Talent Is an Asset- The Story of Sparks Read online

  For my darling Flora and dear Jack May 2005. One in, one out

  Copyright © 2010 Omnibus Press

  This edition © 2010 Omnibus Press

  (A Division of Music Sales Limited, 14-15 Berners Street, London W1T 3LJ)

  ISBN: 978-0-85712-237-7

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  Contents

  Information Page

  Introduction

  Chapter One: It’s A Sparks Show Tonight!

  Chapter Two: Californian Folk Songs: Halfnelson

  Chapter Three: A Cross Between Bobby Vee And The Mothers Of Invention …

  Chapter Four: Island Life

  Chapter Five: “Christ! There’s Hitler On The Telly”

  Chapter Six: Hasta Mañana, Monsieur

  Chapter Seven: Spewing Out Propaganda

  Chapter Eight: Just Almost Overcooked: Indiscreet

  Chapter Nine: Throw Her Away (And Get A New One): Big Beat

  Chapter Ten: We Cowboys Are A Hardy Breed: Introducing Sparks

  Chapter Eleven: Tiny Actors In The Oldest Play Or Disco

  Chapter Twelve: Noisy Boys Are Happy Boys? Terminal Jive

  Chapter Thirteen: So You Better Have Fun Now: America

  Chapter Fourteen: A Rainbow Over The Freeway — The Path To Retirement

  Chapter Fifteen: Not So Senseless, But Quite Gratuitous — Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins

  Chapter Sixteen: So Close, So Real; The Look, The Feel: Plagiarism and Balls

  Chapter Seventeen: Practising Makes Perfect: Lil’ Beethoven

  Chapter Eighteen: Can I Invade Your Country? Hello Young Lovers

  Chapter Nineteen: “A toe-tapping, rib-tickling delight”: 21 Nights and Exotic Creatures Of The Deep

  Chapter Twenty: Talent + Invention + Mystery × Fanbase = Longevity

  What Happened Next

  Discography

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  No Ulterior Motives?

  Novelty 1 the quality of being new and intriguing. 2 something new and strange. 3 a small, cheap and usually kitsch toy or souvenir. 14c: from French novelté

  Chambers 21st Century Dictionary

  “By nature, Sparks’ music isn’t apt to appeal to much of a middle ground. Its childishness and its makers’ looks, looks, looks ensure its hold on the young, and its wry wit and perverto tinge should continue to captivate fringe types of all ages.”

  Richard Cromelin, Phonograph Record, 1975

  “The people who have the most trouble dealing with what we’ve been doing are the ones who analyse so much, the ‘older’ rock fans. They tend to outguess our motives, and there are no ulterior motives.”

  Russell Mael, 1983.

  “Well, screw the past.”

  Ron Mael 2006

  Over its 40 year history, the flagship UK BBC TV music programme Top Of The Pops had its fair share of ‘moments’, when viewers experienced some sort of defining event. These usually coincided with a degree of early maturity and rebellion on the part of the observer. In some, this may have occurred in their early teens, some younger, watching pop as the twisted cartoon it often resembles.

  While David Bowie hugging Mick Ronson during ‘Starman’ in 1972, or Johnny Rotten singing ‘Pretty Vacant’ in 1977 are often cited, this author had his moment when, on May 9, 1974, five quirky individuals seemed to leap through the screen singing ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’.

  On an edition of the show that also featured in the studio easy listening crooner Vince Hill, soft toys The Wombles and boogie labourers Status Quo, stock still in front of us was a man rolling his eyes, bolted to the ground, exaggeratedly hitting his electric keyboard. He had slicked-back hair and a moustache. To his side, there was another man who looked vaguely similar, with curly flowing hair and what looked like a short dress on. A kimono, perhaps. Behind them were a fairly standard team of players from the day with their wide lapels, centre partings and flares. But it wasn’t about them; it was all about the two men out front.

