by Zoe Howe
‘It had become something really special,’ agrees Douglas Hart. ‘The energy you got from that can see you through anything, and I guess that tour was the first real load of gigs with Bobby. The beauty and energy of it is hard to describe, we were a powerful force when we were all together in that way.’
There wasn’t a huge amount of camaraderie between the Mary Chain and the other groups, however. Bobby initially felt that the other groups didn’t take them very seriously, but the feeling toward the Mary Chain, from some individuals at least, soon graduated to irritation as they watched the new boys inadvertently steal the show.
The Jesus and Mary Chain started off at the bottom of the bill, but it quickly became clear that this would have to change. ‘About mid-way through, me and the Jasmines just put our hands up,’ says Alan. ‘The Mary Chain were just blowing every other fucker off the stage. They headlined most of the rest of the dates. There were a couple of dates where the Mary Chain insisted one of us went on last, because they’re nice people, but they were just killing every show.’
Douglas Hart says: ‘I think a lot of the guys in the other bands were . . . not jealous, but couldn’t get it. Not McGee, he was always excited by us, but I think we felt a slight resentment from some of the others.’
Band rivalry aside, the travel arrangements alone were enough to ramp up the tension. ‘At first we were all kind of together,’ Douglas continues, ‘but after less than a week it had become quite fraught. The tour was quite hard, you know, none of us had travelled before. And the guy driving only had one cassette tape and he was just playing it over and over. It was like a psychedelic garage compilation, but not a good one. There were two good songs on it, but by the 700th time you’d heard it . . .’
As the tour rumbled to a close and the Creation bands boarded the ferry home, the Mary Chain felt a little deflated. The idea of travelling around Europe had been a romantic one but the reality was tough. Little did they know that everything had already changed for them back in the UK. The single had reached the ears of everyone who was anyone in the music press, and Neil Taylor’s exultant NME review put the buzz around the band into overdrive. But they didn’t know any of that yet. All they knew now was that, if this was how life was going to be for the next few years in their bid to succeed, well, as Douglas says, they would ‘probably kill each other’.
Douglas continues: ‘On the ferry back, all of us were going, “Fucking hell, man!” It wasn’t a disappointment, because we were so excited to play, but we weren’t really enamoured of the rock’n’roll life. We were all thinking, God, with our kinds of personalities . . .’
‘The bottom line was that it was a fucking rough tour,’ McGee concludes flatly. The mood changed, in the Mary Chain camp at least, when they were back on dry land. In this pre-internet age, being out of the country for a couple of weeks would leave you feeling relatively out of touch, so as soon as possible Bobby bought the music papers, including, naturally, a copy of the NME. He hurriedly leafed through the pages, his eyes scanning for their name. This time they would have more than the usual cursory mention about being turfed off stage in an advanced stage of refreshment.
Bobby found the reviews and read them aloud to the rest of the Mary Chain who were, as Jim Reid recalls, ‘Just pissing ourselves laughing. We said, “That’s it.” And it was. We were beating them off with sticks after that.’
‘The headline was something like “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”, Neil Taylor remembers. ‘Around that time, the NME still had a large sales base, so the right thing said in the NME, you still had the power to create an effect, which is what happened when that review went in.’
Bobby says: ‘It was like Douglas said, “We’re going to go to Germany and come back and be rock’n’roll stars.” It was all coming true. And it was like, “Yeah, that’s right. Because we should be rock’n’roll stars. We’re the best.”’
Jim, as always with his feet firmly on the ground, remembers the glowing review well. He also remembers the terrible review. ‘Sounds said it was the worst gig by the worst band they’d ever seen, and the NME said it was like the Sex Pistols crossed with Joy Division or something. So somewhere between those two . . .’ Both write-ups were more than welcome, however. ‘Those are basically the only kind of reviews you want,’ said William. ‘The best and the worst.’ There was nothing vanilla about The Jesus and Mary Chain, and there was nothing vanilla about the reaction they prompted. Indifference would have been the ultimate insult. Meanwhile, ‘Upside Down’, which had entered the indie chart at number 34, was steadily rising, and would be in the top ten in a matter of weeks (and at number one by February 1985).
