by Daryl Easlea
Harley Feinstein: “[The Pheasantry] was still in a state of construction. They put up a huge picture of us in the doorway and I was handed the authority to sign the tab for the band. I was pretty much in heaven.” The bartender took a shine to the handsome Californian and made sure the band were supplied with champagne.
The King’s Road suited Jim Mankey: “We walked into the vicinity looking at the stores and marvelling at those wonderful English suits. A small guy like me could look good in a suit if you bought it off the rack in London. The suits are cut nice there for someone of my size. I don’t know why that is. People in England aren’t tiny, are they?”
Hewlett invited Jook down to Chelsea to see his new charges, as guitarist Trevor White recalls. “I really liked it. The music was a bit strange but I was knocked out by the visual thing. Mainly Ronnie — you couldn’t ignore that, really. He had the long hair and the eye make-up, it was really something. I ended up not listening, just looking at him.”
Without a definite touring schedule the band would be ready at the drop of a hat to go wherever the work took them, such as Harrogate, North Yorkshire.
Harley Feinstein: “A roadie would drive us up the M1 and we would play there, and then we’d go down to Bournemouth to open for The Kinks, and then we’d go and do a radio interview in Holland or some TV in Switzerland. It was a random kind of thing — we would get gigs, but then we’d sit around.”
Larry Dupont: “It was just very poorly put together from the point of view of what the promoter did. Not so much the promoter, but the venue. Things were just not working right.”
An occasional upbeat presence was Roy Silver, who lifted the mood after a double-page review slated the band.
Larry Dupont: “The band was furious, despondent. Roy said ‘No, no, no, you just got two pages. You should be ecstatic’. That, I think, pretty much speaks the differences in their inability to understand what was going on. All Sparks wanted to do was music. What they wanted to do was perform, what they wanted was to have people screaming and shouting and waving and saying ‘They’re wonderful’ and being appreciated.”
Through the promo team at WEA, Hewlett was able to get Sparks on to the UK’s leading (and, in fact, only) grown-up rock TV showcase, The Old Grey Whistle Test. Broadcast late on unfashionable Tuesday night on BBC2, the programme had first appeared in 1971 fronted by Melody Maker rock journalist (and soon-to-be Island Records Head Of A&R) Richard Williams. With its distinctive Area Code 615 theme tune, ‘Stone Fox Chase’, the Whistle Test became the must-watch programme for serious music heads. When DJ Bob Harris took over presenting in 1972, the template was struck for the rest of the decade. Harris’ laid-back mumble and air of authority gave a voice to a generation of AOR connoisseurs, and the programme was responsible for breaking acts such as Bruce Springsteen and Lynyrd Skynyrd in the UK.
Record companies would clamour to get their artists on to the programme as everyone in the business would be watching. The pressure to get turns on there would often result in some disparate bills. For example, on the same edition that Sparks appeared, Neil Sedaka was hitting the promotional treadmill for his Solitaire album, soul man Bill Withers performed ‘Use Me’ and ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’, while prog giants Wishbone Ash were captured on film performing their Argus epic ‘Blowin’ Free’ at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. “Nice…” as ‘Whispering’ Bob was wont to comment.
In a country with only (then) three television channels, people sat and watched each week mainly because there was little else to do on a dull Tuesday in early Seventies Britain. “That one show did wonders for us,” Russell said. “There was a bit of excitement and that’s what ultimately generated the interest that led us to Island Records.”
Sparks pre-recorded ‘Wonder Girl’ and ‘(No More) Mr Nice Guys’ for the show transmitted on November 21. Feinstein recalls the group watching it at the hotel they had moved to, the Snows Hotel on Cromwell Road.
“There was a television room where all the residents would watch the telly. There was one guy who’d be there every night, a drunk, wild-man character. He was hilarious — always yelling at the screen, shouting hostile remarks at us. We were scared to death of him. While we were trying to watch our performance, he was bellowing ‘You look like Hitler!’ at Ron.”
As the group put up with this tirade, they struggled to hear what fellow guest Neil Sedaka was saying. “He’d already gotten old and fat,” Feinstein continues. “He was being interviewed by Bob Harris, and Sedaka said he didn’t like us — he said ‘That group that was just on’ was representative of a type of group that he really didn’t like. Harris sort of agreed with him.”
