Barbed Wire Kisses: The Jesus and Mary Chain Story

by Zoe Howe

  ‘It’s been reported in a couple of reviews [the NME and the Independent] that at our Brixton Academy show I made a comment to the audience, “You are a bunch of miserable bastards”. Some people might think it’s no big deal, but I think it’s important to point out that I did in fact say “We are a bunch of miserable bastards”, which seemed appropriate at the time, as it was just after the song “Happy When It Rains”.

  ‘I’ve asked both these publications to print a retraction, but I’d have more chance of the editors coming round cleaning my toilets . . . But for what it’s worth, it amazes me that we can still play in venues such as the Brixton Academy, and that anyone cares enough to come. I certainly don’t take a Jesus and Mary Chain audience for granted.’

  So in case you missed that statement the first time around and had been feeling aggrieved about the whole ‘miserable bastards’ debacle, now you know.

  *

  The Mary Chain had a busy year of international touring ahead, with William seemingly feeling better about hitting the road than ever (Jim, conversely, now prefers to stay at home). The fans were in their element, particularly those who thought their chance to see the Mary Chain had long since passed. Chilean Mary Chain devotee Carlos Benavides remembers that when the band announced they would be playing a show in his country, he ‘almost jumped out of the window’ (in euphoria, I hasten to add). ‘It was like Jesus Christ’s second coming.’

  While the live dates were going well, taking them through to the end of summer 2008, Jim still baulked at William’s enthusiasm for making a new album. He was keen to book a studio in LA for the sessions, but Jim had to put the brakes on. It just didn’t make sense to him to haemhorrage money when it was now easier than ever to make a perfectly decent record by recording at home. However, this was not the only reason Jim felt unsure. ‘I just couldn’t see that things had moved along enough from the break-up,’ he says. ‘At that time I was on the wagon, and I found it difficult to deal with William because he was very much not on the wagon. We did do a couple of sessions in LA, and he would get very stoned. I just didn’t want to make an album under those circumstances.’

  All the same, the appetite for a new album from the Reids was strong, and the following year Kevin Oberlin, an associate of William’s and now the Mary Chain’s manager, collated an album’s worth of demos from both Reids. It remains unreleased, but as guitarist Mark Crozer recalls, ‘It almost looked like it was going to come out. It might not have been exactly as they’d wanted it, but it was really good.’

  The mock-up album included ‘All Things Must Pass’, a song of William’s originally intended for one of his solo records. The track, a contemplative song about getting older, remains a live favourite, and was included on the soundtrack to the hit US TV series Heroes. ‘That song just makes so much sense,’ says John Moore. ‘Each drug I take is gonna be my last . . . each girl I touch is gonna be my last . . . We’ll probably have a heart attack on the job . . . Oh dear. Coitus interruptus. Good idea for a song: every little thrill that you have, you might not get away with it this time.’

  The title of this song was tragically prescient for the news that was about to hit the Mary Chain, and the next time they would play live together would be under extremely sad circumstances. On 8 June 2008, former Mary Chain and Freeheat drummer Nick Sanderson died of lung cancer, aged just 47, news that sent the Reids reeling. The brothers wanted to do something to commemorate the life of their friend and former bandmate, and, on 27 October the Mary Chain, British Sea Power and Black Box Recorder (John Moore’s group with Luke Haines and Sarah Nixey) performed at a tribute show for Sanderson at the Forum in Kentish Town, North London, organised by the Reids themselves. Sanderson had been working as a train driver on the Brighton-London line, a job that inspired the Earl Brutus song ‘Train Driver In Eyeliner’, in turn providing the title of his tribute concert. (There is an excellent and moving account of this evening on Andy Von Pip’s website www.thevpme.com.)

  ‘Nick was such a great bloke,’ Jim says. ‘A bloody star. That was a sad old occasion, but it was good to do it. I was on the wagon at that time and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a drink so much in all of my life.’

