Politti-cal Asylum-- Sounds, September 4, 1982
Dave McCullough finds out what's behind the Green door.
Now that would have made a cracker of a first sentence. I did give it serious consideration (one despairs!), and it would have been totally apposite to at least one of the strains that the Changed Scrits now rub up against (metaphorically uh speaking): the Face pack pack. This dreary but humorous genre, together with the teen pop world, are now, incredibly, the areas that Scritti Politti (who once used rack and thumb screws in interviews, most of which were performed by myself; I aged considerably), play in. And 'play' is the word. Their 'Songs To Remember' album practically bubbles and giggles with the new-found room the Scrits have opted for, in favour of their Carol Street squat, which, in retrospect I am sure they purposely dishevelled when they saw me coming. Keep the Credibility Rating zooming; Scritti Politti were and are far to cunning for an Honest Joe hack. Certainly, on this bright and breezy Covent Garden day, as I stroll with Changed Green to a local hostelry, I felt like telling him he was too handsome. Interviewing the Hyde-to-Jeckyl Green -- apple cheeks, flaxen hair, six foot six of HUNK one supposes -- one needs a stretcher rather than a cassette recorder. In the real world I can see girls fainting at the sight of him. During our chat, girls just sat and stared. When one recalls that Green, like other Scrits, once modelled themselves on dustbins, it's enough to make Honest Joe hack head for the nearest psychiatric ward. Again, that would be apposite. Green had a lot of moans in his mind on the day; his car had been robbed of valuable new demo tapes; manager Matthew, been there since the start, had got the boot ("too big for his boots maybe, because we let him be in those pictures...") and Green was dissatisfied with Rough Trade's promotional efforts on his product. Still, the eyes roved manically. He was nervous and gitterish. He came across so lacksadaisical at first in contrast to his former almost brooding intellectual self, practically a Jack The Lad as opposed to the former tortured street poet, that it was enough to make you think of the Madness Of Pop. Had Green become a loony like Cope and all those others? He now drinks lager and lime. Give me one of those stretchers myself!
"It's a homely effort. We could have put it out a year ago, when 'Sweetest Girl' was getting critical praise, but I think it would have got lost. And I didn't really think RT were up to handling it then as it needs handling. "It's not the flash job you might have been expecting. It's just a kind of trace element from the beginning of the change in Scrits." The chief factor in 'Songs' is that you're revelling in this silly great open space -- the teen mag world, and the very kitschest kitsch. "Yeah, it was great fun to do. The old Scrits, now there was never really a fun thing in that music. Sure, it was a lot of fun talking about it, and learning to play the music, but ultimately it was nerve racking and a disappointment. "To try to further the diy thing, to make a virtue still out of playing badly would have been a) dishonest and b) extremely boring." Was there a crucial moment when the Change came about? "Almost so, yes. It was when we were on the Gang Of Four support tour. I got very ill, taken to hospital -- it was really getting ill that changed it. I was forced to say, yes I must decide to change the music. I wanted to go back to the music and enjoy myself." Perhaps the effect of having a bad day generally, Green goes purple with rage. "I have got actually to quite enjoy talking to Smash Hits and Pop Pix! As opposed certainly to talking to the bleeding NME -- it's been a pain in the neck the last two times, just stultifyingly dull. They just won't let the old intellectual thing go! "And it's hard for me to drop it once they bring it up. Otherwise, you know, I'd be dishonesty playing the lumpen Jack-the-lad. "Sure, I still think a lot about what I do but I'm not as sure as I used to be. I have a conviction in the power of music, but I don't claim to understand it as well as I used to do. Sometimes unhappily, sometimes it's a good thing. "You-won't-believe-this-Dave but that sometimes reduces me to complete inarticulacy in interviews. Fair enough!" This silver-tongued (only Green uses words like "salient" in interviews) boffin-cum-critic of after-punk turned babbling wide boy? It must be the lager top or all those hair dryers doin' it. (You want the real Green? Undefaced by massive volt-facing into creamy pop? The Green that cradles both ends of the Scritti turnaround? Perhaps it came in Sounds lobby. An HM mob, looking like space-men as HM mobs are wont, clearly destined for Barton and a ladsy (promotional) chat, let off what Green surmised as a fire cracker -- one of those things those dolts use on stage to try and make themselves seem alarming. It was piercingly loud, our ears rang and Green peered down the stairs ("my readership down there" I quipped miserably) in a boffin posture quizzing: "What was that? What was that?" It was a slightly mad and definitely...aristocratic approach to the scenario. He was above it, but he wanted to Know The Nature Of The Voluminous Noise. And that is Green unclothed, blue-blooded, scientifically querulous, a little dry and oh so above it all. Draw your own fig leaves of conclusions...)
