by Alex; Ogg
By signing The Pixies 4AD confirmed its position as the lightning rod of the soon to be huge American alt-rock boom when seven songs from that original demo became part of the Come On Pilgrim mini-album, which instantaneously won over both the press and John Peel. “The only time I noticed something happening really, really fast, in my entire time of being involved in the business of music, was The Pixies. That exploded from nowhere.” But it was never a conscious plan to be at the forefront of anything. “Ultimately I responded to the music. I can still see cassettes that came through that demo route.” Among those he was offered were both Sonic Youth and The Swans. “But again, having just signed Throwing Muses, I probably wasn’t in a hurry to sign anyone of ANY nationality. I definitely remember being handed the Pixies tape by Ken Goes. He’d only heard it the night before and he’d passed it on to me. Dave Narcizo is responsible for giving it to Ken. I don’t know if Ken specifically said, ‘Well, if you’re interested, I think I’ll manage them.’ I didn’t feel like we were at the vanguard of something American any more than I’d felt at the forefront of any kind of movement, other than what I perhaps considered in terms of NOT signing. In terms of not signing the Pixies – I perhaps consciously thought I wanted to shape the label perhaps for the first time. The next artist that I signed, yet again – bugger, he might well have been living in England at the time, but he was American – Kurt Ralske, Ultra Vivid Scene. And I think the very next thing we signed was Warren Defever of His Name Is Alive. Yes, there was a whole string of American artists that we worked with next.”
When Throwing Muses, supporting their second album House Tornado, joined The Pixies to promote their Surfer Rosa LP on tour in 1988, 4AD was widely seen to have entirely reinvented itself. Despite a routinely favourable press disposition to them, some 4AD artists had been irritated by the representation of their work in the media – a select range of adjectives had become a choking cliché. There was little that was ‘ethereal’ or ‘celestial’ (or even, to use the less complimentary lingua franca, ‘Victorian nightie music’) about either The Pixies’ molten art-rock or Kristin Hersh’s anguished introspection.
“The Pixies-Throwing Muses tour,” says Watts-Russell, “I like to remind everybody that, as fantastic and totally exciting as it was, and the Pixies were just mental, but every single night of the shows that I saw, the Muses rose to the occasion. Saying they blew the Pixies off stage would be a slight exaggeration. But in Europe, we had licensees, Virgin in France who were fantastic, Play It Again Sam in Benelux and Rough Trade in Germany – these were good, individually selected licensees, and good people. And they did a damn good job on promoting the fact that The Pixies had their first full-length album out. With Warner Brothers, all I remember is getting a phone call from someone tour managing in Europe – and Throwing Muses going to Warners for a bunch of interviews. Drummer David Narcizo wasn’t in the room, and the person in charge asked when the lead singer was going to arrive. So the person who was handling Throwing Muses in Europe didn’t know anything about the group. It wasn’t a disaster, but it was very difficult for them. They were switched – the Muses opened for The Pixies in Europe. I had to call Seymour Stein and plead with him to do something about the situation. I had the strongest words I ever had with him saying you’ve got to do something for this band – this is a band you represent in these countries, I don’t – and they’re going through shit.”
His response? “Oh, he probably cracked a joke. Seymour’s a very funny man. But I’m not going to be critical of him, he signed all sorts of things. There are many, many people who have nothing but gratitude and praise for what Seymour did for them on an international basis. But you can imagine at 4AD, the individuals that we were, and totally passionate and totally in love with these little children, really, Throwing Muses. Me and Deborah and whoever, Oh, God, we know what’s going to happen, if they sign to Warners in Europe, it’ll be a fucking disaster. And of course it turned out to be very disappointing.”