  *

  After a smattering of gigs, a good two years would pass before the Mary Chain would tour again, with Jim moving his family down to Sidmouth in Devon, away from the grime and neurosis of London. The ghost of the Reids’ mutual fury had been exorcised (mostly) and the Reids were communicating, but Jim was still wary of how that might change if they threw themselves fully into the Mary Chain and all that came with it. However, after being pulled back into the limelight, a tour of the US beckoned, and Philip King, who had been playing in John Moore’s Rock’n’Roll Trio with Loz Colbert on drums, suggested the Reids bring John back into the fold.

  ‘It seemed natural,’ says Jim. ‘Although it was weird having John in the band: he’s like a cross between Mr Kipling and Iggy Pop. Give him a shandy too many and he’ll tear the place apart, but then he’s walking about in his linen suit and lime-green sandals, Panama hat. God bless him.’

  John remembers suddenly being deluged with phone-calls from Jim one evening – not a typical occurrence. ‘He even tried to Skype me,’ John says. ‘I thought, Oh shit, William’s died. But he asked me what I was doing next month, would I like to come to America and China? “Hmm, suppose so . . .!”’

  From the point of view of Mark and Loz, nothing had been said other than a cheery ‘See you next year!’ at the end of 2008. ‘But it makes sense to me why they did it with a new incarnation,’ says Mark. ‘John and Jim are really good friends. And I always felt like one of those red-shirt Star Trek characters, you know at some point they’re going to get killed.’*

  Replacing Loz on drums would be Brian Young from Fountains Of Wayne, and he and William flew over to the UK in early 2012 to rehearse at John Henry’s, in a ramshackle part of King’s Cross, near Pentonville Prison. There were, as John recalls, ‘no major incidents’ and they were soon ready to fly to Texas for the South By South West festival on 15 March, a date notable for being the anniversary of the North London Poly ‘riot’.

  ‘It was a testing ground,’ says John. ‘A lot of promoters came to see if we were still bookable, and apparently we are, so it went from there. Then we went to China, which was fabulous. Beijing was just so overpowering. And it’s nice to go to a place like Hong Kong where you can get a bunch of suits made fairly cheaply.’

  John also had his heart set on going to Raffles, the stunning colonial hotel named after Stamford Raffles, founder of modern Singapore. John was sufficiently attired to swan into the bar and cast his peanut shells upon the floor (not a euphemism) as tradition dictates. But despite John’s suggestion that the rest of the Mary Chain leave their jeans at the hotel in favour of smart trousers, they did not.

  ‘I’m a bit of a bastard, really,’ John admits. ‘I had my suit on and I was saying, “We’ve got to go to Raffles! Smarten yourself up a bit.” They were going, “We’ll be all right.” And I said, “But I want to go to the Writers’ Bar. I want to see where Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward used to hang out.” They couldn’t get in because they weren’t wearing suits. I think Jim was upset that I went in without them.’

  *

  Controversially, two gigs were booked for October in Tel Aviv. This caused something of a backlash on social media and prompted the departure of John Moore. In response, Jim made a public statement explaining the Mary Chain’s apolitical stance, and their wish to play for Mary Chain fans wherever they are, and he clarifies this here:

  ‘I despise the Israeli government, but I despise the British government,’ Jim explains. ‘Tony Blair took this country to war in Iraq based on a lie. What am I going to do, leave Britain? No, I’ll play in front of Mary Chain fans wherever I find them, and if I find them in Israel I’ll play there. I didn’t play to the Israeli government, I played to Israeli kids who love my band. When we went to Tallinn it was still part of the
USSR, and it was the same: kids who’d never seen stuff like this and were just in awe. But the state was rotten to the core.

  ‘We had two girls singing on “Just Like Honey” – on the first night it was an Israeli girl and on the second it was a Palestinian girl. What did I do wrong? Sod all. The Palestinians are being treated badly out there, but not by the kids who came to our gig.’

