WAKE UP!
Scritti Politti: "We're gonna be big!"

-- Vinyl, November 1981

Words: Harrold Schellinck Translation from Dutch: Ellen Pronk.

PHASE 1

TOM: "Green and I got to know each other at art school in Leeds. The whole art business was boring us both. We moved to London and decided the next step was going to be making a record. That was 1978. We discovered making a record was cheap and fast. Green had written three songs, but to play them, we needed a bass-player. Nial, someone Green still knew from 'high-school', became our bass-player even though he had never played before."

GREEN: "But he had three weeks to learn."

TOM: "After that we booked a small studio in Cambridge, where we recorded for a day. That costed us 98 pounds...."

Tom, without much thinking, sums up all the money involved to cover the costs of the successive stages of making a record. Not that they bear any relevance here. For those interested, they can be found on the sleeves of the first three records Scritti made.

TOM: "We mentioned all the costs on the sleeves mainly because we were surprised it was so cheap. We thought everyone should know so they can make their own records.'

GREEN: "At that time it was extremely important to us, the whole DIY idea. We were very involved in the whole movement. The stimulus doing-it-yourself gave us was immense, the possibility to create your own place and work from there. It went very fast for us at that time. We made the single, Rough Trade thought it was great and bought the whole thing. People became interested and gave us opportunities to do really interesting gigs. However, the problem in the beginning was that we only had three numbers and couldn't really perform."

'Scritti Politti' was based upon the Italian words for 'political writing'. The content of the songs, the 'message' was mostly political. It was based on left-wing/Marxist ideas, but not limited to the thoughtless repeating of slogans, which determined many political rock-bands. Green is knowledgeable on literature and used the ideas in an intellectual play with words and sentences. Serious, but playful and well-balanced at the same time.

GREEN: "The political ideas are very important for us. We started more or less as an extremely self-conscious political rock band. We were aware of the political character of what we were doing and leaning on the possibilities of rock as a medium."

Scritti's music was intelligent and self-conscious, with a clear basis in the early 70's work of groups like Henry Cow and, very strongly, Robert Wyatt. In the finished products spontaneity and roughness were prevalent, which was in keeping with all the bands coming out of the late 70's punk/new wave explosion. An interesting and successful combination which culminated in the third record, '4 A Sides', which ended Scritti's first phase.

TOM: "Robert Wyatt was a very important influence in the beginning, especially in the singing technique. Before '77 he was the only one who sang in a consciously English accent.'

GREEN: "But there is more than his voice, his way of making music was very important to us. I view that period as closed now though. Robert does play with us occasionally. It's funny. He was a big influence and now he has a place in our music, he is present himself, as opposed to being expressed only in my way of singing or the structure of the music."

PHASE 2

After '4 A Sides' and an extended series of gigs, Green got ill. For nine months Scritti didn't function. Green's recovery heralded a second phase, seemingly marked by a drastic change of direction. The band started to record for what is to become their first album.

GREEN: "The recordings took ages, mostly because we started before we had written all the songs. We recorded a couple of days here, a couple of days there. A stupid way to work, when you look back on it. Adam Kidron, who produced the album, had to do lots of other things in the meantime. It dragged along. But now it's finally finished. Ha!"

Before the album the single. 'The Sweetest Girl'/'Lions after Slumber' was released as an 12" by Rough Trade America, soon to be available as a 7". Scritti's new music is dance music. 'The Sweetest Girl' (with Robert Wyatt on a toy .....[orgel?]) sounded upon first hearing as a sweetish slow-reggae tune and 'Lion after Slumber' as an attempt at disco/funk, both with a rhythm box. (GREEN: "To me the idea was interesting...the symbol of not using a drummer but a machine. It was an experiment with that purpose.") Scritti's new style seems to have little in common with the older work, but is in fact a logical step in correlation with the shift in political ideas and Green's study of modern sociological and anthropological theories about language and the meaning of (dance) rhythm in different cultures.

