Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD. Martin Aston
rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_b9fe5c90-bbc9-53e5-8c76-8dea9d40bc2b">1 The Birthday Party turned out to only have one more EP left in them, the four-track Mutiny, which, in 1989, Mute allowed 4AD to add to the CD reissue of The Bad Seed, ensuring that every Birthday Party release did end up on 4AD. Mutiny rang the changes for The Birthday Party as Rowland S. Howard didn’t turn up for sessions and Einstürzende Neubauten’s Blixa Bargeld stepped in on guitar, lending a more controlled, less jagged aura to the sound. Harvey confirms that communication between Cave and Howard had broken down, and the band had ‘no new direction’. Even before Mutiny had been released, Harvey had proposed the band split up; Cave and Howard instantly agreed, paving the path to the formation of Cave’s solo career with his Bad Seeds backing band, which changed over the years but started off with Bargeld, Harvey and Barry Adamson.
2 Without Ivo’s knowledge, Martyn Young had recorded a phone conversation with him, and part of it was spliced into one of the Colourbox EP tracks: ‘It was one of Ian’s,’ Young reckons, which makes it either ‘Nation’ or ‘Justice’. Yet the only audibly sampled phone call appears to be ‘Keep On Pushing’, even though the accent sounds more like Ray Conroy than Ivo. ‘When Ivo found out, he wasn’t pleased,’ Young adds. ‘It’s still on there, but we had to disguise his voice.’
chapter 7 – 1984
Dreams Made Flesh, but It’ll End in Tears
(BAD401–CAD413)
The scenario of 4AD as a family, drawn together by associations at school or shared aesthetics of sound and vision, expanded further with the arrival of Deborah Edgely, 4AD’s third full-time employee, following Ivo and Vaughan Oliver. Edgely started as general assistant but quickly graduated to 4AD’s press officer – and Ivo’s partner.
In the historic city centre of Exeter, three hours south-west of London in the county of Devon, Edgely is understandably anxious about revisiting the many scenes of her past, complicated by her severed relationship with Ivo, the lost friendships with the artists and other friends at the label. She’s lived in Devon since the mid-1990s, after escaping London and the music business. Though Edgely’s current job running a nursery school might, in some ways, echo that of looking after musicians, there are far fewer phone calls after midnight. In any case, her two sons keep her extremely busy.
Edgely first met Ivo at a Bauhaus show. She was dating the band’s drummer Kevin Haskins while both were studying at Northampton College; she was taking a foundation course in art. ‘We were Jam fans, travelling around the country to see them,’ Edgely recalls. ‘I suppose we were mods. Kevin had a mohair suit and winklepickers and I had a lamé suit.’
With Edgely moving to Kingston for a fine art degree and Haskins’ tour commitments, their relationship fizzled out. Ivo later bumped into her at The Camden Palace; they had a couple of dates, ‘but things didn’t click,’ Ivo says. ‘That influenced my decision to hire her – because we wouldn’t then get involved.’
Edgely was planning a course in theatre design, but following lunch with Ivo and her flatmate Stella (then Pete Murphy’s girlfriend), she changed her mind. ‘I don’t think Ivo even offered me a job, but just said, What about working with me? He needed help, and didn’t have anyone else.’
Ivo: ‘I was spending a lot of time in the studio, and physically packing AND unpacking boxes. And occasionally I needed letters typed. I needed an assistant.’
One of Edgely’s first tasks was to write a press release for Modern English’s Ricochet Days: ‘I didn’t know what press was all about, though my sister had always bought the NME,’ she admits. Slowly, she took on more press duties, as Ivo increasingly felt that Sue Johns, an associate of Chris Carr’s who was handling press for both Beggars Banquet and 4AD, was underachieving. ‘I never got back to doing my own art but I don’t regret what happened,’ Edgely says.
Initially, she and Ivo shared a desk and chair, ‘which might have something to do with the fact things quickly got sparky between us,’ she says. ‘One day as we were driving, Ivo said, Deb, I have to tell you something, I’m in love with you, let’s go to the mountains in Switzerland. It was a real outpour! We were too busy to go away, but suddenly we were living together. And on a mission with 4AD.’
Thirty years after Edgely joined 4AD, Vaughan Oliver was able to tell her that he was initially jealous of her presence. ‘Beforehand, it had just been Ivo and I, and Deb took his time and attention. I never quite clicked with her at the time. But I was also in my own world. I just wanted to make the best record sleeves ever.’
The family atmosphere at 4AD was further underlined by the addition of a new rehearsal studio in the Alma Road basement. ‘[It was] like a youth club for musicians,’ says Mick Conroy. ‘There was no daytime television in those days, or the money to do much, so we’d just hang out in the studio, making noise and talking to others.’
Modern English needed to rehearse as they’d returned from America with no songs, ‘just bits of music,’ Conroy admits. Their level of success meant the band was prematurely thrown into recording, again with Hugh Jones, who recalls the sessions without much fondness. ‘They’d done something absurd like a hundred shows in eighty-two days. They were better musically this time around but it was a much harder record to make. We stitched bits together and got it organised, but their management was always looking for another “I Melt With You”, so the mood was fraught.’
It wasn’t just the band’s management. While visiting Warners’ LA office, Perry Watts-Russell overheard a conversation where an executive was suggesting Modern English put ‘I Melt With You’ on their next album as well, ‘so they could have another crack at it,’ he says. The idea was mercifully nixed, and a new single, ‘Chapter 12’, was released instead, a passable facsimile of ‘I Melt With You’ that subsequently ended up on the album Ricochet Days. ‘It was a more produced and thought-through album than After The Snow, and not as raw,’ says Robbie Grey, but in reality, it was a passable facsimile in itself, sounding more forced and less intuitive. If Ivo says he was a fan of the album, it wasn’t enough to prolong his relationship with Modern English.
Robbie Grey’s lyric for ‘Breaking Away’ had already identified a need for change, and on returning from America, the band’s original core sacked drummer Richard [Brown] and keyboardist Stephen Walker. ‘We’d shifted gears musically and they couldn’t keep up,’ Grey says. A streamlined Modern English had demoed ‘Breaking Away’ as a potential single with a new producer, Alan Shacklock, who had form with the much rockier ‘Welsh U2’ The Alarm. ‘He changed the song completely and turned it into a pastiche of Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”,’ says Ivo. ‘It was awful.’
Grey: ‘We were miffed that Ivo didn’t want to release “Breaking Away”. Sire said it would sign us worldwide, so encouraged by our manager, we told Ivo things had run their course. He didn’t say, please don’t leave!’
Ivo: ‘Ricochet Days didn’t make any more impact in the UK than After The Snow, and everything with Modern English was focused in America and having hits. Of course things had to develop and grow, but that wasn’t where 4AD was going. It wasn’t a betrayal to let them go. I knew Sire would pick up their option.’
Grey: ‘Afterwards, I felt like we were people that Ivo used to know. But we were probably an expensive band to have on 4AD. To get on MTV, you needed £20,000 for a video and that was a large outlay for what was still a small independent label. And though people have had hang-ups about 4AD over money, Ivo had been quick to put us on a weekly wage, a hundred quid a week, when we’d started to do well. It had really taken off for us in America so it seemed a natural progression to sign direct to Sire. Our publisher [Beggars Banquet’s sister company Momentum] was pushing for more sales too. I think Ivo thought it wasn’t a bad thing for us to sell lots of records. And for the next two years, we were a very big band in America.’