The other label to highlight the talents of a crop of emerging American bands [not least the aforementioned Sonic Youth] was Blast First [see Chapter Seven], helmed by Paul Smith. Smith was not averse to the occasional bitchy comment about 4AD in the press. “It probably speaks more about differences of personality,” notes Watts-Russell. “Whenever I saw Paul Smith face to face, he was interesting, polite and funny. I do have a memory of him saying not unduly kind things about 4AD in the press. There are some people who enjoy drawing attention to themselves by saying outrageous things, and there are people who have nervous breakdowns and drug addictions in public and thrive on it, and there are others who don’t pursue that. I always felt that 4AD was an esoteric soapbox for the shy person – we stood up for the shy person – the musicians and everyone behind the label were pretty introverted individuals, who didn’t really like the spotlight on them.”
The Cocteau Twins, having taken four years between albums, issued Blue Bell Knoll, which was licensed to Capitol in America. Dead Can Dance continued to release material that surprised and delighted in the Eastern-influenced The Serpent’s Egg. But 1989’s two key releases for the label were the Muses’ most commercial effort thus far, Hunkpapa, and The Pixies’ Doolittle. Both were extraordinary, though it was the latter that captured the imagination and propelled The Pixies to iconic status. On a domestic front, Ivo also added The Pale Saints and Lush to the roster. “That was the first and last time that I was specifically and consciously looking to sign anything. And as it happened, two tapes that came out of the same demo box, Pale Saints and Lush, were actually playing the same night at the Falcon. And we all went along. And I think everybody thought I was mad. Miki (Berenyi] and Emma [Anderson] weren’t the most tuneful of singers at the beginning. Pale Saints probably hadn’t played many gigs. These weren’t two professional outfits. But with Lush it was ‘Ethereal’, and with Pale Saints ‘Sight Of You’. Both of those songs I thought were really, really good.”
The Cocteau Twins released what would be their final album for 4AD in 1990, Heaven Or Las Vegas – described by Watts-Russell at the time as the finest recording he had ever been involved with, a statement he stands by still. The band was by now widely heralded as the starting point, alongside My Bloody Valentine, for a whole subculture in music, which the UK press dubbed ‘shoegazing’ and the Americans translated as ‘dream pop’. Few bands can realistically claim to have been the engine of discrete musical movements but both the Cocteaus and Pixies – whose start-stop dynamics were to be cited as a key influence by everyone from Nirvana to Radiohead – had reason so to do.
Watts-Russell’s partisan endorsement of Heaven Or Las Vegas wasn’t enough, however, to stop the Cocteaus moving on to a major label. The split was less than amicable. “I think we’d felt somewhat constricted by them for the last few albums in fact,” Robin Guthrie would tell Andy O’Reilly. “And I decided that their strong point is really in discovering talent and then working with bands in the early stages, giving them guidance. I really felt that we’d outgrown one another. It had stopped being a priority for them that we should be successful. It was just – ‘Oh, another Cocteaus LP, let’s put it out, it’ll sell loads.’ And I really missed the enthusiasm.” Of course, they would soon discover that any perceived absence of enthusiasm at their old label did not amount to the cold indifference that a cyclical old school major label can foist on its artists. But it was actually Watts-Russell who called time on the relationship: “Years later we patched things up and became friends again, and I remember Robin standing in front of me and saying it was the biggest mistake he ever made. By then he and Simon had started Bella Union and were getting a taste of what it was like on the other side of the table.”
By 1990, Beggars was in a position to jostle at the front of the queue when new talent appeared. The Charlatans became a serious coup for the label (after a nursery period on Situation 2), as the band, on the back of their independent single ‘Indian Rope’, were being courted by a series of major label A&R
departments. The deal was clinched, according to manager Steve Harrison in conversation with John Robb, due to Mills trekking up to Manchester back in January 1990 to see them play at the Boardwalk “It was totally horrendous weather that night and it was still packed. I remember that most of the A&R people that were going to come up and check the band out couldn’t make it because of the weather. About the only one who managed to come was Martin Mills of Beggars Banquet.” Mills: “It was funny – it was an incredible storm. Roger Trust [A&R head at Beggars Banquet] and myself, we were looking at the weather forecast. It said, ‘On no account venture out – go home, lock your doors, bolt your windows. Don’t even think about going on a motorway.’ And we just looked at each other and said, ‘We’ve got to go, haven’t we?’” So, was that instinct or hunch? Mills answer is succinct and highly illustrative. “To be honest, it was as much honouring a commitment as anything else – because we said we would.”
