Zang Tuum Tumb and all that - recent articles

Article: Meeeeeeeiiiiiiaaaaarrrgh yeeeeeaaaaw huh relax ow!

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 21:47:27 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 13 Apr 1985

Meeeeeeeiiiiiiaaaaarrrgh.yeeeeeaaaawhuhrelaxow! Dont do it! Ow! Look, knock It off willya George?

You scratch my back, Paul, and Ill scratch yours.

Rival popstars in brief shock brotherhood pose onstage at the Hammersmith Odeon.

Article: Tuum raider

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:33:18 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 01 May 2010

TUUM RAIDER

Signs and wonders within ZTT Records fabled Lost Archive

IM SITTING IN A CAR PARKED near a Slough office building and I cant believe what Im hearing. Its Frankie Goes To Hollywoods version of Slave To The Rhythm, made - says the cassette box - on 18 July 1984, a full year before the Grace Jones single came out. Frankies recording is not the sinuous Washington go-go track that everyone knows but a stomping, marching thing, an instrumental. This, not Two Tribes, was going to be Frankies second single.

Readers who were teenagers in the 80s will understand why the hairs are standing up on my neck. Others should imagine how theyd feel if Neil Young had recorded Born To Run in 1974, then shelved it without telling anybody. My host Ian Peel had wanted to put Slave To The Rhythm on the new reissue of FGTHs Welcome To The Pleasuredome but ZTT wouldnt let him. Maybe someone thinks it wouldnt do anything for Frankies legend, he told me. We can listen to it in the car. Youll probably never hear it ever again. So we did.

Ive travelled to Slough to visit the archive of Zang Tuum Tumb Records, the combined arts lab, marketing scam and centre of pop excellence that bestrode music in the 1980s like a digital colossus. I am a ZTT fiend the way most WORD readers are Dylan and Beatles nuts. In Trevor Horn, Steve Lipson and The Art Of Noises productions for FGTH, Propaganda and a host of others they gave me the complete pop diet. In Paul Morleys outrageously pretentious and erudite sleeve notes - which treated literature and philosophy the way The Art Of Noise treated raw sound, as a thing to be sampled and used they gave me ideas to steal. Entering this unprepossessing office building I feel like I am walking into the final scene of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. All the hidden treasures of civilisation are sequestered here.

I say archive. What Ian, a writer for Record Collector and DJ and now ZTTs de facto curator, really inherited was a ton of rotting cardboard boxes and a cataloguing nightmare. What he found, though, is dazzling to anyone who loves the work of Trevor Horn and the profligate madness of ZTT. There were eight shelves of Frankie alone, translating to 64 boxes each containing anything from 12 reel-to-reel tapes or up to 50 DATs. Horn and Lipson would work and rework their material endlessly. And the section for Frankies unloved second album Liverpool was even bigger than Pleasuredome.

They did a lot of preparation, says Ian. There was an awful lot of lets do a cover of Anarchy In The UK or Dyou Think Im Sexy and see how it goes. They made an orchestral version of one track, Is Anybody Out There?, and then just shelved it. That was a very ZTT thing to do. Commission an orchestra, just to see what it would sound like, and then never use the results.

In the rats nest of tapes he found oddities like a Frankie voiceover by Joanna Lumley, which the fragrant actress later demanded was never used because it was too rude (it never was), and endless rejected 7-inch edits of The Art Of Noises Moments In Love - one inscribed, I never want to hear this again. Anne Dudley, February 1985.

Theres more. Heres the original Band Aid master just lying in a box (Do They Know Its Christmas? was produced at Trevor Horns Sarm West Studios). Heres a handwritten manuscript of the bassline to Video Killed The Radio Star. Heres the Pet Shop Boys original demo cassette, with the note please return this tape. Ian has found at least three unreleased Art Of Noise albums, one featuring guest vocals from Sarm Wests chef Lucky Gordon, who once had been a pivotal figure in the Profumo affair. And then there were the chunks of Trevor Horns record collection, which contained its own surprises. One was an old folk record - now lost on a shelf somewhere in here which contained an impassioned break-up letter from a young man to his girlfriend. He had written it, then decided not to send it and hidden it inside the LP. The letter began Dear Vashti.

With its antiquated floppies and hard discs the size (and weight) of lorry tyres, this room crystallises a pause between the old world of Take 1 and Take 2 and the future in which everything would be infinitely malleable.

People used to moan about how expensive CDs were to buy, Ian says. But look how expensive they were to make! This was a new way of making records and it cost an absolute bloody fortune. This room is a snapshot in time. He is a ZTT nut like me, and slowly he is giving this great label - which was too clever and too pop to ever be admitted to the rock canon - its due. But was he never tempted to make off with a rare tape or two himself, like those characters who nick a psalter from the British Library?

For a split second it was a test of ones integrity, he admits, ruefully. But I hate that collector-hoarder thing. The real way to do it is to make it all available again. Then everyone gets to share in it.

ANDREW HARRISON

Article: Building the perfect beast

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:32:19 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 01 May 2010

Building The Perfect Beast

Trevor Horns epic pop productions are rooted in an early infatuation with prog rock. In my twenties I took some LSD and listened to music hour after hour. Most of the opinions I hold today were formed then, he tells ANDREW HARRISON

IN TREVOR HORNS SANCTORUM ABOVE Ladbroke Groves Sarm West Studios, in the kitchenette behind the lounge with the over-stuffed sofas and the family pictures and the scented candles, theres a frame letter on the wall. It is dated 1983.

Dear Sir, it reads, We strongly object to receiving filth through the post. If there is anything else of the nature of Frankie Goes To Hollywood in the pipeline then please cross this shop off your mailing list. From A To Z Records, Worthing, Sussex.

Sharing the frame is the 7-inch cover of Relax. Yvonne Gilberts infamous illustration of the muscular gimp in leather undies and a spike heeled dollybird wearing no drawers at all is now bleached and yellowing with age. Trevor Horn, 61 this year, regards it with a mixture of nostalgia and disbelief, as if considering it anew. We have so many complaints, so many complaints he mutters. Complaints about the original 12-inch Sex Mix of Relax, for instance, in which producer Horn and his studio colleagues celebrated finally cracking this notorious difficult recording by getting stoned and making a completely obscene 16-minute version full of squelches and moans, with none of the original song on it at all. We had angry letters from gay clubs, he says. You think this is a joke? You think this is what were about? I probably did go too far on that one. Then he brightens. Worth a lot of money now, though. George Michael brought the last one. Got it in a shop in Borehamwood.

Music fans all grow up with fantasy band line-ups in their heads. I only ever had a fantasy producer in mine. From The Buggles and ABC through the three great bands on his label Zang Tuum Tumb Frankie, The Art Of Noise and Propaganda Trevor Horn raised the bar of what pop could do so high that we could barely see it. He made me listen to Yes (Owner Of A Lonely Heart TUNE) and with the Malcolm McLaren album Duck Rock he showed me that world music was not just for geography teachers but was, in fact, other peoples pop music. I realised years later that Horns signature sound cosmic and grand but relentlessly danceable came from his love of the most taboo music of the 1980s, prog rock. I wanted Trevor Horn to produce everything, preferably as a 14-minute-long disco mix.

His first truly massive hit was Video Killed The Radio Star; among his most recent releases is the Robbie Williams album Reality Killed The Video Star. Horns story stretches from the end of the Top Rank showband era into the digital present and beyond. It seems a good time to talk to him, not just because of the indelible mark that Horn has made on pop music but because of the great affection in which he is help too.

The latter came to the fore in 2006 after the tragic accident that befell Jill Sinclair, Trevors wife since 1980 and his formidable business partner. Their son was practising with an air gun and accidentally hit his mother in the neck, piercing an artery. The resulting blood loss put her in a coma. Trevor does not like to talk about his wife in interviews but confirms that its unlikely that she will make any significant recovery. It would be a bitterly cruel blow even if Jill Sinclair had not been, to a large extent, the unstoppable business drive behind Trevors artistic talent. Its funny, he says after thinking for a few moments. I really cried when I heard about Roy, from Siegfried & Roy, being attacked by their tiger. Hes in the same situation. Basically youre in a coma for the rest of your life. I think the last thing he said was, Dont shoot the tiger. Its not the tigers fault. He pauses. What an amazing thing to say.

TREVOR HORN WAS BORN IN DURHAM AND HIS voice retains a slight Geordie lilt, mellowed with a few transatlantic notes. He knows more about music than God does and is capable of going into impassioned digressions about it. For instance: the term classical is nonsense because all that music was written for the moment, as jigs and reels for instant consumption; the orchestra is the result of the mass-production of instruments that could stay in tune and is therefore directly related to Fairlight and Roland; and a medieval cathedral is, among other things, a fantastic reverb unit. He is surprisingly defensive about his beloved prog.

What it all comes down to, he says eventually, is that when I was in my twenties I took some LSD and all I did was listen to music for hour after hour. Most of the opinions that I still hold today were formed then. My paradigm for a record was always putting on a pair of headphones and getting lost in it; the record taking you on a journey. All the records I liked did that. I liked progressive music because progressive means you havent given up.

Lets face it, most musical forms have an inspired creator that starts them off and then they settle into in the style of. The only form of music that isnt conservative is pop music. Pop is like hamburgers. It takes in a bit of everything around it. Its whatever you can get normal people to buy. How many modern symphonies do you ever listen to? We listen to Tchaikovksy, Mozart or Debussy, and its wonderful but its been done, almost to perfection. Pops not like that. Pop changes.

Trevor Horn hated music at school. But when he turned eight everyone was given a recorder and made to learn it. Trevor had never imagined he might enjoy music before. His father, an engineer by day, played double bass five nights a week in a semi-pro dance outfit called The Joe Clark Band - this was where he met Trevors mother - and he taught Trevor how to play Way Down Upon The Swanee River on the double bass. Then Trevor began to work out the bass for himself. By the age of 12 he was deputising for his father if Horn Senior arrived late for a gig. The band would tolerate me, he says. This was in 1962, just as The Beatles were about to happen. Then I became a classic Beatles casualty.

I loved records, and I was interested in how things sounded. I was fascinated by pictures in the Melody Maker of people wearing headphones in recording studios. I dreamed of wearing them myself. It looked like the most exciting thing that anyone could ever do. And even when I was 14 I could tell there was a difference between The Beatles when they played on Sunday Night At The London Palladium and the records. Why did they sound so different? The Beatles sounded kind of rough when they were live. I could tell they were a little out of tune. The records were so much better and I was always fascinated by those differences early on.

He became a professional musician the day he got fired from his last proper job, as a progress chaser in a plastic bag factory. Aged 18 he went from an office job to working in a Top Rank ballroom six nights a week on three times as much money. It was fantastic, he says, still energised. Back then, if someone was a good reader, wed say he could read fly shit off a lampshade. I couldnt quite do that but I wasnt a bad bass player. That was how I earned a living.

Years as a jobbing musician ensued. He played in British disco star Tina Charles band, where he met future Buggles partner Geoff Downes and also became Tinas boyfriend. He built a studio of his own in Leicester while playing seven nights a week in Baileys club in the city to pay the rent. But work was hard to come by. He and his colleagues would tinker with local artists songs and once made a record for Leicester City FC. At one session, a keyboard player friend called Bill Coleman told him, Trevor, what youre doing is called being a record producer.

It was one of those great moments when I thought, Obvious thats what I do, says Trevor. I love it so much, it must be my thing. Bill told me Id have to give up the bass, and he was dead right. It would be six years before Horn got a hit, a pop-reggae-funk single by Dan-I called Monkey Chop that got to number 17 in 1979.

His next hit would be of a different order altogether. It was Trevors friend and writing partner Bruce Woolley who came up with the line I heard you on the wireless back in 52. The two would often talk about the radio shows of their childhoods - The Clitheroe Kid, Educating Archie, Workers Playtime - and they were reading a lot of JG Ballard too. Horn, Woolley and Geoff Downes began to imagine a state-of-the-art pop group with a nostalgic streak. The name would be a corruption of The Beatles. They thought of issuing badges that said I passed on The Buggles.

I was a misfit at the time, says Trevor. My stuff just sounded weird. I couldnt make records like Elton John and I hated punk - I thought they were all shit musicians, although I grew to understand it in retrospect. I envied those guys who played with Elton John. They seemed so unassailable. What am I going to ever do thats going to get close to that? I dont have a great feel or a great blues voice. Then I heard Kraftwerks The Man Machine and I thought, thats it! A mechanised rhythm section, a band where youre never old-fashioned, where you dont have to emote. It sounded so new and exciting, so full of potential.

Trevor found himself supplying the second line, lying awake intently tuning in on you, and Video Killed The Radio Star was completed in an afternoon. Woolley had signed another deal, so it fell to Trevor to sing the song, and Bruce suggested he treat his voice to sound like it was coming out of a radio. Sometimes when you start something you get an idea pretty quickly that its going to work, Trevor recalls. There was a moment when Geoffrey played a little French horn thing on the synth and I just knew it was the best thing Id ever done, that it was going to be big. Video Killed The Radio Star transformed Horn from struggling producer to number-one star in 16 countries, and from penury to sudden wealth. It changed my life completely, he says.

He celebrated with a new pair of glasses - the giant round ones that became a trademark. He pinched the idea from Elvis Costello and collected them from an opticians on Sloane Square on the way to a Buggles gig. When he came out wearing them Geoff Downes was amazed. Was Trevor really going to wear them? Yes, he replied solemnly. Its a new era. Im a Buggle now.

At this point the story takes a sudden lurch sideways as Horn and Downes, having finally achieved pop stardom, opt to join Yes instead. This is akin to The Verve deciding they need some fresh blood today, and proceeding to draft in Calvin Harris and Dizzee Rascal.

That was kind of an insane thing to do, Trevor admits. Id never been up close to a massive rock band before. Id been playing music since I was 11 but when we were invited into rehearsals with them, it was an eye-opener. They were something else. Theyd be playing together and it would be sort of OK, and then somebody would wake up and theyd go into this other mode. Id never heard anything like it. They were really playing, on some level that I dont think even they understood.

Long-time Yes fans, he and Downes gradually understood that they were invited not as guests but as replacements for Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson. For years afterwards Horn had a recurring nightmare that he was in a limo on the way to Madison Square Garden with Yess Chris Squire telling him they were going to play Parallels that night, over Trevors protests that he couldnt sing it. He made the Drama album with Yes and left afterwards, returning to produce 90125 and Owner Of A Lonely Heart years later. Geoff Downes decided to stay.

And quite a few people thought that that was the end of it for me, says Horn. But I thought, Well at least my wife can manage me now. No more conflict of interest. Jill Sinclairs first piece of advice: stop trying to be an artist and concentrate on producing. If youre an artist youll always be second division. But if youre a producer youll become the best in the world.

THERES A WIDELY HELD belief, fostered by stories about Frankie, that the Horn Method entails preventing a band from playing on their own records. This gets a laugh from Trevor, who explains that sometimes its more about dismantling the group and their music to examine every little piece, and then building it up again. Its first true application, he says, was ABCs spectacular Lexicon Of Love in 1982, where a promising Brit-funk band were transformed by work and will into a paragon of pop music.

They were very ambitious, he says. Wed recorded one full-band version of Poison Arrow and I asked Martin Fry, Is this what you had in mind or do you want it better than this? He said, We want it as good as it can possibly be. We want to compete with the Americans. So I told them that if thats what they wanted, we were going to have to start again. Horn reprogrammed all the music into sequencers and the band played along until they were metronomically sharp. Some members could do it and others could not. I did dismantle the band a bit, and I still regret it because I paid a high price for it. I got ABC to change bass players. They had the English band syndrome: one of the guys isnt as good as all the others. I guess you could say that lost me the chance of ever producing U2. Blackwell wanted me to do it but they were scared that I would split the band.

The Lexicon Of Love and Malcolm McLarens concurrent world tour of pop Duck Rock also brought into the picture the backroom musicians who would define much of Horns future - string arranger Anne Dudley, engineer-musician Gary Langan and JJ Jeczalik, Geoff Downes former roadie who became the high priest of mysterious new instrument the Fairlight. Byproducts of their experimentation with the Fairlight became the music of The Art Of Noise. JJ made a loop from Alan Whites drums and that became Beat Box - thus it was that the archetypal pounding hip hop beat of the synthetic 80s came from Yess drummer. Meanwhile, Horn and Jill bought Islands Basing Street Studios from Chris Blackwell in a deal that also gave them a record label to be distributed through Island. They called the studio Sarm West.

Horns naive idea was that his record company could nurture artists more closely than a major label. I had ridiculous ideas of what a record label should be, he says. I thought it would be ajoyous creative commune - and of course its not. He did, however, manage to push the labels look-and-feel to the ultimate by recruiting NME writer Paul Morley to control its aesthetic. They christened it Zang Tuum Tumb, borrowing the title from a Futurist poem and transforming it into the classic capitalist three-letter initials, ZTT. Morley had written the worst hatchet job anyone could ever do on The Buggles but subsequently fell in love with Dollar and ABC.

He interviewed me and part of it ended up in Pseuds Corner in Private Eye, says Horn. Quite an achievement, really. He made me seem more erudite than I was. I thought, This is what writers do. They romanticise what they see. The more I thought about the label the more I wanted Morley to design it. He did, and we had an incredible couple of years.

Apart from an Art Of Noise 12-inch, ZTTs first signing was a Liverpool band Horn had seen on C4s The Tube. I thought the drummer was interesting, with his little Hitler moustache and fuzzy hair, and the beat - boof! boof! - it was a shagging beat. I heard them again on Kid Jensen and told my wife that it didnt matter what it took, we were going to sign them. Thats when we found out that everybody else had turned them down anyway.

With its eventual court case, the story of Frankie is often taken as a parable of what onerous contracts can do to a band. Trevor thinks this reading is unfair on him. He had, after all, signed them on the strength of a demo only to find that gifted guitarist Jed OToole had been replaced by Brian Nasher Nash, a good-looking kid, very important to the psychological make-up of Frankie, but he couldnt play guitar very well. What am I supposed to do?

The making of Relax has gone down in the annals of tortuous recording. The song went through four discrete versions before it became the monster that ate 1984. In the first version Horn tried to record it as the band played it live. It was pretty awful, he says, because Nasher couldnt really play. For the second attempt Horn assembled a group of session players, including Ian Durys band The Blockheads, which was OK but kind of tame. The third attempt at Relax took weeks and led Horn into misery, but an arrangement for Frankies version of Ferry Cross The Mersey was going much better. Horn and keyboard player Andy Richards had stumbled on a low-end pumping rhythm on the Fairlight. And then a bunch of things all happened at the same time.

A friend had given Horn a Nepalese Temple Ball- a lump of dope - which he smoked, getting quite a bit further out than I usually get and experiencing a moment of clarity. Yes, the third version of Relax was rubbish, but he had quality musicians with him. The band had gone home to Liverpool. They might as well have another go, and they might as well base it around that pelvic-thrust rhythm that was sitting on the Fairlight. In his enhanced state Horn perceived a counter-rhythm in the song that conjured up a traditional English country dance - in amongst the massive pop orgy, a group of Morris dancers. Andy Richardson was an absolute nut with the Jupiter 8. Incredible noises. I told him I wanted a massive orgasm on there and Andy gave us those noises. The irony is that theres nothing on there that The Lads couldnt play. Its sad that they werent there to play it themselves but thats the way it goes sometimes.

