Never Enough Page 12
NME’s Tony Parsons was another convert. Writing in the January 27 issue, he praised Smith’s vocals, a surprising move given that his voice was hardly the key weapon in The Cure’s limited arsenal: “Those vocals – taut, terse, tense intonation, very much wired and emotional, the scream that a nervous system might make on the verge of metabolic breakdown.” Then, in an observation that echoed Smith’s self-imposed separation from the working stiffs of Crawley, the writer compared Smith’s forlorn vocals with “that feeling you get watching the faces on the workaday tube ride after stepping out at dawn for the third time without sleep”. It was a little confused, sure, but the message was clear enough: The Cure was officially credible.
Even legendary NME scribe Nick Kent signed up, turning his attention to ‘10.15’, calling it “something of an isolated vignette, hopefully portraying a whole mood of rejection”.
Sounds could sense sufficient momentum in The Cure bandwagon to make the band cover stars of their January 27 issue. Again, Dave McCullough wrote the piece, entitled ‘Kill Or Cure’, taken from an interview conducted – at the band’s request – in the Natural History Museum. If the choice of venue was designed to prove how far removed they were from the London cool school, it was lost on McCullough. He seemed preoccupied with the baby-faced looks of the band, especially Robert Smith. “They look so young it’s not true,” he wrote. “Robert resplendent in baggy, singularly silly and unhip pants. They look younger in the way that most grammar-school kids from fairly safe family backgrounds look younger. Unexposed and clean.”
Of course McCullough wasn’t a crystal-ball gazer: there was no way that he could know that within five years Robert Smith would become a walking cadaver, as he did his damnedest to try to destroy himself during his prolonged “chemical vacation”. But that was way off in the future – right now The Cure had to finish their debut album.
* Lower Hutt did eventually acquire some kind of legend, when several scenes for the Lord Of The Rings trilogy were shot there.
* The migration continued for years after, with such acts as AC/DC, The Saints, The Go Betweens, The Triffids and the Nick Cave-led Birthday Party all relocating to the UK, along with Kiwi acts The Clean and The Chills, amongst others.
* Coon eventually scored the prized job of Singles Reviewer for Melody Maker and was immortalised in song by The Stranglers in their ‘London Lady’. Her punk encounters were documented in 1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion, which was actually published in 1977.
* Smith, typically, would have mixed feelings when asked about ‘Boys’ at various times during the life of The Cure, even describing it as “naïve to the point of insanity”.
* When Peel died on October 25, 2004, Smith posted this eulogy on the band’s web site: “Passionate, honest, generous, intelligent, funny, a truly great man – we will miss him terribly.”
Chapter Four
“I’m the Hoover, Robert’s the lamp stand and Michael’s the fridge.”
– Lol Tolhurst
BY early 1979, Morgan Studios had begun to feel like The Cure’s second home. They’d returned there on January 8 to continue work on the set of songs that would eventually become Three Imaginary Boys, breaking only briefly for a show at the Nashville in west Kensington on February 9. It was there that they had their second close encounter with the National Front. This motley crew of hairless bovver boys were convinced that ‘Arab’ – which had sold well enough to warrant a second pressing by Fiction – was a call to arms for Arab-haters everywhere. They stood outside the gig, handing out propaganda that referred to the song, as if it was some kind of new National Front anthem. Robert Smith shook his head, dismayed by their naïve take on his Camus-inspired tune, and continued playing as fights broke out in the crowd. The sparring matches inside Morgan seemed timid by comparison.
With the benefit of both hindsight and the privilege of being a pampered (and much loved) rock star, Robert Smith would continually write off Three Imaginary Boys, insisting that if he’d had more control, the record would have been a much more satisfying, rounded debut. But at the time of its making, the 19-year-old didn’t speak the language of the studio, and had no way of translating the sounds he was hearing onto tape. And neither he, Tolhurst nor Dempsey were confident enough to question the work of Hedges and Parry. So, understandably, the more seasoned pair took control of the production.