Over at 4AD, 1991 brought the Pixies’ Trompe Le Monde and the final Muses album to feature Tanya Donnelly, The Real Ramona. The fact that the former was also the Pixies’ swansong didn’t emerge until Black Francis revealed the fact in an interview with Mark Goodier, without having made his intentions clear either to his fellow band members or 4AD. Watts-Russell has a rather different take on events. “The announcement was a surprise but its content was not. I remember a meeting several weeks before with Bob Krasnow, head of Elektra at the time, where he was insisting that I renegotiate with the band to get more albums. We had licensed Pixies to Elektra and had another two albums under our existing contract. Krasnow was insinuating that if I didn’t renegotiate for at least another three albums, then he would go directly to the band and cut 4AD out of the deal. At that time I already knew there would never be another Pixies record but had agreed not to let the world at large know. I still think they stopped at the right time. There aren’t many bands that have released five albums as strong as the Pixies catalogue.”
Although Black Francis complained to the press of ‘record company pressure’ contributing to the demise of the band, he grudgingly accepted that he remained under contract to them and would release two solo records for 4AD (as Frank Black) thereafter. “As I say, it [the Pixies’ demise] was not something I was unhappy about,” notes Watts-Russell. “I don’t think there could possibly have been another Pixies record, it just wouldn’t happen. What I truly am disappointed about is becoming the brunt of a less pleasant side of Charles. I’d seen it and experienced it [used] against other people, but I’d never had it directed at me. The idea of working with artists without a mutual respect for each other just seems like a sham. I think both he and Ken felt if they were unpleasant enough to me I’d let them go – because that’s exactly what had just happened with the Cocteau Twins. And that’s what happened with Frank Black. With one more album owed I chose not to take up that particular option. They already had Rick Rubin and American [Records] waiting in the wings so it worked out fine. I want it to be clear that ultimately, especially with the Cocteau Twins, I’m disappointed with myself that somehow I didn’t manage to fix it – I’ll use that expression. And equally I’m disappointed that I and or the company was no longer considered appropriate for Charles. But that’s purely on a personal level. We were lucky to have released both artists’ best work.”
Situation 2, meanwhile, released its last record in 1992, with many of the artists absorbed back into the Beggars fold. “We simply decided that we wanted to be Beggars Banquet,” Mills would tell Martin Aston the following year. “Situation 2 was always perceived as Beggars anyway, we should be what we are, so we’ve just changed the identity.”
That same year, Lush released Spooky and the Throwing Muses’ Red Heaven for 4AD, while 1993 brought Belly’s Star, the Red House Painters’ self-titled debut and the Breeders’ Last Splash. Watts-Russell remains a staunch advocate of these releases, though tellingly contemporaneously noted of the Red House Painters’ debut that “I don’t think it’s going to sell very well.” In an interview with Gareth Grundy he confirmed that, despite huge critical success, financial pressures and considerations had been exacerbated rather than minimised. “Fuck no, because what happens then is that everyone gets involved with management and lawyers. The kind of funding that people need up front has multiplied by twenty or thirty times. It’s absurd. You get a situation where a band will sell millions and millions, and the industry rushes like a magnet towards that type of music, without discrimination, without any kind of understanding.” He also revealed his increasing boredom with the way that the Pixies’ influence, in particular, had resulted in the grunge era of “guitar-fronted American groups where you can’t hear the words”. While tangentially amusing that this remark should come from the head of the one label in the history of recorded song most associated with inaudible lyrics, he had a point.