In the end they completed Relax in a single take. At llpm Holly Johnson arrived at the studio. Its changed, Trevor told him. How much? Completely. Oh no. Not again.

The hit version of Relax ignited ZTTs imperial period, when it seemed they could do no wrong. Quincy Jones called Horn asking to buy the album by their third key signing, the German industrial pop band Propaganda, for America. He was very surprised that I knew all his old stuff like Smackwater Jack. I was on the phone with him for an hour. I wanted to know what it was like to work with Sinatra. And if you listen to Michael Jackson around that time, 85-86, he started to sound a lot like Propaganda Even the faceless Art Of Noise began to have hits. The label seemed to have discovered a foolproof formula for producing perfect pop music.

They had, for instance, stumbled upon the idea of perpetually remixing a current release to keep it selling, an idea they built into their plan for Frankies second single Two Tribes. The initial 12-inch featured Patrick Allen, unmistakable voice of a thousand Public Information Films, reading from the governments Protect And Survive films and from a record that radio stations were supposed to play in the event of a nuclear attack. When Allen read the script he immediately asked, Where did you get this? Youre not supposed to have this. He had been required to sign the Official Secrets Act when he recorded the original. Horn and Morley were crestfallen. Did that mean he wouldnt record the Frankie voiceover? Allen thought for a moment and then said, No, sod it, and began the recording. Finally Morley suggested that Allen speak the words, Mine is the last voice that you will ever hear.

And when he did it, says Horn, you could see that it really affected him. It was chilling, even to him. This is how summer 1984 saw Britains radios and dancefloor fill with messages about the end of the world.

INEVITABLY ZTT COULDNT LAST. THE BANDS WERE on lousy deals, says Horn, because ZTT itself was on a lousy deal. We were earning half of what a record label ought to be on, he says. I know Id be able to handle the personalities better now. With 30 years of experience. I had no idea how awful it was going to get.

Frankie fell out and split in early 1987. ZTT tried to hold Holly Johnson to a solo contract but lost an embarrassing court case for restraint of trade. In hindsight, says Horn diplomatically, we should have probably let him go. Meanwhile The Art Of Noise were increasingly annoyed by Morleys conceptual antics and open to voices that told them they were a hit band who ought to have been making more money. Propaganda wanted a better deal too and found one, with Virgin, but their next album was an insipid failure compared to their ZTT album A Secret Wish. ZTT would sign other successful acts (Seal, 808 State) but their infallible years were behind them.

There was also a sense that times were changing around Horn in the late 1980s. The home recording and DIY ethics of the Summer of Love were in, grandeur and scope were out. Horn admits that he resented house music somewhat. It might have been because I got tired of people criticising me because my records sounded good, he says. I thought Relax sounded trashy but I realised afterwards that what I was hearing was a modern record, for the first time. It didnt have any fidelity. It was samples and ratty little guitar sounds. That was the future. But rave music probably annoyed me more in the 90s. By the end of the 80s I was in America. I was a bit tired of here. In LA there was a nice feeling of being a small fish in a big pond.

The work hes done since is just as successful but inevitably less controversial - Seal, Charlotte Church, Paul McCartney, the Pet Shop Boys best album for a decade, Fundamental, and, uncharacteristically, Belle & Sebastian, the indie-est band on earth, whom Horn says needed very very little production, just a good engineer and someone to tell them when a take is a good one. But do we need record producers in an era when studios themselves are disappearing?

Youll always need record producers, he says calmly. If youre a young artist you learn how to entertain in the live context, but when you come in here its intimidating. The record you make is going to determine your career. Im sure there were a lot of bands around in the 70s who could play as well as The Eagles, but The Eagles were the ones who made great records. A recording studio is a strange place, as much psychologically as technically, and if you come in without the right sort of help you can get it wrong - possibly in some way you never even dreamt of.

Sometimes, says Trevor Horn, All people need from a record producer is a voice to say, Thats great, its finished. Youre done.

The unreleased second Buggies album ADVENTURES IN MODERN RECORDING and Frankie Goes To Hollywoods WELCOME TO THE PLEASUREDOME are both out now as Deluxe Edition CDs

Article: The ZTT master plan for world domination

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:31:40 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 09 Mar 1985

THE ZTT MASTER PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION

Zang Tuum Tumb released their first record barely 18 months ago. Since then, with Frankie and now Art Of Noise, theyve achieved a success and a notoriety thats left all the other companies standing.

But the team of Paul Morley, Trevor Horn and Jill Sinclair arent resting on their laurels. Theyve got some new entertainers and some new schemes to launch on an unsuspecting public.

As Paul says: Frankie were just the start. Theres a lot more going to happen.

Exactly what is going to happen? Paul Morley fills in the details as he guides us through the next three months of ZTT

By Stuart Husband

MARCH

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD

Welcome To The Pleasuredome single released March, as a three-track seven-inch featuring Happy High and Get It On, and a four-track 12-inch with Relax International. UK tour March/April, to be followed by Europe and a massive 40-date jaunt round the United States.

Paul: This single will finish off an era of Frankie - it begins the second phase. We went up to BANG with the LP. Now were in post-BANG, which were going to call the Escape Act.

Frankie are now a mainstream pop act, up there with Duran and Spandau, and were going to be playing around with the position that they find themselves in. Its not that theyre going to be controversial in the way they were when they started - therell just be a certain irony in their position.

After this single and the tour, the Pleasuredome imagery will be finished.

The band are preparing a lot of new, different-sounding material, which wont be what people expect of them. We wont be releasing that until the end of the year.

Thats what the Escape Act means - a starting from scratch, a new beginning in a way.

Frankie will be a very different animal by the end of the year - itll be intriguing to see what happens.

Visually theyll be developing the polo player haute couture image they unveiled on tour in America.

ANNE PIGALLE

French solo singer-single Hey Stranger released middle of March, LP Everything Could Be So Perfect following in April.

Paul: Everyone knows that theres a big vacuum in pop at the moment - Frankie wasnt enough on its own to fill it. Pop has become completely boring, completely bland and full of glitter and glamour.

Annes single is very lush, very well performed and produced (by Luis Jardin), but its still quite raw. She sings in a French accent, about herself, about being a stranger in a strange country - that in itself is unique.

Annes music is very much about doubt and uncertainty. Her musics highly melodic, idiosyncratic, abrasive and disturbing thats unusual for pop singers.

Shes not like Sade of Alf, who are singing conveyor belt songs full of conveyor belt images. Theres nothing about her that is controllable. So itll be interesting.

ART OF NOISE

Moments In Love, follow-up to Close (To The Edit), released end of March.

Paul: Art Of Noise were concerned with their American success, in a way that we dont like any of our entertainers to be cornered - people thought they were a hip-hop group.

So Moments In Love is the obvious follow-up, cos its completely different. It demonstrates the versatility of Art Of Noise - theyre an adventure.

Everything can be involved in Art Of Noise - thats why we have the two masks, the happy and the sad. The silly and the serious.

Theres only been a small indication of what they can do and will do, so far. Art Of Noise are intelligent musicians that can really play framed within a kind of comment on things as they are, or as theyre not.

ANDREW POPPY

Composer of modern classical music: LP The Beating Of Wings released end of March.

Paul: I think Andrew is a maker of supremely beautiful music. Its reflective and dramatic.

Hes the perfect exponent of that moment where the avant-garde beats up into New York dance.

Hes one of those isolated individuals that Ive always felt rock music should champion, like Neil Young or Leonard Cohen.

Its been a difficult project for ZTT, but very worthwhile, and now its all down to how people want their music - whether theyll rise to the occasion.

APRIL

PROPAGANDA

German pop group who had a hit with debut single Dr Mabuse last year. Follow-up P-Machinery and LP A Secret Wish released in April.

Paul: Propaganda are how I always imagined Eurythmics, Thompson Twins, groups like that, would sound full of ideas and genuinely full of new ways of looking at pop music. Those other groups always disappointed so much when you realised there were no twists to the cliches, no upsetting of the predictable.

Propagandas LP will be sophisticated, expensive, high-powered and highly-charged. It comments on the obvious things of the twentieth century, like machinery, danger, love and uncertainty in a way that really makes you feel youve been somewhere.

That classic ZTT feel!

SUDDENLY THERE CAME A BANG

A book on Frankie Goes To Hollywood released on ZTT etc. in April.

Paul: This will be the first release on ZTT etc., a new company which will deal with projects that cant find a place within ZTT itself. Itll deal in print, film, cloth and opinion.

This book, detailing a year in the life of Frankie - all the truth, lies, fact and fiction - was due to come out in February. But its been held up because the printers have refused to work on it, because of the content and the picture on the cover. (The animals cartoon which appears on the back of the LP cover, minus the figleaves.)

Thats a bit of a shame, cos the whole point of our first release was to show up all those other crappy rock books that people like Omnibus publish.

Our basic point was that peoples lives were being restricted by the poverty of imagination, so we put together this rich and fulfilling work, and its been pulled back by the kind of abstract power that always stops young people getting the best out of life.

MAY

INSTINCT

A hot pop combo containing former Pigbag members Angela Jaeger, Simon Underwood and James Johnson - single Sleepwalking released early May.

Paul: Angelas voice is brilliant, and Simon and James both have a very clear-eyed view of what they want to do. It ties up considerably with ZTT. Theyre remarkable and special. They make a particularly refreshing pop music.

INSIGNIFICANCE

Soundtrack to the new Nic Roeg film, released end of May on ZTT etc.

Paul: The soundtrack features jazz pianist Gil Evans, Stanley Myers who wrote the Dear Hunter theme, Glenn Gregory from Heaven 17 duetting with Claudia from Propaganda, and Roy Orbison. A single by Orbison, Wild Hearts, will be out on the Action Series at the end of March!

FOOTNOTE

No. 1: What do you want ZTT to mean to people by the end of the year?

Paul: I hope a lot more people will have noticed the detail, the sublety what was involved, beneath the sheer accessibility of the surface. I hope theyll have realised that we were trying to say that there was more available to them in their entertainment and their hopes and dreams.

Article: In the pleasuredome

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:30:07 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 24 Nov 1984

IN THE PLEASUREDOME

NO.1 GOES INSIDE THE WORLD OF ZTT.

From one small building in West London the recording industry is being taken by storm. Zang Tum Tumb have only released seven records, but their impact has been considerable. Frankie Goes To Hollywoods first LP Welcome To The Pleasuredome sold over a million copies before it was released. Their two singles Relax and Two Tribes not only dominated the charts in terms of sales - each selling over a million - but in spirit, with Frankie becoming a national byword for outrage and excitement. ZTTs German group Propaganda had a massive top ten hit in their native country with the mighty Dr Mabuse, while in America the collection of ZTT musicians who are Art Of Noise topped the dance charts, beating the Americans at their own game.

But despite its huge success ZTT is still a small concern, operating out of Sarm studios in West London. Paul Bursche and Mike Prior paid a flying visit to answer the following questions. What is ZTT? Who are the Art Of Noise? And why have the lips of Propagandas singer Claudia got their own ZTT catalogue number? Read on.

1 Sarm West Studios. The most sought after studio in Europe, if not the world. Trevor Horn and Jill Sinclair leased the building from Island Records and built their own studio downstairs. The building now continues an old pop tradition (with groups like Roxy Music having recorded here in the 70s) with most of Britains top groups stopping by at some time. Culture Club, Wham! and Spandau Ballet have all recorded here recently, and the day we visit Stevie Wonder and Nick Heyward are hard at work. Sarm Studios and the ZTT Offices over it are widely regarded as the home of Frankie.

2 The offices of ZTT. The famous blue-spotted wall decor (which also appears on record labels) has become ZTTs trademark. Here pop entrepeneur Paul Morley and his team cook up the schemes and propaganda for all the ZTT groups.

3 Probably the most valuable cupboard in the world. It contains the various master tapes for all the mixes, re-mixes and re-re-mixes for ZTT records. To date they have only released seven records, but that cupboard probably contains the equivalent number of tapes that a major company would release in a year!

4 Just a few of the gold and platinum discs received for Relax and Two Tribes. ZTT now have so many that theyve resorted to giving them away to visitors. Wonder what Frankie say about that

5 A memento that is treasured by the ZTT staff their very first letter of complaint about Relax. It arrived when the single was at No. 70 in the charts, and according to Paul Morley was the first indication that wed succeeded.

6 One of ZTTs most valuable assets, Holly Johnson and his briefcase, beret and sunglasses bought in Harrods.

7 F.G.T.H. Frog goes to Holly. The Frankie boys receive scores of gifts every week, many of which decorate the ZTT offices.

8 This curious souvenir is from a German TV show called Formula Einz. Everytime a group gets a No. 1 in the German charts the programme gives them a piece of a car. Frankie are hoping to have enough No.1s to go for a ride one day!

9 The lips of Claudia Bruecken, singer of Propaganda. ZTT are bringing out a catalogue listing all their products. Many ZTT t-shirts, records and videos have been assigned a catalogue number, as have a number of more unlikely items -like Claudias lips.

10 The mysterious Art Of Noise themselves. From left to right, producer Trevor Horn, plus Anne Dudley, Gary and JJ. Lurking somewhere behind them is Paul Morley. The Art Of Noise havent come out in the open like most groups. They started off as purely a studio band for the Art Of Noise members to have fun. A spokesman for the group reports that they will play live one day, when were big enough to play Wembley.

11 The three leading lights of ZTT. Paul Morley is represented by The Theatre Of The Absurd, which many would say was an apt description of his old career in journalism. ZTT is his brainchild.

12 Trevor Horn, represented by the Horn Productions logo. His legs being too short for a successful pop career with Buggles, Trevor has found acclaim as a producer with groups like ABC, Yes, Journey, and of course Frankie. The sound of ZTT.

13 Jill Sinclair, represented by her daughter Alexandras paintings. Slick businesswoman she may be, but the other side of Jill is that of Trevor Horns wife and the mother of two children. The sense of ZTT.

14 Is there any?

Article: The Art Of Noise are currently in the studio finishing off...

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:28:58 GMT +1

First published: ?

RECORD NEWS

THE ART OF NOISE are currently in the studio finishing off a follow-up to Close (To The Edit). The new single, Moments In Love, should be out shortly. In the meantime a cassette, That Was Close, is out this week from ZTT. It tells the story of Close (To The Edit).

Other ZTT news: Propaganda have just finished their first LP, and it includes a new version of their hit, Dr Mabuse. The album, A Secret Wish, also features The Last Word, The Murder Of Love, Dream Within A Dream, Josef Ks Sorry For Laughing and the groups next single, P-Machinery.

New signings on ZTT include Andrew Poppy, Anne Pigalle and Instinct. Vinyl offerings from all these are on the way.

Article: Zang Tumb Tuum have already announced the release...

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:03:49 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 30 Mar 1985

ZANG TUMB TUUM have already announced the release of the fourth Frankie Goes To Hollywood single, which is Welcome To The Pleasure Dome and out this week - and incidentally, a cassette version will be available from 1 April. Now comes news of three more ZTT singles Anne Pigalle debuts this weekend with He Stranger, as the first in the labels Certain Series, and shell have an album out in May. The Art Of Noise follow their recent hit Close (To The Edit) on 1 April with Moments In Love/BeatBox, with the 12-inch containing an extended version of the A-side and the bonus track Love Beat. And Propaganda return on 15 April with their second single Duel/Jewel (Rough Cut) in 7 and 12 forms, with their LP A Secret Wish scheduled for May.

Article: Sarm West: action around the clock

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:02:51 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 17 Sep 1983

STUDIO SCENE

Sarm West: action around the clock

WHILE MOST of Sarm West continues to look as though a very chic and expensive bomb has hit it, during the ambitious rebuilding programme for what was Islands Basing Street Studios, the basement Studio Two is complete - and has been booked round the clock since mid-July.

MD Jill Sinclair promises that the same will be the case when Studio One opens this month. Therell be no down time here, she says, because whenever its not booked it will be used by Trevor or by ZTT though thats likely to be at some ungodly hour like 3 am.

Trevor is of course Trevor Horn, co-director of Sarm West, and ZTT is his label, licensed to Island.

The remaking of Basing Street has included, among other major works, replacement of the entire air conditioning system. There are now three separate new systems in each studio one each for the studio, control and machine rooms.

These machine rooms are spacious alcoves beside, but not part of, the control rooms. They house the SSL computers and the tape machines. When their glass doors are closed they are acoustically isolated.

Sarm West has gone for SSLs in both main studios (a considerable favour by Blackwell enabling them to jump the queue and get a short delivery time on the second, having originally only ordered one).

Studio Two has a 4000E, and in anticipation of a spread of work which will involve vision as well as sound, Studio One has been equipped with a 6000E. Studio One has been totally transformed; the old control room has been walled off to create a new, small studio for Horns electronic keyboards, Fairlight computer etc. Ideal for a solo artist or a group of two or three to work in. It will have good budget priced desk; it will be available for hire with or without the use of the instruments. It will obviously be a very good room in which Horn can demo, and ZTT projects such as the Theory of Noises album on which he and Fairlight programmer J.J. will collaborate - can be worked on.

The other side of the new wall Sean Davis entirely new acoustic design has been executed, and the wood cladding and fabric covered panels will be the special shade of Sarm blue which has been used everywhere in the building.

The control room is now at the opposite end of the room, totally isolated in a box-with-a-box construction. The ceiling remains the original very high one (the building was previously a church, so there were generous vertical dimensions) but a lighting system by Concord will have overhead lights in tracks at only about a metre above control room window level.

The ceiling will be acoustically obscured by dark blue mushrooms which should be barely visible, and a variable will be introduced by using electrically operated curtains.

Article: ZTT top 10

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:00:39 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 17 Aug 1985

ZTT
10

1 DR MABUSE Propaganda (12)

2 MOMENTS IN LOVE Art Of Noise. (LP version)

3 INTO BATTLE Art Of Noise (mini-LP)

4 BEAT BOX Art Of Noise (7, 12, cassette, CD, free hanky, etc)

5 TWO TRIBES Frankie Goes To Hollywood (as above)

6 DREAM WITHIN A DREAM Propaganda (LP cut)

7 CLOSE TO THE EDIT Art Of Noise (7)

8 DUEL/JEWEL Propaganda (12)

9 BORN TO RUN FrankieGoes To Hollywood (LP cut)

10 HAVE A DRINK ON ME, MAT Paul Morley (unreleased party tape)

This chart will be remixed for next weeks issue

Article: More than music

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:57:58 GMT +1

First published: Tue, 01 Jun 2010

MORE THAN MUSIC

Trevor Horn won this years PRS for Music Outstanding Contribution to British Music Award at the Ivors. Paul Morley charts the long and extraordinarily varied career of the man for whom the term record producer was invented.

I FIRST INTERVIEWED TREVOR HORN for the NME in 1979 when he was a Buggle topping the charts with Video Killed The Radio Star, a jolly retro-futurist novelty song that a couple of years later was to make history as the song that launched MTV. With full self-righteous post-punk NME disdain, I resisted the groups shiny plastic delights and Trevors bulging Dayglo goggles and issued a withering condemnation.