Michael Dempsey wasn’t the only member of The Cure to question Parry’s studio expertise, but he was the only one to say so on the record. When I asked him whether Parry deserved the production credit he received for their debut LP, he replied enigmatically: “The producer sat in the seat with producer written on it.” Being an ex-drummer, Parry devoted much of the band’s limited studio time at Morgan to nailing the perfect drum sound, while Tolhurst spent hours tapping away at a snare. “His focus in the studio would be on the drums, getting a good drum sound, which was natural enough,” Tolhurst told me. The rest of the sessions raced by, with a minimum of overdubs and some additional lead guitar from Smith. “Everything was done in one or two takes,” Tolhurst said. “Maybe there was a couple of overdubs on the whole album. We played it as we would play our set.”
Easy Cure’s Robert Smith, Michael Dempsey and Porl Thompson in 1977, before their fateful meeting with Hansa Records.
Original Cure bassist and co-founder Michael Dempsey: “Hone of us had a really strong vision of being superstars.”
Phil Thornalley, Cure bassist and record producer, 1984-1985. “Those early Cure records had a sound, but not one I would try to get,” he said.
Lol Tolhurst, one of Crawley’s Three Imaginary Boys: “We went to school on the same coach,” Robert Smith said. “But he made no impression on me whatsoever.”
Simon Gallup, who joined The Cure in 1982; lived in fear of Lol Tolhurst. “Simon, when he saw me in the street, used to cross the road.”
St Wilfrid’s Comprehensive School, where the battlelines were drawn on David Bowie, “between those who thought he was a queer and those who thought he was a genius.” (Nick Crocker)
Porl Thompson with Michael Dempsey at an early gig on Crawley Bandstand, 1976.
Tolhurst, Dempsey and Smith (from left), circa 1978. “He was a postman one Christmas,” Tolhurst said of Smith. “That lasted about a week. I don’t remember him having any other full-time job.”
The poster for a benefit gig for their former teacher, Dr Anthony Weaver. The National Front, thrilled by ‘Killing An Arab’, crashed the gig.
Robert Smith, self-medicated with Bight Nurse and Disprins, plays London’s Hope & Anchor, January 1979. (Justin Thomas)
Lol Tolhurst, Hope and Anchor gig, 1979. “All the punk stuff started happening and we realised, ‘hey, we can do this’.” (Justin Thomas)
Michael Dempsey at the same Hope & Anchor gig. “They were landmark moments,” said Dempsey. “But there were diminishing returns from then on.” (Justin Thomas)
Three Imaginary Boys in the Natural History Museum, January 1979. Lol Tolhurst, Robert Smith and Michael Dempsey (from left). (Paul Slattery)
Dempsey, Smith and Tolhurst (from left), a band without a clue. To Smith, The Cure was “just the beat way to avoid getting up in the morning”. (Richard Mann/Retna UK)
Lol Tolhurst, Matthieu Hartley, Simon Gallup and Robert Smith, circa 1979 (from left). “They’ve added a new dimension to the group,” said Smith, “ they’re pissheads.” (LFI)
Seventeen Seconds line-up, 1980. Keyboard player Hartley fully understood his (brief) role in the band. “I just did what Robert told me to.” (Paul Slattery)
In the midst of ‘A Forest’. Top Of The Papa, April 1980. “Our records always go down after we do Top Of The Pops,” said Smith. “We actually do the show as a career move to atop ourselves from becoming too famous.”
One of Simon Gallup’s first Cure gigs was sharing a till with Michael Dempsey, whom he’d replaced “There was a certain awkwardness to it,” Dempsey confessed.
(Philippe Carly
– www.newwavephotos.com)
Hartley, prior to his departure in 1980. “Fans used to ask me if I liked Joy Division and, I mean, they were exactly the kind of group I can’t stand.”
(Philippe Carly – www.newwavephotos.com)
Lol Tolhurst, fast becoming the band’s target. “We beat him up, wind him up, frame him up, but he understands,” according to Hartley.
(Philippe Carly – www.newwavephotos.com)
Robert Smith during The Core’s Seventeen Seconds period. “When I try to remember it,” he admitted, “all I can see is a party.”
(Philippe Carly – www.newwavephotos.com)
Despite the quick-fire nature of the sessions, The Cure actually emerged with more songs than were required for Three Imaginary Boys. These cast-offs included ‘Pillbox Tales’, which would appear as the B-side of the ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ single; the little-heard ‘World War’, which would end up on the 2005 reissue of Three Imaginary Boys and – in a snappy retort to their former German bosses – a faux-disco romp entitled ‘Do The Hansa’. This wouldn’t be heard until the 1986 re-release of ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ – and even then only as a bonus B-side.
