What If No One's Calling?

Over at The Vinyl Villain JC spent September counting down 800 songs that span the parameters of the blog and his musical world. Near to the business end of things was a song by Echo And The Bunnymen, a band who were a formative Vinyl Villain influence. The song was Heads Will Roll, from 1983's Porcupine. It was a choice that made me smile- out of all the songs from the classic four man line up, from Crocodiles to Ocean Rain, all those songs and moments, all those singles, JC went for a Porcupine album track. 

I spent some time going back to Porcupine and Heads Will Roll. The album was described by those involved in making it as 'horrible'. They'd been on tour and hadn't had time to write new songs. The songs they were writing didn't flow as easily as the Heaven Up Here songs. Mac doesn't like singing the Porcupine songs, as he feels the words are too personal, that he gave too much away. Will didn't like the record company telling him first version of the songs and the production weren't good enough and resented them having to be re- worked and re- recorded. Les didn't like the record industry full stop. Pete had been producing The Wild Swans, spent some time doing other things, and was a little isolated from the other three Bunnymen (as he often was). Not ideal conditions. That they made Porcupine at all is a miracle. 

The Cutter and The Back Of Love are songs one and two- two massive Bunnymen singles, adorned with Shankar's strings- and after that the album does become a bit heavy and self obsessed. My White Devil and Clay are both serious songs. The title track too. 

Side two opens with the drama and psychedelic post- punk of Heads Will Roll though and suddenly we're back down at the front, the band blazing and the violas and cellos linking 1967 with 1983, headspinning swirly psyche and Mac singing of 'partly politic' and 'no one calling', meetings in private places where he will 'stare you into the ground'. It's gripping and exhilarating stuff, psychedelic Bunnymen with verses and choruses. 

They recorded a longer version, the Summer Version, which eventually came out as a B- side on the post- Porcupine standalone single Never Stop, a song that broke the gloom. Lay down thy raincoat and groove. The Summer Version is longer, Will's spindly guitar at the fore and Les' bass powering everything along, before the viola comes in. It ends with Shankar's strings and Pete's drums going off on one for forty seconds,a section which could easily have been stretched out for longer. 

Heads Will Roll (Summer Version)

This clip of the Bunnymen on Dutch TV miming to Heads Will Roll demonstrates what was so great about them, the 1983 Bunnymen in all their pomp. 

The 2003 CD release of Porcupine (and the other canonical 80s albums) featured various B- sides and extras. Porcupine's extras included four previously unreleased versions from the original studio recordings, produced by Kingbird (Ian Broudie, who produced both the original and re- recorded songs for Porcupine) and before Shakar's strings were added. When you listen to them it's easy to see why Will was pissed off at them being rejected- there's nothing wrong with them, they're sparser and possibly less dynamic but still good takes. WEA/ Korova rejected them as 'too uncommercial'. I'm not sure Will was too bothered about being commercial. When they'd recorded The Back Of Love in 1982 tensions were so bad Drummond got them off to Scotland, a tour of the highlands and islands, to rebuild band relations, a tactic which didn't entirely succeed. The Porcupine sessions were tense and that can be heard in the original versions I think. Shankar's strings which added so much to The Back Of Love and The Cutter were brought back. This is the original version of the album's title track...

Porcupine (Original Version)

Ian's lyrics to the Porcupine song Higher Hell were inspired by seeing a Hieronymus Bosch painting while on tour in Madrid, Ian lost in the detail and crazy world of the 16th century Dutch painter. The lower heaven and higher hell of the song were Ian's version of Bosch's psychedelic/ religious freakout world of God, animals and monsters, birds swallowing people whole and bodies piled up after final judgement.

Higher Hell

Hieronymus Bosch appears on the new Bunnymen album Apples For Isaac, a link between the worlds of 1983 and 2026. 'What would Hieronymus say?', Ian sings in the single Brussels Is Haunted, a genuinely great late period Bunnymen song, Ian back at the top of his game, sounding good and writing lyrics that are memorable. 