GREEN: "I am fascinated by pop music for different political reasons. My ideas regarding politics have changed considerably over the past two years. I am influenced by, or interested in the work of modern French philosophers. Their work, in the field of politics, isn't about the 'grand-plan-strategy-master-politics', like the old Marxism; but rather, the focus is shifted to subjects as sex and insanity. It's like schizopolitics, post-political politics. These thoughts play a large part in the new work. A song like 'The Sweetest Girl' is a political song on different levels. There is the literal political shift in the lyrics, it is based on Jamaican rhythms, it is political in the way it uses and abuses language. And, as most songs on the album, it reflects in a way the fragmentation of the individual in the many different needs, desires, energies which conflict with each other. Of course it's not a theoretical thesis, it reflects more than it analyses. But to me it's highly political.

"Pop songs, 'just nice songs', are intrinsically of great importance politically, even on the level of nice melodies and simple rhythms. Take for example 'I'll Take You There' by The Staple Singers. For me that is an extremely political song. The tensions, what it says about rhythm and the relation of rhythm to suppressed sexuality and subconsciousness, the use of language, the way it's sung. The fact that most people don't listen to the music on those records that way doesn't mean pop songs don't have any influence and don't have political weight. The consumer-process is very complicated, but it's a challenge to jump in and do something with it."

THE WIDE WORLD

The step towards pop music, towrads dance music, means going beyond the whole DIY-business. If Scritti Politti wants to fully exploit the new format and the attendant ideas, a more extended distribution and airplay is needed.

MATTHEW: "The DIY-phase has given us an opportunity to step into the music business fairly easily."

GREEN: "But you can't call the DIY-movement and the independents successful. The success of groups like Depeche Mode on Mute, or The Specials, did show that the step to a larger scale and popularity is possible. These are exceptions though. I think a business like Rough Trade didn't develop enough over the past years, perhaps through circumstances they couldn't control completely, that is a matter for discussion. But they didn't develop enough to be able to fulfill the task they should now in 1981. Part of the reason is the kind of 'nouveau hippy'-ghetto that formed itself around the independents, especially through the chaos of homemade cassettes releases.

"Many people tried to sell ridiculous music, filled with irritating noises and failed attempts at music. People who were satisfied considering themselves as an alternative, which stayed an alternative, a border phenomenon. And they liked it, they enjoyed the safety it gave. A safe alternative which wasn't threatening, exciting or valuable in any way. Those kind of people got hold of some status and kept to it, without any development. This contributed to the increasingly more and more hippy-like nature of the independents, in music, in attitude, in politics. In that sense it's a lost cause.

"An independent like Rough Trade has failed in developing things like distribution and sales. It should have been capable of giving the possibilities big companies offer, without loosing their own character. Rough Trade should have taken the step towards pop music. But they still think it's necessary to put money into bands like Red Crayola and Pere Ubu, bands which sell in minimal amounts to people in student dormitories. An unhealthy situation.

"They didn't notice that while bands like PIL did get a lot of attention and people made lots of noises and thought they were special, there was a strong undercurrent which was pulling the big audience back to pop music. Young people started to listen to soul music, music they didn't hear before, and found it infinitely more interesting. Rough Trade could never react to that movement, not in an aesthetic, a political, or a structural way. And that is a shame.

"...What has meaning is what sells, and what sells is what has meaning. If you make pop music--popular music--you need the distribution which gets your music into the shops on the high streets, where most people buy their records. That is important and something most independents failed to achieve. It's also one of the reasons why I, apart from political/ideological reasons, am no longer convinced of the fact an independent is the best place for a pop group."

Scritti's new music: carefully chosen (dance) rhythms, sensitive, often honey sweet, singing, double meanings in music and lyrics. It almost seems too intellectual and thought-out to have any effect. The charm of the end result is unmissable...and irresistible. With some luck the world will receive Scritti Politti with wide open arms.

GREEN: "I'm full of confidence. I enjoy writing songs and am very inspired by all the new ideas regarding politics. Scritti Politti is capable of making records for a very large audience. We got the potential to become extremely popular."

At which point Tom with a grin appears from behind his hair and ends the meeting: "We're gonna be big!"