Talent Is an Asset- The Story of Sparks

by Daryl Easlea

  Another story had it that the brothers found the band members in a pub playing songs from the first two Sparks albums. Gordon explodes at this: “Oh, that was just bollocks, tired, uninspired American witticisms. I was irritated by the presumption of even thinking something like that was funny. ‘We were English musicians who were Sparks fans and played Sparks music in a pub?’ It was kind of jaw-droppingly boring, you know? I don’t think I told them that at the time though.”

  With the value of hindsight, it might just be possible that the Maels had sussed how the bassist would react.

  * ‘Kimono My House’ had also been an episode of the Sixties Marlo Thomas and Ted Bessell US TV comedy series, That Girl.

  * It is unreported whether Winwood and John ever settled up their account.

  Chapter Six

  Hasta Mañana, Monsieur

  “As an objective onlooker, I think for me the best time to leave Sparks was right then.”

  — Martin Gordon, 2009

  In a decade in which the album cover became an art form, Kimono My House was one of the most striking of the Seventies. To construct the sleeve, Island was looking for Japanese women on the idea that Ron had had for A Woofer In Tweeter’s Clothing, therefore gender high-jinks prevailed with cover stars Michi Hirota and Kuniko Okamura.

  Tim Clark: “My main involvement was with the artwork and the marketing for the album. We chose Nick De Ville simply because he had been so involved with Roxy’s sleeves. We wanted to achieve something of the same glamour. We weren’t trying to emulate Roxy, but we definitely wanted to have that really glossy feel to the whole thing and that’s why we brought him on board. Nick was the one who art directed it. I worked closely with Nick on achieving that. The sleeve itself formed the basis for all that we did graphically with marketing and advertising. It was sort of a no-brainer.”

  From the Maels’ idea, DeVille enlisted Karl Stoecker to shoot the cover. Stoecker’s pedigree for album sleeve photography was remarkable; he only shot a handful, but when that handful included the first three Roxy sleeves, Lou Reed’s Transformer rear sleeve and Bryan Ferry’s first two solo albums, it was a pretty impressive CV. Stoecker, who was principally involved in fashion, had become involved with Roxy Music through their style advisor, Anthony Price. Stoecker, speaking from his Miami base where he has become one of the world’s leading fashion photographers, states he was not aware of Sparks’ work. “I was into reggae at that time. I never really looked into their music, to tell you the truth. I very rarely, for any of the album covers, listened to the music.”

  The stunning image of two Japanese women against a green background made it one of the standout covers of the decade. For Stoecker it was, of course, just another day’s work. “I was working at a studio in Paddington on St Michael’s Street and I got the call. We were looking for oriental girls. We got them from a Kabuki theatre in town touring that classical Japanese Noh stuff. We got Michi and Kuniko to the studio and they arrived with everything, all their costume and make-up.”

  The session started with the girls striking a range of formal, studied poses with serious gestures. “Then, all of a sudden, they were just like regular girls and after a while they started laughing and then they were cracking up a bit. That entire classical thing was out.”

  The pictures of shock and winking were absolutely right; the series of cover out-takes are even more hilarious, with v-signs and mugging the order of the day. And no, they hadn’t just been shown something. “I think that they were like that because we got them laughing,” says Stoecker. “I think that they were just giggly and a little bit self-conscious and just looking at nothing. It was just me and my assistant, Perrashe, and Ron just standing there.”

  This was, of course, the era of finding deep meanings nestling in album sleeve images and there was a persistent rumour that the girls were actually Sparks in drag. Stoecker refutes this: “Absolutely not! Isn’t it amazing how people want to make more of things as time goes on? People want to force reality. It’s so strange.” Collecting his £250 fee (“It took care of my needs at that time”), and having captured one of Sparks’ defining images, Stoecker returned to the world of fashion photography. Kimono My House was the last album sleeve he worked on.

  The rest of the sleeve took a more conventional route.

