The13th AÑO: 4 | NÚMERO 40
UNA R E VISTA IMA GINARIA
THE BOLSHOI I THINK IT ALL TURNED OUT FOR THE BEST THOUGH
DISCOVERING THE MAGIC
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Today: The Bolshoi - Lindy's Party (1987) Interview with Paul Clark from The Bolshoi by Rodrigo Debernardis
I THINK IT ALL TURNED OUT FOR THE BEST THOUGH It's 30 years since Lindy's Party last album of The Bolshoi, an album that brought them to Latin America and this put the band in a place to which they were not accustomed and then disappeared and never again have come together. One of those albums that several of us have enjoyed a lot and now we have contacted their his keyboardist Paul Clark, he remind us of their days in those 1987. In retrospective, how do you see the album today, 30 years since the release? Wow, 30 years? I guess the mere fact it’s still being played is an achievement in and of itself. I had a listen through for the first time in ages not too long ago and I think it stands up really well. In retrospect it was a good idea producing it ourselves, the whole process was very satisfying and gave us the chance to do it our way, but we had a shortlist of producers in mind who could have made it more of a commercial success I think, but all in all it turned out really well. In that moment, which were your personal expectations about the band? To my mind we were definitely looking for a bigger sound and a bigger presence. We were spoiled by the success of Sunday Morning and Away in Brasil and Ar-
gentina and I suppose we wanted to build on the momentum those songs helped create, but it was a changing landscape musically in the UK and also the USA. We were facing a headwind as an alternative band. We just wanted to make great music without being labelled as being one genre or another. On Lindy´s Party, did you get the sound you really wanted? Could you capture on the recordings the band’s spirit of those days? We were often criticized for not capturing the energy in our recordings that we were able to generate in live performances. It was often like two different bands, and Lindy’s Party was possibly a way for us to focus more on the music and less on the production values. It’s a balancing act for any band that toured extensively. Why did you decide to produce the album yourselves? Which do you think were the pros and cons of that decision? Ultimately we were unable to work with the producers we had on our shortlist so producing it ourselves seemed like the best option. We were able to record in a residential studio by saving the money we would have spend on a producer and this gave us the free-
5 dom I think we felt we needed to have a crack at doing it our way, to get more control over our sound and the way we felt our music should be treated. In retrospect,
as I mentioned earlier I think it was the right call, but who knows, maybe it lacked the production values that the marketing people needed to gain a bigger audience.
I would like you to tell us something about each track. A track by track. As with most all of the songs Trevor would arrive with the outline of a song in our rehearsal studios in Greenwich, London that had huge widows that looked out onto thee River Thames. We’d get the general idea then proceed to play them over and over, adding parts and ideas as we watched the boats and ships float by.
After a couple of tours of the US listening to Rock FM radio we felt like it would be good to produce something that would fit in, while also being fun to play live. Like most of the songs on Lindy’s Party this could have been a very popular song, but as I mentioned earlier times were changing and the industry was looking for something else it seems. T.V. MAN
AUNTIE JEAN As with most of the songs on Lindy’s Party Auntie Jean was built with a live show in mind. It was big and powerful and hinted at the direction we felt we needed to be moving from a live show perspective. Cocky and confident. PLEASE Without having a camera or live mic set up to remember exactly how this one come about I’m pretty sure Nick and I both came up with our respective parts for this that eventually became the basis for the song. I remember pushing quite hard for the extended repeating single note middle section that preceded the guitar solo, thinking it would introduced a harder more electronic element to the sound. CRACK IN SMILE Trevors lyrics, as with most of the songs, dictated where this one needed to go. This is quite a dark song, as most of them are, so there was no point trying to lighten things up just for the sake of it SWINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS Nothing really stands out regarding the creation of this song. SHE DON'T KNOW
Trevor’s original outline was pretty well hammered out on this none, and all we needed to do was add the parts to get it where it needed to be. I loved adding the big swelling string parts and really like hot the video turned out. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT This was an odd one that we had a lot of fun with. Not sure where, exactly, it was heading though. As with most Bolshoi songs Trevors lyrics dictated direction and this was no exception. RAINY DAY In the same vein as She Don’t Know regarding possible motivations for this one sounding the way it turned out. BARROWLANDS Trevor and Mark Sayer Wade, our engineer, worked on this together using a Fairlight. It’s classic Trevor Tanner. LINDY'S PARTY One of my favorite Bolshoi tracks and one that I’m particularly proud of. My only real memory was being tasked with moving up with an ending. The guys went off to the pub while I came up with something, and I was pretty relieved when they liked what I did.
With Lindy´s Party newly edited, the band visited South America. Many of us remember those great gigs. How was that experience? It gave us big fat heads and gave us a taste of what it was like to be at a different level to the one were at. Big venues and audiences, TV shows, lots of interviews made us feel like we were all of a sudden as big as The Cult and other fellow label mates, but in reality we still had a long way to go. Did you think about doing something special for the commemoration of these 30 years since that launch? Personally I would have loved to have done some shows, maybe a festival or two, and record some new music, but Trevor and I live at diametrically opposite ends of the USA (him in the SE and me in the NW), Jan is in Los Angeles and Nick is in London and with nobody in-between to pull it all together and make it happen. At the same time I’m glad we needed it when we did and just leaving it at that, as far as The Bolshoi is concerned anyway. What do you think that provoked the end of The Bolshoi? Do you think it was a logic process or maybe someone could have done something else? It’s easy to make excuses. Maybe the alternative rock scene we were a part of had reached the end of the road. Maybe we didn’t work hard enough to write better songs or continue touring. We put the work in, for sure, but things stalled. We wanted to work with a major label when maybe we should have continued working with Beggars, putting out more music instead of trying to switch labels. I was spending a lot of time after Lindy’s Party working on my own music, with was nothing like what we were doing as a band, and maybe I should have been working on Bolshoi material. Who knows. Ultimately I think it all turned out for the
best though. In all these years, did you think in reunite The Bolshoi? Are you still in touch with the others guys of the band? I speak with Trevor from time to time, chatting about this and that, and have been in touch with Nick and Jan, but nothing on a regular basis. I very much doubt there will be a reunion show with the whole band at this point, but again who knows. What are you doing nowadays and which are your plans for the future? The music I was working on during and after Lindy’s Party was recently released as Granbretan, which was very satisfying. It was stored as a box of four track cassettes for literally decades and finally released. An album of new music is currently in the works, Merciana, being mixed by Mick Glossop who produced The Bolshoi album Friends, and it’s great to be working with him again. After that comes Staccatta where I hope to be working with my old pals Paul Statham (B Movie, Peter Murphy) and Simon Hinkler (The Mission). What does The Bolshoi mean in your life? The Bolshoi is a very special part of my life that opened up a future that is, of course, very different to that which I would be living had I not been a part of it. I’m living in Seattle, instead of London or Leeds, which wouldn’t have happened had I not been on tour and met my wife. Then again maybe without The Bolshoi I would have focussed more on my solo music and had a warehouse full of synths and playing festivals all the time, although I doubt that. A lot of very magical pieces came together in the 80’s that culminated in what is now my reality, being in the right place at the right time, and for that I am eternally grateful and humbled.
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The13th U NA R EVISTA IMA GINA RIA