The next time I interviewed Trevor, hed become the record producer responsible for increasingly dazzling and ambitious music by soft pop dollies Dollar, Sheffield pop sensualists ABC and pop revolutionary Malcom McLaren. This time I was a fan, and part of our discussion about the function and purpose of the record producer, coming after Nelson Riddle, George Martin, Tom Wilson and Giorgio Moroder, made it into Private Eyes Pseuds Corner. One of my favourite achievements to this day, says Trevor.

The Buggles was the latest in a series of stages the then 30-year old Horn had gone through having decided he wanted to become a record producer. He had no idea how you became one, or even what one was, but was fascinated with how and why records sounded the way they did.

I fell in love with the control room in a studio as soon as I saw one, he says. In the beginning I was just fascinated with the idea of making records, learning how to play the recording studio as an instrument. New technology was arriving all the time, studios were rapidly becoming more sophisticated, and I was dead jammy to be there when all that change was happening.

During the 70s, as a hard working bassist in dance bands and musical director for perky UK disco queen Tina Charles, Horn slowly built up the peculiar, abstract qualifications that helped him become a record producer. They included a practical understanding of rapidly developing recording technology, and how it connected with creativity, a pragmatic appreciation of the messy artistic temperament, an analytical approach to songwriting, the ability to boss musicians around, immense, almost surreal patience, and an uncompromising belief in the constantly mutating attractions of the pop song. I just love the idea that with the pop song you reach all over the world and make something that gets into peoples lives.

After interview number two, Horn invited me to work with him and his manager/wife Jill Sinclair at his new label, which I called Zang Tummn Tumb (ZTT). I named and branded his new group Art of Noise.

ZTT and Art of Noises opening record Into Battle was like Duck Rock 2 - a bitty, beaty pioneering example of the brand new technique of sampling sounds, found and recorded, to make new pieces of music, sort of cubist songs, impressions of mood and emotion.

I didnt want to create any kind of rock feel for my music, explains Horn. It wasnt something I had or was interested in. The robotic thing in electronic music appealed to me because you could make the rhythm sound perfect and in a rock sense a bit rigid, but there could be no argument - that was the intention. I wasnt interested in traditional human feel. I wanted perfection.

The second ZTT record was Trevors horniest ever record - Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood - which, one way or another, became very well known, bursting all over the 80s.

By 1985, Horns perfectionist technique for creating extravagant, endlessly remixable dance pop that blended technological precision with human inspiration and intense musicianship culminated in Grace Jones spectacularly ethereal electro-ode to self-confidence, Slave To the Rhythm. It was his finest assembly of electric moments, and one of pops all time finest moments.

By the end of the 1980s, Horn had laid claim to five dance producer of the year awards. I remember accepting the last one and saying that the next hot producers were going to be DJs, he says. Live music wasnt doing so well, those early 80s groups were not so good live, and just playing your favourite music for people, selecting the best bits, putting them all together, and playing over the top, it was a form of production that was clearly going to evolve. What we did with Relax and Two Tribes [Frankie Goes To Hollywood] on the long versions was part of that new way of combining rhythm, mood and electronics and elongating whole sections. I was an old stoner, so the E thing never convinced me, that starting somewhere, going somewhere else for a bit, and then just stopping in the middle of nowhere.

ZTT never quite fulfilled early potential, but there was Seal in the 90s, and for Horn a little echo of Frankie fuss in 2002 with lippy Russian girl duo Tatu.

Never liking to settle down into one style of music though, Horn has also produced Godley and Creme, Pet Shop Boys, Rod Stewart, Cher, Belle and Sebastian, Tina Turner and, recently, Kid Harpoon and Robbie Williams.

Robbies latest album is of course Reality Killed the Video Star. When he told me, I was a bit shocked, says Horn. I immediately said Youd better tell people thats not my idea! I didnt want anyone to think Id bullied him into it. He was very determined. I didnt know if it was a good title but I quite like it now.

Horn is undoubtedly one of the very greats as a producer of pop sensation, as an inventor of his own sound, as a master of manipulating technology, composition and studio atmosphere to create epic sonic entertainments. I like to make records that are larger than life and to go to extremes to achieve it, he says. It is magic. Its not a live performance. Its made up out of music but its not just music, its more than music; its the capturing of atmosphere and time and place.

And then, veering from the mystical to the pragmatic, he explains: Its all about getting something good down on tape. The song you have and what its trying to say, however murky, does in the end dictate the record you make and what it sounds like. You have to focus all the possibilities there are in a studio into three entertaining minutes. And you have to make the singer sound good. Pop fashion and the business have changed a lot over the last 30 years but some things never change. The song and the voice.

For an update with Trevor, now hes re-invigorating Robbie and winning lifetime achievement awards, I return to the Sarm Studios complex in Notting Hill, where hes been working since the early 1980s. Such studios are one of those 20th century operations apparently on the verge of obsolescence, but Sarm still hums with X Factor era pop. Take That work there, and Horn has just given Baddiel, Skinner and Broudies Three Lions England football song an elaborate make over, and overseen a duet between Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow (he promises me Ill like it, but knows theres still enough of the superior sneering 1980 NME left in me to consider such a thing unlikely.)

Sarm, though, and the rest of the Horn empire now misses the driven, driving Jill, injured in a catastrophic freak accident four years ago that has left her in the dreadful limbo of a deep coma. It means theres something inevitably melancholy in Trevors tone as he looks back over a busy, battling pop life that was shared with Jill since Buggles. I was the one up in the clouds and she kept things down to earth, he admits. It worked.

Some songs are very hard to listen to without crying about Jill. Not the obvious ones either. Some songs are hard to listen to because I remember how much effort went into them, the ones that made you feel you werent sure what you were doing, the ones that were falling apart. When Im working on something that is not quite working out, its falling apart and I feel like giving up on the track; Ill go back and listen to Seals Crazy or Graces Slave or Pet Shop Boys and think, yes, its all been worth it.

Thirty years after we first analysed record producing, hes still not come to a definitive answer about what actually a record producer is. It might not be as important as it once seemed to get to the bottom of it all, but hes still obsessively searching for clues.

Article: Best British producer

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:56:46 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 11 Feb 1984

British Record Industry Awards

Best British producer

TREVOR HORN (bottom right) is the only producer to have been nominated last year and this - in fact hes defending the title as he was voted BEST BRITISH PRODUCER in 1983 for his work with ABC, Dollar, Spandau Ballet and Malcolm McLarens World Famous Supreme Team.

Previously one half of Buggles - remember Video Killed The Radio Star? - Horn was virtually unknown as a producer of other peoples hits two years ago. 1982 changed all that, of course. His production achievements during that year included ABCs Lexicon Of Love LP, which went straight into the chart at number one, and many music industry observers must have wondered if he could maintain the impetus.

The answer seems to have been yes. Horn has continued his hit associations with Malcolm McLaren via two singles, Soweto and Double Dutch (both on Charisma) and the Duck Rock album. His greatest achievement came quite recently, however, when he was responsible for producing concurrent number one hit singles both sides of the Atlantic.

Horn produced Yes number one American single, Owner Of A Lonely Heart, taken from their 90125 album which he also produced. At the same time he was responsible for Frankie Goes To Hollywoods now-notorious Relax single, which has topped the charts in the UK.

Article: The Nerve Centre

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:55:44 GMT +1

First published: Wed, 01 Sep 2010

THE LAST WORD - REISSUES

The Nerve Centre

Fizzing with conflicting creative energies, Propaganda could have been a disaster. Instead they constructed a masterpiece.

PROPAGANDA A Secret Wish (ZTT/SALVO)

By John McCready

A TRUE MASTERPIECE SOME-thing that pierces the soul like a bullet - is nearly always the product of superhuman single-mindedness, an unwavering vision, a confidence that borders on arrogance, a tireless brilliance that doesnt need approval. You dont need to read up on it to know that Picassos Guernica isnt the work of a team of Spanish decorators using up some discounted black and white paint in-between coats.

In popular music there are similarly inspired individuals achieving great things. But popular music, if it has innovated in anything, has facilitated the creative potential of the team effort. Sets of two and four have achieved great things - people who met at school or lived in one anothers pockets for years like John and Paul, curiously symbiotic near-siblings like The Clash, phoney families like U2, old married couples like Mick and Keith. Sharing socks and wives and finishing one anothers sentences, they have built on deep-rooted mutual understandings to bring us London Calling, Abbey Road. And Zooropa.

That this engagingly gloomy masterpiece was completed at all is a bloody great clanging exception to all that. Propaganda, policed by peripheral meddlers, never seemed to be a group in any conventional sense. They were memorably described by some inky wag as the Abba from hell. Such is the tangled mess of drift and accident, chance and clanger, the confluence of business types and techno dweebs, theorists and contradictory panhandlers who contributed to A Secret Wish, its a wonder they didnt end up sounding like some industrial Bucks Fizz. As the work of a committee of contributors, it should have been a mess with no significant identity to speak of. Twenty-five years on, it remains a very lonely highpoint of 80s avant pop - a cogent vision so durable it could easily have sustained serious further exploration, instead of collapsing in ruins after this one record, seemingly over money and because of personal conflict.

Propaganda began as the brainchild of Ralf Dörper (formerly of the definitively Deutsche industrialists Die Krupps) and artist Andreas Thein. The pair were visible only to German enthusiasts until they teamed up with seasoned muso and arranger Michael Mertens. Claudia Brücken joined original vocalist Suzanne Freytag, making up an alluring but simultaneously forbidding anti-Annifrid-and-Agnetha front line. Thien called it a day and, four square, Propaganda at least looked like a band. But by the time Paul Morley - NMEs self-styled pop Duchamp - had signed them to the ZTT label (owned by hands-on husband and wife, producer and businesswoman team Trevor Horn and Jill Sinclair) and Steve Lipson had produced and remixed them into oblivion, while photographer Anton Corbijn imprinted his powerfully claustrophobic vision on the groups first video, Propaganda had started to seem like the schizoid product of some of the sharpest minds of the decade - all achievers with potentially contradictory agendas. The group became a framework for all the clever things they had been storing up to say.

Although Horn did little more than oversee Billy Whizz engineer Lipsons work, his trademark Fairlight squirts, synthetic Synclavier stabs and reverb-crazy hugeness were still staples of a sonic template that was showily impressive.

Cameos from prog pixie Steve Howe on guitar, members of Japan and off-duty cop Stewart Copeland could have created further confusion. They all bleed seamlessly into ultra-confident widescreen constructions of stately and at times symphonic beauty. Crystalline sequenced set pieces are underpinned by convincingly forbidding industrial percussion. Theyre mixed in a way that predates the adventurousness of house and techno - especially evident on a second CD of offcuts, edits and formerly cassette-only reconstructions that refract endlessly.

With the (on paper at least) unlikely Frankie Goes To Hollywood suddenly slung into interstellar orbit, and Art Of Noise the toast of the UK charts and hip-hop America, ZTT never gave the unexpectedly beautiful end result the promotional attention it clearly deserved. The group were parcelled off on multi-date rock tours that - given their high concept - seemed barkingly inappropriate. Their initial deal with ZTT was said to have been so weighted, it meant they could have sold more records than Elvis and still not made a bean. This, together with internal jealously over Morleys relationship with Claudia Brücken, seems to have put paid to a potentially enduring construct. A revived but fundamentally broken second version of the group seemed all but meaningless.

For a generation of obsessives, ZTT came to mean something - an entertainingly confusing collision of fun, fearless pretentiousness, Smash Hits gloss and Dadaist candyfloss. Together with a resolutely naive - yet somehow knowing - belief in the power of pop that was largely Morleys approximately Situationist perspective. But Propaganda made music with a life of its own - far beyond the Ballard quotes and ironic postmodern marketing strategies. This is a record that, impossibly, transcends the individual agendas of all concerned: an incomplete but still moving statement, more than worthy of contemporary reappraisal.

Article: Pickwicks, Liverpool

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:54:34 GMT +1

First published: ?

PINK INDUSTRY

Pickwicks, Liverpool

JAYNE Caseys already enjoyed her 15 minutes of fame, as an originator in the punk avant garde of the Erics regime, and now shes back for more. Recently returned from semi-retirement with a slightly altered band name and an LP as proof of purpose, tonight shes bringing public substance to the new identity for the first time.

The sets closing with a compelling song from the LP, Enjoy The Pain; See the look in her eyes, sings Jayne - but you cant see the look in her own because shes wearing shades. Though she sings of dark and dangerous corners of human experience she takes care that her emotional privacy remains intact.

In fact, theres always been something of a mystery about Jayne Casey as a performer not least her capacity to create, throughout her career from Big In Japan through Pink Military to now, the most intriguing - even beautiful - and the most excruciating music almost at the same time.

The live debut of Pink Industry was, consequently, something that demanded the satisfaction of curiosity. The music is the most accessible shes ever created. Shes changed too, as a performer, and the piercing individualism of the past has given way to a fragile elegance thats altogether more sophisticated, and more contained.

The voice, tamed from its past excesses, has matured considerably to a more expressive instrument - commanding or compassionate, sometimes harsh, sometimes softer, but always sympathetic to the song.

Jayne sings about women, but in the third person; sings about danger, but keeps her distance. The dark suit and glasses are a barrier, as much a symbol of attitude as the brief playing with Germanic vocals. Yet there are moments of beauty, when the sensuous bass brings out the humanity in the human voice (in Dont Let Go for example).

The music shows little departure from the debut LP. Its at its most effective when at its most simple, and I was hoping that the limitations of live performance might have emphasised that side of the group. Im too old-fashioned, of course - these days there are no limitations when playing live. So the outside world stilt creeps menacingly into songs like Wish, by way of tapes.

The record may be called Low Technology, but technology is essential to the sounds created on this stage, piling sensations onto the contributions of the three humans present. The use of resources is as modern as, for example, New Order, the sounds as cool, but here with the addition of an oblique femininity. The name of the group seems very apt to the two sides.

The result is a very brief taste of the pink industrial world but enough to show that, if Jaynes already written her place into (local) history, shes quite ready for another chapter.

PENNY KILEY

Article: Forty Five

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:52:05 GMT +1

First published: ?

PINK INDUSTRY: Forty Five (Zulu) A four track 12 inch EP from former Pink Military frontperson Jayne and new playmate Ambrose. (Ambrose?) Dont Let Go is the killer here - deferential nod to Walk On The Wild Side with Jayne crooning her haunting line over a hypnotically insistent bass and gently sighing synths. Fabulous. The other three tracks are also fine adventurous stuff - more of this sort of thing please.

Article: Pink Industry: Forty-Five 12 EP

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:51:34 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 01 May 1982

Pink Industry: Forty-Five 12 EP (Zulu Records, 61a Bold St., Liverpool, England) If you looked at the world through the bottom of an empty wine bottle, you might get the feeling of listening to this EP. Pink Industry are descended from the group Pink Military, who had a critical1y acclaimed album (Do Animals Believe In God?) back in 1980. The new EP is cleaner and smoother sounding, the format of this 12 4 track 45 allowing them crisp and sparkling recording quality. Central to the sound of Industry and Military is the pink one herself. Jayne is no ones girl. Shes a real woman - harmonic, feminine and strong. Also integral to the sound is the creative use of percussion. None of the tracks have a standard drum beat. Dont Let Go uses a guitar for its rhythm track. Final Cry has something synthesized and metal-tinged along with its drum beat. Theres an electronic heartbeat coupled with a sound like glasses clinking or a high note on a childs toy piano in the weepy, off-kilter ballad Is This the End, and 47 uses a snapping, snarlish rhythm box. Listening to Forty-Five is like softly setting your third eye on the turntable and watching its tears well up and drip over the edge. I dont know what that last line means either, but you can bet this is one strange and beautiful record.

Article: Pretty in...

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:50:35 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 01 Jan 1983

PRETTY IN

PINK INDUSTRY: LEADMILL

I can tell that Pink Industry are gifted and extraordinary - but I cant prove it because theres no one directly to compare them with. Its somewhat unnerving to encounter a band who are, as near as damn it, original.

Afterwards Jayne of the insidious and insinuating voice, tells me:

I used to listen to people like Lou Reed and really like them, but Ive hardly paid any attention to records in the last two or three years.

The Low Technology and Who Told You You Were Naked LPs came out in rapid succession, didnt they?

Yes - we had a real glut of material around then - they both represent the same stage for us.

I know that you havent yet released a single - is that because of the logistics of record release or the form of your material?

We ran our own record company, called Zulu Records, which fortunately gives us control of production, packaging and promotion - because we do it all ourselves! Weve thought about a single (Dont Let Go was a popular suggestion) but nowadays promoting a singles is an extremely specialised and direct business, something weve not had the chance to go into yet.

So its a case of not doing it unless youre going to go into it wholeheartedly?

Exactly. I really admire what Holly has done. They set about trying to take over the charts and got just what they were after! Well have a compilation album out soon with a song they recorded for us two years ago, suddenly Rough Trade are jumping all over the place saying weve got the Frankie Goes To Hollywood LP! Dont worry, it wont be billed that way.

At the end of your set tonight when you said I dont know whats on the other side of the tape but well experiment, had you really no idea of what was coming?

I really hate the idea of a pre-programmed set, but the tape limits you very much in terms of orders of songs. When we started this series of gigs we decided to put together some drum-machine track on tape, completely at random.

A strange kind of freedom, based on a willingness to test and stretch themselves.

Despite early problems with the notorious leadmill P.A.Pink (Were not industrial) Industry manage to produce some clear yet pretty damned weird sounds. If youre bored with sound-alike bands, go see them immediately.

Simon Cook

Pic by Amanda Barson

Article: Pinks not dead

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:49:18 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 02 Apr 1983

PINKS NOT DEAD!

PINK INDUSTRY

Low Technology (Zulu)

Last Saturday The Guardian devote a lengthy Arts column to the dominance of cynical commercial considerations in modern music. I doubt if the members of Liverpools Pink Industry would have paid much attention to the article had they seen it, but they certainly show the other side of the coin.

As the title of their debut album suggests, this is low-budget music produced in splendid isolation, well away from the blustery upheaval of the pop market place.

Pink Industry is the result of a pairing between two Merseyside mini-legends, Ambrose of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Jayne Casey, once of Big Japan and Pink Military. Jaye, you may recall, appeared on the cover of NME back in January 1980 and talked then of incorporating elements of cabaret and torch singing in the rock format seem to have heard that one somewhere since and then disappeared from view after releasing a patchy, leaden LP later that year.

With Low Technology, she and Ambrose pick up where Pink Military left off, but shun the latters rockier inclinations in favour of a more jagged approach. Using only voice, synthesiser and percussion, they make a music that is dirty and fragmented rather than clear and formulated; loose rather than clinical. A glossier production might have eradicated some of their indulgences, but it would also have clouded their character and limited the range of their expression.

The mood is sombre, but the music remains compulsively physical. Melodies ebb and flow under the surface, without ever solidifying completely, collage and dub effect drifting in and out of the picture, leaving the music incomplete yet strangely beguiling.

Jayne remains an infuriating performer, veering from the verges of brilliance to the edge of abysmal. Her dark obsessions - reflected by the titles Enjoy The Pain and Savage might seem to be the same as those of the new breed of gothic punks, but the warmth and tenderness of her deep, hypnotic voice give the music of Pink Industry a more human, realistic edge.

For all their flaw, music of this purity is indeed rare these days. Admire their insularity and give them patience. It might just pay off.