Although hazy on exactly what was said, John Hewlett, who was with the band at the BBC studio, is definite in his remembrance of Harris’ distaste. “Bob Harris really hated them. He was a bit of a musical snob. He didn’t like them, but that didn’t matter. I’d never liked his show, but we were on it and we got the exposure.”
Depending on which report you read, Harris called Sparks either ‘a cross between Bobby Vee and The Mothers of Invention’ or ‘Marlene Dietrich and The Stooges’ or ‘Frank Zappa and The Monkees’.*
Later in the decade, being disliked by Bob Harris became a badge of honour for punk bands.
To coincide with the TV performance, Warners finally put out some Sparks product in the UK, a single of the two tracks the band performed on OGWT.*
The band’s small screen appearance had a positive effect as, overnight, bookings began to roll in: new dates took in the Growling Budgie Club in Ilford on Wednesday 6 December (30p a pop) and, more importantly, two gigs at the legendary Marquee Club on December 14 and 21. To Anglophiles stranded in LA, playing The Marquee was as exotic as it could be.
No matter how small the venue, or the crowd, it was clear that Sparks “really appreciated being appreciated,” says Dupont, “even if it was by a small number of people. They were good. They were so much more original than some of the other people. Not just original, they were more creative. They were not on drugs, which meant that their minds were with them.” Although Hewlett was firmly on the scene, it was Dupont who was doing the considerable amount of legwork to get everything accomplished.
Another new band playing in London at that time would ultimately eclipse Sparks in the UK. Queen were on a similar circuit to Sparks, having played The Pheasantry on November 6, and with the group now close to signing a contract with EMI, they had all the elements of their unmistakable act already in place. (A live bootleg exists from their Marquee show featuring Queen playing such songs as ‘Ogre Battle’ and ‘Hangman’.) Sparks, in the main, were not that interested.
Harley Feinstein: “I remember they were on. We all stayed in the dressing room and we didn’t go out to watch the band. I remember Jim going out to watch a bit and coming back, saying, ‘That guy is really weird. He’s acting very gay’.”
As ‘72 bowed out, the band, living so closely together, were all up for the adventure.
Jim Mankey: “We seemed to like each other a lot. We got along fine and having worked in other groups since I can see that we did get along quite well compared with other bands.”
Like most rock bass players, Jim was a law unto himself as Larry Dupont describes: “Jim was extremely quiet and he ultimately ended up locking himself in the hotel room and was never seen except to perform. You knew that there was just so much going on between those ears and it was really frustrating because everybody was extremely talkative and then there was Jim. Jim was the silent one and if he would speak, everybody would hush up and listen to whatever half a dozen words he was saying. Whatever he said was always thought of as brilliant. Then he would shut up again.”
Feinstein, on the other hand, led the most rock’n’roll lifestyle of the band at the time: “My window overlooked the front door of our hotel,” Dupont recalls. “Somebody was throwing stuff against my window because it was so late, the door had been locked. I look and it’s Harley outside with two girls. Y
ou know, one on each arm. That was so Harley. He was a kid enjoying an experience that was a fantasy for someone of his age.”
Just prior to Christmas, the band took an ill-advised detour to Zermatt at the foot of the Matterhorn in Switzerland.
Larry Dupont: “It was very frustrating as they were about to hit it big, and this trip was like the derailing of the train. They had five gigs in a row set up in London. Each successive one was getting a bigger crowd. The first one was good, then Russell got sick and the second one was cancelled; the trip to Zermatt came in there.”
Sparks returned in time for the Warner Brothers Christmas party, yet Dupont was concerned that the lack of funds would soon be found out. The brothers’ demanding attitude was not winning them fans in certain quarters.
Larry Dupont: “When we went to London, one of my jobs was to keep them out of the office. They went in and demanded to know why they weren’t getting work. I was there and my skin was crawling during the meeting, because they had no sense of what was going on. They had no idea that there was this game going on and all they could think of was, ‘We want more from you’ and you could just imagine the company saying ‘Well, let’s see the books.’”