  Martin Gordon: “The back cover, in a feeble gesture to promote band good feeling, was supposed to be pictures of the five members in the spotlight. That was overturned. The next stage was to have extremely small, black and white pictures of the players down one side and we could choose our own picture. Of course, I chose my own picture and it wasn’t the one that appeared on the back of the record.”

  Like the first three Roxy Music albums, the original plan had been to make it a gatefold sleeve, with the small shot that appears on the inner sleeve, showing the members by huge cut-out letters spelling out the group’s name, blown up across the gatefold.

  Martin Gordon: “Adrian of course is the only one who has got his back turned to the camera, as Adrian was wont to do. He thought it was all total bollocks. So there wasn’t a single picture of Adrian’s face they could use, which I thought was very funny.”

  John Hewlett: “It was a concession for the group to be there with them. It was difficult because we were trying to set it up as a posy, Roxy-style cover and Adrian with his jeans and his cigarette didn’t really fit that image.”

  As has been made clear, Martin Gordon had not exactly endeared himself to the brothers. Coming from outside the music business, he didn’t fall into the role of good-natured oik like Diamond, or self-contained artisan (Fisher), nor did he have the Californian weirdness of the early Sparks. Gordon hailed from Hitchin, and could be a spiky customer.

  “There were people in our surroundings I got on with,” Gordon says. “John Hewlett and Joe Fleury — with these people, I made a very good, reasonable two-way connection but with the ‘Moles’, it was always incredibly stiff. Not unfriendly but it was kind of question-and-answer stuff.”

  In Sparks Flashes appeared a Monkees-style, skittish play called A Bon-Bon Named Desire. As the cast are introduced, the entire band has fairly light-hearted and jocular descriptions such as:

  DINKY DIAMOND: The Funster Of The Band. Blonde and eager. His drums are as fast as his puns.

  PETER OXENDALE: New guy on the block. Keyboard ability belies his tiny frame. Swept into the mayhem known as Sparks.

  However Gordon’s précis speaks volumes:

  MARTIN GORDON: Tall and cool. Ex-school boy who still reads a lot. Knows his abilities and makes them clear.

  The following vignettes, provided by Gordon on his website, describing the aftermath of the May 8 Top Of The Pops recording, illustrate how the divide between the bassist and the brothers had become unbridgeable. “After the show, I wave goodbye to the brothers as their expansive limousine glides off with a hiss into the evening drizzle, smoked windows raised against the clamouring of the hoi polloi who surround the BBC TV Centre, eager for autographs. I struggle across the road with my cumbersome bass to take the tube back to King’s Cross, where I wait once more in the rain for that lonesome midnight train back to, errm, Hitchin.”

  The following night, Gordon was in London, watching the broadcast at ‘Sir’ Peter Oxendale’s flat. “We had a party. I think we saw it on a small black and white portable on the other side of the room but I was probably too pissed to see it clearly. People immediately offered to shag me afterwards, which at the time I took as a joke but then I soon realised, wasn’t. So I thought the least I could do was to agree.”

  On the Friday, Gordon socialised locally. “I went out in Hitchin with a good friend of mine and we celebrated my good fortune. After a good night out, I was awoken from a drunken state at 4 am by my friend Joseph Fleury. I think the conversation went something like ‘hello Martin’ and I replied ‘hello’ and he said ‘It’s Joseph. They don’t want you in the group any more’. He hadn’t mastered the art of preamble, but then I guess tha
t’s New Yorkers for you. I said I’d sleep on it and get back to him in the morning. It transpires that no one else in the organisation wanted to make the call to me; positioned at the bottom of the ladder, Joseph got the job.”

  The brothers had acted decisively; from the choice of what bass to use, to wanting to do his own material, from thinking he had ideas above his station, the plain-speaking bassist was now out. Gordon spoke to Hewlett the next morning, who confirmed it to be true and non-negotiable.

  John Hewlett: “At the time I was bewildered when Martin went. I was told it was because he couldn’t deliver live and couldn’t play in the studio. I went to Muff and Dinky and asked their opinions. The guy had just made an album that sounded sensational and they were now telling me it had been difficult.”