Adrian Thrills

(Available through Rough Trade or from Zulu Records at 61A Bold St, Liverpool 1.)

Article: Low Technology

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:48:13 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 26 Feb 1983

PINK INDUSTRY Low Technology (Zulu ZULU 2) ****

FOR ONCE the first and only time in the history of record company press releases - the blurb sums it up: Pink Industry believe that modern technology at its best should capture rather than eliminate the human element which is so vital to good music.

Pink Industry are human. Its obvious that they bleed, feel and cry which is more than you can say for the likes of the ridiculous KajaGooGoo and the other manufactured, sterile heroes of the scummy new pop world.

Like the Passage, Pink Industry have grabbed the hideous artefacts of the new technology and used them to destroy the sterile icons on which that technology is built. Like the Passage, the Industry have got soul! New Aims is superb; Send Them Away is insidiously magnificent - all that with a two-piece line-up! - while Is This The End is so close to Nico that it hurts.

I remain a Luddite, and sympathise with the Musicians Union in their bid to neutralise the soul-less long mac lugworms of the synth cult. Nevertheless, my mind is still open find Pink Industry have got through.

JOHN OPPOSITION

Article: Pink Industry: Who Told You You Were Naked

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:47:11 GMT +1

First published: Thu, 17 Nov 1983

Pink Industry: Who Told You You Were Naked (Zulu, distributed by Rough Trade).

Yet another Liverpool band, producing far more experimental and intriguing (if less obviously commercial) styles through their own independent label. Pink Industrys new album offers a collection of synthesiser and percussion-backed songs that range from the sombre and brooding to the more cheerful and accessible. The band is a three-piece, including Ambrose Reynolds (formerly with the now much-publicised Frankie Goes To Hollywood), and singer Jayne Casey. The album varies from half-spoken passages to Industrial mood music, and synthesised hints of The Doors on Extreme.

Article: Who Told You, You Were Naked

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:46:17 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 22 Oct 1983

PINK INDUSTRY

Who Told You, You Were Naked?

(Zulu Records ZULU 4) ***3/4

AFTER A rave rant from John Oppo for their debut LP, Pink Industry have developed their primeval electronic sound into a healthy and energetic brand of noiseplay meets melody. Avoiding, admirably, the trappings of minimal, tape-driven electronics, this Liverpool trio have crafted two extremes with the maximum of effect.

The sound is basically harsh with unexpected segments of sound slipping in here and there, but with the help of more orthodox instruments, the whole thing is set off against the soulful warbling of Jayne Casey.

Jayne has been around for a while - remember Pink Military Stand Alone? - but she never seemed to get it quite right and she never escaped the pool like her manly contemporaries. Shes not going to make it big with this either but, more than ever before, she deserves to.

As the atmosphere is built up, with each track running into the next, the moods fly by like tickertape and that voice keeps the concentration honed to the power of the performance. Pink Industry are going to develop into something really great. Itll take time, but if they can keep releasing LPs like this along the way, itll be well worth the wait.

DAVE HENDERSON

Article: It wasnt a waste at all, it was hard

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:44:56 GMT +1

First published: ?

It wasnt a waste at all, it was hard, says ANNE PIGALLE, reflecting on the last three years. She describes the period with her old record company, ZTT, as a learning process. Signed up in the labels early days, Pigalles album was endlessly delayed and finally released to mixed reviews. She was portrayed as the classical chanteuse, a tenacious torch singer, some obscure descendant of Edith Piaf. But the presence of Trevor Horn didnt exactly precipitate a harmonious relationship. When you hear a Trevor Horn thing, then you know its a Trevor Horn record. But thats not what I want to do, Pigalle says, so Im starting from fresh. By this she means fresh band, fresh manager and fresh record company. The former, all unknowns, are working on manufacturing a harder, less jazzy sound than before, while the middle component is Nick Fry, manager of Cafe De Paris, who, according to Pigalle, has a very refined touch, which makes a difference from all those big people who dont have a clue. As for the record company, she believes that will come as soon as she finds the right producer, somebody who captures what youre trying to do rather than just puts their stamp on it. She has recently returned from a productive six months in Japan, and her immediate plans include a month-long weekly residency at Londons Madame Jo Jo nightclub from November 4th, a possible gig in the main Gare de Lyon station in Paris, and a number of European dates with BAD, who she knew from punk. Her buzzword is longevity. Im hanging out until I get the right sort of deal, she says, pursing her lips defiantly. Record companies are quite keen because they know that the sort of thing I do is not one hit and then its finished. I dont like that Top Of The Pops thing. Englands starting to see that doesnt last long.

WORDS HUGH MORLEY

PHOTOGRAPHY STERLING

Article: Instinct

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:43:50 GMT +1

First published: ?

INSTINCT

Interview by Marc Issue

Photograph by Martin Thompson

We are gathered here today for a preliminary conversation with Instinct. As conversations with popular recording artistes go, this is a great deal more preliminary than most - as we speak, their first single, due out at Easter (whenever Easter is), is yet to be finished. They have played live not at all. And as they point out, they are not really a band at all, they are a song writing team who will record and perform. So why are we having this conversation? Instinct are what was left when Pigbag disbanded, and are now part of ZTTs new wave.

They are understandably excited about the prospect of getting their stuff into the shops via The Worlds Smartest Record Company, but the possibility that their arrival will coincide with the onset of the ZTT backlash lends a little anxiety to their situation. Lets get the obvious question out of the way first. Why did you say yes to ZTT?

Because they seemed more sensitive and aware than any other company, but mostly because they said yes to us. A lot of companies thought we werent commercial enough to be really popular, and yet we werent weird enough to be weird. They picked up on us really quickly - Paul Morley called us literally three days after wed sent him the tape, and some of the companies we sent tapes to are still sending them back now, eight months later, with their rejection letters or whatever.

Instinct music. There are three songs on their studio demo, and Ive heard them once. They sound elegant - they are composed songs, as opposed to words-overa-groove formula sound, of which I have heard far too many lately.

Instinct was born at the moment that Pigbag ceased to exist. They began rehearsing and writing immediately, wading out into (for them) uncharted territory. Jazz it isnt. They have been watching the alleged Great British Jazz Revival with a certain amount of amusement.

Of course we could wave our arms about all day, trying to describe the music, and what the attitude is, but at this stage, Instinct just have a list of things that they dont want to do theyve been around, so they know what to avoid. They are keen to perform onstage soon, because they miss it - they havent been on stage since Pigbag finished. Theyll need to assemble a band of some sort to do that, though, and that kind of thing takes a little time. They see a gap to be filled between independence, which is too often a euphemism for total disorganisation and the professional high gloss performance, which lacks character.

We had a good conversation. Angel, James and Simon will be with you very shortly, and they will demonstrate what we talked about, and a few other things. Did you read it here first? Youre too kind.

Article: Minnie & Holly in Hollywood

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:42:52 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 22 Dec 1984

Minnie & Holly in Hollywood

Joe Stevens

Article: Yo ho and here we go...

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:41:50 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 24 Nov 1984

TALK TALK TALK

YO ho and here we go - your non-sexist, non-racist, non-fattist, non-thinnist, non-sober TTT is proud to present - tan tarrah! - the weekly FRANKIE story.

Yes folks, heres a rumour to get the phone-lines buzzing with denials and counter denials, enquiries and blasphemies: TTT say Frankie might well be playing a few Xmas gigs over here. Not content with bamboozling the yanks with their snake-hipped electro riddums, FGTH are reputedly thinking of squeezing in a show or two at Liverpools Royal Court before ol Santa arrives. However, one word of caution: The Royal Court say No Way. ZTT say we know nothing. And TTT say mines a pint.

Onwards and upwards, your crusading TTT is making blows against the empire, striking out at prejudice wherever it may raise its ugly head.

And just to prove were as fair as the next man er person were gonna float this non-baldist info: Brian Eno, infamous egg-head, ex-popstar and the bloke who turned U2 into The Moody Blues is about to move back to London from wherever hes been hanging out and is in the process of organising an exhibition of ambient videos which will open to the eager public sometime in January.

The location of the said visual feast is, at present, uncertain (our source was too sozzled to remember) but we believe its somewhere in Princes Street.

And now, just to prove weve got nothing at all against people who play guitar for singers who wear flowers in their back pocket (in other words, were nonflorist), wed like to suggest somebody gives wee Johnny Marr a gert pat on the back for his manly devotion to duty.

While lesser mortals would have languished in their steamy pits, meeping on about the current unavailability of Night Nurse, our Johnny laughed in the very face of flu and took the boat from Liverpool to Dublin so The Smiths wouldnt disappoint the Micks ooops! Soreeee! the more discerning occupants of Ireland. Anyway, by the time Johnny lad reached the Emerald Isle, he was well dicky on the ol feet and was subsequently rushed to hospital where he spent two days recuperating from what was first diagnosed as a burst appendix. And now, against medical advise, our hero has discharged himself and The Smiffs Irish Tour is underway as planned.

And while on the subject of the Smiffs (and to prove that TTT is the least Northernist column under the Sun) wed like to clip the Mancunian papers round the ear for their continual harrassment of that finest of fellows, Morrissey. Seems the bequiffed one has better things to do than spill the beans to a load of blotchey hacks who support Man U and, just because he wont talk to them, theyre giving him a terrible time about his comments on the Brighton bombings, as recently recounted to MMs very on Ian Pye.

More Frankie - more bans. After Mike Read and MTV, trust that crusty old Boy George to slap a ban on the over-exposed Scousers by refusing them entrance to his New York show. One of Frankies lackies told the rags that Boy George stopped them from having complimentary tickets and said no-one from the group would be allowed into the gig under any circumstances..

And he added, if they were seen buying tickets, theyd be thrown out. Frankies Paul Rutherford summed up the situation with admirable wit: The guys a paranoid idiot.

From non-baldist to non-ageist, TTT is proud to present this weeks Grecian 2000 award to Richard Skinner, who hereafter shall be known as Dickie. It seems that the Beebs pathetic attempt to smarten up the Old Grey Yawning Vest by dropping the Old Grey from the title spawned an immediate spate of paranoia in the ranks when they discovered that the 34 year old teenager Dickie was, in fact, going rather grey.

Ol Dick was hauled in over the coals and instructed to get rid of those tell-tale signs of maturity post haste so the fellow tossed up between a toupee and the mouse-brown dye and the result is that Dickies now swaggering round with a mouse on his head. Pity they didnt think of transplanting a bit of grey matter while they were at it, eh?

Article: Frankie and George Michael are getting on like hot cakes...

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:40:53 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 06 Apr 1985

Frankie and George Michael are getting on like hot cakes. Georgie Boy went to Birmingham to see the band last week and after the show it was decided theyd all try to blag their way into David Bowie and Tina Turners hotel ten miles out of town, Bowie having guested with the squawking siren that same night. So various Frankies nipped into Georges car, full of excitement, meeting old hero, blah blah. Imagine their surprise on arrival at finding David and Tina had gone to bed with flu!

Anyroad, the by now bevvied party drowned their sorrows in the hotel bar where Michael haughtily proffered his American Express card as payment. Just a minute, sir, says the barman superciliously and goes off to check GMs credit rating! I just dont believe this, muttered a blushing Michael.

The evening ended in high spirits however with a return journey, taken up by a singalonga Whamafrankie, popping of Moet magnums and much ribald laughter. Then, as they pulled back into Birmingham poor old George was taken poorly and blooergh! He deposited the contents of his stomach all over the car, bye bye glamour boy image, open the windows quick somebody!

Naughty Nasher suggested they collect the resulting pavement pizza and raffle it off

Article: Chartfile

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:38:12 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 15 Dec 1984

Chartfile

By ALAN JONES

THE POWER Of Love completed its speedy climb to the top of the singles chart last week to earn Frankie Goes To Hollywood their third number one single from only their third release. They therefore equal the record established by Gerry & The Pacemakers, who tripped to the summit with their first three singles in 1963.

However, the Frankies overall impact has been significantly greater than that of Gerry & The Pacemakers. The.Pacemakers first album How Do You Do It peaked at number two, never quite getting the better of the Beatles.

Frankie Goes To Hollywoods debut album Welcome To The Pleasuredome has, despite falling short of expectations, spent a week at number one, and has already sold considerably more copies (350,000 or thereabouts) than the Gerry & The Pacemakers album managed in its entire chart career. Furthermore, its unlikely that the first three Pacemakers singles sold more than 1.5 million in total, whilst Frankies hat-trick has already netted sales of four million. As far as I can establish, only the Beatles and Boney M have registered a higher singles sale in a calendar year.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood have also earned the distinction of being the first act to plunder a trio of chart toppers in the same year since Blondie did so in 1980, though George Michael deserves an honourable mention for his two Wham! and one solo number one so far this year. George will undoubtedly have had further cause to celebrate on Tuesday, but whether twas Wham! or Band Aid who pinched Frankies crown was unresolved at the time of writing. A full post mortem on the tussle can be found on the news pages.

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD on the set of Brian De Palmas film Body Double

Article: Look what they started!

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:37:05 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 19 Jan 1985

LOOK WHAT THEY STARTED!

How Frankie turned the pop world on to a lush new look

Their image is the biggest jolt to the complacent music biz nervous system since Little Richard put on his lipstick pout.

(Max Bell writing about Frankie Goes To Hollywood in No. 1, January 84)

Suddenly every pop star worth his or her salt is flouncing around done up to the nines in silks and satins and tons of fancy jewellery. Whats going on?

An expensive design firm called Crolla is at the bottom of it.

But needless to say, it was those smart boys In Frankie who popularised the look. Just as they did with those big-worded T-shirts that were originally designed by Katharine Hamnett but soon spread all over the streets, in Frankies case supplemented by their own advertising slogans.

But Frankie moved on, as successful popstars do.

Every time I see someone in one of those shirts I

think whoa, thats another 27½ pence in the coffers!

(Holly Johnson, No. 1, August 84)

Paul Rutherfords weekly twirls on Top Of The Pop were given extra zest by his long-tailed shirt, while the rest of the boys branched out into their own form of mutated evening wear.

Hollys ace tastes in medals, canes, and foppish finery had been apparent for some time. The look climaxed with the explosion of lush colour, over the top props and high-fashion fancy clothes on the sleeve of Welcome To The Pleasuredome.

A thousand lurid satins popped up in the chain-stores. Fashion decreed evening jackets, long sumptuous silky shirts teamed with brocade and paisley waistcoats and set off with giant pieces of diamante jewellery.

Stage costumes for groups as diverse as The Thompson Twins, Spandau Ballet and Howard Jones went big and loud and shiny.

Holly had been there first. Again

Underneath it all, were just scallies. But were hips scallies.

(Holly Johnson, No. 1, January 84)

Watch out for Hollys latest sartorial experiment the cute racoon tail he wore sticking out of his back pocket on The Late Late Breakfast Show. Must be all those animal appetites

Photos by Peter Ashworth, Steve Rapport, Jamie Long and Mike Prior

Left: Creative Workforce stylist Basia styled Frankies album sleeve using expensive designer clothes.

Basia proved that the look can be achieved on a budget when No. 1 asked her to do a cut-price styling job with secondhand clothes, using young musicians as models.

Tom Bailey talks to No. 1 about fashion: Ive recently been into silks and satins and brocades. I was inspired by a painting called The Opium Den, a late 19th Century Victorian romantic vision of life in the Middle East with people reclining on velvet couches

Howard Jones followed suit and unveiled his new image on his recent tour.

Reclining all over the floor Spandau Ballet are recent converts to the Pleasuredome.

Article: Relax its only a rock group

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:35:44 GMT +1

First published: Thu, 14 Feb 1985

Relax its only a rock group

The Times Profile: Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Carl Gustav Jung, in one of his lighter moments, once wrote: Liverpool is the pool of life. A year after Jungs death his words were given an unexpected resonance when The Beatles exploded into the public consciousness.

Nowadays you do not have to be an expert in Jungian word association to qualify that statement. Those suffering from Liverpools decline find it more like a cesspool. The docklands and famous overhead railway are hushed, old landmarks like the Liver and India buildings a mocking reminder of a magnificent past.

Once a great city of the Empire, it is decayed and vandalized; disaffected youth, town planners and councils accomplished what the Luftwaffe could not. An air of oppressive violence hangs over it. Even the modern city centre is shutting up shop and department stores like Binns and Woolworths are closing, because of the lack of customers and theft; it is rumoured that John Lewis will follow suit. Liverpool is probably the only major city in England without a McDonalds franchise.

Outlying conurbations are far worse; the housing estates of Huyton, Aintree or Cantrell Farm, with their harsh lights and chilling winds off the Irish sea resemble nightmarish prison camps rather than the decennt communities they were designed to be.

With unemployment figures of nearly 30 per cent on Merseyside, chances to escape the dole are few. Football and pop music have provided Liverpool with its heroic characters, ambassadors and wits in the past. Frankie Goes To Hollywood, now the most talked about pop group in Europe are Liverpudlians, through and through; or, to use the contemporary argot, they are scallies, five working class lads who have made it very big indeed.

Rock facts and figures seldom make interesting reading but Frankies paper credentials are impressive. In a business where talk of phenomena is cheap, they are the genuine article. Their first three singles all reached number one (a feat which has only been achieved once before by Gerry and the Pacemakers in 1963); they also made pop history adding a top album Welcome To The Pleasuredome to this.

Relax, their infamous debut which was banned by the BBC is the fifth biggest selling single of all time (outstripping every Beatles release) and was this week voted the best British single of 1984; their second record, Two Tribes, spent an unprecedented nine weeks at number one.

The success is not insular. Those records took their message that we were living in a land where sex and horror are the new gods to Germany, the largest record buying market in Europe, France, Israel, Thailand, New Zealand, South Africa and even Iceland. If the Queens Award for Industry were granted to pop groups Frankie would qualify on several counts.

Their double album, Pleasuredome, had more than one million advance orders, elevating Frankie to a superleague formerly reserved for Abba and Pink Floyd. This success has not gone unnoticed at home. The bands three shows at Liverpools Royal Court last December were acclaimed by the Liverpool Echo who honoured them with a gushing eight-page pull out souvenir. The city buzzed with Frankie talk. As one regular in the Beehive pub commented: Liverpool hasnt been like this since Lennon was shot. People are excited, even young people who probably cringe at the Beatles comparisons. Theres something about the attention and the clippings which gives you an idea of what it was like in the Sixties. Better, they havent become cosy media stars like Boy George.

Frankie were praying for a break long before the Frankie Says campaign gathered momentum; but the cynics still claim that it was disc jockey Mike Reads refusal to play Relax on Radio One which launched them, even though the single was already sixth in the charts and the BBC had already played Relax at least 70 times without a complaint.

After Read decided it was overtly obscene (which did not deter him from doing a voice-over on a later record), Station Controller Derek Chinnery issued a vague statement to the effect that the BBC believes the lyrics are not suitable for a show with a family audience. A few weeks later BBC2s Newsnight, presumably not a programme with a family audience, ran a feature on the band, using clips from the single and its controversial video.

There was more egg on the Corporations face when they agreed to play Relax on the Christmas edition Top Of The Pops, proving that the message was bigger than the medium. On the Newsnight show, Frankies producer Trevor Horn defined the bands appeal: They (Frankie) are about sex, reproduction and making it. All the things that excite teenagers. They look as if theyre enjoying themselves, whereas someone like Rod Stewart is so out of date he seems like a dirty old uncle.

