Month: March 2023

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Stuart Stawman‘s Talk Talk memories Part 1

 

“When Talk Talk worked at Wessex they brought their own engineer, the mighty Phill Brown who I had already known for some time (check out his autobiography ‘Are We Still Rolling?’). So all they really required from the studio was someone to ‘babysit’ their sessions in case they needed anything technical setting up from time to time. That means, in effect, when I worked on the Spirit of Eden sessions my job was literally to be a fly-on-the-wall, just sitting at the back of the room watching.

There was one other job. Occasionally they needed me to be the 4th player so that the band could play doubles table tennis in the studio when Phil and Tim Friese-Greene were busy in the control room.

I remember the first day I worked with them on Spirit (I had done a few days at the very end of COS) they were doing bass overdubs. Mark Hollis and Lee Harris set off some kind of smoke bomb/machine device behind Paul Webb ‘for a laugh’ while he was recording. That set the tone for the edgy humour I would watch unfold over the coming year.

My fondest memory is of seeing percussionist Martin Ditcham asked if he had anything ‘more unusual’ than his usual instruments. He proceeded to surround himself on the floor with all sorts of strange objects, many of them were kid’s toys. Mark and Tim got very excited when he started ‘playing’ a large mortar and pestle on the intro of ‘The Rainbow’. He scrapes it very slowly across the first couple of minutes and then you hear him speed up an about 1:52. I didn’t get it at first but I can’t imagine that track without it now, it sounds like the dawn of time.

I also remember the many days that Mark spent playing that guitar part that comes in straight after. He seemed to want a perfect blend of playing it ‘roughly’ and ‘perfectly’. At the time I was working with another band in Studio 2. The guitarist of that band could hear Mark’s playing, we all could, and worked the part out himself. He then rang Studio 1 offering to play it for them! They didn’t accept his offer and, a couple of days later, they had what they wanted on tape.”

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Stuart Stawman’s Talk Talk memories Part 2

“The first time I worked with Talk Talk and Tim Friese-Greene was when I was asked to fill in as tape-op on the last day of recording for Colour of Spring, which must have been late 1985. I can’t remember who the engineer was, or even if there was one that day, I have a feeling someone was ill or unavailable and Tim was doing it himself. And, to be honest, all I knew about the band at that stage was their single Talk Talk from a few years earlier.
They were recording the piano for ‘Life’s What You Make It’ and I immediately fell in love with the track. However, Mark and Tim were not finding a happy place with the groove of the piano against the drums. Mark was playing on the studio’s Bösendorfer Grand and they were both lost in thought. I don’t think they’d even registered my arrival on the session. I decided to pipe up and suggested that they use the sampling function of the AMS DMX Delay unit to lock the piano in with the bass drum. Tim stared at me (and seemingly straight through me!) for what seemed like minutes and then suddenly snapped out of it, declaring “Let’s try that!” And that’s how the piano groove was finalised.
Once that was done, Mark said he’d go and play the piano solo (2:19 – 2:36) and wandered off into the studio. He played it once, said something like “Yeah, that’ll do,” and came back into the control room.
It is a beautifully simple, even child-like solo but, with the exception of a saxophone solo I’d once recorded with Mel Collins, it was the only time I saw anyone record anything, let alone a solo, in a single take.
And this was not something I would ever see Talk Talk do again!
Towards the end of that day Mark and Tim needed to check through all the other songs on the album to make sure they had everything recorded.
So imagine this; my job was to keep changing the 24-track tape reels over for the next song and then watch Tim bring up the faders on the desk. We were listening to the whole of ‘Colour of Spring’ for the first time.
The ‘tape op’ would normally sit diligently next to the remote control of the tape machine but after I changed each reel I would go and stand on the speaker side of the desk in between the speakers so I could get the full stereo effect as I watched Tim creating a mix of the next song.
The room was full of smiles. I particularly remember being ‘introduced’ to Mark’s sparkling grin for the first time. The guys were on a (totally natural) high, enjoying the fruits of their work. Everyone in the room knew this was special.
They’d just recorded a classic album.”

 

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Music and Media Sept 21 1991 – Laughing Stock

On September 16, Talk Talk will release their fifth studio album, “Laughing Stock,” on the Verve label through Polydor. This label debut sees them steering away from pop music’s beaten path even more than their previous efforts on Parlophone.

Following four successful studio albums, EMI released the Talk Talk “best of” album, “Natural History” in 1990, which reached no. 13 in European Top 100 Albums. “History Revisited – The Remixes” was next causing for contractual confusion between the band’s management and EMI. Now Talk Talk are back with a new record deal on Polydor.
Says their manager Keith Aspden, “The relationship with a record company is as good as your contract. I’m sure Polydor knows what they have.”
The new six-track album, “Laughing Stock”, recorded at Wessex Studios/London, threads the fine line between experimental pop and new age, evoking images from Robert Wyatt, indeed even early Soft Machine, to Roxy Music and David Sylvian. Once again, the compositions are written by main man Mark Hollis and producer Tim Friese-Greene, and the talents of harmonica player Mark Feltham are featured among the many guest musicians.
“I don’t even dare to try to describe the music”, says Aspden. “It draws influences from a wide variety; it’s much bigger than a pop record. You really need to take the time to appreciate its full impact.”
Aspden believes the album cannot be pigeon-holed. “It’s not a record that fits radio formats. The album is an entity and you cannot pull anything off it.”
With sparse arrangements, the dynamics range from the softly whispered to the trashy. The track “Ascension Day” is a prime example of this, with the vocals sometimes being mere brush strokes in the musical tapestry, added almost like afterthoughts, as on the track “Runeii”. The nervous use of the drum cymbals gives an extra, almost jazzy rhythmic dimension to the music.
“Laughing Stock” is the first contemporary pop release on the Verve label. The only other non-jazz artist on Verve are the Righteous Brothers.
Polydor international marketing manager Alastair Farquhar is enthusiastic. “Suffice it to say, the album is an extraordinary piece of work. There are no EHR friendly tracks, but then there weren’t any on Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” or Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells.”
“Our campaign is aimed at retail and the press. We have to be realistic; it’s just the nature of the album. The reactions in the key UK pop magazines, such as Melody Maker, NME and Q reflect our direction. The critics find it superb, brilliant. We target the age group between 25-40, who tend to read these quality magazines.”
Polydor produced a number of promotional items for the press. There is a stationary box, containing such things as pens, rulers, paperclips and a Talk Talk notebook. A picture CD is enclosed with a yellow pine box. Adds Farquhar, “It’s something that people will find useful. Usually every big release goes with oceans of promo material, but never any of practical value.”
As usual, James Marsh designed the album sleeve – and this one shows a number of birds sitting in a tree, against a dark blue background. Vintage Talk Talk, it should be instantly recognisable to their fans. A heavy in-store push will be based on the Marsh designs. Although the company will not release regular singles eligible for chart inclusion, a limited edition three-CD single box, containing album tracks and previously unreleased material, will be issued. The first single in the box, “After The Flood”, will be released on October 7, to be followed by “New Grass” on October 28 and “Ascension Day” on November 25. The box will be commercially available in France, Canada and the UK only. All the other territories around the world have taken it for promotional/marketing usage only. Explains Farquhar, “it will continue to generate interest in the whole project.”
On July 11, the album was launched for a number of territories in the Planetarium in Paris, a setting that suited it impeccably. There are no plans for touring because “The stage is far too poor a medium to reproduce this music,” as Aspden puts it.