning

 John Peel. (c) rocklistmusic.

The incomparable John Peel often stated his favourite ever single was Teenage Kicks by the Undertones, and it is to this band that The Distractions were and still are frequently compared [1-3].  Peel himself gave The Distractions a little airplay in the late '70s, early '80s as FAC 12 and the Island album were both featured on his BBC Radio 1 show:

http://peel.wikia.com/wiki/25_July_1979 - The Distractions:  Time Goes By So Slow (single) Factory

http://peel.wikia.com/wiki/16_August_1979 - The Distractions:  Time Goes By So Slow (single) Factory

http://peel.wikia.com/wiki/09_June_1980 - The Distractions:  Something For The Weekend (LP - Nobody's Perfect) Island

http://peel.wikia.com/wiki/07_July_1980 - The Distractions:  Louise (LP - Nobody's Perfect) Island

Dave Fanning. (c) tower.

Over the water in Ireland, the "Irish John Peel" was undoubtedly RTE's Dave Fanning.  He had The Distractions in the studio in 1980 but sadly no details of this show exist.  However, a few weeks later, the lead singer of John Peel's beloved Fall was in and amongst other things, Fanning and Mark E. Smith brought up The Distractions:

Dave Fanning:  What about then the bands that are around at the moment from the same area as yourselves, like say The Distractions, from the Manchester area?

Mark E Smith:  I like The Distractions, because they're like a paradox to us.  I think they're a good cabaret pop band.  I think they're very honest.  I like honesty in bands.  But I think once they got into the hands of the record company, I think they messed up a bit.

DF:  When The Distractions were on the programme some months ago, they mentioned the fact about going to London and not being able to get gigs and there's no way at all, and in Manchester there's so few places to play.  Well in the last six months there seems to be loads of bands coming out of Manchester, loads of albums on independent labels and things like that.  So it is that much better up there, do you need to go to London do you think?

MES:  Well we went to London because I think the Manchester scene is like an imitation of the London scene, the Manchester scene is rapidly becoming like London.  If you go to Manchester now, it's just like London.

DF:  With all the upswings of all the bands are there places to play over there now?

MES:  In Manchester?  There's the odd place, but it's no better than any other city.  I think just that Manchester turns out people like that, I think it's the city [4].


1. Paul Morley, 1980 and David Quantick, 1987:   www.thedistractions.co.uk.
2. Mick Middles, 2010:  http://thequietus.com.
3. Malcolm Carter, 2011:  www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk.
4. http://gcoleman.tripod.com/sixplus.html.

Rock's lost treasures

From Rare Bird 9 in the US:

 

The Distractions were a quintet from Manchester, England who recorded only one album.  That 1980 album, Nobody's Perfect, has long been out of print, and it's our loss.  The band split up in early 1981, after the album failed to attract much attention.  Their commercial failure wasn't caused by a lack of effort.  Their small body of work demonstrated that these new-wavers were avid students of music history, and they skillfully applied their knowledge to their own enjoyable music. 

The Distractions - "You're Not Going Out Dressed Like That" EP          (TJM 2) 1978

Before recording their one full-length album, the Distractions released a few singles and a 4-song EP in the U.K.  The 1978 EP, titled You're Not Going Out Dressed Like That, already showed that they did not intend to limit themselves to the usual new wave sounds.  These four songs (one of which, "Nothing", was remade for the album) show influences including Elvis Costello, early Kinks, early Byrds (singer Mike Finney sounds uncannily like Gene Clark on this EP), and dashes of surf-rock and psychedelia.  And this was just a rough warm-up for the album to come.

The Distractions - "Nobody's Perfect" (Island ILPS 9604) 1980

Nobody's Perfect is easy to identify as a new wave album of its time. "Paracetamol Paralysis" and "Valerie" are punk gems; "Waiting For Lorraine" and "Untitled" have the punk attitude, if not necessarily its ethos.  But The Distractions took an educated approach to new wave without over-intellectualizing it.  Nobody's Perfect draws inspiration from all three decades of rock and roll that preceded it.  The band emulated everyone from Buddy Holly ("Wonder Girl", "Still It Doesn't Ring") to Phil Spector girl groups ("Boys Cry", "Looking For A Ghost") to Elvis Costello ("Something For The Weekend") and the Talking Heads ("Sick And Tired").  The wistful "Leave You To Dream" sounds like the Cars interpreting the third Velvet Underground album.  Finney's sincere and sometimes somber vocals give many of the songs unexpected emotional depth.  A unique and eclectic album from an intelligent and sophisticated band, Nobody's Perfect is truly one of rock's lost treasures.

Track Listings:

YOU'RE NOT GOING OUT DRESSED LIKE THAT

1. Doesn't Bother Me

2. Nothing

3. Maybe It's Love

4. Too Young

NOBODY'S PERFECT

1. Waiting For Lorraine

2. Something For The Weekend

3. Boys Cry

4. Sick And Tired

5. Leave You To Dream

6. Louise

7. Paracetamol Paralysis

8. (Stuck In A) Fantasy

9. Nothing

10. Wonder Girl

11. Still It Doesn't Ring

12. Untitled

13. Looking For A Ghost

14. Valerie

(c) http://rarebird9.net/distractions.html