The ban did Frankie no harm. Previously their capacity for outrage was limited to the fact the singer Holly Johnson and his dancing partner Paul Rutherford was unashamedly homosexual, while Mark OToole, Brian Nash and Peter Gill were robustly and raucously heterosexual.

An interview they gave to Penthouse at the time confirmed the predilections of each Frankie in graphic detail. But Frankies original live antics in 1982 were far more outrageous than the sleek, accomplished metal discos sound with which Horn varnished the records.

Detractors claimed that without Horn and the media manipulations of Paul Morley, Frankies marketing man at ZTT records, the band would have remained anonymous. Horn, the producer most in demand at the moment, disagrees: Its my job to enhance their ideas. No-one complained when George Martin did that to the Beatles, adding a cello or harpsichord. Technology is there to be used.

People said I was a studio dictator; thats rubbish. I felt like playing the Press the Frankie demos so they could see how wrong they were.

Perhaps its not surprising that Frankie did tone down, their early dates were a veritable homoerotic orgy, complete with whips, chains and the dancing female Leatherpets. What worked in saucy little clubs like Liverpools Warehouse, or Londons gay haunt Cha Chas, wasnt likely to delight prime time TV directors, let alone an audience in Hicksville, USA. The Beatles well documented obscene banter in the days of the Hamburg Star Club was noticeably absent at the London Palladium or on Thank Your Lucky Stars.

The British pop TV show The Tube takes much credit for Frankies initial rise. Producer Malcolm Gerrie recalls Horn phoning him the day after they appeared early in 1983 requesting a video; a week later they were the first signing to ZTT, a label affiliated to Island Records.

Horn had to persuade Chris Blackwell, Islands owner, that Frankie were what he needed; Blackwell had already rejected a demo on the grounds that they dont have the right image for my company. Arista and Phonogram Records had also rejected them after parting with small advances.

Gerrie remembers them as a lot of fun, but very rough and raw. They spent most of 1983 practising. When they topped the bill on The Tubes recent Euro-satellite link-up they were magnificent.

Now that Frankie are a household name, they are fully aware that 1984s phenomenon could be 1985s big yawn. The Frankie marketing campaign was a howling success but last years T-shirt is this years museum piece.

Holly Johnson, lead vocalist and lyricist, admits the real hard work is ahead of them. We burst into the arena as upstarts, escalating so quickly that we became an over-success. Personally Im terrified of failure and I know the public only have a palate for so much. Id hate us to be like the Gremlins, funny at first and then grotesque. Our plan is to remain mischievous and be attractive.

He isnt deterred by the mumbled accusations of hype and overkill: It was good fun. Id go further and create a whole set of products. Frankie stockings or Frankie wallpaper. I remember being ill in bed as a child; I was promoted to my sisters bedroom and she had Beatles wallpaper all over. It drove me mad but she loved it.

Johnson is remembered in Liverpool as the kid from Wavertree, near Penny Lane, who walked round town with his dole number dyed in his hair; he dressed in an eccentric combination of tartan and leather. Today the Frankies possess the trappings of relative wealth, sporting the latest designers like Yamamoto, Matsuda, Linnard and Hamnett. Johnson and Paul Rutherford think nothing of splashing $800 on a Japanese robe from Barneys in New York.

The other three, Nash, Gill and OToole, commonly known as the lads, combine casual roots with designer flair, mixing Nike with Milan, the Kings Road and Tokyo. The band carry it off well and rarely seem to be guilty of the worst excesses of the nouveaux riches exemplified by Duran Duran.

Still, they all live in London now, and at the very smartest addresses Knightsbridge, Little Venice and Chelsea. Are they aiming to join pops establishment? Johnson isnt sure: It depends on your perspective, I was more selfish as a teenager on the dole and then weve worked damn hard.

I left the Liverpool Collegiate with no qualifications and the intention of becoming a musician, which I have. Why should I scrimp? The DHSS wanted me to attend a rehabilitation centre in Birmingham making cuddly toys or gardening. I was asked to leave school, and now theyre dredging up old photos of me to use as a good example! They hated me: I was the worst possible student.

Johnson describes Frankie as young upwardly mobile types. We still arent star characters in the way Duran and Wham! Are and we need that to survive. I loved the Sixties teen fan gloss, the stories that told you Sandie Shaw wore Mary Quant boots and lived in a Chelsea mews house but thats hard to recreate. That was the zeitgeist then and that innocence IS gone,

Frankies gradual absorption into the mainstream, has yet to rival the real big boys. While Duran Duran have written the theme tune for the new James Bond movie. A View To A Kill, Frankies soundtrack experience is limited to a cameo appearance performing Relax in Brian DePalmas Body Double, which was not a resounding box office success.

I havent seen it, claims Johnson. Pornography doesnt excite me and I dont believe were all that outrageous, Im a bit of a prude actually. I certainly wouldnt wear leather knickers on stage again, Id be far too self conscious.

Johnson gives the impression of being a businesslike workaholic. His wild days in failed pop groups such as Big In Japan and Dancing Girls are behind him but not forgotten. He is concerned now with television, our best, most controllable medium, finishing a fourth single and starting a new album, provisionally called Warriors of the Wasteland. The reference is more T. S. Eliot than heavy metal.

On a broader scale, he agrees that: It would be nice to restore some Liverpool pride. The city is depressed but it throws out pellets like us, like Willie Russell and Alan Bleasdale. Russell makes social comment within a West End and I think were comparable. The theatre establishment found it hard to cope with Bloodbrothers even third time round and after the awards. It wasnt On Your Toes.

The city will never die but it needs all the cultural input it can get. I saw a play at the Everyman, the theatre of the street, called Youll Never Walk Alone. A character in that says that the garden festival was the wreath on Liverpools coffin - not an uplifting line, true, but a good example of black humour that sums Liverpool up and gives a kick.

After Frankies triumphant hometown dates, band, friends and family were carousing in the local Holiday Inn. Mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles could remember years of relative prosperity on Merseyside, and a sense of hope exemplified by The Beatles, a band which had gone from parochial celebrity to worldwide status as Frankie hope they will.

Two of the fathers reminiscing about an early date in Sefton Park: They were all wearing leather jockstraps and people said they were weird. I said. yeah and those weirdoes are gonna be big. The other father thought for a moment before downing his pint: And theyve earned every penny. Theyre better than The Beatles. he smiled. Well almost. Had more hits quicker anyway.

Pausing again, he mused on the perfect analogy, the final word, to describe watching his son on stage. It was like seeing Liverpool win the FA Cup. Thats what it was like.

Football, music, Frankie and Joe Fagen. The pool will have its heroes still.

BIOGRAPHY

1981 Frankie Goes To Hollywood are named, according to drummer Peter Gill, after a poster announcing a Frank Sinatra concert.

1982 April: Frankie, comprising Holly Johnson, Paul Rutherford, Peter Gill, Mark OToole and Gerard OToole, play their first concert at Pickwicks, a Liverpool pub.

Summer: Frankie Close Sefton Parks Larks In The Park Festival and are loudly derided.

October: Arista Records risk £1,500 enabling Frankie to make demo tapes of Relax and Two Tribes.

December: First London date with current line-up, Brian Nash replaces Gerard OToole.

1983 January: Appear on The Tube and sign to ZTT for £5,000 the next week.

October: ZTT release Relax.

1984 January: Despite a BBC ban Frankie go to No 1 and stay there for five weeks, going platinum (over a million sales) in March.

June: Two Tribes goes straight to No 1. Relax joins it at No 2, a feat only equalled before by Elvis Presley. The Beatles and John Lennon.

August: Two Tribes, also platinum, begins nine weeks at No 1 and Relax becomes Britains longest running hit with 50 consecutive weeks in the charts.

October: Welcome To The Pleasuredome LP is released, going straight to No 1.

December: Frankie finally Go To Hollywood, playing three nights at the Palace Theatre. Third single The Power of Love is No 1 in Britain while their album only reaches 33 in America.

Max Bell

Article: Frankie Goes To Sheffield

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:34:41 GMT +1

First published: Sun, 10 Mar 1985

FRANKIE GOES TO SHEFFIELD

Frankie Goes To Hollywood, the pop sensation of 1984, has never risked a British tour. This week all that changes: first stop Sheffield. Andrew Harvey joined the band in the US for a glimpse of Frankie on the road

It was only when his Davy Crocket hat bobbed up for air that you could be sure that Holly Johnson hadnt suffocated in the enthusiastic embrace of the blonde.

Diane Brill, cronie of Andy Warhol and currently leading socialite on New Yorks trendy lower East Side, literally engulfed her guest as he arrived for a party in his, honour with the other Frankies. The Danceteria, a whitewashed warehouse, was overflowing with the exhibitionist young and would be young of the city who, it seemed, had come to be seen by one another as much as they had to pay homage to Britains latest pop phenomenon.

Perched on top of a painters stepladder sat a girl in a white frock and stilettos. She didnt move much because her wide-brimmed hat shone with a dozen small light bulbs connected to a socket above her head.

Johnson was in his element, the magnet for a crush of kisses and hemmed in by photographers who could scarcely get their cameras to eye level in the press of bodies.

Nobody noticed the other four Frankies and within five minutes Paul Rutherford, Mark OToole, Ped Gill and Brian Nasher Nash had slipped out.

On their American tour it became obvious that despite their enduring friendship for one another, the Frankies were becoming less of a whole and more of a product of one plus four.

Holly (real name Williams) Johnson, is a star who has come to stay. Glad to be gay, he hates being called camp, has a wonderfully sinister singing voice and writes the lyrics for the Frankie songs. He has the style, and wit to mix at all levels of showbusiness. He is todays pop chic.

While the rest of the band shivered and complained of boredom in Boston, Johnson had flown back to New York to film a guest slot for the pop-video cable channel MTV. And the next day, before the others were out of their beds, he was holding forth on another TV interview.

Just about the only time he was seen with the band was when they were on stage. Afterwards he was invariably swept away by friend Wolfgang whom he flew over from London halfway through the tour to help combat homesickness.

Hollys Holly. Hes the same as hes ever been, shrugged OToole, the tall 20-year-old bass player, insisting that unity within the band remained solid and that it was only natural for the lead singer to get most of the attention.

From the start, Frankie Goes to Hollywood understood one of the basic rules of the pop world - shock now, play later. Not for them the patient process of practice makes perfect. They wanted stardom fast and chose an outrageous stage act to attract attention. But with their records and baggy T-shirts generating £20 million-worth of business in their first extraordinary year, they were stung by the insistent innuendo that their success and their two massive hits, Relax and Two Tribes, were due to the brilliance of record producer Trevor Horn and the publicity machine of former rock journalist Paul Morley (the two men who signed them to their fledgling ZTT records).

Even after 18 months of stardom, Frankie Goes to Hollywood didnt have the confidence to play live in Britain. Instead, despite the misgivings of Horn, Morley and parent company Island Records, they chose 22 small venue dates across Canada and America.

I was extremely annoyed at the suggestion that we were Trevor Horns puppets, declared Johnson. I have been working hard for a long time to teach myself to sing in my particular style. We all felt we had to prove it was us on those records.

Horn flew by Concorde to see their Philadelphia show for himself. The show was a sell-out. The band ripped into their best numbers - the Frankies were rather short on material and the show lasted little over an hour but they had the audience of 1500 screeching for more.

Afterwards Horns spectacles sparkled like headlamps through the smoke and sweat of the crowded dressing room. I was really impressed. The band are fantastic, theyre going to be great. Hollys got a dynamite voice, he enthused. Frankie Goes to Hollywood are dirty, loud and aggressive but theyre very mature and theyve proved tonight they can play.

His only criticism was that Holly did not banter with the audience enough. Wind them up, insult them a bit, he advised as he dived into his limo for Concordes return flight.

Boston came next, another 1400 sell-out. Then New Yorks Ritz Club, just up the road from the World Trade Centre and looking like a half-sized version of Londons Camden Palace, all balconies and video screens. For three nights the band played to capacity audiences, improving every time, while in front Holly, and particularly Paul, acted out a cabaret of camp eroticism. When we do a live gig we like it to be a bit mental, said Holly. We like it to be very spontaneous with crazy things going on.

The Ritz loved it. Young New Yorkers wearing the Frankie slogan T-shirts went wild on the final night, invading the stage to dance.

And so it went on, Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis (where the stage collapsed under the weight of it all), Denver and finally the West Coast climax at San Francisco and Los Angeles. They knew it would be a gruelling business trying to break into the American market. To underline the point Whams Wake Me Up Before You Go topped the US singles chart while the Frankies were on tour, while their own Two Tribes crept along in the 50s. Elton John stayed at their £200-a-night hotel in New York, but he could probably afford it as he was entertaining 18,000 at Madison Square Garden. Boy George passed close by, filling another 22,000 seats at Meadowlands, New Jersey. The Frankies were specifically not invited by George who appears to have a positive dislike of the band.

Touring can knock the bravado out of any band and the working-class heroes cut off from Paul Morleys hype reverted to type. While Holly was never too tired for a droll observation Bands are indigenous to Liverpool because people sing a lot when theyre drunk - by the tours end even he was hallucinating on the prospect of a return home, with me mum making tea or having a pint with me dad.

The day after they appeared on Americas widely watched Saturday Night Live TV show, Ped looked wearily at the endless wastelands of suburban Philadelphia speeding past the bands motorcade and wished he were somewhere else. Id rather be at home in Liverpool at this moment watching telly, he mused.

For Ped the tour was proving tough going. He had collapsed through exhaustion during rehearsals. Still, being on Saturday Night Live can give you more status than simply being a pop star, as he discovered when he was taken to a fancy doctors surgery in New York for a vitamin cocktail injection.

The dark and hairy drummer dishevelled in jeans and sneakers, was instantly called to the front of the queue ahead of several smart men in suits. I saw you on Saturday Night Live, said the doctor by way of explanation.

Holly and Paul have abandoned the cut-away leather of their early days for the expensive couture of Yohji Yamamoto and the other favourite designers of South Molton Street. In New York Holly spent 15 minutes talking to Andy Warhols video camera about the baggy pale yellow Yamamoto suit he was wearing that day. I thought it was absurd, but I did it because it was Andy, said Holly, who admits he spends too much money on clothes.

I blank out how much things cost because there is this syndrome called Guilt of Success that I dont want to get into where you feel bad about spending a lot of money on things because it could be a young fathers mortgage twice. Its something I dont want to think about, it is something that is tax deductible for me because of the business I am in and it is part of the entertainment of Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Peds got three drum kits, Ive got nice clothes.

For the lads life has not changed dramatically. Mark and Nasher only gave up their jobs as carpenter and electrician with Liverpool Housing Department when Relax was established as a big hit. With Ped, who bought his first drum kit with a £2000 redundancy cheque, they share a mansion flat in Londons Maida Vale known darkly as the Lads Gaff. Here you may find them staggering back from the shops with armfuls of canned beer and boil-in-the-bag-curry to watch video.

Holly is proud of their stamina considering the workload which gave the band only five days off in the year since Relax was released. I think we have coped really well. We have got a bit tired and a bit down sometimes because the people we are working with have put us through a hell of a lot and not realised how much they have put us through. It seems they have not really cared for our welfare at times and I think ultimately they dont. They have to keep exploiting the situation they have, you know, the wave of success.

Article: Frankie G T Hollywood

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:33:11 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 11 Oct 1986

FRANKIE G T HOLLYWOOD

Who said: Theyre the Beatles of the Eighties, arent they? No less an authority than Paul McCartney, when asked about Frankie Goes To Hollywood after The Power Of Love became their third consecutive number one hit. Two years on, McCartneys assessment seems over-generous from a musical standpoint, though, statistically at least, the Frankies have left their mark.

Relax and Two Tribes sold over three million copies between them in Britain, giving the Frankies an unprecedented start to their career. Relax started quietly enough, and took 10 weeks to reach number one. Once there, it started to sell in vast quantities, and held on to the top spot for five weeks. Ultimately it sold over 1½ million copies to become one of the 10 best selling singles of all time. Two Tribes was as quick to establish itself as Relax had been slow. It entered the chart at number one.

Band Aid excepted, no other act has landed an instant number one earlier in its career. It was to be nine long weeks before Two Tribes loosened its grip on the chart summit, during which time it also became a million seller. The success of Two Tribes sparked Relax anew, and for two weeks FGTH were number one with Two Tribes and number two with Relax. The only acts to previously fill both of the charts top two berths in the same week were the Beatles and John Lennon.

The success of their first two singles precipitated a spectacular demand for FGTHs first album, the double Welcome To The Pleasure Dome. When it was finally released in November 1984, it had advance orders of over one million copies. Not even the Beatles at their peak had created such demand.

Pleasure Dome duly entered the album chart at number one, a rare feat for a debut album. It did not, however, produce the kind of sales most had expected, and it was a full year before it actually sold a million copies over the counter. Shortly after its release, FGTH gained their third number one single with The Power Of Love.

By the time a remixed version of Welcome To The Pleasure Dome was released as a single, the album of the same name had sold more than 500,000 copies. The single suffered accordingly, peaking at number two.

An extended hiatus followed until finally, just a few weeks ago, Frankie Goes To Hollywood released their fifth single Rage Hard, from the forthcoming album Liverpool. Its their least successful single to date. Debuting at number six, it moved up to number four before peaking. Even so, it extends their opening sequence of top five singles to five, the best in chart history.

The Frankie phenomenon has been most keenly appreciated in Britain, but Relax in particular was an international smash, selling six million copies as it pushed its way to the top of the charts in a dozen countries. In Germany, where it sold a million, it was number one for six weeks. In America, where it had flopped when first released, it surged into the top 10 when repromoted. Two Tribes was also a massive hit worldwide, selling over three million copies and The Power Of Love also topped a million globally.

Will future generations recognise Frankie Goes To Hollywood as gifted musicians? Not for me to say, squire, but Professor Anton Davidson of Cambridge, an expert in youth culture says: Their music has no value. If they are to be remembered at all - and I doubt that they will - it will be for creating a new verb, laser beam. It has always been a noun, but on their record Two Tribes they use it as a verb in the sentence Laser beam me.

Article: The incredible Frankies

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:32:16 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 02 Mar 1985

THE INCREDIBLE FRANKIES

Outrageous and controversial, Frankie Goes To Hollywood has exploded on the pop scene with the biggest impact since the Beatles

LEADER USED TO GO ABOUT WITH DOLE NUMBER DYED ON HIS HEAD

BANNED RECORD HELPED CLIMB TO TOP

Fascinating feature on page 20 and 21

BANNED RECORD HELPED THEM GET TO THE TOP

THE Mersey beat is throbbing over the country again. That intoxicating Liverpool sound is stronger today than its ever been since those heady days in the Sixties, when the Beatles ruled the pop world.

Liverpool is enjoying its second burst of musical glory thanks to five lads from the city who make up the supergroup Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

The Frankies have already entered the pop history books yet so far they still havent toured Britain so their fans can hear their music live.

Although the boys have been playing together for just two years, they dominate pops roll of achievements. Their first three singles all reached Number One in the charts - something only one other group has done before.

Surprisingly, that group wasnt the Beatles, but they were Liverpool lads, Gerry and the Pacemakers, in 1963.