It's difficult to listen to the album and hear it as a full Bunnymen album in some ways- Will only appears on a few songs and Ian has said that Will's 'weird stuff' didn't get used. It feels more like an Ian McCulloch solo album but the name Echo and The Bunnymen will get greater attention and sales. But even so, it's good, I like it. It feels weirdly personal due to the title but that's not the only reason. At least half the songs are much better than you might expect at this stage in proceedings and the fact that there's been so long between this one and the previous one (ten years) suggests Ian has worked at it, chosen his best songs, got them recorded as he wants them and not just rushed out some mediocre product. It feels like he cares. 

Clem Burke's drums give it some wallop, the guitars and synths sparkle, it sounds Bunnymen but not deliberately so, not chasing or reviving the classic sound- it's just that this is what they sound like. First song Take Me By The Hand charges in at a pace and Can't Be Sold follows, bold and confident in itself. Brussels Is Haunted is a beauty. On some of the songs Ian sounds his age, the voice a bit worn and weary- not in a bad way but in a way that works for the songs. 

An Unstoppable Force opens side two, Velvets acoustic guitars and Ian at the fore, wiser maybe, a man who knows time and tide wait for no- one. 

There are a couple more that stand up- Asimov has clipped guitar chords and some drama and The Light That Surrounds You pulls at the heartstrings. Lab Rats Ran has sax that recalls Roxy Music. Apples For Isaac ends with We Prayed In The Dark and by the time it finishes I've spent forty minutes listening to eleven new Echo And The Bunnymen songs and not wished I had Ocean Rain, Porcupine, Crocodiles or Heaven Up Here on instead. It's not any of those albums either but it's definitely, on its own terms, a minor triumph. 

Forty Minutes Of Echo And The Bunnymen

A few days ago Echo And The Bunnymen's new single came out, a song called Brussels Is Haunted. They've been playing it live for some time- I heard at Manchester's Albert Hall a couple of years ago. I don't know how much of a contribution Will Sergeant made to it but it sounds like an Echo And The Bunnymen song, one that could easily have fitted on 1987's self titled 'grey album'. The guitars chime, Clem Burke plays drums, Ian is in good voice, there are some suitably Bunnymen lyrical touches- Brussels is haunted by the song, by world wars, by Plastic Bertrand, by Waterloo, by Annik Honore, by its past and by its present, while Ian is dancing at the Classic and drinking rum, cassis and beer blond. It sounds like Ian is still interested, still cares and is still up for it. 

A day later they launched news of an album called Apples For Isaac. The title alone caught me in my tracks. I've no idea at the moment who the Isaac in the title is or what it's referring to but it has a personal angle for me. Time I guess, will tell. 

Last year I did a Bunnymen Sunday mix which took in covers, versions, remixes, edits and samples, very much an inspired- by Echo And The Bunnymen mix. You can find it here. At the time I promised a follow up. Friday's Seven Seas on Top Of Pops post and Thursday's Brussels Is Haunted double punch provided the prompt for me to get it done. This is one for the purists, entirely songs from the 1979- 1987 period, the original line up, no singles, all album tracks, B- sides and alternative versions, the Bunnymen in all their pomp. 

Forty Minutes Of The Bunnymen

• Over The Wall (Peel Session)
• All I Want
• Heads Will Roll (Summer Version)
• My Kingdom
• Way Out And Up We Go
• Over Your Shoulder
• Happy Death Men
• All That Jazz (Peel Session)
• Watch Out Below (Peel Session)
• Ocean Rain (Alt Version)
• Turquoise Days

Over The Wall is from the second Bunnymen album, the mighty Heaven Up Here. Heaven Up Here has a powerful opening trio, with Show Of Strength, With A Hip and Over The Wall. In 1980 they recorded this version for John Peel ahead of the album's release, Will, Les and Pete perfectly locked in, guitars, bass and drums kicking up a storm and Mac imperious on vocals, all urgency, drama and poetic beauty. 