  Hewlett tried to discuss it with Ron and Russell but they wouldn’t budge. The reasons given were the reasons given. The process was alarming for Hewlett, who didn’t want to let anyone down, as he had signed the whole band. “Here I am managing Martin as well, and being told that he has got to go; it was very disturbing.”

  John Hewlett: “I regret I wasn’t strong enough to tell them to reconsider. It was a personality thing. I was being told that this successful thing that we had made was being broken up about a month before we got out there on tour. It was crazy. I asked everyone if it was for real. I still don’t know why they did it. Joseph and I were shocked.”

  Gordon has a variable view of Hewlett: “He’s a Simon Napier-Bell protégé, so there was the mould John was attempting to be in. He has offended many people in his long and illustrious career and not least me. I think personally John was a very nice guy and he was very plausible. You always had the feeling that if John was saying ‘Let’s come up with an idea’ it would probably be quite a good one and that it wouldn’t be a waste of time.” However, the bassist was confused and ultimately disappointed by Hewlett’s actions.

  John Hewlett: “I think Martin has suffered tremendously. To be in a major band, you’ve just had a hit and your heart is in it, and then to be told you’re out just as it’s about to really take off. I think it’s a travesty. I was a part of it, and apologised to Martin for my part in it, but on reflection I just don’t understand it. They told me he couldn’t cut it live but I think it was more of a challenge to Ron and Russell’s position as leaders of their band.”

  And that was it. Gordon still had his bass, and only when we spoke in 2009 did he recall that he hadn’t collected his amp. “Maybe I should add that to my list of gripes…” he says with a laugh. “It’s worth thinking about!”

  Gordon didn’t hear a word from Diamond or Fisher, “Although I knew Adrian told Hewlett at the time that — this sounds very biblical — ‘When my time comes, tell them to do it to my face otherwise I will kill one of them’ and he probably would’ve done.” *

  Gordon went on to form Jet, then played in Radio Stars, the powerpop punk act that featured none other than John’s Children singer Andy Ellison on lead vocals, before making a career in music as a respected producer/performer/session man. He has become Sparks’ permanent outsider, a witty counterbalance to the silent ranks of ex-members.

  That same month of May, Kimono My House was finally released. It was — and remains — one hell of a record. Although ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’ is unquestionably the best track, the rest of the album doesn’t merely bask in its halo effect; it is simply stunning. The tautness of the production and the strength of the performances show how rehearsed the group really were. It plays to all five members’ talents and underlines not only the Maels’ justified self-belief but Hewlett’s faith in them.

  “I can’t imagine Kimono My House being the success that it was having been made with American musicians,” Ira Robbins says. “There’s just something about the intensely British sound of that period. It was just amazingly distinctive.”

  Kimono My House has grandiose production, comedy, lyrics, puns, double entendres and Albert Einstein. ‘Amateur Hour’, which was to become the second single, is another lyrical milestone. It is grand, ornate even. Fleury wrote it was about “young ladies in the hinterlands turning inexperienced boys into pros. Can such things be said on a record? Methinks not. This is downright vulgar, yet Ron writes things with such charm, so what can one say? The chorus hooks you into submission and you wish there was a young lady instructing YOU on the plush green lawns. A theme song for the first X-rated quiz show. But we will not tell you which buzzer you have to press.”

  ‘Falling In Love With Myself Again’ is “a beer-drinking song for non-drinkers,” beginning a career-long flirtation with narcissism in Ron’s lyrics that would continue through ‘I Married Myself’ on Lil’ Beethoven. ‘Here In Heaven’ has one of Russell’s best vocals. The tale of Romeo looking down from heaven because Juliet hadn’t gone through with her part of the suicide pact showcases Ron’s wit and education.

  Fisher’s cascading guitar intro heralds ‘Thank God It’s Not Christmas’. In it a man is dreading the Christmas season as he will have to be at home with his family instead of hanging round bars attempting to be adulterous. At over five minutes, it’s a fantastic showcase for Fisher — had his Leslie-speakered solos at the end of the choruses been on a progressive rock album, they would pop up in best lists frequently. The NME described it as “pure magical originality”. The first side ends with Diamond crashing a gong, like the interval of a spectacular.