Perhaps it wasnt entirely a coincidence that the Frankies featured Gerry Marsdens anthem to the city, Ferry Across The Mersey, as the B-side on the 12-inch version of their smash-hit first single, the infamous Relax.

It was the ambiguous - some said blatantly suggestive - lyrics that gained the Frankies their first taste of notoriety, when Relax was banned by the BBC.

Attacked

There was more to come. A video promoting their second single, Two Tribes, was banned as too violent, and the cover of their first LP, Welcome To The Pleasuredome, was attacked as obscene.

Yet, just recently, the group was officially blessed by the British Phonographic Industry. At their prestigious annual award ceremony, Relax was named the best single of 1984 and the group saluted as the best newcomers.

The lads in the group - Holly Johnson (24), Paul Rutherford (23), Mark OToole, Peter Gill and Brian Nash, all 20 - live in London these days.

They are only millionaires on paper so far. Most of their earnings from royalties wont start flowing in until next year. But it has been calculated that their gross earnings worldwide have already reached £25 million.

Much of Frankie Goes To Hollywoods creative energy flows from lead singer and front man Holly Johnson, who writes the words for most of their songs.

Holly, christened William by his parents, Eric and Pat Johnson, learned to sing in church. He earned sixpence for every appearance he made in the choir of St Marys Church, Wavertree, Liverpool.

For a time he sang in the Quarrybank School choir, a school that boasts another famous old boy, John Lennon.

Soon Hollys love of dressing up was scandalising the neighbours on the council estate where the family lived.

Judy Garland was his idol and at 14 he had bright red hair curled at front, just like hers. He also favoured tartan trousers.

His mother admits that Holly often played truant and, although bright, left school with no qualifications.

Holly is quite open about the reason why. He explained I didnt want O levels because that might mean the chance of a proper job. That had to be avoided.

He went straight on to the dole and passed the time learning to play acoustic guitar. By now, Holly had left home and was living in Toxteth.

His hair was shaved off and he was a local punk celebrity. He became known as the guy who walked around with his dole number dyed on his head.

Didnt sell

Meanwhile, a close friendship developed with Paul Rutherford, a year younger, who was studying design at St Helens College of Art and singing with The Spitfire Boys.

Holly began his musical career playing bass guitar in a band that simply evolved from the mates he met regularly at Erics, a Liverpool club. He also took a stab at acting and songwriting.

When the band folded, Holly made a single, Yankee Rose, but it didnt sell.

Despondent because of this failure and a friends suicide, Holly went into self-imposed exile until 1981.

Then, with a pal, he discussed forming a new group and a name was chosen Frankie Goes To Hollywood. They got it from an old movie magazine headline on a story about Frank Sinatra moving from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.

For some time Holly had the name but no sound. Then he met three lads with proper jobs in manual trades.

Since leaving school, Peter Ped Gill and brothers Mark and Ged OToole had spent a year playing in local bands and chasing girls.

They were to provide the raw enthusiasm needed to get the Frankies launched. Holly was soon churning out words to sounds supplied by Mark and Ged.

Their first booking was in a pub in Liverpool town centre where Relax and Two Tribes had their first public airing.

In the audience was Paul Rutherford. He was soon on his feet singing and from then became a part of the group, his wild dancing added much to their visual impact.

Invitation

Attempts to fix up a recording contract floundered. The companies were scared off by the boys outrageous antics and the sexual overtones of their act.

In December 1982 Ged OToole quit. His wife, Karen, was expecting their first baby and they needed a regular pay cheque.

His place in the line-up was filled by a cousin, Brian Nasher Nash.

Ged was welcomed back to the group last year to help out with their American tour, and was granted three months unpaid leave from his job with Liverpool City Council.

Then came an invitation to make a video to feature in a Tube special on TV. The appearance on Channel Fours trendy pop programme was the boys first big break.

New boost

It led to some radio interest and an approach from millionaire music wizard Trevor Horn. Horn was about to launch a new label - Zang Tuum Tumb or ZTT for short - with his wife, Jill Sinclair, and ex-rock writer Paul Morley.

Once they signed with Horn, the Frankies were ordered not to play live until their sound was just right.

It took five weeks to record the first version of Relax, which was released on Halloween 1983. After four weeks it had only reached 54 in the music charts and seemed to have peaked.

Then The Tube came to their rescue once more, inviting Frankie Goes To Hollywood on to their pre-Christmas programme.

That gave a new boost to sales and the record climbed to No. 35 and gained that all-important accolade, a spot on Top Of The Pops.

The television exposure yanked Relax to No. 6 by early January. Then Radio One disc jockey Mike Read refused to play the disc. He said it was overtly obscene.

Two days later the ban was extended to all Radio One daytime shows, although Relax had already been played over 70 times without causing any offence.

It promptly shot to the top of the charts for five weeks.

Some pop pundits claim that the Frankies owe their fantastic success to that banning - it spread to BBC television, too. It is true that Relax had been a slow climber, taking 12 weeks to reach the top spot.

Publicity

Holly retorts, We could have made it in Britain without the sensation but it wouldnt have been half the fun.

Weve had a lot of fun doing this. We dont regret anything weve done, because we havent harmed anybody.

What does he feel now about the banning of Relax? It was a ridiculous fiasco it was totally overblown, he says.

However, he accepts that they were happy to exploit the sexual interpretation of the lyrics for publicity purposes.

Demand for the disc was further fuelled with new versions including the 12-inch version - being released. The disc stayed in the charts for 50 weeks, making it Britains longest-running hit.

Eventually it went on to become fifth best-selling single of all time, outstripping every Beatles release.

In June 1984 their second single, Two Tribes, was released and went straight in at No. 1, having sold 500,000 copies in two days.

From July 10 to July 17, spurred by endless remixes, Relax joined Two Tribes at the top of the pop charts. The two discs sold ten million worldwide and took the Frankies into the pop history books.

In good time for the Christmas sales bonanza came the groups third blockbuster single, The Power Of Love, which reached No. 1. And the BBC had a change of heart, permitting Relax to be played in a seasonal special.

Rapturous

Meanwhile, the groups first LP - the double album Welcome To The Pleasuredome - was breaking sales records.

All this and the Frankies still hadnt played live at a big concert.

Holly admitted, We were extremely nervous about playing Britain, because we felt the fans expected so much.

So we decided to go into training first. Thats why we played America.

They were given a rapturous reception on their 12-city tour. And they killed stone dead the rumour that without the sophisticated studio backup the Frankies sound evaporated.

On their return from the tour, the boys put on three sell-out concerts in Liverpool to thank their loyal fans. Now their first British tour begins in Sheffield on March 14.

Article: Weve travelled too far and grown up too quick

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:30:46 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 18 Oct 1986

Weve travelled too far and grown up too quick

The French Confessions of Frankie, Part One by Max Bell.

ON A SUNNY September afternoon in central Paris a long black Mercedes limousine pulled up behind a delivery van. Inside the car raucous laughter could be heard.

Ay! Wind down the winders Nasher! Wind em down la!

Err, monsieur?

Monsieur Sucker walks smiling to the car. Directions perhaps for the nice English boys?

Monsieur! Avez vous un testicule? More laughter as the car speeds off leaving one of many bewildered Parisians clutching his brow.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood have arrived for 72 hours of mayhem. As Holly Johnson said earlier in the day, The lads havent quietened down not really.

THERE IS something about big cars that brings out the best and worst in the Lads and no amount of anti-terrorist sub-machine gun wielding cops can cramp their peculiar style.

Down must come those windows. Monsieur! Champanya! Petites poids! Chocolate mousse! Manges toutes! Jacques Lafitte! Melange!

When Lads are bored they will rage and anything might happen. A glass of Sambuca might be set alight in a smart restaurant and explode. A food fight might take place under the nose of top brass record people. A prestigious live TV show might be disrupted with the entire group mooning to camera. Holly and Nasher might answer the question: Do you enjoy sex with animals by riposting: You look like you have sex with pigs.

All this might happen and did. The French take it in good spirit. The TV executives send Frankie a congratulatory telegram. Theyve never had such a good response. Performances of Rage Hard and For Heavens Sake almost seem incidental. Almost. Frankie rage hard but they work harder.

Rage Hard is doing well in Europe. Frankie are Number One in Germany (the second largest market in the world), high everywhere else. Except France. So why are we in France doing six TVs in three days? they moan.

Still, they acquit themselves well. Frankie can mime these days and they always add a little something extra. When the motions become routine Nash flips the bird to camera during a guitar solo, middle finger in the time honoured UP Yours! position.

On the first night in Paris, having shown they know their way around a fancy Chinese menu, Nash, Mark and Gilly sit down and discuss Frankie now. They are all excited about Liverpool and just a little bit nervous at its reception from the fans and the dreaded media. Theyre coming in off a backlash.

Ped: When Rage Hard got to six everyone at ZTT said itd be Number One. Frankie records are supposed to be up there. It didnt happen so yeah, were a bit paranoid.

Nash is more circumspect. It didnt happen because we tried to sell a rock single to a teenage audience. It wasnt 16 year olds music. It wasnt Holiday Rap!

Mark is just stoical: *** off Nash! It didnt sell as many as Holiday Rap! Rage Hard isnt an all time classic but its a good record. Being away for 18 months and coming back with a Number Four isnt that bad. Its better than certain bands did

Nasher catches the flavour: It was time to let a Frankie single stand for itself. We needed the hyper after all. Perhaps the low key return and low rent video didnt help, lads?

Nash: Well the line Its Frankie And Frankie Only was good. ZTT had a marketing campaign based on vacuum cleaners. You think of a vacuum cleaner you think Hoover. They wanted it to be think of a rock record and think of Frankie. They had a series of adverts Pop Music Of The 80s? with Norman Tebbit at the BPI. That one fell through the floor.

Ped: Paul Morley wants us to be more radical but were not.

IF 1984 was definitely Frankies year and 1985 was Live Aid then finding the picture for 1986 isnt easy. Frankie dont want to be seen as a comeback band and wont re-run the old Two Tribes rhythms.

Mark OToole says I never want to play Relax on a TV show ever again.

Frankie admit they cant top the glamour that surrounded Welcome To The Pleasuredome but see in Liverpool a better representation of themselves.

Mark: I hope people in Liverpool feel a bit proud of us. The album gives the place some recognition. It is a bit sentimental and its good for marketing but you couldnt call a record Islington or Bath.

For Nasher the title conjures up the dole if youre 16 and coming out of school. If youre 35 then it means the Cavern and the Beatles.

Ped brings us down to earth: Come off it lads. No one even thought about the title until now. People are gonna say, why call it that when you live in London? Wed all rather be in Liverpool but London is where we work. No one can say what it means - its more than the cliches. Its an atmosphere.

EIGHTEEN months off has meant two things for Frankie. One, you couldnt get bored with them. Two, you might forget them.

Nash says: What should we do? Get our Filofaxes out and reel off the past year? Ped only got his Filofax to match his Ferrari

Ped: which is second hand. Ive only got two numbers in me Filofax. Mine and one other. Ive got a portable phone I used one. I called Mark and told him I was doing 120 in the car. We get gadgets cos we got bored.

Mark interrupts: We havent changed, even though we are sitting here in Gay Paree knocking back the rock n roll mouthwash. But then who wouldnt? Indeed.

Ped: The last lot of interviews were dead boring. We answered the questions and got royally stitched. They expected animals and when were the same as them they cant handle it.

Id read somewhere that the Lads had been disowned as a Paul Mrley invention. This theory is met with massed cries of *** off, la! No one could invent three yobs. Peds a maniac with a Ferrari but he doesnt wear the full medallion man kit. Is driving down Silver Street at 140mph throwing bog roll at your mates windscreen heavy pop star?

The Lads dont get out and about on the social circuit and if they do: We dont wait for the limo to arrive so we can be seen going home like certain groups If Joan Collins said she liked us we wouldnt suck up to her. Paul Weller said wed become Sons of Thatcherism. What right has he to put us down? Hes talented but hes got his own company, his own label. Does he take on any YOPs?

Well all vote Labour but we wont make a big thing out of it. Its just in your blood. Weve got money but that doesnt mean our auld fellas have.

Nash pinpoints the area where Frankie have changed: Its hard to impress us anymore. Weve travelled too far and grown up too quick. When we moved to London and got the Lads gaff it was great bright lights, pretty ladies, but it got too heavy.

We lived like dogs, smashing everything up. In the end we blew the windows out with a shotgun. Reminiscence turns to reality. Even a gas becomes a bore. We were 19 then, which people forget. Now were 22 and 23. Mind you, we still get endless amusement from throwing wet bog roll at passing cars.

ALTHOUGH it is fashionable to write Frankie off a gigantic star that exploded and left the equivalent of pops black dwarf one listen to the next single Warriors Of The Wasteland will dispel the doubters while Liverpool should surprise Frankies biggest fans.

Mark OToole describes it simply as: A good songs record with two halves. It is very moody and rocky in parts, but not like Van Halen.

In retrospect we could justify or slag off Pleasuredome for hours and it wouldnt mean anything.

For Ped: Liverpool is a hundred times better than Pleasuredome, but then youre bound to be embarrassed with your own past. Its like you have a car and you love it and then you flog it and get a new one. The old car immediately gets the brush off.

And talking of cars Monsieur!

Article: Were all hippies at heart

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:29:02 GMT +1

First published: Wed, 05 Nov 1986

WERE ALL HIPPIES AT HEART

Surely not! Paul Rutherford and Mark OToole spill the beans about Frankie Goes To Hollywoods new album Liverpool.

Interview: Lola Borg

Warriors Of The Wasteland

Paul: This is our next single it was going to be the title track of the album. It was meant to be the big comeback. It was the first one written and everyone said, Its brilliant! Its going to be mega! But we got really bored with it in the studio, and then we decided it was the worst track on the album.

Mark: We nearly kicked this one out. It sounded so like Spinal Tap (spoof heavy-metal film) that when we wrote it we thought stuff this! Were not doing this! But then we got a different groove, so to speak, for the song. Whats it about? Well, I cant really go into it because I might upset Holly. Theyre his lyrics. I think the lyrics are good and it doesnt really bother me that I dont know what theyre about.

Rage Hard

Paul: It stiffed at four in the charts! Boris Gardiner was at number one! BORIS GARDINER!! That was really hurtful, but it was bound to happen. Until Rage Hard we hadnt even had a near miss. We had three number ones and a number two - you cant complain about that. But I think we should always be number one. Were better than anything in the charts. Were even better than Wicksy!

Mark: I originally got the idea for this from a Led Zeppelin song. If you know Led Zeppelin (an ancient hippie group) youll know where its been ripped off from. Led Zeppelin are brilliant Well, its a bit trendy to say theyre brilliant. Theyre alright.

But when I listen to any Frankie single next to anyone elses, ours always seems a mile apart. I couldnt really imagine anyone else getting away with bringing out a single like Rage Hard. If Duran Duran brought Rage Hard out people would probably say, What do they think theyre doing?

Paul: When we did Rage Hard on Top Of The Pops we just didnt know what to do, but we thought Weve got to do something mad, because this show is just so boring. (They wore shorts, stockings on their heads and had money stuffed into their clothes which they threw out to the audience.) We just decided to do it that afternoon. The toy money was from the props department at the BBC. We decided to become Robin Hoods for the day, giving money back to the people. Thats what it was all about. It was also really sinister. We kept thinking about these kids, crying their eyes out, seeing these horrible fellas singing to them with stockings on their heads. I bet they were horrified! We thought it would be so funny! We didnt tell anyone and they nearly died when we came on. All those people at Top Of The Pops were like (he adopts a horrified expression).

Kill The Pain

Paul: This was going to be called All Climb Up To Heaven, but we thought that was a bit too nicey nicey. I mean, heavens okay if you can get there, but it still seemed a bit wet.

This is the one I get least excited about. I dont know why because I do like it. The lyrics are brilliant. Theyre very romantic. There are lots of mentions of Heaven and God on the whole album. The lyrics are very baroque. Maybe Holly was going through something when he wrote them. Maybe hes going spiritual. I know theyre better than (starts singing) I want to wake up with you-oo.

I couldnt ever be bothered writing lyrics myself. If Holly ever came up and hed written Hey Baby, Hey Pretty Lady, wed tell him where to go. But he wouldnt do it, hes not that sort of bloke. And he trusts us not to make a bland disco song.

There wasnt any great influence behind this - it was just a series of chords that sounded nice. We wrote it in Jersey - we got so bored in Ireland we went there. We hired a hotel in Jersey. We set up our equipment where they used to have the hotel disco and there was a public bar there, so people used to get half-pissed and come and stand by the window and watch us write songs. Wed be going Go on clear off! and theyd be standing there going Oooharrrr!

Maximum Joy

Paul: It used to have a lot of guitars in it and now theres none. I kind of miss them a bit. The demo we did of this was just the best! - it was completely off its bonce. But I like this version. Every time I hear it I think of Lionel Richie and All Night Long - I dont know why.

Mark: Yeah, there are a couple of lines in this that are quite poncified. I like the lyrics though because they sort of roll. No, theyre not rude. It really does my head in when people ask Whats this song about or whats that song about?

Watching The Wildlife

Mark: This is basically a story of someone going through their life doing the things they normally do - like the girls putting out the washing and stuff like that. Seeing the same faces on the bus every day. Everybody goes through that sort of thing, dont they? Well alright, I dont see everyone on the bus everyday. I dont think I know how much it costs to get the bus now. 10p? I miss getting the buses though.

Paul: I really hated this at one point, but now I really like it.

Lunar Bay

Mark: Sounds a bit drunk-orientated this, doesnt it? Most of them are. We were totally drunk when we recorded all of them. And when we wrote them. Why? Well, if someone is buying champagne, well drink it. Im from Liverpool, for Gods sake!

Its not that we dont take all this seriously. We take it all totally seriously! But we just get pissed at the same time. Ha, ha! (?) Is there a place called Lunar Bay? Yeah. Its where you go when youre done in. Ha, ha!

Paul: I think this title is lifted from a film. Whats it called? That Nick Roeg film, Eureka. Lunar Bay is an imaginary place in the film, and thats where it came from I think.

This song is most like the old Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Well, its most like The Pleasuredome thats what I should be saying. Its mad. Its just there. It just is.

For Heavens Sake

Mark: We were in the studio in Holland and we were really drunk. We were sitting there, me, Ped and Nash, just playing - jamming, I think its called in the business. Steve Lipson (the producer) had switched the tape recorder on, and he taped all of it. The next day we sobered up and listened to it. It was good.

Its quite obvious what its about, this song. If someone was on the dole and they listened to the lyrics theyd be quite refreshed in their outlook.

Paul: This is the best. Everyone in the band loves it. I play it all the time. Its so good Im shocked by it.

Is There Anybody Out There?

Mark: This was written in Ireland. I had a double bass Id just bought so I said to Nash, Come on, lets write a song so I can use my bass. We just sat down, bevvied and did it in 10 minutes.

Paul: Its a bit ham, but I like it. Whats it about? Well the worlds in such a state, theres so much crap happening, its got to get better. Theres got to be something beyond that. Id love at some point to bow out of the 20th century. I like the good things like modern technology - but there are all these really negative things like Star Wars, which is completely out of control.

I sometimes feel Id like to get away from it all and go and live on a farm somewhere. Im sure it would be lousy - youd get cheesed off with the pigs and the cows. Its really idealistic, but thats the way I feel. No matter how hippie it sounds. Were all hippies at heart.