To be compared to Joy Division or the Sex Pistols must have meant they were doing something right but, always contrary, Jim would later casually claim in an interview on Belgian television that the comparison with the Pistols was way off the mark, and that he ‘didn’t even like them’. He also declared that ‘Joy Division were rubbish’, a statement that drew a gasp from the journalist interviewing him. It made for a memorable interview that was already guaranteed to stick in the mind because, on the couch next to Jim and Douglas, was Bobby, energetically making out with his girlfriend.
The reality of the situation was that Jim had been pre-warned not to say anything against Joy Division during the interview because the journalist was a major fan of the group. This was a red rag to a bull, naturally: Jim was as big a fan of Joy Division as the interviewer, he just couldn’t resist temptation. Unfortunately, whenever he praises Joy Division now, fans reliably remind Jim of the Belgian TV interview. ‘I didn’t expect to be apologising for it twenty years later,’ he grumbles.
This was all to come, although it wasn’t far off. The idea of undergoing interview after interview was never something the Mary Chain would relish, especially as, more than once, they were greeted jovially by unfamiliar journalists trying to lighten the mood with the opening gambit: ‘So! Which one’s Jesus and which one’s Mary?’
All the same, Jim would display a natural talent when it came to delivering acidic soundbites and sometimes shocking statements, especially on the subject of rock’n’roll’s sacred cows. On one occasion, Jim declared he was ‘embarrassed to tell people what I do with my life, to think that what I do is the same as what Eric Clapton does. He’s raping it, he’s puking on it, he’s pissing on it. For that reason I don’t want to be a part of it.’
The Rolling Stones, while the Reids loved their ‘scruffy degeneracy’, would also come in for a verbal pasting back in the day. This from William: ‘The best thing that could have happened to The Stones was if they’d have met Charles Manson in 1969 and he could have hacked their heads off with a chainsaw.’ Pithy.
While they were at it, they also archly dismissed their enduring hero David Bowie as a ‘fucking scumbag who should have been shot in 1972’ and, while William graciously hailed the genius of both John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the latter’s mistake was apparently that he ‘never got murdered before he wrote “Mull Of Kintyre”.’
Respect was always reserved for the Velvets (the perfect pop song, according to Jim, would have ‘Maureen Tucker playing drums and Eric Clapton’s severed head hanging from the drum kit . . .’) and of course The Stooges, although even the latter didn’t get away without a few jabs. William once said that: ‘After us, the perfect record is “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by The Stooges. But the horrible guitar solo fucks it up.’ Despite the obvious shock value of some of their statements, however, there is also the feeling that rock’n’roll means so much to the Reids that they take offence at anyone who dares ruin it by being over-indulgent, embarrassing or just downright naff. The Reids’ interview technique drew much from the punk tradition, and their quotes are often reminiscent of Public Image Limited’s confrontational interviews during this period. And on the subject of PiL, John Lydon would be branded a ‘sad comedian’ by the Reids at the time, long before that infamous butter advertisement was a mere twinkle in an ad exec’s eye
.
In terms of the press the Mary Chain were getting at this early stage, Neil Taylor would observe with interest how diametrically opposed Sounds and NME were in their opinion. But not only is all publicity valuable (‘Don’t read your press, weigh it,’ as one wise soul once said), the NME, he asserts, ‘would always have had the upper hand because the circulation figures were far higher.’
*
The next gig in the Mary Chain diary was on 25 November at the Ambulance Station in Old Kent Road, Deptford, a notorious squat/venue known for being so lawless that bands would frequently take to the stage (which was surrounded by barbed wire) tooled up in case of trouble. ‘It was skinhead, NF territory,’ remembers Neil Taylor. ‘Some of the bands who played at the Ambulance Station would regularly go on with a claw-hammer or a baseball bat.’
Between the Mary Chain’s return to the UK and their appearance at the Ambulance Station, they were, understandably, suddenly required to do a lot of press. The buzz around the band was escalating daily; they were fascinating and mysterious and the music papers were gripped. It was an exciting, if not disorientating, time to be in The Jesus and Mary Chain. (Or ‘Jesus and The Mary Chain’ as they were accidentally called on occasion.)