Of these rejects, ‘Pillbox Tales’ was noteworthy because its lyrics were mainly written by Tolhurst. As Tolhurst told me, “The strange thing about ‘Pillbox Tales’ is that it started off as an ode to a girlfriend of mine who I would meet at an old World War II gun emplacement in the woods in Horley.” To Smith, the song was essentially written for boozy punters, “so we could bang out a couple of minutes of thumping 150bpm emergency drunk music”.
‘Do The Hansa’ was equally transparent (and throwaway), a kiss-off to their first label, Smith muttering unintelligible comments in mock German. To Smith, ‘Hansa’ was a “nonsense song. The faux German is quite funny, as is some of the playing.” To Tolhurst, “I think we just enjoyed our chance to have a little revenge and poke fun at their lack of vision.” The track also proved that the band didn’t know how to handle much outside their limited post-punk repertoire. This might explain why it was buried in The Cure archives for seven years.
While Parry, Hedges and assistant Mike Dutton finalised Three Imaginary Boys in studio 4 at Morgan, The Cure began a four-week-long residency at London’s Marquee. By this point, The Cure’s set was virtually all originals, bar their crash-and-burn take on Hendrix’s ‘Foxy Lady’. They opened their Marquee debut with ‘10.15’, then moved through ‘Accuracy’, ‘Grinding Halt’, ‘Another Day’, ‘Object’, ‘Subway Song’, ‘Foxy Lady’, ‘Meathook’, ‘Three Imaginary Boys’, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, ‘Plastic Passion’, ‘Fire In Cairo’, ‘It’s Not You’, ‘Do The Hansa’ and the obligatory set-closer, ‘Killing An Arab’. Their set the following Sunday night was identical, apart from a reprise of ‘10.15’.
Their 40-minute bracket, in the words of Melody Maker’s James Truman, was “compact, perfectly conceived and performed with control and vigour”. The astute Truman would compare The Cure to such post-punkers as Wire, Pere Ubu and The Buzzcocks. He even likened Smith to Television’s legendary Tom Verlaine, only “younger, fresh-faced, spitting out lyrics and rolling off lightning guitar phrases in a jumble of sustained discord and harmonics”. Truman also praised the timekeeping of Lol Tolhurst.
In his final analysis, Truman heaped some serious praise on a band that was still floundering around for a sound to call their own. “The Cure are doing what few other of the new bands have done, writing traditional melodic songs, embracing experiment to a point short of self-indulgence and at the same time being intelligent about it. They are very young. They will also be very successful.”
By the time Truman’s review hit the streets, the word had spread on The Cure – The Marquee was full for each of their Sunday night residencies, which almost made the crowd’s constant gobbing tolerable. One of their support acts was Joy Division, already developing a legend of their own, although Smith was too nervous to pay much attention to the doomed Ian Curtis and his fellow Mancunian gloomsters.
Lol Tolhurst still has fond memories of their Marquee residency. He felt that it was during this month of Sundays that The Cure proved they were more than some trio of suburban hopefuls with a Camus fixation. “My favourite memory,” he said in 2005, “is standing outside The Marquee before we played, watching the people coming in and listening to them talking. I recall a couple walking by, and on seeing the ‘House Full’ sign outside, exclaim: ‘House full? For The Cure?’ I think that’s the point we realised we were onto something.”
While Smith and the band were clearly chuffed by all this high praise, they were in for a shock. A few nights after their final Marquee slot, as the band got ready for a set at The Pavilion in West Runton, Chris Parry gave them a sneak preview of the album cover artwork, which was designed by Bill Smith (who’d also worked on the ‘Killing An Arab’ cover). Smith was mortified. Though he was hardly expecting a glorious, full-colour portrait of the trio, he wasn’t anticipating this drab, ambiguous cover shot of a lamp, a refrigerator and a Hoover. The rear image was just as enigmatic – rather than spelling out song titles, Parry had used symbols to designate each track. (‘Accuracy’ was represented by a target, and so on.) It was a radio programmer’s nightmare and an aesthetic bummer.