The cover design

Mark: I like the front, but the back looks a bit tacky. Its funny, I looked at it this morning - I was sitting there and I went through all my other album sleeves thinking This looks like an album sleeve why doesnt ours?. I cant say why it looks like a 12 single sleeve, but it does, doesnt it?

These credits theres a really good one in here if I can find it. Pete Dick in the parmesan duck. Pete, hes a mate of mine and Peds. We were in Pizzaland in Liverpool and we said to him, I bet you a fiver you wont stand up and stick your willy in the parmesan cheese. He did. So we thought wed give him a credit on the album for a laugh.

Paul: I dont think the cover is as brilliant as it should be. I loved the last one. The title? It just made sense. We all came from Liverpool, even if we dont live there now. I suppose its just being a proud Liverpudlian. And, in a way, its also saying Thank You.

Article: Frankie go bang!

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:27:28 GMT +1

First published: ?

FRANKIE GO BANG!

Paul Simper

Theyre back, theyre bored with pop music, and they want to go mad again. Paul Simper found out what Frankie have been doing and what theyre going to do.

Pictures by Mike Prior

HOLLY

THIS MYTHOLOGICAL SECOND ALBUM

We didnt deliberately take such a long break you know. We could have worked for five years on this mythological second album, but in the end you realise you have to go with what youve got.

With us there was that incredible piece of luck and then we worked on that incredible piece of luck. Then you become elevated in peoples eyes and it gets harder.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

While weve been away I havent been worried about promotion and all that. Ive just tried to get into writing as much as possible because at the end of the day thats the important thing, I feel. I really have to sit myself down and do it. Otherwise Ill drift off into telly watching or shopping. Its no good waiting for the muse to kiss me.

Ive tried to improve my writing, but basically youre stuck with what you can do. Often the raw ideas like Relax and Rage Hard - are the best. Rage Hard just happened. There was little conscious effort.

A SPOT OF GARDENING

Coming back doing interviews is weird. Its like an actor who takes a year off and just goes home, settles down, does some gardening, wakes up in the morning, worries about what to have for breakfast, then suddenly youre plonked back in the middle of it all.

Im a bit of an absurdist so I find the interview situation very weird. Its the only time someone constantly asks you your opinions and its much easier not to think about it. Just switch to autodrive, which I hate doing.

ARTY UP ME ARSE

Over the last year Ive worked on a book of poetry, which Im trying to illustrate at the moment. Thats something Ive always wanted to do. Even if it never appears its something I can always work on. It relaxes.

Ive got this kind of old fashioned desire to create things.

The poetrys a bit more intense than the lyrics. Its the things I cant say in songs. Some of its more introverted, that very personal crap that poets tend to write, but somes not.

You cant usually be that indulgent with songs - although I have tried!

Ive tried to be more quirky. Pre-Frankie I was going up me arse a bit, being a bit arty, so I restricted myself. Being more direct worked, but I dont want to do that forever.

I do sometimes write songs that dont seem right for Frankie so they get filed away. But dont worry - anything good will be used. Im not that gifted that I can afford to throw away any good stuff.

ON THE DEFENSIVE!

I dont think any of us has changed much over this last year, except Ive got a bit more defensive while the others are more confident. I tend to take criticism quite personally and I got my fingers burnt a few times last time round.

A COUPLE OF NICE ALBUMS

Thats whats happened while weve been away, isnt it? Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel put out a couple of nice albums - which I enjoyed far a couple of weeks.

And there was Sigue Sigue Sputnik yes

Actually, Im glad it was quiet while weve been away. There not being much competition is fine by me. Who wants competition?

MARK

FLASHIN ME NINE KEKS

The best fun last year was goin on holiday with me fiancee Laura. Shes Spanish/American but shed never been to Spain so I took her to Tenner Reef. She was mode up, having conversations with everybody while I stood there not understanding a word.

We went to Florida the other week to see her mum. Everyone kept looking at me on the beach cos they wear those shorts below the knees and there was me in me Nikes.

I met Laura after one of our concerts. A mate of hers got free tickets for the show and brought her along. When we met she thought I was the sandwich boy.

CABLE NOSH

Neither of us can cook really. I can do bacon and eggs and that, and Laura can do a bit of Spanish-style stuff - all that stuff that makes you sh*t a lot.

We usually get cable TV nosh. These people come to the door with your food - Indian, Chinese or whatever - and say do you want nosh?

AN ENGAGEMENT PIZZA

It was me who asked Laura to marry me. I didnt do it very well, actually, but we had a good laff when we got the engagement ring in Amsterdam. We thought itd be one of those nice days, and it pissed with rain.

We got it and went for a pizza afterwards. We just have a good laff together, which is great.

THE LOVE GAFF

Right now I live in St. Johns Wood in London, but Im in the process of getting somewhere in Hampstead. It wont be a happy-home love nest though. I think Laura would leave me if I got like that. Shes a bit of a maddy as well.

ELLO AGAIN

After eight months of quiet the fans have started coming back again now. I cant say I missed all that though. It was good being able to walk out in the morning looking crap in yer slippers, going to get the milk and paper.

Im not worried about the criticism this time. I think anyone who takes criticism personally is a bit too serious about themselves. No one should feel that important.

You get to be wary of being stitched up though. The Sun did that to us before and you get sick of that. It doesnt really feel like a comeback like everyone keeps saying. Its just weve recorded a new single, here it is

PED

MUSIC AND CARS. THATS IT.

Thats all Im really interested in. Thats all thats interested me while weve been away. I bought a beach buggy from some shitty gaff near Putney, which is a good laff on a sunny day. You can make the front wheels come off the ground. Add that to the Ferrari and the Ford Capri.

THE NEW GAFF

I am buying one at the moment cos I want a garage. Im no tidier though now the lads live separate. I cant keep anything clean.

My flat is shit everywhere with a phone in the middle and a Scalectric in the backroom. Im determined to keep the new place tidier. I should be able to. Theres more room. You con throw yer undies further.

BEIN BACK

I was dead made up when we got back after being abroad for a long time. But after a couple of months you want to go away again. I go back to Liverpool every two weeks or so and go out with me mates. I aon do that cos I havent got a girlfriend now.

If someone said it would be more beneficial for us to go away again for a year I wouldnt do it this time. But Im sure theyd try and change your mind.

OUT OF THE GAME

I couldnt spend a lot of time in New York like Paul does. I find you get too much out of the game. After two months youre knackered. Id just end up being a sucker to it and be gone. Its a bit scary cos everytime weve been there weve been wasted every night.

I dont really like America. LA is alright, but its a bit posey. Im not into hanging out with Rod Stewart and all that. I dont like all those parties standing next to someone to get your picture taken.

GOIN MAD AGAIN

We were just talkin about that, and I think we will. Weve been talkin a bit nice to everyone. Its about time we had a laff like. A bit of mischief. Its only harmless stuff. Nothing really heavy

NASH

ITS A BIT OF A PAIN IN THE ARSE, LIKE

Bein back, standing in front of cameras. But youve got to do them. Its part of the job.

It was dead exciting doing all this last time: thinking that your face was going to be on a magazine. But this time its a bit strange, especially as weve pre-empted it all by starting before weve had a hit.

GOIN THROUGH THE PAIN BARRIER

we have been working hard, you know going through the pain barrier a bit but even now weve nearly finished the album it just seems to be going on and on. You start becoming so close to it you dont know anymore whether its good or bad. Dead paranoid.

BANG! GOES THE FLAT

I saw an interview with the Human League and the girls were saying that after the success of Dare it was horrible. You had all those material possessions youd got because of it, and youre thinking God, if the next albums not a hit all thisll go.

Maybe if it doesnt happen this time well have to sell our flats. I dunno. Its the career weve chosen, thats the chance you take.

MUSOS

Im not into playing on other peoples albums. Id be a bit embarrassed if I was asked. Its all bullshit really. No criticism, but as a point of reference that Arcadia album getting Sting and Grace Jones to sing. Its a bit incestuous. Its all got too matey since Live Aid.

What Id like is other guitarists to play on our album. Steve Howe played guitar on Pleasuredome, which was good except when you came to working out his guitar parts yourself!

NAFF

I cant believe how many naff records there are now. Like that So Macho and Janet Jackson. Three minutes of orchestral stabs. (He means Nasty.) How can anyone call that a song? Its just technical bullshit in a studio, with her singing some garbage over the tip. I cant bear it.

LAME

I hope cos everything else sounds lame we dont. Obviously everythings going to be compared to Relax and Two Tribes, but it would have been a mistake for us to try and copy them.

We wanted to make the new album heavier, but when we went in the engineer said, its a bit Spinal Tap isnt it? It was us trying to do heavy metal, and it just didnt work.

12 INCHES ARE DEAD

Its been a pain in the arse making one for Rage Hard. Since weve been away everyones put cowbells and percussion shite on their 12 inches, so weve tried to get away from that.

Still, I spose we killed it with 15 versions out of two singles, so we cant complain.

Article: How Frankie gets to Hollywood

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:26:13 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 01 Sep 1984

HOW FRANKIE GETS TO HOLLYWOOD
Music and micros: two tribes in harmony

Two Tribes - music and micros: Meirion Jones talks to the man who mixes them for Frankie.

WITH FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOODS new album due out in weeks Steve Lipson stares across a mixing desk into the void of a recording studio trying to improve on the great sounds he engineered for Relax and Two Tribes/War.

At the console he strikes a pose worthy of Captain Kirk at the controls of the USS Enterprise but Steve is under no illusions that he is a man with a mission. I dont want to be Mother Theresa, he says. I am the person who is employed to help defraud the public and rightly so - because if the public honestly believe what they see they deserve to be defrauded.

Frankie are nothing out of the ordinary. Ive read articles which say they dont play on their records. This is a slight twist of the truth. In fact they play on their records then we make what they do better which is a perfectly logical thing to do. Theyre 20 years old - were much older - weve had experience of making records and can make what they do sound a hundred times better. The artist becomes a performer. Hes the guy who fronts the whole thing which is how it should be. If you have a tremendously good group to start with you limit the amount of input your production side can put in.

Steves fraud factory is Sarm Studios in London. Outside it looks like the shabby derelict warehouses you expect to find at the wrong end of the Portobello Road. The only clue to its true purpose is a couple of fans on the steps in long black and white Relax to shirts. They look like a pair of lost zebras as they wait for a glimpse of their heroes.

Inside, Steve Lipson is busy at the controls of his Sinclavier computer. Apart from the usual Qwerty keyboard and TV screen this has a 20 Megabyte hard disc storage unit - thats 500 times the capacity of a Commodore 64 - and a piano keyboard. Steve uses the Sinclavier mainly as a sampling machine. He can take any noise whether it is a bamboo cane hitting a shopping trolley or somebody hitting a snare drum and then produce a sequence of sounds based on that to create a new instrument.

Steve makes it sound very simple: some geezer bangs a snare in the air. I get it to sound as wonderful as I can, stick it in the Sinclavier, organise it so that its occupying as little space as possible for maximum effect and then proceed to sequence it. Then it is reverse compiled into script language. With his right hand Steve plays a bass line from Relax on the piano keyboard while his left hand on the Qwerty throws it on to screen as script language. On screen, phrases can be edited and repeated - just like word processing with sounds.

Another stab at the keyboard shows the file catalogue for two of the tracks from the new album, Only Star in Heaven and Black Night, White Light. Steve keeps most of the 20 Megabyte memory in use most of the time, making back up copies of any material he does not need immediately so he can free space. It is reassuring to know that even with such expensive equipment things can go wrong. The cartridge machine which should make the back-up copies on to tape is malfunctioning so Steve is having to use floppy discs and 20 Megabytes is something like 200 discs so its hopeless.

More and better equipment solves some problems but also creates new ones. With Relax the problem was we were using an analogue tape recorder. Now were using a digital - big difference. But on the new album a lot of the bass sounds were using now are two machines synchronised together which poses a great deal of problems.

While Steve deals with the technical side producer Trevor Horn is the man with the golden ears who seems to know what the public want to hear. I am working with the best producer around. I will be working on a track for days and days and Trevor will walk in - hes very good at looking at the overview - and hell say, No this track is rubbish, start again Trevor signed Frankie goes to Hollywood because he thought they were ridiculous - good singer but absolutely ridiculous. He had two attempts to recording them, both dismal failures. I got recommended to him - its not what you know its who you know - I started engineering and did Relax.

The phone rings - oh no its Trevor - but this time he is not asking for a track to be scrapped but just for a snare drum to be taken off one of the songs on the new album and replaced with another snare drum and a tambourine. If its a simple part Steve can do that in a matter of minutes. If its a complicated part it could take me four or five hours. Its easy now but the very first time I did it, it took me a whole day.

With a virtually unlimited budget for new equipment Steve can afford to dream of tomorrows machines. You will have an infinite track tape recorder, you will record something and then be able to move it wherever you want to. But this will require new forms of computer storage - hard disc is so primitive.

Steve does not feel that the empires of the big recording studios are under threat from home computer-based systems using converted Commodore 64s and Midi compatible Yamaha CX-5s. Nothing is going to happen with all that stuff. Midis useful but going to run out shortly. There will be a Midi 2.

8-bit sounds are unusable - the Fairlights different because it has got a graunch noise of its own. It just lowers the quality of what were going to be hearing. Very few people have got all the gear and then everyone else with their CX-5s and Commodore 64s will be struggling desperately hard with not really a hope in hell, apart from the odd genius.

Article: A fistful of Frankie

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:25:00 GMT +1

First published: Wed, 27 Aug 1986

FACE TO FACE

A FISTFUL OF FRANKIE

Two years ago, Frankie Goes To Hollywood claimed the world is my oyster. As they stage their long-awaited comeback, Holly Johnson reveals that it was, in fact, a plate of whelks.

BY JOHN GILL

THE LAST TIME I met Holly Johnson, shortly after Radio 1 had banned Relax, he complained that he was suffering from a condition peculiar to our times. American writer Andrew Holleran has referred to it as dialing, although here its known more prosaically as tit torture. His nipples had taken a drubbing at the fingertips of a total stranger in a French nightclub the evening before. The risqué admission - boast, even - was typical of Frankie Then, although most certainly not of Frankie Now.

Me and my big mouth, he says sheepishly when reminded of the event. My lifestyle has changed a lot since then.

Indeed it has, and possibly a number of other things besides. Like the rest of the band, Holly is now based in London, and at the beginning of the year he bought an anonymous tunnel-back terraced in West London, which he shares with his personal manager Wolfgang (who responds to pink triangles in a way a vampire might to a cross).

Its quite possible that this time round, two rumour-filled years since the Pleasuredome album and 18 months of speculation since their last single, we are seeing a somewhat contrite Frankie. They are about to release a new single, Rage Hard, and album, ironically dubbed Liverpool. Rage Hard is allegedly inspired by Dylan Thomass famous poem Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night (rage rage against the dying of the light etc), and Holly and Wolfgang were surprised when the PR informed them that Paul Morley has devised a pop-up fist for the limited gatefold-sleeve edition. No, no, Holly pleads at my raised eyebrows. Theres nothing naughty about it at all. Its about strength, rage. Thats as maybe, but it is impossible that Morley could overlook such an obvious ambiguity.

WHILE THEY literally fled the limelight after Pleasuredome, leaving most of us thinking that Frankie had shot their final load, part of the delay can be put down to the nine - count em! - months they spent in the studio working on this album, and even though ZTT have access to their own studios, Holly admits It was still very expensive for us.

Its been quite a humbling experience, he says, what with all that ballyhoo around the first release. We kind of all got a bit involved in our own self-importance. It was pretty unavoidable, really.

He denies that this went to the extent of believing their own press, saying, Wed have cut our throats if we had. Simply, the band who claimed the world is my oyster found themselves a hard act to follow. Like the Italian Futurists who Morley plundered for names and ideas, the Frankie image and campaign was based on arrogance and invincibility, but nowadays Hollys even denying the oyster routine.

I never said it was! he insists. A lot of people thought that was a big deal. The voice is me, but its meant to be the voice of the devil. Its the alternative to The Power of Love.

Around the time that Frankie were stuffing the charts with Mega, Sex and War mixes of the same singles, a marketing executive foresaw them as the future of rock n roll. The noise was irrelevant, but the process was everything: pop groups designed for far greater exploitation over far shorter periods of time. Understandably, Holly does not rate this concept very highly.

I hope not. That would be dreadful, a victory for big business, rather than the human being.

BUT LIKE IT or not, Frankie werent designed for the longevity of most pop stars, and the longer they survive the more they risk becoming mundane. He says we wont be seeing the Frankie Tenth Anniversary Show at Madison Square Gardens - he hates stadium shows, anyway - but admits that its the businesspeople who call most of the shots. I dont want to be like that, but there are certain pressures that the business puts on you. Theres very little control you have. This from Frankie? Seemingly so. He adds, almost defensively, Everyone has to promote their album.

The point, perhaps, is the style with which the noise is produced and then marketed, which is where Paul Morley and his pop-up fists come in. Holly says he does not have a personal relationship with Morley, and responds to Morleys mischievous comment that Frankie were a bunch of prostitutes (or somesuch) with, Its typical of his cynical attitude to life. Thats like the pot calling the kettle black. He refuses to be drawn on the numerous rumours about ZTT, but admits, It is like Dynasty. Im amazed that with all the gossip people havent killed each other.

There is nothing remotely controversial on the new album, he says, and looking back one wonders if there was anything controversial in the first place. Frankie may have Gone To Hollywood, but they took sex to the end of the pier, rendering even SM naughty but nice. Apart from admitting using a few sexual innuendos - but then doesnt everyone?, any prospect of more news about his nipples is scotched with the claim Your sex life is your own business. Thats not to cover anything up, its just private.

WHILE HE NOW owns a house (I think Wolfgang does the gardening), and has finally acquired the £2,000 Claude Montana jacket he coveted for years, Holly says he is not rich. Well, in comparison to what I was before, I am. But Im not even approaching being a millionaire, not by a long chalk.

Depending on events this Autumn - effectively, make or break time for Frankie Goes To Hollywood - the close of 1986 could see Holly either a little closer to that position or farther away than he was before. What if the worst happens?

Horrible thought! God! You want me to live out my worst fears? I always have that in mind. Itd be back to the drawing-board completely. I hope I wouldnt be too depressed, though. Pop is a fickle thing, and you have to remember that. Throughout, however, he believes Ive held on to my own personal integrity just about. Im still grasping it.

Rage Hard is out this week and Liverpool will be released on October 16 by ZTT.

Article: Frankie part two

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:23:45 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 25 Oct 1986

FRANKIE PART TWO

In the second part of our Frankie story Holly Johnson gives No. 1 readers a bloW by blow account of the new album Liverpool - or From The Diamond Mine To The Factory as he prefers to call it, while Paul Rutherford buries Mickey Mouse, anD explains the significance of Mersey Jerseys. Words: Max Bell. Pics: Neil Matthews.

Holly Johnson

Warriors Of The Wasteland

Warriors is about the way Ive always seen Frankie, a band that came out of Liverpools creative hotbed and were absorbed onto the business conveyor belt. To survive in our society you have to lift yourself out of a working class situation. You have to develop aggression.

Warriors implies fighting tribal heroes. It is political in that it shows up the divide between those who have and those who have not. Society is designed to keep that division as wide as possible.