Watts-Russell had signed a deal with Warner Brothers in 1992 to distribute 4AD in America, but it quickly became evident that he was unhappy with the compromises and intrusion that entailed. “It became a struggle pretty much as soon as I moved to America. The reality of what we’d done, this licensing of the whole label to Warners, other than what we’d licensed elsewhere. I spent most of the time from ‘92 to ‘94 going backwards and forwards. I don’t do well with jet lag – I never have. I was spending a month in LA and a month in England, and I didn’t feel I was functioning well in either place. I’m afraid that reality of – the deal is done with an American label, now what? I thought they were going to bring something to it as well! They didn’t. They just looked to us to bring appropriate things to stuff into their machine. And we’re the wrong label for that, and I’m the wrong person. It stopped being fun. It took me a long time to admit it wasn’t fun anymore. Colin Wallace came with the Cocteaus, and ended up working at 4AD in the warehouse. He was everybody’s friend, and Colin had suggested Steve Albini to me as an idea to produce Surfer Rosa. So when I went to America, he was put in the position of doing what I call negative A&R. All I wanted him to do was vet tapes, and forward them to me in America or keep in a box for me the better things. So from probably ’93 onwards, that’s how things were listened to. How frustrating is that, to get excited about something and then get it turned down the whole time by me? And also feeding this Warner Brothers machine, and also keeping the company afloat. Much as there was assistance financially from Warners, you end up spending it so quickly. They want videos and all this other bollocks, which we didn’t really do to the extent that was expected of us in that system. It became shaky.”
“My day to day worries and concerns or involvement,” he continues, “were more to do with the stability of the thing, and how we were fitting into Warner Brothers. 4AD was a company where, for better or worse, the decisions were all taken by me. When you do things by committee, it’s difficult. So for all those reasons I was unhappy, and I really wasn’t doing a good job. We had Robin Hurley running the company in LA, and Simon Harper, whom I wished was running the company in England, but would never take on the responsibility. He was head of international. I fell in love with him when he worked at Rough Trade. Dealing with M/A/R/R/S, we both had nervous breakdowns on that! Robin Hurley came from Nine Mile, part of the Cartel. Then Robin went to San Francisco to set up Rough Trade there, the shop and the label and distribution. When they moved to New York, 4AD’s first office was a shared space with Rough Trade.”
Hurley had first come into Ivo’s orbit while at Nine Mile. “I’d pick up the phone and order boxes of Treasure or Head Over Heels,” he recalls, “and Ivo would often pick up the phone and take the order. I got to know Ivo because he’d attend some of the bigger Cartel meetings. When I moved to Rough Trade America I got to know him even better, because he hated American major labels. And he really wanted Rough Trade America to grow and thrive so he could deal with people he enjoyed dealing with, knowing it was in good hands. There was a guy called Steve Connell who worked at Rough Trade America, who alerted me to The Pixies, and said, ‘You kno
w Ivo, you should talk to him about this.’ So we did the first two Pixies records, then the Breeders record, then a couple of other 4AD records like Ultra Vivid Scene and the Wolfgang Press. Through that relationship I grew to know Ivo very well. He was completely privy to Rough Trade’s problems, and he said, if it does all go under, I’d like you to come and work for 4AD. I couldn’t believe my luck, to be honest. I’d moved my whole life to New York, and I was thinking – what the hell am I going to do?”
“We became really good friends, still are,” Watts-Russell continues. “I invited him to head the label in advance of doing a deal. Sherri Hood was running 4AD in New York. Those were the best times for the label in America, when we didn’t have proper distribution or representation. What she did with college radio etc was the absolute peak. To this day I feel I did wrong by her as a person by bringing in Robin to in theory work side by side. We all knew their personalities well enough to know that probably wasn’t going to work. And she chose to leave. She managed Cranes, Ultra Vivid Scene and Stereolab, so she probably made the better choice. Robin was much better suited to dealing with a company like Warner Bros and did a fantastic job of protecting me from them! Robin now works at Rhino, alongside Warners, so his time at Warners served him well for the future. That would never have happened with Sherri, she despised major labels, bless her. Sherri, if you read this, I am so sorry. I never told her how grateful I was for the way she represented the label over there for a couple of years. She was brilliant.”