  They looked like ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of an American small-town accountant who could take it no longer and had dropped out. However it was the size of the keyboard player’s moustache that made it all the more noteworthy. Covering no more than an inch underneath his nose, this facial hair seemed exceptionally familiar to everyone who was watching. It had been seen somewhere before; some thought perhaps of Oliver Hardy or Charlie Chaplin, to whom it was intended as tribute. Some thought of Stephen Lewis, Inspector Blake from the recently finished yet still hugely popular ITV comedy series On The Buses. But most, if not all, people thought of one person only — Adolf Hitler.

  And in 1974, the impact of the Second World War still cast something of a long shadow over Britain. Although it had been over for nearly 30 years, watching this spectacle was a generation whose parents had either fought in or had been born during the war. To find Hitler playing the piano on one of the BBC’s prominent programmes was enough to send some older viewers into apoplexy.

  ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’ became the soundtrack to that early summer and beyond; trips to the funfair, to town, to the park, presenting a macabre netherworld that stood apart from a chart that was frankly full of enough weirdos already. But even among the four-eyed vaudeville of Elton John, the mirrored-topper of Noddy Holder, the sinister Bacofoil of Gary Glitter and the androgyny of David Bowie, it still seemed bizarre. Ron Mael — the wearer of this moustache — looked something like the public information films warning of things youngsters did not yet quite understand: about men offering sweets and taking you for a ride in their cars.

  And the other one, Ron’s younger brother, Russell, looked beautiful. It was as if he slept in a vat of moisturiser and lived a life being permanently startled in soft focus. Although it seemed nothing could be taken at face value; there was something about the speed of his delivery combined with a mixture of anxiety and supreme confidence that added to an overall unease.

  It was about the clothes and the colour and the time. The taste of the exotic controlled and presented and beamed into the UK’s living rooms. That Sparks were at their zenith in a Britain recovering from three-day weeks and the unrelenting grimness and relative poverty of the mid-Seventies comes now as little surprise. Lives were enlivened and brightened by the peacock people who would appear in our homes once a week. Aspirational values, cheap tailoring and the bizarre mingled together.

  The long backwash of the moon landing of 1969 and the space films that followed, combined with a full-scale embracing of retro with the popularity of movies such as American Graffiti and The Great Gatsby, produced a generation of men (and it was mainly men as performers) who dressed like th
e future yet sounded like the past. Sparks were faintly straight compared to some acts but they had a man who looked like Adolf Hitler playing the piano, they looked striking, unusual, frightening, and they had made an impression, having scored the biggest hit single of their career.

  The more we learned about this group, the more we, if not liked them, were intrigued. Ron wrote the songs and Russell sang them; they’d been in a group called Sparks before, but not this one; the pair supposedly had all sorts of connections to the American aristocracy; the Kennedys were fans; the Rainiers let them use their holiday home in Monaco; they were indeed the children of Doris Day.

  Many people had a similar moment: teenage fan John Taylor, who six years later would form his own group called Duran Duran, felt equally strongly: “Remember Bedazzled with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore? They’re on that Top Of The Pops-style programme and Moore as Stanley Moon comes out and says ‘I love you, I love you’, the crowd goes crazy and then Peter Cook as the devil comes out and goes ‘I hate you, I hate you’. Well, Sparks was like watching both characters at the same time. Russell is so seductive and upfront, while Ron is holding everything back. It’s a very strong presentation.”

  This strong presentation became a national obsession over the summer of 1974. The duo’s performances were enough to get them on the radar of one of the groups they had so admired as teenagers in Los Angeles: The Beatles. Although it is highly unlikely that John Lennon ever said the oft-quoted ‘Christ! There’s Hitler on the telly!’ while watching the programme. Or if he even said it at all; Beatles experts Pete Nash and Mark Lewisohn both suggest that it is apocryphal. This was a yarn begun by Sparks’ first English bass player, Martin Gordon, while reviewing a later concert of theirs for Mojo magazine in 1995. Lennon would have been a US resident for three years by that point. However, it is wholly possible he may have caught Sparks on a US TV special in 1974 when they performed ‘Something For The Girl With Everything’. Introduced by Keith Moon with a little help from ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, Sparks definitely registered with Paul McCartney, who was sufficiently aware of the group’s existence and impact to dress up as Ron Mael for his 1980 video for ‘Coming Up’.