Rich people and corporate businesses have got it worked out so they launder money and avoid tax while the education system keep a type of ignorance going. I believe in the conspiracy theory, the well to do pay for a better education and always keep control.

Maybe its too late to change that. People are addicted to the drugs they want you to have. Were all brainwashed by TV and advertising. I am. I buy Sony because I love the packaging. Any teenage socialist understands this, everyone knows that the aristocracy are the biggest gangsters, the ones that grabbed the land. The idea of the song is that to transcend that you have to sail a boat of ice on a desert which is impossible.

Rage Hard

Everyones got the Dylan Thomas connotation from the song but I think England missed out on Rage Hard a bit. I didnt mind the commercial aspect but it was meant to be encouraging to people and it didnt work. Its a song that is anti-depression and lethargy. It wants you to rage against the recession. Maybe it was too subtle. One thing with this album is I was more concerned with pleasing myself than pleasing the public.

Kill The Pain

This was originally called All Climb Up To Heaven. It was about a scenario where God suddenly appeared on every airwave and every TV from teletexts to porn peep shows and gave us a guided tour of Heaven. I changed it from Disneyland afterlife to a more general Heaven.

Maximum Joy

This is almost religious in intention. Its like one of those movies where the clouds suddenly part, a beam of sunlight hits you and all the voices go aaaaaaa

Watching The Wildlife

Written in a personal state of mind. I was in ultra-observor mode, looking around me at all the people who were tearing themselves up by hating me. I used the word wildlife for humanity. You know that feeling you get when you look at everyone on the tube?

Lunar Bay

A nonsense song. Its just lets all have some fun. My favourite line is The train of faces going places - get on board. Its a hey, spaced out song rather than a deep and meaningful one. Its a groove song.

For Heavens Sake

My favourite song on the album. This is about the tight-arsed recessionary attitude of Britain and particularly the atmosphere created by Margaret Thatchers government. The song implies you should go out and buy yourself a new dress, borrow the money, its no use getting depressed. There is a decadence amongst young people in Britain but theres far more of a grey cloud hanging over us. People say, oh its alright you saying that, youre a millionaire pop star, but Im a human being, too. Im not a millionaire and dont know any. I think Margaret Thatcher should buy everyone a drink.

Is Anybody Out There?

I couldnt expose myself enough to say exactly what this is about because its so personal. Essentially its about casting aside selfishness. Its that rare moment in life when you feel more for someone else than for yourself. Its about injustice. I know its a depressing subject and I didnt want to depress anybody but thats where me head was at.

In a way this album is more interesting than commercial. I wanted a touch of that David Bowie Lodger feel, which might not be a good idea because thats his worst selling record!

Ill always call it From The Diamond Mine To The Factory, for me the title Liverpool is just incidental, its marketing. The only way I can condone calling it Liverpool is to say that the place is indelibly stamped on our personality. It certainly isnt that alright wack? type of thing because Im not a professional Liverpudlian. If its seen as a tribute to the city then cool but I think they liked it because they could go ooh yes theyll love the title in Japan and America which I think is sick.

It can be used creatively as a good graphic image which is more refreshing. The music business is an awful thing but Ive chosen to lie down in it. I hope weve regained a little dignity with this album. Weve certainly not lost anything except a few years. Weve gained a lot of experience. I hope people see that in the album.

Paul Rutherford

Wind Of Change

Were all feeling that this is a more mature Frankie record. Before we were in a trite mood. Perhaps weve grown up, which doesnt sound like Frankie, does it? We got tired of playing silly buggers, you cant be happy all the time. Sometimes Im just not bothered.

I see Liverpool as a nice wind of change. It benefitted from us having time to ourselves again, just before we got in too deep. We werent fed up with the hits but we were just starting to cope and then you let yourself be shunted around automatically. I did feel like a bit of baggage, but a nice piece of baggage - Hermes.

Welcome To The Pressuredome

I was disappointed we didnt get to Number One with Rage Hard because on pre-sales wed been told it was going to the top. I think the fans were upset as well. I balance that concern with not wanting us to become a girly bond, one thats all about screaming. Those type of groups have a short life span.

We could have made Pleasuredome Part 2 but that would have been naff. This album feels good, and it looks good. The packaging is better, whereas our first album was more Mickey Mouse. This one is sort of Mersey coloured. Maybe we should market Mersey coloured jerseys. The merchandising should be quite tasteful, that Frankie Say phase is over. It started out as an accident and suddenly every man and his dog had one of those flipping t-shirts.

Hurt by Hype

Perhaps people thought we stunk of hype last time around but we were aware of what our critics thought. People like scoring points and theyll always harangue us - the Wellers of the world. All I can say is this record feels more honest and less like a party.

I still know the band was sold on the way the lads conducted themselves and the way me and Holly held ourselves and all the slag offs cant alter that fact. I dont give a toss anyway. If David Bowie had been rude about us that would have hurt far more.

I think we filled a hole and well do it again. It matters to me that the record could be a classic for 1986, something done with style because there isnt much around. Sigue Sigue Sputnik tried it - they looked great but the product fell a bit short.

Please Yourself

People in bands get accused of all sorts because people dont believe they exist in the real world. Thats happened to us to an extent and its happened to Duran Duran. People wont believe that underneath theyre just really sweet guys, quite normal people.

Weve all learnt that its important not to take yourself too seriously. We know now how to conserve energy, do the right things, work out your day, get on with it. We also try not to take each other for granted. Were all still friends and still working at that relationship.

Self-satisfaction is the most important thing of all - it matters far more than the cash. I enjoy the money for what it buys me but if all this was taken away tomorrow Id still find plenty of ways to enjoy meself.

Article: When you dont wanna come

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:22:35 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 26 Jan 1985

WHEN YOU DONT WANNA COME

SENSATIONAL, sizzling super-hot Liverpool band Frankie Goes To Hollywood decided to celebrate the 1,000th re-mix of their soaraway number one hit Relax by filming a video. What a wheeze! Just in time to be outrageous and different this time, they decided, the video wouldnt be banned. So they decided to film it in a concert situation, as it were, and put the word out that they would be appearing at the Brixton Academy on Monday night. This exciting news was duly transferred to the nation at large by that nice Peter Powell on weekend Radio 1 and duly repeated in a national paper on Monday morning. Freely expecting several million teenagers to invade Brixton, we dispatched our hardiest photography, Mr Jon Blackmore, to record the trail of devastation and disaster we felt sure would follow. Jon arrived clad in full riot gear where was everyone? Scarcely bulging at the edges, the Academy wasnt even a third full for the filming. All those TV documentaries about how tedious it is making videos have clearly left their mark and it was awfully cold that night and you get loads of homework this time of year so still the Frankie crew did look a bit upset. Pros to the last they still made the best of it, doing their level best to create the illusion that the place was throbbing with excitement by liberal use of dry ice and smoke machines. The sparse audience was urged to the front to simulate mass hysteria, as the Relax riff was churned out time and time again.

Here we see the cameraman go wild as Holly Johnson gets out his world-famous torch.

The crowds begin to get so raucous that Holly is forced to grab a megaphone to persuade them to cool down.

Ciggy break. Note the eager way members of the audience push forward to proffer a light.

The climax of the show. In a well-orchestrated burst of spontaneity, a pre-selected young gel leaps across the footlights to plant a pert pair of lips of the internationally celebrate Johnson cheek.

Article: Frankie go live

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:21:26 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 01 Dec 1984

FRANKIE GO LIVE

FRANKIE GOES To Hollywood should be playing British live dates before Christmas.

It looks likely that the band will be playing three shows in their home town Liverpool, but as vet no venues can be confirmed.

I cant deny the rumours that they will be playing dates before Christmas, said a Frankie spokesperson this week. I know its something they really want to do.

The Liverpool series of dates should be followed by a series of dates in the spring and fuller details should be known soon.

Frankie will be starring in a five and a half hour rockathon on January 5 on Channel Four from 9.30pm to 3am. The show will be beamed to 13 European countries and other attractions include UB40 playing an open air concert in Seville. Negotiations are underway to have Europe A Go Go beamed to Russia, so cop a load of that comrades.

Article: Thats entertainment

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:20:29 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 23 Mar 1985

THATS ENTERTAINMENT

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD
Dublin RDS Symons Court

So Frankie made the short journey across the Irish Sea from Liverpool to launch their eagerly awaited first European tour and young teens in the 6,000 capacity audience bawled, shrieked and gasped as the unseen band were announced.

A very young ankle was broken but that was somebody elses problem relax, welcome, Frankie. The twin neon signs above the stage tantalisingly spelled out Frankie Goes To Hollywood, the curtains twitched and opened and the sound simmered in the blackness. Smoke engulfed the stage silhouetting three of the band against the pulse of the strobe lights. A white torchlight revealed singer Holly Johnson. Frankie say welcome. The giant video screen burst into life: WAR! The exploding music drowned the screams.

Johnson, clad in white suit and knee-length black boots, attempted to soothe the vibrant passions of the under-16s who fought a losing battle with the bouncers at the front of the stage. Paul Rutherford and the lads, in black suits and black confederate pants, indulged in the passionate and vociferous acclaim as the show began.

A plethora of image flashed from the screen, the abhorance of war, the solitude of peace, and ecstacy of love. Was there a message in Botticellis religious paintings during The Power Of Love? There was certainly a message as the outline of a penis throbbed different colours Welcome The The Pleasure Dome. While Johnson mimed, Rutherford danced marvellously, and guitarists Mark OToole and Brian Nash oohed and ahed to that unmistakable sound which made Relax, Power Of Love and Two Tribes indelible memories of 1984 for many teenagers.

That FGTH are very eager to promote a stage presentation was overwhelmingly evident as the seven piece band exuded a musical energy and presence quite remarkable for a first night. Its well known that making number ones have been their forte during the past year, rather than grinding it out on the road, but by the time OTooles pulsating bass chords signalled their most famous song the band had the crowd in a frenzy. Likewise, when Two Tribes began, the front members of the band could hardly control their ardour.

Then, five minutes over the hour, FGTH left the stage, returning to a reception Johnson claimed they didnt even get in Liverpool. Perhaps he was moved by it all, for they slid into an over-sentimentalised rendition of Gerry Marsdens Ferry Cross The Mersey before Springsteens Born To Run and the reprise of Relax ended the encores and the show.

ROBERT ALLEN

Article: Frankie say obscene!

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:18:21 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 09 Feb 1985

Frankie say obscene!

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD are up against the censors - again. The most banned band of last year have infuriated print workers from the National Graphical Association in yet another obscenity controversy.

The printers have refused to publish copies of a new Frankie book, And Suddenly There Came A Bang, after seeing a drawing which they alleged showed kinky sex acts between humans and animals. A similar picture appeared on the back of the Frankie album, Welcome To The Pleasure Dome, with fig leaves in strategic places.

A spokesman for Frankie said this week: Humans and animals whether there are any humans in there I doubt very much. The whole thing is that the book has been banned by people whom Id stake a fair guess publish copies of Penthouse. Whether they are then able to be a guide to morality, I wouldnt be able to answer. They obviously think they are.

The book is absolutely wonderful, brilliant. It has great illustrations and photographs, and it makes the other Frankie books which were published over Christmas pale into insignificance. Maybe this will become the Lady Chatterleys Lover of the 1980s and regarded as an all-time classic of modern art

Article: Irony board

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:14:09 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 04 May 1985

IRONY BOARD

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD
Opera House, Frankfurt

HALFWAY across the Federal Republic, and suddenly there came if not a bang, then at the very least a stunning flash of revelation. It may well be something to do with that faint air of detachment that comes from being the solitary Irishman abroad in a stadium full of Frankfurters, so to speak, but for whatever reason, it can no be exclusively revealed that the enormous success of the FGTH phenomenon rests on just three basic ingredients. One is immaculate style, the second is consummate good taste, and the third, the greatest of these, is a subtle smattering of delicious irony with a capital I.

The style, of course, can be detected in just about everything the Frankies and their guiding uncles turn their hands to. Its most striking manifestation, however, is to be found in the wardrobe and person of the very great Paul Rutherford. Here is the man, after all, who does absolutely nothing on stage but dance about and look wonderful and yet he still manages to come across as the most vital ingredient of all in this current attempt to win over the entire underage population of the European continent.

Even during the desperately tedious first half-hour or so, the man still held the eyes of the Frankfurters as off he went, across the stage on that marvellous little rabbit dance, now ripping his Frankie tee-shirt wide open, now just acting the goat, and still its good, still its fascinating viewing, and most of all it is still style.

The taste factor can again be spotted at nearly every juncture, but it is most readily apparent in the crucial selection of other peoples songs to perform, a sure touch that only backfires on the near-sacreligious version of the corkscrew kings Get It On.

The straight down the line Born To Run, however, has never sounded better, and as for War, well, lets just say it is the most perfectly pitched opener to a show since Elvis Costello warmed up his Belfast audience with a blistering Olivers Army.

And talking of irony, there is surely very little left to be said about the composition of this unique band, half precious angels, and half drunken bums and still working on it. There is only Hollys air of slight detachment and remarkable sobriety to be worked on, although they do fail slightly below the glaring lack of enough half-decent tunes to fill out this set on the immediate list of priorities.

And thats it really, just another show in a different city, just one more small step in taking the Frankie gospel across Europe, and just one more laugh when the big screen at the back bows out with the message that property is theft.

BARRY McILHENEY

Article: Come on lads! Its half price on Mondays!

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:13:04 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 24 Aug 1985

Come on lads! Its half price on Mondays! says Holly as Frankie Goes To The Gilmore Cinema Club in Liverpool. Its the sort of picture palace where people lose their shirts watching people take off their trousers.

Article: Rocknroll, phew!

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:12:14 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 27 Jul 1985

Rocknroll, phew! Oblivious to the complaints of the neighbours, this Liverpool lad is relaxing and going for it in the privacy of his own garden. So who is this axe hero with the naff haircut and groovy suede bootees? Would you believe hes been called the sex symbol of the 80s? Lets hear it for Mark OToole, now guitarist with stylish pop combo Iron Maid oops, Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

Thanks to Carole Corkhill from Liverpool who sent in this happy snap.

Mark caught in rare tranquil pose with his axe. Photo: John Stoddart.

Article: Looks like Frankies in for an unholy row

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:11:26 GMT +1

First published: Mon, 12 Nov 1984

LOOKS LIKE FRANKIES IN FOR AN UNHOLY ROW

STAND BY for Frankie Goes To Bethlehem. Holly Johnson et al are about to cause more trouble with the video of their new single, The Power of Love.

Following Relax and Two Tribes, FGTH have chosen the sticky subject of religion and the nativity story as their third video theme.

Producers Kevin Godley and Lol Creme have already shot scenes involving the group in a London studio. This week the pair fly to Israel for location shots in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

I will neither confirm nor deny that Holly plays the part of the Virgin Mary, that Paul Rutherford is Joseph and that the rest of the group are the Wise Men, says Godley and Cremes manager John Gaydon. And he adds rather lamely, Theres no intention of being controversial.

Its a celebration of love and the spirit of Christmas. We shall see.

Article: You should have been before we started boarding Holly...

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:10:16 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 29 Jun 1985

You should have been before we started boarding Holly. Theres no time to dash off now. Paul Rutherford and Mark OToole help a cross-legged Holly onto an Americam flight. Note how travelling doesnt make a scrap of difference to the always immaculate Frankie dress sense.

Article: Suck on this Uncle Sam

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:05:20 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 01 Dec 1984

SUCK ON THIS UNCLE SAM

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD
Washington DC Ontario Theatre

IT WAS history as much as anything could be described as such in this silly ole business of rock n roll. Frankie Goes To Hollywoods Amercian debut on Election Night 1984 20 blocks north of the White House.

So ticked were Frankie by the adulation that erupted from them at this seedy Kung Fu theatre they seemed genuinely dumbfounded by it all. Everyone there, risking a nasty spill, danced and fought for glimpses from the edge of their fold-out chairs during the lesser songs. And during the hits the only thing missing was a human sacrifice.

Absent from the set were the trashier fillers that had disfigured the album. Ferry, San Jose and The World Is My Oyster were gone as were the speeches and incongruous gimmickry that tempted even the most stalwart Frankie fanatic into playing needle hopscotch. What remained were the real songs; a barrage so unrelenting and awesome that Giorgio Moroder couldnt top it if he assembled a revue of his most famous hitmakers.

Holly Johnson was the focus. A screaming debauched messiah with sunglasses, white gloves, waxed back hair, a white tinselled dinner jacket with crucifixes patch on the lapels, clutching and moaning for the audience. Paul Rutherford, compact, well-tailored and butch, showed he may be the heir apparent to John Travolta. Mark OToole, Brian Nash and Peter Gill proved they were the real muscle and the reason why the band came off so well live.

Oh yes, Trevor Horn was there, playing keyboards, but his role more befitted a pimply support musician anxious to be the sixth Frankie than a mastermind.

War started the set. Its chorus GOOD GOD was like getting punched in the stomach, appropriate considering that only minutes before Reagan had been declared a landslide winner. The set peaked around Pleasuredome, a song certainly equal to the singles, and experiencing it live, well, forward my messages to Babylon.

Frankie have lots of doubters here. Something about them seems to rub up a lot of Americans rock n roll elite the wrong way. Neither the Washington Post or Village Voice chose them in their weeks picks, but after seeing the show, the formers critic at least was convinced. The comparisons were made to that other Liverpool band. A battle was won but the war isnt over.

Jeff Hays

Article: Welcome to the pleasure dome

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:03:20 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 23 Mar 1985

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD: Welcome To The Pleasure Dome (ZTT 12ZTAS 7) Here we go again, (0-)114 4/5 - 114 2/3 - 0bpm, but not as urgent as Relax.

Article: Warriors

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:01:51 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 15 Nov 1986

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD Warriors (ZTT)

Very TS Eliot, my dears. The one and only Frankie single that ever meant what it said was Relax, a song written for a certain room in Heavens Cellar Bar, where leather met rubber on flesh. Now theyre trying to be a rock band. This is very amusing and even danceable - if youve got a steady pulse - but what does it all mean?

Article: Liverpool

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:00:32 GMT +1

First published: Sat, 25 Oct 1986

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD Liverpool (ZTT IQ 8)

Here come the climax boys again. The climax blues boys, shooting for the stars, when they should be shooting at them.

Now, seeking that divine rush of hope the epic soundtrack, the heroic voice means (as Simple Minds and U2 and others have shown) risking sounding hollow and pompous, which much of this record, unfortunately, does. Apart from the odd lapses into various Bowie mannerisms, that multi-layered production (Hey! CD buffs), sounds strangely old fashioned and leaves the band scuttling around trying to find songs which live up to it. Comparisons stink, of course, but if Meat Loaf was to join ABC

On the dynacoustic, heavy metal whirlpool of Warriors Of The Wasteland, on the angelic waterfall of Maximum Joy and the waltz song of For Heavens Sake, it works quite thrillingly. But, Is Anybody Out There? is ponderous MOR smooch, and Kill The Pain and Lunar Bay sound like fillers. So, it can be bought to put alongside Eurythmics albums, and the last Bowie album, but for the wage labourer and his dancing shoes its neither a bargain, nor a deliverance. Just jacked-up Mersey beat driving a Ferrari.

***

Roger Morton

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