  It’s been said that if something happens once, there’s only a slim possibility it will happen a second time. But if it does happen a second time, it will definitely happen a third. Or something like that, anyway. And so we come to the Mary Chain and McGee. Within days of the first edition of this book being published in May 2014, Alan McGee told the world that not only was he reviving Creation as a management company with business partner Simon Fletcher, he had signed up the Mary Chain as his first clients – another neat full circle. McGee also announced that the Reids would reunite with recent JAMC alumni Mark Crozer, Philip King and Brian Young in November 2014 to perform a run of shows during which they would play Psychocandy in its entirety, in advance celebration of its thirtieth anniversary.*

  The shows would be reliably disorientating and luminous – between the glaring lights, practically used as weapons, literally stunning the audience into a daze of confusion, and the overwhelming tides of distorted sound (punctuated halfway through with an antique public information film about East Kilbride), the Mary Chain, five black silhouettes against a hell-fire crimson background, had successfully hypnotised everyone yet again. McGee had insisted on using the same mix on the sound desk, at the first London show at least, that the Mary Chain had had at their first ever shows thirty years earlier – a deafening decision, practically a declaration of sonic warfare, and a gleeful juxtaposition against the genteel elegance of London’s Troxy. At the time of writing, more dates are being planned as the united force of Creation and the JAMC steam into the future. New releases are also mooted – ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.

  And there has been talk of a new album – there’s more than enough material, and Jim asserts it would be ‘as good a Mary Chain album as there’s ever been’. The fact remains that, creatively, whatever the Reids do separately, something magical always occurs when they join forces.

  ‘I don’t think either Reid has managed to top being in the Mary Chain,’ observes their former press officer Mick Houghton. ‘That must be hard for them, but that in itself is also a measure of how successful they were and what an impact they made.’

  Finally, it seems, The Jesus and Mary Chain are receiving more widespread respect for the uniquely powerful and affecting quality the Reids brought to pop music, cutting through the bland, the anodyne and the manufactured just when the laser-like energy of punk seemed all too far away. But the Mary Chain’s music, lyrics and attitude continue to endure because they are every bit as relevant and necessary today. As Alan McGee put it, ‘For the benefit of music, God, did Britain, and the world, need The Jesus and Mary Chain.’ And, in this current culture of disposability, short attention spans and cynical TV ‘talent’ shows, it’s arguable we need them even more. The Mary Chain have stayed true to themselves throughout decades of change, although that is not to say that they’ve stayed the same – far from it. But it is that fierce sense of integrity, combined with the courageous and often transcendent quality of their music, that has seen them through the turbulence, the wilderness and the facile nature of fame.

  ‘We have an ability to keep our distance from the business itself,’ Jim Reid told Melody Maker’s Kevin Westerberg. ‘If you don’t, you’re liable to be chewed up and spat out. Everything to do with The Jesus and Mary Chain we oversee. We’re just ourselves.’

  ‘After the split, it would be once in a blue moon anyone would say, “Wow, the Mary Chain,”’ Douglas adds. ‘But even when we were at our peak, we knew there was a fickleness to it all. The most important thing is when someone says, “We started a band because of you.” It all comes down to that. The only thing that matters is having an impact on some kid. And things come back round, don’t they?’

  * And yet, Lazarus-like (not that Lazarus was in a band, as far as we know), Mark is back in the Mary Chain line-up at the time of writing

  * Naturally, a veritable who’s who of Mary Chain history could be seen backstage after the shows at London’s Troxy and at the much-anticipated Glasgow gig – at Barrowland, of course. The latter show was supported by Strawberry Switchblade’s Rose McDowall, and also marked the first time Jim and Murray Dalglish had met since the release of ‘Upside Down’, which the Mary Chain played onstage during the Psychocandy show – an ‘emotional’ moment for Murray.

  Timeline

  This timeline takes us from the year of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s inception to their split, and ultimately their reunion in 2007. (Note: it is not an exhaustive timeline of the Mary Chain’s every move; rather it is a tool to put their story into a broader cultural context.)

  1983

  In East Kilbride, Scotland, brothers William and Jim Reid start to write songs and record demos on a Portastudio bought with their father’s redundancy money. Meanwhile in London, Alan McGee starts Creation Records with Dick Green and Joe Foster. Also this year, The Birthday Party break up, with singer Nick Cave forming The Bad Seeds soon after the split. My Bloody Valentine, later to join the Creation family also form this year in Dublin.

  January: Trevor Horn, Jill Sinclair and Paul Morley start the label ZTT (Zang Tuum Tumb).