‘It seemed to have come from nowhere, which pissed a lot of people off,’ admits Douglas. ‘Just by being, we polarised people. We would say, when anyone interviewed us after the first few gigs, that we wanted to be on Top of the Pops and in Smash Hits. They would look at us and burst out laughing, but we were like, “We’re not fucking kidding.” In a year and a half we’d done it, and people couldn’t believe it.’
Generally, the kind of artists who hankered after a cover feature in Smash Hits weren’t normally the types you would expect to see braving a crowd at the crumbling Ambulance Station, but the Mary Chain were nothing if not perverse. But they also wanted to be stars, something most indie artists were not ready to admit.
Neil Taylor was in attendance that night. ‘The problem was,’ he recalls, ‘that following the review in the NME and the word-of-mouth excitement, masses of people turned up, far too many. I seem to remember you had to climb through a hole in a door that someone had bashed open to get in, and you took your own alcohol and whatever. There were quite a few drunk people there. The June Brides played first, and played very well.’
Bobby Gillespie says: ‘I think Morrissey and Johnny Marr were at that gig. I remember being upstairs in the squat and someone giving us some speed. I don’t remember that gig being that musical, but that was the one where you felt like, Right, this is going to take off.’ The tension levels at the gig were high from the start, but the audience’s expectations, extreme inebriation on the part of the band, and the general air of violence that pervaded the Ambulance Station all added to the thrilling sense of unpredictability around the Mary Chain.
‘They were incredibly drunk,’ says Neil Taylor. ‘I don’t know how feasible it was for them to actually play. There were sporadic moments of unrest, not aided by the fact that halfway through the set, Jim decided to harangue the audience in quite an aggressive way; basically, “Where the fuck were you six months ago? You’re all wankers, I despise you.” Along those lines. Otherwise there was no engaging with the audience, it was more straight down to business with the music.
‘So: music, harangue, music, off. Many enjoyed it, but some were thinking, This could all kick off and I’m going to enjoy that as well, and some of them are feeling slightly cheated. There are a couple of shouts of “Best live band for seven years? You must be joking.” So there’s a combustible atmosphere there. The police were called.’
As well as Morrissey and Johnny Marr, Lindy Morrison and Robert Forster from the Go-Betweens were in attendance, because Geoff Travis, founder of Rough Trade Records (who distributed for Creation) and Warners imprint Blanco Y Negro, had invited them down. This was the first time Travis had seen The Jesus and Mary Chain play live, and this exhilarating, amphetamine-fuelled appearance cemented his decision to sign them himself. ‘It was incredible,’ he says. ‘A mind-blowing gig. It was a bit heavy, though. When I came out, all the windows on my car were smashed.’
There’s a picture that certainly portrays the scene inside the makeshift venue as utter mayhem, with punters seemingly falling face-first onto the stage at the Mary Chain’s feet, and Bobby, standing at his snare, with a look of disbelief mingled with mischievous hilarity on his face.
The sight of four musicians on their feet, as opposed to having a seated drummer, had a certain assertive power in itself too. But while Jim is quick to credit Bobby for bolstering him onstage by radiating sheer positivity, Bobby and Douglas knew the main reason they could feel sure of themselves as a band was the Reids’ powerful songwriting. No matter how extreme the gigs became, the songs were the core of what they were doing, and their strength was indisputable.
‘Jim and William’s songs were the secret weapon, not the feedback,’ insists Douglas. ‘We knew that the songs could take us further than anything anyone termed as a gimmick. Those songs are not a fucking gimmick.’
10
Tea and Cakes with Travis
I want them to be everywhere, to be like Coronation Street.
Alan McGee in The Face, June 1985
The Ambulance Station gig in November 1984 was the latest milestone in the Mary Chain’s trajectory, yet again polarising the audience and, crucially, attracting the attention of Geoff Travis. The Jesus and Mary Chain were already Creation’s biggest-selling artists at this point, but now they had an opportunity to move to a bigger label and fulfil further ambitions beyond the so-called indie scene. As Jim Reid admits, ‘I wanted to be Marc Bolan. I wanted to be Johnny Rotten. I didn’t want to be this little oik in a Fair Isle jumper playing in some indie club with just my friends in the audience.
