Sabred

Our Friday night at The Golden Lion went very well. We, the admin team at The Flightpath Estate, had the idea a while ago that we should celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Sabresonic, the debut album by Sabres Of Paradise. We got Waka at The Golden Lion on board, approached Jagz Kooner, and decided we'd hold a Q&A followed by a Jagz DJ set. Jagz then said the third Sabre Of Paradise, Gary Burns, was happy to join us. I agreed to host the event, act as compere and ask the questions. We had two former- Sabres, a venue and a set of questions written by us all (with lots of input from Dr. Rob of the Ban Ban Ton Ton blog via email from his home in Japan). All we needed was a crowd. 

Thankfully a crowd turned up. The Q&A was filmed so at some point we'll be able to share that- I've seen a couple of clips and watching yourself and hearing your own voice is a bit uncomfortable. The Q&A session went really well, Jagz and Gary were lovely, engaging and chatty and happy to talk about anything and everything connected to Sabres Of Paradise, Andrew Weatherall, Sabresonic and various related topics. We talked for over an hour with questions coming from the audience as well as the ones we wrote. There are some Sabres related plans being hatched for next year and beyond which I can't spill the beans about at the moment but if you're a Sabres/ Andrew Weatherall fan, there's a lot to look forward to and eventually, hopefully, some exciting news. 

Some highlights of the talk...

Jagz and Gary were working together before meeting Andrew. They both lived in West London and were in the nascent acid house scene, Jagz was DJing and into production from a young age, building a home studio during his teenage years, and Gary could play anything- guitar, bass, melodica, keys, piano and whatever else he happened to pick up. They'd been working as The Aloof with Dean Thatcher and Rich Thair, releasing the Apocalypse Now! sampling 1990 classic Never Get Out Of The Boat. Jagz and Gary met Andrew in a club, at a point when he was a rising star in the DJ world and the veteran of producing Screamadelica and various era defining remixes. Andrew said they should work together and, as Jagz and Gary tell it, they both nodded and said yes, not expecting it to actually happen. They got the call the next day, Andrew asking them if they like to work on a remix of Jah Wobble and Sinead O'Connor he'd been asked to do. Visions Of You came out in 1992, Andrew, Jagz and Gary producing not just one remix but three, almost thirty minutes worth of music, half an album. 'We liked to give value for money'.

The working process in the studio was a topic of conversation. When they got commissioned to do a remix, a studio would be booked and if there was time left, they'd start to record their own music. This music, from a variety of sessions and studios in 1992 and 1993, is what became Sabresonic. Gary would play all the instruments. Jagz would be programming, sampling and arranging. Andrew would have the big picture ideas, the ears to pick out the parts to hone in on, the overall and specific vision for sounds, tracks, and eventually the album. Jagz and Gary would often be working with Andrew for a week, then they'd be off doing The Aloof or working with others, David Holmes for example. When they came back Andrew would have listened to all the tapes and have a clear plan about reworking tracks or moving onto new ones. Jagz described the studio set up, all three men with eight channels on the mixing desk, an instrument or sound on each channel. They'd set the tape rolling to record and then do the remix or track live, each one of them fading sliders in and out, mixing it live. When it was finished, they'd try another version, maybe dubbier, maybe more ambient, maybe faster or slower. As a result when they did remix work they often ended up with three or four versions, which would be submitted back to artists and record labels. Three remixes of Bjork's One Day, four versions for the Stereo MCs, and so on. 

We talked about the first Sabres release, their remix of Psychic TV's United, released as PT001, the first time the name was used. We talked about he origins of the name, either a 1960 book about pre- revolutionary Russia by Lesley Branch or a Haysi Fantaysi B-side- or both. PT001 is a record where Andrew did an abrupt about turn and presented a new sound (and not for the last time in his musical career). Gone were the Balearic sounds and tempos and pianos. PT001 was a dark, industrial techno remix. 

When the band signed to Warp, the label suggested an album might be a good idea. Jagz describes a shelf of DATs which Andrew went through and cherry picked eight tracks for what would become Sabresonic and we spent some time discussing individual tracks: the dark, thumping, moody opener Still Fighting (a remix of a remix of Primal Scream's Don't Fight It, Feel It); Smokebelch I (and of course Smokebelch II, not on Sabresonic but very much from that period); the fifteen minute spooked ambient sounds of Clock Factory; the dub infused RSD and Ano Electro. Jagz and Gary both said they'd had to spend some time recently listening to the album- neither had heard it in full for three decades, they were working so much and so fast that by the time tracks were finished, they simply moved onto new ones. They weren't even sure what the names were- all the track titles came from Andrew. The name Smokeblelch came from Andrew seeing some cooling towers as they passed Nottingham in a bus. The Sabresonic DATs, containing the released tracks and multiple other versions, sadly, all ended up in a skip. One of the Flightpath claims to have a cassette somewhere with three unreleased mixes of RSD on it- Jagz says this is very likely, they often recorded multiple mixes and versions. So, Mark- get up into that loft and get looking. 