If the books had been produced, Sparks would have undoubtedly been thrown out at the end of the meeting. Although, overall, Dupont recalls the period with great fondness, he remains less than enamoured with the Mael’ behaviour towards those working behind them. “They really didn’t have any sense of how to treat people, the kind of respect you need to give them in order to get them to perform for you. The [brothers] never really had an appreciation for the role of the people who were going to make or break their careers.”
Although Sparks had been generally lauded and loved, Bearsville simply ran out of money, and the group’s European adventure was over. Despite an unpromising start, the trip on the whole had been successful and Hewlett was convinced that he could work with the Maels. By the same token, Hewlett had created a good impression on the whole band. “We all got along really well with John,” Feinstein recalls. “He was a good-looking guy; he and I would hang out at The Pheasantry. We’d compete for the ‘scrubbers’, as he referred to them then. It was the first time I’d ever heard that term. He was a funny, regular guy.”
Within six months, Hewlett would be putting a new band together with Ron and Russell.
Sparks returned to the US, and a period of relative inertia followed. They went up to Bearsville’s studio in upstate New York to record what became a one-off single, a version of their stage favourite ‘I Like Girls’. There had initially been talk of the recording sessions turning into those for their next album.
Although James Lowe didn’t produce these sessions, his evocative description of Bearsville sets the scene: “Out in the middle of the forest you came upon this complex. It was big and well equipped. There were always people waiting to get in and record and most groups had made a commitment since they were in a small town with little to do. Foghat would be recording and Maria Muldaur would be sitting in the lobby at midnight waiting to record vocals. And The Band had a permanent set-up in the main room that had signs saying “Don’t touch”. I didn’t.”
“The UK was always open to the eccentric people.” — Tony Visconti. Sparks hit West London, November 1972. From back: Earle Mankey, Ron Mael, Harley Feinstein, Jim Mankey, Russell Mael. (LARRY DUPONT)
“They really appreciated being appreciated. Even if it was by a small number of people.” — Larry Dupont. Onstage at the Marquee, December 1972. L to R: Ron Mael, Jim Mankey, Russell Mael, Harley Feinstein. (TOM HANLEY/REDFERNS)
More from the Marquee, complete with Earle Mankey (far right) attempting to be, in Joseph Fleury’s words, “everyone’s favourite English poof guitarist.” (TOM HANLEY/REDFERNS)
Russell on American Bandstand performing ‘Wonder Girl’, summer 1972. (LARRY DUPONT)
Ron Mael on the BIG MONSTER THEATER ORGAN (Larry Dupont) at ID Sound Studios, LA, recording ‘Moon Over Kentucky’ for A Woofer In Tweeter’s Clothing. “It all sounded kind of strange. Like a club no one but the group belongs to.” — James Lowe. (LARRY DUPONT)
Ron on American Bandstand performing ‘Wonder Girl’, summer 1972. (LARRY DUPONT)
Joseph Fleury. Sparks press contact, management assistant and finally manager 1978–1991. “He loved the stuff I hated; the press, promo. I couldn’t stand it as I like to get on quietly. The combination was really good. Joseph was wonderful.” — John Hewlett. (JENNY LENS)
The calm before the storm. Russell stands outside the Liberty Hall in Houston, where later that same evening he would lamp himself with a large mallet. (LARRY DUPONT)
“We were pulled over by a State Trooper some place in Texas and I got a photograph of the entire band posing next to the guy’s car.” — Larry Dupont.