  Sparks kept appearing on Top Of The Pops for the next 18 months. Further singles came and went and Ron Mael’s stare seemed to burn brighter and brighter into the telly. Then gradually, Sparks disappeared. When I finally picked up their first four British albums in 1978 in a record shop bargain bin, I might as well have been buying some big band swing as they were already long forgotten. But those records! They sounded fresh and very relevant to the current new wave scene.

  And then, Sparks went disco. At a time when everyone from The Rolling Stones to Dolly Parton was sashaying down the nightclub, they produced an album called No. 1 In Heaven. Its lead single, ‘The Number One Song In Heaven’, saw them back on Top Of The Pops. They were now performing alongside artists such as The Damned and The Monks. Hitler now had a bit of a perm. It was delightful to have them back.

  Apart from a period of British radio silence in the Eighties, Sparks continue to be a fixture on the scene. Since the mid-Nineties, Sparks have been regulars to the UK, culminating in their ground-breaking 21 Nights series of London shows in which they played all of their albums in chronological order over May and June of 2008.

  When you look at Sparks’ peers from their 1974 breakthrough, they are either disgraced (Gary Glitter), discarded (The Rubettes), disbanded (Slade), dead (lead singers from Mud and Sweet), have become institutions (Elton John) or at a level where they no longer need to record (David Bowie). For an act still to be consistently making music — just listen to the otherworldliness of their 22nd album, The Seduction Of Ingmar Bergman, released in November 2009 — that sounds as strange and otherworldly while remaining often unashamedly commercial three decades on, is nothing short of remarkable. So let me remark upon it. At some length.

  It is not that easy to try and find the true story of Sparks. Larry Dupont, a character who played a large role in their early career and remains a friend, is fully aware how protective Sparks are of their past. “I respect their desire to maintain their image but it’s a shame as their history is extraordinarily interesting. They had so much perseverance. That group was rejected so much in their early days, they stuck a big piece of paper on the wall of their rehearsal room and wrote every rejection on it. The list became so long but it never seemed to stop them from going out and getting another audition.” Sparks have had their share of dazzling moments and less than successful interludes, but one thing is very much certain: their tenacity, resilience and ability to capitalise on an opportunity is forever remarkable.

  Simply put, Sparks are one of the most essential art-pop groups of all time. In fact, as time passes, they are almost the sole, long-lasting definers and purveyors of the genre. As Richard Cromelin wrote as early as 1975, “[they] continue to captivate fringe types of all ages”. Talent Is An Asset: The Story Of Sparks will dispel several myths that surround the group and bluntly not care very much about the others. Although there are those who fear it is likely to be a collection of half truths, quotes from folks that don’t know the brothers or their real history, and nonsense about their ages, sexuality and Doris Day, there are others who want to know the story, even if parts of it are well-trodden, because frankly, it is one of the most interesting in pop.

  When Ron and Russell Mael relocated to Britain in 1973, they hit the pop world as Sparks and looked like oddballs, even in the context of the glam rock movement that welcomed them. Soon defined by their weird and wonderful 1974 number two single, ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’, from the Kimono My House album, Sparks have gone on to release 22 albums over four decades, each record inhabiting a bizarre world of its own. Their songs are peppered with puns and pop culture nods, as well as nostalgia and jokey images, all mixed up in a kaleidoscope of musical references ranging from rock to glam to disco.

  It’s all about context. Had Sparks come from New York or London, it may have made perfect sense. But they didn’t. They came from Los Angeles. And from a time when the love vibe was so strong and laid back, they cut the same, strange outsider figures that they remain over 40 years later.