We talked about the Beatless mix of Smokebelch, Gary playing the twinkling opening part on a guitar. We talked about David Holmes remix of Smokebelch, a remix Gary and Jagz did with David. We talked about the One Dove album, Morning Dove White, a record produced and remixed by all three Sabres, one which was delayed by the record label for a year who dithered about the mixes and spent time getting Stephen Hague to produced shinier, poppier versions. We talked about the mythical, never released, never even heard of Sabres remixes of Gary Clail. 

We talked about their recoding techniques and practices, Jagz and Gary recording the sounds of hitting a scaffolding pole with a spanner to get those metallic Sabres drum sounds and how Gary emptied a box of matches onto a metal tray and shook it, a sound that became a signature percussion sound on Smokebelch. Both men all the way through said how much fun they had, how much they did and how fairly they were treated by Andrew, who insisted everything was split three ways. 

We talked about the how Warp were keen for a Sabres Of Paradise album with guest vocalists and how they started to line some guests up. The album (if it had happened which it didn't- Andrew got the fear about the prospect of working with some of his heroes) would include Ice T, Tom Waits, Al Green and Bobby Gillespie. We talked about the remixes they turned down, at a time when record labels were paying huge amounts, £10, 000 to £15, 000, for a remix. The list of artists turned down includes both Madonna and U2.

We talked about the Sabres Of Paradise live band, a group that Andrew did not play on stage with- as a non- musician he would hang around the mixing desk smoking or stand in the crowd watching. Gary and Jagz recruited Rich Thair, Phil Mossman (later with LCD Soundsystem) and Nick Abnett (who also played with The Aloof) and set about learning how to play the songs live. They played only about a dozen gigs, some on a short tour of their own and then supporting Primal Scream on a UK tour. After the Q&A we played the only live recording of the Sabres live band that exists through the Lion's soundsystem, a set captured at Herbal Tea Party in Manchester by Rob Fletcher, a recording Jagz had never heard before. Jagz listened intently, smiling. 'We were pretty good', he said with a grin. That live set can be listened to here, the first thirty five minutes of the set being the live Sabres band before Andrew takes over on the decks. 

Jagz and Gary both said going on tour with Primal Scream in the mid 90s was exactly as you'd imagine it would be. Jagz told us that at the same time he took a phone call from Noel Gallagher, who wanted Sabres to go on the road with Oasis, at the exact same time as they were touring with Primal Scream. 

We talked about remixes, their favourites and the memorable ones. I asked how much of James remained on the four tracks that became Jam J. Both men smiled sheepishly. 'Not much'. Jam J is essentially a Sabres Of Paradise record. Gary said vocals got removed first. Jagz agreed, saying that with music that is essentially for dancing to, for creating a trance- like state, vocals often don't fit, apart from the odd repeated phrase. And in a re- appearance of the number twenty three in my life, Jagz recounted how the twenty third track on a mixing desk or tapes was the one that was never used

We talked about all of this and so much more. I'm sure there's loads I've missed out in this account- eventually when the film is edited, we'll be able to watch it all back. Both Jagz and Gary talked with so much fondness, love and respect for Andrew Weatherall, about how important he was, how inspiring he was to work with and how much he gave to them and about how brilliant Sabres Of Paradise had been. When I asked them what their favourite Sabres moment was, they both said without hesitation, 'all of it'. 

Here we all are, left to right, Baz (Flightpath Estate), me, Jagz (Sabre Of Paradise), Gary (Sabre Of Paradise), Martin (Flightpath Estate), Rob (Herbal Tea Party) and Waka (Golden Lion).

After a short break Jagz took over with a DJ set inspired by Sabresonic and the sounds of the period. The Sabres remix of  Red Snapper's Hot Flush and the recently posted here Leftfield remix of Renegade Soundwave both featured as did Andrew's remix of Soon by My Bloody Valentine and his remix of S'Express. Jagz finished, fittingly, with the David Holmes remix of Smokebelch, the crowd at the Lion, a pan- generational mix of eighteen to sixty- something year olds, a mess of sweaty and euphoric faces as the snares and pianos took us through to closing time. 

Smokebelch II (David Holmes Remix)

My final question of the Q&A had been a sort of homage to the Manchester acid house magazine Jockey Slut, which liked to ask DJs and musicians 'had they ever ridden a horse?'. It turns out Jagz has but Gary hasn't (Gary did say he been faced down by a few police horses when going to Chelsea in the 80s). It was decided by popular agreement that Andrew hadn't. A few hours after I asked this vital question, as the pub was being wound down for the evening and people were preparing to go home, a man arrived in the pub accompanied by a horse- the sort of thing that could only happen at The Golden Lion.