ID Studios, 1972: James Lowe in discussion about the string arrangement for ‘Here Comes Bob’. (LARRY DUPONT)
James Lowe recording A Woofer In Tweeter’s Clothing. “I thought Sparks should have gotten some recognition and promised my wife if they didn’t, I would get out of that crazy business.” Lowe became a TV producer. (LARRY DUPONT)
The papier mache ‘Slowboat’ that was the centrepiece of the band’s earliest performances, taken outside the Doggie Bed Factory and lit by Larry Dupont. (LARRY DUPONT)
Russell in his hotel room, Houston, Texas 1972 after hitting himself on the head with a sledgehammer on stage. “Initially all the rest of the band and I thought it was rather funny.” — Larry Dupont. (LARRY DUPONT)
Arriving in the UK, November 1972. “Ron and Russ had a strong sense of how performers should behave.” — Larry Dupont. (TOM HANLEY/REDFERNS)
Primed and loaded for action with a pistol, the group’s ever-present prop of 1974. L to R: Martin Gordon, Russell Mael, Ron Mael, Dinky Diamond, Adrian Fisher. (BARRY PLUMMER)
Letter from the Musicians’ Union, December 1973
Someone who did touch was Feinstein as Jim Mankey recalls: “The Band was set up for recording between their sessions and they said ‘You can work in the studio but don’t touch anything, especially these drums’. ‘Don’t touch the drums!’ They were set up just the way [Band drummer, Levon Helm] wanted them. Anyway, Harley went over and jabbed a bunch of sticks through all the skins, kicked over the stuff. I guess he was just being a rebel… or an arsehole. Not particularly malicious, but it sure was destructive.”
“We vandalised Bearsville Studios rather mercilessly,” Jim adds with a huge ladle of irony. “Russ smeared a stick of butter all over the windows. They were willing to cut off their feet to make a colourful statement”
Produced by house producer and sometime Foghat member Nick Jameson, the Bearsville version of ‘I Like Girls’ is pared down compared with the big-band glam of the later Big Beat version. It certainly sounded like a single, although it was never released at the time. Other curios from this time are the jingles that the band recorded for fellow Bearsville acts. In 2009, current Sparks guitarist Jim Wilson found some material on a tape given to him by Ron that was to jog memories. “There’s a minute-long commercial for the new Fanny and Bobby Charles albums — it’s Sparks doing little jingles. When I played it to them, Ron was laughing so hard. It’s some unheard Sparks thing that just came out. Ron was like ‘Wow — thanks for finding that’.”
On January 29 and 30, 1973, billed as being ‘From London’, Sparks played the Whisky A Go Go on Sunset Boulevard. The gigs were not especially well attended, but showed the creativity and craftsmanship of the group at a peak, having been honed in front of European audiences. Ronna Frank, who had by now moved to England and was writing, recalled: “I flew back for a visit to LA and saw them performing on Sunset Strip as Sparks. Ron was dressed as Bela Lugosi — very weird looking but fun to watch.”
“We supported groups like Little Feat,” Ron told the author in 2003. “The girls working at the Whisky and the groupie scene really loved us but, apart from that, no one liked us at all. It even got to
the point where they wouldn’t allow us to play any more and that was because mainly we were really, really loud. There was such an LA style at the time, so we thought we were an English band; we kind of pretended we were an English band. That alone offended most of the audience!”
“The billings we were forced to play at that time were always really incompatible,” Russell concurred. “There was never a niche for us comfortably to rest in. We eventually created our own and everybody else came to it.”
It was testament to the Maels’ self-belief in just how well they would eventually succeed: “You know, you really had to have a thick skin to keep going back to the Whisky, playing to what was a relatively empty house, doing the things they did,” Dupont states in admiration. “Pushing that boat out on stage…”
By the time of the belated UK release of A Woofer In Tweeter’s Clothing in April, there wasn’t really much left of Sparks to promote it.
Larry Dupont: “It was the closest I ever saw Ron and Russell come to quitting after the band had come back from the England trip. Roy Silver had nothing left up his sleeve for them. They were signed to Roy and they were going no place. It was the only time I ever recall seeing a sense of true hopelessness in Ron’s eyes. Harley, Earle, Jim and I were moving on with life, but with them, Ron and Russ, I don’t think there was any sense of moving on”
Earle would have wanted to proceed, but it wasn’t his life’s work as the group was to be for the brothers. Jim and Feinstein had always been, to a certain extent, along for the ride. “There was one occasion,” Dupont continues. “We were heading towards the Coliseum to see a UCLA football game. We were outside the stadium some distance away when there was a very substantial roar from the crowd inside this arena and Russell said something to the effect of ‘Wouldn’t it be really nice if that was for us’, and I realised that this really was something that was uppermost in his mind all the time.”