So what was Parry thinking? Just this: “I thought, ‘Let’s make it completely dispassionate, let’s pick the three most mundane things we can possibly find.’ My problem with The Cure was: here was a band without an image but with strong music so I thought, ‘Let’s make it completely without an image.’”
Smith knew he couldn’t win the argument – when he complained, Parry simply told him that it was too late to change anything. But Smith’s dislike of the artwork lingered for years. As late as 2000 he would dismiss it as “a bag of shite”.
“It was all Parry’s idea. He had this idea of the group that I reluctantly went along with. He even chose which songs should go on the LP.”
Dempsey’s reaction was the flipside of Smith’s, which says something about their markedly different personalities. “I didn’t particularly hate it – I still don’t,” he said when we spoke. “None of us were particularly against it, although Robert later said he was.” Dempsey felt that Smith’s concerns weren’t so much about the image itself, but more because he didn’t have any control over the decision. And Lol Tolhurst? He simply decided who was who. “I’m the Hoover, Robert’s the lamp stand and Michael’s the fridge.”
In fact, when I asked him in 2005, Tolhurst felt that too much had been made of Smith’s reaction to the artwork: he certainly didn’t express his concern at the time. “We were presented with this cover by Bill Smith – the same thing with ‘Killing An Arab’ – and we went, ‘OK.’ We didn’t know any better so we went along with it.”
“There was a mysticism to artwork that we didn’t fully grasp,” added Dempsey, “and we didn’t want to rock the boat too much – we didn’t have the confidence.”
The band continued to tour in the lead-up to the album’s late May release, playing in Cromer, Chippenham, Chesterton (where the band’s roadies were busted) and Westford. They also played a hometown Crawley show at Northgate Community Centre, this time with Amulet as support, on April 29. It was another benefit for Dr Tony Weaver and once again the local league of the National Front gatecrashed the gig. According to Smith, “They ringed the community centre and tried to burn it down while we were playing.”
This would draw some undesirable press, as did an incident at a show at Bournemouth Town Hall, where a woman attacked her boyfriend, resulting in a headline that read: “Man Loses Ear At Pop Concert”. But more upbeat press started to roll in, too. On March 24, Melody Maker ran an Ian Birch interview with the band, in which Smith outlined his “less is more” approach. He also explained his stay-at-home nature. “I don’t really socialise with Mick or Lol. I never socialise with anyone, really.” But all this attention was a prelude to Three Imaginary Boys, which was finally released on May 5.
Ro
bert Smith would become one of Three Imaginary Boys’ harshest critics, slamming the album at regular intervals pretty much from its release onwards. He would even go so far as to declare that if it turned out to be the band’s first and last long-player, “I would have been disgusted if it had been my only testimony to music.” Smith wrote the songs that were recorded for Three Imaginary Boys with no real idea of The Cure’s audience or the type of musical direction in which he was hoping to steer the band, hardly a new situation for a band still serving its apprenticeship. And it showed.
“We were playing about 50 songs at the time,” he would state, “mostly in pubs and to people who didn’t care if we fell over and died. I wrote most of them by myself [despite the shared songwriting credits with Dempsey and Tolhurst] without thinking they’d ever be heard by more than 30 people at a time. Chris Parry picked what he thought were the best of the 30 we recorded.”
Tolhurst’s take on Three Imaginary Boys wasn’t so extreme. “The truth is, up until the first record we had no idea,” he said to me. “When we made the first record we thought, ‘Well, maybe that’s it, we might never make another one.’ We didn’t have a master plan; we didn’t really have one until the mid-Eighties. We were pretty young; we didn’t have any idea of what was going to happen. That naivety comes across when I hear the records now. In some ways that was our saving grace.”
Smith’s criticisms were the typical responses of an ambitious musician with a sound in his head but no real understanding of how to capture it on tape – and who wasn’t in the position to flex any muscle when it came to final song selection. And Smith didn’t hold back – he’d slam the album’s rapid-fire turnaround, its wayward song selection, its artwork, its lack of musical focus, Lol Tolhurst’s limitations as a drummer – and he had a handy fall guy in Chris Parry. Smith, more often than not, would blame virtually all of Three Imaginary Boys’ shortcomings on his producer-cum-manager-cum-label-boss. But, of course, it took some time before Smith uttered many of these criticisms.