‘We all wanted to shake things up quite a bit. The worst thing I can imagine is just being another band that gets ignored. We were into the whole rock star thing, Bowie, T. Rex. That was nowhere in the picture at that time, and that’s what we wanted to bring back to the table.’
McGee, who would continue to be the group’s manager, was philosophical about the next necessary step. ‘We couldn’t really carry on,’ he admits. ‘We had no money with Creation, it was such a little label. We were used to doing 7,000 copies and suddenly we’re doing 45,000 copies, and Geoff . . . you know, it looked like the best deal. We’d done well to press up 40,000 records, never mind pay everybody, so to think we were going to hang on to The Jesus and Mary Chain against the weight of Warner Bros, that was never going to happen.’
The chance to go with a major label, but with Geoff Travis at the helm, seemed ideal at the time. The Mary Chain knew Travis was serious about his music. He also had indie integrity, but they would be getting major-label support. Blanco Y Negro had already released records by the Monochrome Set, Marine Girls, Everything But The Girl and Subway Sect’s Vic Godard, and had worked with Lawrence from Felt. It seemed like a good home for the Mary Chain.
‘The Mary Chain knew they were good,’ says Travis. ‘They didn’t know how they would fare in the commercial world, but they definitely knew they were good. So they probably thought, Indie, schmindie, what’s that got to do with us? Fair enough. Jim and William had bigger ambitions. If we didn’t have that hybrid with the major label, maybe they would have signed to someone else.’
Jim Reid says: ‘Had Creation Records been what it later became, there would have been nothing to think about, but you have to remember that at that time Alan was still working for British Rail. We got “Upside Down” out, we physically bagged all of those records. That’s what it was; you were never going to get on Top of the Pops, or if you were, it was going to take some time.
‘We were like, “Just show us the fucking money!”’ adds Alan McGee. ‘Everybody else was being really indie; we couldn’t give a fuck about indie. We were influenced by punk.’
‘Our big thing was that Geoff had released a couple of Subway Sect s
ingles,’ says Bobby Gillespie, ‘and we thought, He works with Vic Godard, that’s cool. That’s as far as our business acumen went. Rough Trade was like a Marxist, right-on record label, but really Geoff was signing us on behalf of Rob Dickins at Warner.
‘I love Rob Dickins, he’s great, but he was a bit more flash. His wife was Cherry Gillespie from Pan’s People, so that was pretty glam, right? We were four not-very-well-educated – not stupid – working-class kids from Glasgow and Glasgow suburbs. So it was a classic music-business thing, Oxbridge-educated record company guy . . .’
A meeting was arranged between Travis and the Mary Chain at Alan McGee’s parents’ house in the Glasgow suburb of Mount Florida (‘Something of a misnomer,’ observes Douglas Hart), complete with cups of tea and French Fancies. The path to rock’n’roll stardom is lined with cake. And coke, of course, but mainly, at this stage, cake. Despite the chintzy surroundings, for Travis this was ‘the most difficult meeting with a group I’ve ever had in my life.
‘They were all sitting on the sofa, all in a line. They sat staring at the floor for about an hour and a half. Didn’t say a word. It was really insane.’ (Alan McGee remembers it well, although he ‘thought it was just normal Mary Chain madness, to be honest.’)
The idea was that Geoff would sign The Jesus and Mary Chain on behalf of Blanco Y Negro on a one-single deal for the song ‘Never Understand’. The Mary Chain might not have piped up much, or indeed at all, but their minds were whirring with the possibilities. ‘He said he was going to sign us and gave us £1,000 each,’ says Douglas Hart. ‘We were like, Wow! Just for one record. It just seemed surreal, like a film. And we were all in Alan’s very prim and proper mum’s house, dressed like beatniks, all sitting there on our best behaviour with our little china cups and French Fancies.’
Geoff Travis left the McGee residence in a state of vague confusion. He had no idea what the band members were feeling and no clue as to how they thought it went. He wasn’t even sure how he thought it went. To add to the slight surrealism of the day, Alan McGee then took him for a walk to the run-down Hampden Park football stadium, close to his family home. They had to climb in through a hole in the fence. ‘It was really shocking because it was all overgrown with weeds and shrubs,’ Geoff remembers. ‘It just seemed like this archaic place which had gone to seed.’