They've accused Green of diy betrayal and bad mouthing... "That was in an interview I did where they asked me what advice I'd now give a new group. I pointed out that indie singles these days are sometimes selling as low as 250 copies. The whole industry is incredibly depressed. there are people in the Top 20 selling 75,000 copies of singles, which is ridiculously low. Captain Sensible's number one was the lowest selling number one in the history of the British charts! "You've got to be really careful otherwise you're wasting your diy-time these days. Things have changed incredibly in two, three years. The whole political climate of the country's changed. Generally things have moved on. "That's why I find it really surprising that more groups haven't done the same sort of radical change as we've done. Really turning things around every two years, totally revising and revamping your ideas. I'm quite looking forward to our next change!" Will you stoop back down to the indie scene? "Never bleeding left it! We've stuck with Rough Trade despite huge offers continually for two years from the majors. I must say I've been badly disappointed the way RT have handled the past three singles. I dunno, but when you really need that boost, they can't give it to you. "I'm certain we'll have a bona fide chart hit in the coming months. I'd like to see it generally happen with RT. But we'll have to see the way they handle the LP." Green, one supposes like many of us, see the Rough Traders as worthy but infuriating. Green draws attention to one particular single 'Pass The Coutchi' by Mighty Diamonds: "That was a big US disco favourite, it got incredible reviews everywhere. It is an astonishing single. It sold 250 copies. I call that unforgivable. I think there's some people at RT still never heard of the record, never knew they'd even released it. That's really dreadful." Green draws parallels with the near-misses that the last three excellent Scrits singles have proved. "They've just seemed to creep into the high 40s, but just never crack the 30s. There's a hell of a difference between 42 and 35, you wouldn't believe it. Or so they tell me." The aristocratic Green-the-critic inevitably steps in. "Take a group like Haysi Fantayzee -- never gigged, first single, Wham! into the charts. With neither the following nor the good press that we've got. But they're on Betteridge's label. He's a bleeding genius that guy! Should be, he's been in the business 20 years. "Money's the thing that talks at the moment. I don't think there's anything in the charts at the present time that hasn't been heavily hyped, because every one of 'em's so worried by the genuine depression there is in the industry. "I mean, we've been at 40 with the same sales exactly as Associates who'd be at number 18 -- and that's no secret, the sales figures are quite accessible. In that climate there is no point in singing 'we're poor but clean.' You know? Or else, you're all gonna starve." Harsh words indeed from the one-time scourge of the majors. But Scritti are reacting to a steadily worsening situation that needs responding to. Green draws light on the fact that we're all having to change and adapt as the pace quickens (madly). The Membranes' piece was actually wretchedly depressing reading and writing. The first time it had happened to me. A good no-hope band. A big tough, getting-tougher music scene...
"Writing songs is the easiest bit of it all. It's once you step outside the door it gets tough. Again, that's just an index of the whole music scene (you have to work so hard at it) and the country as a whole. "I'm less idealistic, sure. I haven't an answer any longer, that was a myth of the old group after we'd stepped out of Polytechnic. The music business is such an unholy mess you can't do anything directly about it. Just look after what's on your own door-step. "You realise too the music scene's problems are a microcosm of the bigger issues. And it's those you gotta move on to. "I must confess also, that I used to get worried by the lack of success in the old group. But I didn't reply to that by saying 'Hey let's write pop tunes'. It was just an accident that I in fact did about then write pop tunes and they appealed to people. An historical accident if you like." To an old Scritti fan, the Change is genuinely, funnily-insanely Jeckyl and his chum-like. Most of all it's funny (considering the music's not declined by its own high standards.) "You know I get little rosy papered letters from little girls?" He knew I'd explode with incredulity and laughter at that one! "Thing is, they're really sharp. All this myth about Smash Hits readers being dummys just isn't true. A lot of them know what's going on, though I admit, there has to be a lot on the album that completely eludes them. "But it's like those levels never balance out -- what you get out is never equal to what's put into music. Like I get more out of Haircut 100 than they ever put in and that's a fact! "The essentials as I see it are the use and mis-use of melody, rhythm and voices -- they're the basics you need." Facts: 'Jacques Derrida' on the LP is homage to the still-living philosopher who related words to insanity -- an old fave Scritti theme. And: that Green reacted warily when I told him men came out of 'Songs' like jibbering idiots. I have not a clue why he did so.
And finally we mourn the lack of bands-as-critics about to succeed Scritti Politti. "That whole burgeoning of 'pop musicians' with a bit of nous' just didn't happen, Dave." We do get a laugh though when through the alcohol haze the Truth hits me (or was it a stretcher?) -- I tell Green that the Scrits turnaround must be the most radical and astonishing turnaround in the entire history of rock and pop. A norris McWhirter job. The modest, rosier-cheeked response was, "I suppose...it must be!" Maybe I should have used that first sentence. It's as plausible as Scrits '82 and it would only mean a different kind of sentence in return.
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"AFTER BUGGERING Green, I decided to turn to the subject of the interview
at hand..."