  ‘Hasta Mañana Monsieur’ again highlights the wall of sound created by Winwood, whose idea it was to insert the break and the run-out at the end. The song, about a man’s confusion at how to communicate with his foreign lover, is possibly Ron’s most hilarious lyric still. There is a serious point about language barriers being made, but once Kant, Michelin Guides and iron ore have entered the equation, it is forgotten. However there is nothing light about the arrangement — Fisher’s guitar and Ron’s keyboards sound incredible.

  ‘Talent Is An Asset’, a song about pushy mothers influencing even the most serious of scientists, provides the album’s glam punch. “A personal favourite,” Fleury beamed. “Dinky starts the tune, and we go to handclapping, Tinkertoy piano and Martin’s neato bass line, A ‘March Of The Wooden Soldiers’ beat surrounds quaint lyrics and rather startling vocal harmony.” “Even science has an air of showbiz, as long as mother is around.” The irony of this song provoking stage invasions from teenage girls, many of whom had never heard of Albert Einstein, was never lost on the brothers. With its handclaps and glam stomp ‘Complaints’ is one of the few songs about retail, conflating working in a complaints department with the nagging of a partner. The call and response between Ron’s piano and Fisher’s hard rock solo is quite un Sparksian.

  ‘In My Family’, a song that had been a favourite in rehearsal, was “a quick knot about Auntie Veronica’s left ear-lobe and a nervous leap off cousin Teddy’s dandruffed shoulder.” It nods to ‘Family Tree’ by Jake Thackray, whom the brothers may have watched on BBCl’s That’s Life! while staying at Hewlett’s house. Its tale of the suffocation of family life leading to suicide demonstrates how unsuitable a lot of this content was for an audience of teeny-boppers. It also demonstrates what a brilliant drummer Diamond was, while the backing vocals show how tight a performing unit Sparks Mk. 2 were.

  The album closes with ‘Equator’, a tour de force on an album that had not been without incident. As Fleury suggested, it was “Charlie Parker meets Mickey Mouse and neither comes out the loser. For the first time on record, Sparks swallow the ball of pride in their throats and own up to their true influence — free-form jazz” As the record ends with Russell singing solo with a mellotron (not sax player King Boots Coltrane Jr as Fleury quipped), his vari-speeded female harmony (again not Lynsey De Paul’s sister, Babette) provides an unnerving climax.

  Kimono My House shows how quickly Ron and Russell had developed from A Woofer In Tweeter’s Clothing. If they had done nothing else in their career, they would be remembered for this album
. It entered the album chart on June 1 and within weeks it was number four, spending most of the rest of the year on the LP listings.

  The reviews were largely favourable. In NME Ian Macdonald noted “SHEESH! One way or another, 1974’s turning out to be quite a year for rock ‘n’ roll” and put the album up with that year’s Pretzel Logic by Steely Dan and, coincidentally, Sparks’ former producer Todd Rundgren’s magnum opus, Todd, before concluding, “Kimono My House is the real breakthrough — I think you’re gonna love it.” Sounds said grandly yet correctly that the album had “the musical extravagance of Wizzard, the sophisticated feel of Roxy and the menacing power of the Third Reich.”

  “Kimono My House was a very desirable item,” young fan John Taylor remembered. “It was just beautifully presented. I’ve never tired of this one. It’s a classic… Every song on there is terrific.”

  His bandmate Nick Rhodes concurs: “At that time, along with The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust and Cockney Rebel’s The Psychomodo it was really one of my favourite records. I played it to death!! There was a lot of different moods on that album. Each song had something which was really special. Even back then, a lot of records you’d find two or three songs on there which you thought, ‘Those are the great standout tracks’. With Kimono My House, I loved every second of it and I would play it from beginning to end. You’d never find yourself skipping anything. Clearly a masterpiece.”