  1 February: Long-running breakfast television programme TV-AM is launched.

  26 February: Michael Jackson tops the US charts with the album Thriller. On the same day, The Cramps, a favourite band of the nascent Jesus and Mary Chain, release their first live album, Smell Of Female.

  2 March: Compact discs go on sale to the general public.

  July: Glaswegian goth-pop duo Strawberry Switchblade release their debut single ‘Trees And Flowers’ through 92 Happy Customers, a label run by Will Sergeant (Echo and the Bunnymen). It sells 10,000 copies.

  1 September: Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon announce the dismissal of Mick Jones from The Clash.

  24 October: ZTT releases the provocative debut single by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, ‘Relax’.

  2 December: Michael Jackson’s fourteen-minute video for ‘Thriller’ is premiered on MTV.

  The Flying Pickets are at number 1 on Christmas Day in the UK with ‘Only You’.

  1984

  The first line-up of The Jesus and Mary Chain is formed: Jim Reid on vocals, William Reid on guitar, Douglas Hart on bass and Murray Dalglish on drums. This year, their demo tape reaches the ears of Alan McGee via the band’s new ally Bobby Gillespie, and this leads to a gig at McGee’s London club night the Living Room and ultimately a record deal with Creation Records. The Jesus and Mary Chain record their first single, ‘Upside Down’, in the autumn of 1984 before embarking on their first tour. This is the year that The Jesus and Mary Chain rocket from obscurity to acclaim within a startlingly short space of time.

  11 January: BBC Radio 1 DJ Mike Read announces live on air that he refuses to play Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s single ‘Relax’, on account of its suggestive lyrics. The BBC bans the single, which subsequently goes to the top of the UK charts, where it stays for five weeks.

  20 February: The Smiths release their eponymous debut album via Geoff Travis’s label Rough Trade.

  1 April: Marvin Gaye is shot dead by his father in Los Angeles.

  8 June: The Jesus and Mary Chain play their first gig at Alan McGee’s Living Room club on Tottenham Court Road. McGee falls in love with them instantly and signs them to Creation. Two days later, the Mary Chain play at Glasgow club Night Moves. The reception is not so positive and the band are unceremoniously thrown out of the venue mid-set.

  25 June: Prince releases Purple Rain.

  17 September: The Mary Chain play an inebriated show at Alice In Wonderland – a psychedelic club night in Soho co-run by Clive ‘The Doctor’ Jackson from Doctor
and the Medics, and one of a handful of London dates organised by Alan McGee. They are physically hauled off stage by the promoters and told never to return.

  11 October: The Mary Chain and Bobby Gillespie’s band Primal Scream play their first gig together in Glasgow. Bobby has also just joined the Mary Chain, replacing drummer Murray Dalglish, and this is his first gig with the Reids and Douglas.

  23 October: The UK sees for the first time the scale of the famine in Ethiopia, thanks to a news report by the BBC newsreader Michael Buerk. Bob Geldof is one of the millions watching and he is subsequently inspired to organise Band Aid, and later Live Aid.

  24 October: The Jesus and Mary Chain play London’s Three Johns pub. In the audience is NME journalist Neil Taylor, who subsequently proclaims the band to be ‘the best thing since the Sex Pistols’.

  26 October: The Jesus and Mary Chain, Biff Bang Pow! and Jasmine Minks set off for the Creation package tour of Germany. When they return on 4 November, the Mary Chain discover they are all over the music press, thanks to their debut single ‘Upside Down’ (released to the public in November) and their incendiary Three Johns gig.

  29 October: Frankie Goes To Hollywood release their debut album Welcome To The Pleasuredome. It goes straight to number 1.

  9 November: ‘Upside Down’ is released, with the Mary Chain’s Syd Barrett cover ‘Vegetable Man’ on the B-side. This single is The Jesus and Mary Chain’s first release on Creation Records.

  25 November: The Mary Chain play the Ambulance Station in Old Kent Road – a heavy gig but also the night Rough Trade boss Geoff Travis, also running Warners imprint Blanco Y Negro, sees them for the first time.

  3 December: The Band Aid charity single ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ is released, becoming the fastest-selling UK single of all time.