  The cowboy analogy of their greatest hit (and indeed a comparison they have returned to at various times over their career) is wholly appropriate. Ron and Russell Mael have lived on pop’s outskirts since the late Sixties; they may have occasionally made a foray into the centre of town, but that has usually been brief, often dazzling. But, this blaze of glory soon dies down and we are on to the next gunfight.

  Although they have been a great influence on a generation of performers, Sparks’ impact has not struck a similar mass-appeal chord as fellow-travellers such as David Bowie or Roxy Music. Yet their first wave of success and the complete, discrete world they offered can be seen as feeding into punk. And 1974’s ‘Amateur Hour’, both in sound and ideology, seems to predict the movement by at least a couple of years.

  Sparks’ Giorgio Moroder-produced phase can be seen as a direct precursor to the great UK synth duos and bands of the Eighties. By the 21st century, their music was so ornate and unusual that it seemed simply too ahead of itself to influence anyone.

  Defy categorisation and you will always have a funny old time of it. “The missing link between the androgynous menace of The Rolling Stones and the cool histrionics of The Associates. The Archies meet Zappa via Crimson and Purple. Bubblegum metal with a dash of prog,” is author Paul Lester’s attempt. Sparks came and went in the world of mass appeal. “Maybe because it was such a complete world that once you had a couple of doses of it that was enough,” writer Jon Savage suggests. “And it would’ve been easier to see them as a novelty act.” Novelty is a strange word, yet very relevant to Sparks when considering the word’s definitions (see above). Their detractors could easily dismiss them as cheap and kitsch but Sparks constantly strive to remain intriguing and strange. They are archetypal old school pop stars, still awaiting t
heir next break, the next curtain call.

  Sparks have been there or thereabouts — Saturday Night Live, the Whisky A Go Go, Max’s Kansas City, the Marquee, and the El Mocambo. They have been known to the great and the good. For a group that appeared as if from nowhere in 1974, they had already worked with music industry legends such as Bob Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, Todd Rundgren, an Electric Prune (Jim Lowe), Derek Taylor and were managed by John Hewlett, an ex-member of John’s Children who had learned his craft from one of the most successful figures of British Sixties pop, Simon Napier-Bell. That they were signed to Island and produced by Muff Winwood, a man who had come from another brother act, The Spencer Davis Group, meant their pedigree was already pretty special.

  Brothers in pop are a strange and mixed blessing. Ray and Dave Davies; Noel and Liam Gallagher — you do not think of happy campers when you think of them. “You wonder how you’d spend your entire life in the company of your brother,” writer Ira Robbins posits. “I know that doesn’t sound odd, but it’s like you’ve chosen to spend your entire professional existence reliant on somebody that you were raised with.”

  It is the remarkable blend of two great eccentrics that makes Sparks’ pop so unpalatable for some: in a review I wrote in 2002 of Lil’ Beethoven, I used the expression “musical Marmite”. For those who love, it is an always-giving world of untold riches. Tony Visconti lays a lot of this at the door of Russell and his realisation of Ron’s concepts: “I’d never heard a lead singer sound like him before. It’s somewhere between Tiny Tim and Robert Plant. He’s got such an unusual voice. He’s got a real signature sound in his vocals but you wouldn’t hear any Americans with a guy like that in the group. There wouldn’t be a lead singer like that. He sounds like he comes from some upper-crust British family.”

  Perhaps Sparks never got over their education: UCLA in the febrile Sixties, drinking in film studies instead of dope and booze, learning about French nouvelle vague. Film is very much part of Sparks’ make-up: it plays a huge role in everything they’ve done and film studies have coursed throughout their writing, most visibly on ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’, based on the clichés spouted in a Western. The Lil’ Beethoven trilogy (Lil’ Beethoven, Hello Young Lovers and Exotic Creatures Of The Deep) are all mini-movies in themselves.