All I Want is Heaven Up Here's final song, a celebration of life and living as the finale of an album of darkness and terror- spiky, pounding early 80s post- punk psychedelia. Will's guitar playing is choppy and angular, the sound of flashing lights against ink black skies. 'If we make the same mistake, who will we blame?', Ian asks as the song fades out. A question England fans have pondered since Wednesday night.

Heads Will Roll is from Porcupine, the third Bunnymen album. The extended Summer Version came out on the Never Stop 12". Porcupine is a heavy album, produced by Ian Broudie, one that no one particularly enjoyed making. They had to drag the songs out of themselves after a long period on the road. McCulloch has said that lyrically it's the most autobiographical and honest album- the lyrics are pretty oblique. Heads Will Roll is a highlight (along with the majestic pair of singles, The Back of Love and The Cutter) and those Indian strings provided by Shankar add a great deal to Heads Will Roll.

Ocean Rain. The greatest album ever made etc. My Kingdom is superb, skyscraping 1984 psyche rock, from an album with some huge pop moments and career defining songs. Ocean Rain is all drama, majesty, jewels and stormy seas. My Kingdom, organ intro, rackety dynamics, gorgeous sound and a twin Will Sergeant guitar solo, his semi- acoustic pushed through a 60s valve amp, utterly wonderful, while Mac sings of 'burning the skin off' and 'climbing the rooftops'. 

Way Out And Up We Go was the B-side to 1983's The Cutter, Ian asking for money but being given alcohol, the bass and drums pounding away and Will chucking everything at it. 

Over Your Shoulder is from 1985, a B-side to Bring On The Dancing Horses, the Bunnymen responding to the new pretenders- the Jesus And Mary Chain- by piling the guitars up and stomping on the fuzz pedal.

Happy Death Men is from their debut album Crocodiles, moody and isolated, more than a little frantic. Anguished. Neurotic even. The band sound as if they're playing under a strobe. 

All That Jazz is also from Crocodiles- the Peel Session version here is from a May 1980 session. Ian's lyrics are funny, genuinely comedic- 'Where the hell have you been? We've been waiting with our best suits on/ Hair slicked back and all that jazz'.

Watch Out Below is an early version of The Yo Yo Man, recorded at a 1983 Peel Session. It shimmers, embers burning, a psychedelic sea shanty that became more overblown on Ocean Rain. The Peel Sessions album, double vinyl, twenty one songs, is an essential companion to the albums they made during the same period. If you haven't got it, you really should. 

Ocean Rain- this alternative version of the 1984 album's final and title track is faster, less hushed and awed. They were right to slow it down but this version is fascinating, Will's guitar riff and Pete's brushed drums rattling away as Ian finesses his lyrical theme for the song and the record, 'screaming from beneath the waves'.

Turquoise Days is from Heaven Up Here, all of that album's melancholy, drama and dark energy brought together. Ian sets sail under rumbling skies, 'We got a problem/ Come on over', the unease and dread of 1981- Cold War paranoia, Ian Curtis' death, Thatcher's managed decline of Liverpool, inner city riots- a flickering backdrop. On the album's cover the four Bunnymen stand on the beach at Porthcawl, staring out to see beneath heavy clouds, silhouetted on the sands. 

Easier Said Than Done You Said

In February 1983 Echo And The Bnnnymen released their third album, Porcupine, a record once again graced with a beautifully shot sleeve, the four band members walking on a glacier in Iceland (something they later said was incredibly dangerous, one false step and death by falling down an icy ravine awaited them). There are Echo And The Bunnymen fans who swear by Porcupine, the pinnacle of the post- punk Bunnyworld but for me it is a flawed and sometimes quite difficult album- despite this it also has at least two of their greatest moments. 

Everyone involved in making it says it wasn't a happy experience. The four members were either arguing or not speaking to each other. Ian still had superstardom in his sights and at rehearsal sessions said as much even though they were clearly struggling to come up with new material. Les was unhappy with the music industry. Pete was producing The Wild Swans. Will was making an instrumental solo album. They used a Peel Session to debut and record some new songs including what would become The Back Of Love and Higher Hell, both with different earlier names. In an attempt to get their juices flowing and get them talking to each other Bill Drummond booked them a mini- tour of Scotland. They released The Back Of Love as a single in May 1982, their first top twenty hit, and then after a summer of gigs including the WOMAD festival they went back to the studio to continue recording the album. Pete de Freitas said this was still a horrible time, the opposite of the sessions for Heaven Up Here where everything flowed and they were confident and on the rise. He said that on Porcupine the songs 'had to be dragged out' of them. Then, when it was finished WEA rejected it. Will was mightily pissed off about this but eventually they agreed to go back and do it again. Drummond brought in Shankar to add strings to the songs, such a revelation on The Cutter (another hit). The sleeve, four young men in dark serious early 80s clothing, framed small in the icy landscape hints at the difficulties inside.

Porcupine opens with the two singles, frontloading the album with two of their absolute peaks. The Cutter is tense and dramatic, full of hooks and the kind of sweeping, effortless majesty they had at their best, Ian sounding like the post- punk vocalist, the stuttering he puts into 'm- m- m- m- mustard' becoming a calling card. Shankar's strings give it an Indian feeling and some real menace. Ian drops in some sheer McCulloch brass- 'conquering myself until/ I see another hurdle approaching/ say we can, say we will/ Not just another drop in the ocean'- and the question 'Am I the happy loss?/ will I still recoil?', proper Bunnymen stuff. There's a pause and then we're into the thundering, reckless adventure of The Back Of Love, a song that could define a career and a decade for any band. The drums and bass, produced by Ian Broudie but played with such power by Pete and Les, are phenomenal, continent sized rhythms. Over this Shankar's strings and Will's guitars add the melodies, layers of sound and texture, while Ian sings his heart out. He has described the lyrics on Porcupine as his most personal and that it's an oppressive album for that reason but on The Back Of Love he sounds set free, his voice swooping and diving. 

After that anything would sound flat and the rest of album struggles to live up to the two singles. Too many of the songs are unmemorable and they sound overwrought and overcooked, the life sucked out of them by the process of writing and recording them. That's not to say Porcupine doesn't contain any other Bunnymen moments. Listening to it last week I enjoyed it far more than I had previously. After the dead stop of The Back Of Love Ian opens My White Devil in truly memorable style singing about a 16th century dramatist, 'John Webster was/ one of the best there was/ he was the author of/ two major tragedies/ The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi'. The band rattle in, off kilter percussion and sea shanty vibes. When Porcupine was re- released in 2003 the CD version came with alternate versions of many of the songs from Porcupine including My White Devil, presumably the ones WEA rejected as uncommercial. This take sounds better than the official Porcupine one to me, lighter and less oppressive, more like a step on from the group who made Heaven Up Here. Maybe Will was right. 

My White Devil (Alternate Version)

The Duchess Of Malfi is a revenge tragedy. The Duchess marries beneath her class secretly but for love. Her brothers take revenge but destroy themselves. The White Devil, also set in Italy, satirises the corruption of the Italian court and makes comparisons with the moral and political state of England of the day and the difference between the way people characterise themselves as good or pure ('white') and their reality. 

The rest of Porcupine lacks the same killer drama of the singles. Some of the songs try to reach it- Heads Will Roll, Higher Hell- but it feels like a group at odds with itself and songs that have been sapped. Album closer In Bluer Skies has it through, opening with waves and woodblocks and then Ian, 'I'm counting on your heavy heart/ Could it keep me from falling apart?', another question on a record full of them. Will's ringing guitar part is lovely and an accordion or pump organ joins in and the song, as All I Want on Heaven Up Here did, points a way forward from all of this. The waves return and everything sounds better, a band finding a way to hang it all together. 

In Bluer Skies

Three months later they'd release Never Stop, a 12" post- punk, dance record firing oblique bullets at Margaret Thatcher and her government, the magick and the light rediscovered, the Bunnygod reborn. Lay down thy raincoat and groove.